Tara Olinger is a creative writing major with a background in education. Tara is currently attending Full Sail University pursuing her Bachelor’s in Creative Writing for Entertainment, with the plan to complete her Master’s in Creative Writing there as well. She has an Associates of Applied Science in Early Childhood Education and Management. She has over six years of experience working in the childcare field in various settings, from being an AmeriCorps Reading Tutor to currently working as both a Para Educator and a Counselor at the YMCA. Tara aspires to become a published author by the time her work at Full Sail is complete. 

            It was dark and the flashlights only reached so far in the museum’s main room. The taller man with the moustache, Jeff, looked down at his watch. The time was 1:24 A.M. “We’ve got one hour,” he said. The shorter man with glasses, William, nodded in agreement as they scoped the rooms.
          The walls in the main building were lined with tacky green wallpaper on the upper half and a faux wood paneling on the bottom half. The top half was lined with many works of art, most outlined in luxurious golden frames. There were chairs throughout the room, for art enthusiast relax while gazing upon the works of art.
The room smelled old, like mothballs and antiques.
           William and Jeff looked throughout the main gallery until Jeff spotted the first piece of art they would take, the one they had set out for in the first place. It was a Rembrandt original; this information was acquired from a tour they had taken a few months back when they first began to build this master heist. “Here, help me with this frame, it’s heavy,” said Jeff.
            “Here, I’ve got it,” replied William.
            “Grab me the box cutters would ya?”
            William threw the box cutter to his mustached accomplice and Jeff cut the painting from its frame. They heard footsteps approaching.
            “Who’s in there?” the voice asked. They dare not answer.
            “Quick, get on that side of the door,” the taller one said. “When he comes in, we’ll tie him up too.” The shorter man nodded. The man walked through the door with his flashlight and the two intruders took him down, they tied him up, duct taped his head and left him on the floor until they were done. Then they went back to business.
        They removed the work from the frame and the taller one held it up, while William shown the light on it.
           “Would you look at this beauty,” the Jeff one said. “Just a few more to go.”
            “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” asked William.
            “You’re kidding, right?”
            “Not really, this is a one of a kind, this one alone will be worth thousands if not millions,” William said.
            “Ah, yes. This is true, but if this is worth millions, imagine what five, ten more would be worth,” replied Jeff.
            “I guess you’re right.”
            “I am, now, quick let’s put this back in the truck and see what else we can take,” Jeff said.
         They took the piece out of the museum and quickly reentered the room where they scoped out a few more pieces they thought would be of fortune. They spotted some more pieces they remembered from the tour that were done by Rembrandt. They found a piece done my Vermeer that they remembered to be of significance.

            “What else?” asked Jeff.
            “How about this?” replied William, holding up an old piece of a flagstaff.
            Jeff rolled his eyes “sure,” as he threw it into the bag they had brought in. “I think that’s enough, not too much, not too little.” William nodded as they walked out of the room lined with blood red wallpaper, back into the green lined room. They crept past the security station.
            “Shit, we’ve got to go back and get him,” Jeff said.
            “What are we going to do?” William asked, “it’s already been over an hour.”
            “We’ll take him to the basement with the other guy and leave them both there.”
            “You’ve got it Boss.” The two went back into the main room and drug the tied up, curly headed man through the hall, down the staircase and into the warm, muggy basement. They shoved him into a corner near the security guard, checked the time “2:40 A.M.,” and they locked the door as they left the room.
            “We did it,” said Jeff.
            “I sure hope so, they could still find our finger prints, have surveillance videos,” replied William.
            “Shut up and get in the truck,” Jeff said. The two got into their truck and drove off with the various works of art, never to be seen again.
            

​Judy Tremont stroked her dying husband’s hair. Augustus had been sick for nearing five years and now the end was near. His gray hair, combed by Judy’s long, manicured fingernails which were feathery and light, had the ambience of a man wishing to depart his shell.
            Days and nights, Augustus while semi-unconscious tossed in a rapture that could only be the dance of a dying man; for, as Judy Tremont watched her husband lingering on the cusp of death, she heard the whispering of the vast plane which claimed the departed, and she feared it and loathed it. She thought if Augustus knew how close he was to death, which was to her so near that it sent shivers up her spine and put goosebumps on her skin. She thought not; no, he did not know, this poor man, this collection of flesh, how close he was to the everlasting.
            She stoked his hair and cooed him. He turned over by the will of a weightless spirit, his eyes open and moist, and told her in a voice frail and final that he loved her. Augustus Tremont died, his eyes closed, and his breath let out, moist and thick onto Judy’s face. Judy could hear the tea kettle singing. She was making tea for herself and would try to have Augustus drink a little. But, he was gone; the tea kettle whistled and she went downstairs, leaving her departed husband on his deathbed, went into the kitchen, and poured herself a cup of chamomile. The sweet chamomile filled her sinuses and pores. She would have to call someone—the hospital, the morgue. But, that could wait. Now, she wanted to drink chamomile and sit and think for a while before she went upstairs and stoked Augustus’s hair some more, cried, and remembered Halifax and St. Augustine.
            Those were her brightest and most vivid memories of Augustus, and they were the memories by which she wished to remember him. Not in this state of sickness.
            The linoleum floor was cold under her feet and the floral wallpaper—red roses and eucalyptus—was ambient and serene. Outside, snow was falling, white and pleasant. She found herself finishing her cup of chamomile, set the cup in the sink to be washed, and went upstairs to Augustus’s side, the hardwood flooring creaking, the house settling, and then she sat on the edge of the bed and sang:
 
            The road is open, for the men
            who walk alone, but for a time
            with them are the songs of tragedienne.
 
            The blood had run from Augustus’s face and his face was pale and peaceful. Her song went unheard. She could not even hear the words; it was as if her voice were a ways away.
            She lay down in bed and went to sleep. A vague presence then filled her senses. She knew she was asleep, but she could distinguish a person in the room. The person walked from the doorway to Augustus’s side and it seemed—no, it felt—as if the man took something from Augustus’s front pajama pocket and deposited it in the man’s own. The sallow apparition continued out of the room, descended the staircase, went into the kitchen, and by some form of sentience Judy knew he had a cup of chamomile and disappeared, vanished into the ethereal substance from which he came.
            Judy’s eyes opened and it was night. The snow continued to fall and was accumulating on the window sill. Before long she closed her eyes and fell into a sound sleep.
            She studied the inside of her closed eyelids. While sleeping, she became conscious and felt Augustus’s body warm beside hers. He was lying on his back. Dreaming but aware, she thought of the sallow man, Augustus, and the morning, and she felt Augustus’s body become light and cool, and then felt it rise up and exit through the window; she thought the room smelled of firewood. She awoke to the light of day, turned over, and noticed that Augustus’s body was still there. She would have to make a phone call.
            Downstairs, the chamomile tasted good, the room spacious.
            Judy Tremont made two phone calls that morning, the first to her friend Betty Silverman and the second to Bethesda Hospital North. She sat in the kitchen waiting for her friend to arrive and though the lingering presence she had felt the night before was still in her memory, she knew it was only a thought, a hallucination. What more could it be? An angel? By God, did she believe in the supernatural? She thought she better start believing if she wanted to see her beloved again and she poured another cup of chamomile. This was her third cup this morning. It was nearing ten A.M.
            The doorbell rang, Judy went to the front door, and opened it. Betty Silverman stood there with a bouquet of roses in her hand and her pocketbook on her shoulder. Snow was falling and clung to her shoulders and hair.
            “Come in,” said Judy.
            “Bless you, Judy,  bless you. If this isn’t a day for blessings, I don’t know what is.”
            “Chamomile?”
            “Please.”
            She poured a cup of tea for her lifelong friend and contemplated telling her of the dreams she had had. She somehow felt compelled to keep it a secret, as if those types of dreams were meant for the dreamer and the dreamer alone, but she knew she would tell Betty because she was a friend and a good friend at that.
            “It happened yesterday evening,” said Judy.
            “A tragedy, but life is the obstacle, not death.”
            Judy wished she agreed. It seemed somehow selfish of her to think that she was robbed of Augustus, that he deserved more time on Earth, but who was she? A woman, simple, plain, and a widow.
            “You have the best tea, Judy, I assure you. The best tea.”
            Judy got her tea from the same apothecary her whole life. A small place downtown that was an emporium of herbs and holistic, natural medicine, which for the life of her Judy had no idea how to administer. It was captivating—the jars of herbs like sarsaparilla, dried rose buds, and valerian root. But, she stuck with her chamomile not just because it tasted good, but because it was the only herb she knew anything about in the whole store. Walking into Mary’s Apothecary, one was taken by the subtle scents of herbs, which to Judy seemed a sort of mystical occurrence, the olfactory particles and motes of light absorbed in the furtive ambience, the collected botanics.
            Judy took a sip of her chamomile, which was still hot. A sense of recalcitrance went through her. She had invited Betty, but something was far too ordinary about the scenario, as if this Sunday morning were a day straight out of a cache of normality. It was far from normal. Augustus was dead and there was nothing she could do about it.
            Betty Silverman was saying something, but Judy did not hear her and spoke sharp and loud so that Betty would cease her attempts and provocations of closure and philosophy, and said, “I had a dream.”
            “A dream?” said Betty Silverman. “A good dream or a bad dream?”
            Judy said, “I don’t know, but a dream.”
            “Well? Do tell.”
            Judy looked into her teacup and saw filaments of chamomile floating in the yellow liquid. “I was lying in bed next to Augustus and it felt as though somebody came into the room and took something out of his pocket, went downstairs, had a cup of tea, and then was gone. I felt Augustus’s body rise and exit the bedroom window and that was it.”
            “Dear God. You poor thing.”
            “It was homely and nice and I didn’t feel afraid. I woke up, had a cup of tea, and called you. And then I called Bethesda Hospital North.”
            “Dear God. You poor thing.”
            “And then you arrived in what seemed sixty seconds later.”
            “Dear God.” Betty Silverman gaped at Judy and Judy could tell she was trying to think of something to say but nothing would come up.
            Judy finished her chamomile, got up from the kitchen table, and set the cup in the sink.
            “I’d say it’s a miracle, an angel. He’s in heaven. He must be.”
            “He was a good man.”
            “You poor thing.”
            Judy felt patronized. Perhaps a lifetime of being alone and sleeping with men half your age, a tendency of Betty Silverman, came with its egotism. Judy Tremont did not judge her friend—she never had—but something in the way she said it, “You poor thing,” made Judy’s heart skip, as if the departed were trying to communicate. Maybe it was a good thing to have Betty here, she thought. She keeps me company until Bethesda Hospital North gets here and then she will leave and I will take a bath, a cool bath to cleanse myself. I will go for a walk in the evening through the snow and feel Augustus beside me as if we were in our twenties again, and then I’ll come home, have tea, and relax, and then I’ll go to sleep and imagine Augustus was there with me.
            The door bell rang.
            “It must be Bethesda Hospital North,” Judy said, and it was.
            “Where is the corpse?” asked a young man in blue scrubs.
            “Augustus is upstairs in his bed,” said Judy, and she noted the sarcasm. It would take an oracular someone to get through to the youth of this age, she thought, and led them up the stairs, which creaked and groaned. Judy opened the white wooden door and she saw Augustus, peaceful in bed where she had left him. “There he is,” she said. “Be careful with him.”
            “We will, miss,” said the other of the two. “You don’t have to stay here and watch. We’ll be quick and we won’t touch anything.” The bigger of the two men opened up the stretcher and said, “One, two,” and on three they picked up Augustus, whose head lolled to the side and Judy thought he looked heavy, old, and quite lifeless. His sumptuous head was leaving this house for the last time and she would never stroke his hair again in the same way, in the way she had stoked it twelve hours ago, when he said his final words to her, subtle, airy, and warm. The two men heaved Augustus Tremont down the stairs. Judy watched the ambulance drive away through the snow. She went back into the kitchen to find Betty Silverman waiting at the kitchen table. The cups had been washed and put away and Betty seemed eager to speak but said nothing. Judy sensed Betty’s trying to use her seeming and innate ableness to enliven the moment as if it were one of her beaus but Betty did not say anything and nodded.
            “If you are so inclined,” Judy said, “would you like to go for a walk?”
            “It’s snowing,” Betty said, “but sure. I think a walk would be good about now.”
            Judy dressed according to the weather—a heavy coat, red scarf, and earmuffs Augustus had bought her for her birthday years ago—and they went outside into what was becoming a clear afternoon. I’m going to need to reorder my life, Judy thought, thinking Augustus was her center and that her life was for him. Restart with an ubiquitous happiness that no death can collapse. The wind blew the snowfall into a frenzy and it was too cold to go for a walk, but what else was there to do? The house was empty, quiet, as if disorder had been vaporized and an uncanny lightness took its place.
            That was what death was, Judy reflected. A transposition of order and disorder, the Universe taking responsibility for its own actions, its own virile phenomenon. Virile, under her feet, the snow crunched, crisp, and Judy thought, God, how unearthly.
            The only son of Judy Tremont lived in Chicago, Illinois. He received a call from work at four in the afternoon. It was the third phone call Judy Tremont made that day. “I’ll be down tomorrow,” Franklin Tremont said. “I’ll catch the morning flight.” He had not visited his home state of New York for over ten years and had not kept in close contact with his parents. He called only on birthdays and Christmas, but he loved his parents very much to the extent that any son would and they received his calls with open hearts and they were on good terms ever since he moved to the Windy City. Two wives and two kids later, Franklin Tremont was just starting to realize what his first and immediate family meant to him. It was too late. Too late to get to know his father, Augustus Tremont, on a more intimate level. The first reaction he had upon hearing of his father’s death was guilt and remorse. He never believed in God. God was like a breeze that tousled his hair and went on to greater things, Franklin thought, and that was not to say he was not philosophical or thoughtful on the subject. Eighteen years of Sundays left a pretty real taste in his mouth regarding the Holy Trinity, the trifecta that was going to deliver his soul to Heaven and had delivered his father’s not twenty-four hours ago.
            Now, he drank wine in the evenings when he got home from work and over dinner prepared for him and his sons by his wife, Trish, but it did not signify the blood of Christ and the bread he ate was not His body, and when he closed his eyes at night thinking of tomorrow’s coffee, breakfast, Trish and his two sons, one five years old, the other six, he fell into sleep so deep it was primordial.
            Everlasting life was not a hopeful notion to Franklin as it was to many Catholics throughout the world, it was fact. Like a drop in a bucket, life and willpower oscillated out like ripples and became one with the greater entity that was the Universe. He did not converse on topics such as religion. A modest man, Franklin Tremont, was quiet and kept to himself and as he saw it power was in silence. An idea gained momentum and substantiality that way. It was physics and he knew he had the right idea. Iconoclast images from youth radiated through him, Father taking him fishing along the Hudson River, Father showing him how to throw a baseball, experiences idiosyncratic and youthful.
            Now, a definite tear separated him and his father. Not just one, Franklin thought, but two. One: the scape between the living and the departed. And two: five hundred miles between Chicago, Illinois and upstate New York.
            Boarding the 757, Delta flight 3019B, he was breaching the easier and more immediate of the two fissures. In about two hours, he would land in Laguardia Airport, rent a car, and drive north three hours to arrive in the small town of Carmel, New York.
            Carmel reabsorbed him upon his arrival; it rekindled a lost childhood that was once so real to Franklin Tremont and it redefined him. The brisk air of Carmel was not like Chicago’s. Here, you breathed and Carmel breathed back. It was a jovial reciprocity that tended toward the notion Franklin was having in recent months—take the kids out of Chicago. It was realistic, finding a job in the City, commuting the three hours from Carmel to New York and being closer to his parents; now, just one parent, his mother, who when she called seemed laconic and at the same time apprehensive.
            Franklin Tremont pulled up to the familiar house, the house in which he grew up, and turned off the rental. He walked to the front door. His breath was visible. He breathed out fumes of warmth, steam. He knocked on the mahogany door. Judy Tremont opened it and did not smile.  She did not waver nor did she look inviting. She looked sick.
            Judy thought her son, thirty-five years old, looked in his heavy coat with the collar turned up ostentatious. Yes, she reflected, he looks like he’s from Chicago; a city boy we seem to have raised.
            “Hi, Ma.”
            Judy moved to the side and said, “Come in out of the cold. It’s freezing and you’re letting the heat out.”
            Franklin Tremont moved from the outdoors to the warmth of his childhood home. He took off his coat and hung it on the coat hanger.
            “Glad to see you got here in one piece. How was the flight?”
            “It was swell, Ma, swell.”
            “Would you like some tea?”
            “Coffee?”
            “Haven’t any.”
            “Shucks.”
            “How long will you be staying?”
            “I’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon.”
            “That’s okay.”
            “How are you feeling?”
            “Cold and brittle.”
            “It’s good to be home,” Franklin said. “The circumstances could be a little better.”
            “Come into the kitchen, Frank. Welcome home.” Judy sat at the kitchen table. She had a cup of chamomile. “Augustus is gone,” she said. “But, it was a long time coming. That was the worst of my problems, seeing him in that state. Now, all I have to worry about is my osteoporosis and my orthopedic well being.”
            “Do you have pain?”
            “Every day.”
            “Rats.”
            “Betty Silverman was here earlier when they took Augustus away. You remember Betty, don’t you?”
            He remembered her well. The feline eyes and straight teeth. He felt by her, however, a little put off, as if she had a sort of innate vanity. “I remember her. How is she?”
            “Verbose, as usual.”
            “Typical. I remember the last time I saw Betty. God, it must be twenty years ago now. We went to a museum in the City. I forget which. She told me she was envious of Nefertiti.”
            “That sounds like Betty. She’s always got an eye out for who’s better or worse off.”
            “Like that one time she went down to Islamorada for Christmas and came back saying it was the worst time of her life. She liked a white Christmas and down there was only heat and greaseballs.”  He was trying to make his mother laugh. She was not biting. “In all actuality,” he said, “we have it the best up here, where there are seasons. You like the seasons, don’t you? The change?”
            “Yes, sure, honey. I like the seasons.” Judy was far off, thinking about the man she had married, the never-ending laughter and warmth, and thought of his body in the morgue with the other bodies, ichor and insects, and said, “You know, I was hoping he would outlast me. That sounds selfish, doesn’t it? That I would go first.”
            “No, it isn’t,” Franklin said. “That’s human.” A serpentine shiver slithered up his spine. “Don’t be ashamed. Some people around the world celebrate death, like the Mexicans.”
            “I don’t want to hear about Mexicans,” Judy said. She then let out an elephantine trumpet laugh and tears started coming from her eyes. “I remember when we got you that jacket for Christmas, the one with green stripes on it and how Augustus said it looked so girly.”
            “I remember that jacket,” said Franklin. “Dad took it out of my closet when I was asleep and donated it to the Salvation Army. I liked that jacket.”
            Attentiveness exchanged places with melancholy in Judy’s eyes. Franklin noticed color coming into her cheeks like she was blushing and was revitalized by the change. If it was one thing Franklin could not ascertain it was if his mother’s life would better or worsen now that his father was gone. She took care of him five years throughout his sickness and yet avoided attrition.
            “Everything is going to be all right,” Franklin said.
            “Oh, I know everything is going to be all right,” Judy said. She sounded a bit absconding. “Oh, I’ve been so astute throughout this whole time and finally he’s left me.”
            Franklin Tremont thought of fate. Some people wished the departed luck and went about their lives with glee. Some did not. Some clung to the departed and felt stark avarice all the while. “Do you still go to church?” Franklin asked.
            Judy said, “No.”
            Franklin thought of his first girlfriend. She sang in the church choir; she was an alto and sang well. If it was one thing his mother needed it was sound, music, something to keep away the silence. “I’m going to get you a stereo system.”
            “A stereo system? I don’t want one.”
            “It’s going to be so quiet in here. You need something, some music, something. I’m going to get you a stereo system with six disk changer and you can listen to Edith Piaf, how does that sound? In 2016 Anno Domini.”
            “I don’t know how to work a stereo system.”
            “It’s easy. You don’t even need an allen wrench.”
            “Okay. Buy me a stereo system and I’ll listen to Edith Piaf.”
            “That’s more like it. Something to alleviate the silence.”
            The total stillness of night shook Judy Tremont with abrasiveness. Franklin was in his childhood bedroom. She could not get to sleep. The room was warm and she felt well but the silence and the empty spot beside her kept her cold. She lay on her back, her eyes closed. Judy saw images flash by in her mind’s eye. The Statue of Liberty. Augustus, twenty-five years of age. It was eerie and noiseless.
            Judy did not think of herself in all her seventy-six years of life as a victim. Now, the melodrama of victimization sifted into her like a winter chill. It was uncomfortable and she was uneasy. The friends of her youth still had their husbands save Rita Purcell, a childhood friend who lost her husband to massive stroke and never remarried. Judy remembered the incident well. She thought it would be quite simple for Rita. Rita Purcell was young then and could remarry. But, the postmortem depression was too much. She skulked and was not seen often henceforth. Judy Tremont feared the same would happen to her. She did not want to fall out of camaraderie. I should start attending church, she thought; and then dismissed the thought as desperate and sappy.
            What travesty death was. It came and it went, coldhearted. It left nothing in return. The departed were the departed and that was that. The dark expanse before her eyes opened into exquisite fear, which was bordered by loneliness and apathy. She felt guilt and embraced it for the lack of Augustus’s body and remembered a present Augustus had bought her for no reason at all, just because he loved her and wanted to see her smile—a tapestry with a green woodsy scene, a deer drinking from a stream. She could not remember why she did not like it. It was something from Augustus. She should have been happy and accepting, shown that she liked it when she did not. The tapestry hung above the mantle for two weeks before she took it down, rolled it up, and placed in the garage. Augustus never mentioned it. He must have thought it trivial, a bygone throe that his wife must have been experiencing regarding the tapestry. Women, he must have thought, and ten years later he would roll over in bed and breath in Judy’s face his final words, a spiritual telecommunication between two aged and imperfect lovers.
            Judy opened her eyes. The digital clock read 2:32 A.M. She was not tired. However, she was. She wanted the morning to come so she could have a reason to rise and drink tea. The Earth claimed everybody, downtrodden as was its nature. Time was the only factor, the when and where and how of death. Not the if. No, not the if, she thought. Not the if. Judy had a subtle but provoking grasp on death; she knew the material body was just that—material—and that when it died the mind expanded into the realm of whatever inclination the individual had in store—intellect, creativity. She remembered her youth while lying in bed. How inferior she felt to the other girls before she started reading Plath and Shakespeare. That was her first awakening. Literature. And then, her second realization was that she was a stickler for “good boys.” One night of Everclear with Ray Richards in 1945 was all she needed to figure that out. Augustus came along in 1950 and she knew she found a real man. She found, in youth, boys debilitating; and Augustus seemed to alleviate some pressure and the mystery of sex became a very real thing and she started standing, her back erect, with more confidence after meeting Augustus, a sense of pride in her bones, which now had grown frail and porous. Youth had been a noble venture, she reflected, it nearing now 3 A.M.
            Insofar as reminders, she had behind her home a dense wood through which Franklin used to play in his youth, a gentle stream not one hundred yards east of the home. Fish were far from insufficient in that stream. Many times Augustus took Franklin there to fish. They caught trout. Sometimes they caught nothing. But Franklin always came back with a smile on his face, sat at the kitchen table after fishing, and had a cup of hot chocolate.
            Lying in bed, she thought if Franklin remembered the poems he used to write. He must, she thought. There was shoebox full of old poems he had written. They would comprise a tome if they were put in one book. She had no clue where she had put that shoebox and thought somewhere in this big house was a plethora of childish verse and made a mental note to search the abode for them, to resurrect her son. She could not deny it. Franklin had become a man of honor. But, there was, she realized, this day, a certain innocence lost; a tentativeness that she loved in him was gone. He was full of witticisms and idioms.
            Teleportation to better times and better places. Death, youth. It made no difference. People changed and people never did. She was ensconced and so was Franklin by Augustus’s death. How ensconced they were there was no telling.
            Franklin Tremont searched his pockets for the instruction manual of a one-hundred and eighty watt stereo system, now installed in Judy Tremont’s living room. “It’s simple,” Franklin said, “once you get used to it.”
            Judy was standing poised, observing Franklin. He was fiddling with the six CD changer. From the garage, he had gotten all her CDs. There were few. Sinatra, Ravel, and of course Piaf. He put in a CD and hit play. Piaf’s voice came in over the speakers.
            “How’s that for sound?” Franklin asked.
            Judy stood, apprehensive. She had not listened to music in years.
            “The silence would debilitate you,” Franklin said.
            Judy did not speak. She stood, listened, and shifted her weight one foot to the other and watched Franklin. He was the victor. She had succumbed to his wishes. She did not want the stereo in her house and thought that Augustus and Augustus only was the envoy to happiness.
            Franklin stood. “Piaf was debutante.”
            “I don’t know what that means,” Judy said.
            “Just listen. You know this song.”
            She did. It was one of her favorite Edith Piaf songs, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.” She felt like crying. She did not want to cry in front of Franklin. He was so wrapped up in his stereo system. A sham. Augustus’s headstone was occupying her thoughts. They bought two adjoining plots at the local cemetery. Augustus was being laid to rest next week. “Franklin, are you coming to the funeral?”
            He paused “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.” “Of course. Trish and the two kids will be there, too.”
            “Good, because I don’t want be alone in a big cold cemetery with Betty Silverman, Rita Purcell, and the priest. I don’t want to think you’ve forgotten us.”
            Franklin had the intention of buying a bouquet of chartreuse daisies and laying them on the grave. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said, and started up the Piaf song again. A precocious wave, compassion, took Franklin to his mother and he held her tight. It was as if he were willing away the apathy, a deportation.
            Judy had already picked out the casket, an ebony casket, which would house Augustus. The previous night, she had come to a realization. She wanted nothing of the world. That morning she unhooked her phone. She was not expecting calls. And she did not want absentminded calls from some telemarketer to off-end her meditative train of thought. But, the fear remained with the realization. She yearned for a sense of transparency; a means to elevate. She caught herself the previous night thinking about the emasculation of saints—that was her last thought before sleep—and a feeling, delinquent and apathetic, overcame her upon waking, a feeling that attempted to destroy oscillating memories, Augustus, strong tea and snowfall and warm clothes, the memories actualized and quite captivating.
            She had dreamt of villas that morning before waking and titivating chateaus, which danced in her vision like illusions. The finality of seasons, children prancing and birds flocking. Picturesque and taunting, the image stayed for many seconds and she wanted to penetrate into the expanse and dillydally in the garden. Eloquent clouds were vivid in her dream and held substance, as if they could congeal into Godhead and defeat, eviscerate any foe, any villain that came to pass. Judy had met her deadline. Fate was showing her this stable and perfect vision and she made a pact in that dream with herself that she would not tell anybody about it—there was now only the inevitability that she traverse into and evoke within these illustrious memories before they did evaporate.

Jesenia Diaz- I’m ungraduated student from New Jersey pursuing a BA in creative writing for entertainment at Full Sail University. My passion is writing Plays, and drama stories and I also write poetry.  The change in the ride is my first published story in 2017. And hopefully will continue to publish more. 

One summer morning Alex was delivering newspaper, he delivers newspaper part of his summer job. When he gets out of school he works as a newspaper boy. Alex was listening to music on his IPod everyday as he delivers newspaper, it helps him relax and the days for him goes by so quickly. He crosses the highway everyday he prays to God for protection he believes that God protects him. He had reached to the other side of the highway, he bumped into the mailman.  As they were delivering mails in the same house.
 
Carmelo put the mail in the mailbox as Alex was delivering the newspaper. Carmelo looked at Alex.  “Hi Alex how you’re doing?” “I’m good!” Alex replied.  “I’ll see you tomorrow Carmelo.”  Alex crossed the highway and he saw someone needed helped with his truck. As he was crossing the highway he prayed to God to protect him. He saw the guy was lost in the highway with his black truck. “Hi excuse me do you need any help; may I help with something?”


“Yes”! “My truck got stuck in the middle of the highway. And I’m supposed to give a talk in a church on New Hope street.”
 
“You’re not that far from it.” Alex was changing the tires. “So, you’re a preacher?”
 
“Somewhat!” “I still need a long way to go.”  Was checking on his cell phone to see if he had service.  Meanwhile Alex changed the tired.
“Sr. your car is ready.”
 
“Thank you!” You can call me Chris. Chris was approaching to his car. “Do you need a ride somewhere?” “Is cool!” I cross this highway every day.  Alex smiled at him.
 
“No worries I’ll take you.”
 
“Okay!”
 
Alex and Chris got into the car and drove to their destiny. Before Alex got out of the car, Chris gave him something.  Alex looked at him.
 
“What’s this had a book in his hands.”
 
“Is a book about angels.” Chris smiled at him.
 
“Angels!” Flipped the book back and forth.
 
“Yes angels”. “You pray to God to protect you every day from crossing the highway right”.
 
“Yes!” I do! Alex open the door. “Thank you!”
 
As Alex was walking into his house and closed the door and he sat down on the couch feeling tired from delivering newspaper. He opened the book and he began to read it. Angels are messenger sent from heaven, they don’t have to wear white to know that there are angels. Alex reading out loud.
 
Alex had a flash back about the highway and he started to think about the conversation that he had in the truck. Do you believe that God send angels?  “Was Chris an angel sends from heaven.” Alex closed his eyes.
 
 

Born and raised in Sioux Lookout, Ontario, John Tavares is the son of Portuguese immigrants from the Azores. He’s a graduate of General Arts and Science at Humber College, with concentration in psychology, journalism at Centennial College, and the Specialized Honors BA in English literature from York University. His hobbies include cycling and photography. His creative writing has been published in wide variety of Canadian and international magazines and literary journals, online and in print. 

         As Miles flew the crippled jumbo jet towards Flying Fortress Lake, he was almost overwhelmed with emotion at the thought of returning home to Beaverbrook. With a sense of nostalgia tinged with sadness, he remembered Lisa.
Afterwards, Michael read in Macleans newsmagazine, Toronto Star, and Winnipeg Free Press that the bomb, made from plastic explosives, embedded in a compact disc player, exploded in a luxury suitcase. The Semtex blasted a jagged hole through the luggage compartment and burst the cargo hold of the jumbo jet. Middle Eastern Airlines Flight 642, originating in Vancouver, en route to Tehran, Iran, via Toronto, flew at forty thousand feet over the provincial border dividing Manitoba and Ontario. The only Canadian pilot with Middle Eastern Airlines, Miles feared the damaged aircraft would plummet into an uncontrollable dive if he veered the flight in the opposite direction to Winnipeg international airport to make an emergency landing.
Believing they needed a longer airstrip, Miles and his Saudi co-pilot scrambled through a list of nearby airports, ruling out municipal airports in Kenora, Dryden, Sioux Lookout. A native of the region, Miles suggested they fly the airspace around his hometown until they found a suitable frozen lake. An avid angler and bush plane pilot who landed light aircraft with pontoons and skis on lakes in the area early in his aviation career, Miles knew late in the winter the ice was maximum thickness, and considered Flying Fortress Lake a suitable landing area. 
         “You honestly think we can land this plane on a lake of ice?” his co-pilot asked.
          “Yes,” Miles said. “I landed smaller planes on this lake every day during winter.”
           “I’ll feed you information, airspeed, altitude, wind speed, from the instruments, and you better focus on flying. Please keep talking; this is stressful, white knuckle flying for me.”
     Later, envious of his friend’s accomplishment, Michael read another article suggesting it wasn’t possible to land a 747 jumbo jet on a frozen lake covered with ice less than two meters of thickness. But he remembered the spectacle he witnessed, as Miles glided the aircraft to touchdown on Flying Fortress Lake, where the ice measured two meters thick at various fishing holes. 
 
          “We haven’t been talking to each other. I shouldn’t say we’re incommunicado: It’s just she hardly speaks to me, except when drunk.”
           Lisa said she wasn’t surprised Mary lost her disinhibitions when intoxicated. Lisa often spoke in a formal, stilted manner, Michael noticed, but she was a registered nurse, and he appreciated her precise, clinical manner and unconsciously emulated it. “That’s unfortunate,” Lisa replied. “I didn’t realize you two had relationship trouble.”
       “No trouble, but we’re not getting along; we’re not talking except when she’s intoxicated. I don’t get drunk because I can’t tolerate it—psychologically or physically, but we don’t converse the way we should except when she’s drunk. I visit the bar, drink cranberry juice, or lime-and-soda, while she sips rye-and-ginger ales or rum-and-Cokes, and I try to negotiate.”
            Lisa placed a cranberry juice container in her grocery cart. “If you’re not living in her house, where are you staying these days?”
            “I’ve got a bachelor apartment in Flying Fortress Manor.”
             “Across town?”
             “Across the street, the crescent with the snow mountain, where we rented the house.”
           “I lived there once in a one bedroom with my ex-boyfriend Miles,” Lisa said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.
               “Miles, the hometown boy who flies 747’s for Middle Eastern Airlines. Isn’t he a captain? Doesn’t he fly jumbo jets?”
             “He’s actually scheduled to fly over Beaverbrook tonight—at 40,000 feet, mind you but we haven’t been together for a year.”
“You’re alone, but Mary still talks with me—when she’s drunk. There’s definitely that therapeutic value to alcohol—loosening the inhibitions, so pathologically shy people who normally wouldn’t meet and greet are suddenly chatterboxes after a few several drinks.”
           Lisa rolled her eyes upward, thinking, as a health-care professional, she didn’t need any lectures or information on psychopharmacology or the effects of alcohol from a semi-professional hockey and small town radio broadcaster in a supermarket. “Uh-huh.” Still, she noted he was now potentially available for a one-night stand, but he seemed too worried, preoccupied, and entangled in a narcissistic mood to notice. Michael and Mary had an unusual relationship, she concluded, but who was she to judge? Lisa tried to give him the impression she was no longer interested in discussing their separation, but he said: “Yes, the fiancé you’re separated from won’t talk to you—can’t talk to you—except when she’s drunk. Only after she’s binged on alcohol, do you get along perfectly.”
           Lisa forced a laugh. “How can she be your fiancé if you’re separated?”
           “It’s complicated—but she does a good job avoiding me when she’s sober.”
        Lisa reflexively raised her shaved eyebrows and thought of her ex-boyfriend Miles, who stunned her and sent her spiraling into a depression when he quit his job as a bush pilot in his hometown and moved to Toronto to fly passenger jets for Middle Eastern Airlines.  
    “When she does see me downtown, at the gym, convenience store, or supermarket, she pretends I don’t exist.” Lisa glanced down the counters of fruits and vegetables in the supermarket produce section, the sweet peas, baby carrots, apples, oranges, bananas, in neat geometric and linear arrangements. “I’ll say, hi, but she goes about her business as if she’s deaf or I’m a complete stranger or homeless person she doesn’t know.” (Once Lisa muttered Michael looked like a homeless man with wild scraggly hair and an untrimmed beard. If that was her impression, Mary retorted, why did she keep acting like she nurtured a crush on her boyfriend or wanted a one nightstand with him? That allegation triggered one of their many arguments.) “It’s a small town—”
         “Of course, it’s a small town—not tiny, but small enough.”
         “We can’t avoid bumping into each other.”
         Grimacing, pursing her lips firmly, she said flatly, “I understand.” 
       “We have the same likes and dislikes, the same habits, and practically the same schedules. Since the food co-op closed, so now there’s only this supermarket, we can’t avoid chance encounters in Comida when shopping for groceries or fresh produce. We’re both birds of a feather.”
           Lisa raised her brow again, pushing back her tightly wound bundle of hair. Talk of birds made her think of Miles, particularly when she desperately tried to forget her ex-boyfriend. She put a carton of asparagus in her grocery cart basket. “I understand.”
       “Then, on a Saturday night, there’s all that action at The Flying Fortress, seeing nobody wants to visit The Whiskyjack anymore.”
         After breaking up with Miles, when he left Bearskin Airlines to pursue a pilot’s career at Middle Eastern Airlines, she lost hope in the local bars and drinking establishments, the whole after hours and singles scene in Beaverbrook. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” 
          “So, by the time I get there, she’s already smashed. She sees me, saunters up to me, and starts chatting, full of life and vivacious talk. She tells me everything that happened that week and mentions things she never divulged before, stuff she should’ve revealed long ago and only mentions now that she’s drunk. That’s sort of peculiar, but it only makes me love her more than ever. Then we head to her house, our old place. We talk, and we talk, and we have sex. We have sex all night, and it’s the best we ever had. Maybe it’s the best either had because neither had sex all week, when we’re used to it once, if not, twice, a day. Anyway, it feels like the best sex we ever had. Then, early in the morning, before she wakes, I leave, and, we’re temporarily happy, content, but next time I see her, usually a weekday, and, for the whole week afterwards, she has her frigid attitude. She puts on her cold act, I-don’t-know-you-and-I-don’t-care act, as if I never was her fiancé, as if she never intends to speak with her boyfriend, unless I happen to visit the bar on Saturday night, and she’s half-cut, and the whole cycle repeats itself.”
         “Wow. That sounds weird, almost, but it also sounds very human.”
       “I suppose. I’m beginning to think maybe sex was the only thing that held us together.”
          “I’m certain you wouldn’t be the first couple that found lovemaking a glue bonding them together.” Michael never considered their relationship quite that way. “But you do love each other?” Blurting the words as if it was a question in which she possessed an intensely personal interest, Lisa realized she revealed more than originally intended. Her inability to forget her pilot boyfriend unhinged her romantically.   
            “We still do, I think.”
           Unused to conversations of this nature in the supermarket, never mind the café or bar, she suddenly worried about shoppers or store employees eavesdropping. She wondered how she managed to waste this much time talking to him, but she usually found him engaging, albeit an odd fellow, too open, wearing his heart on his sleeve, revealing his thoughts and emotions to anybody, including strangers. When they engaged in a conversation, he sometimes spoke for long, protracted periods. She theorized his loquaciousness originated when he was lonely, when he possessed no one towards whom he could express concerns and vent bothersome emotions. Touching on every personal topic, never mind the average person might think such matters deeply personal, no subject being taboo, he spoke unendingly. Since they oftentimes shared the same outlook, philosophical viewpoints, and attitudes, she didn’t mind, but Mary’s intuition sensed this affinity and became jealous. Lisa’s own ex-boyfriend hardly talked, which, he claimed, served him well in his occupation as a pilot since he communicated only when necessary and silence allowed him to concentrate on piloting aircraft.
          “How do you get into town? I thought you didn’t have a driver’s license?” 
          “I earned my driver’s license long ago, but I walk and prefer to walk because the exercise keeps me fit and in shape.” Michael motioned to his backpack. “I hike the snowmobile trail across the lake into town and throw my groceries and mail in my backpack.”
         “The ice has melted, though—it looks scary, dangerous. Is it safe walking across the ice this time of year?”
         “Extremely safe. The ice is very strong, over a meter thick. They could land a jumbo jet on that lake ice, if needed. The ice will be safe enough to walk or snowmobile across for at least another month. You can cross the ice with running shoes the trail and ice is so hard and packed.”
           “Wow.”
          “I’m finally getting some exercise, too. I lost about twenty pounds over the past couple of months.”
            Lisa visually appraised him. “I noticed.”
         “I always loved walking, too, but once I started living with Mary I always rode in her car even when I needed fresh air and exercise, so I gained weight and lost my conditioning. Then, in the past few weeks alone, I lost ten pounds. I always enjoyed hiking.”
           She glanced at her wristwatch and realized they spoke for over forty minutes. Scheduled to a secret dinner later that evening with Mary, who she needed as an ally in a dispute about overtime pay with their shift supervisor, she needed to make a quick exit soon. For consolation, she might even try telephoning Miles at his stopover in Toronto or as he flew across Northwestern Ontario with Middle Eastern Airlines, even though he warned her about calling him while he flew.
          “Michael, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to cook a healthy supper for myself tonight.”
         “Sure. Just—Lisa, I know you see Mary practically every day, so please keep this conversation confidential.”
           “Of course; we’re not even on the same shifts.”
           Shifting her weight from one high heel shoe to another, Lisa felt pleased to see him eyeing her slim waist and hips, his eyes tracing her long legs below the hem of her short skirt. Earlier she suspected he might have gay tendencies, but now she figured he wasn’t aggressive enough in asserting his masculinity. Knowing how he’d reply, she asked, “You sure you don’t need a ride home tonight? It’s pretty chilly.”
              “No. I’m fine. I could use the exercise, but thanks for the offer.”
 
             That Saturday evening, Michael thought he should avoid the bar, if only to save money and avoid contact with Mary. But what other activities did he have for entertainment and diversion, particularly on a Saturday night? Did he really want to watch television reruns of the games featured on Hockey Night in Canada earlier that evening? Besides, he lost interest in watching ice hockey when The Detroit Red Wings eliminated his favorite team from NHL playoff contention. Exiting the squat brick building, where he resided in a bachelor’s apartment, he hiked in his parka, cargo pants, moccasins, and toque, along the snowmobile trail across Flying Fortress Lake. Careful to tame any panic induced by the foreboding vision of breaking through the lake ice, he cautiously tread along the hard packed snowmobile trail. Occasionally when he hiked across the lake ice alone, he envisioned himself breaking through the ice, flailing his limbs, struggling to stay afloat in the frigid waters, swallowed by the dark undertow, suffocated, drowned under a huge mass of ice and packed snow, but he realized the prospect was unlikely. Walking briskly, he crossed the lake to the municipal beach and strode along the main traffic artery running along the lakeshore into town on the sidewalk under the railroad bridge, and arrived at a hockey arena. He tugged at the handle, frozen, frosty, but the steel door was locked, so the fitness center, the weight room, the sauna, or the gymnasium he ruled out, with the municipal recreation facilities closed early Saturday night. Then he walked downtown to The Flying Fortress nightclub, where Mary waylaid him, ambushing him as soon as he stepped into the bar. Drunk, unamiable, she appeared intent on a violent quarrel.   
        “What business have you discussing my personal, private life with Lisa? My relationship with my ex-boyfriend is none of her business.” She ranted and raved, gritting her teeth, hissing, clenching her jaw, so her neck revealed twitching muscles and corded tendons in an unfeminine manner. Her verbiage grew like an explosion, digging into  him, criticizing his ragged clothes and scuffed shoes, berating him for growing his hair and beard long, leaving it untrimmed, curly, scraggly. She complained about the money he spent on books and compact discs and warned she donated his books and music collection to the women’s shelter, homeless shelter, thrift shop, and friends. She pushed, slapped, and backhanded him, as he worried about attracting attention, although most patrons were distracted, drinking, dancing, listening to music, playing billiards and shuffleboard, conversing loudly and boisterously.
         “What future has a man who spends so much money on useless books and music? Huh?" She slapped his hairy arm. “Tell me!” She slapped his face and tugged on his beard. “Huh?” She snatched his gloves, hurtled aside his toque, and clenched his parka, but a friend, remembering him from high school, intervened. Michael He spent the last of his cash to buy several glasses of orange juice and diet Coke as well as a few Molson Canadian beer and mixed drinks for his former classmate. Beside a wall with a huge saw blade from the stud mill, a propeller from a crashed floatplane, a hanging moose head, deer antlers, model aircraft, and autographed hockey jerseys, he played snooker with his pilot buddy, in another section of the tavern, gazing warily towards the bar, where Mary simmered, glowering, and drank.
         Later, after haggling with a bartender who explained it was too late to order alcoholic beverages and arguing with a bouncer who warned about closing time, Mary approached Michael. As if none of her disputatiousness transpired earlier, she politely asked him to take her home. Did she want him to drive? No, she didn’t drive downtown that night, since, with her car in the service station for new winter tires, she rode to the bar downtown with Lisa, after meeting over dinner. He gathered from her distracted monologue the nurses still hadn’t settled on a plan in the dispute with their supervisor over overtime. He asked why she didn’t call a cab?
           “I don’t have the cash for a cab, and these cabbies don’t take credit cards.”
         He didn’t want to admit he didn’t have cash for a cab that night and, trying to sound as if he didn’t begrudge her, said, “Okay, I’ll walk you home.”
          “Walk? It’ll take hours.”
          “Not if we take a shortcut, the trail across the lake.”
       “The trail across the lake? Are you crazy? Ice melts, especially in the middle of March.”
          “We can still walk. The ice is safe, hasn’t melted enough. Trust me. The weather’s fine and it’s a beautiful night.”
            “Then snowmobiles will run us over.”
        “The snow machines have headlights. The snowmobilers aren’t drunk and driving like they’re blind or mad.”
            She spoke softly, as if warning, “Ice melts in the spring.”
After he bought her a hot dog, dripping with an overload of ketchup, mustard, and relish, from the vendor on Railyardside Street, they walked along the wide brick inlaid sidewalks on the south side of the main traffic artery. She checked the parking lot of the train station and hostel for the train crews, freight conductors and locomotive engineers, to see if any of her male friends could drive her home. They strode down Railyardside Street until it turned into Lakeshore Drive at the train overpass, and then approached the snow-covered beach. 
            “I’m afraid of the lake, walking on the ice,” Mary said.
        “So am I, which is why you don’t need to worry. I wouldn’t dare put you in danger.”
            “What if we hit an air pocket in the ice?”
            “We hit an air pocket.”
         Their feet crunching, the couple walked along the packed snowmobile trail, which zig zagged across Flying Fortress Lake. To relieve the tension and break the monotony of their footsteps chomping the ice and snow, he said, “Do you know why they call this Flying Fortress Lake?”
          “I may’ve heard a story about the lake name, which they once called Pelican Lake, I believe.”
          “Yes, maybe we heard the same story,” he said, as he led her along the packed snowmobile trail across the lake ice. “They say towards the end of the Second World War a formation of long range heavy bombers, Superfortresses, fully armed with bombs, machineguns and cannon, was flying from an army airfield outside Chicago to Alaska before heading to island air bases in the Pacific to bomb Japan. One bomber in the convoy started experiencing mechanical troubles, lagged behind, and was forced to make a crash landing. The airport in Sioux Lookout was nearby, busier than it is today, but the pilot decided to ditch the plane on the frozen lake, which had a landing strip, because he didn’t think the airport landing runway was long enough, and he wasn’t sure if he could maneuver the big bomber in that direction. It was a smooth landing, except the landing gear skidded and fishtailed partway along the frozen lake, and the plane landed on the lake when the ice began to melt. By the next morning, the big bomber started sinking and  plummeted through the ice before they could tow it to shore. They didn’t even have time to evacuate the bombs and munitions. The dumbfounded aircrew and locals could do nothing to rescue the plane, which sank several hundred feet to the lake bottom. It sank in water so deep the U.S. Air Force and Canadian army never tried to recover the plane, despite the cargo of live ammunition and bombs. Apparently, that Superfortress, loaded with bombs and ammo, sits at the bottom of the lake, around which the town grew, today.
           “I think you’re full of bull, but it’s certainly a beautiful night,” she said. “Anyway, if a Superfortress plane sank why call it Flying Fortress Lake? If I understand my history correctly, the Flying Fortress was actually a different bomber, smaller, shorter range, but very effective.”
            “I didn’t know you’re familiar with World War Two history.”
          “I think I mentioned a few dozen times my grandfather was a veteran of the RAF and before I decided to go into nursing I minored in history at university. I actually loved my World War One and World War Two courses, partly because I was fascinated humanity could commit such carnage in modern times.”
            “Maybe the plane was actually a Flying Fortress.”
         “That makes more sense, but it doesn’t sound as dramatic as Superfortress, does it?”
      “With your flair for the dramatic you know better what grabs a person’s attention—”
         “What are you talking about? Are you trying to start an argument?”
      “Listen, I don’t want to fight,” he interjected, when he suddenly realized the direction in which the conversation headed. “I was merely trying to tell you a story.”
         “Anyway, what does it matter? Pelican Lake is named for pelicans, but when did you last see pelicans around the lake or town.”
          “I think DDT killed them all back in the postwar boom days.”
         The thought of insecticides silenced them. The skies were clear and crisp and the constellations were sharp in outline, sparkling like diamonds, with no contamination, they observed, from artificial lighting to diminish the visibility of natural light. As they continued hiking, the aurora borealis, green glowing, snaking, swirling, soaring, twisting, twirling, danced across the broad expanse of the night sky above the snowy frozen lake, fringed by the small buildings and roads of the town, intersected with trails and the airstrip. Mary held Michael close and tight. By the time they reached halfway across the bay, a kilometer from the shoreline and the park trail that led to the cul de sac where he currently lived, she stopped walking. She gazed about the darkness, sighed deeply, got down on the hard ice of the frozen lake, and reclined, sitting on her bottom and then stretching out. 
             “What are you doing?”
            “I’m resting, star gazing. It’s warm anyway.”
            “I didn’t think it was that warm.”
           “It’s fair, the temperature hospitable.” She patted the crusty frozen snow on the lake with her damp mitten. “Lie down beside me.”
            “You’re acting strange.”
        “The nighttime lake—it’s nice. We’re finally getting spring weather, and it was originally your idea to walk across the ice.”
            “It was my idea to walk you home, not lie down on a frozen lake.”
          “If we’re going to walk across the lake, why can’t we lie down on the ice and gaze at the stars, the constellations, and the northern lights?”
           Conceding her point, he sat down beside her. She unbuttoned her ski jacket, tugged at the sleeves, slipped if off, put her arms above her head, and pulled off her sweater. “Make love to me.”
            “Make love? Here?”
            “Yes. I’ve never done it under the northern lights before.”
          She took his hand and placed his cold fingers on her warm bare breast, the pierced nipples firm, erect.
            “What if a snowmobile comes speeding across the lake?”
            “There’s no snow machine driving around at this hour.”
         “You should know better. What if a bush plane with skis came along for a landing?”
            “Who cares? I’m not worried.”
            “I think we’re directly in their flight path. The landing strip is just over there.”
           “I don’t think their aircraft are flying this late. Miles said most bush planes only fly during the daylight hours because they don’t have the navigational or flight instruments for nighttime flying. Anyway, it’s late in the season for the ski planes to land on the ice.”
           “I saw one land a few days ago and couldn’t help think of Miles.”
          “Lisa is totally hung up on Miles; she’s still not over their breakup. She took him for granted, thinking he’d live in Beaverbrook forever, since he always talked about my hometown this, my hometown that, like it’s a Bruce Springsteen song. Then he shocked her by taking a job with Middle Eastern Airlines and moved to Tdot.”
           She lay beside him in the relative peace, quiet, and warmth, resting her head on his stomach, and muttered how she couldn’t believe how warm the weather was in March for Northwestern Ontario. When she belched, her breath smelled of beer.
          “After I left the Ontario Hockey League, I missed the National Hockey League draft and just finished high school. I returned home for graduation and the celebration, where everybody was years younger because I delayed my education for hockey. So I left the party. I walked along the railroad tracks west of town, to the rapids at the end of the Flying Fortress Lake, near the reservation, where I sometimes fish for pickerel. It was a long hike. The narrows at the headwaters are almost accessible by road, but I didn’t have a car. If I worked for the sawmill or railroad, I’d earn plenty and could afford a car, maybe even a sports car, black or red, sleek, with plenty of speed and horsepower, but instead I played semi-professional hockey and earned barely enough money to survive. I’m not sure why I wanted to hike at night along the railroad, but I think I wanted to end my existence by being crushed by a train. So I walked along the tracks to the narrows—if I didn’t get run over by a locomotive, I could drown in the rapids by moonlight—a nice scenic spot to die. No matter how long I walked for some reason no train, no freight or passenger, came along to crush me. It was dark, but clear, and there was a remarkable amount of light from the nearly full moon. So, after midnight, I strode along the tracks, which ran beside the lakeshore, through this beautiful wilderness, with this incredible view of the landscape, illuminated by moonlight. The railroad tracks gleamed ahead, through the bush and along the lake, while I listened to the Rolling Stones’ song ‘Moonlight Mile’ on my portable music player, on repeat, but the noise from the wildlife in the bush and on the lake was incredible. Frogs, insects, nesting waterfowl—they made a symphony of wild noises. It was almost deafening, and thousands of stars dotted the night sky. Then periodically the lonely cry of the loon echoed across the lake and lingered. The loon’s call over the lake in the middle of the wilderness was haunting. I thought, Wow, how could I miss another of these amazing experiences? I need to hear those lonesome loons call again. But I wouldn’t experience feel that eerie ambience again if it ended, and that was the last time I thought along those lines.”
           Michael looked at Mary’s face and realized she had fallen asleep. Disappointed, he noticed her closed eyes as she nosily breathed through her mouth and made funny nasalizations, snoring in her own idiosyncratic way. She still exuded the smell of beer. “Mary?” He nudged her, realizing she was recovering from her drunkenness, her torpor, and sighed. He was ready to say he was joking, that the actual truth was he was forced to walk home, after his friends left him without a ride at a bush party late on a Friday night miles from town, outside the gatehouse to the First Nations reservation and residential school. So he took the only shortcut he knew home, along the railroad tracks back to town. He was in a preachy mood, but, as usual, his sermonizing comments were lost on her.
          As he felt the growing chill of the late winter air, he gently woke her and turned at the distant sound of a jet approaching, a noise which grew peculiarly louder. She stirred and slowly climbed to her feet from where she passed out on the ice and, amnesic, wondered what happened. They continued to walk along the trail to the opposite shoreline and the roadway to their homes as the horizon started to lighten.
When they gazed skywards, they saw a sight they would remember for the rest of their lives: The jumbo jet with rocking wings flying dozens of meters above the lake as fire spewed from a gaping hole in the fuselage. The huge jet passenger plane landed gently on the lake and the landing gear skidded several hundred meters across the smooth snow crust and ice. The cabin doors flew open and passengers slid down the chutes and slides to escape from the aircraft. The couple rushed towards the aircraft as a local ambulance and a fire truck sped down Lakeshore Drive and swerved onto the ice road and broad snowmobile trail, speeding towards the spectacle of the immense airline jet parked on the frozen lake at sunrise, with a growing group of passengers dotting the snow.  

Daniel LeBoeuf has seen his work published in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Pilcrow and Dagger, On The Premises, and The Tampa Tribune.  He makes his home in central Florida.  His website is www.danielleboeuf.net.

 
   In the six years I spent tracking David Addley, it never occurred to me that he didn't exist. I didn't cotton on to the situation until I lay exhausted next to Lori in a Hampton Inn in Orlando. I'm embarrassed that I didn't figure it out for myself, but that's what I get for letting the little head do the thinking.
   It began simply enough. I was relaxing at the bar at Roscoe's enjoying a rum and Coke when a dynamite pair of legs slid into view next to me.
   "Is this seat taken?" The woman's voice was a little hoarse.
   I let my eyes travel from the legs, milky white and freckled, up the teal dress, over the scalloped neckline covering an amply endowed chest to land at a freckled face, large blue eyes, and wavy red hair. Well, it was more orange than red, but I've learned from experience not to call it orange. Oh no.
   I also noticed that several other bar stools were empty, which meant the redhead was deliberately trying to sit next to me. I looked at her again. Her eyes were a little too close together, her nose a little too hooked, and her mouth a little larger than I prefer. She wasn't ugly, but she wasn't quite pretty either.
   "No. Please sit down."
   She arranged her skirt around those legs and climbed onto the seat. The bartender was immediately in front of her.
   "Bloody Mary, please," she said in a voice I now characterized as husky rather than hoarse.
   I tipped my glass at him and said, "And another of these for me." He nodded in reply and turned around to mix the drinks. It's a small bar at Roscoe's. You can get food there - it's attached to an upscale bistro - but it's twenty bucks for a small pizza and the toppings include figs and something called Mezzaluna Fontina cheese.
   "You know that's a breakfast drink, don't you?" I asked her in my characteristic worst foot forward way.
   "Not if you have it at dinner." She smiled, and the whiteness of her teeth made me forget about the blueness of her eyes. I nodded, wondering what to say next. She saved me the embarrassment of being myself again. "You don't remember me, do you?"
   Of all the ways women have of making me feel foolish, that ranks right up there near the top. I won't go so far as to say I've been a player, but this wasn't the first time a woman thought I should know her and I had no clue to her identity.
   I shrugged. "I'm sorry. I don't remember you at all."
   She laughed. It was a good laugh. Mellifluous would not be too strong a word for it. She explored that laugh for all it was worth. When she settled down she said, "I'm sorry. You looked so embarrassed for a moment. It's totally the opposite of what I expected from you, that's all. You were always so cool and collected in high school, Andy Yeager."
   Her recollection of me in high school was at odds with my own, but I decided to pass that up for now. She knew my name! And I still had no clue who she was. I racked my brain for it. I tried to shave off fifteen years, regress her back to high school, but I couldn't get a clear picture of her. I just stared.
   "It's okay. I've changed a lot since then. Lori Merrow?"
    Even then I had trouble placing her. "I'm sorry. I just don't remember you."
  She looked stricken, just for a flicker of a moment, like I'd punched her in the shoulder rather than told her I didn't remember her. "I guess I didn't make much of an impression back then. We had World History together."
   Ah yes. Sophomore year. I remember my sophomore year as one in which I tried to inhale all the weed in Polk County and bang every girl who would drop her pants for me. But that didn't explain why I didn't remember this woman sitting next to me. I guess my face showed my bewilderment.
   "Like I said.  I've changed a lot. I was a late bloomer. Besides, you only noticed Paige Garcia in that class. Her and Marcy Gunther."
   Now those two I remembered. I'd hooked up with Paige several times that year, but I'd had to wait until my senior year before Marcy and I got together. She'd been worth the wait, though. "I'm really sorry. I was stoned a lot back then."
   "Oh, believe me, we all knew that. So, what do you do now?"
   When I told her I was a private investigator the conversation became more normal. We caught up on our lives, I shared some PI stories with her, she told me about how she came to own four hair salons, and things went well. I was on my fourth rum and Coke when the conversation turned toward the subject that would eventually culminate in that room at the Hampton Inn in Orlando.
   "I had the biggest crush on you, did you know that?" she asked me, finishing her third Bloody Mary.
   "No," I shook my head, "I didn't."
   "Oh yeah. Typical awkward girl yearning for the cool jock story. But I really had it bad for you back then." She looked at me for a few seconds and I felt sized up. "But," she said finally, "that passed."
   I have to admit, a little piece of me was sad about that.
 We ended the evening pleasantly enough, with polite good byes and a firm handshake. I thought I'd seen the last of her, but I was wrong. She showed up at my office the next morning. This time she was wearing an eye-popping charcoal minidress with black pumps.
   "I think I'd like to hire you."
   I leaned back in my chair. "To do what?"
   "I would like to find my real father."
   I waved her to the chair in front of my desk and she sat, crossing her legs to expose a large expanse of one milky thigh. "Tell me about him."
   She ran down what little she knew. She'd been the product of a one night stand. Her mother only remembered the name David Addley from the union and not much else. She'd kept Lori in the dark about even that until the cancer got so bad that she'd given one of those death-bed confessions that screw up so many lives. Her mother's husband had been devastated and Lori had been in therapy ever since the revelation.
   "I mean, all this time I thought my dad was my father, and then this? I feel like I lost my mother and my father at the same time. My dad, step-dad I guess, is a wreck still, but I don't know which hurt him more, my mother's death or the affair."
   "What are you going to do after you find your father? Do you think he knows you exist?"
   "My mother swore he couldn't know, that she had no idea who he was or how to get in contact with him. But how do I believe her now? What if everything she told me was a lie?"
   "That's not very likely, is it?"
   "You sound like my therapist."
   "Smart man."
   "Woman. I'm seeing a female therapist."
   I shrugged. "Smart woman. Why do you think that everything else besides her confession is false? Did you think that the confession was false? That maybe she was putting you on, kind of a last, sick joke? Was she the kind of woman who would do something like that?"
   Lori's face turned red, she leaned forward, her hands gripped the armrests, and she uncrossed her legs and tucked them underneath the chair like she was ready to spring forward and attack me. "My mother was a kind and gentle woman who never did an unkind thing to anybody. She said the only reason she told the truth was so she could have a clean slate when she went before her god."
   And, I thought, left her husband and Lori to carry the burden of a truth they weren't prepared to handle. I said, "So you're convinced she told the truth."
   She relaxed slightly, leaning back in her chair, but leaving her feet firmly planted on the floor. "Yes. I am."
   "And you want me to find this father of yours."
   "Yes, I do."
   "And then what?"
   "What?"  She looked puzzled.
   "And then what? What are you going to do once I find him?"
   She slumped down and furrowed her brow. It was not an attractive look for her.  "I've thought about that, and I don't know. I just know I have to find him. After that I'll figure out what to do."
   I thought this sounded like a lunatic plan, but I had little else going at the moment, so I gave her my rates and got as much information as I could about David Addley. It wasn't much. An approximate date of conception and the motel where it happened that wasn't there any longer. Also the fact that her mother said Lori looked like her father.
   Much of a PI's work is done on computers these days. There are mountains of data available to any business for a price. I expected to wrap up the father hunt in a couple of days, maybe a week. I started with LexisNexis and pulled up several hundred David Addleys. That was disheartening. I didn't have anything to use to knock any of the men out of contention - no approximate age, no height or weight. First I knocked out all those whose ages were younger than Lori's thirty-five. Then I knocked out all the non-white David Addleys, assuming that such a pale redhead would have two white parents. Not necessarily true, but I had to start somewhere. That left me with eighty-seven.
   I then worked on finding photographs of the David Addleys I'd found, thinking that I could weed some of them out based on appearance. It was an imperfect approach but I didn't have much to go on. I was hoping to find a man with his eyes a little too close together, his nose a little too hooked, and his mouth a little larger than the norm. If he also had red hair that would help.
   Lori surprised me by stopping by every day. Normally I don't like my clients to drop in like that. At first, though, I felt like it was my duty to pay attention to her after snubbing her in high school. I've sometimes felt guilty for the way I treated people when I was younger, and Lori brought that out in me. But, as time went on, I started to look forward to her visits for their own sake, even though I had precious little to report.
   Then I started feeling guilty all over again. I was taking this woman's money and producing almost nothing to show for it. Yes, I was whittling down the list of potential fathers a little bit every day, but for every David Addley I eliminated I had to keep three potentials. It was getting to the point where I was going to have to put some real effort into the search. I was going to have to go out and interview these men. Before I started racking up all these expenses, though, I thought it best to talk to Lori.
   When she came by the office next I was ready for her, but she caught me off guard with a yellow sundress that looked like it was glowing with its own internal light. It was so bright, and fit her so well, that I forgot for a minute what I was going to say. When she suggested that we go to lunch to talk over just what kind of work was involved in interviewing these men, I found myself saying yes.
   Lunch was wonderful, and she greenlighted me flying wherever I needed to fly to try and find her father.
   "Money's not a problem for me. My mother left me a huge insurance policy and I can't think of a better way to spend it. Plus, I make a decent living with the salons. So, go ahead. Do what you need to do. Maybe I could even go with you? You know, in case you find the man?"
   "I'm not sure that's the best idea."
   She pooched her lips out in a pout. "I'm spending the money. Don't I get to call the shots a little bit? Besides, I wouldn't be breathing down your neck. I like to travel. I could see the sites wherever we go and if you find my father I'd be right there and available if he wanted to see me."
   "You mean you'd give him the choice?"
   She nodded. "I wasn't going to, at first. I thought I'd just swoop in and surprise him. But you got me thinking about screwing up people's lives like Mom did, and I thought it would be unfair to screw his up if he didn't want to meet with me.  I mean, it'll be hard enough finding out he's got a daughter he didn't know about without having her confront him right away."
   "That makes sense. Hell, it's your money. If you want to go with me, then that's fine. I kind of like having you around."
   She smiled. "I like being with you, too."
   Our first trip was to Akron. I thought this David Addley was the most promising. He had the nose, at least. I was concentrating first on those David Addleys for whom I had photos. I reported to Lori over dinner that night.
   "He claims he's never had a one night stand."
   "Did you believe him?"
   "I did. He seemed pissed off at the idea, actually. Yeah, I believed him."
   "Well, I guess that's good enough. Guess what I did today."
   "I have no idea. I mean, what is there to do in Akron?"
   "I went to Dr. Bob's house."
   "Who?"
   "Dr. Bob. It's where Alcoholics Anonymous was founded." She told me all about her visit there. I'd never seen her this excited.
   After dinner, she talked me into going to a club with her. I didn't want to. Frankly, it took a lot out of me to walk up to a total stranger and inquire whether he had a one night stand 35 years ago. This David Addley was none too pleasant about the idea, either. I think I was lucky to escape without him calling the cops.
   That night Lori and I slept together. Now, before you condemn me, let me explain. I was drunk. Between the wine at dinner and the overpriced margaritas at the club, I was hammered. So, when Lori dragged me into her hotel room and started making out with me, I willingly followed her lead. I'm not proud of it. It broke every rule I have about not only dating clients but sleeping with them.
   But something odd happened.  The next morning I didn't feel bad about it at all. I didn't feel like I'd taken advantage of her. I didn't feel like I'd made a mistake. What I felt was a warm woman next to me who kissed me awake with her mouth that was not quite too large for my liking any longer. I stared into those eyes that may have been a skosh too close together, but were all the more appealing because of it. And I said the words that I never had said to a woman before and meant them.
   "I think I love you."
   Well, of course I had to fire her as a client after that. But we had a new agreement, forging a relationship based on trust, mutual admiration, and electrifying sex. The hunt for her father had to take a back seat while I tended to paying clients, obviously, but I pursued it whenever I could. Lori joined me on almost all of those trips. We racked up lots of frequent flier miles. We earned massive points for our stays in the Hilton portfolio. We even got engaged.
   Six years I tracked David Addleys across the US. We flew to Toronto, Windsor, and Edmonton to talk to others. I found myself visiting Paris, Rome, and little towns all over England. I even had to fly to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In all, I tracked down and talked to seventy-five David Addleys worldwide. And it was all for nothing.
   It was in Orlando, like I said, that I started asking myself if I'd ever find the one David Addley I was looking for. I brought it up to Lori.
   "Should we even continue this search? It's been six years. Do you still want to find this father of yours? I mean, I'm willing if you want to keep going, but it seems to me like we're starting to look into the least likely candidates for your fatherhood that we can find. I really think he's either dead or was one of the ones we've interviewed already. Or maybe he didn't turn up in my searches at all."
   She looked crestfallen and uncomfortable. I continued to look at her. She looked at the floor. Something was wrong.
   "I just wanted you to notice me. Just once." Her voice was barely above a whisper.
I was confused. "What are you telling me?"
   Her lips moved.  I concentrated on her so I could hear the words, but still I couldn't make them out.
   "What?"
   She lifted her head with what I recognized as her defiant look. "I made it up. The whole damn thing. I made it up."
   At first the words came out clearly, evenly, but as she continued they vomited out in a rush, like she couldn't wait to get everything said, like it had been pent up inside of her for too long. "I made everything up. The name, my mother's affair, everything. When I ran into you I felt everything I'd ever felt for you and more. I was heartbroken in high school when you ignored me. I started cutting myself because of it. That's how much I loved you back then. And when I saw you again, it all came rushing back. But so did the humiliation, and when I saw you judging me, well it pissed me off. So I decided to play you, to send you off on a wild goose chase. I was truthful when I said I have more money than I know what to do with, and getting even with you seemed worth every penny. That first night after I saw you, after we talked, I went home and thought about it.  How much you'd hurt me in high school.  How much I wanted to hurt you back.  And this plan just came to me.  Something to make you dance to my tune for a change.
"And you did.  You fell for the whole thing, and it was so easy.  So, so easy.  I loved watching you work so hard for no reason.  And I loved teasing you.  I know I'm not great looking, but I know what I have and how to use it.  And you were all over it.  Like I said, so, so easy.  Everything came together and I loved every minute of it.  Until I didn't. I never meant for it to go on this long."
   I slumped down, feeling like she'd punched me in the gut. I shook my head. "So why did you let it?"
   "Because I fell in love with you again," she shouted, then, in a calmer voice, she continued, "but not a schoolgirl crush kind of love. I saw beyond the misogynistic pig and got to know the kind, hard-working, dedicated man that you really are. I've seen you take a hopeless case and turn it into a crusade. You didn't want to let me down, but most of all you didn't want to fail. I admire that. And I've seen you fall in love with me honestly and without reservation. I didn't want that to end."
   "And now? What does all this mean for us? How am I supposed to trust you now?" I shook my head, trying to clear it.
   We sat there looking at each other.
   She broke the silence. "Because I said I'd marry you. Doesn't that mean something?  You can trust me, Andy.  Really, you can."
   "You've been lying to me for six years!" I was surprised to hear my voice crack.
   "You love me. I love you. Isn't that enough? Something good came out of that lie."
   "But it was a lie!"
   I got up, threw on my shorts, and stormed out of the room. I needed some space, some air, and some time. The hell of it was, she was right. Something good had happened because of that spiteful lie. I really did love her, and I believed with all my heart that she loved me. All I had to do was get over the one hurdle of a big, monstrous lie that had consumed six years of hard work.
   Was she psycho?  I mean, the question had to be asked.  What kind of lunatic does this to another person?  If it had been just a few weeks she'd let me squirm, that would have been understandable.  But six years?  The more I thought about it, the more angry I got.  I walked around the hotel.  I sat at the pool.  I got up and walked around the hotel again.  So many thoughts tumbling around in my head.  I needed to let things settle before I figured out what to do.  I needed some distance.
   I made my way back to our room, determined to get my clothes and leave.  Tell her off, maybe, but definitely leave and get that space I needed to sort out what my next move should be.  I opened the door to find her sprawled on the bed, face down, shoulders heaving. I looked at her, and noticed she had dynamite legs. I flashed back to that bar stool at Roscoe's and sighed.
​

 
   They had arrived that evening from the Real Estate Board of New York’s fancy cocktail party. Roscoe Alderman was sitting on a sofa in Delmer Lindquist’s neomodernist house, drinking wine along with Lindquist’s tipsy wife. A light snow became a blizzard and the snowbanks glittered outside and threatened to bury Delmer Lindquist with his guest. Alderman was a brawny man, ten years Lindquist’s senior, at a ripe but vital age of fifty-five, with a strong chin and jaw, unlike Lindquist’s weak chin and slight physique.
   Lindquist felt he was choking, trying to loosen his bow tie, which he had fastened into a tight knot.
   “Come darling, let me loosen it for you,” said Elayna, holding a cup of wine with a limp wrist. She rested the cup on her cleavage, accentuating that sexy, deep V-neck flanked by her firm and rounded breasts. She had insisted on inviting Roscoe Alderman to their home.
    “I can do it,” said Lindquist, with a notable touch of anger.
   “C’mon Delmer, stop fiddlefucking with it,” added Roscoe Alderman, in his usual crude way. “Let your wife help you.”
   Lindquist jerked off his bow tie. He saw Elayna’s smooth thigh, exposed and tempting, poking from the high slit on her black, curve-hugging, mermaid evening gown. Her fiery lips worried him most. Alderman had told him about his fetish for bright-red lipstick; information he did not request and thought superfluous at the time. He had not seen that shade of red on Elayna’s lips, nor it applied so thickly and willfully. He wondered if she was complicit in her selection of that combustible bright-red.
   “Elayna, I have to say, and I say it respectfully,” began Alderman, leaning seductively close to Lindquist’s wife. “You have such an effervescent personality, so genial. And your husband …”
   “Go ahead, Roscoe. Say it,” Lindquist dared him.
    “Relax, Delmer. Come sit with us, and have a nightcap,” said Alderman.
   Lindquist walked to the active fireplace and threw his bow tie into it. He stayed there staring into the flames that played on the thick lenses of his glasses.
   “I married my husband because he’s a genius.”
   “Let’s not jump the gun, Elayna. He’s very talented, I do concede that.”
   “Roscoe has a way to demote people, Elayna. I’m sure that’s how he convinced the governor and the leaseholder to hand him my project.”
   “The leaseholder wanted to hire me as the lead architect for the project. You can’t complain. We’ve incorporated part of your design.”
   “Yes, after months of negotiating. Had it been for you, I would have been completely excluded.”
   “I lobbied for you, don’t deny it. But you have much to learn. Take this house, for example; it’s a beautiful design, I grant you that, but not very original. It’s derivative of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house,” Alderman said in an obnoxious and smug way.
   Lindquist turned away from the fireplace and faced Alderman. “My admiration for Japanese architecture is no secret. Frank Lloyd Wright had a similar interest in it, and built Fallingwater in that style.”
   “Tell him, honey,” encouraged Elayna, teasing the cup of wine with her fingers, her legs splayed and her upper thigh exposed with the long slit on her skirt.
   “The similarities are all too obvious,” began Alderman once again. “The low ceilings, the terraces projecting at right angles, even this living room is almost an exact copy.”
   “Fallingwater is a great work of architecture. I may have borrowed some elements of its design, but I didn’t copy a damn thing.”
   “I hope not. The Fallingwater house has some serious structural problems,” Alderman said.
   “That’s because Frank Lloyd Wright had the balls to build it on a waterfall,” replied Lindquist.
   “Well,” Alderman countered, glancing at Elayna with a smile, “I’m certainly not  known to play it safe.”
  Delmer Lindquist admired the elegant and minimalist concept of Japanese architecture. The clean, uncluttered spaces displayed order and balance. Yet Elayna’s invitation of Roscoe Alderman brought an unsettling discord into their home.
   Elayna extended her thirsty cup, and Alderman poured some wine. Then Alderman explored another avenue of contention.
   “Honestly, Elayna,” began Alderman, looking at the room around him. He spoke in a casual way to temper the venom he was about to deliver. “You’re a great interior designer, and Delmer has given you so little to work with.”
   “Is that true, honeybunny? Have you left me such tiny portions?” she taunted him and took a sip of wine, fixing her rapturous, smoky, icy blue raptor eyes on him over the rim of her cup. “One needs to appreciate the subtlety, Roscoe. It’s a deceptive simplicity.”
   “Oh, I do appreciate it,” Alderman quickly noted.
 “Traditional Japanese plants like bonsai and bamboo are a nice touch,” she explained. “Check out the authentic Japanese shoji, and those beautiful paintings on its sliding screen doors.”
   “Considering what you’ve been given, I think you’ve worked wonders,” said Alderman, injecting another dose of poison.
   Elayna leaned close to Alderman. “It’s true, Delmer failed to give me what I wanted.”
   “And what did you want, Elayna?” asked Alderman, also leaning close to her, close enough to feel her warmth and smell her sweet fragrance.
   “Tell us what I failed to give you,” broke in Lindquist, walking closer to them and dropping onto the low cushioned sofa facing them. They were separated by a small table with the wine bottle that Lindquist could easily breach.
   Elayna said to Alderman, showing deliberate disregard for her husband, “I wanted the interior design job for the Helicoid project. I doubt he even mentioned me for it. Now someone else has that job.”
   Lindquist removed his tuxedo and threw it on the couch. He calmly, in a slow and methodical way, reached up to adjust the thick-brimmed glasses on his nose, demonstrating his unlimited self-control. “Despite my effort to promote you – a considerable effort – they chose someone else. But you already know this.”
   “You didn’t fight hard enough. That’s why you’ll never build a house on a waterfall. You haven’t got the balls!” Elayna insisted.
   “And maybe you haven’t got the talent. They picked an award-winning designer with impeccable credentials,” Lindquist spewed back at her.
  Delmer Lindquist thought that perhaps he could have been more forceful promoting his wife. However, after exhausting negotiations to retain his part of the Helicoid project, he thought any further demand might put his own work at risk. The interior designer, selected by the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP for the Helicoid skyscraper, was undeniably first-rate.
   Elayna sprang up on her seat, roused from her tipsy demeanor, sitting rigid as the steel spire that would grace the Helicoid. Her eyes glared like red-hot coals, and burned her husband.
   Before she could explode, Alderman placed a comforting hand on her knee. It was not the naked knee poking from the thigh-high slitted dress, but Lindquist noticed the gesture, skirt-covered knee or not. “Don’t worry, Elayna,” Alderman said. “I will help you get that design job.”
   The tension leapt out of her. She sank on the couch and softened and turned tipsy again. “I would love that,” she said, turning to meet Alderman’s eyes.
   “You deserve it,” Alderman assured her. He was smitten, and suddenly wakened from a dream and pulled away. “Hey, you know how the Helicoid got its name? They named it after my helix shape, which I based on the golden spiral. Had I seen you dance like you danced tonight at the party, I would have based it on your swirling skirt. Those amazing pirouettes!”
   Lindquist thought Alderman might want to provoke him. He would declare him unfit and take over the project completely. No declarations today. He wanted to see every pane of glass and piece of steel placed on every floor of the Helicoid and his spire stab the sky.       
   “I just followed your lead. You can really tango. Delmer doesn’t like to dance,” Elayna said, feigning a tone of regret.
   Lindquist rolled his eyes and opened a button on his shirt. “It’s getting late. You’ve had too much to drink, Elayna.”
   “Honeybunny, don’t be that way. My puppy is a party pooper,” she said and smiled.
Articles had been written comparing and contrasting both architects’ work: Roscoe Alderman using organic forms, sensuous, curving and flowing, much as Elayna’s skirt; Delmer Lindquist with his geometric shapes, cubistic, rigid and precise.
   Alderman referred to her swirling skirt as a possible inspiration, which seemed more like excitation. Lindquist thought of drawing her with sharp edges, sharp enough to make a man bleed.
   She dipped a finger into her wine and flicked it at her husband. “You’ll never, ever build a house on a waterfall. No Fallingwater for you – just a falling house.”
   “Elayna, it’s late and you’re drunk,” Lindquist said firmly.
   “One million dollars! That’s how much he threw away,” she spat at Lindquist.
   “We’ve discussed this before,” said Lindquist, and leaned across the small table separating them. “Drop the subject.”
   She had urged him to defend himself and sue the leaseholder for more than a million dollars of unpaid fees for his initial draft of the Helicoid. When he settled for less than half of the total million, she held it against him. She carried the simmering, stubborn grudge from that meager total thereafter and totally.
   Delmer Lindquist didn’t expect to draw his masterpiece building and have it built according to his exact specifications. He was always prepared to compromise to some degree. That is what he told her, and that is what he had to tell himself.
   “I think you’re referring to the case against the leaseholder,” Alderman said. “I think he did a wise thing, Elayna.”
   “Of course you do. His weakness was your strength. It made you lead architect of the Helicoid project. Good for you,” Elayna said. She leaned over to Alderman, and placed a kiss near his lips.
   Alderman smiled, wearing a print of Elayna’s fiery lips near his own. He looked at Lindquist, proud and adorned with his wife’s lipstick. “Your husband ended the fighting and settled for less. He negotiated to be a collaborator on the project.”
   “I wasn’t willing to compromise my whole project away,” Delmer Lindquist said. His great spire will rise, and the luminous, rotating, all-seeing eye at its apex.
   Roscoe Alderman went home in the cold, leaving the sparse Lindquist residence colder than the bitter winter night. Husband and wife were left alone in a silence that lingered and permeated the house. Elayna’s empty heart offered nothing; Alderman had taken it with him, and Lindquist feared he would never get it back.
   That was one month ago, and Delmer Lindquist was reluctant to remember Alderman’s blatant flirtations, and that incendiary shade of red on Elayna’s lips. He stored those nasty thoughts in a deep and dark place and let them fester.
   The Helicoid project begged to be the focus of Lindquist’s attention. As he worked late at night in his architectural firm in the city, he heard the devastating news from his colleagues.
   Alderman had altered the master plan and wanted to shorten his beloved spire! This reneged on his hard-fought compromise, demoting his role even further. He would appeal to the governor to keep his original spire.
   Delmer Lindquist drove home from the firm on a dark Long Island Expressway service road. The red lights on the roadside were small and faint and headed in his direction. They gradually sharpened as he approached them. Now he saw the red bicycle reflectors, and the rider was none other than Roscoe Alderman. No doubt he had been visiting with Elayna.
   Lindquist pressed on the accelerator and swerved at his target. He got jolted into a destructive trajectory where nothing mattered, not his life or life itself. Shattered bones and metal and Lindquist sped onward and crashed into a thick band of trees along the road.
   Investigations ensued and suspicions remained over the deaths of the two prominent architects. The politicians didn’t want to sully the multibillion dollar Helicoid project with a scandalous story. Delmer Lindquist lost control of his car on the icy road and struck Roscoe Alderman who frequently rode his bicycle in the area before he crashed into a tree. The vehicle had worn tires and was unsafe to drive. A tragic and freak accident - that’s what it was and needed to be.
   Elayna watched the Helicoid rise, each floor climbing closer to heaven, culminating with her husband’s majestic spire that was preserved by the builders in respect of his memory.
   Being the tallest structure in the city, Elayna could see the Helicoid from multiple vantage points, and the Helicoid could see her. Its steady gaze shadowed her day and night, down busy streets and crowded sidewalks; it swept over the vast metropolis, beyond the lower east side to midtown and to the upper west side, through narrow alleys and wide avenues. Elayna could not lose it or herself. She imagined that conflicted edifice shifting under its own weight, its metal groaning from the unbearable stress. Despite of her, this falling house stood strong.
 
 
 
                                                             THE END

​To Grace Caitlin McClure.
Sincerely & Always.
@&

​

 
“This book is fiction and many things have been changed in fact to try to make it a picture of a true time…”

• Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast (Fragments)

 
 
“Writers are always selling somebody out…”

• Joan Didion in Slouching Towards Bethlehem

​                                          1. The Beginning… At the Middle 
   Valerie and Scott kissed. They finally fucking kissed.
   From the moment their lips touched, not only were they both allowing themselves their rom-com climax, but they also started the countdown to their imminent breakup--the soul-crushing, Earth-shattering, Shakespearean, and ever-so-romantic finale to their love story.
   They knew it because I knew it.
   100 days, 22 hours, 58 minutes, and 10 seconds remaining.
  All great stories need a time-lock, a lurking danger, a ticking bomb with big, glowing red numbers and a mesh of wires threatening to blow up. It’s the sense of imminent danger that enhances the sense of living, making the ups and downs of the narrative all the more exciting and cathartic without risking real life. Don’t get me wrong, the countdown was a good thing.
   But many times it’s better to risk it in real life as well. Let the time run on the clock, waiting until the last second to yank the wires and defuse the bomb or have it explode in your face.
   That kiss was their bomb. I knew it, so they knew it too.
   Valerie and Scott then pulled away, catching a breath and an eyeful of each other under the pale moonlight of late May and wrapped in the brisk chill of 2 AM. Their gaze lingered, partly amazed, partly mystified, and completely freaked the fuck out but containing themselves, simply focusing on experiencing every nanosecond of that moment--their moment. Val and Scott were headed for uncharted territory for both of them.
   Fuck.
   Fuck me, I’d be the one helping them navigate. I knew it, and soon they’d realize that too.
   They kissed again, briefly, tasting each other’s spirits and silencing promises they were not ready to make. Then they turned to look at me—the voyeur, the friend, the accomplice.
   “Hey, Teller, mind your own business, would you?” They knew.
   100 days, 22 hours, 55 minutes, and 0 seconds remaining.
   The scene was just right. Backlit halo to make the couple dreamy? Check. Soft music with an 80s vibe soundtracking their love, from a little distance? Check. A little world of their own, where everything else was blurred out of focus except for each other and their embrace? Check.
   A picture-perfect setting. A Kodak moment. Roll credits: written and directed by John Hughes.
   How disgustingly cute.
  I wouldn’t have expected that from them, really. Cute wasn’t a thing for them. Totally out of character. For Scott alone, maybe. For Val—-not ever. She wasn’t the fairytale-princess type. Heck, she wasn’t even the HBO-Manhattan-girl type. At her worst best, she was all film noir femme fatale. If she weren’t the protagonist in the love story I was witnessing, she’d be right here at my side, drink in hand, mocking the love birds and foreshadowing the demise of their romance.
   But this time she was there, in the spotlight, acting the climax of her own rom-com, kissing the toad that only she had come to see as a charming prince.
   100 days, 22 hours, 50 minutes, and 22 seconds remaining.
   If Val saw herself from the audience, she would be embarrassed. If she weren’t high on dopamine, love, and gin-and-tonics, she would feel like a delusional teenager. Or worse: like the lead in a Jane Austen novel.
   And to imagine that this romance began entirely in Scott’s head. It wasn’t fate. It wasn’t written in the stars or conspired by Cupid’s arrow. It was all a fantasy. Scott’s fantasy. And by sheer force of will and hope and chance, it had turned into a reality.     This reality. This kiss. Kisses, now plural.
   Fuck. Lucky bastard.
   But everlasting love is just a myth. It’s not even romantic. Romance needs an ending, like any story, one that doesn’t include forever after.
   100 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes, 11 seconds remaining.
   They both knew the end was coming.
   As a friend, spectator, and storyteller, I had warned them about their love. From the beginning they knew. And still they kissed.
   They were headed for the sweet sorrows and disaster of love.
   100 days, 22 hours, 45 minutes, 30 seconds remaining.
  And I was in the middle of it all.
   Tic, tic, tic.                          
   Fuck.

 
                                                        2: The Perfect Gift 
   She will love this. She has to love this. She loves thoughtful surprises, and I’m an expert at those. We’re a match made in heaven. Or better, made by a dating website’s algorithm, no doubt. It’s destiny.
   This will be so romantic.
   My gift will be the best ever, full of tokens and meaning. Others have given her things, stuff. Many have paid her tribute, like suitors in a comedy promising that all that glitters is gold. But my present will go beyond tribute. My present will be a symbol—-not to her but of her. All the bits and pieces that make up Valerie will be there. Her whole personality rendered to her in a box. She will see that and just be reminded of how special she is and will always be.
   Besides, she will not be expecting it. Surprises make for the best tokens.
   She will open the box and find the perfect mixtape tailor-made for her. I made sure to include all of her favorite artists, and at least a few of her favorite songs, at least all the ones mentioned on her Facebook profile. When she smiles while listening to the tape--I mean, MP3s, because who really listens to anything else these days. When she smiles, all those hours spent looking for the right music, the right titles, and the right never-heard-of bands, all that time will be worth it.
   Mixtapes and mix CDs are really a lost art, just like handwritten letters have fallen into the oblivion fostered by laziness. Playlists don’t have the same ring or the same physical uniqueness of a mixtape, and neither do emails.
   This will be so romantic.
   She will find tickets to her adored ballet, all single tickets because she wouldn’t go with anyone. She loves ballet, but keeps it a secret from family, friends, and Facebook. It’s a secret we will always share. One of the many I have promised to keep and that made me fall for her after I found out.
   Who else would be so passionate about something as beautiful and profound as ballet, while keeping it a secret because that would not fit her role, her image as the queen bee of fashionistas aspiring to be Strong Independent Women, since ballet is a little too effeminately cliché and much too Disney?
  Who else would secretly keep a blog as Dreaming Danseuse in a web-traffic forsaken MySpace, sharing with the world her love for ballet and dancing and art and dreams of performing in Paris and Moscow, but hiding it all from her own world?
   Who else would treat herself to trips to Vegas and New York, claiming to go for the nightlife and the jet-set shopping, but imbibing Broadway and the Cirque du Soleil and MOMA instead?
   Only she would do those things. And extraordinarily so.
  She will go to the performances and imagine herself on the stage of The Nutcracker. And I will be right there with her, elsewhere among the audience, enjoying the beauty of ballet and lamenting a bit, along with her, that she cannot be a dancer anymore thanks to her Covergirl figure, which not even the worst of cigarette-based diets and her best self-loathing efforts could force back into ballerina-shape in her teenage years.
   This will be so romantic.
   She will finally find that laurel-green scarf that she was wearing the first time I saw her, and that she’s convinced is lost for good. Her favorite scarf, because it’s so very her—-vibrant green like her eyes, stylish and simple, yet with a touch of unique that words can only shadow. Such an appropriate piece for her to wear in days that she either needed a little extra reassurance to accomplish something or wanted to feel more victorious over life. The scarf will always be a sign of her being at her best, at her most her. I know and can predict that because I’ve seen it plenty of times—Scott the Seer. I’ve even managed to guess when she will wear it, simply because I know her. It’s so appropriate that a scarf serves as her pennant for triumph, since it’s a piece she can only don when the weather gives you the same chills as her confidence and character.
   She will be relieved to have found her scarf again. I’m glad that she didn’t really lose it on the street as she feared, but that destiny dictated that it flew away from her and came to my possession so that I could it give back to her. Coincidences are not a coincidence.
   This will be so romantic.
   Valerie will love all of this. It will make her happy, just on time to endure her parents’ visit next week, of which she has complained so much on Twitter. But I, with my gift, will make it all better for her.
   I just need to wrap this all up and go drop it at her place.
   Just as soon as I see that her car is back on her parking spot, or that the lights are on at her apartment, I will go and deliver my gift. As usual, she won’t be expecting me. Or the gift.
    This will be so romantic.

 
                                                                  3: Outlook 
     Buzz. Text. Teller: Is he still watching you?
    Yes. Yes he is. Dammit.
   I don’t even need to look. I know he’s watching. If I peek through the blinds, he’ll know I’m here. It’s better this way: all lights off, my car parked around the block, all as good as if I weren’t home.
   How did it come to this? I swear these things can only happen to me.
   Buzz. Text. Teller: So, what are you going to do?
   I wish I knew. For now, I just need to get out of here. This is what I get for making a stop at my place, when I should be somewhere else.
   At least I wish I were somewhere else.
   Beep. Email. Matt: How’s the report coming along?
  It’s not coming. I’m not coming, either. Not for a while if this keeps up, at least.
  Work.
  Dammit.
  What happened to me? I used to like my work. I liked the spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and meetings and memos. I used to be free and feel free. Now it’s this—-needing an escape, from everything and everyone. All. The. Time. What the hell happened to me, seriously?
   Ring! Click! Missed call: Dad.
  I’ll call back, I promise. I just can’t deal with it right now. It’s good that he understands. He will still bug me, and they will still come visit soon, partially playing the concerned parents card, but I know it’s the good type of concern, the type of their not expecting to find me in total nervous breakdown doing meth, or in a swingers’ club, or worst of all, getting engaged and planning a wedding with a Mr. Right.
   They just need to escape their empty nest for a few.
   And I need to escape this golden cage called apartment.
   Buzz! Text. Jonny: See you this Thursday for dinner, drinks, and some fun, right?
  Probably. I’m not sure I’ll be up for all of that by Thursday. But it’s good to keep the option open. Jonny’s nice and good-looking enough. There’s just something about guys in suits who work in high-rises that I can’t help but tease and tug…
   Beep! Email. Matt: Report needs to be done by tomorrow. Really badly. It’s due to the bosses in 2 days.
   Yes, I know the report is jobs-on-the-line critical. Yes, it will be done. Yes, I will be the one finishing it overnight. No, I won’t get the credit or the bonus. Yes, it’s all part of the game of consulting.
   Or so I better tell myself in order to give a shit anymore.
   Buzz! Text. Teller: Are you up for a drink or not then?
   Yes. Definitely am. I need a drink. As soon as I figure out what to do here. Dammit.
   Buzz! Text. Barista: As promised, wanna hang out on Friday?
   Yes. I’d like that. You deserve at least one shot just for having the balls to ask me out while frothing my ten-dollar macchiato.  I love to be asked out like that, by surprise and by guys clearly from a different league, if not a different sport altogether. That takes more than a little bravado. I love to be asked out like that because it makes me feel democratic when I say yes. There’s just something about guys with ambition as small as their pay grade that I can’t help but hook up and uplift…
   Buzz! Text. Dad: Ready for our visit?
   Kind of.
   Whatever.
   Buzz! Text. Teller: Need picking up?
   No. I’ll drive. I can handle this.
   I really need that drink.
   Screw this. Time to break out, sneak to my car, and go drink and talk with Teller. Everything will be better after that break.
   Beep! Email. Buzz! Text. Buzz! Text.
   I’m ignoring it all. Pressing pause on my playlist. Can’t give a shit right now.
   And here it is. A box. A gift, left by my door.
   How did I come to this, seriously?
   Dammit.
 

 
                                                                      4: Driving 
  “Well, that’s at least a new one for you.”
    Too true. Teller would know.
    “You have a secret admirer. You’re an 80s movie.”
   “Lucky me.”
   “At least the gifts are a nice touch.”
   “You’re not helping.”
   “Oh, I’m sorry. Did it look as if I were trying?”
   Sarcasm. Teller’s native language. Only he had that right.
   I  unlocked the car and we jumped in. I knew where to take us next after enjoying some jazz—the Old Haunt Bar. Our old haunt.
   “Remember that cowboy you dated?”
   “I wish I didn’t.”
   “You and I both.”
   Going ninety down the highway. I felt in control like that. Teller never complained. He knew. He trusted.
   “Is this admirer weirder than your Brazilian?”
   “I’d say so. The Brazilian I saw face to face.”
   “But the Brazilian had that thing about sheep and dog collars…”
   That stole a smirk from me. Damn Teller.
   “What about the guy with the pink Porsche?”
   “I didn’t date that guy.”
   “Right, but you did end up having breakfast with him.”
   Damn Teller.
   “What about your own conquests, mister? You like them weird, too.”
   “Don’t say conquests. I’m a writer. I need characters. What’s your excuse?”
   Too true. And kind of sad. For both of us.
   “Have you ever thought about at least not going for the crazy ones?”
   “All the others like assholes.”
   Too true. Damn Teller.
   “Good. You are one, anyway.”
   “You know that. Only you.”
   “Maybe it’s time to unleash yourself.”
   Unrepentant asshole Teller, let loose into the world—I’d pay to see that show.
   “That would be a disaster. A Stephen King novel.”
   “You can’t be worse than the guys I haven’t told you about.”
   I had to smirk at him with that line. Teller couldn’t counter.
   “Nice boots.” He wasn’t deflecting. He was about to strike. Nuclear.
   “They’re new.”
   “I know. I noticed. It’s easier to keep track of your boots than your boys.”
   There it was. Teller’s rapier truth. Damn Teller.
   “My boots and boys. Your muses and misadventures. Our vices.”
   He rolled his eyes and crosses his arms. I smirked.
  Going sixty down the three-lane street, hunting for parking. I found a spot. Another car aimed for it as well. A movie star lookalike drove the competitor.
   I had an opening. I didn’t park. I blocked the spot and the street with my car instead. He was trapped.
   Teller just looked on. I’m sure he narrated in his head.
   I got out of my Corvette and approached the fairer-skinned faux-Gosling in his SUV.
   “Wow, you’re so gorgeous, I don’t even mind you can’t drive.” His smugness was overrun with amazement.
   “Save it. I’ll let you take the spot. If you give me your name and number.”
   I smirked. He could barely reply.
  Ten minutes and ten digits later, I was parking in another spot down the street. Teller watched in silence. Mostly.
   “So, did that make you feel more in control, Queen Val? Feel better?”
   “Hey, I’m driving, OK? Let’s go get that drink.”
   Damn Teller.
 
 

 
                                                                     5: Driven 
    "Ultimately, the limit doesn't exist."
   Once again, I've saved the day. I always have to, no matter if it’s math or life and death. Sure, this time it's Val rather than my damsel-in-distress of the week, but it still counts for slaying her numbers dragon of the week.
     "How did I not see that?"
     "You've just been too hard at it. Like a typo you can't see."
   I'm glad it's Val this time. Any time, really. Talking equations, aphorisms, and quotations feels like a river with her—deep, natural, meant-to-be.
      You cannot step into the same river twice...
     Half a decade of shared misadventures and hard-hitting truths feels like a couple of lifetimes. What will history books say about us? Probably all the lies we don't say to each other.
        "How's the job, Teller?"
      "I can't complain."
     And I wish I could, but I have no good reason for it. I'm getting paid to do the only thing I love—write. Yes, writing website content, advice articles, and the occasional listicle, but writing nonetheless. It's almost journalism these days. I guess online outlets make me feel like the Toronto Star reporting made Hem feel, like a literary whore. Well--escort, since the pay has improved.
      Life must be lived as play...
     "You know, you sound like you want to complain."
    "Maybe. But not today."
    Of course Val knows what I'm truly thinking. Why even bother saying it, then. It's easier for her to drive than to do it myself. That has always been the case, literally and metaphorically.
   "And how's your book?"
   "It's a work in progress."
   "You can say it: you're the work in progress."
   That smirk, her eyes hidden devilishly behind Versace darkness—that's classic Val taunting me into action. My book, my Great American Novel, of which I've dreamt a thousand volumes and have written minus-three pages that I dramatically burnt  in a trash bin fire to feel myself all the more the frustrated author. My book, a worse work in progress than my own life.
   I only know that I know nothing...
   "So if you're not writing, how are the matters of the heart?"
   "Messing with my head."
   Oh the blessing of having someone always willing to tell you to your face what's wrong with you, point-blank. If I'm not writing, Val can diagnose why faster than anyone, including myself sometimes.
   "Don't you dare tell me that you miss Mallory."
   "Hell, you know I don't."
   I miss watching the sunset far in the horizon while on a whimsical road trip. I miss the strolls through the park to take pictures and the days spent in museums admiring masterpieces. I miss the late nights fending off demons and the early mornings waking up to the hopeful smell of fresh coffee. But I certainly don't miss Mallory.
   Wisdom is not to secure pleasure but to avoid pain...
   "You would've found someone by now if you let yourself be you a little more."
   "But you know I'm an asshole."
   "Exactly."
   She has tried to unleash that Pandora's Box for so long that I can't tell anymore if she might be right or just desperately curious. Probably both knowing Val.
   "Either way, I'm fucked."
   "Actually, you're not. That's the issue."
   Her smirk. Again. She wasn't wrong, but she wasn't completely right, or so I'll claim until one of us dies or joins Scientology.
   "Can we go back to your numbers issues, please?"
   "Sure, but ignoring your issues won't drive them away."
   "How about a drink then?"
   For the day, I just wanted to solve the equations that I knew the answer for already. The mysteries of my life could wait for some more writing.
    Character is destiny...

                                                                          6: The Letter 
Dear Valerie,
The contents of this letter are long overdue, full of things I’ve meant to tell you, but for which I’ve lacked the occasion and, to be completely honest, the courage to disclose.
This mental urge of mine has fermented like a good pinot noir, those that you love to drink so much. I think that missing my chances to talk to you recently has been for the best, for now I get to reach you in my truest language—music and singing. All the important things in my life I’ve found hard to discuss in conversation, afraid of saying the wrong thing, or worse, of leaving unsaid what’s truly important.
In music, however, I find all the freedom to express myself, to define my thoughts, and to communicate at my most honest and sincere. And so I sing to you in the attached mixtape, apologizing in advance for the quality of my musical bleeding.
You may consider this just a reiteration of what you already know about me, or you might even think of this as some sort of vacuous flattery, but since I sing this rather than say it, I can assure you that this is me at my most veracious: I couldn’t be more grateful for and appreciative of this relationship of ours that has already influenced me, for the better, more than I could ask for or expect.
Not only am I grateful because of the obvious improvements inspired by you, such as songs, good movie recommendations, and brilliant ideas for lyrics, tunes, and future albums, but also because the way and timing in which this unique relationship of ours has manifested, to put it simply, has restored my faith and reinforced an old ideal of mine.
All that you inspire in me, whether through little coincidences online or our casual in-person encounters, has reaffirmed my belief in the existence and the possibility of a relationship that feels true like this, in spite of distance, and its worthiness of being pursued.  In other words, our relationship has rekindled and refueled my ideal that art is not only a way of life but one that can and should be shared as such—-a belief that had been shaken by the transitions of life and challenged by almost all my experiences related to people.
Yet, in the right sequence and in the right moments, that belief of mine, one of my guiding lights, was reinvigorated and reaffirmed bit by bit as I got the privilege to know you more and more and as we got closer through time and (cyber)space. It was meaningful for me to find you years ago as a fellow artistic soul and your alluring, anonymous blog, thanks to chance and Facebook. It’s been meaningful to read your blog posts, so brutally honest and sincere that I think they not only have allowed me to discover you better but also have made me yearn to be more honest in my music, my lyrics, and my creative lying. It was meaningful to learn that you write because you like others to pay attention to you, and that you once had silver screen aspirations to be reignited. It made my night that you both caught and built up upon Beatles reference that time that I wrote on your wall almost at dawn. It’s been meaningful knowing that in you I have an accomplice who also enjoys the experience of movies, theater, dance, and museums ad nauseum, fascinated by art and yearning to be a part of that world. It’s been meaningful to discover that we share a sort of guilty admiration for smoking thanks to movies and a snobbish preference for wine. It’s been meaningful to find out that we both follow, for better or for worse, a life philosophy with the tenet that there’s nothing worse than being ordinary. It has been the most meaningful, as well as my pleasure and privilege, not only to witness and be a part of your reaction to ballet, but also to witness and experience my own reaction to your reaction - frankly, an inspirational chain reaction that crystalized and unfolded for me the significance of this relationship of ours.
I know that I especially appreciate this relationship because, in spite of the weird way it has developed (you know, the whole not meeting in person for about two years), it has felt natural in an unexpected way.
Well, at least for me it has felt natural.
I guess that when one has dreamt a specific situation or scenario more than a thousand four hundred and four times, it ought to feel “natural” once one gets to live it; yet, I can tell you that a little tingly feeling remains in the back of my mind, a slight, untrusting fear that it may not be real or that it might be the Devil’s doing, waiting to turn it all into a damning trick. Beware of what one wishes for, right?
But I digress. This inspirational and creative dynamic has felt the most natural for me. I’ve had my romances, my infatuations, my crushes, my fascinations, my fuck-ups, my muses, and my sudden inspirations, but none of those past cases had the positive influence that this relationship of ours has exerted on me so on-target and so significantly. I have to qualify the influence as positive because almost all the cases as negative reinforcements, yet influencing me into becoming who I am today.
At this point, I should ask the one question that has been rattling in my mind for days and nights now: what do you consider this thing of ours to be? As much as I hate labeling, I ask for the sake of clear understanding and honest communication, because I'm more than aware that I’m an idiot when it comes to "seeing" signals of that sort related to me. I can hear the music playing for other people, their romantic soundtrack, but when it comes to my own circumstance, it seems that it's impossible for me to catch any signs correctly. I guess there just are some things that are so mine, so ingrained and so closely attached to me, that I just cannot hear or see them even if I get closer.
I ask knowing that there’s an observer’s bias risk to the question, that asking itself can affect the results of the experiment, perhaps even fucking everything up — for which I would hate myself. I would hate myself more, though, if I caved to cowardice and didn’t ask, for there’s nothing that I loathe more than uncertainty derived from personal inaction. 
Nevertheless, I also ask without any demands or expectations for an immediate or absolute or decisive answer, so please don’t feel obligated to come up with one if you don’t already have it. I know well that you are right now going through a transitional period on many fronts, from romantic rehab to professional rerouting, and in such a circumstance the last thing I would want to represent is more burdens and extra concerns for you. On the contrary, I write to you only with the intention of reaffirming and reinforcing for you that sense of new beginnings, pause-and-replay in the most reciprocal fashion that I can (and that you allow me) to the way that you, intentionally and unintentionally, inspired me to maintain and believe in my own course at moments of doubt and hesitation.
Ultimately, I'm writing all of this to you not so that I’m read and I can “get if off my chest,” but because I want you to read and confirm what an awesome and amazing person you are. Regardless of the emotional punches you've taken in the past months and the cruel jokes destiny has played on you in recent weeks, please consider this a message from the universe, handed down through one of its most loyal envoys: all those lows you’ve experienced were not meant as karmic payback, but as preparation (a cleansing, really) for the new height you'll reach — and of which I can only hope and do my best to play a positive role in, both in the present and the future.
And with that poured onto the page, and echoing my songs in the mixtape: thanks for reading, thanks for crossing my path, and thanks for all the inspiration thus far.
Love,
Scott.

 
                                                                    7: Teller-Tale Mail   
     Bastard.
      How could he write this? Worse, how could he send it?
    This letter, his letter to Val, is so full of sentiment and hope that I can barely imagine her reaction. Scott’s letter doesn’t belong in Val’s mailbox—it belongs to the pages of a Bronte novel or the archive in some Yale library.
       The contents of this letter are long overdue,
full of things I’ve meant to tell you,
but for which I’ve lacked the occasion and,
to be completely honest,
the courage to disclose…
       Bastard.
     If this is how he really sees the world, so full of color and music and sugar and beauty, I envy him. And if he’s in love with Val as he claims, I pity him, even if that love is a decimal fraction of what the letter proves. What happens when a disgustingly loving force smashes against a fiercely unattachable object? Disaster.
Poor bastard.
      I wish I could be innocent enough not only to write like Scott but also to send something this honest to someone—but I know better. I’ve written letters like this one, but I’ve never sent them. Yet my letters were not as expressive and hopeless as Scott’s. Not even my stories have accomplished that.
…my own reaction to your reaction - frankly,
an inspirational chain reaction that crystalized and unfolded for me
the significance of this relationship of ours…
     And to think that Val inspired all of it and more: gifts, songs, dreams. Val, appropriated in a fantasy and deconstructed in poetic prose and token presents. Val, the unstoppable femme fatale turned into Venus and put on a pedestal to be worshipped by Scott, high priest of her own temple. I would laugh at the irony if it didn’t make so much sense and I weren’t certain that Val would murder even me for wording it that way.
      What a bastard.
    I do wonder how someone like Scott would affect Val, for she has never been swept off her feet by any suitor. Maybe she should give him a chance. At least I would have fun if she did. Besides, she has given chances and had her fun with worse and less worthy types. Her bad choices always have the safety of failure. Scott’s type has the threat of attachment, of success, of finding the happiness that his worldview promises.
     What will Val say? What should I say, when she asks? Because she definitely will request my advice. How could Scott’s letter be so promising and so damning, like a Greek prophecy?
And with that poured onto the page,
and echoing my songs in the mixtape:
thanks for reading, thanks for crossing my path,
and thanks for all the inspiration thus far…
      I want to meet this Scott, if only to see if he’s real or some sort of the wrong type of crazy, and to confirm that we inhabit the same world that differs so much for both of us. Of course, I have to meet this Scott if only because we have Val in common and that’s the beginning and the end of it.
 
 

 
                                                              8: Complex Savior 
   “You don’t have to save her, you know?”
   Val’s sharp words made my pride bleed. Yet, I still need to heed Mallory’s cry for help via text message. I had failed to tie myself to a mast, or to Val’s corvette car seat, so the siren song had power over me.
    “If I don’t save her, who will?”
   Val’s glare met my pleading eyes.
   “Her boyfriend can save her.”
   “From whom do you think she needs saving?”
   Knowing Mallory, there could be other answers to that question, but all with the same effect and outcome.
   I needed to save her despite detachment, my own Lady Brett.
   “I can go or we can go, but you know I’d rather have witnesses. Last time…”
   “Let’s go. I’ll drive.” Val knew that story because she had survived it with me twice too many times.
   “At least this way we don’t have to think or talk about your letter.”
   That grin. I didn’t have to regret reading then.
   Four ran-through red lights later, we arrived to Mallory’s high-rise. I charged toward her apartment, ready to battle giants and windmills for the tragic Dulcinea. I found the door open. Inside, Mallory had night in her eyes and scarlet marks on her skin. She cowered in a corner and contemplated her life choices and her leap of fate to freedom out the ten-story window.
   “Where is he?”
   “He’s gone.”
   “For good?”
   “Just until the game ends.”
   Mallory started to weep. She never let the world make her cry, but she could roll with the punches no more. I approached her and escorted her out wrapped in an embrace of archaic covenants and spoiled memories.
   I had to save her, even if that meant walking through hell for the shadow of Eurydice.
   Val drove us to the hospital amid a silence in which even my thoughts were faint echoes.
   Waiting. Checking. Questioning. Not quite lying—Mallory’s body and voice didn’t tell the same story. That’s why I needed Val, and she had come because she knew it.
I had saved her, once again, for no better reason than Mallory having once been mt Daisy, my green light across the river.
   Val hated the whole scenario, and said nothing. She didn’t need to utter a word, for I could loudly read her thoughts as we returned Mallory to her place, the same old curse, the same old tragedy to unfold.
   I had saved her but I wasn’t her savior—Hamlet doesn’t drag Ophelia out of the river, neither in the play nor in life.

Christina’s life was hard, raising two boys on her own.  But she never complained.  She worked two jobs and barely got to see them.  But all her free time was for them.  But they had everything they needed and wanted.  She lived for her sons.
            Then one day, a knock on the door changed her life forever.  It was CPS and there had been reports from the school of her abusing her sons.  She told them this was not true.  CPS informed her that the boys had said she spanked them and punished them.  Christina was in shock, her knees buckled, and she felt faint.  They handed her papers from the court.  Her boys were going to be taken from school and placed into foster care.  This was a nightmare she thought. All she could do was cry. There would be a hearing and CPS advised her to get a good lawyer.
            Christina feel to the floor in tears.  She had never abused her boys.  She tried to pull herself together but it was so hard. She went and got the phone book and started to look up family lawyers, hoping she could afford one.  She made a few appointments to meet with lawyers.  Until then, she was all alone in her house, with reminders of her sons all around.
            Finally the day for court came.  Christina’s lawyer saw no signs of abuse just normal discipline.  Please let this end today and I get my boys back she prayed.  It was so intimidating being in the courtroom.  She tried her best to maintain her composure.  It had been two weeks since she had seen her boys.
            The judge entered the courtroom and the prosecution immediately started in on Christina.  Her lawyer was not shaken by this.  When it was her turn, she presented school records, Doctor’s reports, and statements from family.  All showing that the children had never been abused.
            The judge read over everything very carefully.  He called a recess and went into his chambers to make a decision.  He was going to decide if the children should return home. 
            The judge came out of his chambers and sat down.  He immediately started berating the prosecutor and CPS worker.  Saying that the children should have never been removed.  They were to be returned immediately.  Christina’s heart jumped out of her chest with joy.  Her boys were coming home.

​

          Joselyn lived on the streets of New Orleans.  She had ran away from her awful home.  Her mother was a meth addict.  Her father abused her both physically and sexually.  She had told people but no one believed her.  Her only hope was getting away from it.  So she had ran away to New Orleans.  Being on the streets was way better than being home.
            She survived by begging for spare change and sleeping where ever she could find.  She never knew where her next meal was coming from or where it would be safe to sleep.  She stuck with the other street kids, who showed her the ropes of living on the streets.  She was only fifteen and had no way to get a legitimate job.
            Joselyn found out about a place called the drop -in center for teens.  She could take showers there and wash her clothes.  They also offered a doctor once a week.  Her and her friends went every day so they could at least be clean.  Somedays there was even a meal for them.
            She did not love this lifestyle but was learning a lot about the world and life.  She had dreams that she wanted to achieve.  One day at the center, a man approached the kids.  And talked about education and how to help them get their GED.  Joselyn quickly signed up because she needed to get off the streets.
            She was excited by this new opportunity because she really wanted to go to college.  No matter what had gone on in her life, she had always wanted to go to college. Her dreams were to become a veterinarian.  She had always loved animals and was really good with them.  This would be a big step ion the right direction.  She spoke with the man a the center about getting an ID card.  He said he would help her.
            By the time her ID arrived, she was sixteen and old enough to work.  Finally a step to get off the streets.  She felt so happy.  She would show her parents and everybody she could be something, a somebody.  She soon got a job working in a gift shop.  Saving everything she earned, she soon was able to provide herself a place to live.
            Joselyn got her GED, never missing a class.  The GED center helped a lot and helped her apply for college and financial aid.  She prayed with all her heart that this would work out.  Several weeks passed and then she checked her mail one day.  The letters from the college and financial aid had arrived.  Her hands were shaking so bad she could barely unlock her door.
            She threw her things down and ripped opened the letters.  Oh mu gosh she thought as she read the letter from the college.  She had been accepted.  Next she opened the financial aid letter.  She was going to have her cost all covered.  She screamed excitedly and thanked God.
            Joselyn had pulled herself up from being an abused child to a street kid to a college student.

​

Jessie had grown up in foster care after her parent’s sudden death.  She had no family to take care of her.  No one would adopt her because she just was not what they wanted or was too old.  So when she turned eighteen, she was kicked out on the streets by the foster care system.  With no family and nowhere to go, she was on the streets.
            She knew nothing about being homeless.  Soon she made some friends with other homeless youth and they taught her how to survive the streets.  Without an address, she could not get a job.  Without a job, she could not get a place to live.  So Jessie slept in abandoned buildings at night and begged for spare change during the day.  Always praying she would make enough for food that day.  This is such a hard life she thought often.
            Jessie would have to find a job but the only places that would hire her were strip clubs.  So one day, putting her pride and embarrassment aside, she went into one.  The manager made her undress in his office so he could check her out.  He hired her and explained the rules.  She started dancing that night.  It was not her dream job she thought but maybe I will make enough money for food and a place to live.
            After two weeks of dancing, she had enough money for an apartment and to keep food in her stomach.  Dancing gave her confidence and a home.  She never prostituted herself out, like some of the other girls.  She just danced.  All for tips and forty dollars in pay a night.  It was where she met her best friend, Sasha.  Soon they were inseparable and got a place together.  This made it easier on both of them financially.
            Soon Jessie decided she wanted to go to college.  She had her high school diploma, so she went to the local community college and applied.  She did not want to be a dancer her whole life, it was just a stepping stone to a better place.
            She was accepted into college and received financial aid. But she still had to dance at night to pay her bills.  Jessie wanted to be a nurse so she could help people in their worst times.  She would keep dancing and going to school until she achieved her dream.
            She got excellent grades in college and was accepted into their nursing program.  She was going to be a RN.  She was doing it she told herself every day.  All on her own with no one’s help and the support from Sasha.  Who seemed to just want to be a dancer the rest of her life.
            Finally, the big day came.  It was graduation and Jessie was in the top of her class.  She even had an excellent paying job waiting for her.  As her name was called, she felt overjoyed by receiving her diploma.  She had pulled herself up off the streets to become a success.  Her heart was full of pride and joy.  She had never felt so happy.
           
                        

A writer, teacher, and student of the world, Jonah Kruvant began writing as an undergraduate student at Skidmore College. Originally from New Jersey, Jonah lived in Japan, China, and Costa Rica for three years, where he wrote, taught, and traveled, gaining experiences that changed his perspective and informed his writing.

Upon his return, he began his MFA program at Goddard College, where he began writing his first manuscript, which would become his first novel. The Last Book Ever Written, published by PanAm Books, is a dystopian satire set in a futuristic America.

Jonah has returned to the Garden State, where he is a middle school writing teacher, and eats a lot of pizza, though refuses to fold a slice. You can also read Jonah's work at Bewildering Stories, Fiction on the Web, Digital Americana, On the Verge, and LIMN Literary and Arts Journal. Follow his blog and get updates on his writing at www.jonahkruvant.com.

             Three rats found a home behind the cabinets of Robert Benton’s apartment. They moved from the West 4th Street subway station, replete with orange peels, potato chips, and leftover Snickers bars, on a journey that brought them through the sewers, where a fourth member met its untimely death by drowning, down the street, where they darted around the tire of a moving bus, and finally, through a hole that led into the walls of Robert’s apartment, attracted by the scent of a slice of pizza. In a sleepy state the night before, Robert had shoved the pizza box with its remaining slice into a cabinet he used for garbage, and now the rats lived behind it, determined to gnaw their way through the wall and satisfy their insatiable craving for mozzarella cheese.
          Ashley heard them first, scurrying about, and Robert dismissed his girlfriend’s concern. “This is New York, after all,” he remarked. Weeks went by and as the rats became hungrier, they became angrier, and when the maintenance man closed up the hole in which they entered, the rats became desperate, and attacked one another. For days, the rats fought ferociously, biting each other’s tails and skin, but in the end, the two that mated teamed up, defeated the third, and ate its flesh.
         Yet the remaining two rats’ desire for gratification was still unfulfilled. They sunk their teeth into the wall and slammed their bodies against it, trying to get out. The lovers may have attempted to eat each other, for their yearning for hunger was overpowering their lustful nature, if the miraculous hadn’t happened. The rats had, in fact, chewed through the wall, creating a hole wide enough for them to squeeze their fat bodies through, and moved into their new residence, Robert’s flimsy, rubber garbage bin. When Ashley, making her morning cup of coffee, went to toss the used grinds into the trash and saw the rats, she screamed, dropping her coffee mug to the floor, which shattered to pieces, crawling like insects away from her in different directions. She sprinted back into bed, where she held onto Robert like a life preserver. Robert told her he would call the exterminator and got ready to begin his day. He was running late for work.
 
Robert
            Robert stood on Fashion Avenue and watched. The traffic light was red and commuters waited for an opening to cross to the other side of the street as taxis swarmed like bees. A girl with oversized headphones and pink shoelaces stared ahead. A man in a navy blue suit and brown loafers checked the time on his phone. A fat woman spat. The man checked the time again. The rays of the sun beamed between buildings and reflected off the pavement in a spectacular display that no one noticed. Then the light turned! And so they went, toward the entrance of Penn Station. Some trotted like ponies and others darted like runners in the 100-meter dash. Men and women raced through the crowd like horses in the Kentucky Derby, except unlike racehorses, they rushed toward a finish line they could not define.
        Robert used to love the excitement of the city when he moved there from Jersey, its aliveness, its activity and ceaseless energy, but more often than not these days, the frenzy of the city he once felt compelled to would envelop him; it was as if the entire city was inside his body, its pulse his throbbing heart. He kept seeing visions of the cross behind his teacher’s desk at Catholic school, recalling her speaking of integrity and humility, and felt a deep longing to give up his job in real estate and pursue a life of service, far from the bright lights and city streets. But as quickly and unexpectedly as these memories appeared, they’d vanish. He had already established a respectable career and had promotions to earn. He couldn’t disappoint his parents. Yet at unforeseen moments like this, a strange feeling would creep up inside him, as if an integral part of him was being lost.
            Robert rushed across the street. Walking beside him was a short girl in her mid-twenties with straight blond hair that bounced off her ruby red sweater. She was as swift as a stallion and as determined as a lion on the hunt. After maneuvering his way between two newspaper salesmen, Robert collided with her, and his briefcase fell out of his hand and onto her right foot.
            “OWWWGRRRAAAH!” the girl shouted.
            “I’m sorry,” Robert said, picking up his briefcase. “Are you OK?”
            “I’ll be fine,” she said through clenched teeth, holding her foot with her hand.
            Robert checked his watch. “I’m going to miss my train. I really must be going.”
            “GO then!” she shouted back, glaring at him with intense emerald green eyes.
         “Sorry,” Robert muttered and went on his way. What else could he do? He would have made more of an effort to help her if he didn’t have a train to catch! He could feel his heart murmur beating extraordinarily fast—a condition that he developed in the years following college—the entire train ride to his office in Secaucus, New Jersey, and even as he sat at his desk, precisely at 9:00. Robert worked for a top residential real estate broker and had three deals he was working on. He spent the morning making phone calls, posting listings online, and periodically updating his fantasy football team when his boss wasn’t looking. He also found his mind wandering to images of his girlfriend. With striking blue eyes, short brown hair, and a muscular build, Robert Benton could woo almost any girl, and Ashley was his prize. He didn’t need anyone but her with her flowing chestnut brown curls, and long tan thin legs. Robert didn’t even look at girls with meat on their bones, he realized, as an advertisement for Maxim appeared on Facebook with a thin blond on its cover. It was then that his thoughts were interrupted by a call on his cell from an unknown number.
             “Hello. My name is Kate Leffenbery. My friend gave me your number. She went to school with Ashley. I’m looking for an apartment in downtown Manhattan.” There was something in this girl’s voice—the professional tone with an underlying innocence—that made Robert’s heart flutter.
            “I can help you with that. If you’d like, we can meet for coffee and discuss
your options some time this week—”
            “How about this evening? My lease is up next Thursday and I want out. How
about six at Starbuck’s across from the Whole Foods at Union Square?”
            “Wow, you mean business. I have to say…you sound kind of familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?” It was a line Robert often used with women. Except this time, it was true.
           “You sound familiar too. What college did you go to?”
            “Villanova. Class of 2009.”
            “NYU, 2011. I guess not. 6:00 then?”
            “Sounds good. You know,” Robert went on, with a brief hesitation, “you sound cute, Katie.”
            “Thanks,” she replied, with a slight chuckle. “But it’s Kate.”
 
        Robert sprinted to make the 5:10 train from Secaucus station so he could arrive at Starbuck’s early to secure a table for his meeting with Kate. She texted him, saying she was wearing a red sweater so he could recognize. When he got off the train at Penn Station, Robert faced commuter traffic, rushing toward him like a stampede. A military veteran asked for spare change, but Robert didn’t have time; he had to make it to Herald Square to make the next subway, which the app on his phone said was in nine minutes. He needed to make that subway, you see, because if he did, this extra client would impress his bosses, and if he could secure the deal, he could earn a promotion to associate broker, which would make his parents happy, plus he’d get a raise, and then he could move into one of those nice apartments on Park Avenue and even get a second home in California eventually; ah, the weather there—wouldn’t that be the life?
            Robert couldn’t help his head from spinning with thoughts like these while he rode the subway. He put on his headphones to listen to music that could put his mind at ease. He chose Led Zeppelin, and as it blared in his ears, he attempted to beat Zombieville 4 on his iPhone. He looked at the woman sitting next to him, who was reading a novel, and realized he couldn’t remember the last time he held a book in his hands that wasn’t work related. The last time he tried he ended up reading the same page over again five times.
         He arrived at Starbuck’s fifteen minutes before six and sat at a table near the entrance. He took out his MacBook Pro and set it next to his coffee, his third cup of the day. He usually drank two, but with a new client, it was good to be on his game, and this girl intrigued him though he couldn’t explain why.
           Robert would not actually cheat on Ashley, he assured himself. He would never do anything with any of his clients (not to say he hadn’t before). Still, a little innocent flirting didn’t harm anyone. Besides, he hadn’t even seen this girl. It was absurd to think of her in this way—his heart began to flutter—when he didn’t know what she looked like--
            “Oh, great.”
            Kate stood over him, peering down with those intense green eyes.
            “It’s you. Un—fucking—believable.”
            “Oh…hi. You—. Wow. I knew I recognized you! Ha ha…”     Robert forced a laugh but Kate just continued to stare down at him. “I’ll be right back,” she said, shaking her head with a superficial smile, before limping to the drink line. Robert put his head in his hands, muttering aloud, “Oh, man.”
            When Kate returned to the table with her cappuccino, she sat across from
him and quipped, “My foot’s fine, thanks for asking.”
            “I’m really sorry about that. I was running late for work and…I’m just really sorry.”
            “Water under the bridge. Get me the apartment of my dreams and you can make it up to me.”
         Robert smiled. “You’ve got a deal. I have the listings right here. You said downtown? Take a look.” He shifted his laptop so she could see the screen.
            “Mind if I?” she asked, placing her hand on the keys of the computer, hastily brushing her pinky against the side of his thumb.
             He studied the features of her face while she scrolled through the listings and then began his memorized rant, “We have to move fast with these. The best apartments go first. Let’s start discussing exactly what it is you want. One bedroom or studio? What is your price range? Whatever it is you are looking for, I will find it for you. Who’s your guarantor? Your parents?”
            Kate went stiff. “I don’t need my parents.”
            “I feel you on that,” Robert replied with a smirk.
“I want this one.”
            “That’s a very nice apartment. And Prince is a great street.”
            “Can we see it tomorrow at nine AM?”
            “Nine on a Saturday?”
            “Is that too early for you?”
 Robert gulped. “Not at all. I’ll see you then.”
            “See you,” she said, standing. Robert scanned her body as she headed toward the door. He couldn’t remember the last time a girl took so little interest in him, and was so decisive about things…and he liked it. She was thin and a blonde too; he had to say something before she walked out that door-  “Hey, Kate.”
            “Mm hm?” she replied, turning back toward him, the long strains of her hair covering half her face.
            “You look cute too.”
            Kate rolled her eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
         Robert felt accomplished when he got back to his apartment. He had arranged four showings for the weekend. And the sight of Ashley relaxing on his couch in her yellow sorority T-shirt (Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pi) and mesh shorts made him stir. They gorged on pizza and beer while watching the Knicks game; after a hard day’s work, Robert deserved it. Yet even while just sitting on the couch, he could feel his heart going a mile a minute. When they finished eating, Ashley rested her head on Robert’s chest and noticed it too.
            “Are you all right?” she asked.
            “Yep. I could use another beer though. That always helps.”
            “I know—” she hesitated. “I know you don’t like when I bring this up, but
maybe you should get it checked out again.”
        “So the doctor can tell me I have high cholesterol and to stop eating cheese? I
will never EVER stop eating cheese.”
         “Talking about cheese, you forgot to call the exterminator.”
        “Oh, shit. I had to meet a new client after work…”
          “Is that what’s causing this?”
          “The new client? Ha ha, no.”
          “No…work.”
          “Oh. No, I’m telling you, I had a great day. I arranged four showings.”
          “You say that, but having to deal with unthankful clients and the not knowing if you’re going to get a commission…all I’m saying is not to stress about it too much, baby. It does you no good.”
        “I’ve heard this speech before,” Robert replied, before continuing in a Jamaican accent. “Be laaaid back like the Rastafa. Yah, man. Just cheeell on the beach and go surfing. That’s the life, man.”
          “I’m from San Diego. We don’t speak like that. And I’m not staying I didn’t stress out there, but I did find that the ocean and slow pace relaxed me. I just don’t like seeing you this way. What happened to the man who was so excited about his new job he came home after his first day of work, uncorked a bottle of champagne, and danced with me to Benny Goodman ‘til the break of dawn?”
         “’Cause I’m pretty much thirty now, and I’ve realized that it’s a job. Everything seems better when you first start it.”
        “So what if it’s a job? I love being a social worker. I just want you to like what you do.”
         Robert gave a long sigh. He looked at his girlfriend, two strands of hair outlining her pretty face and eyes that examined his with such genuine concern, and he couldn’t help but melt a little inside and admit to himself that maybe there was something to what she was saying.
            As he was prone to do, however, he brushed his uncomfortable feelings aside, and immersed himself in something else—this time, the Knicks game. It was during an important play in the fourth quarter that his mother called and left a message. He’d call her back later. The Knicks won and with the win and the success at work, it was a fulfilling day. To top it off, he had methodical sex—but still sex—with his girlfriend, and the rapidity of his heart slowed, and he fell right asleep. 
         In the middle of the night, Robert made his way to the bathroom, and on the way back, he heard something in the kitchen. He approached the cabinets, where Ashley had stashed the two remaining half-eaten slices of pizza, and though the next day he would think of it as a dream, he thought he heard squeaking from the flimsy, rubber garbage bin, and then a sniff.
 
Kate
            Kate was furious at the dude who smashed her toes. She limped all the way through Penn Station and barely made it on time to her nine AM conference call. When the call ended at 9:45, and she finally had a chance to excuse herself to the bathroom to attend to her injury, her throbbing toes had turned purple. She hadn’t been working at this PR firm very long and didn’t want to show any form of weakness in front of her boss, so she walked on them as if nothing happened, despite the pain, vowing to herself that she’d ice them as soon as she got home from work.
            She could have called Erin, of course. Kate’s sister was a doctor and she could’ve told her what to do. Their parents were visiting Erin that weekend. They visited her more often than Kate, and she lived all the way in Chicago. It was no surprise, really—they  always favored their older daughter with her straight A’s and Princeton degree. But Kate would make something of herself soon enough. They would see.
           Her toes were killing her, and it was all caused by the man she was entrusting to get her an apartment. When she saw Robert through the glass pane at Starbuck’s, she was about to leave him there when she realized something. Even though this guy not offering to help her was an unsympathetic and uncaring display, it did show, in a strange way, that he had his priorities straight.
            Besides, when she sat with him, she couldn’t help but become attracted to him—those sky blue eyes, and the confidence he conveyed over the phone. She brushed her hand against his finger on the keyboard, but he didn’t seem to notice.  He kept hitting on her though, and she could use this—as well as the toe incident—to pay him a lower commission.
            It was her freshman year college roommate’s birthday party that night, and she had to attend. When she got back to her Murray Hill apartment, she didn’t have time to prepare the chicken she bought the day before, so she ordered a salad. With what happened to her toes, she had an excuse to order in and escape into an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. She was looking online to see what she should do for her foot when the doorbell rang. She snatched up her wallet, flipped through the bills to find enough change for the tip, and by the time she was back on the couch, she had, without realizing it, put ice on her toes, and had forgotten about the Internet search. Even as she picked at the lettuce and tomatoes, she couldn’t stop her mind from buzzing.
          At first, she found herself fantasizing about the apartment. From the pictures she viewed on Robert’s computer, she imagined a kitchen with new sleek metal  cabinets that shone and had handles that were so cool to the touch they made your body quiver the first time you held them. And the bedroom was the largest she had ever had with a window that looked out onto Prince Street in the heart of Soho, where she could observe the shoppers with their heavy bags and tourists with their long gazes during the day and ponder the empty streets at night. Where she could feel the pulse of the city.
            Kate finished her salad, threw on her red sweater, and left to the party. It was at Blind Tiger, a small space, but one of the best beer bars in the city. When Samantha saw Kate limping toward the bar for a drink, she widened her large brown eyes and exclaimed, “Kaaatie!!” They hugged. As Kate took off her jacket and slung it over a chair, she felt the stares of men from across the bar, something she learned to tune out years ago.
        “So this is Kate?” one of Samantha’s friends asked. “You two look so alike.”
       So they said. Kate recalled how other students at NYU—and even professors—thought she and Samantha were sisters. They’d remark what a coincidence it was that they were selected as roommates, both short with a childlike enthusiasm and long blond hair. The only discernable difference between the two was that Samantha’s hair was untamed and curly, while Kate kept her hair straight.
         Kate laughed when Samantha’s friend said that. She always found comparisons between the roommates absurd, because the two were, in fact, nothing alike. Kate grew up in an affluent Connecticut suburb with a father who was the boss of a title insurance company and a mother who was a successful fashion designer; Samantha was raised at a bed and breakfast her mother managed in a small town in Vermont. Kate would drink but refused to experiment with drugs and had one boyfriend throughout college; Samantha would try anything and everything and claimed she preferred being single. Yet they connected. Samantha introduced Kate to Phish and craft beer; on the last day of summer and Samantha’s first day in New York, Kate borrowed her father’s Audi convertible and drove the wide-eyed Vermonter around the city, showing her the skyscrapers of Manhattan for the first time.
      “What happened??” Samantha asked, looking down at Kate’s foot. “Tell me everything.”
            Kate ordered a drink and described it in detail to Samantha, finding herself
speaking easily to her friend, even though she hadn’t seen her in months.
            “What a d-bag,” Samantha remarked when Kate had finished. “That boy should have walked you to your train and made sure you were all right. What happened to doing the right thing for a stranger?”
            “Oh, Samantha, this is New York, but I love your small town notions. Never
change. So now the guy keeps texting me. I can’t get rid of him!”
            “Oh no! When I want to get rid of a guy for good, sometimes I’ll turn off my phone for the night. This way I’m not even tempted to respond.”
            “That’s a good idea.”
           
          ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ began playing and Samantha sang along with its chorus.
            “How is the internship at the literary agency?” Kate asked.
            Samantha frowned. “I work at a graphic design firm now.”
            “And the book?”
Samantha put her finger to her lips. “Sh…it’s getting there but don’t tell anyone else about it. I don’t want to jinx the thing, you know. I haven’t actually signed anything…but they’re planning on printing 5,000 copies!”
            The two of them jumped up and down and shrieked excitedly. Yet as Samantha’s high-pitched laughter faded away, the guitar riff from ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ seemed oddly out of place as Samantha sipped her IPA. Kate tried to gage the expression on Samantha’s face, but her friend was looking down at the hoppy beer as she swallowed and didn’t stop drinking until Kate turned away.
            “Are you writing at all?” Samantha asked.
          “I don’t have the time or energy, unfortunately. In PR, your work is you life.”
         Two friends of Samantha came up to her and Kate went to join a conversation  with some other people from college she hadn’t seen in a while. One of them, Steven, with his boyish smiling face, squeezed her tightly when he hugged her. They had been friendly in college but not that friendly. He bought her a drink and asked her questions about her job.
            “And what do you do?” she asked.
            “I’m on Wall Street and it’s crushing my soul.”
            Kate laughed. “Well, it’s very lucrative.”
           Her phone buzzed. It was a text message from her sister with a picture of her and their parents having dinner. Her sister with that smug smile, the way their dad held her close…She deleted the photo. Her parents looked so damn proud.
And what if they saw Kate right then? She had to sober up. How had she gotten so drunk? Always with Samantha. She interrupted Steven, saying, “I really have to go,” took one final gulp of beer, and approached Samantha.
“I have an appointment tomorrow morning so I really better be going.”
“An appointment?”
“Why is it that every time I see you I get so drunk?” she blurted out.
            Samantha’s friends looked at Kate.
            “We can meet for brunch next time…”
            “Yes, let’s. Have a good birthday, Samantha. Thanks for inviting me.” Kate zipped up her jacket and headed to the door.
            “Of course…” Samantha uttered as Kate left the bar. It was cold outside on
Bleecker Street; it felt to Kate as if the bitter November air was rising from the pavement and seeping into her bones. Her bare cheeks felt frozen and she shivered as she lifted her hand in the air to hail down a taxi.
            When she got back to her apartment, she bundled up in a sweatshirt and sweatpants. She sighed in relief as she rested her head on her pillow, looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
            She didn’t get it. The honking horns of Second Avenue blared outside her window. And then her mind started racing. How had she gotten that drunk so quickly?

        She had been talking to Steven for awhile without even realizing it, ugh she wished she had given him her number….God, her mind was always buzzing, it wasn’t this bad before she moved to the city…Why did Samantha have to bring up her writing? She should’ve known Kate didn’t write anymore. It was true though; she missed it and never came up with any short story ideas. Shit, Kate. She didn’t even like her job. She needed a steady paycheck though and a job was a job and man was payday sweet. She wanted a nicer apartment in a better neighborhood and to pay Manhattan rent…Kate entered that state that is partly awake but half-asleep, and she began to dream. One day she would move back to the suburbs in Connecticut to one of those big houses with manicured lawns with a husband with a respectable career and a boy and a girl and a labradoodle. Her parents would drop by often for dinner. On summer nights, she’d go into the backyard in her bare feet, the grass sliding between her toes, and she’d marvel at the sky. She couldn’t even remember the last time she looked up and saw the stars.
 
Samantha
            Samantha’s alarm went off at 6:45. She sat up slowly, reached her arms up, and tilted her head back so her gaze met a crack in the ceiling and streeeetched! She rolled over, shifting her weight onto her hip, and then—plop!—she fell off the bed and onto her yoga mat. She did a few cat-cows before up she went into down dog, where she remained, splaying out her fingers and feeling the extension in her lower back as she stared down at her royal purple mat and took three loooong deep breaths. She dragged her hair along the mat and let her body hang for a few moments before gradually coming up to stand, one vertebrae at a time, and as the blood rushed back to her head, she clasped her hands together and let her eyelids rest as she looked out the window at the morning light.
          Samantha liked to write in the transitional state between sleep and awareness. She found that ideas came more freely then, the imagination less inhibited, her thoughts flowing like water, inspiration more likely to percolate to the surface of her conscious mind. The moment she sat at her desk, she became Peter. Peter had large brown eyes, a short beard, and was a poet, insecure and judgmental, but wounded, and desperately seeking his place in the world. Though Peter strove
to be a respected writer, he also sought inner peace, loving nothing more than to
meditate and become one with his art and the universe.
         Carolyn Matkinson wanted Peter to cheat on his wife. The publisher from Simon & Schuster who was working with Samantha on her book at first suggested, then nudged, and finally insisted that Samantha amp up the conflict in her novel; books with illicit affairs were selling more than ever these days. Samantha wrote Confessions of a Dreamer to seek hidden truths, and to her, conveying Peter as a poet who was authentic to his craft was the greatest gift she could give to her readers. There was no need to inflate and sensationalize her narrative if Peter’s inner turmoil came across honestly on the page. It was the vividness of Samantha’s language that captured Carolyn’s attention in the first place, and Samantha knew that Carolyn felt she was a hidden talent. Yet Carolyn had not sent Samantha a contract, and Samantha feared that if she didn’t make the changes Carolyn suggested, Carolyn would renege on their verbal agreement, and Samantha would be right back where she was before, an aspiring, unpublished author, sending unsolicited manuscripts to be evaluated by hung over twenty-year-old interns.
            Peter began fantasizing about another woman, a French waitress who flirted with him at a local café in Brooklyn, and decided to write a poem about her. He left the café to Prospect Park, where he found a secluded bench, took out his green ballpoint pen and brown leather notebook and began to write. Thirty minutes passed and Peter rose from the bench, the wind whipping the pages of his notebook. He started to walk down the gravel path to his apartment, pushing against the wind with every step. Then he stopped walking, turned around, and considered moving with the wind, back to the café to see the waitress.
        Samantha closed her computer. She put on The White Album as she got dressed for work, glancing in the mirror at the small azure blue and parking cone orange butterfly tattoo below her belly button ring. By the time “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” had come to an end, she was sipping her coffee, slurping her Kashi cereal, and on the phone with her mother.
            “Hi Mom.”
            “Happy Birthday! I just returned from my walk with Jack and am sipping my hot cocoa.”
            “Aww,” Samantha said, plunging the spoon into her cereal and coming up with raisins and granola. “How is my little puppy?”
            “He’s the best. You know how much I enjoy walking with him in the woods.”
“Oh, man. I miss the Vermont air. There’s something not…natural about living in
a place like this.”
            “All you can do is make the best of it. How’s the editing going?”
            “That’s why I called you. The thing is, Mom, I can’t bring myself to take one of the publisher’s suggestions. You know I’ve always wanted to be published and this isn’t the sort of opportunity to pass up but I don’t want to write something into my book just so it sells better. I’m meeting her this afternoon after work—she had to reschedule to meet me—to discuss the edits and hopefully the paperwork. What do
you think I should do?”
            “Hm. That’s a tough decision. I wonder if there’s some sort of middle ground. But this is up to you. You’re twenty-seven now. It’s time you made you own decisions.”
          “Of course I make my own decisions! This is important and I don’t know what to do…” Samantha trailed off. What would Peter do if it were his book? Peter was too
authentic; he’d never write a cliché. He wasn’t a cliché as her publisher snidely remarked…
           “Have you decided on a new apartment yet?”
          “My top choice is one on Prince Street in Soho. I have to go into the office this morning, so I asked my broker to secure it for me.”
             “Are you sure you don’t want to be there for that?”
           “I have work, and if I don’t get this place, it’s not like there aren’t thousands of other nice apartments in this city. Besides, this broker is a real ball-buster. She’ll get it done.”
            “OK sweetie. Let me know how the meeting goes.”
            “Thanks, Mom.” Samantha hung up the phone. She gazed into her empty bowl for a moment, pondering if Peter would move with the wind or against it. Then she poured the rest of her coffee in her to-go mug and checked her posture as she slid her backpack onto her shoulders. She softly hummed “Dear Prudence” as she left her apartment and entered the dirty but familiar hallway with its scent of rice and beans, which reminded Samantha of Lajambra, Colombia, where she studied Spanish for two years. The smell was coming from her super’s apartment, and she licked her lips as she passed the old wooden door with the silver number 3. She always gave herself fifteen extra minutes in the morning, so she had plenty of time to catch the subway from the Morgan Avenue stop in Bushwick.
           By the time Samantha got to her track, the subway was leaving and instead of hurrying to squeeze between the two doors before they closed, she just waited for the next one. She never understood why New Yorkers rushed so much. She’d rather enjoy each moment life had to offer. She believed that this was a universal truth and she had to express it to the world through her writing. As her yoga teacher said, “The past is dead, the future imagined, so there was no reason to worry about either, because all we can do is enjoy the here and now.” Not everyone had to be a relaxed yogi Vermonter like her, she knew, but so many of her friends seemed to let the city envelop them, without doing right for themselves, let alone other people. They were so wrapped up in work and their future that they had lost touch with their values, and everything was a crisis. Except for life and death situations, Samantha believed, nothing is as important as it seems.
            If only she could find a guy who felt the same way. In time, Samantha thought. In time.
          She put on her headphones and jammed out to The White Album: Disc One for the rest of the ride.
            It was during one of the dull moments of the late morning, which Samantha hated, where her boss retreated to his office and her coworkers with nothing to do went on Youtube, that Samantha found herself on Facebook. She clicked through photos of her party and when she came across a photo of her and Kate, she remembered how drunk Kate got, texted her, and clicked on her profile. It was there that she saw that Robert Benton was one of their mutual friends. She went to his profile and sighed. Not good enough for him either.
            “Isn’t that the guy you made out with at Ali’s party?” It was Molly, whose wart on her chin was so close to Samantha’s ear, it nearly grazed it.
            “And I wanted to.” 
       Molly crumpled up her nose, causing the wart to fold under a piece of skin. Samantha knew she was a prude. She could have fun with this.
         “He was looking hot and I let him approach me and eventually he made the move, and then…” Samantha stopped.
           “And then…?”
           “Well, you know the rest.”
      Molly grunted and walked away, disappointed she wasn’t getting any juicy details. Samantha grinned but then a thought hit her and her smile faded. Typical readers
like to read about sex, and if she added a few sexy details to her book, she’d attract more readers and sign that contract…No. Peter wouldn’t have an affair. She never envisioned that. Peter was an authentic artist and wouldn’t be influenced by the masses, and she wouldn’t either.
       But then again, an opportunity to be published with Simon and Schuster doesn’t come every day.
         At around 1:00, Samantha left work to her apartment. She wanted to get at least an hour of writing in before her meeting with the publisher. When her fingers started typing, Peter would tell her which way to turn.
         As she walked up the stairs of her apartment building with her headphones on, the voice of Paul McCarthy singing, “you know you’ll have a good time!” became obscured by a high-pitched scream. And then she smelled it. It was unlike anything she had ever smelled before:  a sickening scent tinged with sweetness, like rotting meat sprinkled with a few drops of cheap perfume. It was coming from her super’s apartment.
           The super’s wife was shouting hysterically in Spanish. From what Samantha
could understand, the woman was reporting un cuerpo to 9-1-1. Then the wooden
door swung open, the silver number 3 swinging back and forth like a pendulum as Isabella, her eyes bulging, rushed into the hallway. Samantha looked past her, peering into the apartment where the stench was coming from, and there, on the floor, was her super.
            He can’t be dead, Samantha thought.
            “You speak Espanish! Ayudame!” The woman held out her phone toward
Samantha’s ear.
            For an instant, Samantha couldn’t help feeling the urge to bolt down the stairs and escape the situation. Her body even shifted, her feet turning toward the top step. Plus she had to get to that meeting. But instead, she took a deep breath and said:
            “Is this 9-1-1?”
            “Yes, ma’am.”
            “A man is…” She looked at her super. His head rested against a wall and his eyes were open, staring vacantly up at the ceiling. “Dead. Or close to it. Come immediately!”
            “What is your name and phone number?”
            “My what?” Could she get the blame for this? “Samantha Nelson. 917-969-2112. I won’t be here though. It will be Isabella Fuentes in apartment 3. Are you coming??”
            “Yes, we’ve tracked your address. We’re on our way.”
            “It will be OK,” Samantha said, handing the phone back to Isabella. “Ellos vienen.”
            Samantha felt as if she was suffocating. She darted down the stairs until she was out of the building and sitting on her front steps. Only then could she breathe.
The cool air helped her digest what had happened. It wasn’t the first dead body she had seen (her father passed when she was four, and she still remembered his body in the open casket at the funeral) but she was seriously freaked out. She breathed deeply, like she did during yoga, and it helped to calm her. She managed to stand and then slowly began to walk. The bum on her block, the basketball courts with their broken nets, the empty lot with grass covering the pavement—everything looked otherworldly to her; nothing seemed right.
            As Samantha made her way back to her apartment, she heard the blaring of a police siren, and when she turned the corner onto her block, she could make out the blinking red and blue lights reflecting off the ash gray walls of her apartment building. She put her hands to her ears to muffle the noise, walked up the staircase, and stopped at the old wooden door with the silver number 3.
            The police questioned Samantha, and by the time they let her go, when they confirmed that her super had died of natural causes, Carolyn Matkinson had consumed two chai lattés. She informed Samantha of this over the telephone. But she also understood when Samantha explained to her what had happened, and they rescheduled for the next day.
            Just as Samantha was about to collapse from exhaustion, she heard a knock at the door. It was Isabella.
            “I’m so sorry for all this,” she said.
            “I’m sorry for your loss.”
            “Gracias. It was shocking. But I am OK.”
           “It’s amazing how well you’re taking it.”
          “Si, because he died peacefully. My husband loved to work with wood and he didn’t worry. He was a simple man but he knew what made him happy. I’ll have to show you some of his furniture some time.”
            “I’d like that. I really would.”
           “I saved every dollar yo tengo to have his body shipped back to the Dominican Republic to be buried with his familia. Now I don’t have much money but this is what he would have wanted. How do you say compromiso en English?”
            Samantha paused. “Compromise,” she said.
“Si, eso. I made a compromise.”
            Samantha said good night, closed the door, and went into her room. She put her fingers on the keyboard and typed.
           
The Rats
            Kate loved the apartment. Although the old-fashioned oak cabinets didn’t exactly shine, and the view from the bedroom looked out onto a garbage dump in the back of the building, the bedroom was even larger than she imagined, and she would kill for that location. The landlord told her that there was another person interested who hadn’t committed yet and what she needed from Kate was a deposit; when she heard that, she bolted down the stairs, ran to the closest Chase Bank, and got on an unusually long line to get the money order.
            As she waited, she received a text from Samantha, “How ya feelin?”
            She immediately replied, her pupils darting back and forth at super speed as her fingers typed, “Got too drunk last night. Can’t do that anymore.”
            In the meantime, Robert went to the nearest bagel shop and prepared the
paperwork. As he watched people on the street going from store to store, he couldn’t stop thinking about what his girlfriend had said the night before. All the stress he felt having to chase down clients, arranging showings, and then the not knowing if they’d use him instead of some other broker, or even craigslist—this was his job, he knew, but was it worth it? His heart wouldn’t stop pounding against his chest! He was sick of it all. Of giving into every temptation. Of leading the life that people told him was good. An ad hung on the window of a fashion model—blonde and skinny, the type he’d been told was hot. Sometimes he didn’t feel like he was really living anymore. It was as if he was acting out the motions, his only joy a slice of pizza or an orgasm. He had to quit his job and get out of this city, its honking horns like alarms that never stop going off. He took one last bite of his bacon, egg, and cheese, automatically looked through his phone in an attempt to distract himself from his thoughts, and was reminded about the voicemail from his mother. He figured he might as well listen.
            “This is your mother. Your father and I can’t believe you let that deal slip through your fingers. We’re very disappointed in you, Robert. Laziness is a curse. You’re nearly thirty and not even an associate broker! You’re a Benton. Your father
owned his own house and business by age thirty. Make us proud.”
            Robert erased all previous thoughts from his mind. Kate was coming inside and he had to get her that apartment.
            As Kate sat down to fill out the paperwork, she got another text message from Samantha, saying, “Oh no. Hungover lol?” She put her phone away and concentrated on the lease.
            Robert went to buy Kate a cappuccino, and by the time he was back at their table, Kate was ready to roll. With a swig of her coffee, she exclaimed, “let’s go!” and grabbed Robert by the wrist, pulling him out the door. Robert looked down at her hand and grinned. Maybe he was in the right business after all.
            As they went down Prince Street to the apartment, Robert and Kate saw a woman about their age walking toward them. She was wearing an indigo turtleneck and gray dress pants with her hair tied back. As they came closer, they found themselves looking at each other with suspicious eyes, Kate peering into the woman’s dark beady pupils. And then her gaze fell to the woman’s clipboard. She held a check, and Kate recognized that signature:  Samantha Nelson.
In that moment, they all realized what was happening, and Kate, who couldn’t walk fast because of her toes, made a noise at Robert that sounded like a growl from a lion, “GOOOOO!!” With that, Robert started to run, and so did the woman, and they both reached the apartment’s entrance at the same time and--
            Robert wanted to hesitate. To conduct this as civilly as humanly possible. But every bone in his body told him no, to get up those stairs first—to beat her. So he shoved her aside, just slightly so she wouldn’t fall but enough so he could get by, and then he raced up the stairs through the entrance door. He made it, or so he thought, for the woman had leaped over the stairs behind him and before he knew it, her hands were on his back, pushing him to the ground.
            He bounded back to his feet like a cat but the woman was in front of him now and she was faster than him. They scrambled up the stairs. He was directly behind her and the heels of her shoes were in reaching distance. He grabbed her right foot and pulled her back down to the ground. He jumped over her to the top step.
        There was the landlord, waiting by the apartment door. He started to walk toward her when he heard a grunting behind him. He turned to see the other broker. Her turtleneck was stretched and there was blood oozing into her pants above her right knee.
        “Shit,” Robert said. He snatched the paperwork from the broker’s hand and handed it to the landlord. As he walked past the broker on his way out, he could see her trying to hide a smile.
            “There was nothing I could do,” he said to Kate when he got outside.
Kate just stood there in a state of disbelief, and then her fury emerged, and all she wanted to do was slap him.
          “You’re fired!” she shouted, turning away from him and marching down the street as fast as she could.  She turned back around to say, “And I’ll send you the doctor’s bill for my toes!” She stomped a bit further and then turned again, proclaiming, “And you suck!” Robert waited for her to turn around again but she didn’t. The tears were starting to form in her eyes.
           Kate got another text from Samantha just then, which read, “You ok, girl?” She pressed down on the power button and turned off her phone.
Robert walked down Prince Street in a daze. He couldn’t believe he had stooped so low. A vision reemerged of his Catholic school teacher, speaking of loving others; he felt the longing that stirred inside him then. That’s it, he thought, I’m quitting.
          “This isn’t who I want to be.”
         His pace slowed then. In fact, though he couldn’t explain it, his heartbeat had slowed down too. He meandered onto MacDougal and then crossed Houston into Greenwich Village. He thought about stopping for a coffee at Café Reggio, where some dude with a brown leather notebook was chatting up a waitress. But he decided he wanted a falafel—well, more like three—from Mamoun’s. The line was too long there so he went to the Olive Tree Café instead.
         Robert didn’t even hear the hostess greet him when he came inside. The dim
lights and black and white movie playing gave him a strange feeling that he was in an earlier era. Robert had been to the Olive Tree before, but it looked different this time. He hadn’t noticed that the restaurant had a distinct smell, an unusual fusion of paprika, garlic, and zatar. At one of the tables sat two children, who drew pictures of animals with colored chalk; he had never even realized that there were pieces of chalk in small glass jars on the tables. After ordering his food, he observed the playful expressions on the children’s faces and studied the paintings on the wall. He didn’t feel the need to go anywhere, or do anything, and it gave him an enormous sense of relief.
            As he ate the Mediterranean platter, he watched the movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” He was mesmerized by it. In Norman Bates, he saw a man clearly messed up in the head, yet also a boy who never grew up, who was stuck in the motel and couldn’t get out, trapped inside that place and inside himself. He was trapped by his mother. In the scene where Norman’s mother shouted at him, Robert stopped eating. The baba ganoush on his tongue tasted chunky and the low ceilings and garlicky scent began to suffocate him. Norman’s mother’s shrill voice rang out in Robert’s ears and he couldn’t hear anything else. He dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and left the restaurant.
            With images from “Psycho” in his head, Robert made his way back to his
apartment. His parents gave him everything he wanted, he realized, but they wanted something in return. They expected him to be successful in the way that society dictated—in the way they wanted. He felt like a rat in an experiment, his parents the
scientists engineering him according to how they saw the world. But he wasn’t a rat. He could question. He could change.
            When he got back to his apartment building, he propped open the entrance door. His apartment was the closest one to the entrance. He propped open the door to his apartment too. The scent of pizza was lingering in the kitchen. He took the pizza box and brought it outside, where he laid it on the ground and opened it, exposing the remaining half-eaten slices to the cool breeze, the top of the box swaying back and forth in the wind.
          He came back into his apartment and approached the cabinet that held the rats. He placed his fingers around its handle. In one swift motion, he opened the cabinet door.                                                
 

Catherine writes because she can't not write. Her fiction, nonfiction and poetry has appeared in Torrid Anthology, All Things Girl, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Anti-Heroin Chic, 100 Voices Anthology, Carlow Literary Journal, When Women Waken, and other places that she can't remember right now. She lives in Pittsburgh with her cat Daisy.

         Talia causes me great resentment. A schizophrenic, she sets up foam cups pointing from the TV to the bookcase on the other side of the lounge, then stands there watching, waiting for a laser beam. She is friends with everyone on the unit; I think this is what bothers me the most. Sitting at one of the tables in the lounge, they laugh and talk about people, about me. She shoots me dirty looks for no reason. I have no empathy in my heart when she falls victim to her disease, screaming about the voices that tell her to kill the purple frogs jumping around her. I snicker and stand in her doorway smiling, watching her descent into madness with glee, knowing that she got hers.
           When Talia gallops by me, which she does every morning at 3 am, I stick out my foot and trip her. Her hands take the blunt. Talia gets up and I do the same with evil gracing my lips.
            “You tripped me, bitch!” Her hands move to slap me. I assume the fighters stance my Grandpa taught me a thousand years ago. Before her hand gets a foot from my face, I clock her in the nose – blood surges everywhere. Talia screams very loud. I would if someone had just broken my nose. Instantly, I put my arms around her, oh, help my friend please, I just popped her with my fist.
            Techs leak from the walls and quickly race her off to the nurse’s station. Dirty looks apply as their necks crane to look back at me. Two techs that didn’t haul her screaming ass to the nurse’s station tell me to go to my room. I go, hoping that obedience will get me off the hook. I sit on my plastic bed. Crunch. I can feel my madness circling me like sharks. I put my feet up; my bed is sinking. I stand on it. God, not again. Why do they come? I’ve never even been to the ocean. Mom went with her boyfriends and left me with the strangers next door. It didn’t matter who they were. They (not all) were bad. One neighbor had two kids and they took us all to the zoo. So many animals! I’d never seen a real tiger. They were big and exquisite with that slow walk and penetrating eyes, I never saw the biggest cat blink once.
The sharks will bite, rip, eat pieces of me, in front of everyone. While I’m standing on my bed, trying not to be eaten, two techs infect my room.
            “Talia says you punched her, Lauren.” They stand just inside my doorway with arms folded and feet apart, a wall, from which there is no escape.
            “NO! She tried to slap me! So, yeah, I punched her!” I say this way too loud.
            “How did she fall?”
            “I don’t FUCKING know! She runs around day and night! She tripped, I would think!” Can’t they see what’s swimming around under me? Can’t the see the fins zipping by just under the mattress?
            “Her nose is badly broken.” Seeing what is happening to me, their voices relax, but their physical position strengthens.
            “I don’t FUCKING care.” My face is hot; my mouth filled with spit like I’m going to barf.
            “Why are you standing on your bed, Lauren?”
            What a stupid question, “Sharks! Everywhere! Don’t you see them?”
            As they try to heave me off my bed, I kick as hard as I can, my foot nails one of the techs in the side of his face (unfortunately, it's Fred, he is the only one I like.). I know where I’m headed, the strapless bra room, I like to call it. I am required to jump around as they restrain my arms and legs. It takes a while. I am young and strong. Here comes Nurse Nancy with a big shot. Ouch. She can be rough. Three minutes later I begin to sink, my mind quiets, the sharks swim away, not willing to bite someone they can’t scare.
            I am at the bottom of the sea, floating, the water is thicker down here, more like gel. Strange fish slowly flutter by me, stopping to eyeball me, then continuing on. I am still. Breathing is unnecessary, the fluid fills my lungs. I am not drowning, just quiet, quiet. It is my wish to remain here for the rest of my life. But drugs wear off, I hate that. I start to ascend as the water thins and flows over me in soft waves, tenderly lifting me. The closer I get to the surface, the more I can feel the anxiety scratching my face. The leather bands on my wrists hurt. At least my head isn’t tied down; that bites shit. Fred is sitting at the door as they do with everyone tied down. It’s so stupid. Where am I going to go? If I yell and scream too loud, they can just shut the door. My opinion counts for nothing. No one listens.
            I look at Fred with half-lidded bloodshot eyes, “Can I have something to drink?”
            “Sure honey. You want Ginger Ale?”
            “Yes, please. And can you see when I get out of this fucking room?”
            “I’ll see. In the meantime, Ginger Ale.” I feel so bad about kicking him in the face. I apologize when he returns. He smiles at me; his soft eyes say it’s okay.
            “No letting you out of the restraints, not until the sharks are gone. The nurse is coming with another shot.” Fred lets me out of the hands and I drink my Ginger Ale. I sip then gulp as Nurse Nancy walks in with a HUGE shot. She doesn’t say a word as she shoves my hip over to expose my ass and sink that sucker. In about three minutes, I wither down and gently sink back to the bottom of the sea.
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            I remember safely down here in my depths, a terrible-bad nightmare.
After Mom died and the detention center let me go, I was sent to Grandpa and Grandma’s. Mom had long ago cut them out of our lives. I was ten when I went to live with them. I got off the bus and they double-hugged me as soon as they saw me. Standing there, stiff, I wished I could have hugged them back. They had a huge house, and it was clean! So that’s what carpet looks like, I thought. I had my room, with my dresser, and my bed. No more sharing a bed with Mom and her stinking boyfriends, whose hands always seemed to find me as soon as she passed out. A closet too! Grandma asked me what I liked to eat and I said, “Macaroni and Cheese.” She made it with real cheese and cooked the noodles in a different pan. It was the best food I’d ever had.
             Grandma and Grandpa were so nice to me. They eventually melted the ice I was living in – all the pain returned as my thick, frozen skin thawed. I wondered why Mom cut them out of our lives. They never abused her in any way, yet she abused them, for no reason, I think. I knew what Mom was, just by the way she treated me: She was selfish, uncaring, a total bitch. One time, when I was seven, she was gone for three days, leaving me in our apartment alone. I got hungry and tried to make something out of moldy cheese and hard bread, burning it and setting off the fire alarm. As the apartment manager was waving a towel at the buzzing machine, Mom stumbled home – looking strung out, smelling of booze. She politely thanked the manager, asking him to leave. As soon as the door shut she started screaming at me, grabbing me by the hair and shaking my head, hard. I had stopped crying when she did things like this. Instead, I just looked at her. She never met my eyes; she didn’t see me at all. I couldn’t understand why she got so mad. All I wanted was some food. Then, watching her in the bedroom closet pulling out baggies filled with white stuff and some plant, I figured out that she had illegal drugs in there. She wanted not to be caught more than she wanted me to eat. So she started leaving me with the neighbors, making me stand outside their door until they arrived home, sometimes for hours. My hate for her flourished like a tree sprouting in a rainforest.
            I hadn’t gone to school for a while, so Grandma got me a tutor. I went through two grade levels in four weeks. I heard the tutor, Mrs. Garcia, talking to Grandpa and Grandma, she said I was one of the smartest kids she’d ever taught and that she wanted to have my IQ tested. I’ll never forget the smiles on all of their faces. That next week I was taken to The Children’s Center for my IQ test. The guy who timed my test said to Mrs. Garcia that my IQ was 151. At ten years old, I was put into the tenth grade at The Children’s Center.
            I was learning just fine, but I couldn’t get along with the other kids. I heard them whisper about me, laugh and point their finger: She’s a filthy scumbag, no one wants her and she gets all her clothes at Kmart. I got mean when I didn’t mean to. The Powers That Be spoke with Grandma and Grandpa quite often, finally suggesting therapy. So, off I went to Mr. Richardson, twice a week. He was a nice guy, with his cardigans, khakis and really big feet.
            For two months, I refused to talk. He was considerate and gentle, but he was a man. Except Grandpa, I practically bit any man that came near me. He tried many tactics. It was when he asked me the tenth time about how mom died that my tears suddenly jumped across the room.
            Through a caving chest and lost breaths I told him how it happened, “Mom and this guy she’d met at a bar invited us over to his place. He told me to sit on his filthy couch and not move, or he’d hit mom. Then he started screaming at her. At first, she screamed back, I was hoping someone would hear them, I was so scared. He went back to another room, mom grabbed me and we ran to the door, we hadn’t seen him lock it. He walked out and across the living room with something black in his hand, caught mom by the hair and…” I had to stop. I curled up on Mr. Richardson’s couch, howling into a pillow.
            “It’s okay Lauren, I’m here – I’m not that man, I’m not your mom. You are not in that room. No one is going to hurt you; I won’t let that happen. I will protect you.” He moved to sit next to me and I twitched so hard the couch shook. “Go on if you can. If you can’t, that’s okay.” He moved slowly back to his chair.
            I figured I’d come this far, there wasn’t much left to tell, “He pulled mom’s head back and shot her. He stared at mom lying on the floor for a few minutes. I didn’t mean to, but I peed my pants. He looked at me, then shot himself in the head. I sat down on the floor. When the cops showed up, I heard the one say ‘Oh God. Look at her. She’s covered in blood.’ The cop knelt down and put his hand on my head. I tried to bite him, but he was too quick. They took me to a sort of home for disturbed kids while they called Grandma and Grandpa. Then I was on a bus. Now I’m here.”
I had to go, get out of there, run as fast as I could from the memory. Grandma was waiting outside in the chrome chairs reading Jane Austen. I crashed through the door to Mr. Richardson’s office and stood against the car. I turned and began to beat the car with my fists, screaming like a wild hog caught by a Lion.
            Mr. Richardson and Grandma came running. They grabbed my hands as I fought so, so hard. Blood scattered the trunk and when they looked at my hands, my pinky finger just hung there, a bone jutting out. I felt nothing.
            At the hospital, with my hand all wrapped up, my eyes unglued themselves, sewn shut by my tears. A lady appeared with a needle. I jerked away at first. She smiled and said, “This will help you feel better.” Then she poked it into the tube that led to my good hand, and, all pain left. Physical, emotional, psychological, real and imagined, all left.
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I am in the tides, ebbing and flowing, still trying to sort through reality and the fish. God, I’m hungry. The doctor walks barefoot on my beach, “Are the sharks gone? Are you going to slug anyone again?”
            “Not for now. It all depends on who fucks with me.”
            “I am putting you on Thorazine. It will calm you down considerably. It’s just temporary, to change your frame of mind.” The doctor always seems to tell me what he’s going to do to me, I, as a person, don’t matter. He matters, his choices matter, his “professionalism” matters, his results matter. I am merely a lab rat they stab with a needle then monitor to see whether I live or die.
            “Can I have a print out on it?” He rolls his eyes. I always ask for a printout. I want to know what they are shooting me up with – I’m mentally ill, but my God damned IQ is 151! I know they know this. Ten minutes later, Nurse Nancy walks in with some paperwork and another shot, which she administers immediately. The words blur as I try to read them. Duly subdued, I am free (to what? Walk the earth as a zombie forever? I hope it’s not forever. I don’t want to be here anymore). I shuffle and sway back to my room where I find my bed stripped, my things packed. Up at the nurse’s station, I ask with mumbled joy, “Am I going home?”
            I don’t know how long I’ve been here – a month? Three weeks? I sleep and sleep and sleep, my shoulders ache from turning side to side. Then my nose gets stuffed up due to that fucking air conditioner. As my eyes finally force their way to slits, as my mind awakens and clobbers around my brain, I slowly sit up and take a look around. I have my own room – with a chair, a desk bolted to the floor, my bed and a bathroom. In the bathroom, there is a toilet, a shower with an inadequate curtain, a faucet with handles you pull or push and a metal mirror that distorts my face. Not that it matters what I look like, hell, I look a whole lot better than some I’ve seen on the various psych wards I’ve had the privilege of attending. There is nothing I can tear off its hinges to hit another patient. Nothing from which I can hang myself.
My head peeks out my door. Through my confused and shadowed eyes, I see the nurse’s station. I know they’ve been coming in my room at 5 am to give me one of two shots a day – I grumble around, cussing at them. I walk up to a nurse, my mouth opens, but nothing occurs.
            “Can you see me, honey?” She bends down to my level, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Are you getting back to the living?”
            “Where am I?” I barely understand my words. But she understands me fine.
            “You’re at Mayview, sweetie, the State Hospital. You’ve been here a week and a half. You awoke yesterday and kind of roamed around, crashing into walls. So we had a tech walk beside you to make sure those nasty old walls did not injure you. The doctors have been lowering your Thorazine dose a little bit every day, hence your bit of clarity. You haven’t eaten yet. Are you hungry?” She has love and concern in her eyes. Never, in all my trips to psych wards, has anyone shown me such care. Well, except Fred, I wonder how he is.
            “Yeah, I’m hungry, very hungry. Do you have any Ginger Ale?” I keep falling asleep in my food, yet some get down my gullet because that feeling like my tummy is eating itself goes away. I go back to bed, and I dream.
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            I “graduated” high school at fourteen. It probably would have been thirteen, had I not spent about a year of that time in Juvenal Detention and psych wards.  But The Children’s Center never kicked me out. I caused so much trouble; they had to be happy to get rid of me. I’d been to the detention center twice, two months each time. I went to the psych ward a bunch of times. That’s when the medication started. None of it worked. They tried so many pills, which made me dead, manic, twitching, nervous, sleepy and very, very high (the only result I didn’t mind).  I think I broke Grandma and Grandpa’s hearts when the cops dragged me away. I got beat up pretty bad the second time I was there. I still had a swollen jaw and a black eye when I came home. Grandpa took a look at my face, and, after Macaroni and Cheese, took me out to the garage and taught me how to fight. He was a Golden Gloves boxer before he married Grandma.
            “Now Lauren, hold one hand down under your chin with your arm bent vertically, your fist in and close to your body. Hold the other one up a bit, again vertically, in front of your face and your fist in. When you make fists, tuck in your thumbs, so you don’t break them. Keep your chin down, your head low and look at me like a snake. Intimidation is a big part.” He demonstrated the stance, weaving around, his hand shooting out. He was so fast. “Punch up to the gut, with the whole side of your body and then strike out. You want to strike quick, be relentless. The slower you go, the more time someone has a chance to hit you back. You have to be ready to hit again immediately.” He held up his hands to either side of his body and said, “Hit me! Hard!”
            We practiced every day. I got better fast.
            After a year at home with no other incidences, Grandma asked me if I’d like to focus my attention to college. They couldn’t afford a university, so, at fifteen, off I went to Community College. At first I wanted to study chemistry or physics, math of some sort. I’d always been able to draw well, impressing Grandma and Grandpa with my copies of pictures I found in books. Then, after getting a book from the library which interviewed abstract artists, I found my voice through my hands and acrylic paint. I wouldn’t show anyone but my Grandparents my artwork. I began art classes. We had a show at the end of the semester; we could bring whoever we wanted. So, Grandma and Grandpa came. I had four paintings and one illustration hanging in the studio for all to see. Pride glowed in my Grandparent’s eyes.
            Some of the other students were jealous; I could tell. They whispered and eyeballed me all during the show. I could feel the anger rioting in my chest, my face hot, and according to Grandma, red. She knew the look. “What’s happening Lauren?” she asked.
            “I want to leave! They are talking about me! I’m going to jump on that bitch over there! Let’s go!” my voice got louder, people turned to look. The teacher walked over to us. His eyes were concerned, but I saw judgment, meanness, he was coming to get me. I shoved him as hard as I could. He fell and I jumped on him, beating him with the fists that Grandpa taught me to use. What happened next was predictable. What a bitch that was. They put me away for eight months.
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            We have a picnic! Out on the lawn, a huge lawn. Techs barbecue hot dogs and burgers. I am awake now. I don’t know if they are still shooting me up with Thorazine. Every two days I get a shot, so maybe I am still on it.
            This place is like no other psych ward I’ve ever been. I get therapy every day. I see the psychiatrist every day. They don’t roll their eyes when I ask for printouts on the drugs they are giving me. And they are giving me a lot, trying to find that magic talisman that will deliver sanity to my addled mind. My psychiatrist, Dr. Flick – a very smart man who speaks to me at my level, not treating me like a fucked up child – gives me an anti-depressant, a new one I’ve never tried. I take it and go to sleep for a few days. When I wake, I feel new and shiny, clean. The demons that live in my memories are gone, almost. I attack tasks and therapy with zeal and curiosity. I open my mouth, it all pours out.
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            At eighteen I’d probably been in twelve or so psych wards. I stopped going to jail because I didn’t belong there. Home for three months, locked up for three months, over and over and over. I acted fine when they released me. Then, slowly, things would start to happen. I would stay up all night drawing, stop eating and talk very fast with my hands flying around. Then I’d start breaking things, my things. I never broke anything of Grandma and Grandpa’s; I couldn’t do that. They would hear me up in my room shattering the air and come running. I would lock the door, so my violence was contained to me and my room. Grandma beat on the door, “Lauren! What’s happening? Are you alright?”
            “I’m fine Grandma!” Crash, bang. “Just a little worked up! I’ll be okay! Just leave me alone!” I could never cuss at my Grandparents, or hit them, shove them, attack them. They meant too much to me.
            Then the razor would emerge. Lines up and down my arms, it felt so good to cut. I had to bleed me out of me. I was always much calmer after I was done. The cuts got deeper and deeper. I was in the bathroom doing my thing and Grandma walked in, I had forgotten to lock the door. She screamed and tears surged from her whole face. “Lauren! Lauren! What are you doing? Why are you doing that? Stop! Please, Stop!”
            “I can’t. I can’t stop. It feels good.” My voice was calm, quiet.
            “Stay right here! Don’t you move!” Grandma, barely able to see through her tears, ran to the bedroom and called the authorities. Again, two cop cars showed up. Again, they put me in an ambulance. Again, all the neighbors were outside watching. Again, I saw Grandpa holding Grandma; her body racked with sobs.
            The cuts took stitches, but they healed, leaving angry red scars. I wore long sleeves all the time. In the summer, when it was too hot for long sleeves, I stayed inside. In fact, I never went anywhere. I was afraid of hearing people talk about me – whisper, whisper – look at her, she’s the crazy one they haul away all the time. I knew what would happen if I thought I heard someone and I was frightened of what I might do. I tried in hopeless attempts to keep my craziness away from me, shoving it down, down where it intertwined with all the memories that, I knew, made me crazy in the first place. Even the heavy sedating drugs that made me lifeless didn’t work. I still freaked out.
            I celebrated my twenty-first birthday on a psych ward I’d been to many times. Grandma and Grandpa brought a cake and gifts. All the nurses and a few patients who just wanted a piece of cake sang happy birthday to me in one of the conference rooms. My face smiled while my insides melted into the black pit of my damaged soul – why does it have to be like this? Why can’t I have friends to celebrate with, go out and have a beer or something?  I went into a deep depression later that day. I would not get out of bed, eat, speak or take my medication. My kind doctor threatened me, “We can’t help you unless you help yourself. So get out of that bed! Do something! This is not a hotel!”
            I sat straight up and shrieked, “Yeah! Like people get help here! They are zombies when they arrive and zombies when they leave! You can’t help anyone because you’re a shitty doctor! All you care about is your God damned Jaguar and five hundred dollar suits, paid for with our desperation! You walk onto this unit, throw pills at us, and leave! Now get the fuck out of my room!” After the doctor had stated that he wouldn’t treat me anymore, the patients who stood outside the door listening clapped and howled as he walked away. Never saw him again.
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             Even though this place is different, it looks the same as all the other psych wards. In the lounge there is a small TV covered with plexiglass, little holes communicate the sound, which no one can hear. The couches are hard plastic, no armrests, they make my ass ache if I sit there too long. There are pages and crayons that one can color with, no pens or pencils, stabbing risk, I think. The pens they give us are a short, bendy thing that is hard to hold on to, but it works. I spend most of my time reading, writing and drawing with the felt tip pen I stole from the nurse’s station. I don’t show anyone my artwork. Hence, they’d confiscate my pen.
             I discover Occupational Therapy. It involves crafts, cheap ones, but I can relate. After three wallets, two trivets and eight refrigerator magnets, I detect some acrylic paints in a drawer. Further inspection reveals brushes and canvas. I fly around the table, jumping over Ben and assault the therapist.  I teeter on the edge of each word that leaves my excited mouth, “Can I paint?! I found this stuff! Can I use it?! Can I take it to my room?! Can I please, please paint?!”
            “Sure.” She steps back, wary of my delight. “You can paint whatever you want, within reason. No sex, no killing, no drugs, no abuse. So get to work! We only have a half hour left! No, you cannot take these things to your room.”
             I paint for the next three days in OT. The therapist keeps walking by and when I show my painting to the class, they are silent. The therapist asks me to show it to the staff. They too are speechless.  “All I see is mistakes.” I say. The more I paint, the fewer mistakes I see.
            Unlike every other psych ward, we are allowed to go outside whenever we want. Trees, grass between my toes, the sky with big fluffy clouds slipping by on oiled glass. Rain, snow, the intense heat of summer are all experiences we are allowed to have. Unless you get into trouble, the outside world is yours. I sit out there most days, in any weather, and draw, read or paint. Currently, I’m reading “Love in the Time of Cholera” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s the best book I’ve ever read. The elegance of Fermina Daza enchants me. The engulfing desire of Florentino Ariza, which colors his entire life – no matter who his is with – Fermina Daza is steady in his mind. I’ve never been in love, in fact, until recently, I’ve never felt love.
             Dr. Flick has me on less and less medication, “Too many meds and you’re not you anymore. I know for a fact that the Lauren inside you is kind, gentle and wonderful. We see how you sit down and talk to other patients who are in peril and how you taught the Asian lady how to play basketball. She could barely move when she got here; the depression was so bad. Within an hour after her arrival, you had her shooting baskets and smiling.”
          “No one, in my whole life, has ever referred to me as kind, gentle and wonderful,” I say. “I beat people up for no fucking reason! I can’t get along with anyone! You make it sound like I should be working here – that will never, never happen.”
“Yes, you are. Yes, you can. Maybe you should think a little harder about it.” His thin lips give me that wide grin that always makes me giggle on the inside. Something is changing, something is different.
            Grandma and Grandpa come to see me once a month. We have visiting hours Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10 am to 4 pm. Neither of them sees too well anymore so their neighbor, Mrs. Gibson, has to drive them out. I am always so, so happy to see them. We exchange lots of smiles and tears. I ask them for forgiveness. They tell me I don’t need to be forgiven, that it’s not my fault, I only did what I was taught to do given my circumstances. Then they tell me how much they love me, and I believe them. The Big Bang Theory happens in these realizations. One day I can give and receive love, whereas they day before I couldn’t.
            I am, however, still rather violent. Donna – who is diagnosed anti-social and oppositional defiant disorder (meaning she doesn’t like anyone and gets angry about it) – is one with whom I regularly clash. We just don’t like each other. She is nasty to everyone. I refuse to let her get away with it, fighting other people’s battles for them, as I have come to hate injustice. We’ve gotten physical a few times and have screaming matches quite often. Dr. Flick moves us across the ward from each other, hoping that we won’t have more encounters. Doesn’t work. We still eat together, hang out in the same lounge and walk by each other through the hallways early in the morning when neither of us can sleep. I give her dirty looks as obscenities roll from her tongue. Then we are blaring at each other and techs come running. I stop yelling when I see the techs coming. I stand there with a smile on my face while she befouls the air. They drag her away most of the time.
            I have a surprise visitor: It’s Fred! I run up to him, jump in his arms and plant a kiss on his lips. That moment, when something you didn’t expect happens, or emotion you didn’t know you have shines though, is one of the sweetest I’ve ever known. We look at each other, his face inches from mine. We sit at a table.
            “What are you doing here?! Why are you here?!” I am barely breathing.
            “I looked at your records to see where they sent you. I miss you so much. I had to see you. How are you Lauren?” we are facing one another, each sitting on the stupid plastic chairs, pulled close. His hand reaches out and pushes my hair back behind my ear. We talk and laugh for three hours. He says he finally sees my beautiful smile; he knew it was there all along. He tells me that he’s gone back to school for his masters in Psychology. He wants to keep working on psych wards for the time being but hopes to get his doctorate as well. He’s got about three years of school left. He comes to see me every Monday and Friday after that, always at noon, right on time.
            I am learning about myself and I don’t like what I’m seeing. Such bad behavior! I think I shouldn’t have acted so badly. How embarrassing. I belong in a psych ward for the rest of my life, for fear I should see someone I attacked and they get mad and repay me. Good thing I know how to box. I had a bit of a skirmish with Donna the day before last. She was wearing my shoes.
            “Where did you get those shoes, Donna?” I asked casually.
            “My ma brang ‘em in. What’s it to you?” she spit back.
            “They are my fucking shoes you fucking bitch! Give them back or I’ll tear your feet off!” She jumped on me. I pushed away and assumed my fighters stance, right hooking her in the gut. I was not about to break anyone’s nose – way too visible, way too much blood. She yelped and tried to grab my throat. I saw the techs running down the hall and I let her grab me. Jumping on her, they yell and force her to the ground, heaving her away screaming.
            “Are you okay?” a breathless tech asked.
            “Yeah, I’m fine,”  I said, rubbing my neck for added drama, “She’s got my shoes. I want them back.”
            “We are getting her into a hospital gown and your shoes are sitting right outside the door. Although this shouldn’t have happened, it’s kind of nice to know that you are not the perpetrator. Good to see, Lauren. Good to see.” He half smirked and jogged back down to the strapless bra room to attend to the still screaming Donna. Is that how I looked? Yes, it is. I could see myself like I’m looking through a security camera, whaling on anyone who came near me; it was how I reacted to everything.
            I get better by stopping and starting. Some days I feel like I’m making great strides toward sanity. Some days I feel as though I’m sliding very slippilarly back into insanity. They diagnosed me with bipolar and a personality disorder, that’s all. I am apparently not schizophrenic, psychotic, obsessive compulsive, dissociative identity disordered, anti-social disordered, avoidant personality, attention deficit disordered or anything else I’ve unfairly been labeled as before. Dr. Flick gives me specific examples of each illness and explains why I’m not all that fucked up. I still have those days when the sharks peek around the corners and my monstrous memories return. When these occurrences creep out into the light that shines around me, I either sleep for a few days or go a little bit crazy. The good doctor ups my Klonopin by a lot. I like that stuff way too much, counting the hours until the next dose is due, sometimes I save the pills and take three or four at a time. Then I float around. I am free, unencumbered, with a wispy smile on my face. I know this is not helping me, but I tell myself that it is, that I need it, that I can’t relax without it. I lie to myself. I’ve always lied to myself. It’s a matter of survival, at least it used to be.
             My therapist, Mrs. Furguson, an older lady who has seen it all and is very intelligent, focuses my attention on things I don’t even know exist within me. I loved my mother, but it was a resentful love, a “why did you do that if you loved me” love. She abandon me for bars, men, drugs and just because she could. I work very hard to accept her for what she was and let go of who I wanted her to be. I wrap her up tight with paper and place her at my feet with the full knowledge that I’ll never get what I needed from her.
            Fred doesn’t come for a week. He doesn’t call; he doesn’t write. Fear ceases my heartbeat. What if he doesn’t want to see me anymore? What if he’s found someone new? He has abandoned me, I decide. Oh well, I'm used to that. No big deal, right? So what. But these feelings exhaust me. I pick a fight with Donna, flipping her off as she walks by me. Her wild eyes stare at me, then she turns to attack grabbing me and shoving me into the wall. I pound her with my fists. We are rolling on the floor by the time the techs get to us. As they scrape us up, Donna starts screaming with that voice that short circuits mine and everyone else’s head.
            “She give me the finger! She ain’t got no reason to do that! I was just walking by! I don’t take her God damned shoes! She got no reason to give me the finger!” Her face is red and pulsating; I can see her temples throbbing.
            “She jumped on me!” I yell. “I didn’t do a motherfucking thing!” Unfortunately, another inmate saw what I did and gleefully informs the responding tech.
            “Yup. She flipped Donna off when Donna was just walking by. I saw it! I saw it!” I want to bite his stupid pointing finger off. It doesn’t earn me a trip to the strapless bra room, but it does bring some hard questions from Dr. Flick.
            “Why did you do that Lauren? What was the purpose? What are you angry about?” Dr. Flick leans forward in his chair, semi-demanding answers. I begin to cry.
            “Fred hasn’t come this week.” I bawl. “Where is he? He doesn’t want to see me anymore.”
            “Think about this realistically, Lauren. He’s very busy with school; he works full time and he has to drive an hour and a half to get here. It seems he cares for you very much and those feelings do not disappear so easily. Sometimes we have to wait for things. The waiting is hard, but hard times can lead to great fulfillment.” His voice is, as usual, quiet and calming.
            “I’ve been reading that philosophy book you gave me.” I was reading it; it’s a good book. “One of the arguments in there is that happiness is only felt in the absence of unhappiness. So what’s in the middle? Placid life? I am still up and down, will I ever achieve placidness?”
            “Maybe. Maybe not. The ups and downs seem to keep you quite busy. I know that it’s not the busy you want to experience, but that’s the way it is for now. You’re doing so well. You do, however, still have to make a great effort to do better.” Dr. Flick touches my mind in a way I can understand.
            I get out of here in a week. Fred finally calls and says that he is coming with my Grandparents to pick me up. How does he know my Grandparents? He is aware of the full extent of my bad behavior, and apparently, also what my Grandparents have no doubt told him. I suffer through that last week – afraid of the outside world, afraid of myself.
            It takes me a week to pack. Grandma and Grandpa have brought me lots of clothes, some of which I want to leave here, in the case of someone who is just coming in and has nothing. I walk the unit and take a good look at everyone there. I want to tell them that they can recover, that there is a whole world out there where they can live. Lots of people are walking around all fucked up and they get no help. But these people in here can get help, they just have to embrace it.
            I also apologize to Donna, “I’m sorry about all the fights we got into. I guess our personalities were too different for us to get along. I wish you the best and I hope that one day you’ll leave this place and hopefully have a good life.”
            “Fuck off and die.” Well, I expected that. I have learned in here to clean up my side of the street. The only thing I can control is myself, no one else. I am not responsible for the actions of others, even if I’ve been a bitch. I was the bitch and I have to remember that. Besides, being a bitch gets me nowhere.
            I see Dr. Flick for the last time. “I have never seen a patient come as far as you have. I was not sure that you wanted to change at first. Then I saw a slow luminosity begin to shine in your eyes and I knew you were ready to get well. You were able to use this place as it was intended. You are not completely well; you never will be. But you now have an opportunity to live a full life, so live it. Use the techniques you’ve learned in here – mindfulness, radical acceptance, accumulating the positives, retreat, rethink, respond – all of it. Good luck, Lauren. Good luck.” He gives me a tight hug; I hug him tightly back.
          The day comes. I’ve been here for a year and a half. In here I’m a different person, but out there, I don’t know, I’m scared. Dr. Flick and Mrs. Furguson both give me their home numbers and hug me profusely before I step outside to wait for my family. While I stand there I feel an inkling of freedom. It swells and grows until it threatens to overwhelm me. Slow, deep breaths. Slow, deep breaths.
            “Lauren!” Grandpa, Grandma and Fred leap from the car and hug me so, so tight. We all exchange excited words as we drive away. “We are going to the Outback for dinner, does that sound good to you?”
            “Wow! Real food! Can I get steak and shrimp?” I didn’t eat breakfast, too nervous.
              “Of course!” says Grandma. “You can have anything you want.”
              When we get to the restaurant and are seated, the inevitable questions start.
              “Are you better, Lauren? Do you feel normal?” Grandpa asks.
              “Well, I feel different. The person I used to be is still there, but she’s not ruling my life anymore. I did some hard work in Mayview, dealt with some hard things. Dr. Flick and Mrs. Furguson showed me how to have a life worth living. I don’t feel so damaged, worthless and angry.” I make eye contact when I’m saying this.
              Fred says, “You were never worthless or damaged. Angry, yes. As I am looking at you right now, I see the real Lauren, the person deep inside that you always were.”
We order our food and Fred begins telling funny stories about his classes. Like how his teacher got his back pocket caught on the ledge of the chalkboard and ripped a big hole in the back of his pants while giving a lecture.
              “We all tried not to laugh, but it was impossible,” says Fred with a huge grin on his face. I smile, laugh and eat like a starving lumberjack. The restaurant is strange to me. My mind wants to be nervous in this long forgotten setting, but I won’t allow that. Nope. Won’t let it happen. I am in a nest with my family, a baby bird, almost ready to fly.
            When we get home I prowl about the house, looking behind the TV (and turning it on to make sure I can hear it), checking each room and all the things in it, make sure what I kept in my mind is right and correct. I save my room for last. I walk in and plop my duffle bag on my bed. I stand in the middle. My furniture is not bolted to the floor. My mattress is not plastic and, therefore, does not crunch when I lay down. I open my closet. There are shoes with laces, belts, pants with drawstrings – everything is where I left it, nothing has been touched. I walk into my bathroom. A shower with an adequate curtain. A sink with cupboards underneath that open and close. A real toilet. My eyes avoid the mirror. I go back into my room and unpack. I find that I’m very tired, so I go downstairs to say goodnight to Grandpa and Grandma. As I walk out of the family room, I say, “I’ve never been so happy to be here, to be anywhere. I love you both. Thank you. Goodnight.” I kiss and hug them both. Their eyes follow me as I walk out, I can feel their smiles warming my back.
            I can’t avoid it. I go into the bathroom and look in the mirror. The same face – eyes, mouth, nose, hair, ears – peek back at me. Then, I begin to morph into something else. Instead of the obvious, I see confidence that replaces fear, a calmness that replaces violence, beauty that replaces ugly. In my own eyes, I see the whole universe, waiting for me to discover.