​A warm gust of stale garlic and bacon struck Brynn in the face as she tugged open the thick glass door, etched with the name AdArt in flowing gold cursive. Instantly, she walked into a shiny, curling red ribbon that hung down directly in front of her; looking up, she saw that it was attached to a white balloon stuck to the ceiling.
          Confetti lay all around the entryway. Beside the deserted reception desk, empty champagne bottles protruded from the wastebasket, their rumps all insolently turned toward her. As she passed the conference room, she glanced in and stopped short to gawk.
          The long, polished cherrywood table was crowded with plastic cups and liquor bottles. Somebody had spelled out ‘fuk me’ with swizzle sticks. Puddles reflected the morning sky beyond the panoramic windows, and mammoth platters offered stale sushi, desiccated cheese wedges, and flattened dolmas. Cocktail wieners bulged obscenely from bread rolls, fat congealed around their folds. A greasy pizza box gaped at her. Nothing, thought Brynn, says forgotten like an old pizza box.
          So they had thrown The Big Bash without her! Even as the realization dawned, a part of Brynn wanted to start cleaning up—like some spineless toady of a team player: She was still that anxious, angular eighth-grader, impaled on the sharp thorns of rejection; eternally watching and waiting for invitations that would never arrive,
          She searched her recollection. Had anyone mentioned a party yesterday as she shut down her computer? No. She, the senior copywriter, linchpin of the agency, had been premeditatedly excluded from the celebration of the Ataxia Software account that she had helped win! All of those concepts had been hers: the distorted dinosaurs, the missing tooth, the exploding phrenology head.
          Brynn recalled herself hydroplaning north last night in pelting rain, brakes mushy on her old Honda. And all the while, this party had been taking shape like a succubus. Of course they had no reason now to conceal all this garbage, this rancid affront.
          Well she must be stoic now and deny them the satisfaction of seeing her pain. With an anguished effort, Brynn composed her features as Eric, that puppy of a graphic designer, bounced up and stood beside her, peeking in at the mess.
          “Mornin’, Brynn.” He winced and rolled his eyes. “Our bad.”
          Why, you talentless, creepy little sycophantic pissant, Brynn thought. “Oh, I’ve
seen worse,” she said, flashing a tremulous smile. “I hope everyone got home okay.” Her faux concern provoked a shrug and a head shake at the opacity of fate.
“Me too.” Eric opened his mouth to say more, but Brynn strode forward briskly,
grabbed the pizza carton, and tried to stuff it into the trash. The overflowing can rejected it, and the carton slid onto the floor, releasing a leathery hunk of cold pizza upside down on the carpet. The warped crust reminded Brynn of a manta ray.
          “Oh don’t bother with that,” Eric said. “The janitors’ll be here una momento.”
          … revenge, a dish best eaten cold, Brynn was thinking, looking at the pizza.
          She walked unsteadily to her desk. On her chair was a folder of busy work that somebody had not been too inebriated to plop there. Coils of purple crepe paper dripped onto the folder from her chair back. The chair itself was littered with little colored paper dots; when she turned her keyboard upside down, more dots rained out and pattered onto her shoes.
          So this was how it felt to be superseded. Passed over and phased out. It was a physical pain that dispersed throughout one’s very molecules. That primal dread of exclusion hearkened back to the australopithecine band, hooting and posturing in the cracked mud of the Olduvai Gorge. Poor Uk-Uk with her 800 cc brain case had felt the same bottom drop out of her world, abandoned to the hyenas over some inadvertent violation of primate protocol.
          But wasn’t she inflating a simple oversight beyond its actual significance? Hadn’t she dashed out at five o’clock to pick up Allison at day care? They probably didn’t tell her because they were so sure she could not stay late. Of course, she could have had Larry pick up Allison. But maybe they thought that would cause waves in her custody arrangement, so to spare her further conflict… Oh stop! 
          Brynn clenched her chapped hands into fists, the knobby knuckles and greenish veins interlacing vinelike amid protruberant tendons, the blunt-nailed fingers grown spatulate from typing hyperbole, provoking ersatz desire. Polluting the collective human spirit.
          At least, Brynn thought, they hadn’t fired her, and she must not give them an excuse by storming out. Steady on. You can’t control what they do, you can only control what you do about it. Or is it how you feel about it? Or is it you can’t control how you feel about it, but only how you feel about what you do about it?
          And here came Eric again, serious now: “Brynn, can you write some copy about this vest for the Summit winterwear catalog?” He shoved under her nose a tiny photo of a gray vest that reached new levels of nondescript. “Just a snippet,” holding his fingers an inch apart.
          As he leaned over her, the folder he carried gaped open like cleavage, and
Brynn reflexively peeked in. From a page inside exploded a luminous purple-and-chartreuse printed retro-psychedelic headline: “Thump It!”
          The realization hit her: why, that must be the main theme for the whole Summit ExtremeGear WinterWear campaign! The concept Brynn had been waiting to be asked to create.
          “Thump it?” She could not resist blurting. Eric flinched, snatching the folder
away, holding it behind him as if concealing a biopsy result from a terminal patient.
          “All we need right now is that vest copy.”
          We, thought Brynn. Now they were “we.” And she, Brynn, was the binomial non-we. Meanwhile she of Thump It!, Gaylinn Pratt, junior copywriter, had been secretly invited to concept the theme for their biggest client’s most important campaign.     Brynn’s head swam. Soon, skiers worldwide would Thump It! At Aspen, Vail, Biarritz, Gstaad. T-shirts by the millions would Thump It! Billboards. Posters. TV commercials and celebrities; a new Everest ascent or South Pole trek would Thump It! And next year would arrive the follow-on campaign, Thump It Harder! or Thump It Higher!
          An article in Advertising Age would highlight the daring strategy behind Thump It, focusing on how smaller, fast-moving west coast agencies were seizing the creative vanguard from the ponderous behemoths of the past, the Saatchi & Saatchis, the DDB Worldwides and BBD&Os, brontosauruses munching their clueless cud as the mammals Thumped It.
          Gaylinn Pratt would be featured in San Francisco Magazine, a worldly gamine in torn jeans, hugging her knees before a manual typewriter, or having her hair chopped short by a crusty old barber. Chatting with Clint Eastwood at a Pebble Beach charity gala. The article would be titled: “Today’s adfemme–not your mother’s English major.” And Brynn the English major, would write a snippet. A slow burn crept up her neck to ignite the hair follicles at her temples. Tears welled.
          “Not a problem,” she said, with a catch that Eric must have noticed, but ignored. He flapped the forbidden file bye-bye at her and turned away. A weight pressed on Brynn’s thorax. The keyboard blurred.
          Hadn’t Sid himself reassured Brynn only last week that her position was solid?
He had hired Gaylinn only as a floater to relieve Brynn of the heroic burden she carried so well. Now Brynn could do more with her life than write copy. Why, she could begin her novel!
          But …Thump It! What a lousy theme. Brynn thought of the bunny in Walt
Disney’s Bambi. Wasn’t he Thumpit? And what about Things That Go Thump in the
Night? Rhymes with Lump It, had they considered that? What kind of theme was Thump It for a company that outfitted Everest teams to the summit? Why, the words even sounded like a fall, right down the Hillary Step, thumpit thumpit thumpit.
          It was now eight-fifteen, and the agency, after its riotous debauch, remained
eerily silent and deserted. Peeking out at the reception desk, Brynn saw unanswered calls blinking. Here was an ethical dilemma: should she pick up the phones until Pam dragged herself in? Oh, don’t be a schnook, Brynn told herself. It’s their problem if Pam got so drunk she couldn’t make it this morning.
          Brynn’s reflection loomed translucent in the glass door, a lonely, metaphysically solitary figure, curly dark hair escaping its haphazard twist—unlike Gaylinn’s blonde Veronica Lake, sweeping her shoulders. The minute I see her, Brynn thought, I start to lumber instead of walk. Even my writing becomes obtuse and Victorian. I am the hulking shadow on the mountain, the Yeti, watching Gaylinn the jet-setter whirl effortlessly past. 
          And now Brynn noticed that the door to Sid’s corner office was shut, but the
lights were on. They must be within already, meeting early—Gaylinn, of course, and
Randy Papen, the creative director, that pretentious ass with his gray hair flowing over his black turtleneck, who declared “I go weak,” every time a cute young woman walked by. Once, Brynn had echoed ‘I go creep’ had he heard that? Why did she always have to take the cheap shot?
          Oh stop it! You really are clinically paranoid, she told herself. But the thin, bright line of light beneath Sid’s office door burned her eyes like a white-hot needle. They were in there talking about her, phasing her out, shrinking her job to a snippet—or even canning her. What a pleasure it would be to abandon her ersatz poise and just go off like a magnificent animal: hurl coffee mugs, kick over wastebaskets.
          Brynn looked at the vest and began to type her snippet. Her fingers on the keyboard reminded her of cocktail wieners. The tiny mirror above her desk reflected a face inflamed and swollen with suppressed pain. The corners of her mouth twitched downward: The Sulk, her answer to The Scream.
          Brynn suddenly recalled an American girl she once saw pitch a seamless, perfect fit in a restaurant in St. Tropez. Brynn, backpacking across Europe with her roommate, MaryEllen, had been sitting a few tables away. The waiters had been pointedly ignoring all of the Americans for the better part of two hours.
          Suddenly, an empty wine bottle sailed through the air and shattered at the feet of a waiter. The girl who hurled it was tall, striking, and very drunk. Her beauty was almost cartoonish: a long honey-blonde ponytail protruded from her perfect head. It had taken three waiters to wrestle this amazon outside. All the while, the girl, her impossibly long legs kicking out giraffe-like at her handlers, had continued to scream admirably specific epithets until friends arrived and hauled her away.
          A well-executed sundering scene would be an ending to treasure. Brynn could become, for one defining moment, a magnificent, rampant animal, heedless of consequences. The moment was everything—but was she equal to it? Because the alternative was to seethe for the rest of her life—not over the insult, but over her own timid, craven response.
          Brynn rose, smiling beatifically, a servant of destiny. She recalled vaguely that
assassins were said to see themselves from the outside before their defining
acts. She shivered a little, yet her legs propelled her toward Sid’s office. She stood for a moment, glanced behind her at the past, and flung open the door.
          “This place is a fucking travesty!” she shouted in, tossing an imaginary ponytail.
          The first thing she saw were Randy’s bare buttocks facing her. He was lying on
his side on the floor cozily spooning Gaylinn, also naked, while Sid, the third nude in the tryptych, slumbered on, on his back. The air smelled vaguely of sex. Even at this juncture, insanely, Brynn felt the old fangs of envy.
          Almost in slow motion, the three awakened in a horrified chain reaction. The room erupted in a mad scramble as heads and limbs and genitals tried to bolt out of sight. But there was no place to hide. Brynn, frozen with disbelief, was witnessing universal panic: the hominid band ambushed by smilodon at the tarpit; sleeping Britons roused by the plundering Danes; speakeasy flappers barreling past cigar-chomping Prohibition dicks.
          In less than two seconds, the world had changed. Brynn gasped and slammed the door, turning her back and bracing herself against it as hard as she could, as if afraid they would come stampeding out and flatten her. But behind the door was now only silence. She could not hear even a shuffle. An unexpected sense of exhilaration and power suddenly flooded through her, as if they were her prisoners. She could hold them in there forever.
          But instead, she left the door and glided back to her desk as if borne on magic slippers. “Hey Eric,” she grinned as she passed him.
          He glanced up from Thump It! with a little frisson of irritation, blinking rapidly. “Yes?”
          “I’m going to get some air.”
          “How’s that copy coming along?”
          “The snippet?”
          “Whatever.”
          “I’m on it.”
          “By the way,” Eric winked at Brynn. “Can you get us some coffee this morning?
I don’t think Pam’s gonna make it in.”
          “Of course.” Brynn winked back. “By the way, where’s Sid?” she asked, innocent as Satan.
          “They have an early meeting at Ataxia,” Eric said, without looking up.
          “And Randy and Gaylinn too?”
          “They’re going to present some new ideas for an ad campaign.”
          “That must be where they are then,” said Brynn. She walked past the fetid
conference room and the reception desk. A lightness perfused her being, though her
legs still felt a bit unsteady, as if they were only now being fully used. She barely
touched the heavy office door, and yet it gave way easily, respectfully.
          The Bay was clear and blue after last night’s showers, pure in its
unrelenting coldness, its chilly kelp forest swaying greenly beneath, in blissful
indifference to human pettiness and perversity.
          She walked down the office steps and turned onto Del Monte Avenue, the sun seeking her eyes, richly warming her hair, loosening her joints. Beside her, traffic seethed in comforting swishes and blatts and groans. Brynn felt protected, even anointed. She cocked her head upward, and the sky looked back, vast and inviting.
          “I was left out.” She spoke aloud into the crisp air, and the universe nodded its
curved space-time warp kindly. “I was handling it okay,” she added, though she knew that was not entirely true. But symmetry had finally been established. From now on, everything, everything would be easier. She might not be able to see it yet, but the path ahead of her was clear. The way to the future lay open at last. 

​As editor-in-chief of The Miami Journal, he began falling in love with Carolyn Kerner when she knocked on his cubicle and asked, “Rick, ever heard of Kathe Kollwitz?”
He looked up at her from his enormous pile of papers.
     “Go on,” he said.
     “I was watching Antiques Roadshow, believe it or not, and one of her sketches came on. The Nazis refused to let her show her work anymore. ‘A degenerate,’ they called her."
     “Tell me what the sketch looked like,” said Rick, who had a thick swatch of black hair and a salt-and-pepper goatee.”
     “These peasants were walking along the road. Bedraggled, right? Looked like they would die any minute, but they kept on trekking!”
     “Do it!” he said. “Word limit, uh, 1200.” 
      “I trust you,” he heard himself saying.
      Carolyn reached over and shook his hand. Vigorously.
      Two days later the story arrived on his desk. Her eyes had gray circles beneath them, as if someone had punched her.
      Thinking, “I’d protect her if someone attacked her,” he began to read:
     Her family realized her talent for art when she was twelve. They sent their Kathe Schmidt Kollwitz to a women’s art school in Berlin. The shy woman soon found confidence with fellow artists. With quiet voices, they discussed what was happening in Germany, on the brink of World War I.
     A political woman, later becoming a Communist, her famous saying “There has been enough of dying! Let not another man fall!”  was published in a column in a German newspaper.
     Kathe was later elected a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts, the first woman ever elected.
     In 1924 she finished her three most famous posters: “Germany's Children Starving,” “Bread,” and “Never Again War.” 
     Ironically, the Nazis used the posters as examples of “degenerate” art.
    Today, her work can be viewed at “Neue Wache” in Berlin. Against plain brick walls, as if in a prison, her sculpture “Mother with her Dead Son” is a poignant memorial to “Victims of War and Dictatorship.” She lived from 1867 to 1945, dead at 78. She lived as stressful a life under The Fuhrer as can be imagined.
      Rick was what is called “an editor’s editor.” The only changes he made in her story were to add a few commas.
      The news room at the Miami Journal knew that Richard Harris Briggs, Jr. was a single man.
      “I wouldn’t marry him if the nuclear bomb dropped and he was the last guy in the world,” Felicia Rogers said to the woman in the next cubicle.
       Within a year, the story was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize from Columbia University in New York.
       “Carolyn, I’d like to take you out to celebrate your story.”
        She agreed and they went to the posh “Cuban Buena Comida.” They split a plate of Shrimps in Coconut Sauce.
        “Oh my God,” said Carolyn. “Perfection!”
         Ricky summoned the waiter.
      “Champagne,” he said. “Real champagne, amigo.”
      Two champagne flutes, with frisky bubbles, were brought over on a silver tray. 
       “To us!” said Ricky.
        As they were leaving into the clear crisp afternoon, Rick asked Carolyn to take a seat on an    outdoor bench facing the harbor.
        He cleared his throat and looked Carolyn in her eyes.
        “Carolyn, I have something to ask you,” he said, smoothing his black hair.
         She raised her dark eyebrows and looked at him, his dark, sexy eyes.
         Laboriously, he got down on bended knee.
         She suppressed a desire to laugh.
         “I’d like to marry you. Wilt thou be mine?”
         She answered by delivering a passionate kiss.
         Rick and Carolyn got married in the Banquet Room at Cuban Buena Comida. The entire news room was invited. The prix fixe included an appetizer, mozzarella sticks; a meal, tamales in corn husks; and a dessert – cinnamon chips in a dipping sauce of either avocado or mustard.
       Rick made a champagne toast.
       “I know. I know,” he stumbled. “The man who would never marry.”
        Everyone laughed. More than a few people teared up.
        “Frankly, my dears,” he said, “I have never been so happy in my life.”
        He paused.
        “But nothing will change in the news room,” he vowed.
         A murmur went through the crowd. “I’ll bet” or “Yeah, right!”
         He and Carolyn moved into his ranch home on Biscayne Boulevard.
        Rick learned he was a traditional man. He carried his bride across the threshold, then straight into his bedroom, which he had straightened up for the occasion. He simply threw all his clothes behind the double doors of his closet.  
       “Shall we?” he asked.
       “Mais oui,” she answered.
       They rolled about on the bed for what seemed like hours. The aroma of their bodies filled the bedroom.
      “Baby, your body feels so good next to mine,” said Ricky. She compared favorably with his call girls. “Never call them prostitutes. Such an ugly word, unless you’re Mary Magdalene,” he thought.
      Ricky was all of thirty-two years old. He’d had sex since an early age, visiting call girls, which he very much enjoyed. “Lady Lilly” was a favorite. Although “Madame Olivia” was a close second.
     Carolyn was moaning, over and over again, interspersed with “I love you’s.” 
     Spent, they lay cuddled together on the wrinkled sheets.
     Finally, they called for Japanese take-out.
     Miami, since Castro’s revolution, became a cosmopolitan city.
     They ate their take-out in the living room, on a glass table, with legs made of bamboo.
     Ricky had several photos on the walls, all taken by reporters at the Journal. Prominently displayed was a photo of a marlin, leaping in the air, with its prominent sword-like proboscis, ready to kill whatever came into view. It won the best photo in The National Geographic magazine. 
     When Ricky pointed at it, Carolyn stood up and went to look at it. Ricky couldn’t believe he took a risk and married this beautiful woman.  
      “Some day,” she said. “I wanna take an award-winning photo like that.”
      “My competitive new wife,” he laughed.  
       “So? What’s wrong with that?” she said, flouncing away, her black hair bouncing with her.
        “Carolyn, my love, where have you gone?”
         His wife had failed to clean up the Japanese food and utensils.
         He lay his head down on the glass table and promptly fell asleep and began to snore. 
        “Rick!”
        “Oh, Carolyn, you scared me!”
         He asked her what she enjoyed doing besides screwing.
         “Reading! Watching Netflix and You Tube. Let me find the new book I bought at Barnes and Noble,” she said.
           He hadn’t realized there was one in Miami.
           She held it up. Black background with a sun-bright orange in the center.
           “Sue Monk Kidd?” he asked.
          “Oh, yes, she’s terribly good! 'The Book of Longings,' her newest. She rubbbed her lips against the shiny cover.
        “Ya know, babe,” he said. “We don’t have to sleep in the same bed. If you wanna read, I’ve got a guest bedroom. Have you seen it?”
        “I have, with the red checkered sofa-bed. I’ll sleep in there, husband so I don't disturb your beauty sleep," she snickered.
       “Fine,” he said, “it’s your call.”
           They had taken off two weeks for their honeymoon.
           When they returned, Rick stood up and announced they would meet in the conference room. Why were the married couple avoiding eye contact? Not a good sign.
            “What does August mean in Florida?”
            A chorus of voices said “Hurricane Season.”
            He called on Tina Velasquez.
           “Yes, Rick, we do have a plan. I will email it to everyone in the news room.”
            “Each and every one of you must take no chances,” said Rick. “Don’t endanger your lives by coming in,” he said. “The Journal will print directions for evacuations."
             “Few folks heed them,” said Ron Juarez, head of the sports section.
              In early August, came the first whispers of the wind.
              “Right on time,” thought Rick. He stood out on the deck and watched the palm trees sway like hula girls.
              “Carolyn, it’s starting. The hurricane. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Even though I hate you, he thought.
              “Yeah, right,” she said. “I’ll bet you’d throw me into the sea if you didn’t get caught.”
              He said nothing.
              His ranch home was high off the ground, as many were, due, to high tides and hurricanes.    
               Quickly, the tsunami of water swirled in the Bay of Biscayne. The noise was like a million rock concerts. Cruise ships anchored in the marina began sailing by themselves, many turning over, again and again. Then came the beach houses. Every color of the rainbow. Were people inside? Or were they too “macho” to evacuate?
              A small powder-blue house sailed by with an entire family on the roof. They waved for help.
             Next came a yellow house, with two elderly people on the roof. “Help, help!” they mouthed.
           “Goddammit,” thought Rick. “Stupidity incarnate!” He felt personally responsible.
            He grabbed a towel and rubbed himself dry.
            Where was that wife of his?
            He searched the house.
            There she was in the guest room, reading her Sue Monk Kidd novel.
            “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled.
             “Jes’ waiting here to die,” she said, not raising her eyes from the book.
             “I should let you,” he said.
             “But I won’t, goddammit!”
              She stared at him.
              “Gotta be honest,” he said. “I love you more and more every day. With your competitive nature, the dimple in your chin like Kirk Douglas, and your inexhaustible energy.
             “Don’t even think about splitting up,” he said, his voice breaking.     
             Carolyn walked over and sat down in his lap.
             “Still, I hate being married. Period.”   
             He began twisting the gold ring on his finger.
 

          Dick and Margie got married in the Mormon Temple in Los Angeles and nine non-Mormon cousins were excluded from the celebration.  Though the happy couple had dated for four years, his family didn’t know Margie very well.  She was a quiet girl, or maybe only shy in the presence of Dick’s large family.  Not that it mattered.  It just teed them off that they couldn’t go to their cousin’s wedding because they weren’t members of his church.
The newlyweds returned that evening to Fallbrook for a reception which included all family members at the local Mormon Chapel.  But, the cousins were not to be consoled by being allowed to attend a mere reception.  Something had to be done to appease their wounded vanities.  They  left the reception early and discovered the couple’s poorly hidden getaway car on a nearby street, parked behind the vehicle, and waited in the dark. 

 
Dick and Margie changed into their getaway clothes and left the reception intending to pick up their luggage stashed at the home of Dick’s parents, and drive back to Davis where he was attending college.   As they pulled away from the curb, two sets of headlights also turned on and a small caravan formed behind them as they drove away. 
So began a chase that started near the church and continued through town, up one street and down another, but they couldn’t lose their tail.  In desperation, the newlyweds left the lights of town for an unlit countryside hoping their efforts to escape would be better there.  It was neither a poor getaway car nor a slow and careful driver, but the persistence of the pursuers that eventually found the three-car caravan racing in the dark over the dirt roads of the town’s cemetery, giving the tombstones a fresh dusting as the newlyweds tried to ditch their pursuers.  Then it was back through town again, past the high school, the bowling alley, up one hill and down another, all to no avail.
Dick finally gave up and drove with the tag-alongs to his parents’ home to pick up their luggage and be on their way, secure in the knowledge that no cousins were going to bother following them all the way to Davis.  The trailing caravan parked on both sides of his car in the extra wide driveway. 
 “Wait here, Margie,” Dick said as he jumped out of the car, leaving the keys behind.  “I’ll go grab our stuff and be right back.” He dashed across the front yard and 
disappeared into the house, while Margie got out of the car to wait with her new family members.
With the fun of chasing newlyweds around the countryside over, the cousins milled around aimlessly with the ever-silent Margie.  As they waited for Dick to reappear, Cheryl leaned over and whispered to Andy, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we kidnapped Margie and held her for ransom?”
Buddy overheard the suggestion, grabbed Margie and hustled her off to Dick’s car, followed by seven eager co-conspirators.  But, Margie spread-eagled herself onto the door frame and they couldn’t get her into the car.   
“Tickle her!” Cheryl yelled.  “That’ll make her let go!”  But Margie wasn’t ticklish.
Hearing all the commotion, Dick came roaring out of the house, jumped into the driver’s seat of his car on which his bride had spread-eagled herself, and proclaimed, “It’s okay, Margie.  I’m here so you can get in now.” 
Margie released her death grip on the door frame.
“Quick!  Take her to my car,” Roger ordered.
In a chaotically well-coordinated effort, Margie was rushed off to Roger’s car while Robby reached in from the back seat of the car to immobilize his brother by pinning Dick’s shoulders against the driver’s seat while Buddy grabbed Dick’s ankles and held his legs up off of the ground.   
 
 
Seven cousins and a captured bride crammed into Roger’s car and he drove as the gang fled back through the streets of Fallbrook, leaving an incapacitated bridegroom stranded without his bride.
“What’re we gonna do now?” Jamie wondered as they drove.
 “How do we collect the money?”  It was everyone’s question.
“How much should we make him pay to get her back?”
“I don’t know.  What do you think?”
“Let’s go to the bowling alley and figure it out.” 
Victim in tow, they headed to the town’s bowling alley intent on coming up with a plan for exchanging their captive for money.  Just as they entered the bowling alley - Yikes!  Two sheriff deputies were standing right inside the door. 
“We just kidnapped this bride and we’re holding her for ransom,” they chorused, as they strolled innocently past while laughing nervously.  But, the deputies just laughed in return, as if participating in a joke.    
The posse of bride nappers located an empty booth and sat down with their captive, ordered nothing, and excitedly began to work out a plan and terms for an exchange.  As they bantered ideas back and forth, Margie began to catch the spirit of their adventure.   
“I’m kind of curious about how much he might think I’m worth,” she ventured, wondering what amount of ransom Dick might be willing to fork over for her release.
 
In an excess of cousinly love, they considered the dire straits of self-supporting college students and the price was set at a measly ten dollars.  The gang left the bowling alley to make the ransom call.  The connection was made, the price was accepted, and it was arranged for the exchange to take place at the bottom of the avocado grove at the home of Roger’s parents.
The kidnappers drove to the house and Roger descended into the grove to collect the ransom.  Though it had been decided, money first, bride second, Roger failed to return with the loot.  They had no way of knowing that he had been taken hostage by Dick.
In the meantime, Dick’s brother, who had pinned him to the car seat, and his cousin, who had held his feet off of the ground, thus enabling the successful abduction, drove over to Roger’s house to help wait for the ransom.  They waited for what seemed an eternity before realizing that Roger was also now a captive.   Eventually, they became bored with endless waiting, gave up, and returned with Margie back to the house where it all began, leaving Roger as Dick’s hostage. 
As their second act of cousinly consideration for the night, they left Dick’s car behind in case Roger managed to escape, which he did.  He hiked back through the grove and up the hill, found the car, and drove back to Dick’s house, running over a skunk on the way.
It was after midnight before a halt was called to the night’s unplanned festivities and Dick got his bride back.  The newlyweds headed north in a skunk pungent vehicle to begin their honeymoon, which didn’t start until after they got a speeding ticket at 2:00 the next morning.
Margie was neither quiet nor shy after her successful induction into the family, but her abduction had given birth to the rise of a gang of post-wedding planners.  Roger was up next, and payback was called for when he got married later that year. 
News of Margie’s kidnapping had circulated among Roger’s future in-laws and made them very wary of what his hooligan cousins might be up to.  But, when they saw that the bride’s relatives were larger and more numerous, and word was out they were not to be trifled with, the cousins chose to stand down.  The mischief this time was done by the bride’s family which mistakenly identified her new father-in-law’s car as the getaway car and flattened all four tires.  When it appeared the cousins were getting the blame for the vandalism, they quietly departed the celebratory scene.
But, one misadventure was not enough to deter the post-wedding planners.  The only question was what form of mischief the miscreants would undertake at the next wedding. 
Amy, one of the original co-kidnappers, got married a few years later, and once again a bride was abducted!  By then, it had come to be expected as one of the wedding traditions, and when the opportunity presented itself, they went for her.
“Your turn, Amy,” Roger said as he approached the victim.
“Okay,” she said and ran down the street with them to a waiting car.  She was more than willing to go with them and would have been disappointed had it been 
otherwise.  Jack wasn't too happy about it though.  In fact, when it became apparent after a couple of ransom calls that he was truly angry about losing his bride on his wedding day, Amy was returned for free.
Poor Jack.  He never had a chance to learn how much fun it can be to kidnap a bride and hold her for ransom.  His new family had run out of unmarried cousins.  With no more weddings to look forward to, the post-wedding planners that had formed with the kidnaping of Margie Frost had no choice but to retire.
 
 
 

Nick’s father gets a degree from a diploma mill, the august Westham University. He insists on being called Doctor X, doctor of nutrition management.
Nick finds this all laughable. Pathetic. His father is trying to redefine things, create a narrative predicated on perfidy. A man respected for his title. Doctor. The apotheosis of prestige and privilege.
The truths: Westham is an empty diploma mill in West Virginia. Take me home, country roads, full of crap. 
His father cares little for truth. Facts. Or for nutrition management. He lies about his life, his expertise. He has a never ending coterie of women whose minds he manipulates, whose bodies he values and discards. The father seeks solace in laziness, lying astride a couch, playing with himself. Dictating orders to those around him. Namely Nick, the twenty-something college student. Nick’s age, station matter little to the father.
Nick is a young nascent writer, a college graduate. But to his father, he is just a gofer. A gofer whom his father was responsible for conceiving. Of course, he’s also a gofer with his mother’s sickening moral attitudes. Ethics. Nick’s father reminds him of this, tells Nick that ethics didn’t earn a degree.
Use people, he says, voice a nasal growl, as if this is the chorus to some sick song. He repeats this chorus the day he receives his diploma in the mail.
His father keeps relishing his victory, talks of opening his own nutritional center with this degree. He thinks of commodities valuable and insidious: Vanity. Recognition. Competition vanquished.
Nick likes the art of creation. Of human enjoyment of art. Whether it’s his stories, or paintings, or music.
His father is a master of creating dreck. He moves the diploma around, tries to get the empty and hollow diploma mill to bind his thesis in book format. His laughable thesis.
The truth: Nick earned that degree. He did his father’s homework. His father couldn’t find a coherent sentence with two hands, a flashlight, and a probe. Nick did his father’s homework, fettered by guilt, father’s words a fusillade: Bad son. Do your duty. Daddy loves you. Father a narcissist, who swung between charm and rage, jollity and Herculean fury.
Good son. Bad son. Selfish. Senseless dreamer.
Nick has relished the moments of jollity, cowered during the tempestuous lectures that rose from his father’s mustache, a creature in and of itself.
Meanwhile, Nick tries to create. To flee the father. He applies to MFA programs, ensconces himself in the tender prose he’s written for years. His father asks no questions, save for telling Nick that he is crippling his father’s dreams. Spend less time on writing, he proclaims, without thought.
Nick keeps writing. Nick considers telling his father this truth about the diploma mill. A good son would. But he’ll never be his father’s notion of the good son, a toady. A meek loser. But he needs simply to survive, to hang on, a day by day process. If he can survive a day sans a lecture, he’s in bliss.
His father lives on in his dreamworld.
His father hangs his diploma prominently above the fireplace. Of course, he tells Nick to discard his dreams first. He brags of his feat to his friends, even as Nick reads on and on about this diploma mill. He derives an innate pleasure knowing this school is as valuable as a three-dollar bill. It’s a power he can hold over his father, store for the right occasion.
Of course, Nick figured out that his father would live these cycles in perpetuity. No change, no metamorphosis from anger into parental love. No transformation into something stable and whole and tender.
If only he’d known years ago, a thousand tears dried, a thousand angry words uttered, dissolved in the dustbin of his history.
His father keeps clinging to paper moons of illusion.
Nick’s father rents a cap and gown. He needs good graduation pictures, he says. He needs not speak the real reasons. The pictures add prestige, grace, verve. They’re a fig leaf for perfidy.
Nick tries to extract himself from the situation. He gets called bad son again, submits after a fight, after words are issued. Bad son, I should disown you, the phrases spilling from his father’s mouth, as they have before. Familiar. His father’s lecture leaves him wounded like a man on a train track, body parts severed, needing reattachment. Nick just needs peace, tenderness, love. What’s to lose? His father is the one digging his own hole of lies. It’s cold pragmatism, giving in, but soon enough Nick will say adieu to that.
Nick keeps striving for his own success. Each word he writes is more than an emotional note. It’s a means of escape, a combination that he must crack. Which school will accept his combination? Which school will promise him liberation from his mustachioed Pharaoh of a father. He tries to imagine himself, successful. Living a life that is not predicated on father’s orders, but on his own ordered needs and wants. Love, friendship, creation.
Nick takes pictures of his father in august settings, concealing his reluctance. The state Capitol building steps. In the gardens next to the old train depot. Nick takes the pictures, while laughing, watching this scene unfold. His own life is still to be unfurled. He is young, his father aging like the leaves on the vast oak trees, turning to flame. Nick imagines something true and real, snapping the pictures. He imagines himself a year from now, two years from now, somewhere far from his father. Someone new and different. Someone in a writing program, in a state full of energy and joy. Not like this place, where people ride the buses wearing reserve and misery like their worn-out parkas.
He imagines himself making new friends, being able to create a life of his own, all the while snapping pictures of his father. Cap turned in one direction, and another. Tassels visible. Diploma in his father’s hand, of course. A mighty fortress is my father’s lies.
Nick hopes his own life can come into being. He doesn’t want to pretend, to create his own life in the dells of his consciousness. A life he doesn’t have yet. To dream seems so pathetic and putrid sometimes. Dreamers can be great artists and they can be the users, the abusers.
Nick hopes beyond hope, taking picture after picture of his father, his mustache bristling over a victory without shape or substance.
He hopes, but hope isn’t enough.

​

 
 
I
 
            As he drove hurriedly down the street he couldn’t help but notice the sun was shining. It was supposed to be a cloudy day; there was even a small chance of rain. He liked the rain. Rain, darkness, and clouds; these all fit his personality. The sadness that permeated his life was still very much there. After all these years he had finally just gave in to the realization that it was just a part of him. It was who he was, sadness. And he could never figure out why. Emma had always said he needed to see someone. “Get to the root of the problem,” was the line she repeated many times. She repeated the same things over and over every time she brought it up. It was always her that brought it up. “Don’t you want to be happy, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be over this sickness you have?” Those were her go to words. He never really saw it as a sickness, just sadness. And it made him wonder why she stayed with him. Why stay with someone who was miserable?  She said she loved him. It must have been true considering they had been together for three years now.
            He wondered if the sun was an omen; a light at the end of the tunnel. If it was good news maybe it could be the springboard he needed to start enjoying life. Maybe he could start living life and stop just letting it float ever so slowly away from him like a boat leaving a dock. Or maybe the light signified something else. If the news was indeed a worst case scenario it could be deliverance. Maybe it could be a way to slip away from life with no consequences. He had thought of suicide many times. In fact it was just another part of who he was. He thought of it every day, several times a day, but he knew he didn’t have the courage to do it. It wasn’t an option and even though he was an atheist every time he let the thought run through his head he couldn’t escape the realization that no one can be one hundred percent certain of anything. What if he went through with it and there was a god? What if reincarnation was true and he came back as a cockroach or even worse, an accountant. Even if he was certain he couldn’t die like that. For all his faults there was one thing he wasn’t and that was a quitter. But this wouldn’t be suicide would it? If he did have a serious illness and just let it take him that would not be quitting. In fact it would be quicker and less painful, no drugs, no long string of doctors visits knowing the inevitable was coming soon anyway. As he pulled into the doctor’s office the idea started to form in his head.
            Pulling slowly into the parking spot he put the car in park and shut off the engine. The ideas filled his brain. And the chance of him not having this illness no longer occurred to him. It was like he had already been informed of his fate. And he knew exactly how to deal with it.  He would leave. He would leave this life, his job, his girlfriend, and everything that comprised the life he lead, the life he hated and didn’t know why. That was the answer. The disease would be his deliverance.
            Checking in at the receptionist and waiting to get called in the time never flew by so fast. Everything was flashing before his eyes, the scenes playing out like snapshots in his head. His mind was no longer set on finding out whether or not he had a deadly disease but on what he would do when he heard the news. Again, a short flash of time and he is sitting in a doctors office and hears someone tell him to come in.
 “Hello Mr. Rockwell,” said the doctor with an even tone. He answered with the same even keel, “Dr. Orwell, how are you?”
            “Quite alright” was the answer. The doctor wasted no time in delivering his message.
“Mr. Rockwell, I’m afraid it is as how we feared.” Dr. Orwell continued on in the vein of someone delivering awful news. “The good news is that with heavy treatment this is something you can survive.
 He didn’t want to hear this. “Doctor, you mean to say something I can survive with heavy treatment or something I will survive with heavy treatment?”
 Rocking back in his chair Dr. Orwell said, “Well, there is never a hundred percent chance of anything, but you would have a fifty-fifty shot at beating this, that is with you following the treatment regimen to the letter.”
 More of Raymond’s plan forms in his head as he asks his next question, “So I’m guessing that would include drugs and other quite uncomfortable procedures?”
 Dr. Orwell with a steady voice answers simply, “yes.”
 He knew the conversation could not have ended there but the next thing he knew he was in his car pulling away from this place of deliverance.
            Thoughts ricocheted inside his brain like a pinball. He pulled into the parking lot of an old abandoned department store. Was this his decision? Was this how it was going to end? He remembered how unhappy he was. He remembered how the rest of his family was already dead, lost in a car accident. His mind moved to Emma and how she would feel. He hadn’t told her he had been going to the doctors. This would kill her. But maybe he could save her by leaving. Everything around him ended badly, this could be her deliverance as well. Without him in her life she could move on and be with someone who was happy. This would be the best for both of them. As he pulled out of the parking lot and started home he had come to his final decision.
            On the drive home he thought about how he could tie up all loose ends and leave. He had to tell Emma, that was a necessity. He didn’t want people looking for him like he was missing. He wanted to be left alone to die. Should he call work? No, they didn’t need to know. They would call Emma after he didn’t show up anyway, she was his emergency contact. What he was going to do was another question. That answer came easier than any other. He was going to go to the only place that made him happy.
             His parents were always strict when he was growing up. He never got to go to the big parties in school. He had never been more than thirty miles from his house until his senior year in high school. That was the year they finally let him go. His friends were going to Myrtle Beach and he was going with them. His first taste of freedom opened something within him. He loved the beach, the fun, and the adventure. Spring break of that year was the last time he could remember being truly free, truly happy. This was where he discovered writing as well. He enjoyed writing. It got him through some of the bad times. Short stories, poems, and essays filled his computer. He dreamed of penning a great novel and being beloved and admired by his heroes like Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan. Maybe his memoirs could posthumously achieve this. That would be his final task, writing the story of his life.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
II
 
 
 
            The inside of his apartment looked like what you would expect from a place inhabited by a couple in their early thirties. A women’s touch easily observable, pictures of friends and family on the side tables, fake flowers sat atop the bookcase, and a particularly frilly, aggressively pink blanket strewn across the back of the couch.  Walking across the living room he picked up the picture of him and Emma on their first vacation together. Behind them you could see the giant billboard advertising the tiger experience at Barefoot Landing just outside Myrtle Beach; their faces frozen in a perpetual smile. He knew looking down at this picture this might be the last time he sees her smile and it would be from a photo. But he could not think on that now. He had to pack for his trip, his journey to the promise land. It would be quite an easy decision on what to bring. Aside from the essentials like a toothbrush, clothes, and other assorted needs he packed several of his favorite books for inspiration. Evelyn Waugh, Martin Amis, and Saul Bellow novels had helped him get through life in a way. He read when he was sad, when he needed a friend, he even made it a point to read for at least thirty minutes every time before he sat down to write. Several notebooks were thrown into his bag along with a handful of pens. Finally, he slid his old, dirty laptop into its case and laid it on top of his dad’s travel bag. He had kept this bag when his father died. He didn’t quite know why. His father had taken this small blue bag with its yellow logo of an eagle on its side every time he went away on business or vacation. He would now take it with him to escape this life he so despised.
            He knew he didn’t have much time before Emma got home. She left work regularly at four and glancing at his phone he saw that that was a mere twenty minutes away. Being packed, all he had to do was tell his girlfriend of three years that he was leaving and never coming back. He sat down upon the couch with its blazingly pink blanket and thought about what he could say to make this as quick and painless as possible. But before he realized what he was doing he had pulled his phone out of his pocket and had dialed his work number. This was not part of his plan. He could just hang up now and no one would ever know.
 “Thank you for calling Puzo’s Distributing this is Lance.” His voice was cordial enough for someone expecting a client.
 He kept his cool as much as he could and soldiered on. “Mr. Cruet, its Raymond.” “I’m just calling you to tell you I quit.” He could not believe he came out with it like that, so quick, so straight to the point and as the last part of the sentence left his throat his voice trembled like it had never before.
 There was a brief pause before his boss answered this unexpected resignation.  “Raymond, this is Raymond Rockwell?”
 He tried to regain his composure as best he could. “Yes, I’m out, I won’t be in tomorrow or any other day, I’m done.”
Mr. Cruet desperately tried to find an answer to why one of his employees was quitting so suddenly; after all Raymond Rockwell, while not at the top of his profession always pulled in good numbers and never caused any problems.  “Raymond, why are you leaving us so suddenly, is there is a problem?”
 He wanted nothing but to be done with this conversation and so he ended as quickly as he could. “There is no problem, I’m moving on, and that is the end of it; thank you for your opportunity, goodbye.” It was like ripping off a band-aid, if the band-aid had been on your skin for eight years of your life. He hung up on his boss, the man who had taught him quite a lot about what he knew. He was through; he was done, that part of this insane business was over. Now if he could just tell Emma, he could start the last leg of his life.
            He never thought to call what was left of his family. He had one grandmother and two uncles on his mothers side but only spoke to them around Christmas. There was no need to bother; Emma would let them know when the holidays rolled around.  As for Emma, she would come through the door at any minute. What was he going to say to her? Before the first thought could be formed in his head he heard the sound of a key being slid into the lock of the door. She was home and he now had to perform. He knew it was going to be ugly so he just let it all go in one long burst.
 As she walked in he said, “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you but, I’ve been going to the doctors. I’m sick and I’m dying, and I’m leaving you. I want to die alone.”
 She just stood there with a look that seemed to be equal parts shock and disgust. Emma said all that she could think to say, “Is this a joke, you’re not leaving.”
 Raymond tried to make the retort as definitive as possible. “I am leaving. This will be good for you. You deserve better. I just want a chance to clear my head.”
“This is insane,” Emma screamed. “You can at least tell me what’s going on. What do you have, can you be cured?”
 Still trying to get through this conversation as quickly as possible Raymond answered defiantly, “The doctor said I have a fifty-fifty shot at living, but I chose not to fight. I want to die.”
 Emma, still shell-shocked from the unexpected admission said in a much calmer voice, “Is this what you think of life, of me? You are just going to leave and lie down like a dog and die?” The tears that had been streaming down her face now began to wet her shirt. Raymond, unable to say anything else grabbed his father’s old bag and his laptop, slid past Emma like a stranger on a crowded street and left the apartment without saying another word.
            Reaching his car he threw his bags into the back and got in. There was no hesitation, he instantly put the key in the ignition, backed out of his parking space and was gone within seconds. The highway was only a mile from his apartment complex and once he turned onto Highway 74, the road that led to Myrtle Beach, the pressure he felt telling Emma he was leaving her fell away immediately. He was now on the open road and heading to freedom. He screamed to no one but himself,” YEAHHHHHHHH, I CAN DO ANYTHING!!!” It was like some dam had broken within him; a dam that was holding in emotions, and dreams. He felt liberated. All questions had now been answered. He knew where he would go. Care’s Sea Inn was the hotel he stayed in when he had his first taste of freedom over a decade ago. He knew what he would do when he got there. Raymond wanted to pen the story of his life. With the life giving beauty of the golden sand and massive ocean he would have plenty of inspiration. And finally he knew how he would die. Hopefully, his memoirs would be complete before the disease took him. If not then he would at least enjoy his final moments being in the place that gave him his fondest memories.
           
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
III
 
 
 
            Turning on to the A1A in Myrtle Beach Raymond could see Care’s Sea Inn scrawled across the tall gray building. There had only been one hotel building with the Care name last time he was there. Now it had expanded into four separate hotels. Raymond Care was a frat boy who took the money his father left him when he died and opened a hotel on the strip in Myrtle Beach. He would follow his father in death not long after. The Sun News, the local newspaper of record read, “Hotel Owner Parties Himself To Death”, the day Raymond Care died. Care had used what was left of the money after buying the hotel to buy drugs and party with any college co-ed he could find. He was found dead on the bed of a top floor room of the hotel that bore his name, the needle still in his arm.
  Raymond Rockwell always thought it was some sort of omen that he shared a name with this man. He thought of him every time he thought of suicide. Raymond Care lived a life he wouldn’t mind living, having fun and going out quick. Now he was pulling into his hotel.  Walking through the double glass doors he approached the check-in desk. An old lady with snow white hair was sitting behind the desk reading. Her name tag read Elli. He stood there waiting for her to notice him.
 After several moments of being ignored he said, “I’d like a room please.” Finally, looking up from her novel, she spoke with as little emotion as one could imagine,
“For how long?” she said.
 He had wanted to stay here as long as he would be alive, but could not remember having the conversation with his doctor about how long he would live without treatment. “Can I get the room for a month?”
Again the receptionist answered with a voice of immense disinterest, “yeah, credit card and I.D.”
 He pulled the necessary things from his wallet and handed them to Elli. “May I have a room that is as high up as possible please?”
 Elli, the receptionist, again with as little fervor as imaginable answers Raymond, “yeah, here you go, room 1607, elevators are down the hall.” 
As he takes back his cards he thanks her to no response. He thought to himself if he were to reach that age he hoped he wasn’t that standoffish. But then again he wouldn’t have to worry about that and losing his life while still young didn’t bother him. Taking the elevator up to the 16th floor he turned right and found room 1607.
Putting the room key into the slot he didn’t know what to expect. It had been years since he had stayed here. Opening the door he walked in and found it was exactly as it was those many years ago. To the right up against the wall was the queen sized bed. He thought to himself that this could indeed be his death bed. Beside the bed was a small desk where he would write his memoirs. On the desk sat a tiny lamp that looked like it had been sitting there untouched since he was last there. Straight ahead was the bathroom and over to the right beside it were the sliding doors that lead to the balcony. This was the first thing he wanted to do; to open those doors and look out into the vast ocean that always gave him comfort. Every time he came to the beach he would sit out on the balcony of his hotel at night and stare at the moon and the waves smashing against the beach. Now he was here and he could sit and stare at them for the rest of his life. There were no more work days, no responsibilities, no one else in the whole world he was beholden to. His life was his own.
After gazing at the dark blue ocean for what seemed like an eternity he decided to lie down and get some sleep. It had been a long day. But his past was no longer apart of his life. From now on his life was about him and him only. He would pen his story and let this disease that ravaged his body take him away. Raymond Rockwell slid out of his clothes and fell into bed and the last thing he thought of before falling asleep was no matter how dismal his life had been up until then the final chapter would tell of a joyous man. 
Upon waking the next morning he thought about going straight to his laptop and beginning to write the story of his life.  Instead he walked to the sliding doors that led to the balcony and stepped out into a day that was bright with sunshine. The waves crashed against the beach like they perpetually did; the sound of which made him feel at home. Again, giving thought to sitting down at the desk that held his old laptop he decided to eat breakfast. The hotel did not offer anything until lunch so he went across the street to a coffee shop that luckily had some sandwiches and croissants. Taking an egg and bacon croissant and coffee back to his hotel room he sat down for the first time and began to write.
Raymond believed that any good autobiography should begin with ones parents.  Finding this easy to write, his fingers pressed down upon his old Hewlett-Packard and he typed the first words of his memoirs quite easily.  He didn’t need to write any further outlines or notes for his book. He had been working on those for years. Raymond simply started putting words into his computer.
Ever since he started to write he would always say the words as he typed them.  It helped him weed out the good from the bad.  “Mother was an engineer.” He sighed knowing this was the first sentence of the only book he would write.”  He always liked to start stories and essays with short, extremely blunt sentences. His teachers had never approved of starting this way, but he never changed this.  After this opening sentence he flew through the stories of his parents telling of their births, to their careers, and finally ending with the car crash that took their lives along with Raymond’s younger brother.  It was his first day in Myrtle Beach and he had rough drafts for two chapters.  It was eight o’clock. He had been writing uninterrupted for nine hours. Saving his files, he closed his laptop and decided to get a drink.
Pressing the button for the lobby, Raymond knew he didn’t have to go far to find a bar. There was one in his hotel. Every time he had visited it looked same, but always had new staff and a new name. The elevator doors opened and he walked out to the right and went down the long narrow corridor that led to the hotel bar. The walls of the hallway were painted light blue and had assorted ocean themed decorations like life buoys and mini lighthouses as many other hotels did that sat right on the beach. Coming to the door of the bar he noticed the theme continued. The bar was now named, The Ark Beers Hotel Lounge.  There was picture of an old man with a long white beard on a very large boat carrying kegs of beer and cases of liquor. Raymond laughed to himself and said, “I guess Noah wised up and got rid of the animals and brought what was really important this time.”  Opening the glass door and stepping inside he saw that nothing had changed about the look of the place; just as always. The walls were painted that same blue the hallways were and had the same types of décor.  To his left there was mounted a small figurine of a man with a captain’s hat reeling in a large fish. Straight ahead there were old lifejackets and diving equipment pinned to the wall. And above his head there was a seven foot long sail fish mounted over the entrance. The bar was to the right and in between it and the dining room there was a four foot blue wall that separated them that looked like it could be knocked over by a very aggressive sneeze. As he approached a chair at the bar a short, bald man that looked to be in his late 30’s or early 40’s turned to greet him.
With a huge smile on his face he said, “Hey there, welcome in, what can I get you?”
Raymond answered as he did on most occasions such as this, “Gin and tonic please.”
 “Sounds good to me,” answered the man behind the bar. Mixing the drink and putting it down on the bar along with a thin cocktail napkin the bartender began with the obligatory server, customer conversation. “So what brings you to Myrtle, are you on vacation or are you one of the seven locals around here?” he says with a large grin spread across his small round face.
Raymond was taken aback by the question, not because it was out of the ordinary; he should have been ready for such enquiries, but because he had not thought of what to tell anyone who might ask. Creating a new life for himself he told a half lie. “I am a writer. I’m just here to hang out, and maybe do a little work, I don’t know, we will see.”
 The bartender, seemingly more excited than Raymond was expecting shouted, “Oh great, well good luck to you!” “I don’t read much but, I admire someone who has a creative mind like that. I wish I could do something like that,” the bartender bellowed.
“Well there is no reason you can’t,” Raymond replied. As he said this, a small woman with dark brown hair came bursting out of the kitchen with two plates full of food. Raymond could not help but gaze across the room to where she was taking the order. She passed the small dilapidated wall that separated the dining area from the bar and turned right and bypassed one table only to arrive at her destination. There sat an old couple he had not noticed when he came in. The old man sat there with a look of excitement upon his face, napkin in lap, ready to devour the meal he had ordered. He was bald, expect for the sides of his head, the hair seemingly clinging to breath as he was. Wearing a white shirt with brown stripes, he seemed to burst with life as much as he seemed to be about to burst out of his top and matching brown pants.
The old lady wore a long, purple dress, with anchors on it. She sat in her chair, not quite as excited as the old man, but with a look of definite joy on her face. Her hair was white as the placemat that sat in front of her and she wore glasses that matched her grape coloured, boat themed dress.
The bartender continued the conversation as Raymond turned around again, “I don’t know. I have nothing to say.”
With a small grin Raymond replied, “That’s what everyone says.”
 “I’m Arthur, by the way,” said the balding bartender.
 Raymond leaned forward to shake the man’s hand and introduced himself. “Well now we are friends in my book,” Arthur said. “What do you write, Raymond, novels, stories?”
 Again, Raymond having not anticipated such a question came up with a quick answer not entirely true but, not quite false either. “I am writing a biography, it’s on an obscure figure you’re probably not familiar with.”
  “Sounds good,” Arthur replied.
The waitress returned from delivering the food to her table and leaned across the counter on the corner where the staff area met the bar.
“How are William and Carrie?” asked the Arthur.
 “They’re fine, they are always fine,” came the retort.
 Arthur continued on,” This is our new friend Raymond, Liz why don’t you say hey.” Without looking up from her phone Liz said a very unenthusiastic hello. Raymond returned the greeting with the same lack of fervor not wanting to meet anyone else. Sensing Arthur was the talkative type Raymond excused himself and went out the door that led to the beach. The hotel had a large patio that looked out onto the beach. He came to the edge of the concrete and was about to step into the sand when he heard someone yell out.
“Hey, did you just check in?” Raymond turned to find two young, blonde girls lounging on the plastic chairs by the door of the bar. They could have been confused for identical twins at first glace but as he came closer he saw they were not. Although they did dress a like in short white shorts and bikini tops, one blue, one yellow, they were distinguishable in another way. One girl had a tattoo of an eagle across her chest, the others tattoo was simply of wings, no bird. Both girls had a cup in their hands that resembled something you would see in an old gladiator movie.
 “I checked in last night,” Raymond replied.
The girl with the wings replied, “yeah, we thought you must be new, we know everyone here.” “I’m Annie and this is Alexa.” Alexa lifted a hand in greeting. Raymond, with his mind on other things returned the greeting and said,” nice to meet you ladies,” and went back inside.
 Raymond was not in the mood to talk but was in less of a mood to be sober so he took his seat back at the bar. The old couple was still enjoying their meal.
“Another one of these please.”
“Sounds good, Raymond,” Arthur shouted with a big smile on his face. While Arthur was making his drink Raymond gazed around the dining room again. He saw that the old couple had already gone. He thought it funny considering he just saw them as he came in. Arthur handed Raymond his drink and with one gulp he took it all down.
 “Well, I have to get some sleep; you can put it on the room, yes.” Arthur answered with an emphatic, “sounds good!”
Walking back up to his room Raymond thought of nothing but shutting his eyes so he could get up early and work on his life story. Slipping off his shoes he got into bed and laid there staring at the ceiling listening to the calming sound of the waves hitting the sand. Soon his eyes became heavy and he drifted off to sleep wholly content for the first time in many years.
Raymond’s second day at the beach started off much better for someone trying to pen their memoirs. Eight o’clock and he was up and immediately at the computer relating the early parts of his life. When he was a kid he lived a pretty normal life. Going to school, playing in the back yard of his house during summer, and making friends he thought he would have forever made up the majority of his existence. He enjoyed his life like most children do even if they have a terrible one. When you are a kid you don’t know any better, but his life was perfect. His mother and father loved each other and he had a brother to play with and share life with.
It was his teenage years that life started to go chaotic. Most teenagers think life is hard and unbearable but his actually fit the bill. He was sixteen when he was told his father had cancer. Raymond was sat down on his parent’s bed and told that chances were his father would not be around much longer. After that day his mother seemed different. Not just worried and upset but, she changed in a way that didn’t seem normal. She was never herself after that day. One morning Raymond walked out of his house to go to school and the first thing he saw was his mother standing on the porch smoking a cigarette, arms folded and a look upon her face he had never seen. She looked like a defeated person, like her husband of twenty years was already dead and now she couldn’t go on. She had never smoked in her life as far as Raymond knew. The sight of this shocked him almost as much as the revelation that his father might not survive his disease.
But, as it turns out life never seems to run out of surprises. His dad came home one day and announced he was cancer free. It was a miracle! Raymond listened as his father relayed the message his doctor had told him; the chemo had worked and he was going to live. He wasn’t completely out of the woods yet but, now chances were he was going to live to see his children get married, have kids, and he would grow old with the only woman he had ever thought about loving.
And he did live; for four more years. Raymond was twenty when the car crash took the lives of not only the person he had once had come to terms with he might lose, but the lives of his entire immediate family. There was no illegal activity, no one to blame really. A man slid through the intersection due to brake failure or that was the official report anyway. His car collided with Raymond’s family’s car and killed everyone inside. Raymond wasn’t there because he was arguing with his dad that day. They were all going to get ice cream and he stayed behind.  
Raymond wanted to stay in the dorms at college even though he lived five miles from there. His dad was insisting he stay at home to save some money. But Raymond wanted freedom, freedom from the man who not that long ago he could have lost forever. He just wanted to be out of his parent’s house and have the full college experience. Now they were all gone. Raymond couldn’t help but blame himself after the wreck. “Was dad not paying attention because he was mad at me?” “Did I cause the accident?” Raymond had kept these feelings inside since that day.
He couldn’t write anymore that day. Raymond saved his file and went down stairs for a couple drinks at the bar. The first thing he saw when walking through the door of the Ark Beer’s Hotel Lounge was the old couple. They were sitting at the same table wearing the same clothes from before, only different colors. The man’s shirt was still white but with blue stripes and blue pants. The old woman was wearing the same dress as before with the anchors but, in a pretty green color. It looked like a deep blue green you would see sparkling on the ocean.
Making his way to the bar he noticed that apart from the old couple he was the only one there again. Arthur was cutting limes at the bar with his back turned to Raymond, his bald spot shining in the light of the bar.
 “A G&T Arthur, if you don’t mind.”
 Arthur whirling around to greet him, said, “Hey, Raymond, good to see you again, sounds good.” As Arthur turned to make his drink Raymond was startled by Liz bursting out of the kitchen carrying two plates with steaming food. She was headed for the only table there, the old couple with the consistent fashion sense.
Feeling more at home and accomplished due to his getting some writing done the past two days, Raymond sparked up a conversation with Arthur as he finished making his drink, “So has it been as slow as last night?”
 Arthur, always seemingly very positive answered, “Oh, there has been people in and out all day, how is your work going?”
 Raymond, now with his guard down a little said, “I did a little writing today, I’m happy with it.”
 “Hey, sounds good my friend!” Arthur answered empathically. “I’m still jealous of that, I wish I had a story inside me somewhere, but my life is just a little too boring for that, but hey, I’ll take what I’ve got here at the bar.”
 Raymond, repeating what he told Arthur on his first night, “Everyone has a story to tell, you just have to sit down and let it out.”
“Yeah, sounds good to me”, came the reply. Raymond not being able resist the sounds and smells of the ocean excused himself,” Listen, I’m going to take my drink outside and enjoy some fresh air for a while okay?”
 “Sounds good, Raymond,” came the reply.
Walking out onto the hotel patio, looking out to the ocean Raymond failed to see the blonde girls sitting on the same beach chairs from before. “Hey man, back again?” “Oh, hello ladies,” Raymond tried to sound like he wasn’t happy to see them. They were extremely attractive even though they were a lot younger than Raymond and most likely out of his league on his best day; holding up the same antique cups from before they shouted in unison, “cheers!”
“Cheers girls!”
It made Raymond happy to be talking to them. He had planned to be tucked away in his room for the most part during his short stay here but, now that he had the attention of people he had never met he felt a little more alive. Raymond couldn’t help but fantasize about being friends with them. Not only because they possessed a sexual appeal anyone would notice but, because they seemed so happy, and had a contentment about them like nothing could upset the life they had carved out for themselves. He pictured in his head that he was their age and was sitting in a beach chair right beside them, talking endlessly and laughing at everything that they saw.
Being too shy to strike up any further conversation he went back inside to the bar. Upon entering he noticed the same scene he had seen his first night. The old couple was sitting in the same chairs enjoying their meals. Taking a seat at the bar Arthur offered him another drink. “Ready for number two, Raymond?”
“Yeah, go ahead Mr. mixologist.”
“Sounds good, I know how you like ‘em.” Arthur said.
Raymond leaned back and finished what was left of his first gin and tonic of the night and laid the empty glass on the bar. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed an empty space where the old couple should have been. They disappeared again. There was no way they finished eating and paid their bill that quick. He had just come in from the beach and they were still eating. He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit this had peaked his interest. How were they leaving so fast that he didn’t notice them? “Arthur, who are the old couple that was sitting over there, do they stay here in the hotel?”
“That’s William and Carrie; they’ve eaten here every night for a week. They must stay here; no one ever comes to this place unless they are staying in the hotel.”
As Arthur said this Liz came out of the kitchen and leaned against the end of the bar. “Well, I’m done for the night,” she mumbled.
“Why don’t you stay for a drink, Liz”, Raymond’s shyness melted away. He wanted to know about the old couple and their waitress might have some information. Liz, with the quickness of a supermodel turning down the chess club president, said,”Gotta head out, see you tomorrow Arthur.”
“Have a great night.” Came the reply from the bartender.
Raymond didn’t know why but he was intrigued by the couple that had made their way out of the bar on two consecutive nights without him noticing but after a couple more gin and tonics he forgot about them.
“I think I’ve had enough for tonight Arthur, stick it on the room will you?” “Sounds good,” came the reply from the giddy barman.
Early the next morning Raymond found himself sitting at his desk ready to recall another part of his life. He had not looked forward to reliving the death of his family but he powered through and painted that picture as best he could. Now it was on to another dreadful chapter in his struggle.  
Lily had brought the sun into his life. The sadness that lived deep within him disappeared for the short four years he knew her. From the second they met he loved her. There was something about her that no matter what she said or did he could find no fault in her.
They shared everything. Their hobbies were the same, their likes and dislikes matched perfectly. Everyone they knew said they should hate each, that they were so alike they should have never gotten along, but this wasn’t the case. Outside of work there was no moment they didn’t spend huddled together doing something. Raymond wouldn’t have believed it if he could step outside his life and see how wonderful he felt. But he couldn’t so he just lived in his fantasy, enjoying ever moment with Lily and dreaming up more fun adventures they could share together when they weren’t.
The day it had ended Raymond had come home with brochures for skydiving. Lily had a streak of adventure just as strong as his. He had not known it at that moment but he would never lay eyes on her again.
Her disappearance baffled police. No clues, no evidence of foul play was ever found. Raymond was even a suspect for a short time. She had been seen leaving work and was never seen again.
Raymond let his imagination run wild with theory. The most plausible answer was she was abducted and…….He couldn’t’ write it. He had seen those shows on TV where the local girl, popular with everyone in the community gets taken and is never returned to her family. They all ended the same. They were all the same.
If he wanted to write his story he had to go on, it was too important to leave out. She was likely abducted and violated, killed and dumped in some thick deserted wood. The police actually told him this. This was her most likely end they had said. There was very little hope of finding her. He remembered how nonchalant they were about the whole process. But he didn’t let their theories get in the way of making his own.
He wondered if he had been good enough. Had she just left him and didn’t want a big scene. Was it possible she was out there somewhere, happy and living a new life? If this was true he was happy for her. At least she would be was safe and secure. Maybe he just didn’t give her what she needed. Maybe he had been too overbearing, too quite, too loud, too anything. He played any trick he could play with his mind just so she could live, if only in his head.
He still thought about her everyday. Even when Emma came along he still thought of her. It made him feel guilty but there was never any moment he imagined he might prick the vein of her memory and let her flow out of his body forever. She would be there always, washing his memory with the most wonderful times of life, and consequentially polluting his head with her demise. She became part of his sadness.
He couldn’t put any more writing in on the day. It was time to go visit the little place of refuge downstairs. Raymond needed a drink or ten after his work today. Hoping Arthur wouldn’t ask how it went today, he headed for the elevator.
Like a soldier guarding the castle there Arthur stood ready for his next customer. “Raymond!!!!” “Ready for another G&T I see!” he belted out.
“Well I’m always ready for one, but I wouldn’t ever get anything done if I had as many as I wanted.” Raymond joked. He had always had a good sense of humor. It got him through the day sometimes. No matter how dark or bleak the situation he could always find a way to make people laugh. Having been writing on his own life it was himself he needed to make laugh now.
Taking number one on the night from Arthur he headed for his nightly visit to the beach. This time he noticed the two blonde girls lounging on the patio. Alexa and Annie were on their usual chairs with their usual cups. Their tattoos seemed so out of place for them. He didn’t really know them but Alexa’s eagle and Annie’s wings, both prominently displayed between their breasts seemed something you were more likely to see on a biker. “How are you tonight ladies?”
“Oh, hey guy!” Alexa was always the one to speak first. Annie followed with another hipsterish greeting, “Hey, man how is life treating you?”
Raymond was never the most open person but he was starting to feel at home at the hotel quite quickly. “Its not too bad, I’ve been doing a bit of writing.”
“You’re a writer?” Alexa asked with some degree of interest.
Raymond not wanting to take credit for something that wasn’t true, answered,” no, not really, just trying it out.”
“I see.” Annie replied, always laconic.
He couldn’t help but have that feeling of exhilaration with being near them. He seemed to feed off their youth, but at the same time felt out of place around them. Being the shy man he was he fought off the urge to continue the conversation and went back inside to his now usual seat at the bar.
 The old couple William and Carrie was at their same spot eating their dinner. Arthur was head first into the cooler, cleaning it when Raymond hopped on his chair. Just as he was about to take another drink Liz came cascading out of the kitchen with her things, always looking ready to take flight from the bar. “Well, I’m outta her, see ya tomorrow.”
“Aren’t you going to finish waiting on William and Carrie?” Raymond asked.
The answer surprised Raymond like everything about the couple did, “they left already, no more people for me wait around here for.”
Turning around in his bar seat, Raymond gazed upon the empty chairs where not thirty seconds ago the old couple had sat. They had sneaked out of the bar again without him noticing. Raymond now too curious to control himself asked,” do they pay their bill before leaving.”
Liz, looking at him like his head had just exploded answered, “of course, they have been eating here every night, do you think we would let them back in if they left without paying.”
“Do they stay in the hotel?”
Liz, again bothered by the question replied, “how would I know, I assume so, who would come here if they didn’t.” With this she picked up her things and headed for the door. Arthur with his head still in the cooler never heard I word of the conversation.
After a couple more drinks Raymond went back up to his room. He couldn’t get the old couple out of his head. How do they leave so fast? It’s like they vanish into thin air. Maybe they are ghosts he thought, but he didn’t believe that junk. The last thought that ran through his mind before drifting off to sleep was William and Carrie floating through the ether, haunting the hotel. But the smile that this gave him disappeared when it made him think of the people he missed so much; the people that were taken from this planet too early. He knew he no longer had room for death in his life.
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                     IV
 
 
 
            The sun rose and brought a soothing warmth to Raymond Rockwell’s Myrtle Beach hotel room that morning. He had no plans of deviating from his routine of getting up and going straight to his computer to continue penning his life story. The disease that racked his body lay dormant and didn’t keep him from living a normal life for now. But as he rose from his bed his first thought was not of his project but of the old couple he kept seeing in the downstairs bar.
            William and Carrie had been there all three nights he went down to have a drink after writing. The strange thing about them was that they seemed to disappear every night. All three nights Raymond had been sitting in a chair at the bar with the couple, probably in their eighties, sitting not ten feet behind him. And all three nights they vanished without him seeing them leave. One second they were there and the next they were gone. Old people don’t move that fast, he thought.
            For some odd reason they overtook his desire to write. He wanted to meet them. He didn’t know why. They had to be staying in the hotel; locals wouldn’t be eating at the Ark Beers Hotel Lounge, especially not two people on their way out of this life. It was a beach bar for young people cutting through to the ocean.
            “I’ll just take a quick peek around the hotel and come back and do some writing.” he thought. Leaving his room he looked around the floor where he was staying. Putting his ear to the first door he heard nothing. He repeated this process several more times until he had listened in on every room on the floor. Coming up with nothing he hit the button to go down to floor fifteen.
            Floor fifteen proved to be a little more interesting. Listening in on room 1505 he could hear Alexa’s voice. “I know but do you think I should wear the blue top or the yellow one. Not wanting to eavesdrop anymore than he already had he moved on. Sticking his ear to every door he didn’t hear anything that might make him think there was an elderly couple inside.
            On the sixth floor he heard people having sex. On floor four he overheard an argument with a married couple about where to send their kids to school. On floor three he recognized another voice. Annie was speaking into the phone just loud enough for him to hear, “I’m wearing what I always wear Alexa!” Continuing on he checked floors one and two to no avail.
            He thought about trying the front desk and asking if they knew William and Carrie. Making his way to the lobby of the hotel he saw Elli sitting there with her book. “Excuse me,” Raymond said, remembering how standoffish she was when he had checked in.
“Yes.”
“I was wondering if you knew an older couple that is staying here, they are about seventy-five or eighty.” He realized he didn’t have too much more information to give her and as he was thinking of how else to describe them he got his answer.
“No, I just check people in I don’t get to know them.”
Knowing there wasn’t going to be much more information coming from her he left the front desk without another word. He cut through the bar on this way to the beach but there was no one there. The door was unlocked but the lights were off and no one was behind the bar. Stepping out onto the patio he scanned the beach. There weren’t many people out today, a big surprise considering the sun was out and it was warm and a perfect day to lay out.
He decided to head back up to his room and think of a plan. Undertaking this search had given him a little excitement. He had wanted to be an explorer when he was kid. Raymond had imagined himself discovering new wonders of the world and finding treasure worth more money than the crown jewels. This gave him a new adventure. The couple had taken over his thought process. He had forgotten about his writing for the day.
Upon entering his room the first thing his eyes fell upon was his computer. “I really should be writing.” he thought. Lying down on his bed he stared at the ceiling wondering who this old couple was. He spent the rest of his day thinking, pondering, obsessing over them. Drifting off to sleep he had passed his first day in the hotel without writing a word.
Waking up the next morning Raymond went straight to putting his ears to the doors of the Care’s Sea Inn guests. His floor again proved disappointing. On floor fifteen he heard Alexa on the phone again;” I don’t know, I just think we should go shopping first, so we don’t miss out on anything!” Floor seven he heard a sound of a phone ringing in one room but no one answered it. The couple from the fourth floor had apparently made up and decided where their kids would go to school because Raymond could hear them laughing hysterically through the door. On three, Annie was on the phone again just like her friend on fifteen. “I think we should hit the outlets first.” Moving on Raymond began to think all of floors one and two were empty because this was the second day he hadn’t heard a single sound from any room.
The day ran on like this. He checked the beach, the lobby, the coffee shop across the street; all to no avail. Lost in his obsession with finding the old couple Raymond Rockwell walked up and down the strip in Myrtle Beach the rest of the day. He never saw the people he was looking for.
Again the sun was already beating down upon his head when he woke the next morning. Opening his eyes he felt a sensation he could not remember having felt in a very long time, if ever. Raymond didn’t know what it was, but he did know that he was ready to face the day. This was something he was not accustomed to. Normally, he set his alarm at least an hour and a half before he had to get out of bed so he could talk himself into living another day. He would lie there and stare at the ceiling asking himself questions like, is it worth pulling my feet from under the covers and laying them on the ground? Why bother with going to work and being a productive member of society? This was no problem today. He got right up and showered, put on his clothes, and left his hotel room to find William and Carrie.
The routine remained unchanged. Raymond listened at all the doors on his floor. The results didn’t change either; he heard nothing that made him think an old couple occupied any of those rooms.  He pushed the down facing arrow to descend to the fifteenth floor, oblivious to why he had come to Myrtle Beach in the first place. His memoires completely forgotten, he rode down the one floor to fifteen.
As the doors opened to let him on to his next set of rooms two people stood directly in front of him, side by side, as they were ready to block his way. He recognized them immediately as the couple he had been looking for. They stepped on to the elevator and stared at Raymond like he was their long lost son.
“I’ve been….” Raymond was cut off mid-sentence.
“We seem to have sparked some interest in you Raymond.” William spoke with calm, even tone.
He didn’t have a clue as to how they knew his name; he was just enamored with the fact that they were standing right in front of him.
“Not just a spark but a lust for life has opened up in you in your quest to find us. If only you could put this effort into living life, living for your passions, living for the people you love, the people who love you.”
Raymond couldn’t move, he couldn’t divert his gaze from the old couple he had been chasing.
Carrie spoke now, with a voice you would expect from a loving grandmother, soft and comforting.
“You have a passion inside your heart Raymond, don’t turn away from it. Chase life, chase love like you chased us these couple days. Your time on this planet does not last long, and you don’t know how much you have left.”
He didn’t know if that was a reference to his disease; eschewing the fact that they shouldn’t know this information either, or just a simple platitude. Either would have made sense. It didn’t matter at the moment. He closed his eyes and realized in an instant that he wanted to live. He couldn’t let this disease take him away. He had a purpose; he had Emma, and his sense of adventure and his dream of being an explorer, a world traveler. A quitter he was not.
As the ding of the elevator door let him know he was at his destination he realized the old couple had vanished again. Right in front of his eyes this time, they had gone. His first instinct was step off the elevator and look for them but he knew they would not be there. Glancing at the floor number he saw he was on three.
“That’s strange, I hit fifteen and I never saw William or Carrie hit any buttons.”
Annie stepped on the elevator and greeted him.
“Hey man, I was just going up to meet Alexa, what are you up to.”
“I, I don’t… really know, just living life.”
This excited Annie, “Yeah man, I know what you mean, all you can do is live and hope for the best right?”
As she said this the door opened to floor fifteen and Alexa hopped in.
“Hey guys, I hope I didn’t miss anything.”
“Chill out miss drama queen,” Annie said while rolling her eyes.
The next stop on the elevator was Raymond’s floor.
“Number sixteen man, I assume this is you,” said Alexa.
Raymond stepped out on to his floor without a word of goodbye to the girls. He slid his room key into his door and opened it. His time at Care’s Sea Inn had been short, it had been fun, but mostly it had led him to realize he wanted to live.
His pursuit of William and Carrie had reminded him of his childhood. He thought about the times he had spent with his brother exploring the woods behind his house; the memories of him and his dad watching documentaries on explorers on television. Chasing after them had awakened his lust for life. He knew what he wanted, he knew his destiny, he was alive again, and he was free; free from the depression that had lingered so long within him.
 
 
 
                                                       V
 
 
 
His decision to leave and go back home had come easily. As the back of his head hit his pillow he knew that he would be checking out of Raymond Care’s hotel tomorrow morning. The hotel owner’s fate of a young death would not be his own. He would drive home, start fighting for his life and start living like every day was his last whether he had a fatal disease or not.
Checking out of the hotel he began to form a plan in his head. He would drive straight home, tell Emma his whole experience in Myrtle Beach and ask for her forgiveness. She would take him back. He had been distraught about his diagnosis and acted impulsively. He knew now what he did must have put an enormous strain on her. He was selfish and out of line, but she would forgive him. They would be back to their normal selves emotionally and begin to fight his disease. “She’ll forgive me,” he thought.
He would get his old job back too. They would understand. He had had a moment of craziness. He was reliable. The company could rely on him. They would take him back.
Getting into his car he felt good. He had gotten this out of his head. He would live like a normal person again. When you’re told you have a debilitating disease you fight; you fight with all you have and this was what he was ready to do now. He could beat this.
He had made it almost all the way home on one tank of gas. Pulling into the station he realized he was only ten miles from home so it was no surprise to see someone he knew.
“Charlie, hey man!, his excitement at being back home was overtaking him; “Charlie, it’s Raymond!”
His old friend of twelve years had looked at him like he was a disease. “I thought you had gone, what are you doing here.”
“I’m back in town; I’m heading home now to see Emma.”
Charlie looked unaffected, like he was looking at someone he had never seen. And as he turned to go into the store he looked back one last time holding an expression upon his face that gave Raymond a grim feeling.
Raymond felt confused by his old friend’s actions but could not focus on anything but getting back on the road to home and seeing Emma. It took him another fifteen minutes and he was at his apartment. He looked up at the second floor window where he and Emma had cuddled together and watched the rain so many times. Raymond didn’t think to grab his bag from his car, he just ran upstairs to meet his girlfriend of four years. Opening the door he found the apartment empty. The one person he was most excited to see upon his arrival was not there. “She must still be at work,” he thought.
Not wanting to waste another minute of his life he decided to call his work and get his job back while he waited on his companion. Lance Cruet answered the phone like he always did, in anticipation of a new or satisfied client.
“Thank you for calling Puzo’s Distributing, this is Lance.”
“Mr. Cruet, its Raymond!” He had no thought that he might not get his job back. “Listen, I’m back in town and would like to come back to the company, I know you could use someone with my experience.”
Lance Cruet spoke in the tone of someone who was speaking to an old enemy. “Mr. Rockwell we do not currently have any positions available here at Puzo’s Distributing, further more I would not consider hiring you if we did. You left your position without notice and without an explanation as to why you were abandoning your job.”
Raymond tried to cut in, astounded at hearing this. “Lance, I had…….,”
Mr. Cruet continued, “This is not something we can tolerate here and I do not wish to hear your side of the story. Thank you for calling Puzo’s Distributing, have a good day.”
This marked the second failure since he had been back. First his friend turns his back on him, literally and now he had no job. But somehow, when thinking of Emma those things didn’t matter. The prize for wanting to live was her. She had stuck with him for three years even though he lived his life with depression. He realized now that he had not appreciated her or any of his life for that matter. That would all change. When she came home, he would tell her everything. He would tell her everything he had done while away, everything that made him want to live, and everything that was going to change. He was going to start living.
Emma walked through the door and stared at him in shock. The look upon her face gave Raymond a slight pause but he knew what he wanted. He knew what he had to say, what he wanted to say.
“I’m back Emma; I’m back and I’m sorry.”
“Well, why are you back,” she said, still standing by the door.
“I realized I had made a mistake. Leaving was the worst possible thing I could have done.”
Emma, with a slight twinge of venom to her voice exclaimed, “Yes it was, what a stupid thing to do! It was the dumbest thing you could have done. But you didn’t answer my question, why are you back?”
“I want to live, Emma. I want to be with you. Being away from you made me realize what I had, and I don’t want to lose that. I want to fight this disease and go on and live life with you.”
“You already lost me Raymond.” Emma’s retort was cold and void of any emotion he was used to seeing her express. “You lost me the second you left. How could you expect me to live not knowing what happened to you, were you ok, were you getting treatment, was this all just a way to get away from me?” “Had I made you unhappy?” “I didn’t know, and you left me remember, I couldn’t go on with all those questions. When you shut that door, I watched you from the window putting your bag in your car and driving off. The second you were out of my sight you were out of my heart.”
Raymond not wanting to be dealt another failure on the day tried to state his case. “Emma, I will do whatever….”
“You will leave this apartment Raymond. You will leave and never come back here. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t know you………and I don’t think I ever did.”
This last admission was too much for Raymond Rockwell to bear. As Emma took one step to her side to give him room to get to the door he obliged. He did not look at her, he just stared at the floor for several seconds before he said, “I’ll get my stuff when you are at work.” And with that he walked out of the door of his apartment again, this time not knowing where he was going.
 
 
 
 
                                                        VI
 
 
 
It had been three weeks since Raymond had come to reclaim his life. Rejected by Emma and his long time place of employ he had concentrated on getting everything out of his old apartment. It took longer than it should having due to the fact he had to wait until Emma was gone to collect his things. One more trip and he was done. He hadn’t known why he was bothering, considering he had decided to take his own life. He had lost what he had come back for and he couldn’t bear the thought of the disease killing him any longer. Not that long ago that was the plan, to just let it take him. But now it made him sick to think he would die like that. He would rather die by his own hand than some random bunch of vicious molecules.
Walking in to Emma’s apartment; the one he had not long ago shared with her, he remembered his former girlfriend had a stash of sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet. She had had trouble sleeping a couple months ago and the doctor prescribed her medication that was too strong for her. She had only taken the one after having a bad reaction to them. But Emma was someone who would never throw anything away and he knew they would still be there.
Opening the cabinet his eyes fell upon the bottle of medication he was looking for. Taking them in his hand he felt a power he had never experienced. He now controlled his life again. Neither his disease, nor his depression, nor anyone in his life had any hold over him. He would not be remembered as someone who succumbed to illness, he would be remembered as master of his own fate.
Opening his mouth and disposing its contents into his body he twisted the top back onto the bottle and walked into the kitchen. He threw the empty pill bottle into the trash and went to the refrigerator. Emma had two bottles of Pouilly-Fuse unopened in the door. This had been their favorite wine. They had drank it at every special occasion together; birthdays, anniversaries, and even on the first night they met. Raymond uncorked both of them and sat on the couch with the wine and a glass.
He sat and thought on his life. It seemed like everyone he ever knew flashed across his mind at least once. All the tragedy, all the sadness played out in his head. At that moment he forgave himself. He forgave himself for the person he had become. The depression had taken hold of him and he had lived his life not knowing how to break free of it. And it had affected every one he knew, everyone he had a relationship with, everyone he came across. But now sitting on his former couch he let it all go.
After his started the second bottle he became drowsy. He leaned his head back on the couch with its loud, pink blanket and let the memories take him away. They were no longer his memories but strange caricatures of experiences he knew he had taken part in but he couldn’t recognize. The car crash that killed his family became a hot air balloon taking them all up into the bright blue sky; the news story of his only love being missing morphed into a documentary on their wedding and all the pomp and circumstance that came with it.
Old friends flashed by eyes, he saw schools he went to, his favorite bookstore. The life he once knew played out in his head. It was like watching a movie, not for the first time but, like seeing your favorite film from childhood many years later. But, slowly the visions started to fade and so did Raymond’s strength. He closed his eyes and uttered his last words, “I don’t care….Elli.” His wine glass fell from his hand, spilling the wine within. Raymond had lost his battle.
Emma got home around the same time she always did. She showed no concern, hate, shock, or any other emotion as she called the police. Raymond was a bad memory, an attack on her comfort and safety. Him leaving her left an impression she did her best to file away in the deepest parts of her psyche. It was almost over now.
As the body was placed on the gurney she was asked what had happened, how she found him, all the normal questions that are asked when a person shows up dead before their time. They were all forgotten when she told them he had deadly disease. There was no further reason to investigate. He had died of his illness. This is what went into the report; this is what the police believed, and what Emma believed. He had died of his illness.
 Raymond had wanted to go out on his own terms and be remembered for taking his life into his own hands, to be remembered for taking his own life like the owner of Care’s Sea Inn. But his legacy was much different. The rare times Raymond Rockwell was mentioned by co-workers, former friends, or anyone else it was always said he had died of his illness. 
 
 
 
 

​ 
     The carriage held but just ourselves
     and immortality.
     --Emily Dickinson    
 
     “Welcome to Timbuktu,” the voice said. It sounded bored, as if repeating this greeting for the hundredth time today. “Are you an atheist?”
     I tried to open my eyes and then realized they were already open. I could feel my eyelids move. So I was in complete darkness. “Where am I? And why is it so dark?”
     “The dark helps avoid sensory overload and facilitates adjustment. Also cuts down on the amount of vomit we have to clean up. Please answer the question.”
     “What question?”
     “Are you an atheist?” the bored voice repeated, a little impatient.
     Sometimes I get confused and tell the truth because I can’t think of anything clever. “No, I’m agnostic. Where am I?”
     “Oh, good. We don’t get many of those,” the voice said. “As I said, this is Timbuktu. For now. Last month it was Shangri-La. Next month, maybe Nirvana. In generic terms, the afterlife. It takes a little getting used to.”

    Someone turned the lights on.
    I climbed out of the boat. My feet were wet. As I stood up and felt water drip down my legs, I realized my back was wet, too. Had I been lying down in the boat? Memories were fading fast.
     “Would you like to tip the boatman?” the bored voice asked. I saw now it belonged to a short man, bald, with wire-rimmed glasses and an extremely large mustache. He held an old-fashioned clipboard in one hand and a pencil in the other.
     “Boatman?” I said, looking around in confusion and down at myself. Scuffed white tennis shoes, faded blue jeans, and my “No soup for you!” tee shirt. Well, if I had to be dead--not that I believed it for a moment--I might as well be comfortable.
     “Boatgirl, then. Boatperson, boatwoman. She doesn’t much care. But she’ll be grumpy and give the next patron a rough ride if you don’t tip her.”
     I spotted the boat driver, a young woman who looked about nineteen, leaning on the gunwale of a battered white rowboat, staring upstream as if none of this was her concern. The biggest black dog I had ever seen sat patiently beside her. I checked my pockets. “I have no money.”
     “No problem. You can leave a metaphorical tip. Those are always appreciated. Or we can charge it to your account, if you want to tip actual money.”
     “Fine, whatever,” I said. “Where am I?” This time I knew I had already asked, but I was hoping for an answer that made sense.
     “Door on the far left,” Mustache said, ignoring my question. He pointed, made a mark on the clipboard, and turned to the boat driver. “Ready for the next one,” he said. The big black dog jumped in the boat behind her.
#
     I faced four wooden doors made of age-silvered wooden planks. All closed, no lines, no one waiting outside any of them. The doors were surrounded by a short stone wall that ended a few feet above and beyond them. I looked around the end of the wall. The other side looked the same as this side. Sand and sparse grass, two small trees in the distance, and a horizon that faded into complete darkness. The light faded to darkness above, too. It was impossible to say where the ambient light came from. Behind me, Mustache and Boatgirl were repeating the routine with a new arrival.
     The door on the far right was labeled Conventional Religions in large letters. The one beside it said Capitalists, Materialists, and Anarchists. Second from the left was the door labeled Atheists. The one on the far left simply said Others. Well, it felt like this probably wasn’t the first time I had been an Other. I tried the knob. The door creaked open slowly, as if it didn’t get much use.
     The wall had seemed to stand alone, but the door opened on a cross between the Guggenheim and a parking garage, if it were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and M.C. Escher: tall marble columns supported endless curves, up and down, no steps in sight, and few level or rectangular surfaces except the small booth, like a toll-taker’s cubbyhole, just inside the door. Looking down--or up?--certain paths, I saw what looked like skeletons of prehistoric animals, displays of stone tools and inscribed clay tablets, rocket ships, and other items both natural and artificial. The odd curves and angles made for visual cacophony, the scale of things impossible to judge. I could not tell if the displays were tiny or just very far away. The air smelled like orchids.
     “Daisy Donner, right?” the woman in the booth asked. She stared at me over half-glasses and a copy of The Brothers Karamazov.
     I nodded. I was still sure of my name, anyway. The front window of the booth had a little round hole for speaking through, and the usual rectangular slot at the bottom, for sliding money or tickets through. I hoped there was no admission charge, or that metaphors were an acceptable form of currency here, too. The woman must be the source of the orchid scent, I decided--it was much stronger as I stepped closer.
     “Do you have any questions?” She wore a name tag that said Flossie in large letters and below that, in smaller script, Docent. I watched her check a box beside my name in a list on her clipboard. Everyone who was anyone had a clipboard, it seemed.
     “A million. I won’t ask what this place is, unless you have something to say besides ‘the afterlife.’ So how did I get here?”
     “You don’t remember. Interesting. But a little amnesia is not unheard of. It will probably come back to you. I can’t tell you.”
     “You don’t know?” I said, a little incredulous.
     “I didn’t say I don’t know. I said I can’t tell you. But no, I don’t know. You don’t know, either, it seems, and it happened to you. Anyway, records on cause of death are not kept here. You have any idea the amount of paperwork that would entail? Storage space alone would expand to metaphysical proportions. And the army of clerks . . . I shudder.” And she did, in fact, shudder.
     “You people never heard of computers? It’s the twenty-first century, you know.”
     “We heard. Didn’t care much for the idea.”
     “Maybe you can tell me why I’m here, then.”
     She smiled, as if the chance to give an actual answer pleased her. “Why, yes, you are here because you are agnostic.” She looked at the clipboard to double check. “You are agnostic, right?”
     “Yes.”
     “And apparently you never did anything bad enough to be lumped in with the capitalists. So here you are.”
     “What happens to capitalists?”
     “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But from what I hear, it’s not pleasant.”
     “Why do they have it especially bad?”
     “Well, not all capitalists. Just the ones who valued money and profits above all else. The afterlife is all about what you believe. You’re agnostic. Seeing is believing, for the moment, anyway. So here you are, in the museum, where there are things to be seen.”
     “So if I believed in reincarnation, I’d have been reincarnated?”
     “Probably.”
     “If I believed in a heaven where everyone is issued a harp and angel wings?”
     “Yep, that’s where you’d be. The wings don’t work, though. Not nearly enough lift. You have to respect physics here, same as everywhere.”
     I thought this over for a minute. “What if you get bored with the afterlife? Does that ever happen?”
     “Sometimes.”
     “So what happens--you’re just stuck in eternal boredom? Or worse?”
     “Yeah. It’s called hell. But you can apply for a transfer.”
     “Who decides if you get it?”
     She jerked a thumb skyward. “Upstairs.”
     “God?”
     “There is no god.”
     “Who makes the decisions, then? Who’s in charge?”
     “The Committee. Sort of a board of directors. Or Homeowners’ Association. Some of them think they’re gods, but nobody takes them seriously. Members rotate. Or so I hear. I’m just a lowly admissions clerk. Do my job, keep my head down. Otherwise, I might get promoted, and that sounds like a hassle.”
     “Why a hassle?”
     “Less free time. Less opportunity to work on my fantasy novel.”
     I knew better than to ask what it was about.
     “There’s not a lot of rules, just pragmatic common sense stuff--no stealing, don’t kill anybody, lie only if you must, and try not to litter. And don’t try to leave town. That one’s important.”
     I was never very good at following rules, but now didn’t seem a good time to mention that. “Town? What town?”
     “The agnostic section. You were assigned here for a reason.”
     “Well, yeah. I’m agnostic. Or I was. Now I guess I don’t know what I am.”
     “Once an agnostic, always an agnostic. If you wander into, say, the Southern Baptist section--well, let’s just say there’d be trouble. Big trouble. I’d have to file the report. And I hate paperwork.”
     “What would happen to me?”
     She shrugged. “Not my problem.” Another vague gesture upward. “Whatever they decided. Just stay where you belong, follow the rules, and everything’s easy.”
     “One more thing--where’s everybody else? I can’t be the only agnostic who ever died, but I don’t see anybody else. Except you.”
     “They’re around. It’s a big place. And actually, there really aren’t very many of you guys.”
     “You guys? You are not agnostic?”
     She laughed, a tinkly sound, like a wineglass tapped with a caviar fork. “Goodness, no, I worshipped Artemis.”
     I let that sink I for a minute. “Artemis? As in, Apollo’s twin sister?”
     She nodded.
     “But I thought you said there’s no god?”
     “That doesn’t stop people from worshipping one, does it? Anyway, the Olympians existed. They were supernatural beings, of a sort.”
     “Where are they now?”
     “Another of many things that are not my problem.”
     I was beginning to think Flossie left much to be desired as a docent. “How long have you been here?” I wasn’t sure what kind of answer I hoped for.
     “About twenty-two centuries, give or take.” She looked at her book, clearly growing tired of this conversation.
     I didn’t know what I thought about that. I wandered off toward the display of a skeleton, the bones of an animal I could not identify, perhaps a miniature T-Rex, or maybe just a big lizard.
                                #
     This must be a dream, I decided. The thought excited me, because the only times I’ve ever known I was dreaming were right before I woke up. Ergo, I must be about to wake up.
I did not wake up. Therefore, I was not asleep. Instead, then, this must be one of those mind control experiments, like something in an old episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. I took a seat on an oak bench near Moran’s “Childe Roland” painting--or what looked like it, though I assumed the original was in a museum somewhere. I stared at the lurid, turbulent painted sky, and waited for the scientist or military officer in charge to show up and explain.
     I waited a long time. The scientists or generals never showed up. But people smarter than me have said absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. My not seeing them did not mean they were not there somewhere, waiting to see how long before I figured out the game. There would be a glitch in the computer program that projected the hologram, an actor who forgot his or her lines, a corner on the movie set where wallpaper peeled up and revealed scaffolds and concrete beyond. Something would give it away. I would be patient and see what happened.
#
Hours had passed as I wandered the museum. I was not tired. My feet did not hurt. Past the working model of a steam engine in the Industrial Revolution diorama, the hall led to snack machines, a drinking fountain, and restrooms. I was neither hungry nor thirsty, and I hadn’t needed to go to the bathroom since I got here. If this really was the afterlife, would I get hungry? Or need to sleep, go to the bathroom, etc? Apparently someone did, or these amenities would be superfluous. Did the afterlife have civilian employees?
     The door in the shadow beside the drinking fountain said No Entrance, so I tried the knob. Unlocked. I entered. Was this the janitor’s closet where someone kept tools for fixing glitches?
     The door led to another hallway. Of course. It was dimly lit, but the doors were labeled clearly enough. Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. I kept walking, past various doors for sects and sub-sects. At least three different doors for alternate varieties of Judaism. Fourteen versions of Protestant Christianity. And so on.
     At the far end of the hall, a hundred yards from where I entered, another door with no label, but the same admonishment as before--No Entrance. I opened the door.
#
     Brakes squealed. Horns honked. The air smelled of exhaust. People laughed, cursed, and ignored me.
     I was standing on the sidewalk, off Times Square, New York, USA, Planet Earth. I looked around and immediately recognized the place, somewhere on West 47th Street, in the No-Man’s-Nor-Woman’s Land between Hell’s Kitchen and Times Square. I looked around for the door I had just opened. It was gone. The nearest door was the plate-glass entrance to an espresso shop. I had been here many times before.
     I knew it. I had been dreaming, sleepwalking, or hallucinating. Here was reality again. A good cup of very strong coffee would help.
#
     I went inside the shop and sat at a table near the window. The world still had that not-quite-real look about it that comes right after strange, vivid dreams. Like you could see right through solid objects if you looked hard enough.
     A man at the next table was eating a slice of cherry pie. I stared at it. Suddenly, those red cherries, the sugary glaze filling, the flaky crust--they looked like the most beautiful things in the world. My eyes followed the silver fork up to the man’s mouth.
     “Looks delicious, doesn’t it?” A woman’s voice said. “Well go ahead, have a bite.”
     I turned and looked. A brunette with shoulder-length hair and straight bangs had seated herself across from me while I was staring at the pie.
     Normally, I would rebuff familiarities from a stranger, but everything had been so strange lately, I hardly noticed one more oddity. “Yeah. Looks like that’s the only way I get any pie, if I take a bite of his. The waiter seems to be ignoring me.”
     “He’s not ignoring you, Dearie. He can’t see you.”
     So I was Dearie, now. “What, he’s blind?”
     “No. He cannot see you. You’re invisible to him.” The brunette stared at me a second, then said, “Oh, my God, you don’t even know, do you? I’ll bet you just got here. Welcome to the show. I’m Radcliffe. Radcliffe Hall.” She held out her hand and said, “You can call me Cliffe.”
     “Here?” I asked. “Where is here?” She still held out her hand, so I took it. One shake, firm but not too firm. Her hand felt a little chilly.
     “The Point of No Return,” she said. “The In-Between. The Beyond. The Singularity. Nowhere. There are lots of names for it. But what’s important is not so much where you are as what you are. In simplest terms, you’re dead. Dead as your great-great-great grandparents.”
     “You mean I’m a ghost?”
     “We prefer non-corporeal entity. Or differently-incorporated. Less baggage. But in the vernacular, yes, you’re a ghost. The dead are normally on the other side, but ones who don’t fit in there, for whatever reason, the ones who don’t belong there, well, they end up in the Singularity. Here, you’re just like everybody else.”
     “Like everybody else?”
     “Well, like everybody else who’s not alive. Dead.”
     Apparently the dream, which was turning into a fever-dream, maybe a nightmare, was not over.
     “You’re not dreaming or hallucinating,” Cliffe said, as if she could read my mind. “But there’s no way to prove that now, anymore than when you were alive. All you can do is wait to wake up, if you think this is a dream, and meanwhile get on with your afterlife.”
     “And how do I do that, if I’m dead?” I figured I might as well play along. When in Rome. . . .
     “Start by having that pie you wanted.” Cliffe reached over and took a bite from the slice of pie at the next table. Or seemed to--I saw her fork dip into the crust and filling and lift it to her mouth, yet nothing changed on the plate. The pie remained as it was, and the man paid no attention. It was a bizarre sort of double vision, like looking into a funhouse mirror.
     “This is one of the advantages of being in the Singularity,” Cliffe said. “You can get away with a lot here. Eat pie. Eat all the ice cream you want, have sex with no fear of pregnancy, etc., sneak into the movies, except you don’t have to sneak, and travel anywhere you like. The living don’t see you, for the most part, and don’t believe in you if they do see you. The bureaucracy of the afterlife doesn’t care what you do. You fell through the cracks in their system, and besides, they’ve got the steady supply of new arrivals to deal with. We don’t matter to them anymore.”
     “We--so you’re a ghost, too.”
   “Why else do you think we’re talking? The living don’t see us. Not usually.” She paused, then asked, “How did you die?”
     “I don’t know.”
     “Oh, my. You are new here, aren’t you?”
     “There’s a gap in my memories. I’m still not even totally convinced I’m dead.”
     She nodded in sympathy. “A violent death, then. Causes amnesia. And denial. Usually temporary. Or so I hear. It will probably come back to you. But trust me. You’re a ghost. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you weren’t.”
     “So how is this different from reincarnation?” I asked.
     “Simple,” she said, “You’re not carnal. No longer flesh and blood. You can eat, but you don’t get hungry. Sleep, though you don’t get tired. Being hot or cold--any kind of physical discomfort, they’re all just states of mind now. You’ll learn to control them.”
     “Ghosts seem to have it almost as good as superheroes,” I said.
     “Better. Nobody expects us to solve crimes or prevent terrorist attacks. But there are two things you can’t do now.” She paused, as if expecting me to ask what they were. Rules of conversation and all. I did not ask. I’m not a very good rule-follower.
     “One, you can’t go back,” she volunteered.
     I looked out the window. The door that said No Entrance on the other side should be there somewhere. It wasn’t.
     “The door is gone. You won’t find it again. At least I never heard of anyone finding it. You’re stuck here. You’re an exile.”
     “What’s the other thing I can’t do?” I was intrigued enough to ask now, dream or no dream.
     “You can’t change material things. You can’t make a difference here. This is their world, not ours. Kinda balances things out, I think--we can do whatever we want only because it doesn’t count. Not in this world.” She took another bite of the pie from the other table. “But you get used to it. See--if you’re dead, you really can have your pie--or someone else’s pie--and eat it, too.”
     “You make being dead sound too good to be true.”
     “In a lot of ways, it is. Are you going to have some pie or sit there looking sad and lost?”
     I had pie.
   #
     I had always played it cautious. Never believed in much. Now the world didn’t believe in me. Maybe it was ironic, I thought, but then I realized that apparently being a ghost was in fact the farthest thing from irony. Exactly what you’d expect. Tit for tat. Poetic justice.
     As an agnostic, I still refused to rule out the possibility that this was all still some trick. Virtual reality. Hypnosis. Mind control. I’d heard incredible things could be done with lasers and artificial intelligence. If this were a simulation or dream, I still figured I’d spot the flaw, sooner or later.
     On the other hand, people suggested that the so-called reality I’d lived in my whole life was a simulation. And if so, maybe things that make no sense--the Schrodinger’s cat paradox, dark matter, all that mind-bending jazz--maybe those are the flaws. The holes in the story told to us by whoever is running the experiment. My mind ran in that loop until I remembered why I’m agnostic--the only honest answer to these questions is, I do not know what is really going on. And I trust no one who claims to know. 
#
     Over the next couple of weeks, I had several more conversations with Cliffe, in the coffee shop, in the park, in her apartment overlooking Central Park. Apparently, the world was pretty much still the same. I was the one who was different. Maybe this was why the rules of the afterlife said not to leave town--for your own good. I realized it could be depressing to see the world move on without you, to not even exist in what used to be your life.
     On the other hand, it was also very freeing. If you’re nobody, you can do whatever you want. Freedom--real freedom, when you can do whatever you effing want--is vastly misunderstood and underrated by people who spend their whole lives doing as they are told.
     Cliffe shared the apartment with a living woman who didn’t know she had a roommate. The woman, Cathy, was a corporate attorney who was determined to be a CEO or Chair of the Board. “Real workaholic, hardly ever home, and then just to sleep. Alone. So she’s no bother. Another advantage of being a ghost--you don’t pay rent. Not that you really need an actual apartment, or domicile of any sort, as people don’t see you and you can ignore the weather. Still, if you can have in one of the best places in the City, why not?”
     I didn’t know if the apartment was the best place in the city, but I didn’t argue. I could never have afforded it when I was alive.
     We sat on the balcony and drank tea and admired the leaves turning scarlet. “So where are all the others?” I asked. “Other ghosts, I mean.”
     “There are very few of us. I assume you did something you weren’t supposed to in the afterlife--ate the forbidden fruit, read the forbidden book, opened the forbidden door--and got kicked out. Or just wandered down the wrong path and got lost. Happens rarely, and only to true misfits, as far as I can tell. Not everybody gets to be a ghost.”
     I nodded.
     “Still,” I said, “there should be a lot of ghosts. Considering all the people that have ever died, if even one percent of us wind up back here as ghosts, there should be millions of us.”
     “No. We fade away after a while. Or so I hear. I know a ghost who’s been here since the 1490s. One of Columbus’s sailors. Claims he was, anyway. Kind of a jerk, too. Must’ve been a real hell-raiser back in the day. That whole bunch was nothing but trouble, I guess. Anyway, he’s so insubstantial, you can’t see him unless he stands in broad daylight. You’d think shadow would make him easier to see, but there he just blends in. So that’s how it goes. We fade. Then one day, poof. You’re just gone. That’s what I hear. Never saw it happen.”
     “Then what”
     “How should I know? Nothing, I guess, the big zero.”
     I nodded. Oblivion. As an agnostic, that’s what I always figured death was.
     “Don’t you ever miss it?” I asked. “Being alive, I mean?”
     “Of course. The thrill of danger, for instance. When I was alive, I was afraid of heights. Being up here would have made me uncomfortable. Now, well, that thrill is gone. But then, I’m not shut up in an office staring at a legal brief on a computer, either.”
     I nodded. She made a good point.
     “Speaking of missing things,” Cliffe asked, “any luck on remembering you’re old life? Or death?”
     “Just flashes. A big room, lots of people listening and watching me.”
     “Like a theater?”
     “No, more like a classroom. I was a teacher, I think. Math, maybe. And sometimes in the street, I see a face that reminds me of someone. And dreams.”
     “What happens in the dreams?”
     “Just vague images. Nothing I can make sense of.”
     “Don’t worry. You will.”
     “Actually, that is what worries me. I’m afraid of what I might remember.” I paused and decided I knew Cliffe well enough to ask, “What happened to you? How did you become a ghost?”
     “I was an accountant, once upon a time. Just an ordinary drone in the lower levels of mortal hell, otherwise known as an insurance company. I died in a car crash--a drunk ran a red light. In the afterlife, they tried to put me in the capitalist section, even though I explained accounting was just a job, not a philosophy, a way to put food on the table and pay rent. Nobody listened--capitalists are as capitalists do, I was told, and so I was was partly responsible for every sick person who died because the company refused to honor their responsibility to pay for treatment. I was partly responsible for the demise of the planet, because the company took the premiums customers paid and invested in other companies that were destroying the rainforest. And so on. I couldn’t disagree, but I asked, So what was I supposed to do--starve? Nobody answered.
     “Anyway, the bureaucracy of the afterlife put me with the other capitalists, in the accounting section. I had to spend 18 or 20 hours a day generating reports, the same half dozen reports, day after day. Talk about passive aggression. Complaining was useless. So I jumped. Right out the window of the 22nd floor. I didn’t know if a person could commit suicide in the afterlife or not, but I decided to find out. Next thing I knew, I was in Manhattan. Been a ghost ever since. I guess the afterlife doesn’t want me back. At least not badly enough to send anyone to get me.” 
                                  #
     Over the next couple of weeks, I saw only one other ghost. Or at least, I assumed he must be a ghost. He strolled through Macy’s, casually taking whatever he wanted from the men’s department, trying clothes on in front of the big mirror at the end of the aisle, without bothering to use the fitting room. No one seemed to notice, except me. The clothes somehow remained on the racks, even after he’d taken them. That ghostly double-vision again. He had an extremely cute butt, but I didn’t talk to him. I was never the extra-sociable type who starts unnecessary conversations with strangers, alive or dead. I did decide that I, too, might as be a well-dressed ghost, but I went to In God We Trust, a boutique in Brooklyn that had cool shoes I could never afford when I was alive. At least, my vague memories included no such luxuries. Differently-incorporated or not, it felt like I should do something to pay for what I got, so I took a hundred-dollar ghost-bill from the purse of a rich, obviously way-too-entitled woman and tucked it into the pocket of the harassed clerk who made attempt after futile attempt to please her. The poor clerk wouldn’t be able to spend ghost-cash, but maybe it was good karma. If karma still worked in the In-Between. I figured it did. Still do, as a matter of fact.
     I slept on rooftops, a different one every night. Weather and the rocks in tar-and-gravel roofing were no bother for a non-corporeal entity. Hovering a millimeter or two above the surface was comfortable enough, yet it provided the reassuring illusion of lying on a horizontal plane. I enjoyed the view of the half-dozen or so stars and planets I could see clearly through the light pollution.
     I had dreams every night. Vivid, jumbled images that made little sense when I awoke. I didn’t know why ghosts had dreams. Or even slept. Some of the many things I didn’t know. I still half-suspected this was all a dream, so the dreams would be dreams inside a dream. Or a hallucination inside the dream. Or vice versa. The kinds of questions that lead to headaches, not answers.
     But one dream began to recur and grow clearer: someone is trying to kill me. I can’t see his face. He chases me down a dark hall at night, toward a bedroom. I run around a corner, through a doorway. I always wake up when I go in the room.
                                #
     Days, I looked for a job. Not the kind of job that pays money, for which I had no use, but the kind of job that earns you a sense of place and purpose in life. Or in death. Or in the In-Between. It was hard, because material objects and the living were impervious to my advances.
     Except they weren’t. Not entirely, as I eventually discovered.
     I sat on a bus-stop bench, watching the lights change and people hurry across, and the cars slamming on brakes or accelerating instantly to ridiculous speeds the instant the lights changed, as if they all actually had someplace important to be. An old lady carrying two grocery bags nearly as large as she was started to cross. I knew the light was about to change before she would make it halfway. Please, no, I thought. All the drivers in front of the lines of traffic seemed more interested in their phones than in the other humans. The old lady was about to be squashed like a bug. I stared at the Walk light. I thought, Don’t change, don’t change, don’t change.
     The light stayed on. The old lady made it across the street. I tried again, and found I could speed up the change when no pedestrians were crossing. I spent the whole aftermost tinkering with the crosswalk lights and traffic lights.
     I had a job. Crossing guard.
#
     If I could cause changes in the material world, could I become visible to mortals, even for a few seconds? There should be a Handbook, to answer such questions for new ghosts, I thought--but we are not supposed to be here in the first place, apparently, so it would have to be an underground publication. And a limited edition, since there are so few of us. I resolved to talk to Cliffe about it.
 I chose the restroom at the mall as the place for my first experiment in materializing. My friend Julie--at least, she was my friend when I was alive--was shopping for new shoes, so I waited for her to make a pitstop. I know, public restroom, seems a little sleazy or stalker-ish, but materializing in front of someone else seems like a thing you need to try in private. Going to her house seemed even sketchier.
     I concentrated, held my breath, and became visible, in a transparent sort of way. Julie screamed and ran from the restroom, her unrinsed hands still soapy. I screamed and followed her, seeing the image fade in the mirrors as they flashed by..
     The figure that half-materialized was not me. At least, not the me I remembered. A teenager with totally different eyes and hair.
     Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling me that the person I used to be was dead. Really dead. Even as a rebellious ghost, if I wanted to be seen, it had to be as somebody else.
     Still, I could produce some visible manifestation that the living would notice, if only for a few seconds.
#
     When I told Cliffe about my discoveries, I could tell she was more impressed than she let on. “It’s not unheard of, but I never saw anyone who could really change the material world,” she said. “Just be careful. Power is dangerous, no matter how much or little.”
     “More dangerous than powerlessness?”
     She shrugged. “What danger? We’re ghosts. Exiles from the afterlife. What’s anybody going to do to us? Also, meddling in mortal affairs is probably against the rules.”
     “Well, if we always followed the rules, we probably wouldn’t be here, would we?”
     Cliffe nodded and sipped her tea.
                                  #
     I’m having the dream again. The one with the face I can almost see. I run down the dark hall, through the doorway.
     This time, I don’t wake up when I enter the bedroom. The man behind me turns the corner. The light falls on his face. “You cheating scumbag,” I say, in a low, dangerous tone, and pick up a floor lamp and jab it at him. The shade tumbles off and rolls across the floor. He pauses for a moment. I turn to the startled redhead, who sits in shocked dismay on the bed. “You can have him. All yours.”
     I swing the lamp again and he falls backward, stumbling over the shade. I turn to go. “Daisy, wait,” he says, and then I know his name is Ryan. He jumps up, grabs my arm, and twists. I pull away and stumble, banging my head on the viciously sharp corner of the dresser.
     After that, blackness. And the wet bottom of a boat.
#
I woke up. I knew who had killed me. Or, at least, who was responsible for my death. “Everything will change, now,” I said to the stars. I found that the emotion of my dream had translated into vertical motion. I was drifting five hundred feet above the Chrysler Building.
                               #
     The next morning I told Cliffe, “I’ve got some haunting to do. I think I’m going to be a very vengeful ghost.” She didn’t bother telling me to be careful this time.
     I couldn't remember just yet where Ryan lived. Cliffe assured me memories would return gradually. But it didn’t matter--I remembered one thing about him--he liked to ride trains. I waited in a station that felt somehow familiar, felt right. I waited hours, every day for a week. I brought a book. I found being a ghost made me more patient.
     Ryan showed up on the eighth day. He stood at the front of the crowd. When I heard the rumble of approaching wheels, I marked my page, closed the book, walked across the platform, and pushed him in front of the train.
     Don’t judge me if you’ve never been killed, even accidentally, by your cheating boyfriend. Trust me--it really, really pisses you off. I mean, seriously.
   A few moments later, Ryan came crawling out from under the train. I stared, then immediately realized what had happened.
     “So you’re a freaking ghost, now, too?” I said. Alive, he had looked tall, blond, and Nordic. Or so I used to think when I was alive. Now he just looked skinny, pale, and cadaverous. Probably a shift in my perspective as much as his appearance.
     He blinked stupidly. “Daisy? I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to apologize. I’m so sorry about what happened.”
     That was Ryan, all over. He’d learned well the lesson that it’s easier to apologize than to learn from your mistakes and avoid screwing up. Sometime, his apologies were even sincere.
     We talked for a minute. As it turned out, Melody, the girl with whom he was cheating on me, also thought she was the only one. She proceeded to stab him in the heart with a barbecue fork right after I died of the head injury.
     “That’s just like you. You deprive me of the opportunity for really satisfying revenge,” I said, and walked away. At least, I wasn’t going to listen to another one of his BS apologies.
     Is it still called haunting when a ghost does it to another ghost? No matter. I was a part-time crossing guard and full-time ghost now, with all the time in the world and nothing to lose. Ryan was in for a few very rough train rides.
     And, as the poet said, more or less, since then, ‘tis centuries, yet it feels shorter than the day I first surmised the train was headed toward eternity.
END

Joan Rivera is a student at Full Sail University and is currently taking up a Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing.

Ever since mom passed away Christmas morning was mayhem. The clangor of pots and pans hitting each other, my father’s hoarse taut voice booming throughout the house as he tried to get dinner started, and my older brother’s bickering as they chopped the wood out back. The smell of turkey roasting in the oven wafted through the air. Dad was ecstatic, caught it himself. Said we’d feast and have a real Christmas dinner. He tried to replicate mom’s Christmas feast, but it was never the same, she was gone now. I wish she was here; I could use her wisdom. The bathroom was stuffy, tears pricked behind my eyes and a vision of my mother flashed in my memory. What would mom do if she was hear? A knock sounded at the door interrupting my thoughts.
"You okay rabbit?” Too scared to answer, I stare ahead at the hideous lime green wallpaper painted with specks of dandelions. Mom’s idea. When she was here, I’d make a face of disgust at the sheer sight of it, now, it made me cry. Dad wouldn’t take the hint, so I stand and flush the toilet watching until the red water turned translucent again. I open the door and I must have looked like a deer in headlights. With no way out and an urgent desperation, I tell him my dilemma. I could sense his disinclination, he was confused, as was I. I always thought mothers were supposed to be present for this kind of thing. His calloused hand gathers mine and he sits me down on the sofa. He calls my two older brothers, Sam and Pete. He tells them what’s troubling me and I begin to cry, the salty water tingling on my tongue as the ache in my stomach grows.
“Should we take her to the hospital?” Pete asks.
“Should I call Diana?” That’s Sam’s girlfriend, the only girl that comes around. Fear vibrates throughout my body. If no one knew the answer, what would I do?
“What would mom do?” The house goes silent, only the distant Christmas harmony coming from the antique radio could be heard in the living room.
And there it was, the answer, what would mom do? I look up at dad whose warm aging face looks back at me in reassurance. I smile through the tears wiping them away. Like mom, I was becoming a woman, it would all be okay.
My brothers sit beside me peppering kisses on my hair, wiping away my tears. I smile, the heavy rock weighing down my heart dissolving.
“We love you Sofia, we’ll do our best.” And I believed them.
A sudden pungent smell assaults the air. My face scrunches up and I peak around to the kitchen. Just as I suspected, smoke begins to emerge from the oven.
“Dad! The turkey!”
“Dang it!” He rushes to the kitchen and we burst into laughter.
“Dinner at the diner it is,” Sam says.
We laugh some more and run after dad to the kitchen to help and in that moment, I think of mom and smile. She was with me all along.
 
                                                                END
 
 
 

​Seraphina Stone had finally done it, had finally gotten a job dealing with babysitting, it seemed all it needed was for the Blackwood’s to give her a chance at watching their twin six-year old’s.  It was almost breathtaking, the estate the Blackwood’s lived on, but also came off haunting, as it sat in the middle of the woods on all sides. The surprise and enthusiasm Seraphina had felt at being given her first ever job, even with it being a simple babysitting one, was something that made it hard for her to hold still outside the main gate of the estate. Being informed to leave her car outside the premises and walk to the gate, had almost caused her to not take the job.
            “There you are!” Mrs. Blackwood called out as her husband pulled open the gate. “We had begun to wonder if you had decided to not take the job.”
            “Oh! I apologize Mrs. Blackwood!” Seraphina rushed to reassure the older lady dressed in a fine silk dress, blonde hair in an updo, and pearls wrapped around her throat. “You see, it was just harder than I had first thought it would be, to find the house.”
            “Play nice my dear, Lily and Hadrian have both just finished their dinner, as such in a few hours it will be time to put them to bed.” Mr. Blackwood said with slight scolding to his wife, tuxedo made of silk hugging his broad shoulders, and black hair slicked back. “Though do keep an ear and eye out for them.”
            “Of course!” Seraphina rushed to reassure as she entered the gates and moved up toward the house. “I promise to take great care of Lily and Hadrian, I also promise to keep a close eye on them!”
            “Then we shall get out of your hair.” Mrs. Blackwood said with a warm smile as she took her husband’s hand. “Do make sure to keep all doors and window closed and locked my dear.”
                                                                        ***
            Seraphina easily settled into the large living room before the fireplace, all doors had been locked and the children asleep, so with monitor placed in front of her, she relaxed. The creaking of elder and oak trees that surrounded the estate filled the silence, only broken by soft snores and slow breathing coming from inside the house, it was in this silence the soft padding of footsteps from outside were dampened and unheard by Seraphina.
            “You sure this is the right house?” A deep hoarse voice whispered. “I mean the lights are on, so someone’s home.”
            “If you shut your trap and listen for once,” another male voice shot back with venom. “You would have known that the only residence currently home are the babysitter and kids.”
            “Shh! You idiots are going to get us caught before we even get in!” A third voice snarled with warning, as the first one stumbled over a large piece of wood and slammed into a side window. “Now you did it…”
                                                                            ***
            Seraphina’s head shot up as a loud bang echoed from the far-right window in the living room, fear filled her being as she shot to her feet and turned to the side where the surveillance cameras were set up. Whispers of thought filled her mind as she took in the sight of three broad males standing outside with their faces covered by black masks, all thoughts halted as she ran toward the children’s room; she had to keep them safe. 
            “Lily, I need you to tell me if your parents showed you a hidden safe room.” Seraphina began trying to keep her cool, she knew getting the children hidden before calling for help, it was well known that old Estate homes had hidden rooms, at least she hoped this one did. “This is very important.”
            “Mommy showed brother and I a hidden button inside their closet that would open in a hidden room.” Lily answered sleepily blonde curls mused, blurry blue eyes watching her with confusion, as she clutched her teddy to her chest. “Why?”
            “There is no time little one, I need you to go there now while I get your brother.” Seraphina ordered softly as a crash filled the silence as the burglars broke into the kitchen, though a thought as to why the alarms hadn’t sounded filled her head for all of a moment. “Go, now Lily!”
            “What’s going on?” Hadrian whispered in fright curls of inky black falling into his green eyes as he looked up at her.
            “No time, you both need to go to the hidden room.” She ordered again as she began to push both children down the hall and watched as they clutched one another’s hand, but neither looked back as they ran into their parents’ room.
            “Now to call the police.” She whispered, voice trembling as she hid behind the door, hand reaching for her cellphone, only to freeze. “You had got to be joking.”
            “Man, I am telling you this place is a treasure chest, we will be rich boys!” A hoarse voice whispered outside the door where she hid. “And to think Charlie here only had to reset the alarms for thirty minutes.”
            Seraphina squeezed her eyes shut before taking a deep breath as she crept to the window inside Lily’s room, her only choice was to get outside the house and reenter from the broken sliding door they had broken in from. Her phone rested in a small space in the kitchen that most would overlook charging as she had relaxed in the living room, to think it could cost her so much now.
                                                                           ***
            Seraphina slipped through the bedroom window and quietly walked around to the broken sliding door in the kitchen, it was heart stopping to pause as she listened to the three men in the room across from her. Before she knew it, she had reached the broken sliding door and slowly moved inside and to the side for her phone, her adrenaline keeping her unaware of the wounds she gained.
            “Hello, there are three intruders inside the house, please hurry, I am at the Blackwood estate with two small children.” She got out once they picked up before having moving to hide in the pantry and await the arrival of the police, the next twenty minutes seemed to be set at a crawl as she waited for help.
            “Too bad you only cut the alarms for a set amount of time, could have really robbed this place.” The hoarse voiced complained with a shake of their head. “What the hell was that?!”
            “The cops! We got to go man!” The second voice shouted already rushing out the window with the others following. “I knew we should have looked further for those kids and babysitter!”
            Seraphina breathed a sigh of relief, finally feeling the pain from the cuts on her hands and knees from scrambling through a broken sliding door; but the happiness overwhelmed her, the children and her were safe. The gratitude shown by Mrs. and Mr. Blackwood caused her to fill brave, like a hero, even as she waved goodbye more than ready to end the day of her first ever job.
 
 

​Jimmy paused a moment at the window of the downtown bar, taking the last couple of puffs from the Pall Mall cigarette he was smoking on the way. This was definitely the kind of place Richie would set to meet. A hole in the wall bar, with wood paneling that ran halfway up, and then a dingy hunter green paint up to the ceiling. It was dimly lit, with a scarred and beaten up cherry wood bar that ran the length of the back wall. The bottles were lined up neatly in front of a mirror that was lit from above. The bartender stood behind the bar, busy washing glasses, almost as if he expected some kind of rush in the overcast afternoon. Jimmy exhaled the last puff and crushed the cigarette out on the brick next to the window before tossing it onto the sidewalk and shuffled into the place.
            It took Jimmy’s eyes a moment to adjust once he entered, but as soon as they had, he spotted Richie waving to him from a corner booth. He made his way over, hands in his pockets, eyes cast down. Richie stood and shook his hand.
            “Thanks for meeting me, Jim. I really do appreciate it. I know this all sounds a bit crazy, but I just gotta get that painting,” Richie said.
            “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Jimmy asked as he pulled another cigarette from his pack and lit it. “I mean, I understand the nostalgia and all, but come on, this seems pretty risky.”
            “Look, Jim, I get it. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the way love is, ain’t it? Crazy? Look, after all that happened, and all she and I went through, I just don’t want her making a dime off of my mug.”
            “Ok, ok. Just go over it again, let me hear the plan.”
            “So, it’s a small gallery, over off 5th. Some kind of showcase of up and comers, you know? She’s got a few paintings there. The actual show and bidding are supposed to begin after some kind of introduction of the artists at seven. We still have those security uniforms left over from that job we did for Vinnie. I figure we go there around 6-6:30, slide in, wait for the clear, grab it and get out. Easy peasy.”
            “Easy peasy, huh?” Jimmy frowned as he took a long drag on his cigarette. “Dammit… Ok, fine.”
            “Really, Jim? Really, you’re gonna do this for me? I knew it! I knew I could count on you, man,” Richie clasped his hand tight and gave him the kind of half handshake, half hug that he was known for throughout the rougher sides of town.
***
            Richie and Jimmy arrived at 6:15 in their security guard disguises and walked right through the front doors. No one even questioned their presence. They wound their way, side by side, through the various exhibits, and rounded a corner that opened into the area with the painting in question. Right in the middle, there was that painting, Richie standing in all of his nude glory for the world to see. And just in front of the painting was the artist, dressed in a long, black gown, hair pulled up into a bun, sipping on a glass of wine. Richie grabbed Jimmy and pulled him back around the corner.
             “Holy shit, Rich, you didn’t tell me it was a nude,” Jimmy said as he stifled a laugh.
            “Shhh…,” Richie held a finger up to his lips. “She’s gonna hear you, asshole. No, I left that part out.” He peeked around the corner. She was still in front of the painting. “What is she doing, just standing there?”
            “Obviously, admiring her, and God’s, handiwork,” Jimmy said, smiling.
            Richie held his finger to his lips again and looked back around the corner. A couple of men in black suits approached the artist.
            “Ms. Romano?” one said, approaching.
            She broke her attention from the painting, “Yes?”
            “We just wanted to apologize for the inconvenience. We gave the delivery drivers strict guidance on what paintings were to be picked up and brought here.”
            The artist looked back at the painting and ran a hand over the canvas. “It’s quite alright, I understand that these things sometimes happen. I suppose it is time I should get rid of this piece. It only serves as a reminder of someone that I can’t have.” She tilted her head to the side and ran her eyes over the whole of the painting, even as her hand ran over its surface. “It’s just. I guess I’m not quite ready yet.”
            The two men studied her for a moment and the way she regarded the painting. The man that had been doing the talking up until now bowed his head and cast his eyes downward with pursed lips, “We completely understand, madame. We’ll take it to the back and have the driver return it as soon as possible.” He grabbed her by the elbow and led her just out of Jimmy and Richie’s earshot.
            Richie’s expression went blank.
            “Rich, it’s now or never, man, let’s go,” Jimmy said, turning the corner.
            Richie caught him by the arm. When they met eyes, Richie just shook his head. “No. No, man. She can keep it. I can’t do this now. Not now.”
END