Chapter 1 
Greg loved to spend time on the toilet. At work that is. He almost never sat on the throne in his own bathroom at home. If he wanted to pee, he could always do it in the sink or in the shower. Anywhere in the bathroom would be ok for peeing, actually. He probably could pee on the lamp if he wanted to. The piss would probably dry off, the humidity in the air would solidify it into drops and the precipitation of the newly created microclimate would thus wash it away into crystal clear oblivion. Yeah, peeing was fine. But shitting… This business he reserved for work exclusively. It was for a few very important reasons.
 
First of all, his job sucked. Not for everyone perhaps but for him it sure did. It was one of those things that you do for money witnessing any form of positive emotion you previously attached to it wane and die off before the end of your probation. Going to the office in his hometown of Trotwood, Ohio, Greg felt like a whore in a Dostoevsky novel. An innocent God-fearing angel with gonorrhea who only wants to support her alcoholic family but dies somewhere between chapter 5 and 6. Naturally in a fucked up, feudal state of affairs such as this one, various distraction tools helped. Whether it be having 6 coffees a day, counting to a 100 repeatedly (forwards and backwards) or locking himself up in the loo for hours, he would do it all. He loved staying busy at the office. Working hard to come up with ways to not work was his number one passion.
 
And secondly, the restroom at work was state of the art. Greg was a local representative for a Japanese company. Which meant: at least 2 vending machines in the building, no cabinet being finished without a Gundam figure and an amazing toilet. Oh yes. After the latest upgrade and office renovation, they ordered a brand-new toilet from a boutique toilet Japanese company. Greg and his colleagues were extra lucky because they were selected to test out a new prototype, no one had ever sat on before nor would they in the future because the product line was discontinued shortly after. That was quite an honor for Greg in particular. He took that responsibility more seriously than life itself. Every day he would come to work early. Sipping on his first coffee he would lean back in his chair and glance at the door at the end of the corridor with a naughty twinkle in his eye. He was waiting to take his turn in the john with fingers eager to run down the buttons on the side panel like a blind pianist looking for his wedding ring. Buttons covered in weird inexplicable Japanese symbols bringing a mixture of pleasure and confusion the likes of which he had never experienced. Yes, that new toilet taught him things about himself he didn’t even suspect.
 
Other than that, there is not much more to say about Greg. He was the kinda guy who was like a wall. In the sense that, he was always there without you even noticing him. So much so that one time late after hours one of the girls in support was leaning against him and making out with the office manager. Greg felt so uncomfortable that he didn’t make a sound, so his colleagues only noticed him when they started wiping the sperm off. Just like a wall, no one at the office was capable of experiencing a deep emotional bond with Greg. The only contact he had with a colleague was when one of the short-sighted new interns got drunk at the Christmas party and puked on him. If only people noticed him a little more, they might have at least stuck a poster on his back or rest a broomstick against his shoulder. Unfortunately, this would never happen, and he could feel the cold stare of the actual walls dominating over him with their superior usefulness and team spirit.
 
His only friend in the office (and most of his life) would be that toilet. It was special in so many ways. You had the regular features like a warming up seat, different types of sprinkle pressure and temperature for even the most gentle of assholes, playing a flushing sound when you shart hard (which of course is more environmentally conscientious then actually flushing). Mind you if you really care about the environment and so happen to shart, you put your ego aside, son, and let those balls steam in the hot mist of evaporation from your bubbly diarrhea until you are completely finished and only then do you let the water wash it away. But there were some brand new specs as well - an inbuilt alarm for instance (with vibration) for when you fall asleep presumably from exhaustion, a lube applier including the lube, an ejectable plastic mouse for the prevention of curious cats from drowning, a VR headset with a trial version of Tetris preinstalled, a seatbelt, a leg belt and a very realistic fluorescent asteroid belt. All of that was hooked up to seven electric outlets with cables and tubes running in and out of the room so that if your business in the bathroom took a little longer, the core temperature of the unit would normally cause 2nd degree burns on 60-70% of your body, cut power to the main building and cause the auxiliary generators to run on solar power only because of the EMP blast radius. Because of that Greg’s boss had to call a meeting last week to set some toilet ground rules. Like no one should use it for longer than seven minutes, and no more than once a week because of the radiation.
 
Greg was devastated after that. Not even learning that his 7th grade crush had three abortions but would still not say ‘Hi’ back to him, crushed him this hard. He thought about taking a leave of absence but since too many of his colleagues were still in the burn unit in the hospital, he had to come to work. Taking his own life was the other possibility of course but that idea, so comforting and sweet, being in his head for too long, had become his best friend. How dare he think of abandoning this friend now by taking his own life?
 
And so, he was back. No other choice. One look at his calendar. No meetings for today. What a relief. If relief was the opposite of relief but with the emotional kick of mousepad and the lack of consequences of paper towel.
 
He looked down the corridor. A white label stuck to the door of the john. He knew all too well the painful message. It felt like the ink was directly laser printed on his heart.
 
“WARNING: Limited access toilet ban in place”
 
Below was a list of instructions, a QR code with a link for downloading a first aid app for Android and iOS and a pen dangling on a piece of rope. You were supposed to use that pen to sign your name and date of use below or, as in the case of Greg, let the reminiscence to death by hanging serve as a reminder of the inevitable existential angst of life.
 
A thought occurred to him. Which was surprising enough, but he didn’t let the shock overwhelm him. Who would possibly notice if he went in the bathroom without writing his name on the list? He had used the toilet long enough to figure out a safe method. He even got to the 3rd level of Tetris which is where the trial would end, at least 5 times. The secret was quite simple - splash some cold water on your inner thighs, rotate the asteroid belt 30 degrees south before you sit and then put a tiny tinfoil cap on the tip of your penis. He got that idea after eating chocolate from one of the vending machines. He had eaten it for longer than 15 consecutive seconds inevitably allowing his brain plenty of time to focus on his penis. When the first victims started crawling out of the toilet looking like homeless people from Detroit, Greg thought to himself - ‘penis cap’. He remembered you could wrap food in tinfoil to protect it from the elements, even put it in the microwave - which is definitely one of the worst elements out there. Long (and pointless) story short he figured out that tinfoil was probably made during some war for the protection of objects from radiation.
 
“Fuck it,” Greg mentally announced. Then followed it by silence and intense series of calculations. He checked his phone. Scratched his temple. Cracked his neck. And reached for his wallet to get some coins for the vending machine.
 
Chapter 2 
He didn’t even need to shit this time. The excitement of his borderline criminal act had too violently excited him leading to an involuntary butt-pinch.
 
“This is probably how all criminals feel.” He was getting paranoid. “U-ha, great, I just raped this child, I feel like a God! And then - boom, prison time, buddy. You know what they do to rapists in prison, son? Hm... what do they do, though? Is this one of the rules in the prison book? Like all hackers and tax scammers rape child molesters on Thursdays...”
 
Lost in these no doubt interesting thoughts, Greg started playing with the toilet controller and released a hot stream of water up his ass. There was something oddly obvious about doing that while at the same time fitting blocks of pixels tightly in rows, so he put the VR headset on. A Japanese toilet can teach you a lot. For instance, one of the lessons Greg learned was how to relax under pressure. This was important because this way you could get water inside your ass, then pinch and get up, go back to the office, small talk someone about his irrelevant family, head back to the toilet making small jumps on the way and sit down to shart it all out. Great skill that would make even circus acts jealous.
 
He was finishing level 3 again and experimenting with some new button combinations. Defying his boss in such a manly way, virtually spitting in the face of corporate America, he felt like a brave warrior. He was daring fate itself sitting on the toilet with his tiny penis hat. His fingers started tapping on the panel furiously like the Predator texting his jealous girlfriend back on the home planet. The adrenaline was rushing through his veins so hard he could hear the sound of it. It was the sound of a flock of eagles stuck in a tiny chimney. In your neighbor’s house though because otherwise it would be way too loud for this metaphor to work.
 
At this point as he had at least 5 different streams of liquid splashing in and out of his asshole and was on the verge of an epileptic seizure, it was understandably easy for him to miss the fact that because of the enormous amounts of Gamma radiation and explosive heatwaves, 2 of the building floors were currently collapsing and 3 were on fire. Much later he would find out that this much electric power, a specific combination of matter, energy and negative space displaced from his butthole and a lot of pure luck would create some irreversible changes in the gravitational field of the toilet breaking the local energy-momentum conservation. Much sooner he would find out that the Japanese company producing these innovative toilets made a number of random small mistakes when assembling this very experimental unit. Mistakes not with the design or basic functionality, or not even necessarily with hiring former astrophysicists fired for mental illness in the R&D department, but with the very laws of physics as we know it. All of that meant one thing - as Greg was proudly sharting inside Satan’s horn and the building was being evacuated, a tiny black hole popped beneath him and sucked him right out of his office and into the endless cold void beyond space and time.
 
Chapter 3 
Greg slowly peeped through the bathroom door before he got out to make sure there were no witnesses. That’s all he cared about. He didn’t notice that just a moment ago, before he pulled up his pants and got up to leave, his body had travelled over 10 light years to the planet of AEgir in the Epsilon Eridani system. Back on Earth the discovery of AEgir in the early 1990s has only been on hypothetical basis as modern science still doesn’t possess the tools to definitively prove or disprove its existence. But as Greg teleported and rematerialized so completely on its surface he for sure confirmed it. Confirmed it all the way down to every aluminum molecule in his tiny penis hat. Not that size matters.
 
Greg was now successfully the first human in history to travel to another Solar System and in his nervousness not to get noticed, he didn’t even realize that at first. It wasn’t until he made his way back to his desk that he discovered something was not quite right. His desk was now replaced by what seemed to be a pillar of pulsating light.
 
“That’s not right,” Greg categorically concluded. “Did HR move me again without telling me?”
 
But as he looked around he got even more confused. How long did he stay in this bathroom? The office looked much different just one buttload ago. Did they hire new interns? Why are they all wearing fanny packs with neon lights on them? He didn’t remember seeing a new coffee machine earlier. Especially not one traveling across the room on a monorail attached to the translucent sealing. Maybe he was being paranoid but as he was noticing these things, he thought a few people started noticing him too and looking at him in a weird way. The way was weird mostly because as they were doing it they would slowly back off and talk to their watches. Also, one of them started masturbating in the corner.
 
Greg turned around and hurried back to the restroom but as he was about to open it he looked at where the paper with instructions used to be sticked to the door. It was gone now, and an IR scanner was in its place prompting you to scan your card.
 
“Oh, fuck me, I guess.”
 
Somewhere on the back of his mind, his brain was loading up the realization that he might be on an alien planet. But it probably wouldn’t launch until a hard reset. Right now, he was honestly more bummed out about the fact that he might get fired which he would have to tell his parents about who would then compare him to his childhood friends.
 
Turning to the right Greg found a corridor which wasn’t there before either but now conveniently provided a way out. Almost in a haze with his legs trembling more and more partly from shock and partly (the second part was bigger) from the increased gravitational force on this planet, he went down a series of stairs, then got onto a service elevator, turned left and got in an empty funicular that took him outside the building and into a public park. That’s where he sat down on a bench in the shade of a big spruce looking tree with a purplish hue, slightly cranked up saturation but highlights decreased to about -20.
 
And as he sat there with his head in his hands, thinking what to do exactly with his life now and who to tell first about being fired - his mom or his dad, unbeknownst to him, a young curious gentleman sat down next to him.
 
“Don’t move. We’ve got eyes on you,” the stranger said.
 
“Ah?” Greg looked up even more confused but as always ready to surrender.
 
“I’m fuckin with you, man, chill.” The young man poked Greg with his elbow and took out what looked like a joint from his pocket. “You should have seen your face. What’s your name?”
 
“Greg. Sorry, I’m not quite sure…”
 
“Greg? What kind of name is that? I’m Frida.”
 
Greg would later learn that in a strange but statistically not so improbable way, somewhere along their evolution, perhaps between getting off their trees and discovering fire, the sentient apes of AEgir would switch names and use female names for males and vice-versa. This was a result of a sexually transmitted virus that in time also mutated and resulted in full immunity to cringe from seeing someone wearing a fedora. This in turn had quite the catastrophic effect on AEgirian modern fashion.
 
“What happened to you? Where is your EP?”
 
“My EP?”
 
“EP,” the man repeated while pointing at his fanny pack. “Here…” he passed the joint.
 
“I’m ok, thank you.”
 
“You sure? Anyway. EP, you know? Emergency Pouch. Everyone is obligated to wear one at all times now.”
 
“I don’t have an EP. Is this like GDPR related or something?”
 
“Dude. I’m super high right now but I think it’s pretty obvious you are like a foreign secret agent or something. What’s your mission, agent? What is the latest status report Greg?”
 
“Well I guess I’m an agent but not really secret. I work in sales.”
 
“Good, because you are under arrest!”
 
“Well, I knew it.”
 
“I’m fucking with you, man. What? Why did you lay down on the ground? Get up. How did you get here? Tell me your story.”
 
Greg wasn’t feeling at his best. He had to force himself to stop crying for the second time in the last 10 minutes. And he was used to forcing himself to start crying normally. He reluctantly told Frida everything up to the moment when he went to the bathroom. He made it clear multiple times he knew how bad it was to break the company rules, he was sorry, and he was ready to face the consequences. Waking up earlier before going to work to masturbate that day was clearly a bad idea but he kept that part to himself. Those few drops must have been the ones that tipped over his glass of accumulated catholic guilt and would surely result in severe and well-deserved punishment.
 
“So, wait. This toilet you are talking about, let me see if I got that right.” Frida paused to scratch his head and continued to roll a second joint. “You are saying, you had different streams sprinkle water on your ass, right?”
 
“Yeah, it’s 5 of the features.”
 
“Ok, what if. There were some chemicals inside that water. You know? Like some powerful psychedelic compound that dissolved deep in the mucous membrane of your butthole. That’s it man! You perked up your butthole like a little princess, pressed it down the seat with all the weight of your body and combined effort of pushing and twisting. Your ass was ready to submit and tap out, man. All red with rushing blood, sweaty and wet and then out of nowhere you fill it up with psychedelic toilet water. What did you expect? Now you’re tripping balls, dude. Shit…”
 
Frida collapsed exhausted and victorious with his discovery on the bench and took another deep hit. What if he was right though, Greg thought? I mean where is he now? What was that strange building? What is this weird purple tree towering above him for god’s sake.
 
“Wait. How is this possible?” Greg jumped on his feet. “Why is the Sun split in half?”
 
“The what?”
 
“This black line... Running across... What the fuck?!”
 
“Oh. The asteroid belt, you mean. Chill. You can see it better at night.”
 
And then he noticed many other things that were hard to believe. Monorails crisscrossing the sky, the colors of the trees making no sense. They looked like a giant ate a rainbow and puked it all over the park. There was also a flock of feathered pterodactyls splashing around in a pond not so far away. Greg sat down next to Frida heavy with fear.
 
“You don’t work for MikaCo, do you?”
 
“I don’t know what you said, man. But I feel you. Do you have any crackers on you by the way?”
 
Greg started thinking. If his butt was filled with psychedelic ass-water, which would mean the wetness in his pants is not from perspiration, he should shart it out to try to sober up.
 
“Frida, I need to use a bathroom. Where is the closest one here?”
 
“Well probably in the mall.” He pointed at the building behind which Greg ran out of earlier. “But you won’t get in without this.”
 
He took out something looking like a plastic ID card with a chip from his fanny pack.
 
“The EP, man. It has all you need. Listen I’ll give it to you, but you have to return it back, ok? I’ll stay here for a while if you don’t mind.” As he handed the EP to Greg he started falling asleep.
 
“Ok. Let’s see if this works.” Greg got back to his feet and started towards the building where somewhere in a different world was his old office.
 
Chapter 4   
On the way to the building Greg looked into his fanny pack. The toilet ID card was there. Plus, a pack of blue pills, a small bottle of milky substance, some instructional leaflets, a couple of coins, a pre-used sock and a plastic bag of weed, courtesy of Frida, Greg suspected. He thought he would dispose of it once he gets to the toilet. He was not opposed to weed use. It would require minimal traces of character to be opposed to anything. Something he unfortunately lacked. He lacked it so much in fact that if he got wrongly convicted he probably wouldn’t appeal. If there was enough peer pressure on him to take part in a human trial of a new militarized version of anal warts, he wouldn’t object. And if by some miracle of nature, he got pregnant, he would absolutely not make an abortion.
 
Greg decided to put the EP on. He was so non-confrontational by nature that even though he was convinced by now that either that DMT was super potent or his ass was really potent at dissolving it, he wanted to blend in and if possible avoid meeting any of the archetypal demons in his collective unconscious until he was sober again.
 
This time when he got back inside the building he felt a little more relaxed. He looked around a bit and it really seemed to be a giant shopping mall.
 
“This simulation is really something.”
 
He temporarily postponed the bathroom visit and took a stroll along the endless rows of shops. He must have looked very mesmerized which lead the shop staff in many of the stores to energetically offer the finest of their products. Greg saw mostly things he would also see back on Earth. He could buy designer clothes, endless combinations of coffee and milk, play laser tag on the 5th floor or end up in the food court where if you didn’t have enough money, a state lawyer would be appointed to represent you. Everything seemed similar but slightly off. The brands were new to him, some of the devices in the sex shop were really extraterrestrial but then again, he had never visited Amsterdam. In the pet store besides dogs they were also selling small dinosaurs. They never got extinct on this planet although some of the breeds now were really depressive and suicidal, not being the dominant species and all. Greg also discovered they had some amazing watches in this mall while the phones were pretty shitty. This was actually for a very good reason. Just like on Earth, watches were discovered before phones were. This way they had much more time to evolve and become “smart” earlier than the phones did. As a result of that most AEgirians used watches for calls, their version of Tinder or the famous watch game ‘Angry Pterodactyls’.
 
If you wonder how come everything on AEgir is so human perhaps you are asking the wrong question. Because a question like that leads with the assumption that we humans are so damn special that surely even if this galaxy is filled with a multitude of similar stars and the same planets there still will never ever be another species like ours.
 
For as long as we remember, we have considered ourselves unique. Ever since the cave man thought his cave must be the best and no other cave can provide such an abundance of great walls for painting and beautiful stalagmites to hold on to when you take a shit. Even his cave bears, he believed for sure must be bigger and fiercer than any other out there. The more extravagant of cave men proposed theories of multiple caves similar to this one existing out there. Some of those same paleolithic scientists claimed it was ok to also shave your beard and legs with a sharp stone and identify as a cave woman but those were quickly stoned to death. The more conservative cave men refused to even leave the cave. Some of them claimed they were living on a flat cave surrounded by ice and they could prove it if only somehow a technology existed for them to record a video about it and share it with everyone in the cave online.
 
But times changed. As humans got out of their caves, their vision of the immediate surroundings improved. Millenia past and those former sexually ambiguous cavemen now shaved the Earth’s oldest forests to find out there were no vampires and werewolves there. They looked deep at the bottom of the ocean and besides a few Oscars for James Cameron they didn’t find any mythical creatures there either. Then they looked up at the vast endless space and boldly announced there might as well be nothing there either. Not long had passed after all since we believed the Sun was circling around us.
 
“Well, why not,” the best scientists proudly proclaimed to the World at another lavish Nobel prize after party. “Why not just assume that the entire purpose, and a worthy purpose that is, of this Universe is to form itself out of nothingness, spend billions of years and endless amounts of energy to expand and evolve so that in one of its corners a live-bearing Earth would appear and give life to us, so we can argue if Kanye West is genius or mentally ill?!”
 
But the thing about Evolution is it’s not something we own despite Darwin’s still pending patent case. Evolution is either much more limited or lazy, depending on how you view it. Imagine the surprise of a cave man discovering another cave with the same paintings of a fat woman. Is it possible for his wife to have been so promiscuous? The same thing must have happened to Columbus when he discovered a brand-new isolated continent and yet there were some dudes there chilling at the beach drinking pinna coladas. If life was the same in different caves and on different continents, then why not on a planet 10.5 light years away from Earth? Similar astral formation, same chemical foundation plus roughly the same age all equaled a place so similar to home that even language or cultural barriers didn’t exist.
 
Meanwhile Greg wasn’t so sure what to think about it all. He found out that there were different forms of payment accepted in this dimension including paying with your toilet ID card. He decided to borrow some money from Frida and use his card to buy a book from the bookstore and then go to the bathroom. There were a few self-help books that looked interesting to him. Something about Unlocking Your Inner Self and another one about Finding the True Meaning in a Few Steps or was it In Less Than a Week? Either way he moved down the aisle, passed quickly by the history section ignoring all the interesting titles on the Ill-lit ages, the Monorail revolution of the 24th century or the Third World War. He finally settled for a short booklet on 101 Original Ideas for Gifts. He liked books that didn’t pose the risk of making him inordinately smarter and yet retained some of the key properties of reading such as wasting time. A few moments later he swiped the card on the toilet door and got in.
Chapter 5 
Meanwhile things back on Earth were mostly unchanged. Greg must have been a pretty small butterfly because his disappearance didn’t seem to produce any hurricanes or chain reactions. No one even noticed he wasn’t at work until 3 weeks later. At that point the marketing team had decided to buy a new aquarium for the office and there was a unanimous vote to place it on Greg’s desk. The HR manager Patricia was given the task to communicate that to Greg, but she couldn’t remember his name and not seeing him at his desk, using a pronoun to address him wasn’t an option either. She had to pull a full list of employees and cross out every other name that she knew to finally arrive at Greg’s. After uneventfully waiting for him to come back to his desk for a while and simultaneously helping the marketing guys assemble the aquarium, she decided to speak to Jacob - Greg’s boss. Having no clue where Greg was, as any good manager, Jacob shifted the blame on his team and asked them if they knew anything. They didn’t. So, as any good team they lied and said he was not feeling well. Jacob decided to give it some time, so it wasn’t until the 3rd week and after they threw away Greg’s personal notebook and Dragonball stress-ball that the company concluded - Greg had departed for a better place. Perhaps one where people gave a fuck about him.
 
The toilet was forgotten too. Initially after the evacuation and near collapse of the building everyone stayed away from it. Akiko from support was the only one who decided to sneak back in to quickly steam cook her vagina but unfortunately got electrocuted upon touching the door handle. This is when management decided to seal the door, so no one could ever use it again.
 
And so, no one did. Meanwhile the Earth kept orbiting around the Sun or as uneducated people call it, time went by. Some of the catfish in the aquarium got regularly raped by the barbs between the fake castle and the Java fern which led them to jump out on the desk. Jacob promoted Patricia. Then Jacob got fired for promoting Patricia after it turned out before he made her Head of HR, he received a head from her first. Also, she was the only HR in the office so there was definitely no need for heading that way. But then again why are we talking about these characters? They were introduced too late in the story and no one cares about them.
 
A couple of years later MikaCo went bankrupt. This was largely due to the money the company lost on insurance and medical care for all the various victims among the users of the infamous toilet. For a while after that the office was empty. But word got around on the homeless people Facebook groups in Trotwood, so a few families moved in. Some of them noticed the bordered and sealed off toilet. Once they failed to break open the door, they decided to use the corridor leading up to it for their hoarding hobby. With time the leaking radiation promoted the growth of some juicy mushrooms on some of the piles of garbage, so the hobos started using the corridor as burial grounds for their dead dogs and the stillborn incest babies. At that point word got around on the Satanists Facebook groups in Trotwood and a lot of them moved in the office too. They made a hole in the ceiling, so the light of the full moon could shine in during their sacrifice ceremonies. Drug addicts started hanging around too as well as some college frat boys running initiation pranks for the freshmen, local rapists and of course art-house YouTube creators.
 
At that point another Japanese company - a former competitor of MikaCo called PagliaChi - bought the office. They flew in with their drone cars as it was expected of them in the year 2030 and received a permit from the local authorities under the Trump Act of 2020 which allowed them to dispose of all of the unauthorized inhabitants of the building with lasers and/or any means of chemical warfare. After a few weeks of intense renovation, the office was going to be ready for the new company.
 
Chapter 6 
Jorge was finishing his racially appropriate Taco meal looking over some old building floor plans.
 
“Paper,” he thought. “So old fashioned.”
 
He was slightly afraid of a paper cut. It’s just that his generation was only used to the wiping variety of paper, not this totally 2018 readable thing. He was about to wrap up and call it a day when he discovered something he hadn’t noticed earlier. According to this retro map there was supposed to be a toilet on the last floor which he didn’t notice earlier. He was leading a team responsible for cleaning the office and they had to be done by the end of the day. He actually sent most of his workers home already, thinking they got it covered, but now, it seems, he had to get his hands dirty again. His girlfriend would have to wait a little longer before she could unload all of her work gossip on him. He hurried back up.
 
The nanobots had 3D printed a brand-new door for the bathroom and placed it in but somehow his co-workers had not gone in to clean. Jorge opened the door. The toilet was in front of him in all of its preserved and mischievous beauty. The attraction that unbeknownst to him had lured in and sealed the fate of so many before him. An attraction that was almost inviting him to take a seat and push. And then he felt it inside him. A tiny bowel movement. An almost silent fart. It was about to happen. He closed the door behind him and took one step closer. One step closer to being sharted into space.
 
 
Chapter 7 
Here are a few interesting facts we need to know about AEgir and its intelligent inhabitants before we proceed further.
 
The Planet AEgir also knowns as Epsilon Eridani b was formed in the distant galactic past in a much denser star system then our own Solar System. Its exact location was in-between a thick Inner Asteroid belt circling around the Epsilon Eridani star and another equally impenetrable Outer Asteroid Belt which in turn was surrounded by a huge Comet belt. And since we are talking about space, when I say huge, I mean it was pretty damn big.
 
The formation of a planet suitable for intelligent life in the middle of all these belts of rocks, ice, space debris and also plastic bags, because these guys take forever to decompose, can be considered a true miracle. And if you were to look at this miracle through a microscope, you probably wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover it was composed of a chain of mini-miracles happening concurrently and in alphabetical order over the span of at least the last 3 billion years. The more impossible the miracles, the more possible it actually was for them to happen and this slowly lead the AEgirians to not only overcome impossible odds of survival but also become the dominant species on the planet, achieve technological prowess, sustainable economic growth and a balanced socio-political environment. By the time Jorge visited them they had already successfully colonized their Moon and one more planet in the system.
 
It was rather early on in their space age when they discovered something incredible - the potential of the formerly abhorred asteroid belts. By building structures conceptually similar to windmills, they learned to harness endless amounts of energy from the never-ending spin of space junk inside the belts. Most of it at the beginning was not used wisely. It was mainly for the purposes of industries and activities consuming high amounts of energy such as powering the planet network of ultrasound monorails, air conditioning said monorails or high intensity cardio sessions for anorexics. However somewhere around that time a brilliant scientist by the name of Rebecca Lindblom discovered you can actually use AI for things other than social media privacy abuse or search engines spying on you.
 
“Give a robot a fish,” Rebecca later said in a commencement speech. “And he will do nothing. Because robots don’t eat. But teach a robot to fish and if you don’t forget to turn off all of the fishing ads he will spam you with, you might learn from him a new optimized way of fishing.”
 
Sadly, Rebecca was later murdered by one of his sex slave robots. But not before his invention bared fruit. The combined effort of all the AI of the planet produced a proposed solution for all travel - a network of teleportation devices, placed all-over the planet and powered directly by the asteroid belt energy. The quantum physics and calculations behind the teleports were so complicated it was estimated that it would take approximately 5,000 more year’s worth of brain evolution through selective breeding and cloning for any AEgirian to begin to grasp even the most basic of concepts. Nevertheless, seeing the incredible value of such an invention, all the countries quickly reached an agreement and began the construction of the global network. It was decided that for the convenience of each traveler, a location in every person’s home should be established for the device. An analogous place should also be available in schools, offices, public buildings, etc. A place that anyone had access to and was closed off from the rest of the building to prevent any accidents from happening. And also, a location that would provide privacy of access without the need to drastically rebuild every structure on the planet. This place was going to be the bathroom. The toilet in particular provided a compact space perfect for producing a small black hole directly beneath the body of the traveler which was required for the device to work. All the toilets were soon upgraded to traveling stations and the network was up and running.
 
To explain what exactly happened to Greg and now Jorge, we can use the following example. Let’s assume that AEgir is Italy in the year 1895 and Earth is the island of Malta around the same time. The scientist who invented the travel toilets is replaced by Guglielmo Marconi - the guy who invented the radio that exact year. In this case what happened back in the toilet of MikaCo in Trotwood, Ohio, can best be described as someone in Malta completely by accident discovering a radio in 1895 too. Then by powering their device with an overwhelming amount of energy, they manage to magnify the signal of the transmitter and emit radio waves that can be picked up by someone listening all the way in Italy.
 
However, since this was not a controlled travel, Greg randomly popped out in a shopping mall on AEgir while Jorge happened to come out of someone’s personal toilet while that same someone’s wife was presently shaving her vagina in a bathtub next to him. This was of course strictly prohibited on AEgir. Not the shaving part but unauthorized travel to an occupied personal toilet. To make matters worse, this all happened mid-sharting which created some discomfort for everyone involved in the ensued chase around the apartment. Finally, the police were involved, and Jorge arrested. He was still protesting and trying to explain himself or at least pull his pants back up when the cops pushed him back into the toilet pressed a few buttons and teleported him straight to jail.
 
***
 
The following day wasn’t very pleasant for Jorge either. He met a number of law enforcement and legal representatives and even a psychologist. It looked like they were not only going to charge him with indecent exposure and unauthorized travel but also not caring an EP. He was trying to cooperate and explain his situation but when that failed, he requested a phone call. He didn’t have a lawyer, but he could at least call his girlfriend or if she would get jealous for him spending time in jail instead of with her - his brother. The cops agreed and handed him a fancy watch, which only confused and frustrated him more. After they scanned his body and failed to locate his birth chip, the lieutenant handling his case decided to transfer Jorge to another facility better equipped to identify him. This time they used the monorail which wasn’t ideal for Jorge’s mental state. They were sailing over the maze of skyscrapers towering above the city center as he was silently deciding how best to physically manifest his upcoming panic attack. And at that crucial moment the automatic breaks kicked in and all of the guards standing around Jorge hit the floor face down.
 
A big dark flying vehicle had un-cloaked right in front of the proximity sensor of the monorail causing an emergency stop. Jorge was strapped tightly to his chair, so he didn’t sustain any injuries besides a tiny amount of poop appearing in his pants. It was some unfinished business from yesterday. He was breathing heavily and sweating in disbelief as two masked men got out of the flying car, attached themselves to the monorail and placed a few explosives around the door. One of the guards regained consciousness and tried to switch the monorail in reverse but the door blew open and he got shot in the back by a homing missile that tore him to pieces. One of his eye balls popped out and fell on Jorge’s lap. The most intense eye contact either of them ever experienced. The masked guys got inside the cabin, unlocked his seatbelt and quickly got him out of the train and into the flying car. A moment later Jorge was flying away into the unknown with these strangers and no one spoke a single word.
 
Chapter 8 
“Ah, the search party arrives at last!” a slightly feminine voice announced through the dark. “What took you so long?”
 
Jorge looked around. “Are you talking to me?”
 
“Yes, I mean, who else?” and then a bit more quietly, “Did you hit him over the head or something? I told you not to hurt him.”
 
“Sir, I don’t know who you think I am but there’s gotta be some sort of a mistake. My name is Jorge, I am the manager of the cleaning crew. I was just doing my job when...”
 
“Wait, shut up for a second. Someone turn on the lights.”
 
Jorge, temporarily blinded now, was in a big warehouse surrounded by a bunch of thugs and addressed by a 40-some-year-old half obese man wearing a fedora and an over-sized dinosaur jacket.
 
“So, you haven’t come here for me? Are you sure?”
 
“I... don’t even know where here is.”
 
“Oh, thank God! You can untie him, it’s ok. I’m sorry, let me introduce myself - my name is Gregoria, but I was once known as Greg. “
 
Visibly relieved the man stepped forward and shook Jorge’s hand. Jorge noticed the moist and overly gentle hands of his captor. He had nothing against gay people but being kidnapped by one from the police and led to a warehouse wasn’t very promising.
 
“So how come you are the only person to use the toilet in 12 years?”
 
“You mean the toilet on the last floor of the office?”
 
“Yeah, I mean this is how you got here, right? You sat on that toilet, didn’t you?”
 
“Yes, actually I did.” He remembered that was the last time things seemed normal and familiar. What had happened after?
 
“Jorge, you can’t imagine how much money it cost me to have inside people on the police force all over the planet to report to me if they notice someone without an EP, with a weird name claiming to be from Ohio coming out of a toilet. So why now?”
 
They were now walking along the warehouse where Jorge could see hundreds of rows of robots working diligently on conveyor belts.
 
“Well, the building was empty for a few years. It was only a few months ago that the office was bought again, and we were tasked to clean it up. Where are we now?”
 
“Oh, this is one of my factories. We are building fidget spinners in this one. Can you believe that no one on this planet ever came up with that invention? It made me a fortune. That and the male unitard and solar powered calculators among other things. Yeah, they totally forgot solar power here with their stupid asteroid belts. Listen, I made quite the progress here in only 12 years. And what makes it even more impressive is that it was actually 6 years here because of the longer orbit.”
 
Greg 2.0 was now ecstatic and all the more annoying. He led Jorge to his office with big windows overlooking an industrial area. Three naked ladies stood up from the floor and started feeding him grapes.
 
“No, stop it right now! Jack, please. Peter, don’t be rude. Go feed our guest.”
 
Then as if remembering something he forgot to mention Greg got up and pulled his pants down exposing his quite underwhelming penis.
 
“I fucking knew it,” Jorge almost chocked on a grape.
 
“This is huge here. Can you believe it?” he leaned closer to whisper into his ear, “It’s because of the bigger gravity, man. Big erect cocks would be too heavy to sustain the downward pull, so evolution stepped in to fix things and now all guys here have tiny penises.” He pulled his pants back up and sank back into his huge chair. “That’s why if your intention was to take me back home, I was ready to torture and kill you today. But since you’re here by accident just like me, let’s celebrate!”
 
Jorge wasn’t familiar with the names of fancy alcoholic beverages and strong dopamine regulating drugs on AEgir but assumed this was what Greg was now ordering his sex slaves to bring into the room.
 
“To be honest, I will have to kill you anyway. It’s just that your penis size and all the knowledge you have from Earth, could ruin my empire.” Greg pulled out a laser gun and squeezed the trigger.
 
Nothing.
 
Just an anticlimactic click.
 
“Yeah, of course. Whoever didn’t charge my gun is fired!” he yelled.
 
“Listen man, I don’t want any trouble, OK? Just send me back home, I promise I will not tell anyone about any of this.”
 
“Send you home? Send you home?! It’s not as simple as you think.”
 
Greg took another attempt at pretentiousness by casually looking over his shoulder and through the window. Then he took hold of one of the girls and sat her on his knee.
 
“Stroking a pussy while I am threatening you sort of makes me a better villain, no? You are threatened, right?”
 
“Sure.”
 
“Great. Well, the thing is, Jorge, we both came here but we can’t go back. Not yet, at least. I spend all of my money and influence here to try to solve this. The problem is that Japanese shitter back home is way out of our range. The transmitting signal on our side must be cranked up to the max to be able to send anyone back. And the only solution I have so far is to hack the grid, cut off all the power from the teleportation network and redirect it to the exact location of Trotwood to make it work.”
 
They talked more. The conversation was flowing quite freely driven by Greg’s desire to show off and Jorge’s modest intention to verbally postpone his death. Later Jorge remembered a surprisingly large amount of detail even though the drugs kicked in pretty fast. He found out for instance he was in fact on a different planet, but that Greg was a fellow Earthling. And then a lot more about Greg’s rise to success on this planet first by stealing people’s EPs and their identities. Then by impersonating his way into local government and building a business empire on the foundation of plagiarized ideas from Earth. He had told no one about his true extraterrestrial origin. With time however his ambitions had outgrown even AEgir. His plan was to establish a connection with that toilet back on Earth and send back an entire army to take the place over. He had acquired a few weapon factories and heavily invested in R&D. In other words, he was being a complete dick and his parents would definitely disapprove of that. However, there was a bigger elephant in the room now. And that elephant was Jorge. If he came here through the toilet, someone else might follow tomorrow and ruin Greg’s secret galactic conquest agenda. Therefore, he had to act quickly and mobilize his terrorist forces to highjack the global teleportation network as soon as possible.
 
At some point Greg passed out and Jorge decided it was time to attempt an escape. Sure, he had just learned that this drooling unconscious man will try to conquer Earth tomorrow morning but at this moment and having seen his penis from up close, he chose to temporarily allow his desire for self-preservation to overcome his planetary patriotism. He silently stepped over the floor full of naked bodies and made his way towards Greg. He stood over him for a second and actually thought he might have met him as a kid. Trotwood wasn’t a big city after all. As he leaned over him however the door opened and one of the guards stepped in. One cold look from him was enough to sit Jorge back down. He would have to play along a little longer.
 
Chapter 9 
The next day early in the morning Jorge was put back into the flying car and on his way with Greg and the crew to some new location. Jorge was painfully coming to the realization this was really happening when they started approaching what looked like a luxurious mansion on top of a mountain. There were large laser cannons all over the hills up to the very top. Anyone with that firepower, Jorge thought, could either pose a real threat to Earth or just be a very private person who doesn’t want to be bothered in his house. But judging by the fact that as they were descending to the landing pad, Greg was again proudly displaying his genitalia to Jorge in the car and winking, it was probably the former. They headed inside the mansion and down a secret elevator taking them deep to some lower level. This house was just the cherry on top of the cake. The whole mountain was dug out and turned into an underground war factory. There were soldiers packing and carrying weapons around. Some of them texting their moms they might be late for dinner. They passed a few floors still under construction, a floor with cages full of chained raptors and one with what seemed to be an arcade and a bike rental next to it. As they kept descending Greg leaned over to Jorge.
 
“This is just the beginning. I have a few more of these bases. The first group of people we teleport will have some of my best engineers who will spread out all over Earth pretending to be humans and start building multiple toilets. Except these toilets would be one-directional. Only shit goes in and we come out. Imagine your granny in Mexico taking a dump after a fatty tortilla and one of our raptors materializing in her ass. And once we place all the toilets, we will be ready for phase two.”
 
Greg must have gotten tired from all the fake enthusiasm from the whores he was paying to be around him because he seemed to really enjoy showing off in front of Jorge. He was split between killing him now and showing him his dick a few more times first. He also really liked the fact that someone from Earth would witness his plan come to fruition firsthand. Or maybe he wasn’t ready to let go of the first person from home he had met in 12 years and someone who he didn’t have to pretend in front of.
 
They had reached the bottom floor and now Greg was leading the way to the center. There in the very spotlight with multiple cables and tubes of all sort hooked up to it was a toilet.
 
“I reconstructed it from memory,” Greg’s voice cracked with emotion. “I wanted it to look exactly like the one back home.”
 
To the right there was a big computer panel with a tall man in a lab coat behind.
 
“Madam Gregoria,” he started, “We are ready to hack the network on your mark. Just to remind you, Ma’am, we will have 2 minutes before the backup energy generators kick in and we lose the power. So, the first deploy will have to be within that time frame.”
 
He looked at a group of around 20 men, dressed as civilians with big bags each, lined up to the side.
 
“We’ll make it!” Greg yelled. “Look at this, Jorge, this is gonna be epic. Kick it! No, wait...Sorry, I need to sound more...significant for the record.”
 
He looked over at 2 guys who were following him around ever since he entered the base. One had a camera and the other was holding a boom mike above his head. Greg cleared his throat and asked one of the whores to bring him water. She ran away scared.
 
“Today, we will change history forever. It will not be the same, I tell you. Like tomorrow will be history again. But it will not be the same history, you know? This is impossible after today. Okay? Thanks. You can press the button now, son.”
 
Nothing much happened after that. There was no sound or tremor. So, after an awkward pause the technician had to announce.
 
“Am... it’s ready. The portal is open.”
 
Jorge was close enough to the toilet to look inside in that moment and time seemed to momentarily stop. The toilet looked bottomless to him and a wave of awe and fear washed over him. Maybe it was his imagination, but he felt the room getting colder. It must have been less than a second but in that second his eyes saw the distant glimmer of millions of stars.
 
There are some sights that change you forever. Seeing 2 girls 1 cup was one of those cases for Jorge many years ago. And now this - a black hole inside a toilet. He employed all of his willpower to lift up his gaze and look back at Greg who was just about to open his mouth and give the next order. Then something came over Jorge and his following actions surprised him more than anyone else.
 
He reached into his pocket and produced a laser gun. The same gun that Greg was pointing at him the other night and he was able to snatch off of him right before the guard entered the room. The gun was empty. He remembered that. But no one else knew. Before the cameraman was able to turn around and refocus his lens, Jorge’s other hand was already tightening its grip on Greg’s greasy and poorly shaved throat.
 
“No one move and everyone listen! Or I’ll shoot his brains out.” Jorge was slowly backing off shielding himself with Greg’s body. “Don’t move, I said!”
 
He wasn’t exactly sure what to do now. It wasn’t like he had planned for any of that. As he was walking with his back towards the toilet he hadn’t noticed his foot got caught in one of the cables. Before he knew it, he tipped off and both him and his hostage fell backwards.
 
Chapter 10 
“You fucking idiot!” Greg yelled as he was trying to get back to his feet.
 
They were both on the floor but not in the secret underground mountain base on AEgir anymore. They were back on Earth, in the office where it all started. They had fallen through the portal.
 
“Should have killed you the moment I showed you my penis the first time!” Greg saw the laser gun on the ground and reached out to get it.
 
Jorge knew what he had to do. Greg’s people must be getting their asses on that seat and ready to confront him here at any second. Still on the ground, he got hold of one of the cables leading to the toilet and with all of his strength pulled it out.
 
“Goddamnit. It’s not even charged. You gotta be kidding me!” Greg was at the verge of tears.
 
Jorge pulled another one and then another one until all the power was cut off. No one else came out of the toilet. He stood up and took a deep breath. Greg was crying in the corner probably thinking about all the explaining he would have to do to his parents. Jorge unlocked the door and saw one of his workers outside.
 
“Hey Alex, come over here.”
 
“Boss, we were looking for you all over the place. Where have you been?”
 
“Never mind. Help me get this homeless person out of here, will you? And then we need to get to work. This toilet needs to be dismantled completely. Broken down piece by piece. Call the rest of the guys, right now.”
 
He took one last look back at the seat. It looked regular and unimpressive now. Who would ever suspect that this very toilet was the one that got two people sharted into space.

THE END

​Ileyah Cooper is a student with a love for writing. Residing in Michigan, Ileyah is currently pursuing a Creative Writing degree at Full Sail University. She loves writing realistic fiction, short stories and poetry. She also dabbles in blogging and hopes to create her own blog soon. When she is not in school, Ileyah works as a freelance editor for indie authors. This is her first writing publication.

​“So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then?” Steven said into the phone.
            “Of course, babe,” Kennedy replied. “I can’t wait.”
            “Neither can I, Ken.”
            “Hey, Steven?”
            “Yeah, Ken?” Steven could hear the hesitation in Kennedy’s voice, and it made him nervous. He really hoped she wasn’t going to say what he thought she was.
            “When are we gonna make things official?”
            And there it was, the exact question Steven had been dreading. He sighed to himself, not knowing how to answer that question. Just then, his phone started beeping in his ear. Somebody else was trying to call him. He ignored it, still trying to figure out how to respond to Kennedy.
            “I mean.” Kennedy paused, before deciding to continue. “We’ve been dating for almost a year now. It’s just kind of weird that I haven’t met any of your family and friends yet, isn’t it? And it’s even weirder that they don’t know that we are dating. I want to be your girlfriend, Steven. I don’t wanna hide it anymore.”
            There was a long pause. For a second, Kennedy was afraid that Steven had hung up. Finally, after what seemed to be forever, Steven cleared his throat.
            “Kennedy, I would love to make things official with you. Just give me a couple weeks, so I can plan a day for you to meet my family. Okay?”
            “Okay,” Kennedy said, giggling into the phone. “I’m really tired though, so I’m gonna get ready for bed.”
            “Okay, princess. Sleep well.”
            “I’ll try. Goodnight.”
            “Goodnight, Ken,” Steven said before hanging up the phone. He resisted the urge to throw his phone as he plopped down onto the couch. “Shit,” he muttered to himself. Remembering he had a voicemail, he got back into his phone and placed it to his ear.
            “Hey cutie, it’s me. I got some exciting news today that I can’t wait to share with you! I’ll call you again when I get home from work. I love you!” This voicemail wasn’t from Kennedy. It was from Miranda.
            Steven just put himself into a very bad situation. He never meant for things to go down like this, but they did. Now he felt like his entire life was a lie, and he had nobody to blame for that but himself.
            Just then, the doorbell rang, breaking Steven from his thoughts. He wasn’t expecting anyone, especially not this late at night. He got up from the couch, making his way to the door. He went to open the door, but decided it was best to look through the peephole first, just incase. Looking through the peephole, he noticed that his motion sensor light was on. However, nobody appeared to be at the door.
            “That’s weird,” he muttered. He slowly opened the door, revealing not a person, but a small package, addressed to him in familiar handwriting. He looked around, making sure nobody was there, before picking it up.
            Sitting at the kitchen table, Steven began to open the package. When he looked inside of it, he gasped.  Sitting on top of pink and blue tissue paper was a positive pregnancy test. He gasped at the sight of it, and eventually found himself smiling at his little gift. But as soon as it came it faded, as he realized that his gift made his bad situation a whole lot worse.
            Steven and Miranda, his fiancé, had been trying to have a baby for a while. Miranda had health problems, though, and had a difficult time trying to conceive. This caused the couple to fight, a lot. These fights usually resulted in screaming, which resulted in Miranda crying and Steven leaving.
            After one of those fights, Steven found himself at the local bar, where he met Kennedy. A drunken one night stand turned into a secretive, one sided relationship. Kennedy became clingy, and the relationship became one that Steven didn’t really want, but was too afraid to end. Now he was left with the task of figuring out which woman was pregnant.
            Him and Miranda had been trying, that is true. They hadn’t slept together very much lately, but they had to have at some point in the past couple months. It would make sense for it to be her, wouldn’t it?
            Or could it be Kennedy’s baby? After all, she and Steven slept together all the time. Their entire relationship was sexual! But Steven always made sure to use condoms, and Kennedy was on birth control. It had to be Miranda’s kid, right? Steven thought so. Confident with his decision, he decided to give Miranda a call.
            “Hello?” she said into the phone.
            “Hey,” Steven said.
            “Hey! I was just gonna call you about the news!” Miranda said happily.
            “That’s what I was calling about! I can’t believe that we’re having a baby! I’m so happy, Manda!”
            “Having a baby?”
            “Yeah! I got the package with the pregnancy test you put on my doorstep. That was really cute, babe. I can’t wait to tell my parents.”
            “What the hell are you talking about? I got the big promotion at work, I’m not pregnant, Steve.”
            “You’re not?”
            “No…”
            “Well, shit,” Steven said.
            “Yeah, shit,” Miranda agreed.

When I was nineteen I was informed by a handsome and unique man whom I respected very much—my boss at the time—that I had a black heart.
Three of us were standing idle for the moment in our store, in the area we sometimes called the Bermuda Triangle. This was defined by three massive glistening stainless steel rectangles: the refrigerated makeline, the hulking slinking firing double-deck conveyor oven, and the two-sided box storage and cut-prep island on wheels.
His name was Bernard. He was in his late thirties, an African American—well, he would prefer the term black, and he said it with no indication he might be teasing. What’s more, I knew to take the remark as a compliment. My only response was a mild but warm smile.
Bernard hailed from a notable area of the country, one made famous as the home base of some youthful musicians going by the names Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren, Yella and Eazy-E. These guys had gotten together out in Compton, California in southern Los Angeles and formed a group which took the still developing rap genre by storm. They did this by injecting heavy doses of the real world tensions and pent-up bitterness they were familiar with—much of which stemmed from the old traditional racism encouraging whites to look down on blacks and to oppress them, sometimes not subtly—into their songs.
So it turned out Bernard was “Straight Outta Compton” too, which surprised me more than a little. This was not only because such place had become connected to this rap super-group—called N.W.A., Niggaz Wit Attitudes—and all those kinds of things they sang about (Compton was to my mind so colonized by their rowdy lyrics I found it hard to believe my well-mannered, smooth-spoken, ex-military, Buddhist boss could be from there) but also because of the simple fact exotic southern California was thousands of miles from our drab red-brick slice of suburban Maryland.
But my sense of disbelief didn’t change the reality.
I remember Bernard explaining: “It wasn’t all gang activity and police rolling up on black youth smoking marijuana or black youth doing nothing, and jumping out to harass or arrest them. And it’s not like every black motorist was getting pulled over for no good reason. In fact around my house things were pretty quiet most of the time.”
It was my first job, a local pizza and subs place called Nelly’s, and this was the first spot I’d applied to after being prompted by my mother to get a job, any job, so I might pay my own rent. My parents were selling our house, the one I’d grown up in, the one I loved and knew I would miss for the rest of my life, and retiring to a more relaxed scene in North Carolina near some whoopdy-doo lake.
Much was destined to be new to me then, and surprise me. I was being pushed out to live on my own, wield keys of my own, make money of my own and tender it to the landlord on time on my own, keep my room clean and feed myself and process my laundry on my own. Arrange for and execute any beneficial recreation, on my own, etc.
None of this freaked me out at all. Okay the job did; everybody there was older and infinitely more conversant with, and inured to, the pressures and demands of real life. No doubt I’d be a little soft at first trying to function out in the full blaring world, pried away from my well-worn hiding places and cushiony havens which had always been there for me in our sheltering house.
I caught on fast answering phones, taking orders, though I remained very shy for several months in talking to the strangers choosing to call our establishment to bring pleasure and sustenance to their families. I enjoyed it though, I think in part because each call offered a tiny glimpse into people’s lives, glinting flashing lives that were strewn about like jewelry of the earth.
 
***
 
Funny thing though, about learning to fold the pizza boxes. I couldn’t do it. At least I couldn’t for many days running in the beginning. I remember the girl, a pretty one six years my senior with brown hair and lively brave blue eyes and a taste for the band Type O Negative; she was a part-time driver and the person assigned one night to teach me boxes in the back of the store.
Now it’s not like I hadn’t had close encounters with females of the species before, it wasn’t that I was inexperienced. Therefore it wasn’t my attraction to her, not alone, that left me feeling so baffled and dislocated in that moment, though I won’t deny I was very drawn to her, even to the point of awe. But that was because she seemed so comfortable, so embedded in herself, that is, in the way she balanced her body, her role in that humble store, and her looks which were so fetching even if she wasn’t a great bombshell.
She came across crisp, like a brand new twenty dollar bill (in our business we handled a lot of ratty tattered twenties, so this is saying something). And she was a fully initiated card-carrying member of the Real World Club, and I definitely wasn’t.
But the deep thing making me unable to fold the boxes was the medication I was on and my sedated semi-disconnected state. And part of my distraction was a gnawing feeling of embarrassment owing to my being overweight—a side effect of the meds.
Before moving out and getting a toehold in the brave new real world, I had one night ingested a baggie’s worth of magic mushrooms with two friends, both Gemini’s, and gone hurtling through the scenes of a bad trip--nefarious trip maybe, do they have those?
Suffice it to say during the experience I convinced myself it was not possible for my mind and general mental faculty to go back to what it had been before, not after the hyper-elastic vivid gymnastics the psilocybin was causing me, my fundamental consciousness and self-perception, to endure. I felt like Dorothy with Toto in The Wizard of Oz when the cyclone uproots the house and they are swirling and soon to land in Oz. Like: “We’re not on the ground, Toto!” Then the chicken coop flies in and the rocking chair woman, although for me it was just so much bleeding color and morphing shapes everywhere.
Also the yellow and white bathroom tiles slowly hatched and grew the Giza pyramid complex all around me at one point, in blazing glittering sunlight despite the plain darkness out the window. So there was that too.
The torment lasted about eight hours.
Afterwards I seemed to flip back to normal. I thanked God, thanked whatever or whoever was responsible for the sturdy pliable construction inside my skull.
“Good brain, good wonderful smart brain,” I whispered alone one night like a pet owner whose dog has returned after rushing out the gate and wandering the woods all night.
But such gratefulness could not stop my grip on reality from slipping away from me over ensuing months.
I started having panic attacks. Soon I started having episodes that made my whole body shake and vision go snowy like static on an old-school television screen.
Because my sleep schedule was screwed up (a consequence of having excused myself from school at the time), I often found myself trying to keep it together by watching TV alone in the small black hours.
Once I watched Jacob’s Ladder, a flick I’d seen before and should have been prepared for. I knew the movie was spooky, an understatement, but I had affection for it. But this time around I found the material depicted even more terrifying, everything a bit too apropos to what I was going through.
I remember sitting frozen to the couch for some time, afraid to make any movement with the thick obscuring blackness of the night engulfing me, dwarfing me in my false little bastion of electric light, the idea of madness seeming to dance invisibly in the void whenever I could not defeat the dark temptation to peer out one of the several windows there in our family room bordering the woodsy backyard.
Another time I nearly went all the way to pieces watching an episode of South Park, one in which Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo is central. I found the entire thing quite literally unbelievable.
One early morning I couldn’t suffer my unraveling state longer. I went downstairs and accosted my father who was readying for work. He was there in his suit, all dashing and a paragon of responsible choices, briefcase leaning on the low kitchen cabinet adjacent to the side door we most often used.
“Dad, I’m sorry to approach you now. I am having a bad time, with my mind.”
Bless him. That man and I had been at war for several years but he responded with sympathy, heroic calmness. He might have been Abraham Lincoln reincarnated I thought later in good-hearted, if doomed, attempt to conjure a chuckle while my mind raced something fierce.
He followed me into the living room, sat down on the couch and listened.
I was beyond frazzled and exhausted as I hadn’t been able to sleep at all. I sat in the coppery-colored armchair across from him and spoke simply about what was happening. I didn’t try to hide the bombshell: I’d eaten powerful hallucinogenic dried fungus possibly born of cow shit, begun going through vivid hell right away and for many hours. In the aftermath of the event I had watched my typical recognition of the outside world, and my inner world, break down. It was to the point I now thought my trust, my basic belief in things, might be disintegrating altogether.
I felt better telling him. His reaction—protective, patient and never angry, meant the world to me. He asked if I could stick out another day on my own so he might go to work and when he returned he would take me to the doctor. I said yes, and thank you, thank you, thank you.
 
***
 
Lucy was the beautiful box folder’s name. I can see her standing there now on the red and brown tiles in the back room—lean nose blue-grey eyes brown locks sharp uniform—thinking nothing of demonstrating how to do it. About six folds in all for each one, that’s what it took to transform the long thin stretch of cardboard into a serviceable pizza box. Of course, each fold was indicated by a perforated line of dots stamped into the material. An average monkey could have picked up on how to do it with Lucy’s visual instruction. A higher-charting monkey could have figured it out after seeing an example of the finished product. Me, I couldn’t do it to save my life, not at first and not for a few days after even with the benefit of Lucy’s slow, repeated, patient demonstrations and helpful encouragements and even with the benefit of seeing what the finished product looked like and even with the further advantage of the perforations which some humans somewhere had programmed some machines to punch right in there so any person could see how to fold the fucking thing even if all other employees were too busy to give a tutorial.
My embarrassment seems so understandable when I break it down like this. There I stood not in the least bit stupid (perhaps this is true), but seeming like the biggest dolt in the planet. And there I stood thirty pounds heavier than normal with my arms chubbed up and face ballooned out at the cheeks. And there this gaunt-faced girl was all put together and sure-footed, this pizza-rocketing cash-pocketing total box-folding queen.
“The last couple folds are tricky at first for everybody, but—it’s like this, see?”
“Yeah these little flaps are throwing me off, and then the flipping part, but, I sort of see,” I stammered.
I remember her look of moderate consternation, wide-eyed and trying to restrain the bafflement.
I finally got us both off the hook by saying, “Hey I think I’ve got it. You can go see if you have a delivery, I’m good.”
That had been kind of smart, at least; maybe it would compensate for my astonishing inability to fold a single box all the way through.
But probably not. It was pretty clear I had already three strikes against me: too young and green; overweight and unattractive; stupider than certain zoo animals.
Still, I consoled, at least I wasn’t shaking apart to bits on the floor.
 
***
 
I was familiar with the music of N.W.A. because my best friend Stephen had at age 17 acquired a car—I don’t recall what kind, though the color was black—and gotten it fitted out with a killer stereo system with the help of relevant associates at Best Buy. I had gone with him, sharing in the excitement.
As we waited for the installation we shopped the CDs under the flooding fluorescent lights. What should we break in the new sound system with? What should we pump obstreperously around town like the full-blooded American teenagers we knew ourselves to be? This was before my fateful mushroom eating.
The answer we came to was N.W.A.’s Greatest Hits which included the well-known ditty “Fuck the Police.”
Inside the car we finger-wrestled the cellophane off the case, placed the disc in the glowing slot, turned the volume knob far to the right, and hit the streets.
I remember that night well the two of us motoring around going nowhere in particular, familiarizing ourselves with the testy tunes. We’d change the track if the vibe didn’t charm us fast, while we identified favorites and replayed these several times singing along. Was there irony in this—two lusty white boys driving around blaring N.W.A.? We didn’t think so.
It is noteworthy that we never did get pulled over by the Po-Po.
Bernard would not have approved. He was more a Martin Luther King type and a devotee of peaceful methods, subtler protests, of being buttoned-up and responsible in life with attention to dress and manners and impressions. None of this was the least bit superficial either. He was a humble man but possessive of quiet strength and immovable self-confidence. He was of sturdy build and as mentioned good-looking. He had a gorgeous wife who resembled the actress Halle Berry and they had a fine-looking son together. I know this because his family would come by the store and hang out in the office sometimes.
Over time I grew comfortable in the store—and indeed, folding innumerable cardboard pizza receptacles like a box-folding ninja—and chit-chatting with other employees during lulls. As Bernard got to know me he detected intelligent life after all, and he grew fond of imparting nuggets from his customized life philosophy. He told anecdotes from his time in the Marines, and once explained how he stumbled upon Buddhist practices as a young man, taken a shine to them, and come back for them later.
But Bernard was not the only employee I was learning to enjoy well, there was also Reggie. He was the only other black employee and the number one driver. He got the most hours and made the most cash. There was good reason—he knew all the routes, shortcuts and ins and outs of the delivery area a hundred times better than anybody. He was brainy and educated like Bernard, but altogether a different sort of cat than the boss. Reggie was in his early forties and not so hunky in appearance. He wore glasses much of the time, was implacably chatty, positive in spirit, loved to explode in laughter.
Though he had been a boy at the time he had followed the social movements in the middle and late 1960s. In his case he gravitated more toward Malcolm X than MLK. Of course, these were things I learned not because he broadcasted them around but because at a certain point he started opening up to me.
As I continued picking up responsibilities I was trusted to run the store for brief periods during slower daytime windows. Reggie and I found ourselves working together, often just us, for a few hours. When the phones weren’t ringing we talked, and it was obvious to me—from the jump, as he liked to say—that this man was also special, also carried a fire within.
He was well versed in many areas of life including first and foremost politics and economics, and then baseball and women. Or was it the other way around? One thing was clear, he was adept at doling out relationship advice and teasing people, in that good way, to coax them out of their shell.
 
***
 
Eventually I earned trust to manage the store for prolonged periods. I’d come in and spell Bernard on a weekday so he could dash home and relax a couple hours. He’d come back later and we’d work through the dinner rush until around nine when he would head off for the night and I’d stay on.
Usually I paired with Reggie and together we’d take the late night orders, count and deposit the last cash into the safe, break down food stations, sweep and mop floors, haul the trash, clean and sanitize surfaces and lock up. This development allowed larger more relaxed windows for Reggie and me to talk.
Little had Reggie imagined, back when I was making my ghostly first impressions, that I carried and stoked quite the fire of my own. Little had he imagined as I imagine looking back, that I had read books like The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon’s groundbreaking work on the psychology of the colonized peoples of Africa and their struggles to hold onto their humanity and the dialectic of their rebellions. Little would he have guessed I’d read The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. Little could he have expected I had read other works, too, such as Black Skin, White Masks, also by Fanon, and The Black Panthers Speak, the compilation edited by Philip Foner.
No way in the world could he have projected that I, this bloated dismal-looking white boy who lived in that isolated house over on Navy Drive, was conversant with the names and work of Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, or that I knew what the Feds had done to Fred Hampton up in Chicago, or about the Panthers’ free breakfast programs in Oakland and elsewhere.
Once these cats were out of the bag conversations got pretty rewarding. Reggie had read The Autobiography of Malcolm X several times but never anything by Fanon, though he was well familiar with the importance of his work. But he had read works I hadn’t such as Soul On Ice by Eldridge Cleaver, Ellison’s Invisible Man and Richard Wright’s Black Boy.
So there began a kind of knowledge exchange in which we deepened each other’s database of reference points and general understanding. We were a regular little two person secret university, coming alive late at night while juggling phones and trays of pizza dough and sauce buckets, endless bags of mozzarella and stacks of cash and checks.
At some point Reggie asked me what had inspired me to read these works of Black History and Rebellion. I know my answer would have touched on a few key themes at least: guilt, disgust and determination.
I was a white kid who grew up in a nice house, with mostly white kids in nice houses surrounding me. Eventually I began to learn, though almost accidentally, about the monstrous project of the subjugation of large portions of a whole race that had taken place in my own country, a country both soaked in self-adulation and steeped in power vis-à-vis the rest of the world. I felt instinctively that the consequences of the years of Slavery and the years of Jim Crow Laws and the years of simple overt and covert bigotry against black individuals and families could not have been other than profound and ongoing. Slavery had been abolished and later the discriminatory laws overturned, and integration and equality were the norm. But those heinous things of the past were far from over; such phenomena could not be neatly concluded and forgotten. I had come to despise the way these issues seemed to be brushed under the rug, particularly at school. I noticed my peers weren’t so bothered about the whole business, though this was the outcome of either ignorance or lack of vigorous interest and was not simply a failure of moral feeling.
Not that I had read only Black literature. I was interested in the whole gamut of human experience along these broad lines. I read Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Marcuse’s One Dimensional Man, and Bagdikian’s The Media Monopoly, books I accessed when another good friend of mine, Nathan, went out to college in southern California and took a course in Revolution. Nathan would bring books back and I’d borrow and mainline them.
I was energetic and restless—burning to learn everything I could, to unlock every significant secret the world was keeping.
That’s how I ended up excusing myself from school for more than a year. Given my state of mind at the time, the curriculum there amounted to plain diversionary tactics.
I told Reggie also about my mushroom experience, about the slow-moving debacle touched off following the merciful end to the harsh hallucinogenic phase. This led to the heavy medication I was taking, which was why I was overweight and had appeared so distant and dull-eyed at first.
He was sympathetic but still cracked jokes. “Yeah you did seem a bit lost in space, that’s why my secret nickname for you was Will Robinson. Now I see it’s more like ‘White Malcolm,’ damn boy!”
His approach helped me dispel some of the dire associations I continued to cling to regarding the ordeal.
Meanwhile he told me much about his life: his college days and years on the baseball team before he tore up his knee, his attendance of protest rallies and majoring in economics. He told me about his studious and sexually dynamic girlfriend, about his going on to work in banking and his aptitude for reading the markets, his landing a hotshot job in New York and salary increase. He described meeting a new girl who became his girlfriend and his wife, how she was an aspiring singer-songwriter with a high-powered voice and how she turned out to be—or become—selfish, to the point she grew comfortable borrowing sums of money from Reggie on a regular basis for her projects.
Most of the money was never repaid and eventually he had enough. They got divorced, though they continued to have sex--very freaky sex—on irregular basis.
Reggie’s life had been full, thrilling, and impressive. For me, his tales were an incredible breath of fresh air. They came as vast relief and confirmation. His stories, vivid memories, gave me tons of content and color from the Real World.
 
***
 
Bernard was less talkative than Reggie but what stories he did tell indicated a no less remarkable life. He had his Buddhist beliefs and Marine training, and had been deployed around the world. He was versed in martial arts.
There was a rumor he once foiled an armed robbery attempt in the store with a combination of psychological manipulation and some kind of super-cool karate kick which had sent the guy crashing against the wall. Somewhere in the altercation, before or after the action movie stuff, Bernard had lifted the offender’s gun.
I asked Reggie about this one night and he said it was true something like this had happened. Bernard confided in him soon after the actual incident, before deciding not to talk about it for his own amusement. However some of the details had grown distorted over time and the reality of what actually transpired was less glamorous.
“The guy’s gun wasn’t real. It was a plastic toy. Plus he knew who the perpetrator was, the man lives a few blocks from the store and his mind has never been right. But don’t tell him I told you this; he likes to stoke his legend, likes being a superhero in people’s minds.”
I assured him I wouldn’t and never mentioned it with Bernard.
Meanwhile it was obvious Reggie had been divulging certain details of my life to Bernard. It was easy to figure this out when on some weekday lunch shift my boss would out of the blue ask, “So you’re into the Black Panthers?”
Bernard was not political and counted himself conservative but he viewed my interest in Left politics favorably. I could read his facial expressions, subtle though they were, and he was not shy from giving his opinion when compelled. On this subject he volunteered his preference for the nonviolent approach and his view of the Black Panthers as well-intentioned but faulty in thinking. I pushed him and he conceded the militant organization, despite its propensity for flashing upraised fists and over-accentuating its cache of guns (not at all mere plastic toys), had managed to do positive things in the world and inspired many to be strong, take a stand, etc.
But the thing that mattered much more to me then, was the fact there was a mutual respect growing up between the two of us, and a friendship.
Of course this was very much the case with Reggie and me also.
 
***
 
I began to feel confident again. The medication still kept a fog over me—the tradeoff for ensuring no debilitating anxiety attacks—but I was looking forward now to the moment when I might stop taking the pills.
One day I just stopped. It went down something like my own little revolution: the groundwork had been prepared, the theory devised and set in place, and suddenly conditions were ripe and I was able to seize the day. “You need a little theory and a little praxis, baby,” as Reggie would say.
I remember the moment well. I can replay it like a scene from a movie. For some reason there is a feeling of an M. Night Shymalan film now.
I walk over to the book shelf in my room in the tiny apartment, and pick up the tall tinted orange cylinder with all my long wide pills inside, like a stockpile of tiny white torpedoes. The sun is slanting in through the large double hung window to my right, the light matching the container.
I stare at them, all my powerful little crutches. I shake them a bit like a baby rattle.
After a minute I put the tube back without twisting off the lid. I stare a few more seconds at the pretty orange, before directing my eyes out the window at the sloping green lawn below, drenched in pooling light.
“I’m gonna try this. It’s time to take the power back.”
 
***
 
I’d been at Nelly’s for two years when Bernard left for a better paying job, an office gig somewhere. We didn’t feel the need for grand goodbyes as he vowed to keep in touch. He would call the store line once in a while and check in with whomever answered, often me. Sometimes Reggie would breeze in from a delivery and be talking on his cell and I could tell he was speaking with Bernard.
Reggie and I stayed on at the store together for another year before I finally moved to another job, one I knew would better suit me at a local library. During this time Reggie and I talked endlessly, laughing and sharing the vicissitudes of our lives. I had begun seeing a girl; he was still staying in touch with his not so scrupulous but nevertheless loving and irresistible ex-wife.
And, though I did fall prey to some fits of panic during this period, I never cracked to the point I had to resume swallowing those torpedoes. I had gotten stronger, happier. I lost the additional weight, all of it, within three months of cutting out the drugs.
 
***
 
When I look back now I see that getting out of my childhood home and merging into the world to be tested in ways I hadn’t before was the only thing that could save me. Taking that humble position at Nelly’s was the key to everything—my salvation. But it is likely I would have benefited from accepting just about any position anywhere, that sooner or later I would have earned the confidence to cease the pill regimen and become comfortable in my own skin again.
Still I can’t help but think, even though they were hardly doing more than being themselves, that there are no two people who could have helped me more, with as much character and style, as Reggie and Bernard. I like to think there are no two better men on the planet I could have encountered on my de facto quest to rescue myself and learn to survive in the Real World.
I like to think also that what Bernard said that day in the store in response to somebody, can’t recall who, mocking and calling me a white boy,—“He may be a white boy, but he has a black heart”—is true. That is, I still like to think, to remember, that I am both white and black, and maybe orange and green as well, blue and grey, red and brown and yellow too.
And then very, very real.
 
 
 

​Lori had lost contact with humans two days ago when she set off from Phantom Ranch.  She had also not seen any wildlife in the past twelve hours or so.  No snakes, no lizards.  She didn't even see any of the famous condors gliding high overhead.  It was as if this remote corner of the Grand Canyon had swallowed up all life. 
 
She had just rounded a bend when she saw her target.  It was an ancient Native American cliff dwelling built four hundred feet up into the canyon wall. It was either deserted or it held clues to an unsolved mystery.   
 
Lori's mission was to ascend to the ruin and find out.  As she stared up at it, she realized that the blogger had been right.  It felt as though the dwelling, or whatever lay inside, was watching her.  It was like coming across an old abandoned house deep in the woods.  This place felt haunted.  Despite the heat, the hair on her arms were standing up straight.
 
Blood started to pump like drum beats through her head.  The air was humid and completely still.  The silence of the Grand Canyon seemed to be making its own noise.  She reached up and adjusted her bandanna.  After a pause, she bent down and retied her hiking boots.  Finally, she turned in all directions and took in the landscape, trying to shake the feeling of being watched.  But there was nothing.  Just her, the heat, and the dwelling.
 
There were only about thirty minutes of daylight left.  Which meant she had a decision to make.  She could call it a day and camp right here for the night.  Or she could quickly scramble up and spend the night inside the dwelling.
 
Both choices were unsettling.  If she stayed at the bottom, she doubted she'd get much sleep, wondering what lay inside up above.  Might be better to disarm any irrational fear by getting up there and facing it head-on. But if she started her climb now, she might run out of good light and be stranded and exposed at the edge of the cliff, only getting by with her small flashlight.  And even if she did reach the dwelling in time, what she might find could be more frightening than any creation of her imagination.
 
  She started climbing up.
 
               . . .
 
Nine months ago Lori came across a legend about the Grand Canyon.  The story was about a young couple, Frank and Emily Henderson who, in the late 1960's, decided to drop out of society and live inside the Canyon.  They told friends and family their plan to find a hidden section away from rangers and tourists that they could claim as their own.  They would live out a life of freedom and beauty.  Life on their own terms.
 
However, outside of a single letter that Emily sent to her parents soon after reaching the Grand Canyon, the Hendersons completely vanished.  No one ever heard from them or saw them again.  In Emily's letter, she described how she and Frank had searched for two weeks before finding a suitable place to call home.  They had found a small cliff dwelling built high into the rock wall, well away from the main trails.
 
After months without further contact, and when Frank and Emily failed to return home for planned visits, both families became worried.  Emily's parents traveled to the Canyon and tried to press for a search.  The rangers and naturalists told them that there were no known cliff dwellings anywhere near where Emily's letter was mailed.  And Frank and Emily had not registered with any of the ranger stations.  The best that the Park could manage was a check of some dwellings in the Northeast corner of the Canyon, as well as a helicopter inspection along the Colorado River.  Neither yielded any clues, though, and so Frank and Emily were declared missing. 
 
From there, the couple's story became legend and myth.  All sorts of theories were developed to explain their disappearance.  One was that they were still living somewhere in the Canyon.  Another was that Emily killed an abusive Frank and changed her identity.  The latter seemed more popular, and every once in a while an older woman on a tour would claim to be Emily.
 
For some reason, Lori became obsessed with their story.  Maybe because she loved mysteries and would watch any TV show that explored unsolved crimes and disappearances.  She was also looking for something to jump start her flagging journalist career.  She needed a breakthrough story to put her on the map and be noticed by the bigger publications like the New Yorker or the Atlantic.
 
As a journalism student in college, she imagined herself doing serious investigative reporting, breaking big and important stories.  Her parents were more skeptical, and continually questioned her choice of major.  Which only made Lori more determined to become a serious and respected journalist.  Frustratingly to her, it seemed that her parents had been right.  Most of her work had been covering routine city hall meetings and civic ceremonies and parades.  She was looking for something that could get her out from under the blanket of her parents' criticism.  She thought this Grand Canyon mystery might be her last real shot.
 
And so she learned everything she could about the Henderson mystery, little that there was.  After analyzing the scant evidence, she became convinced that their dwelling probably held whatever clues remained. Finding it became her mission.  She used mapping websites to pour over satellite images of the Grand Canyon, but there was no way to see a dwelling at that resolution.  Then she started searching blogs of people adventuring through the Canyon.  She was looking for any mentions of cliff dwellings.
 
Her big break came when she stumbled upon a blog by a man who was exploring remote parts of the Canyon, looking for the famed wild horses.  In one entry, he talked about following a creek into a well hidden corner, just below the North Rim.  He described the area as being "darker and quieter" than any other part he'd come across.  In great detail, he wrote of feeling watched, and about a general sense of dread hanging in the air.  High above, he noticed a Native American dwelling built into the face of the cliff.  He snapped a picture of it before retreating.
 
Lori got chills as she read this.  Not just from the haunting descriptions, but because her gut told her that this was the Henderson dwelling.  She just hoped that no one else had made the connection.  The author made no mention of it.  Lori reached out to him on email and asked if he remembered the location.  Hoping not to tip him off, she explained that she studied Native American culture and was always looking for new sites to document.  He provided enough information on where the dwelling was and how to get there.
 
She felt excitement and anxiety all at once.  She was sure she was now the only person with a lead on the Henderson mystery.  She even closed her laptop and looked around the coffee shop she was in, as if someone around her could discover her plan and try to beat her.  Anxiety came from the fact that she was going to have to descend into that lonely and haunted place all by herself.
 
               . . .
 
The going was tough.  It was not as though there was a well-traveled mule trail slowly winding up to the dwelling.  There was no trail at all.  Lori had to scramble up steep and uneven terrain.  Essentially climbing from ledge to ledge all the way up.  With about one hundred feet to go, the last of sunlight faded to dark.  She sat down on a ledge to look for her flashlight.  The darkness began to magnify the feeling of dread and coldness she had felt since spotting the dwelling.
 
It sat in the darkness just above her.  Quiet but with a presence.  She half expected it to whisper or say something to her.  The thought made her shudder.  A sliver of panic started to creep in and replace the anxiety.  She continued digging for her flashlight as fast as she could, hands starting to tremble.
 
A sound come from the direction of the dwelling.  Like something scraping across the ground.  Lori froze in the growing blackness and listened.  Very slowly, she continued to look for her flashlight.  After she found it, she kept perfectly still, not turning it on yet.  Still listening.  After a few minutes, she noticed that she wasn't breathing.  A quick and explosive breath escaped her so fast that it startled her.  Pushing past the fear, she switched on her flashlight and pointed it in the direction of the dwelling, holding her breath again.
 
Her light only reached the bottom of the front wall.  She couldn't quite see the entrance, which she knew to be a narrow rectangle two feet from the ground.  And what had looked like sheer face rising up from a ledge to the entrance now appeared to be just a sharp-angled ramp.  Lori now wished she had camped at the bottom.  The creepy feeling of this place had grown much, much stronger in the dark.  She didn't hear any more sounds. 
 
After another minute or so, she continued her ascent.  She alternated between keeping the flashlight down so she could navigate the ledges and pointing it up so she could see the dwelling.  Whatever she thought she heard had unnerved her.  The door was now fully in view.  She was terrified that when she illuminated it, there would be someone standing there.
 
Another sound.  This time, it seemed to come from behind her.  She spun around and shone the light on the ledges she had just climbed.  A shaky hand swept the light back and forth across the rocks.  But everything was bare and quiet.
 
This time, instead of her breath stopping, it gathered speed until she was panting.  She turned back towards the dwelling.  The door reminded her of the open closet that had frightened her when she was a little girl.  She used the same self-talk she had used back then, trying to convince herself that there was nothing inside.
 
But her gut was telling her to climb back down to the bottom, hike back out of this area to where she felt a little closer to civilization.  Camp there for the night and then return and resume her climb in the daylight.  This was a bad place.  She should not be here alone in the dark.  But there was also the real chance that her flashlight would run out of batteries.  She had originally planned to do only daytime travel.  Losing her only light would put her in an even more precarious position.
 
She was so close to the dwelling now.  Maybe twenty yards.  Intrigue started to overtake her fear.  She scrambled the short distance to the ramp leading up to the entrance.  With the flashlight in her left hand, she crawled up the steep ramp and through the threshold.
 
Once inside, she stood up and looked around.  Starting at her left, she zigzagged her light from floor to ceiling and back again.  This revealed a room that went back about thirty feet to cliff wall.  It was empty and seemed to be devoid of any evidence of past inhabitants.  In the middle of the floor, though, was a round opening.  Lori slowly moved over to it.  Holding her breath, she pointed her light down into it.
 
This revealed another room.  The floor was about eight feet beneath the opening.  Because the hole was not very wide, it was hard to tell how big the room was.  She had another decision to make.  She could lay on her stomach, lean her head down into the hole, and inspect the room more thoroughly.  Or she could sleep on the main floor and conduct an inspection in the morning.  Her fear told her not to look anymore in the darkness.  But determination and intrigue told her to keep exploring.
 
She ultimately chose sleep.  The adrenaline of the climb was starting to wear off.   Exhaustion was taking its place.  There didn't appear to be anything obviously foreboding inside, and she didn't want to use up any more of her batteries.  She set up her sleeping gear on one side of the room.  Before falling asleep, she made some journal entries describing her climb and initial inspection of the dwelling.
 
               . . .
 
In the middle of the night, Lori woke to a voice screaming, "Emily!  Emily!"  It was echoing off the canyon walls.  She opened her eyes and sat bolt upright.  From within the dwelling, there was nothing but blackness.  Her heart was pounding as she listened for more.  She tried to control her breath so she could hear.  She felt around for her flashlight, gripped it in her hand, but did not turn it on.  Still listening. 
 
There was nothing more.  As she came fully awake, she realized it must have been part of a dream she was having.  The details started coming back to her.  Frank was in the area, still searching for Emily.  He was delirious from heat and stumbling around, screaming her name.  After a few minutes of sitting and listening, she laid back down.
 
But finding it hard to wind down, Lori turned on her flashlight and shone it around the room, hoping to notice more detail than her first examination.  As she did so, the hole in the floor started to consume her thoughts.  Not feeling that sleep was coming any time soon, she slowly crawled over to it.
 
She lay prone and hung her head off the edge and down into the opening.  She hung her flashlight extended out in front of her to get a first real look at this second room.  "Do you see Emily?" a man's voice asked from the entrance behind her.  This time it was not a dream.  Lori's hand let go of the flashlight and she began screaming.
 
As she pushed away from the opening, a hand grabbed the back of her neck.  Her head was forced back down into the hole and she felt her body following.  Before she fell all the way through, she held out both hands and grabbed the opposite side of the opening.  This stopped her slide.  The grip slipped from her neck, giving her the chance to swing her legs to the side and away from her attacker.
 
She again tried to push away from the hole when the man hit her with his flashlight just below the eye.  She lifted her left arm to protect against another blow.  At the same time, she pushed back hard with her right hand and was finally back away from the opening.  She was now on the opposite side of the opening from the entrance and from where her attacker was.  He was rising from a kneeling position shining his flashlight directly in her eyes.  All she could see was his silhouette.
 
"What are you doing? Who are you?" she screamed, panting hard.  
 
"You just made the biggest -- and last -- mistake of your life coming up here.  You're going down there with Emily."  He pointed the flashlight into the opening.
 
"No", she tried to say forcefully, but without much success.  She instinctively backed up as far as she could and was now up against the back wall of the dwelling.  He returned the light to her face and took a couple of steps around the opening towards her.  Then he turned the flashlight off.
 
Suppressing another scream, Lori crouched down to a kneeling position and protected her head with both arms.  Her face felt numb where he had hit her before.  She could hear his shoes shuffling her way.  She couldn't make anything out in the blackness but sensed that he was a little to her left, while the hole was directly in front of her.  She was thinking of how to push him down into it so she could escape.  That's when the flashlight turned back on.
 
He was standing above her holding the flashlight right over her head.  Still crouching, all she saw was his shoes and legs.  He had brown hiking shoes and olive shorts; just like a park ranger.
 
As she was processing this, he grabbed the hair on the top of her head and pulled her up to a standing position.  Then he put his hand at the base of her throat and held her against the wall.  Through clenched teeth, he said, "Who do you think you are, coming here?  Don't you know that we came to be left alone?"
 
"What?", she stammered.  "Wait -- what -- are you Frank?"
 
"Good thing I trusted my instinct and followed you.  I was Frank.  Long time ago.  Then I disappeared, became different people for awhile.  But for the last twelve years, I've been George Rider, back-country ranger."
 
"What happened to Emily?"
 
"We had a misunderstanding."  Lori shuddered.  She needed to stall. 
 
"Why are you back?"
 
"To live out my days in the Canyon, just like Emily and I planned to do together.  Until she decided that we'd made a mistake and then tried to ruin my dream.  Kind of like you're trying to do now.  But she failed and so will you.  Why did I come back?  Look at me. I get to patrol remote areas and sleep where I want.  And so I check in with the ranger stations and Phantom Ranch, to find out if any hikers are in this area.  This way, I can live below the rim and also keep an eye on Emily."
 
Before Lori could respond, he grabbed the front of her shirt and yanked her violently downward towards the hole.  She screamed and held onto his hand with both arms to stop her momentum.  But he was too strong.  He dragged her right to the edge and then stopped.  He got a better grip on her shirt and then used all of his power to throw her.  Instead of resisting, she used his momentum to jump so that her legs cleared the opening and landed on the other side.
 
This caused her to twist in midair, with his hand still clenched to her shirt.  But her force caused him to release his grip to prevent himself from falling into the hole.  Lori was able to gain some balance and keep herself from falling.  She was now on all fours at the opposite edge of the hole, with the entrance behind her.  She heard him grunt, but didn't hear him fall.
 
His flashlight had dropped from his hand and rolled a little bit away from him, shining onto one of the walls.  Lori quickly crawled over to it and grabbed it.  She stood up and started to run for the entrance when his hand clutched her ankle, causing her to fall.  Laying on her side, she pointed the flashlight down to her feet.  His legs were dangling into the opening while his torso was flat on the floor.  One arm kept him from falling and the other held her foot in a death grip.
 
"No!", she screamed.  She reached down and started pounding his wrist with the flashlight.  On the fourth hit, he let go to re-balance himself.  As he did this, Lori kicked him as hard as she could in the forehead.  He slipped backwards and fell into the hole with Emily.
 
Lori didn't wait to check on his fate.  She used his flashlight to flee the dwelling and climb down the cliff as fast as she could.  At the bottom, she saw a backpack.  Before inspecting it, she pointed the flashlight back up at the dwelling.  There was no sign of Frank/George.  Inside the backpack, she found a thermos of water and a walkie talkie.  She grabbed both and, lighting the way with his flashlight, sprinted all the way to Phantom Ranch.
 
               . . .
 
Lori picked up the stack of Rolling Stone magazines that sat on her kitchen counter, took the first one off the top, and placed it on the table.  After a detour to the coffee machine, she sat down to read her first published national story.  On the cover was the title "Canyon Psycho", along with a picture of Frank's mugshot. 
 
She flipped to the article inside, where her byline was printed prominently under the title and a wedding picture of Frank and Emily.  Her article started with the background of the mystery.  After news broke of Frank's arrest, Emily's sister had contacted Lori and sent her a copy of the letter Emily had written to her parents from the Canyon.  A brief correspondence took place, and Emily's sister was able to give more details about the relationship, including her own original suspicions about Frank.
 
Lori mostly skimmed the sections of the article about her discovery of the dwelling and her confrontation with Frank.  She had written about the account with as much honesty and raw emotion as she could muster.  But there was still a lot of trauma that remained, and she was not ready to relive it as she tried to bask in the glory of her breakthrough article.
 
Finally, she read the excerpts about the conclusion to the entire ordeal.  Having made it back to Phantom Ranch safely, she had raised the staff, who immediately brought down security from the rim and also gave her shelter and comfort for the night.  The following morning, Lori had led Grand Canyon police back to the dwelling, where several armed officers made the climb up.  They found an injured Frank still laying in the room below with a broken leg.  A search and rescue team was called in to lift him up and carry him out of the Canyon. 
 
Also discovered in the room were skeletal remains.  Forensics would soon conclude that they were of a female estimated to be about twenty-five years of age.  She had been dead for decades.  Further tests would prove that she was indeed Emily Henderson, and had died due to blunt force trauma to the back of her head.  The rest remained a mystery.  Frank had refused to speak since being lifted out of the Canyon.  He was charged with both his attack on Lori and the murder of Emily. 
 
Overall, Lori was pleased with the article.  Whatever editing had been done did not alter her voice or the trajectory of the story.  She took two more copies off the stack and put them into a large envelope.  On the front she wrote out the address of her parents.  For the return address, she simply wrote Lori, Writer - Rolling Stone Magazine. 

​When Creed heard that his family had lost their home, and his sister was now forced to live in a hotel, he refused to believe it. Until he went to visit Christina. The lobby was large and bright orange. Everyone moved about as if there were never a quiet moment. He, instead, walked around the building, before coming to a six-foot stucco wall enclosing a patio-like exterior. He lifted himself up and over the powdery white surface. Though she had been expecting him, the ice tinged against Christina's glass, spilling a slight drop on her white blouse. Luscious greens lined every corner of the patio and inside as well. It was no secret his sister enjoyed plants. They provided oxygen with their beauty everywhere.
"Nice hotel room. Very spacious," Creed said, craning his neck to see through the open glass door. A fifty-inch plasma on the wall, two beds, a desk, and a phone. 
"No need for sarcasm. You can blame our very generous father for this adventure," Christina said. Her face twisted in a disgusting frown and furrowed eyebrows rolling out a sigh.
"Yes, I might have heard something, but that's why I'm here. What I've promised is coming to fruition. Do you have what I asked for?"
"Here," she said, pushing a manila folder into his hands and blowing a cloud of light grey smoke in his face. "What are you going to do with that?"
"Maybe turn him in," he said, admiring the documents.
"All of his assets would be gone. You would leave our family with nothing."
"You have nothing now. Besides the only other option would be to kill him."
"Oh, now that's not a wild notion at all," she said, with wide eyes taking a sip. "Please continue, tell me this masterful plan of yours, Creed."
"Now it's not wild to want everything that he has built. It is the least he owes me."
"And what if you kill him and in that will states that I become the head of his company."
"I doubt you would reject your brother who has done this very generous favor for you."
"The deed has yet to be finished."
"I still have the opportunity to reverse the decision so if you would just-."
"I will not conspire to kill our dad or risk his life in jail," said Christina, as her drink flew down crashing into the table at high velocity.
"You knew very well what you were doing when you grabbed these files for me," said Creed.
"And if I were to sign off on this idea, then I would risk going to jail also. We should discuss more pleasant things, such as trying to capture the rodent in your apartment."
He rubbed a finger through his beard. "I was thinking more of a trap. Maybe catch him by the tail, until I can throw him out with the rest of the trash."
"But what if it returns?"
"If that happens, then I guess I'll have to kill it."
"How do you plan on getting away with it? I don't think it would be wise for you to just show up out of the blue. Then all of a sudden, he dies. You would definitely be a prime suspect."
"I thought we were just talking about the rat."
"One in the same. Go on."
"Well, I'll sneak in one night while he's sleeping and either poison him or induce a heart attack."
"Kill him lying next to mom? Good idea."
"Well how about I reenact a Game of Thrones scene and shoot him with a crossbow at a very vulnerable moment."
"You can't even shoot a rat with an airsoft pistol," said Christina. Her laughter alone filled the room.
"I could do something to his car."
"Aren't you afraid they will suspect us?"
"No. Do you want to know how it's going to happen?"
"No. Wait, yes."
"Are you sure it's done," he said to someone on the phone. He held up one finger, before walking into the room. Returning shortly, he snapped the phone shut. "He was murdered by a sniper."
"I guess, I will be getting the phone call any minute." She said, lighting another cigarette. Silence clouded the air in thick smoke. The only thing that could break it was a knock on the door. Through the peephole a man looked down at his feet, fidgeting with his hands. "It's Dad."
Creed nodded for her to open the door while he prepared, slipping on his gloves and the silencer on his gun.
"Hey, sweetie. May I come in," the dad said, standing in the doorway.  "Nice hotel room. Now, remember, this is only," he began to say but trailed off when he spotted Creed in the corner. 
"Surprise," Creed said, opening his arms wide.
Their dad turned around facing the tv but was talking to Christina. "Now I just wanted to inform you," he tried to say but was cut short by a bullet engraved with his name. 
            "Yes, I need someone to come to clean my room. I have made a mess," Creed said, to whoever was on the other end of the phone. Christina bounced on the springs in the mattress, relishing the cool burning rush of alcohol sliding down her throat.   

Joanna “BOB” Phuong is a student at Full Sail University. While she does not have a lot of professional experience as a writer, she enjoys writing in her free time to improve on her craft. Joanna spends her free time saving Azeroth and learning more about how to create worlds for stories to unfold in.

​After a long night of studying, Lucy was fast asleep until someone rang the doorbell. With bleary eyes, she slid out of bed, put on a sweatshirt, and stumbled to the front door. Before opening the door, Lucy rubbed her eyes and let out a long yawn, stretching both her arms behind her back. Once she was finally ready, she reached out, turned the doorknob, and pulled open the door.
            Lucy was not a fan of mysteries or surprises, but when she opened the door she found a mysterious, neatly wrapped box sitting on her front porch. She looked around to see if a delivery man had left it there by mistake. The street was empty.
            Cautiously, Lucy reached out for the box, but before she could touch it, the box ripped open. She screamed and backed up to hide behind her door. When Lucy peeked out, she saw something incredibly strange.
            A small dog stood on his hind legs and was dressed like a super hero. The dog struck a strange, Superman-like pose and said, “Duh-nuh-nuh!”
            Shocked, Lucy replied, “Huh?”
            “Duh-nuh-nuh!”
            Lucy, not wanting anything to do with this strange dog, started to close her door.
            “Duh-nuh-nuh!” the dog said, again.
            Lucy shut her door and ran to get her cellphone. She decided that she would call the cops.
            From outside of the house, the dog could be heard repeatedly saying, “Duh-nuh-nuh!”
            I’m going crazy, Lucy thought as she dialed 911. When the cops answered, Lucy said, “Hello, officer, there’s a talking dog outside my house.”
            “Duh-nuh-nuh!” replied the officer.
            Lucy, terrified, hung up and called her mom. The ringing tone stopped and a couple of seconds of silence followed before Lucy said, “Hello, mom?”
            “Duh-nuh-nuh!” Lucy’s mom replied.
            After throwing her phone across the room, Lucy curled into a ball underneath her blanket. This has to be a dream. It has to be. Lucy pinched herself and was unhappy to find that it hurt.
            “Duh-nuh-nuh!” the dog said, again and again.
            Lucy clenched her eyes shut and let out a frustrated scream. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at her room’s ceiling. Shocked, she sat up and looked around. Lucy found herself on the floor, tangled up in her blanket, and the room was still dark. She listened closely and was relieved to find silence. It was a dream. She sighed and crawled back into bed, dragging her blanket with her.
            Lucy laid down and thought, I’m never eating cake before bed ever again. Lucy soon fell back asleep.
            To once again torment Lucy in her dreams, the dog said, “Duh-nuh-nuh!”

​On a bone-chilling and rainy Valentine's Day, Gwen lied helplessly across her bed
conversing on the phone with her friend, Gail, while Gwen desperately awaited a call from her husband,Pig Lawrence, who fled after a heated argument with her the night before. While  they discussed Pig, the doorbell rang at Gwen's.
"Gail, hold on a minute,” said Gwen. “Someone rang my doorbell!" she shouted.
"Okay," replied Gail.
Gwen flung herself from her bed with a tight grip on her phone and hurried down stairs, her face covered with uncertainty, hoping to discover information about Pig's whereabouts. As she reached the front door, she raised to the tip of her toes, squinched her eyes and peaked through the peephole, as so to see what was on the other side of the door. Nothing.
Whomever had rung the doorbell was gone.
"Who's there?!" asked Gwen, crying out.
Gwen then raised the phone to her ear. "Nobody's there," she told Gail. "But let's see."
"Be careful!" yelled Gail.
Gwen reached for the doorknob, grabbed it tightly, and as her heart pounded with anxiety, yanked it back swiftly to reveal a mysterious four-foot by two-foot wooden box. The box, made of rusty plywood, had a misty fog escaping its surface.
"Ah," said Gwen, gasping.
"What is it?!" asked Gail, frantically.
"A nice sized box," she answered. "A very nice sized box," she repeated.
"Box? What kind of box?" Gail asked, panicky. "How does it look?" she continued.
"Wooden," answered Gwen.
"Maybe it's from the post office. Does it have a postal label on it?"
"No," answered Gwen. "No label."  
The mysterious wooden box had suddenly come to seem familiar to Gwen. Very similar to the box she last saw her father in. The box she last saw her mother in. Her uncle Johnny and Aunt Vivian. A miniature casket.
"It has words written on it," said Gwen. She peered closely, "It says, "'Pig's remains," she said, as tears began forming in her eyes.
"Holy cow," said Gail. "Get in the house and call the police!" she yelled.
"Gail," said Gwen. "But I feel sleepy. Just let me call you right back after a quick nap."
"Okay," said Gail. “But if you don’t call me in thirty minutes, I’m calling The National
Guard!” she exclaimed.
Gwen quickly hang the phone up and began staggering upstairs, eyes heavy and face drooping. She finally reached the top of the stairs and set her weighed down eyes on her bedroom, she entered, then collapsed onto her king size bed, and fell quickly asleep. After a dream-filled nap, Gwen awoke, drenched in sweat, to her husband Pig tugging at her toes.
"Wake up, Honey," said Pig.
"What happened?" asked Gwen, rising from the bed despairingly.  
"Well, after our argument, I went down to the old Juke Box and had a few drinks. I did some soul searching, as well. And, well, Honey, I have been quite snobbish lately. I think now you should get out and have some fun with your friends. Heck, we should all get out and have some fun. Call Gail and Paul up and, oh, let's have some fun tomorrow. But, today, it's you and me. Happy Valentine's Day, Honey," said Pig.
Gwen looked on doubtingly. "But the box had your remains. I read it. It said, 'Pig's remains.'
It was a nightmare," she said.
"Oh, Honey, you mean the box on the porch?" asked Pig. "That was definitely real. But, they are not my remains. I thought I told you that the slaughterhouse ships the remains of our slaughtered livestock now. It's the remains of the pig, Bethanney. You forget we have a farm?"
As Pig and Gwen began to embrace each other, the howling sound of sirens could be heard approaching. The two disengaged their clutch as Pig sprang to the window, flung the curtains back to the sight of the police and fire department rushing onto their property.
"Oh, my," said Gwen. "I forgot to tell Gail everything is okay now.”

​*Everything she knew and loved was burning, and there was so much blood… This all seemed so familiar…*
 
“Don’t play with the fire, Ena.” Her father casually sipped from his favorite mug.
 
He watches his daughter, Ena, as she plays with her doll by their rustic fireplace. He was proud of his fireplace, it was the coziest part of the whole house, and honestly, the house itself is small and nothing to brag about - but the fireplace is like a wonderland in comparison. Ena also really likes it, because it’s warm there and she dislikes the cold sting that winter brings.
 
But there’s something odd about the way Ena seems to lose herself when she stares into the fire. If left alone she could watch the wood burn for hours… It didn’t seem healthy. But as a carpenter, her father must leave for work during the early day and return by evening. Ena is alone in the house often, and soon she becomes risky.
 
At first, it seemed harmless… She would find old books crumpling the pages and tossing it into the fire. The paper burned much faster and brought along a rush of excitement.
 
Her father learned of this behavior and scolded her. The books are now atop high shelves where she cannot reach. But, Ena did something her father did not expect her to do… Her favorite doll, hand-stitched, slightly worn - but precious… Tossed into the fire dancing among several ashes and smut. The doll’s hair was long and brown, just like Ena’s. Without realizing it, her hair lays across the carpet floor. The fire spreads fast but Ena doesn’t run, it wasn’t her intention to spread the fire but it’s still such a calm sight.
 
She remembers…
 
The vase atop the fireplace is actually an urn. The remains of her mother lie within, Ena was a few years younger still trying to understand the world when she and her mother were in a tragic accident. The marks on Ena’s wrists are proof of what she’s been through. But she doesn’t remember anything except the roaring flames that surrounded her, it was overwhelming…
 
Maybe she had an obsession with fire, or maybe it’s her way of coping with her hindered past. Despite knowing the dangers of it she finds it beautiful and puts herself at risk of getting burned again. She plays with fire over and over until finally… She draws her last few breaths, face covered in sweat, blood trickling down her hands.
 
Her father rushes inside and yells, “NO! NOT AGAIN! Ena, NO!” He quickly swoops her and escapes outside. He rushes his daughter to the hospital with serious injuries.

In his arms, Ena quietly whispers, “*Mama*…”
 
Ena hasn’t spoken since the accident… Her father clutches her tight swearing that everything will be alright.
 
*Fire is deadly but it is also so fragile. In a matter of seconds it can grow, or… it could die.*
 
Her father sobbed and screamed. He should have never left her alone… Before he made it to the hospital, Ena slowly passed away.

​Edgar slowed his pace as the burial oak crawled into his field of vision from beyond the trail's end. His son Nathan scurried at his side, riding on a meek ripple of strength that would soon fade away. The cascading breeze tossed the fallen leaves into a whimsical dance around them. Their jumbled earthen tones reminded Edgar of a funeral procession, a flurried gathering of heavy souls. Edgar had not wept for his son in weeks. He could no longer contest the burning seal of doom woven into his family’s blood line. His grief fell into a permeating numbness, bound to his bones by the inescapable gravity of Nathan's imminent death.
Edgar glanced at his son’s sheepish face and smiled at its soft painless expression. A hollow stare of suffering would soon rip it away. The pain would have Nathan in its claws by sunset. It would force him back into the country house, back into his shoddy bed, and back under the grip of a fresh syringe. Nathan’s eyes told his father that he was not yet through fighting the disease. Edgar marveled at his son's perseverance from behind his own veil of experience. Nathan’s body bent to the sickness like a straw of hay against an icy gale. Each night he collapsed and each morning he rose, weaker and thinner than he was the night before. Edgar would beg for suicide in Nathan’s place.
On hushed footsteps they entered the wide embrace of the oak’s shadow. Their awareness sank into its ethereal realm. Its rustic sprawling facade inhaled the remnants of the fading day's warmth, hinting at the barren winters of its past. They approached the layered claws of roots and made their way in deliberate paces up to the tremendous base of the trunk. The wind shifted course and the tree waved a brisk greeting with its halo of outer leaves. Nathan tilted his waterlogged skull and stared up into the cascading branches that splintered away toward heaven’s edge.
"Is God real? Will He be there, when I go?" said Nathan. Edgar took a deep breath and looked at his son’s solemn countenance. Nathan’s glassy eyes hung like a fog below the pale hairless curvature of his brow. 
"Yes, God is real," Edgar said. He clasped Nathan’s bony shoulder as he soaked in the lie. "God is both around us and within us. He was here before our planet came to be, and He will be there when everything is gone."
"Good to know, dad. I get scared imagining what nothing will feel like. I hope God is kind."
"God is beyond anything we know," Edgar said. "What matters is that you are kind."
The tree’s imposing aura unleashed a deluge of centuries within Edgar's mind. He thought of the past and of his family’s poisoned blood. Through wealth and trouble, and through toil, feasts, and famine, the names engraved into the trunk fell together and coalesced into a single black diamond. Each of the named boys had died at the age of eleven. The whispers of their ghosts continued to creak and groan from within the tree’s granite bark, impervious to the world’s chokehold of indifference.
Nathan stared at the macabre shrine for his family’s unknowable souls. "Why are we here?" he said.
"I wanted to show you the others," Edgar said as he stepped closer toward the engravings.
"What do you mean?"
"The others like you, the boys from our family who got sick when they were eleven years old.” Edgar softened his voice. “Think of them as autumnal ghosts. They blessed their loved ones with their summer light and then drifted off to be with God before the early frost came." Edgar waved his palm over the engravings.
“Were they lonely?" asked Nathan. 
"No,” Edgar said. “They were loved.” He spoke like a somber grandfather. “At first, I didn't believe the rumors, and I stopped thinking about them for a while. Then you were born and I was overjoyed, but then…" Edgar sighed and cast his glance into the shadows. His mind froze. He remembered the morning of his wife's suicide. "Then your mother got sick, so we moved here."
"I didn't know mom very well," said Nathan.
"Neither did I," said Edgar. "Her spirit was gone by the time you began your treatments. I doubt you remember much.”
"Needles," said Nathan. "I remember all kinds of needles, and lots of drilling and white light."
"Then it's for the best," said Edgar. The wind shifted course and the tree obliged with a change in its motions. Somewhere beyond the rolling horizon lay a great lake that steered the ebbs and flows of the lonely farm’s weather. Edgar had never walked upon it shores. He bowed his head and glanced over the encroaching moss on the tree’s exposed roots. The cloudy green stains would die in the winter. New growth would return in the spring and by midsummer it would climb and replace the dead moss of yesteryear. Everywhere Edgar turned he saw the same cycle, the same pointless suicidal whirlpool that led nowhere. In his youth he would have thrown his arms up and screamed at the treacherous God who plotted all the world’s misdoings from somewhere beyond the edge of the sky. Now in his calmer age, he learned to wait in silence. During the night’s deepest hours he sometimes would awaken and whisper his burdens and sorrows to the placid country air, which had turned his home’s thin paneled walls into stone.  
Edgar cleared his lungs and tightened his jacket. He stepped closer to Nathan, who had been studying the bottom section of the tree’s engravings. The coldest winter of Edgar’s life gathered beyond the farm’s darkening fields. Nathan’s spine hunched like a neglected hunting bow. He would not live to feel the first morning frost.
“Ready to go home?” said Edgar. “Are you hungry?”
Nathan looked into his father’s eyes without speaking. His expression grew inquisitive. Edgar’s concealed grief had withheld much of the past from him. Nathan stepped out of his father’s view and walked around the tree. His strength had waned by the time he circled back to where he started. His twig-like legs trembled inside his loose gray pants.
“We should start walking back,” Edgar said. “It’s almost time for your medicine. You should try to eat something.”
"Wait,” Nathan said. “So you say those relatives caused my sickness? How?" Nathan scowled. "I don't know everything the doctors say but I know it's not a curse and I don’t belong here with the others.” He began to cough.
"It's okay, son, sit down on that grass for a minute, " said Edgar. He forgot to bring the emergency dose of medicine. He braced for Nathan’s final collapse.
"But how can that be true?” Nathan said. His throat tightened. “Why did you and mom have me at all?" He kneeled over and his chest convulsed under tiny, jagged breaths. A tear slid from his face and fell into the dirt.
"I spent months doing research after you got sick," said Edgar. "I tracked down my father's ancestors, from centuries ago."
Nathan broke out of his cough and sat down in a bright patch of untamed grass. His chest continued to heave but he remained upright. His eyes puddled over with thin chemical tears.
"I'm weak," Nathan said. "If I were stronger I could get better and be here with you, on the farm, and help out, and be happy." His voice slipped and he succumbed to a new coughing fit. Edgar considered running back to the house for the medicine, but he remained still.
Edgar watched on as his son suffered in the foreboding aura of the October sunset. The center of his chest turned to ice. Nathan’s jagged breaths pounded a cold finality through Edgar’s ears. The coughs blared like foghorns. The terminus of their shared life made its presence known. It hung in the air around them, as solid as a gravestone. The winds ceased their flow and the tree stood bleak and still as the sun’s bottom edge nudged into the curve of distant fields. Edgar prayed for his son to have a peaceful death.
"You're not weak," Edgar said. Nathan’s throat ceased its grinding convulsions. He caught enough of his breath to stand up. "I know you feel like you are.” Edgar buttoned Nathan’s jacket, which hung like a curtain over the bundled sticks of Nathan’s limbs. “We're powerless against the tides of time. Your mother would have been so proud of you, so proud..." Edgar's eyes sank into the shadows.
"I'm still glad I could live for a little bit," said Nathan. His body stopped shaking but his breath gained a new timbre from a wheeze that had not been there before. Edgar cleared his throat to rattle the swelling of his own tears.
"Most of the boys remembered here had a phrase engraved near their name," Edgar said. He glanced over the marks as his spirit buckled under the burden carried by the mothers and fathers of his family’s past. He imagined the young sons floating away into the chilly nothingness. Their eyes would have been dead and peaceful like Nathan’s. He imagined the mothers and fathers aging and dying cold and empty, unable to replace the autumnal warmth their sons took with them when they departed. 
Edgar spat as he cried. His own blood mocked him. The very matter that kept him alive pulled his lone son into an early grave. "If you have anything you want engraved here, let me know. Take some time, think about it," Edgar said. He spoke in his deepest and softest voice.
Nathan returned to his seat on the bright scrap of grass. Edgar took several paces away from the burial oak. He inhaled the morbid essence of his family’s tranquil land as he watched his dying son sit entwined with the lifeless meadow. Nathan kept his back as straight as he could. He watched the faint motion of the tree’s sparse leaves as they wasted their final drop of life trying to hold on. Time’s reaper would not heed Nathan’s bravery. Edgar's gut seized with the sudden urge to tear down the tree, yet he knew he never would. He could boil out his own blood and drown Nathan in the finest medicine, but it would not matter. The immutable mechanism behind their parting lives would clamor on like a stone bull.
"I've got something, dad," Nathan said. Nathan stood up and came forward to touch the tree.
"Already? What is it?"
"Behold the shadows, for there is light," said Nathan. His voice sank with his eyes.
"That's beautiful," said Edgar. He crouched next to Nathan and hugged his frail torso.
In silence they watched the fields swallow the final rays of the setting sun. A line of birds bound for warmer lands shimmered beneath a lonely cloud as it hung in the still air. Life withdrew into the fringes of the land.
They began their walk back to the country house. Nathan’s feeble legs struggled as his shoes kicked up trails of dust along the flat path. Edgar walked close behind, close enough to catch Nathan, though his instinct told him not to.
They stopped to rest with the country house in their sight. A faint band of violet light lingered on the horizon. Edgar felt the Earth had stopped its turn, if only for a heartbeat.
“What will you do after I’m gone?” Nathan said.
"I'll remember you," said Edgar. "You're the bravest person I'll ever know.” Edgar turned away from his son to hide the shame that swelled in his eyes. He loved his son enough to wish him dead that moment. "Then I'll keep going,” Edgar said, speaking to the horizon. “I'll keep going and then some day you'll be all better and I'll see you again."
A divine spark flashed beneath Nathan’s step. The heels of his old sneakers shed their dust as he thumped ahead with staccato bursts across the uneven wooden planks that bridged the farm’s dying stream. Nathan climbed the porch steps without Edgar’s help. He sat down in the large soiled armchair in the corner of the living room and turned on the bulbous television. Edgar stuck a fresh needle in Nathan’s left arm and taped the small dispenser pouch below the crook of his elbow. He covered Nathan with a thin blanket and walked into the kitchen. He turned on the stove. Nathan shut his eyes.
Nathan did not raise his head when Edgar returned with a steaming bowl of thick, unnamable stew. Edgar placed the stew on the coffee table and reached for his son’s neck to check for a pulse. The vein whispered like a lonely cricket on a cold, somniferous dawn. Edgar swallowed a few spoonfuls of the stew and then put it away. He muted the television and walked upstairs to his bedroom. He shut the door.  
Nathan passed during the witching hour without a hint or a whimper. Edgar did not look at his son’s body upon awakening. When the early morning came, a silent ambulance carried the Nathan away from the farm. Edgar signed the driver’s papers and returned to the house. He opened the dirty curtains to let in the unwelcome early morning light. Edgar screamed. He limped from corner to corner, from room to room, and screamed until his tongue tasted blood. The decaying house answered with stonewall silence. Outside the house nothing stirred.    
Edgar down the gulp of whiskey that clung to the bottom of his last bottle. He watered the living room plants and gathered Nathan's old clothes and bedding. He stuffed the decrepit fabrics into a large cotton sack and carried it to the center of the backyard fire pit. He fetched a tin canister of ignition fluid from beneath the deck's stairs and sprayed a stream over the cloth bundle. He threw a lit match onto Nathan’s dry, grainy blankets at the base of the pile. The flame burst forth with great force, then faded into a simmer.  
Edgar returned to the house and gathered his wallet and car keys. He produced a hefty pile of unpaid medical bills from a drawer in the narrow hallway and walked out of the front door. On his way to his car Edgar threw the envelopes on top of Nathan's smoldering belongings. He sprayed the remaining the ignition fluid into the flame wisps and turned his back to them, walking away from the resurrected pyre.
Edgar drove his worn out sedan down the gray country road as his life dissolved into the monotone horizon behind him. In his soul there were no shadows, and so there was no light. The boy, the wife, and the autumnal ghosts tugged at his memory, hoping to extract some closing grace from his self-reflection. He offered them none. He narrowed his eyes at the rising sun, pulled down the visor, and kept going.

​            Up and down the room he paced, muttering and troubled as usual by all the suffering of being or not being. Suddenly he spied her from the corner of his eye.
            Had she overheard his mutterings? Poor lady. Still waiting in the wings for a kind word from him. Well, not precisely in the wings. Desperate enough to stand smack in the middle of the room. Had she no shame? No purpose served in losing face now. Go on, Hamlet, he encouraged himself. Pull yourself together. Raise your voice a notch. Just go on talking. Don't look at her. A hint of mockery won't hurt either.
            "Nymph," he enunciated, "in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd."
            How queer he acted. She could hardly bear to look at him. Not that she could blame him for feeling out of sorts. What she couldn't get, though, was the wave of coldness and scorn that emanated from him. But then she thought she understood after all, and her heart nearly missed a beat. Was he about to take his leave? Already? And was the farewell to be like this? Shouldn't he hold her in his arms and comfort her? They might not see winter together. Or even the next spring. He shouldn't steal last moments from her like this, with his words and eyes and arms a thousand thoughts away already. Of course everything was bound to seem cold and cruel now, she told herself. Everything would seem unnatural and all too soon. Timidly she stepped behind him and leaned against him, her hands on his shoulders, her forehead pressed against his back. In a tiny voice she asked:
            "Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day."
            So she was indeed going mad. A shame really. Bound to happen, of course. The familiarity of her touch startled him, though. A strange sweetness slid through his nervous system like a shudder. Heaven forbid. He had to put a stop to this. All sweetness was folly and danger.
With one abrupt motion he jerked himself loose from her tender hands and she went stumbling backward, shielding her face with her hands. And well it was for her to be ashamed. The preposterousness of it: As sure as he was Prince of Denmark, she stood in front of him dressed in nothing but a diaphanous nightgown. For shame. What if anyone in the castle were to see them together like this? Lord, did the maid no longer know what she was doing? Did she expect to be bedded right here, pathetic creature? He turned away from the sight of her like a man. Someone in high heaven, pity her soul.
            As though to confirm his suspicions, she now was indeed half demented. Her thoughts tumbled incoherently. Mostly "no" and "yes" and "why?" and "no" again. What had she done to offend him? Why would he shove her? Was there no destined touch to cling to? Were there no destined words? It was the nightingale, and not the lark. But no, it seemed that all the words were broken. Merciful God, let this but be a fever in my brain. Reluctantly she parted the fingers in front of her eyes to look at him. Suddenly her hands fell to her side. Her dark eyes widened with terror. What was meant to be a cry came out in a whisper:
            "What . . . what are you? What . . . what are you doing here?"
            Grimly he answered: "Lady, count your blessings!" He tossed his head back and shot a defiant gaze at her.
            Then blood seemed to curdle in his veins. "Lady, who are you? A ghost? Another ghost?"
            "Ghost?" she asked, turning another shade paler. "Did you say ghost? Are you a ghost?" She pressed herself against the wall furthest from him.
            "I am Hamlet," he said, hoping that the louder the proclaimed it, the more it would prove to be true.
            "I am Juliet," she said with similar intensity. Her voice was brittle.
            "Juliet?" he repeated after her. And did ghosts really shed tears? But why would she appear to him of all people? He racked his mind. To the best of his recollection he had never known anyone called Juliet. Certainly, he reassured himself with frail relief, he had never wronged anyone name Juliet. Ghost or not, though, he had to get to the bottom of this matter. How utterly incomprehensible. If only to satisfy his own curiosity, he had to take a closer look. As he reached out with his hand, she slid to one side, trembling. Even so, inquisitive fingers brushed her arm.
            "You're no ghost," he said. "I could feel you just now. You're flesh and blood."
            After a moment's confused silence, she agreed. "You're no ghost either." Her breath quickened. "All the same, you don't belong here. This is my bedroom. And where is Romeo?"
            "Who?" Hamlet asked. She didn't answer.
            Something had to be done. Her eyes flitted around the room. They lit on the balcony. It was in her nature to think of leaping from high places at the first sign of trouble. Or to reach for a dagger. But there was no dagger in sight. And this was trouble indeed. What terrible designs did this ill-mannered, if also handsome stranger have on her? Forgive me, Romeo, she thought, while placing one hand on the balustrade. Better death than . . . what? Well, anyway, the real question was, would the fall be deep enough?
            A few long strides brought Hamlet behind her to hold her shoulders.
            "For God's sake, let's be practical." He sounded flustered. "I mean you no harm, lady. Something is very wrong here. Forgive me if I mention once again that time is out of joint." Or was it the place?
            "What do you mean, forgive you?" Juliet asked.
            "Oh, nothing. Nothing." There was no way she could know that he had used that phrase before. Wasn't meeting new people the god-given chance to reuse old slogans without becoming  a bore? However, it took wit to recognize wit, and, in his opinion, she didn't seem too well endowed with that commodity. No matter. He had to think hard. So he was in some strange woman's bedroom. Girl, really. No wonder she looked so frightened. He had to reassure her. That accomplished, he would have to try to figure out his own situation. The critical thing was to think and to be rational.
            After giving him a longish chance to speak first, Juliet cleared her throat. "Good Sir, I think one of us must be in the wrong play."
            Hamlet had not yet, by means of logic, arrived at this conclusion. He had been side-tracked by the puzzling fact of being in a young lady's bedchamber. Once the words were out, he couldn't help but agree. "Yes, I would fain believe, my lady, you are right. The question now becomes: which one of us?"
            "It has to be you," Juliet said. "My lord," she added as apologetic afterthought. "After all, this is my bedroom."
            "But I am Hamlet." It nettled him to be considered out of place.
            "Maybe we're both in the wrong play." Juliet, in woman-fashion, was unable to see a man falter without rushing to his ego's aid.
            "As far as I know, I'm in Act Three," Hamlet nodded, half appeased, but still defensive and needing to be in control of the situation.
            "But so am I," Juliet said, delighted to hear that they at least had something in common. "Are you early or late in Act Three?"
            As if that mattered now. "Early," Hamlet said.
            This explained one thing to her. No wonder then that his words had seemed so untimely when she had, wrongly as it now turned out, assumed that he was about to bid her adieu. "I'm later on in Act Three actually," she said.
With that, they reached another impasse.
            "This really isn't getting us anywhere," Hamlet finally said. "May I sit on your bed? Thank you. Why don't you sit down as well? It might make thinking easier and calm the nerves. What, young lady, are the two of us to do?"
            "I could leave the room," Juliet said eagerly. "Then you could think even better." Or I, she thought. Decidedly she didn't relish the idea of sitting next to this odd-mannered stranger on her bed. For one thing, ever since he had projected her across the room with his manly hands at their first encounter, she didn't trust his temper. Unfortunately leaving the room proved to be out of the question. She couldn't locate a door. What poor stage design.
            "There's no help for it. We'll have to brave this out together. Whatever it is." Hamlet was surprised at the relief he felt when there appeared to be no way for her to leave him all alone in this absurdity.
            Juliet, however, was far from relieved. She went to the balcony again, this time only to breathe in the night air and to look at the moon and the stars. She didn't know what to say to him. The moon was round and bright. Surely that wouldn't interest an intellectual like him.
How oddly the clouds parted around the moon, weaving mysterious veils. The moon itself looked like a peaceful sleeping face. Gleaming from its silver light, something swooped through the air. Perhaps a night bird. There. Again. She turned around quickly. Look! she wanted to say. But Hamlet sat motionless on her bed, lost in his thoughts, his head cradled in his arms.
            Juliet was curious. "What are you thinking about?" she asked in a whisper, so as not to disturb him if he were altogether too far inside his own thoughts.
            "What? Oh, matters of state," he replied absentmindedly.
            She nodded, realizing that some of his mind had been present. "You're not a ghost, but somehow you are still unnatural." The words were out of her mouth before she could politely refrain from uttering them.
            "Unnatural? What makes you say that?"
            "I don't know. It just seems that way." She wanted to bite her tongue. Odd how he seemed not at all interested in her, seeing that she was the only other human being around, and a woman at that. True, she hadn't met very many men in her life, and then always under less stressful circumstances. Generally, though, they behaved differently. Perhaps she could learn something from this one, something which neither nurse, mother, father, nor even Romeo had taught her. Certainly he was unlike anyone else she had ever met.
            "Matters of state?" she reminded him.
            "Oh, yes. Well, first I thought about this situation here, of course. But I have so many other things weighing heavy on my mind. Important things, you see. My father. Treachery. Politics. Somehow, and if I perish in the process, I must try to restore order."
            "Now?" The urgency in his voice made her smile.
            "When I get back," he qualified.
            "Back where?"
            "Back to my proper place. My proper play. My destiny. My people. It's my calling in life to think of them."
            "Who calls you?" Juliet asked.
            "My people, of course. And my father's ghost and memory. My pride. You wouldn't understand."
            He was right. Partly because he spoke in riddles. She didn't know him, after all. If he were to explain himself, perhaps he would turn out to be essentially comprehensible, even while he was in the wrong play.         
            What if we never return? The frightening question was suddenly on both their minds.
Well, Hamlet thought, they would have to see about that when the time came. As long as there was a chance that this was simply a temporary mistake on the part of whatever powers, he couldn't just abandon the character he was used to being. As his father's son, he had his responsibilities. How infinitely luckier girls were in that respect. They had no troubles, no cares. While the whole wide world weighed heavily upon the shoulders of their men.
He measured Juliet with his eyes. She was beautiful, for sure, girlish hips already widening, her young breasts filling. Tomorrow or next year she would find a mate and fill her lap with daughter after daughter, son after son. Thus distracting her husband from his business, or else finding lovers to do the fathering for him, if—and there was little doubt about it by the noble, well-bred looks of her—her husband's business was too important to be disturbed by the frivolities of love. It was always the same treachery, over and over again. And yet, how lovely, how innocent she looked just now. Almost convincing. Almost making him want to reach out and touch her lovely body which promised soft curves and pleasures under the loose gown. And those innocent eyes, that warm round mouth, that thick dark hair, the pretty shape of her arms. What white smooth skin her young body promised, and how delicate her face was, pale, and virtually begging to be touched. Let me not think on't: Frailty, thy name is woman, he thought.
"I must be boring you with my matters of state," he said. "Tell me instead what you are thinking."
Juliet sighed with relief when his long, silent stare was over. "You, I suppose," she said.
"Me?" He was taken aback. "Why on earth would you think about me? We hardly even met."
"Oh, I don't know." She avoided his eyes.
"No, no, I'd really like to know." He was intrigued to say the least. Had to be his charisma that made this lovely girl think about him already. Suddenly, though, he saw her face pucker up in a prelude to fresh tears. Was she afraid to speak her mind?
"I can take anything you say, dear lady," he said. "I do like to hear the honest truth about myself." Especially as it was in the wrong play anyway.
"I'm so sorry," she said. He tears flowed freely now. "I lied. I wasn't thinking of you at all. I was thinking of Romeo."
"Oh." Hamlet was disappointed. She had mentioned that name before. "So tell me, who is this Romeo?"
"My husband," she whispered, looking at the floor. "At least I think so. How can I be sure of anything? What it if all was only a dream? I used to think he was like a dream. What if he was not only like a dream, but dream itself, and only dream? What if my love was only a dream, my one true love?"
Her face was pale and sad. This touched him. He wanted to console. "But, lady, isn't all love just a dream?"
"Oh, surely not mine?" she pleaded. "How could it be?"
The sincerity in her eyes, and their enormous sadness, gave him hope. Perhaps here was for once a woman of different clay from that of which his mother and her ilk were made. And she looked so young, so touching, and so true.
"How long have you been married?" he asked.
This brought on another gush of tears and a trembling voice filled with longing. "Oh, only hours. And he is so beautiful, so loving, and so brave."
"And young?" Hamlet asked.
When she nodded, so did he. Her catalogue of attributes explained a lot. Her wild grief and that great semblance of truthfulness in her. And those enormous tearful eyes. He still wished to take away some of her grief, though. For in spite of its likely insubstantiality, her sadness saddened him too.
"Be patient, Lady Juliet," he said. "Your love will fade. There is no need to suffer from it so."
"My love will fade?" she cried. "But I would die for Romeo."
Perhaps you would at that, he thought. But he doubted it. Most women, as far as he knew, in the end preferred to murder rather than to die. He shook his head without speaking, not wanting to upset her further.
It was she who couldn't let the matter rest now. "To speak like that," she said and pitied him, "I must believe you never loved in all your life."
"Oh, but I did," Hamlet said. "Believe me, there were times when I was half-demented with mere thought of her. But women . . ." Looking at her, he swallowed the remainder of his observation, amending it instead to this: "But love is, let's say, limited. With all the injustices in the world, and all the treachery, and too little reason, there isn't time for love which only always serves to foster further treachery. Or if it doesn't, surely it keeps a man from work, and from creating justice where it's lacking. Justice is the only thing that isn't limited, and therefore it's the only thing worth pursuing."
"Justice?" Juliet was so truly amazed that she forgot her tears. "Justice instead of love? Out of justice my Romeo killed my cousin. Out of further justice he's now banished from this city. And only our love can ever hope to heal that and all further cruel justice before it has a chance to wound us even more. My father, too, speaks of justice all the time. Meaning revenge and bloodshed. Do you know, if I too believed in this so-called justice, I would be compelled to wish for my own husband's death? But I will only believe in love. Which hopes to build where justice only strives to constrict and destroy."
"Dear lady, you take things too personally. The justice I speak of is something of a different order altogether. It is totally within the realm of rationality and intellect." Could she follow him? Carefully he pushed a lock of hair out of his forehead and began scrutinizing the ceiling. "Let me try to explain. It's all based on theories of ethics and their logical applications. For example, when a whole people is affected by some event, some action or some person, then justice has to be meted out. There is nothing personal about it."
"If you want justice, are you not yourself a person?" Juliet interrupted his train of thought.
"Of course, I am," he said, still patient, but growing less so. "But justice goes beyond that, you see. Suppose a king is murdered and his murderer presumes to take his throne. Then justice obviously has to see to it that this second king is punished, don't you see, and that the people will have the heirs of the true king set over them again."
"Love would have seen to it, perhaps, that your two kings would never be in conflict with each other to begin with," Juliet said.
"Indeed not, girl. Love is, as we all know, something very personal. Between a man and a woman, for instance. And so it's something very limited, as I said before, simply because it is only personal, only between two people. In the end, though, there's more to this world than personally attracted pairs of men and women. When you forget about seeing men and women individually, then you call them a people, and a people needs something that governs over them, a set of laws, a system of justice, to which eventually every individual must bow, king or lowliest beggar."
"But where does justice come from then? Who makes it, I mean?" Juliet sounded intrigued.
"Justice isn't made by anyone, except conceivably by God," Hamlet explained. "It's a principle of its own accord, you see. It exists on its own. It only has to be administered."
"By what?" Juliet thought she finally caught the drift of impersonal concepts.
"Not 'by what?' should you ask, but 'by whom?' instead," Hamlet corrected her. "The answer is: by moral people, political people, men who bow to justice and accept its responsibilities. In my example of the two kings, the second one would have to be punished for murdering the first."
"By whom, then?" Juliet was confused again as to the impersonality of the matter.
"By me in this instance," Hamlet said. "For I have, in so many words, told you my own story. The murdered king was my father. When he was murdered, he and his people were wronged."
"I'm so sorry for you. Did you love your father?"
"Love? Well, yes, of course, I suppose. Every son has a duty to love his father."
"But you don't love the new king, do you?"
"Of course not. He killed my father, girl. He married my mother. He plots to take my inheritance from me . . ."
Juliet interrupted him. "Then love might have created peace, but justice asks for enmity and vengefulness."
Instead of replying, Hamlet flattened his hand against his forehead. "We cannot coexist," he muttered. "How long must we coexist?"
"I think I could coexist with you." Juliet pointed her nose high into the air. "I'm sure I could even love you to some degree. It's you who couldn't coexist with me, for I wouldn't fit into the logic of your matters of state and your figments of justice."
Hamlet's nerves vibrated with irritation. He drummed on her pillow with his fingers. That one so young, so female, should answer him like that. He simply wouldn't respond to her. He could only pity her for her ignorance. Therefore he would let her have the last word. But only because of her youth, and because this situation was so ridiculous.
Juliet went to the balcony once more, sat down, embraced her legs and looked out into the night. Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou suddenly Hamlet? she thought wistfully. Her loose hair fluttered in the cool wind of the night. And if this was the wrong play, how could they each get back to the play in which they rightfully belonged? Or was that too just a dream, that each of them had a play of their own? There wasn't anything to do except to contemplate the one bright star that shone above her head. At least that had been left her from whatever play she fancied she belonged to.
Hamlet, for his part, leaned deeper into the soft cushions of her bed.
Both sat for a long time in silence.
Juliet, of the two, was decidedly better off. She, after all, had her star to watch.
Having nothing better to do, Hamlet was forced to look at her pretty face. At long last he rose and went to stand beside her in order to look at the same star. How oddly that distant star flickered. It didn't at all seem to be merely a glowing mass of matter. How easy it would be to read poetry and mystery and magic into its glitter.
"You live in your own poetry. That's what it is," Hamlet said suddenly with envy.
Both were surprised at sound after so long a silence.
"I wish I could live there too," he added in an attempt to make his words sound less formidable. The effect he achieved was exactly the opposite. Juliet looked up at him, her whole pale face a question. She didn't understand in the least what he was talking about. The question didn't disappear from her face, but since she didn't ask it out loud, a new silence threatened to fall between them. Before it could altogether descend, Hamlet decided to be honest. In the wrong play, what harm could it do?
"I mean, I wish I could kiss you," he said.
Juliet exhaled.
"I mean, I understand you are married in another play and time and place and all." His words rushed and tumbled. "I really wouldn't want to disturb you in your poetry of living. I could really only just kiss your hand or something. Besides, you don't have to let me at all, of course, if you don't want to, that is. I don't very much know what I'm talking about because, as you know, I don't know a hell of a lot about love or whatever. I better shut up now, as I am making a complete fool of myself. Forget I ever mentioned anything."
He wanted to say a whole lot of other things, if only they could make what was already said unsaid again. But whatever he said would only make matters worse. They both looked straight ahead, although no longer at any star. Every once in a while their eyes slid sideways and met. When this happened for the third time, Hamlet blushed, then Juliet blushed, and then she laughed lightly.
"You may kiss me, if you like," she said. He didn't hear this right away because he was still preoccupied with his embarrassment and therefore spoke simultaneously and in the same breathless manner as before. "I mean, really, I'm hopelessly confused," he admitted, glad to have an excuse. "It could happen to anyone who was in the wrong play, don't you agree? What did you just say?"
"Oh, nothing," Juliet said.
"You just said that I . . . ."
"Nothing."
They burst out laughing. Laughter was better than the words they didn't have for the occasion.
It seemed to her as though he took her hand. It seemed to her that he touched it with the lightest of kisses, then drew away.
"Nymph," he said in banter, remembering the first words he had spoken to her in this erroneous play, "in thy orisons be all my sins remember'd." Meaning this transgression, too, his eyes said pleadingly.
"Good my lord," she said a trifle stiffly. "How does your honor for this many a day?"
What?
Oh. Humble Ophelia to her errant lover. Ophelia? But how? Am I this then, Hamlet again, down to the bone? "I humbly thank you; well, well, well," he said. Something was once again as wrong as it nowadays had a habit of being.
As he pulled his hand away, Juliet feared that he was subject to one of his grim moods again. But she would play his game her way now, to make him remember what she wanted him to remember and make him forget what she didn't want him to remember. Bowing her head in playfulness, she stretched out both her hands until they touched him, drew him closer, while she whispered, "Wilt thou be gone . . . ?"
And then she recognized whom her two hands were holding. This was hardly play, and most especially not wrong. This was the real grief. She had just barely held him once again. She had just barely touched him. No, she wouldn't let him go. So soon? Must she? Oh, Romeo, what powers were so cruel to have made her spend the most precious time of all in the wrong play?
"Wilt . . . wilt thou be gone? it . . . it is not yet near day." She found it difficult to get out the words.
Romeo looked at her with compassion and great longing. Right. So he would lie, die, stay. Anything to not make her suffer like that.  
"It was the nightingale, and not the lark," she insisted into his shoulder.
And he believed her. Briefly.