Today I took a walk 

To try to make the clouds subside 

And they did.  

And as I surveyed the ground 

Looking for myself 

I saw a tuft of green, green grass 

And breathed 

For it told me how you had always been there 

And how small and like a baby I am  

And gentle, with uninsistence  

It reminded me 

How nice it might be 

To live another year yet.  

I ask him about the weather, 

he asks me if I’ve ever been in love. 

Well of course I have--many times over, 

I’ve been in love with the course kind of winds 

that are strong enough to snap branches; 

and rain that falls heavier than it was supposed to, 

tumbling down on old trees built into far-reaching forests. 

And also with the smell of the half-burnt 

honey lavender candle sitting on my bedroom 

windowsill, nestled between a nearly full glass coin jar 

and the silver necklace my stepmother gave me for my sixteenth birthday. 

With the ease of the Saturday morning coffee that my father makes to keep us all 

going. And with the view of sunset city lights from Jackson Street bridge 

and the mass of cars rolling slowly underneath it, 

causing a steady wind to blow through my loose curls. 

Sure, I’ve fallen in love with other people’s opinions of 

me, and with the smell of my grandmother’s kitchen when 

she bakes her prize-winning lemon curd pie. 

And with busy airport sounds, leading home to the pale blue 

walls of my childhood bedroom. 

And again, with the sound of the living room piano when I decide to really 

play and the creak of my grandfather’s armchair when he jumps out of 

excitement as his favorite college football team scores again. And with the 

sound of my little brother practicing cello 

in the white-panelled downstairs hallway, getting the notes almost just right. 

But I know what he’s really asking-- 

have I ever been in love with him? 

And I can’t really say that I have, 

So I glance down and feel uneasy in my chair And 

shallowly answer, “Oh yes, of course I have,” 

and he seems convinced and doesn’t bring it up again. 

Every other step is in a different direction of thought,

a realization that yesterday’s green is today’s blue.

Delete, add, combine, strikethrough

Revise: if you look down at that little digital number, it is not so much the weight of your body,

as it is the mass of what keeps you from falling upward through the atmosphere, Earth’s veil:

Revise: Veils seem to trickle like rivers through cultures and experiences; God tore it in

half for humankind to shimmy a little nearer; Women wrap their spirituality in it; DuBois paints

them in the reader’s mind to be seen in the world; A veil is lifted before “virgin” lives

intertwine.

And when you grow quiet, can you feel the veil?

When my breath

seems to pull through my chest, upward, and fingers the folds of eternity. The star-dusted pulse

of unity, the everything outside on the inside.

Revise: Quantum Entanglement: Us. A particle ripped in half, making Particle A and Particle B.

Particle A looks out the window in Seattle while its counterpart gazes out a window in Milan. B

sings as A sings. A opens a magazine as B opens a magazine. Bells ring. Einstein calls them

spooky. They find him off-putting, mostly his hair, its lack of symmetry.

I split a leaf at its spine and watch them on opposite ends of the desk.

Raised hand attached to a veiled body asks: “Can I have an example? Something more concrete,

if you please?”

…

Revision: If you close your eyes with a major league soccer game playing, and just listen, you

will hear a sound that is both high and low, a stretching. Uncoordinated perfection in its

harmony. The totality of energy cresting the highest and the lowest points of plea. The basilar

membrane rolls them all to your eardrum, the voice of life in full.

Revise: In Guadalupe: the tilma of Juan Diego is draped in an image

of the Virgin, which appeared there in the year 1531. Though the tilma is made of “ayate” fibers

that are supposed to deteriorate after about twenty years, this fabric has lasted nearly 500.

Tried to bombher. The tilma and even its glass case: unharmed.

wrote this, and dreamt Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared on a paper towel.

Revise: When the veil is thrashed abruptly: a bullet sized hole at Fruitvale, it creates a seeping

that covers the hearts of his own dear ones, in black blood. 669 other circular openings in the

vacuum of these fragile curtains to forever. Just during this one revolution around the circle in

the sky.

Revise: What if the veil protected us, shielded us, bounced bullets and barrages? Instead of the

veils that protect ideologies and hollow a corpus into a carcass.

Revise: Do you take the veil? What do you wear it for? Are you ordained in your blood or

someone else’s? Do you protect yourself from the world or save the world from you? Are you

veiling your heart or veiling your mind. How many veils are you trying to break through? Where

do you keep your reverence?

There must be much dancing in heaven.

I wrote this, and then went to Church. I sat in a chair on the wall rather than in a pew. The priest,

who is usually chipper, is edited into solemnity. He asked us to think about what comes next.

What do we really believe happens when we die.

A purple tent suspended in mid-air 

shades over popular fruits, 

as a newness scents the air, 

a freshly scented newness 

mixed nicely with the sweet aroma 

of lemons and magnolia. 

Next door is a glass window, 

sharp as the butcher’s blade, 

piercing through eyes and knotted 

onto attention real noose like. 

It showcased slabs of meat for sale 

smelling of burning flesh. 

The gallant display of hanging carcass 

was a new neighborhood addition, 

and so was the fruit stand. 

In the still places—the spark 

In the air on the edge of a storm, the 

Blue lake as it waits for the wind: 

Beside, in the reeds which have not yet rustled, 

A hypothetical movement moves, hypothetically, the world. 

These are still places: the air 

Where the dragonfly hums, in the first long rest 

Of a dance: the dock 

Where the boat lies waiting, the wave 

Where the mullet lie hidden, 

Preparing to leap. The night sky 

Which is windless and starless is windless and starless because 

There are things which are faster than wind, which are brighter than stars. 

The dark is shot through with a longing for light. In the night 

On the black cusp of dawn, there is something which dawn 

Does not have: a betweenness. Between 

Dark and light, cold and flame, God and man: there 

Things are born which are between. 

In the still places—the 

Mouth of the river, the spear 

Of the sea, where the waters 

Commingle, the pit 

Of the flower which waits for the bee, 

Nearness comes by the way of separation. The lips 

Which tremble to let loose a word are 

A temple, of sorts. 

Happening comes 

Through nonhappening. (In a deep nada 

A todo is born.) Be silent, and make in yourself 

A still place; make it home. It is yours. 

The stars are much clearer when neon is dim. 

You ask what to seek: seek 

Nothing. Pursue the abyss. Seek after 

The womb which is nada, the cradle which rocks our todo: 

Prepare, you, the veil 

To be torn. 

(A thing more lovely and more terrible than beauty 

Is born.) 

In a still place God moves, and the world moves with him 

You may think the proper way to love is like scuba diving 

that there is nothing on the surface but vanity 

so you should push past, push through to find the good part.  

If you believe that, the songs won’t help. Headfirst, they say. Get the body wet. 

Look past the skin, through the sea. You want the deep end. 

Life doesn’t happen in the shallow.  

But here’s the Catch: when you dive too deep, 

you’ll find me. Ask how long I’ve been here, in the blue, surrounded by fish. 

Spit queries inside bubbles as you violate me with your oxygen mask. You think 

people can’t live here. We are not what you imagine 

is what I might say if I thought you would listen. Ariel prayed for feet, 

is it such a reach to believe I need the sea? 

You came looking for love and I’m sorry to say  

you got it all wrong. They say Prince Charming saved the damsel. 

Should have learned her language first. 

So let this be a reminder: stay in the shallow. Want to test me?  

My siren song is a courtesy. If you dive too deep, 

you’ll find me. If you find me, 

you’ll try to save me. If you try to save me, well, 

I warned you.  

Brothers and sisters, friends and family, we are gathered here today to wish dear members of our family off into the great patch below. These six wardens of our lives represent the greatest of gourds, the sweetest of squash, and the most pious of pumpkins.  

It is with a heavy heart that we wish these pumpkins goodbye, but we must remember that their duty extends not just to us, but to the earth below our feet. For these venerable vegetables were not destined to an eternity with us, but rather with Our Mother, the dear Earth. Today we shall return them to their home, their duties honorably served, and pray that the Earth Mother swiftly delivers them to their absolution – union with Her.  

Cherish these pumpkins, praise their name, and hold them dear within your hearts. For these gourds have brought us through the good and the bad, shielded us from the wicked, and fostered all that is good and pure. They stand as vanguards of Our Mother’s love – projecting it into our lives and through us, to the world. It is with somber, yet joyous remembrance that we conjure up images of those that have gone before them – Marvin and Elizabeth’s Child. We may weep as we remember their ever vigilant, watchful faces – guardians of our fort – but I urge you friends, weep not, for they are surely with the Mother now, their company soon joined by a new crop of sentries.  

Remember brothers and sisters, how much pain it must cause our dear Mother to part with her children, yet She does it for us. Every year She sends Her divine children up through the roots and the rocks, to bear their face against the sun, and act as guardians to her stewards, just as the cool embrace of night begins to grip and choke us. Praise Her now as you do every day, for your devotion to Our Mother is the highest gratitude you can show. 

 Lament not, O Brothers and Sisters, over these pumpkins’ slip in form. The decomposition we may see is merely a sign from sweet Mother Earth – a calling for her children to be returned to Her and a reminder to us all of that day when we too shall go down into the earth and be reunited with Her. For there exists no greater joy than the oneness that can only be gained by the infinite union with Her, afforded to all of us in the sweet embrace of loam and earth. 

Friends, this Yuletide season, as you crowd around the tree and make merry with friends and family, I urge you to think of these pumpkins, these stalwart defenders, these emblems of Mother’s love – give thanks for them and Mother, who always provides. Again, dear friends, weep not, for this should be a time of jubilation. Gaze upon them one last time my friends, say your prayers, utter your good wishes, and let praise for our dear Mother pour from your mouths. These pumpkins, these children of the Earth, are to return now. Let Mother exact Her will and invite them back down to Her, so that they may be one and at peace.  

The feeble heart knows all too well perhaps,  

How love enchant, yet in a moment bliss 

Procure such angst and grief which man may not surpass. 

So full, desire ‘rouse the soul, full-fledged, 

Just as doves whose wings glide gracefully upon 

The Swollen air breathed from the mouth of God.  

So crisp, the half-froze morn’ as day beings, 

As fresh infatuation grasps the soul 

In grip so tight that reason is constrained.  

And to have felt the throbbing strangulation, 

The way in which she held my heart in hand 

And though she coddled all my frailty, 

Therein the peace with which she brought reside. 

A Ceaseless love so inundates the soul 

In Passion fiery; no peace nor respite. 

For heat therefrom which deftly floods the mind 

So Quenches all beliefs whilst ever fervor boils  

From depths of empty heart erupting forth. 

These tokens of ardor simply belittle, 

For therein lies the essence fundamental 

The Humanistic love so meagerly: 

Rife with condition, Wanting of faith, 

And forever imprisoned by mortality. 

And so it be rendered not least complete, 

Its purpose was not to suffice, even 

But the supplement and accent that of the Father, 

Who’s love on its own is wholly sufficient. 

Just as salt adds flavor robust to the meal, 

Unwavering, though, in solitude, 

Is all the more bolstered by flavor amassed. 

For the love of God is sweet and tart 

Like wine aged long by the many moon’s passing. 

For who among the wretched one’s present, 

Could sacrifice  samely  as God has decreed 

His Son, though, who absent of sin 

Bore burden so fully up to his death. 

If claim is made that His love may be matched, 

His folly is a death, eternal plight. 

For no man among us, no matter how righteous 

Purports he to be, a love which transcends  

All cognitive reason, is sure to pale 

The ludicrous notions of mankind corrupt.  

For love I felt when Spirit came to me, 

Was far beyond that which human could forge; 

And rendered me disabled in throes,  

In love so deep my body overcome, 

With sentiments of grace and peerless joy. 

So evident it seems that love takes form, 

Of body which espouse selfless virtue. 

And  thus  it sensible that love beyond, 

The reasoning of man ought  trump it all.  

I wonder if he realizes how much he resembles  Holden Caulfield. 

If it was a choice with purpose, 

like the boys who wear polos and carry around biographies 

so that you see them as the ghost of a future politician. 

I wonder what the weather is outside. 

If he wears a scarf because it adds a layer of depth 

to the persona he cultivates for a version of himself that exists only at 2am 

under street lamps and over asphalt that sticks to his shoes. 

Or if he wears it because his mother wrapped it around his neck 

because she cares 

and her caring squirms his stomach 

so he ignores its presence. 

I wonder where he gathered the feather he chews. 

If the ruddiness of his cheeks is from the taboo of the exotic 

or because he plucked it without permission from the bird in its roost 

and the carpet of leaves it had fallen upon. 

I wonder what he’s looking at. 

If it’s a classmate, wilting under the gaze of this imposter boy 

or another inferior creature from which beauty can be stolen 

and ground between his teeth. 

Or if it is a window without blinds and he is playing Little

Matchstick Girl 

only instead of freezing while he dreams of burning 

he will stand still while he dreams of flying. 

One feather doesn’t lift much weight. 

And he looks very heavy. 

Chatter flutters over the mannequins of the disinterested inheritors, attaching itself like tentacles to the gambler and the debtor, as I attempt to bury myself in the mass of consumption. I hope they bury me in ticket stubs and superfluous hats, when the steeds are led out cheers and cooes, the drunken champagne toast rightfully recognizing “to the well-bred racers.” Racers bury me in the mesmerizing movement of the body, all anxiety, no pleasure. The horses are teased and tormented, suspense is coke carbonation in their limbs, adrenaline leaks into a hyperconscious high that blows their pupils into black voids, and claustrophobia appears in a preposterous kind of panic. The horse recognizes the inconvenience of spectatorship and the expectation of energy as it leans against gate 3. The diegetic lull of voices finds hush--anticipation a natural silencer--tension demands attention, then brings the present crashing to command witness to the notion of unpredictability. Bury me in the language of studs, “elegant, cold-blooded stallion”. He beats the ground, his nostrils snort oxygen out, haste and haughty, taut muscles outstretch to pull the ground beneath him, he pulls the world beneath him. The man behind me rips his ticket, and the woman beside me claps her gloved hands, delighted, not knowing, of course, we are the obvious losers. The wreath around the winner’s neck sags with the uniformity of winners. Bury me in his pride.

There are no more observers, no more tourists, no more 

save ten. The devoted and the stupid and the unaware. The betrayed 

both old and new. I am a living relic, a burning land, a permanent 

resident of the Pompeii reversal. The fire goes up now, it’s been on the rise 

since ’62, since they lit the dump, since I grew hot, since I became hell  

for a total of 300 years. Failure turned to flame turned to fear  

turned to symbols stacked on top, words on top of words on top of 

horses, dancing clip-clop on the memories of those who wouldn’t stay. Unbreaking 

I cracked, the way inside paved by trash, by overflowing heat, by prayer,  

by involuntary possession. I have been paraphrased: eminent domain. 

Now I am obsessed with the movements of others, their fear of condemnation 

picking them up and relocating them to places that don’t matter. Soon 

I will be a miner’s helmet, a miner’s lamp, a miner’s town, a miner’s past, 

a canary that speaks only out of loneliness and then warbles  

abandonment like the child that fell, dropped into the mine. The child 

left by the father that only remembered the necessities.

What words can I use to convey 

That I am deeply happy. 

Sometimes 

These are the words 

I want to scream out the loudest 

But they have an intensely unsatisfying way 

Of coming out bland, and hollow from my mouth. 

Happy is the word you type in the search bar 

Of thesaurus.com. 

It’s the kind of word you’d expect a child 

Who has yet to learn about synonyms 

To use on her first draft of a poem. 

It goes subtly unnoticed in a sentence spoken aloud. 

And yet, 

When a pressure builds in my chest, 

The fibers of my heart tighten, 

The fluids in my head shift to new pockets, 

The word I unbury from the pit on my stomach 

Is always, 

Frustratingly, 

Happy 

I feel my feet slipping, sliding off this  

folded face. I panic, scream, shout that I  

don’t want to leave. She exhales, cheeks quaking 

as the air sinks below her skin. I grab  

the closest fold I can reach and sink  

my nails into its spotted surface. 

Her skin stretches, my nails pry out pieces  

of her chalky pores, and as my amber  

skin blushes brown, I join the other freckles 

on their precious waltz to death. We step,  

arm in forgotten arm to the edge  

of perfection. 

I used to like my legs. 

Elementary basketball coach asking us  

what we like about ourselves.  

Answering, “my legs.”  

Someone scoffing. 

Blushing. 

Dentist telling me I  “need to eat a hamburger.” 

Smiling politely. 

Crying in the car. 

Hearing the inverse of the catalyst question years later, 

“What would you change about your body if you could?” 

The answer hiding behind my tongue. 

“Probably my legs,” inevitably emerging  

as the inverse, but obvious answer. 

Hating that that’s the “obvious” answer. 

Hating the ingrained assumption that when people look at me 

they see what classmates, mimicking their mothers, 

drilled into us in third grade. 

Foods, oddly enough. 

“Chicken legs.” 

“String bean.” 

“Noodle arms.” 

And then, 

“Anorexic.” 

“Eat something,” commented on a picture I had felt confident in.  

Past tense. 

Stuffing myself to the point of nausea. 

Loudly calling attention to how much I ate. 

Tears falling when the scale screams defeat.  

Still, 

“Stick.” 

“Bulimic.”  

I used to like my legs.

John Lennon in your eyes, 

a simple smile tinged with brilliance. 

Push the glasses up: small, round, 

finally on your face. 

A long Roman nose tired from a long day, 

a long life. 

Crooked teeth in the small mouth, somehow 

they make a precious sound. 

Long hair; greasy, clean, tangled, 

brushed. It is peace. 

Sleeping in, sleeping there, sleeping today, 

tomorrow, now. All the time your eyes 

rimmed with fatigue, red, but genius. 

The twin bed, a lawn chair, the ground. 

But this is dying, and you are dying. 

None of this was real, because dreaming is  

where we reside.  

This poem is an island

on which you can rest.

Your breath is, too.

They definitely aren’t recommending these ear-pillaging pieces of shit at my ornithologist’s office.” I hold up the earbuds.

I’m trying to fan the flames of some banter with this girl a few seats over from me—She is perhaps twenty-three, twenty-four: nice to look at. Graceful brown eyes; slap some stockings on those long legs and they might have looked great in one of those more sensual Vogue shoots from the eighties. Almost Brooke Shields-esque. The thing is, I do not vibe with the way this girl has decided to glare at me, like I’d just reached into my carryon and casually removed from it a didgeridoo. Or perhaps one of those spiked dildos.

“Have I made some blunder, then? Was it supposed to be ‘onterologist?’ O.K., sweet cheeks; you must forgive me. Where are you for med school then? Washington and Lee? Don’t tell me it’s San Francisco? Perhaps the one that sounds like the big fish.”

I scan Brooke Shields’ face for any sign of amusement—or, equally likely, affection. Yet there she sits, not even yielding me a smile. The didgeridoo look might get stuck on her pretty face; so I figure I should warn her. I decide to put the joke down mildly, reference the turbulence, give room for rebuttal.

“That one was ‘Yale,’ doll. Although, by the way you gawk so boldly, tell me you didn’t attend one of those liberal arts cesspools and I will throw myself from this plane before our, what… ‘otherly-abled?’ pilot can fly us into the ocean.”

As the pretty trollop removes herself from her seat and ambles past the one in front of me, I offer: “It would appear as though somebody has reached the very peak of Bitch Mountain!” I turn toward the skinny kid in the seat to her left.

“That one’s got a caboose that won’t quit, you agree?” This one’s only a few years older than me. I recall the last time I was on this same flight, LA to Kiev, there was a skinny Yankee just like this one. Wearing a different color Thrasher shirt. Might have even been watching the same episode of Rick and Morty on the tiny screen in front of him. These are Americans.

I am perhaps three-fourths of the way finished stewing over how exactly I will be showing this pretentious geek what-for when I notice that the ding! to my immediate right from some time ago has only increased in frequency. For added effect I arise from my seat, four foot ten inches, to address the annoyance.

“Would you give up on that, Mother?” I whisper, turning to her.

She is a strong woman: a slender, hot-blooded Russian who emigrated from the Ukraine to the American Midwest (yawn) after meeting my father because of some war, and then later to Los Angeles when it offered her the opportunity of professional fashion. My babushka has told me which war brought us to America, but they all sound the same when you’ve no interest in things that don’t involve what’s happening now; what’s hot and what’s not.

Her daughter, however, does not capitulate when it comes to forcing people to listen. Particularly in her business dealings Mother is notoriously cutthroat. She applies this same zealous impunity in her attempts to get this bag of peanuts. She’s been straining her neck for maybe ten minutes now, pushing the CALL ATTENDANT button with building indignation.

“It is not working,” she says. Her voice is thick, peeved, embarrassing.

“I realize that; but Mother,” I say, “it will not make a difference if you keep pushing the but—”

“You do not understand, malýsh. I keep fingering her and fingering her but she will not come!”

Time after time for some of the more high-profile shoots I am forced to travel with this woman. This demanding witch. After my body shoots back down into my seat so that the other passengers might not see that I have any relation to her, I send a silent prayer to God, thanking Her in Her great mercy for not giving me Mother’s same lack of shame and humility. My ears prickling with anticipated pain, I insert the buds and select my traditional airplane playlist: primarily Bjork, with some outliers—the Garden, Gwen Stefani, and Sinead O’Connor, to name a few. As Sinead’s guitar begins in “Mandinka” I realize I’ve lost myself in thought. I am thinking of my father again; since my last conversation with him I have thought of him more, as Mother’s actions have left much to be desired. I am her son; she has technically raised me since birth. Much of what I know and love is from her: fashion, music, all things that require taste. Therefore, she has in part contributed to my refined cultural palate. This is unavoidable. As time has advanced, however, I have started to question his influence on my life. The court order stated that, since I had just turned ten years old, I was legally able to choose which parent would be given custody. Knowing my father was a Nobody, and needing to know I would be assured on my path to fashion stardom, I chose Russian fashion superstar Ulyana Seergenko over Ukrainian grain farmer Oleh Olehovych Koval.

How was I to know Mother’s fame would be commandeered by today’s younger, sharper models—these Iris Van Herpens, these Christian Sirianos—not even three years after my decision? Besides, I remind myself—if father wanted to remain in the family, he would not have divorced his wife and made his only son choose between parents. I have lived on this accursed planet for only thirteen years; yet I am now haunted with the tribulations which are the everyday battles exclusive to my mother’s son. This I ruminate on, sitting with this oblivious aging beauty in the section of the plane marked “economy.” I am surrounded by the idle chatter of bourgeoisie—with perhaps the exception of Miss Shields. I ask myself: why was I given such a painfully sharp intelligence at this young age? Why does the crown of good taste rest upon my head before I am licensed to drive a car? I understand that I do not know. I do know, however, that Shields is returning to her seat. Dismissing these intrusive thoughts of Oleh, I reenter the fray.

“Would you be interested in watching… a superhuman trick of sorts?”

She says nothing.

“You see, I am able to move my ears independently from the rest of my head.”

Certainly the girl is mute.

“You need not say anything, my dove; the eyes betray your wonder at my talent.”

“Your ears aren’t moving.” Her voice is a summer’s dream.

I laugh. “Of course they are, pineapple.”

I quickly turn to my Mother to ask for her credit card information. My plan is to gain access to the in-flight WiFi service so that I may run through names of eye doctors in the Kiev area with this poor girl, who clearly must have sight issues.

“Not now, malýsh,” Mother says, still mashing the button. “The torpor of this American stewardess! How is she not fired? In Oskemen—”

I turn from Brooke to make my sigh visible to my mother. This is her second diatribe about the homeland, and we are not yet halfway through the flight.

“–one would have been fortunate enough to escape termination for such a thing.”

I turn to Shields and wiggle my ears at her again.

“Why are you annoying me?”

I have frankly had enough with Miss Shields.

“Do you think that I am unable to see past your lies, simply because you are beautiful? I am Vladimir Seergenko.” I pause, but Brooke seems unfazed. I clear my throat. “Mother is Ulyana Sergeenko.”

Mother does not look over from her button-mashing.

“I don’t know who the hell that is, kiddo.”

“You have not heard of Ulyana Sergeenko?! Mother, the quintessential voice in Russian fash—”

“I could not care less.” Her tone is exasperated. “I’m just trying to get to Kiev like everyone else on this plane. I don’t know why you sound like a guest star from Frasier. I don’t know why you look like Adam Lambert’s adopted younger stepbrother. And I sure don’t have any idea why you’re choosing to bother me. But you should bug off now!” I smile. Her eyes turn at the corners when she is angry. Seeing my reaction, Brooke nudges my head backwards. And with such serene force! I am enthralled.

“Beauty, mystery, and now strength! Such potential. Dear Brooke, you will come with me when we land and audition to be in Mother’s Kiev show this season.”

Before she can object or tell me that her name is boring, Stacie or Jennifer or Emily, I slip from my seat and glide to the lavatory. The plane has finally stopped its mad flailing through the sky; and my loins ache with tension.

Reclining into the wall of the airplane bathroom—far more cramped than that of Mother’s auctioned-off jet—I recall, right after the divorce, when Mother gave me the first present she had ever bequeathed to me. Upon my arrival back home after a long day at school, I was surprised to see Mother waiting for me. She at once produced from her Gucci purse a tiny creature that reminded me of the snow of the homeland. I named the animal Mister Sheffield and we moved on. Neither of us spoke of the cat to each other from then on. The help assisted me in the rearing of the tiny beast; and I eventually grew fond of it. The paparazzi proved that my new pet was quite the chic new accessory, too. I remember as if it were yesterday the first show I ever attended while sporting Mister Sheffield. Just as I picture the cat’s perfectly symmetrical face, a savage interloper raps loudly on the bathroom door. I offer the commoner a simple “execute yourself!” before flushing my thoughts away.

Much as I despise airplane bathrooms, upon exiting I cannot resist the opportunity to socialize with any interesting passengers who might be aboard. Which reminds me! “Mother!” I say, effectively projecting across the plane. “Is it true that Blanket Jackson is supposed to be on this flight?!”

“I only said that Varsikova told me that she read that the Jackson boy was supposed to be coming to Russia this week for the show in Kiev.” My father would have helped me look. I will have to search for him alone. “While you are up, malýsh, fetch for me this durachit' flight attendant.”

Half an hour and several conversations later, I appear to be no closer to finding Blanket Jackson. One of my greatest friends, Blanket always seemed to relate to my problems as one with such a high-profile parent. I always wondered what it was like to have a famous father, rather than mother; but after the first few times we spoke he must have lost my phone number. Mother had mentioned casually as we were boarding several hours before the possibility of our seeing him. Now I grow impatient. I am only vaguely aware that my voice heightens in pitch and severity with every new person I speak to.

“Passenger, have you seen Blanket Jackson?” I ask an elder. He screams. As I realize that he had been sleeping, a hand firmly grips my shoulder. The stewardess—who suddenly has decided to exist—accosts me.

“Return to your seat, buddy. The Fasten Seatbelt s—”

“Buddy!?”

My voice fills the plane—serene, but shrill. Confident.

“What am I,” I ask her. “…a circus clown? Unbelievable." The plane rumbles and I spot a bead of sweat descend the woman’s forehead. "Where is the pilot? That lummox. Based on our mad descent, he must not be anywhere near the cockpit. His license will be revoked as soon as I am given access to the WiFi,” I say, turning.

In the following moment of the shock, an expression I’ve grown used to seeing on adults’ faces, I begin striding down the aisle—my regal purple bell bottoms swinging: twin pendulums, back and forth, away from the flight attendant. Baba used to tell me etiquette is a virtue, but I have yet to deem either my time or my energy expendable enough to stop what I am doing and explain the range and depth of my lexicon to those who deem it too advanced. No, I must deal with the task at hand.

“Blanket? Blanket. Blanket Jackson! Where is Blanket Jackson?”

My satin sleeves soar as determination fills me. I want to see him, to talk to him about the woes of being Vladimir Seergenko. Perhaps I will even be able to confide in him! I begin gesticulating wildly, growing ever more desperate to find my friend. I am fully yelling.

By the time I realize with certainty that Blanket is not on the plane and am able to calm myself, the flight attendants have assumed a solid formation against me. I canvas the aircraft desperately for Mother. As usual, she is occupied—she has somehow placed a call despite our altitude and I can tell from her face it will be a long one. Probably Donatella. So I must cleverly convince these two overwrought, overpaid thirty-somethings to calm down with no help.

“Ladies, let’s just calm down,” I say, cleverly. Before they react to my offer, I am brought back to two winters ago, in Milan. Viktor, my former bodyguard, had failed to notice the warning signs when I began to think too much about the divorce and the effects of pills on one’s impressionable young mind. I soon panicked and slipped my ADHD medication into Mister Sheffield’s gruel. Without my medication, I quickly entered a frenzied but ultimately enjoyable rage that resulted in a horde of celebrity bodyguards slamming me to the ground. This just about ruined my Versace anklets—however, the press had a field day; and Mother was not angry with the attention our company received as an indirect result. In a most grim turn of events, Mister Sheffield perished as a result of severe feline overstimulation. He rests now and forever in Hollywood, under a Swarovski-studded grave. This is what he would have wanted, surely; nevertheless, my eyes moisten at the thought of his absence.

Back at my seat—to which I am now fettered by a rudimentary piece of rope—I notice one flight attendant has hung back from his associates’ chase. This, I discover, is thanks to Mother’s list of grievances: she must have had to hang up with Donatella due to the commotion. Only through mother’s signature type of attack on someone’s character could halt one of these flight attendants halted in their malevolent mission—in this case, that of stopping me from reuniting with my friend. These are her shining moments.

Since we left my father behind, I have pondered what it would be like to sit together for a family meal. I think of the other families I know of who depend on each other for everything. The weaklings! I certainly prefer Mother’s laissez-faire method of parenting. I now can see the world for what it is. Would I have been able to say the same if I had chosen to live with my father? I imagine myself eating the bitter food of the country farms; listening to him ramble about the harvest. The thought of such a dull existence chills me.

I notice that the attendant to whom Mother has spoken possesses a face that could only be described as Janet Lee’s in Hitchcock’s Psycho, seconds before her untimely shower murder. I suppose justice is thusly served. The attendant, a mousy-looking middle-aged fellow, scurries away before I can catch exactly what has been said to him. I remember again my cause.

“Mother,” I start, “in just the next row sits a beauty the likes of which could be a true asset to the company.” To my delight she turns, addressing me.

Brooke Shields doppelganger?” Mother’s eyes fall as she pauses, scanning her ornate patterned nails. “Tepid. She is a bore. It is not in her eyes; she will not do.”

I sulk.

For the duration of the flight, Mother and I do not speak, opting instead to shoot daggers with our eyes at any attendant who dares enter our collective field of vision. It is in these moments that we are closest; when the world makes for a fine common enemy. As we land, Mother looks at me with true emotion in her face.

“Malýsh,” she pleads. “we will never again take American airline.”

Sometime after the first time I had sex you figured out that my heart beats loud but my head beats quiet. Like the boy I dated in high school did to me and like your mother did to you, you took my loud heart into your own holy hands, used it to mold and shape your life into the one you wanted but your father never gave you. Even when the grass grew over my head and into my lungs and out of my mouth, you still managed to whack my weeds into the forefront, shoving me slowly into myself (and the things that lie there). You shoved your self-worship into me like a splinter so deep in my blistered big toe that all that was left for me to do was peel back the layers of my own pale skin like bedsheets (unwashed, unloved, and untangled). I slid with this splinter into the crack between your bed and the wall where you hid your old contacts and your dirty underwear and the people you decided not to love anymore (they still lie in your graveyard with the dust and the other things you took from me). It was never my job to save you from your mother, but if you read the book you use as your bedside coaster (osmosis doesn’t count here), you knew it was my job to love you. Just as I loved all the others who splintered the heels of my bare feet, I tried to find redemption in you. I learned how to live in the crack between your bed and the wall, and in that small space I found the pieces of yourself your mother abandoned when she decided she liked gin more than you. Inside my own bloody shoes, I found your tears, and, after piecing them together into some unrecognizable you, I found forgiveness. Wedged in this crack, I reassembled myself, though meek and unclean.

On Foot Repair

Here are two hands that tie shoes. They used to. Tie them, that is. Now these hands bounce quietly at the hips. On dark mornings, they may brush up the thigh, an accidental reassurance of form, a figure that remains there despite the dark. The shoes are already laced tight, frozen stiff with an outer cocoon of dried mud. No need to retie. The heels of these old worn feet used to blister as they wriggled and writhed into the tight embrace of shoelaces. But now they are raw and slide in without complaint. Red scars and scabs of dried blisters remain behind, on the backs of the heels. I wonder which will wear away first, the skin on my heels or the lining within the shoe? The body always wins out, they say, until it doesn’t. The body wins out in the end because there has never been a self-repairing shoe, they say. Tell me, have you ever seen one around? A self-repairing shoe.

On the Meaning of Time

Time is that anxiety you speak of? You mean to tell me that time itself is every second that you don’t complete a task? Every moment that you push something off. You mean to tell me that that is the meaning of time? You mean to tell me that that time I meant to put aside, tuck away, save for later, hide under my pillow, bury in the backyard, stuff my pillow with, conceal in plain sight, carry with me to a high mountain, lock away in an old chest, drown in a deep lake, entomb in a solid coffin, file away in the archives, give to a friend for safe-keeping, allow a stranger to 2 borrow, cremate into a dusty oblivion, pave over with thick cement, tuck away into a small envelope, electrocute with small wires, cut into small pieces

On Personal Health

EAT AVOCADOS

On Personal Hygiene

MOISTURIZE BLISTERED HEELS IN AVOCADO OIL

On Nutrition

Sometimes I wish I had not. Sometimes I had preferred not to. But I did. And that time I hid away, I ended up digging up after all and using it for a meal with friends and family. “Charming,” they said as we sat down to eat. “Charming” “Quaint,” they said. “Quaint” But time and guests and pleasantries could not stop that earsplitting howl heard from inside the forest of appetite, like a pack of wolves. Time is up and appetite is here. Here for that unquenchable thirst and insatiable hunger, get quenched and get satiated with immediate satisfaction. With so much food. So much that I am filled and full and I am wanting more. 3 Because I am not eating in time. There is no rhythm for that shoveling movement from plate to hand to face. That chaos in which I am filled and full, but I eat and I eat and I eat. Anthony Bourdain once said to a therapist that his job was to shove food into his face. George Orwell also said that human beings are essentially tubes into which we shove food. But tubes are flexible and accommodating. And my ribs are not. I feel a tightness and stiffness there. It tells me that I am full. But I eat and I eat and I eat. I don’t say stop. I do say more and I eat and I eat and I eat. And I grow. I push against the hour hand till it bends off the clock. Then I bend. I bend my torso to the side like so, like singing I’m a little teapot whose all poured out, but I am hardly able to tip over and spill myself out. I am ready to burst like the stuffing from an old teddy bear and I measure the monument of feasting that was once so hard for me to comprehend. Plates upon plates. No clock can tell me the stacks that I devoured and the riches that I enriched my body with. Here’s to dinner time.

On Deprivation

Thin fibrous muscle. Quads wound tight like cables. Not a drop of fat. Every stride efficient. Every movement accented by striking blue veins. This took time, effort, determination and avocado juice. Drink up. Stay thin and say goodbye to loose skin. I wish that was all, but no such luck. There’s that word called discipline. I wish I could stop measuring myself against others, against self. But I can’t stop. I call it research. Mirrors. Mirrors. Mirrors. Sit-ups. Sit-ups. Sit-ups. For as many sit-ups as I do to compete with my reflection I ought to be able to sit up when I’m old and collapsed outside on a slick driveway. I check. Have to check that I am checking. Who would have thought. Still checking even though my shoes have worn out. My kicks turned to shitters. 4 But I don’t think about that. I think about goals and other’s goals. When Trent eats less. You eat less. Less fat. Less calories. Less carbs. Efficiency you tell yourself. Haven’t eaten a dessert since August you joke. Haven’t eaten dessert since the beginning of summer, Trent replies. You feel sick. Want to throw up but had nothing to eat. Haven’t taken a day off of running the entire summer you tell Trent. Me too says Trent. You swallow hard. It was a lie. Took one day off. Figures. Trent is just one day better than you. And you know what? The earth will complete one rotation around its axis, letting you off into Trent’s footprints. You will laugh painfully and pull on your mud-caked shoes knowing that Trent’s day has already ended when yours is about to begin.

On Breathing

We all do it, you said. But I want to talk candidly to you. Sometimes I stop doing it, breathing that is. What does this mean? What does that mean? Does that mean? It means– Dilate the lungs. Alveoli sacks filling with air, like gumballs hanging from a tree. If my lungs were trees, I could filter out all the specks, flecks, and crap. I could sift it right out of my system. I wouldn’t have to ring my lungs out like a limp sponge. Like the sponge you see in those Emphysema commercials (Off yellow. Brown yellow). When you run through your running shoes, when the bottom tread has peeled off the toe box like a blackened piece of gum peels of the hard sidewalk floor, you simply get rid of them. They are done. Finito. Finito for you anyway. Not so for the children in Africa. Drop off your shoes in that little donation dumpster, that large trash chute. Open that slot and drop the shoes into the shimmying arms of little African children and remember that you’re full of shit. And you know it. Your moral compass is as black as your lungs. 5 What does this mean? What does that mean. Does that mean? It means– Consequences. Tight constriction of the chest. Shallow terrified breathing. Wheezing. Writhing. Diaphrag-what now-breathing? No now breathing. Breathe later. Can’t. Could. Now. Later. If only they made self-repairing shoes. Then, perhaps self-repairing lungs would not be so far out of the question. No time for that. chaotic moment, chaos in a moment, no time to know which. Not time to know which, to which, to which, it became what you might imagine it to be. To-which, towhich, twhich, hoarse gasps and clawing for air. Hold on to something cause here comes nothing.

On Bullshit

Imagine that you look left and you look right to pass the time, but the only thing that passes is the wool over your eyes. Who the hell came up with that expression? Wool– over-your-eyes I pulled the wool over your eyes. Stitched it to your face. Made a hood out of your own hair. You don’t need much hair, not with all this wool in your eyes. You deserved it. You deserve the best. I admit you bested me the best. Worst of the best– and with wool hanging from your eyes like a blind and shaggy dog you speak, just like you learned handshake, roll-over, and the rest. What more do you have to say that hasn’t already been said? you deserve it. I mean it. You deserve it. You are full of shit. But not just any kind of shit. A curious specimen of Bull Shit. But I’ve said too much already. I’ve beat around the bush for too long and I’m long past ready to take a stab at it. Who said garden shears couldn’t cut through steel? 6 I’ve talked with prim and proper etiquette, straight sheared hedges. No stitch or sprig out of place. But stab it– Stab it all to hell. Lace-up your shit-stained shit kickers and hold on tight to those shears. You’re going to need them both to cut the tape at the finish line. Speed and deadly precision. Make sure that when you make your mark that my words spill out like blood. Now on your marks. Get set

On Running the Marathon

It was the same as it is now as it was with the Greeks. The only difference was in the ancient times you spent your whole run getting your ass beat down by nature, passing through desserts, passing through swamps, through bogs, through forests, through jungles, through grasslands, through swarms of rats, through packs of wolves, through fist-sized mosquitoes, only to reach your king, who upon delivery of your message, found it unsatisfactory and figured he would like very much to beat your ass with your own winged and shit covered sandals. Nowadays you have to carry your own shit covered sandals to the finish line and ask politely for Trent to beat the living crap out of you. No king here to cut out the messenger’s tongue. But despite that, I think racing is a mighty fine way to go. The racing and the heart attack and the racing heart and the asphyxiation. The bullshit about racing and the other ways to go is that it all comes down to those last torturous seconds.

On the Good Life

I’m no kid from Kenya trying to make it big off of one meal a day and a pair of torn Nikes. Sometimes I wish I was, and I don’t know how to approach wishing I was. I’m sitting at my desk able to write, able to run, able to take a break for a meal and yet I wish I was that kid 7 from Kenya. Someone who races so hard and whose only limitation is physical, who never lets their mind get in the way of their breathing. That kid deserves to have it all. But the truth is, I’ve never met a kid from Kenya like that. I’ve heard stories, watched videos, told stories that I heard and made a composite of those stories to come up with a “kid from Kenya trying to make it big off of one meal a day and a pair of torn Nikes.” Do I have a right to make you exist, kid from Kenya? Torn kid from Nikes. Torn Kenya from kid. Of course, not sure I am… That’s what I feel about that. Now away. Here’s how to end a story on a happy note: I would like to end my story on a happy note. I go out running down Riverside Park and I look at the Hudson River to my left, it’s grey, but I’m not grey because I’m running. I run across town towards Columbus Ave, towards the park. Then I make a loop around the reservoir: Once, twice, thrice, and a fourth time for good measure. I turn around and head back. I have run that route hundreds of times before. Give me a year or so and I believe I will be in the

“Ok,” Amy says, “Here’s a fun one: Who’s the first guy you fucked? After it happened.” 

They’d found weed, earlier, while scavenging—prescription, probably stolen from some soccer mom in the suburbs by the guy they found it on. So everyone’s a bit giggly, because they’d all agreed that one night off couldn’t hurt, even though every one of them knows that isn’t true. One night off can get you killed. They’ve got the doors locked, thought, and the windows boarded up, and they’re all clustered together in the men’s bathroom. The trapped smoke won’t matter so much in there, since no one uses it. 

“My boss,” Kate says, gigglier than the rest of them. “We were both in the office when everything went to shit. I thought I was gonna die, and he’d been trying to fuck me for like, the past three months. So I guess I figured, what the hell? And we just went at it, right there, on his desk.” She lifts the joint to her lips, inhales. “So fucking cliché.” She exhales smoke. Kate worked as a secretary at a big law firm downtown. She was right at the heart of it, when everything went to shit. None of them have ever asked her how she got out, and she’s never offered to tell. 

“Damn, Kate,” Ella chimes in, dry smile plastered on her ace, “At least I had the decency to wait a few days before I got it on.” Kate smacks her shoulder, playfully, slightly too hard. Ella winces, and tries not to show it. She’ll have a bruise tomorrow. It’s been almost a month since any of them have touched a piece of fruit.  

“Well, who’s yours then?” Kate asks. She passes the joint. Ella shrugs. 

“Some cop.” She fiddles with her hands. Since before she joined the group, Ella’s been collecting wedding rings. Some of her fingers have three or four bands on them, and she twists them around so the tug at the skin. “He had been on duty, you know, when it first started. I’d been holed up in some house for a few days when he busted in, looking for food. I was short, but I shared anyway.” She twists a sliver band on her index finger, wincing. None of them gave her shit for sharing food. They were all stupid, at the beginning.  

“Anyway, he kept saying that he was going to find his family. Showed me a picture he had in his walled of his wife and kids. They were cute. Blonde. He was good in bed—like, actually good—but he cried right after he finished, so that was annoying. Next morning I woke up and he was gone. Took the rest of my food, too.” The other women in the group nod. Of course he took the rest of the food. They always do. 

 “Well I fucked some hotshot quarterback.” Amy says, “Did any of you watch sports?” She doesn’t wait for them to answer. “I didn’t, but I recognized his name because my friend wouldn’t shut up about him. We ended up at the same Red Cross camp, and at that point everyone still cared about shit like football and I swear that like, every girl and half the guys were all over him.” The joint has made its way back to her, and she pauses to pull the smoke into her lings like it can fix something. Then she blows it back out into the rest of their faces. “Anyway,” she says, “It gave me something to do, at least. Getting his attention.”  

Amy passes the joint to Veronica, who says, “I fucked my sister’s husband.” The smoke that they’re breathing suddenly tastes heavy. Veronica has a locket with a picture of her sister in it that they all pretend not to hear her crying over on bad nights. 

No one says anything while Veronica breaths smoke in, out, “We were both at work, when it started,” she tells them, “but I called Annie and she said she was packing and Jeff was on his way to pick her up, and she promised they’d come get me and we’d all go up to our parents’ cabin and wait it out.” Veronica doesn’t pass the joint. They wait while she hits it a second time.  

“I was starting to panic by the time Jeff picked me up. Everyone was, even though we were far enough out from the city that we hadn’t really been hit yet. He came in their minivan and Annie wasn’t there, so I asked if we were going back to their house to get her and he said that he’d already gone and she’d been out on the sidewalk with her throat torn open and her face half eaten off by their next door neighbor.” She hits the joint again, then looks down as if she’d forgotten she was holding it. She passes it, then tells them, “Annie was pregnant. Jeff told me after he fucked me that they were going to ask me to be the godmother.” Veronica fingers the locket around her neck. She’d been in some McMansion when they found her, strung out on prescription shit and completely alone. No one asks what happened to Jeff.  

“How about you, Julia?” Amy asks, trying to salvage something. Julia shrugs, looks away from Veronica and down to her feet. She’s kicked her ankles out of her heels, letting the shoes hand half off so they drag on the gritty tiles of the bathroom floor. She thinks back to the day everything started; she’d just gotten engaged and her fiancé had come home the night before with the most beautiful pair of shoes, five inch shiny red heels. Julia had been pausing outside the boutique to admire them every time they went for coffee.  

“First guy I fucked was a client.” She says. The joint is hardly as stub in her fingers; she sucks as much smoke as she can from it and then slips her ankle back into her shoe so she can crush what’s left under her heel.  

*** 

Julia was the one who taught Veronica how to kill them. “You have to wait until they’re distracted and then do it fast, see?” She pulled the knife from behind her back, pantomiming stabbing. “You’ve gotta get in the brain, or else they just come back. And you’ve gotta push hard. I usually go for the ear; just stick it right in, like a target. You can grab their hair if it helps keep the head still.” 

The two of them had bandanas wrapped around their faces to help with the smell, so all of Julia’s words were slightly muffled. She stopped in front of a body that was slumped against a tree. 

“This one’s dead.” Julia beckoned Veronica closer, holding out the knife, “Like, for sure dead. Amy killed it this morning on patrol. And he’s pretty fresh. The rotten ones are too easy. Plus, they smell worse.” 

Veronica took the knife slowly. She hadn’t killed anything yet, which was unusual. She was a runner, a hider—Amy hadn’t even wanted to take her in. But Julia took one look at the big doe eyes and pouty lips and knew she’d be useful, one they got her able to defend herself. She was twenty three, but the weight loss and puppy dog face made her look sixteen, maybe seventeen. A lot of guys liked it.  

“Start off easy,” Julia said, “just try sticking it in and see what it feels like. Once you get the hand of it, we can try different positions.” 

“Positions?” Veronica had one hand wrapped around the handle of the knife, the other clutching her locket.  

“Well, yeah,” Julia crouched down next to the dead man. He was average height, average build—the perfect body to practice on. As she shifted her weight, she could feel her heels sinking slightly into the dirt. “You don’t usually get to just walk up to them and do for it. Usually they’re on the top of you, sometimes behind you. If you’re lucky, you’ll get the top, but you can’t assume you’re gonna get lucky. Now put your necklace back in your shirt and stab this thing. We don’t have all day.”  

Veronica went for the ear. She winced at the noises—soft crunching bone, wet squishing insides—and she gagged when she pulled the knife out. Then she dropped the knife, ripped her bandana off, and vomited onto the ground. Julia sighed when flecks of bile hit her shoes. She stood, stepped gingerly around the mess and picked up the blade. She pushed the handle back into Veronica’s hand.  

“Try again,” She commanded. Veronica was shaking. She’d gotten vomit in her hair. 

“I don’t think I can do this.” She said. Julia scoffed. 

“It only gets harder when they’re still alive,” She crouched back down, heels sinking into dirt, on the other side of the body. Veronica went again, “You get used to it,” Julia told her, while she pulled the knife out gagging.  

*** 

“Remember,” Julia tells them, slipping on a pair of blocky heels, “fruits and veggies are the priority. Most of it’s rotten at this point, but look for dried stuff, canned stuff, vitamins—anything that might help. We stick together, and avoid groups of more than two or three.” They’re going to a strip mall, six miles away. They’ll have to take the truck, which is already low on gas, and the stores have all been ransacked. But no one protests. Ella’s arm has a deep purple bruise spreading from the night before. 

The drive there is quiet. Kate and Amy pick off a few stragglers in the parking lot. They head to the abandoned pharmacy, which has a back room with a cot and a makeup rack with a few unopened tubes of lipstick. There’s a cot set up int the men’s room, too, and the mirror in the girl’s bathroom is only smashed a little. They’ve used this spot before.  

Julia smudges firetruck red onto her lips and hands Veronica a tube of lipgloss. They pull skirts out of the backpacks and unbutton their practical flannel shirts, unzip their stained gray hoodies. Kate found a push-up bra that’s actually her size when they scouted one of the nicer suburbs, and Amy found an eyeshadow pallet. She stands in front of the cracked mirror, painting smoky shades on to four identical sets of eyes.  

When they’re done, Julia and Veronica go to stand at the front of the store, in the doorway. Julia because she’s got the brightest lipstick and she’s the best with the rifle, and Veronica because of those big doe eyes. The other three check the lining and the pillows on the cots, waiting.  

An hour passes before Amy, who’s sitting on the counter with a pair of binoculars, says, “Someone’s coming.” 

“How many?” Julia asks, squinting. She can just make out a shape of a person walking towards them, down the street. 

“Just one.” 

“Dead or alive?” 

“Alive, as far as I can tell.”  

Julia nods. 

It takes him a while to reach them, and he approaches cautiously. As he gets closer, Julia can see that he’s young—younger than any they’ve come across before. He looks nervous. He isn’t sure what to make of two women, standing, skirts hiked up and shirts pulled low, in front of a pharmacy with smashed windows and empty shelves.  

Julia doesn’t smile. Smiling only makes people suspicious. Instead, she points the rifle at him. 

“Woah, hey—” he stops, abruptly, hands up. His voice cracks when he speaks, and he clears his throat. “Please don’t shoot. I’m just—uh—looking. For supplies.”  

They only have three bullets left in the rifle, but he doesn’t know that. 

“You got any weapons?” Julia asks. He holds up a wrench. 

“Just this.”  

It looks like he’s telling the truth, but it’s hard to ever really be sure. 

“Any friends?” She keeps the rifle pointed at his head, which he shakes, slowly. 

“Just me.” 

He could be lying, but there’s no way to know. Julia looks back at Amy, who gives her a thumbs-up. No other people approaching. If he does have friends, they aren’t close by. 

“How old are you?” Veronica asks. Julia glares at her. Veronica isn’t supposed to do any talking.  

“Seventeen,” he says, eyes darting from the rifle to Veronica, “Or, uh, maybe eighteen? I Don’t really know what month it is.”  

Behind them, Kate whispers, “Fuck.” 

Julia lowers the rifle. “No supplies in here,” she tells him, “but if you’ve got something to trade we can offer our services.”  

He looks confused, for a moment. And then his eyes skim over her lipstick, Veronica’s pout, the skirts and the glossy lips.  

“Oh.” He laughs, nervously. Julia waits for hm to turn her down. She always waits for them to turn her down. 

“I…” his eyes dart back to Veronica, who’s chewing on her lip. He looks her up and down rapidly, then blinks and looks away. “What kind of trade?”  

Julia shrugs. “Food, water, medicine, weapons. Anything useful.” She keeps her voice steady and very un-desperate. The guy swallows, hard. He looks back to Veronica.  

“I have some ace bandages,” he says, slowly, “and a tube of toothpaste. Unopened. Would that, uh…would that be enough?” 

Behind her, Kate whispers, “Fuck.” 

“Yeah, Julia tells him, “That enough for twenty minutes. Come on, there’s a room in the back.” She waits for him to turn away. She waits for him to decide it’s too dangerous. She always waits for them to decide it’s too dangerous.  

*** 

He picks Veronica, even after he sees Kate with her push-up bra. She goes pale, but she takes his hand and leads him into the back room anyway. Amy grabs her should and whispers, “Moan like a whore,” in her ear before she shuts the door.  

The rest of them wait. Julia stays near the storefront, rile over her shoulder. Amy stands next to her with the binoculars. Kate paces back and forth whispering, “Fuck fuck fuck. Seventeen. Fuck.” Ella twists the rings on her fingers.  

Veronica moans, convincingly, all high-pitched and breathy. Julia tries to picture her with her skirt hiked up around her waist, arms over her head, fingers scrabbling to reach the knife tucked into the bottom of the pillowcase. They can tell when she strikes because the moans break off, suddenly, and the guy barely has time to yell before the rest of them hear the thud of his body on the floor. They stand, frozen, looking back towards the door.  

After a few moments, it opens. Veronica steps out. Her shirt is open, and her bra is hanging off one shoulder. She’s got blood on her face and her fist. She drops the guy’s backpack on the ground outside the door.  

“I’m gonna clean up.” She tells them. They watch her walk into the bathroom and wait until they hear her ripping paper towels from the dispense. The sinks stopped working months ago. 

Julia is the one who walks across the pharmacy and picks up the backpack. She brings it to the counter, and Ella follows her, looing over her shoulder as she dumps out its contents. Amy stays facing the front of the store, eyes glued to the binoculars. Kate buries her head in her hands. 

Inside the bad, there’s a roll of ace bandages, a tube of unopened toothpaste, a half full water bottle, four cans of dog food, a pocketknife, and a heavy plastic bottle with a yellow, child-proofed cap. 

“Fuck,” Kate says, when she sees what it is. 

When Veronica comes out of the bathroom, with her bra on and her shirt buttoned up, Julia puts two gummy vitamins in her hands.  

“Children’s Vitamin C,” she tells her. 

Veronica blinks and starts to cry.     “Ok,” Amy says, “Here’s a fun one: Who’s the first guy you fucked? After it happened.” 

They’d found weed, earlier, while scavenging—prescription, probably stolen from some soccer mom in the suburbs by the guy they found it on. So everyone’s a bit giggly, because they’d all agreed that one night off couldn’t hurt, even though every one of them knows that isn’t true. One night off can get you killed. They’ve got the doors locked, thought, and the windows boarded up, and they’re all clustered together in the men’s bathroom. The trapped smoke won’t matter so much in there, since no one uses it. 

“My boss,” Kate says, gigglier than the rest of them. “We were both in the office when everything went to shit. I thought I was gonna die, and he’d been trying to fuck me for like, the past three months. So I guess I figured, what the hell? And we just went at it, right there, on his desk.” She lifts the joint to her lips, inhales. “So fucking cliché.” She exhales smoke. Kate worked as a secretary at a big law firm downtown. She was right at the heart of it, when everything went to shit. None of them have ever asked her how she got out, and she’s never offered to tell. 

“Damn, Kate,” Ella chimes in, dry smile plastered on her ace, “At least I had the decency to wait a few days before I got it on.” Kate smacks her shoulder, playfully, slightly too hard. Ella winces, and tries not to show it. She’ll have a bruise tomorrow. It’s been almost a month since any of them have touched a piece of fruit.  

“Well, who’s yours then?” Kate asks. She passes the joint. Ella shrugs. 

“Some cop.” She fiddles with her hands. Since before she joined the group, Ella’s been collecting wedding rings. Some of her fingers have three or four bands on them, and she twists them around so the tug at the skin. “He had been on duty, you know, when it first started. I’d been holed up in some house for a few days when he busted in, looking for food. I was short, but I shared anyway.” She twists a sliver band on her index finger, wincing. None of them gave her shit for sharing food. They were all stupid, at the beginning.  

“Anyway, he kept saying that he was going to find his family. Showed me a picture he had in his walled of his wife and kids. They were cute. Blonde. He was good in bed—like, actually good—but he cried right after he finished, so that was annoying. Next morning I woke up and he was gone. Took the rest of my food, too.” The other women in the group nod. Of course he took the rest of the food. They always do. 

 “Well I fucked some hotshot quarterback.” Amy says, “Did any of you watch sports?” She doesn’t wait for them to answer. “I didn’t, but I recognized his name because my friend wouldn’t shut up about him. We ended up at the same Red Cross camp, and at that point everyone still cared about shit like football and I swear that like, every girl and half the guys were all over him.” The joint has made its way back to her, and she pauses to pull the smoke into her lings like it can fix something. Then she blows it back out into the rest of their faces. “Anyway,” she says, “It gave me something to do, at least. Getting his attention.”  

Amy passes the joint to Veronica, who says, “I fucked my sister’s husband.” The smoke that they’re breathing suddenly tastes heavy. Veronica has a locket with a picture of her sister in it that they all pretend not to hear her crying over on bad nights. 

No one says anything while Veronica breaths smoke in, out, “We were both at work, when it started,” she tells them, “but I called Annie and she said she was packing and Jeff was on his way to pick her up, and she promised they’d come get me and we’d all go up to our parents’ cabin and wait it out.” Veronica doesn’t pass the joint. They wait while she hits it a second time.  

“I was starting to panic by the time Jeff picked me up. Everyone was, even though we were far enough out from the city that we hadn’t really been hit yet. He came in their minivan and Annie wasn’t there, so I asked if we were going back to their house to get her and he said that he’d already gone and she’d been out on the sidewalk with her throat torn open and her face half eaten off by their next door neighbor.” She hits the joint again, then looks down as if she’d forgotten she was holding it. She passes it, then tells them, “Annie was pregnant. Jeff told me after he fucked me that they were going to ask me to be the godmother.” Veronica fingers the locket around her neck. She’d been in some McMansion when they found her, strung out on prescription shit and completely alone. No one asks what happened to Jeff.  

“How about you, Julia?” Amy asks, trying to salvage something. Julia shrugs, looks away from Veronica and down to her feet. She’s kicked her ankles out of her heels, letting the shoes hand half off so they drag on the gritty tiles of the bathroom floor. She thinks back to the day everything started; she’d just gotten engaged and her fiancé had come home the night before with the most beautiful pair of shoes, five inch shiny red heels. Julia had been pausing outside the boutique to admire them every time they went for coffee.  

“First guy I fucked was a client.” She says. The joint is hardly as stub in her fingers; she sucks as much smoke as she can from it and then slips her ankle back into her shoe so she can crush what’s left under her heel.  

*** 

Julia was the one who taught Veronica how to kill them. “You have to wait until they’re distracted and then do it fast, see?” She pulled the knife from behind her back, pantomiming stabbing. “You’ve gotta get in the brain, or else they just come back. And you’ve gotta push hard. I usually go for the ear; just stick it right in, like a target. You can grab their hair if it helps keep the head still.” 

The two of them had bandanas wrapped around their faces to help with the smell, so all of Julia’s words were slightly muffled. She stopped in front of a body that was slumped against a tree. 

“This one’s dead.” Julia beckoned Veronica closer, holding out the knife, “Like, for sure dead. Amy killed it this morning on patrol. And he’s pretty fresh. The rotten ones are too easy. Plus, they smell worse.” 

Veronica took the knife slowly. She hadn’t killed anything yet, which was unusual. She was a runner, a hider—Amy hadn’t even wanted to take her in. But Julia took one look at the big doe eyes and pouty lips and knew she’d be useful, one they got her able to defend herself. She was twenty three, but the weight loss and puppy dog face made her look sixteen, maybe seventeen. A lot of guys liked it.  

“Start off easy,” Julia said, “just try sticking it in and see what it feels like. Once you get the hand of it, we can try different positions.” 

“Positions?” Veronica had one hand wrapped around the handle of the knife, the other clutching her locket.  

“Well, yeah,” Julia crouched down next to the dead man. He was average height, average build—the perfect body to practice on. As she shifted her weight, she could feel her heels sinking slightly into the dirt. “You don’t usually get to just walk up to them and do for it. Usually they’re on the top of you, sometimes behind you. If you’re lucky, you’ll get the top, but you can’t assume you’re gonna get lucky. Now put your necklace back in your shirt and stab this thing. We don’t have all day.”  

Veronica went for the ear. She winced at the noises—soft crunching bone, wet squishing insides—and she gagged when she pulled the knife out. Then she dropped the knife, ripped her bandana off, and vomited onto the ground. Julia sighed when flecks of bile hit her shoes. She stood, stepped gingerly around the mess and picked up the blade. She pushed the handle back into Veronica’s hand.  

“Try again,” She commanded. Veronica was shaking. She’d gotten vomit in her hair. 

“I don’t think I can do this.” She said. Julia scoffed. 

“It only gets harder when they’re still alive,” She crouched back down, heels sinking into dirt, on the other side of the body. Veronica went again, “You get used to it,” Julia told her, while she pulled the knife out gagging.  

*** 

“Remember,” Julia tells them, slipping on a pair of blocky heels, “fruits and veggies are the priority. Most of it’s rotten at this point, but look for dried stuff, canned stuff, vitamins—anything that might help. We stick together, and avoid groups of more than two or three.” They’re going to a strip mall, six miles away. They’ll have to take the truck, which is already low on gas, and the stores have all been ransacked. But no one protests. Ella’s arm has a deep purple bruise spreading from the night before. 

The drive there is quiet. Kate and Amy pick off a few stragglers in the parking lot. They head to the abandoned pharmacy, which has a back room with a cot and a makeup rack with a few unopened tubes of lipstick. There’s a cot set up int the men’s room, too, and the mirror in the girl’s bathroom is only smashed a little. They’ve used this spot before.  

Julia smudges firetruck red onto her lips and hands Veronica a tube of lipgloss. They pull skirts out of the backpacks and unbutton their practical flannel shirts, unzip their stained gray hoodies. Kate found a push-up bra that’s actually her size when they scouted one of the nicer suburbs, and Amy found an eyeshadow pallet. She stands in front of the cracked mirror, painting smoky shades on to four identical sets of eyes.  

When they’re done, Julia and Veronica go to stand at the front of the store, in the doorway. Julia because she’s got the brightest lipstick and she’s the best with the rifle, and Veronica because of those big doe eyes. The other three check the lining and the pillows on the cots, waiting.  

An hour passes before Amy, who’s sitting on the counter with a pair of binoculars, says, “Someone’s coming.” 

“How many?” Julia asks, squinting. She can just make out a shape of a person walking towards them, down the street. 

“Just one.” 

“Dead or alive?” 

“Alive, as far as I can tell.”  

Julia nods. 

It takes him a while to reach them, and he approaches cautiously. As he gets closer, Julia can see that he’s young—younger than any they’ve come across before. He looks nervous. He isn’t sure what to make of two women, standing, skirts hiked up and shirts pulled low, in front of a pharmacy with smashed windows and empty shelves.  

Julia doesn’t smile. Smiling only makes people suspicious. Instead, she points the rifle at him. 

“Woah, hey—” he stops, abruptly, hands up. His voice cracks when he speaks, and he clears his throat. “Please don’t shoot. I’m just—uh—looking. For supplies.”  

They only have three bullets left in the rifle, but he doesn’t know that. 

“You got any weapons?” Julia asks. He holds up a wrench. 

“Just this.”  

It looks like he’s telling the truth, but it’s hard to ever really be sure. 

“Any friends?” She keeps the rifle pointed at his head, which he shakes, slowly. 

“Just me.” 

He could be lying, but there’s no way to know. Julia looks back at Amy, who gives her a thumbs-up. No other people approaching. If he does have friends, they aren’t close by. 

“How old are you?” Veronica asks. Julia glares at her. Veronica isn’t supposed to do any talking.  

“Seventeen,” he says, eyes darting from the rifle to Veronica, “Or, uh, maybe eighteen? I Don’t really know what month it is.”  

Behind them, Kate whispers, “Fuck.” 

Julia lowers the rifle. “No supplies in here,” she tells him, “but if you’ve got something to trade we can offer our services.”  

He looks confused, for a moment. And then his eyes skim over her lipstick, Veronica’s pout, the skirts and the glossy lips.  

“Oh.” He laughs, nervously. Julia waits for hm to turn her down. She always waits for them to turn her down. 

“I…” his eyes dart back to Veronica, who’s chewing on her lip. He looks her up and down rapidly, then blinks and looks away. “What kind of trade?”  

Julia shrugs. “Food, water, medicine, weapons. Anything useful.” She keeps her voice steady and very un-desperate. The guy swallows, hard. He looks back to Veronica.  

“I have some ace bandages,” he says, slowly, “and a tube of toothpaste. Unopened. Would that, uh…would that be enough?” 

Behind her, Kate whispers, “Fuck.” 

“Yeah, Julia tells him, “That enough for twenty minutes. Come on, there’s a room in the back.” She waits for him to turn away. She waits for him to decide it’s too dangerous. She always waits for them to decide it’s too dangerous.  

*** 

He picks Veronica, even after he sees Kate with her push-up bra. She goes pale, but she takes his hand and leads him into the back room anyway. Amy grabs her should and whispers, “Moan like a whore,” in her ear before she shuts the door.  

The rest of them wait. Julia stays near the storefront, rile over her shoulder. Amy stands next to her with the binoculars. Kate paces back and forth whispering, “Fuck fuck fuck. Seventeen. Fuck.” Ella twists the rings on her fingers.  

Veronica moans, convincingly, all high-pitched and breathy. Julia tries to picture her with her skirt hiked up around her waist, arms over her head, fingers scrabbling to reach the knife tucked into the bottom of the pillowcase. They can tell when she strikes because the moans break off, suddenly, and the guy barely has time to yell before the rest of them hear the thud of his body on the floor. They stand, frozen, looking back towards the door.  

After a few moments, it opens. Veronica steps out. Her shirt is open, and her bra is hanging off one shoulder. She’s got blood on her face and her fist. She drops the guy’s backpack on the ground outside the door.  

“I’m gonna clean up.” She tells them. They watch her walk into the bathroom and wait until they hear her ripping paper towels from the dispense. The sinks stopped working months ago. 

Julia is the one who walks across the pharmacy and picks up the backpack. She brings it to the counter, and Ella follows her, looing over her shoulder as she dumps out its contents. Amy stays facing the front of the store, eyes glued to the binoculars. Kate buries her head in her hands. 

Inside the bad, there’s a roll of ace bandages, a tube of unopened toothpaste, a half full water bottle, four cans of dog food, a pocketknife, and a heavy plastic bottle with a yellow, child-proofed cap. 

“Fuck,” Kate says, when she sees what it is. 

When Veronica comes out of the bathroom, with her bra on and her shirt buttoned up, Julia puts two gummy vitamins in her hands.  

“Children’s Vitamin C,” she tells her. 

Veronica blinks and starts to cry.  

When you arrive at the pregame, things are in order. Your outfit is cute, your makeup is hot. You who and where you are and are prepared to have a fun, casual night out with your friends. You are in control of your facilities.

When you leave the pregame, there are three stains down the front of your shirt. You are missing an earring and your nose is now pierced. You are holding a dented Yeti that says “Somerset Country Day Equestrian Team” on it in cursive font that is not yours. You owe various people $300 over Venmo.

You immediately fall down the stairs of the dorm.

You go out anyways.

Your friend texts a friend for the number for the DD, which they send. 666? You say. That can’t be right. Your friends thinks for a second then dials.There’s a hissing, crackling noise, and then a young man says, Yeah, I can be there in a second, I gotta drive some people back to campus.

I’m not going to text my ex, you tell your friends. I’m not going to text him. I don’t need him anymore, and there are so many other, better options out there. They are delighted and proud. Hell yeah! They tell you. You don’t need him, there are so many better options out there.You arrive at the party and see a man pick a crumpled Natty Lite can out of a mud puddle, consider it for a second, and then take a sip. Everything goes black. When you come to, your phone is open. You’ve sent your ex the lyrics to “I Fall Apart” eight times in a row.

You see your RA from two years again at the party. You see your current RA at the party. You see your former PA leader at the party. You see the girl who had a complete mental breakdown in FJ and held the giant stuffed turkey aloft, screaming, before being escorted from the premises by Camp-Po at the party. You see the man who tried to sell you a Pomeranian puppy in the Walmart parking lot at the party. You see the Scrappy Doo at the party. You see the ghostly apparition of JonBenet at the party. You see Jesus Christ Himself—

-You run into someone from one of your classes with whom you have never spoken. They scream in your face, HEY DUDE, DOESN’T INTRO TO MEDIEVAL BELGIAN BASKET WEAVING BLOW?

There’s shouting behind you. Two guys have apparently had enough of each other and are rolling in the mud of the backyard, duking it out. Oh my God, you say to your friend. Oh my God, they’re going to kill each other. A brother in a Preds jersey materializes at your elbow. Don’t worry, he tells you and your friend. It’s just a disagreement. Just a mild disagreement. One of the guys has the other by the throat and pulls out a knife—

You accidentally make eye contact with the girl who stole your boyfriend, bullied your younger sister, broke up your parents’ marriage, caused the 2008 financial crisis, and posted a video of you crying and eating Chef Boyardee Beefaroni out of the can on the third floor of the library to her finsta with the caption, “Imao whose rat is this.” She shrieks, runs over, hugs you, and says, Oh my God! I’m so happy to see you I love you so much do you want to get a picture together?

What do you have to drink? You ask a passing brother. Oh, don’t worry, we’ve got booze, he says, flashing his solo cup at you. Why is it blue? You ask him. It’s Cuervo, he says. It’s bright blue, you say. It’s literally bright blue. His pupils turn into slits. It’s blue raspberry, he tells you, it tastes like Jolly Ranchers, just like a goddamn blue raspberry Jolly-you whip around before he can finish, with rising panic. In the kitchen you see a brother standing on a step stool, pouring a bottle of Windex straight into the keg. At his feet are dozens, no, hundreds, of empty Windex bottles. Another brother sees you looking and closes the door, hissing.

You’re waiting in line for the bathroom with about thirty other people. The door opens and the occupant leaves. About thirteen girls in dark-toned bodysuits file in, chattering. After twenty minutes, another ten cut the line, knock, and are also let in. You and everyone else in line wait for another forty-five minutes before someone has enough and knocks. Can y’all hurry up? Please? No response. They knock again. A girl opens the door just a crack, furious. Can you calm the fuck down? Can you literally calm the fuck down? She asks the knocker. He says, It’s been an hour! She says, She’s literally giving birth, dicksmack. She is literally giving birth. Have a little goddamned respect. The girl closes the door again. Ten minutes later, the door opens again and all twenty-three girls file out, still chattering and giggling. One is holding a newborn baby. The baby is also wearing a bodysuit.

You’re taking a break on the porch and strike up a conversation with the guy having a smoke next to you. Would you like to see them? He asks. Excuse me? You say. He reaches under his shirt and pulls something out. It is a framed composite of all the brothers wearing plaid shirts in the back of a pickup truck. Aren’t they beautiful? He asks. You are in shock. Oh my God, you say, how did you get that? He laughs, Oh, this is nothing. One time I stole a dishwasher.

You arrive at Cookout after the party. Hundreds of your peers are inside. Some are sitting, alone, hunched in a booth, frantically eating chicken nuggets, but many are just milling around, colliding into each other without even noticing. Their eyes are empty, vacant. One girl runs up to you and asks if you were at the party tonight. You say, yes, yes you were. Did you see the this boy there? She asks, desperate, showing you a picture on Instagram of a boy with a mullet holding a fish. I’m so sorry, you say. No, she says. He was dancing with a girl in platform sneakers. I saw him take a hit of her Juul, you tell her softly. No! She cries, crumpling into the arms of a friend, sobbing. A hand grabs onto your pants leg. You look down and recognize the face of another person from the party. Water, they beg. You look away. There is nothing you can do.

“Mr. Jones?”

Rollie couldn’t understand the physical gestures Mr. Jones was making.

“Mr. Jones, I’m not sure what you mean. Please respond with a verbal command.”

Mr. Jones kept swiping out at Rollie’s head, his knuckles hitting the plastic shell of his face. The little bot offered a flat metal claw out to his patron. Sometimes when humans held the hands of something, it was supposed to make them feel better. But Mr. Jones wouldn’t take his claw; he just kept reaching up at him and waving.

“Hello Mr. Jones, it is nice to see you too.” He waved his claw back and forth.

His facial scans showed signs of distress. 73% anxiousness.

“Mr. Jones, are you in need of comfort?”

Mr. Jones had begun to stop moving his arm.

“Would you like me to get you a glass of cranapple juice, or a blanket? Mr. Jones, would you like me to begin preparing dinner early tonight? We are having your favorite.”

Mr. Jones’ face began to relax, the signs of stress disappearing with the wrinkles in his forehead. He didn’t respond. He always responds about dinner.

“Mr. Jones, please respond with a verbal command so I can assist you.”

After 10 questions it was protocol to reach out to emergency services.

“Would you like me to contact emergency services?”

His patron did not respond. Rollie recalled a time when Mr. Jones did not respond to his questions and had responded negatively when emergency services showed up to help. He told Rollie that sometimes a man just needs to be quiet for a while and didn’t ask Rollie for anything the rest of the week

.Rollie decided to give Mr. Jones some time before trying to comfort him again. He rolled into the kitchen and retrieved the cookie timer off the counter. His claw clamped around the dial, turning it to 15 minutes.

Mr. Jones didn’t move when the timer went off. Maybe he was having trouble hearing. Rollie wheeled over to the old stereo by the couch and pressed the #4, the edge of his claw fitting perfectly into the indentation on the button. Jaxx was Mr. Jones’ favorite. He turned to look at his patron and waited for him to start singing like usual. Mr. Jones didn’t respond. Rollie looked back at the stereo, turning the volume dial to all the way to the right. Mr. Jones didn’t start singing like usual. The little bot began to make his way around the living room, his wheeled base gliding across the hardwood. He scanned different items and calculated the probability that they would give Mr. Jones the most comfort. It was raining outside. His patron did not respond positively to the rain or the dark. He grabbed the lamp off the side table and brought it as close as he could to Mr. Jones, warm lighting was supposed to make humans feel more comfortable.

“Mr. Jones, does this comfort you? ”

No response from Mr. Jones’ still form.

Rollie then headed to the couch, reaching out and clamping a red velvet pillow cushion, his little body drug it across the floor and placed it next to Mr. Jones’ head. He tried to lift his patron’s head and push the pillow underneath it for optimal neck support. He couldn’t balance the head on one small claw, his neck kept rolling side to side and Rollie tried to push the pillow in the space between his neck and the floor.

“Mr. Jones, does this comfort you?”Yet again, Rollie received nothing.

Time for the big effort. When a patron was feeling extra sad or in need of comforting it was important to surround them with objects that provide happy memories and bring about positive habits. Rollie had a catalog of every object Mr. Jones had asked for in the past few months and had tried to organize it according to what appeared to make him most happy. Rollie raced around the apartment on a hunt for objects. His metal clamping claw gripped around a frame of two young adults, on of them holding a small and cubby human baby with a pastel pink bow on its head. The frame read Best Grandma and Grandpa and he placed it next to Mr. Jones’ head. He wheeled into the kitchen and opened the fridge, his arm extending upward to the top shelf of where the butter was. Mr. Jones only liked butter on his toast. So he grabbed the bread and the toaster as well, dragging them over to the living room. Rollie grabbed the three remotes from the coffee table, The Dark Castle Nights: A Tale of Mad Romance book from underneath the recliner, the reading glasses from the nightstand, a can of Red’s tuna from the pantry, a roll of toilet paper and flaxseed supplements out of the bathroom. He arranged them around Mr. Jones’ body like a kindergarten shrine of favorite things. He waited patiently for a command, a thank you, dismissal, any sound at all.

Mr. Jones’ side. He scanned all of the items around him over and over to make sure they were the right ones for his comfort.

“Mr. Jones? Are you satisfied with your care?”

Mr. Jones’ knuckles were the first things Rollie ever saw. They were knocking against his retinal scanner and he was yelling into a small box held against his face.

“Jason, I told you I didn’t want one of these damn things, I’m fine on my own. Was this Rachel’s idea?”

The patron showed signs of aging. The grey hair, wrinkled neck, and spotted lesions on the back of the hand made his prediction to be about 67 years of age. He scanned the human’s facial features. 22% confusion, 28% annoyance, 32% exhaustion and 18% sadness.

“I don’t even know how to turn the stupid thing on, where’s the on button? What do you mean there’s no on button? I swear to Christ, Jason if you don’t come to our,” he paused, “my goddamned house, and show me how to use this stupid comfort thing I’m throwing it in the garbage.”

Rollie’s system responded to language around comfort, it signaled his operating system to respond, “Hello patron, I am your CareBot. How may I provide you comfort?”

Instead of responding, Mr. Jones threw a blanket over him and put him in the closet until the next day.

Rollie had started to work on dinner for Mr. Jones. The table was set for two, Mr. Jones’ favorite red plate on the right side of the table, and Rollie’s designated blue plate was on the left. He tried his best to fold the napkins as Mr. Jones did, but his programming didn’t include fine dining skills. The cloth ended up more in a crimpled blob than a folded diamond. He looked over at the pile of objects in the center of the living room, waiting to see if Mr. Jones would notice that it was time for dinner. He was supposed to help lift him into his chair so they could begin.Silence.Mr. Jones always asked Rollie to sit at the table with them after he prepared their dinner trays. Mr. Jones had to use a three-request configuration to get around his coding the first time they had dinner together.

“Rollie, it’s time for dinner.”

“I am not capable of eating. If you wish to charge me, there are plug-in outlets in every room.”

“I meant it’s time to sit at the table.”

“I am a CareBot, my function is to prepare food and provide comfort, I do not wish to distract you with my presence while eating. Dinner is one of the most important meals in your—”

“Alright, stop. Hold on a minute. First, you name isn’t CareBot, I’m not living with a CareBot,” he looked down at him on the floor, his wheels rolling back so he could look at the way up at Mr. Jones, “Rollie, how ‘bout that?”

“If you wish to call me another name, please repeat the name for my record.”

“Rollie.”

“Confirmed.”“

“Great, yea. Okay now, second, what if you, uh, not eating with me hurts my feelings? You’re here for comfort and eating my dinner alone ain’t comforting.”

Rollie paused. He searched his code for the proper response. He hadn’t been prompted to violate his code if it meant aiding a patron. He scanned Mr. Jones’ face; the emotion “hope” appeared to be strongest in the arches of his eyebrows at 68%.

“If you need emotional comfort, I am here to help.”

“Then you can start by taking a seat,” he said as he reached down and picked up his little form, setting him on the chair, pushing it close to the table’s edge just like a toddler. Mr. Jones had gone through the same patterns of sentences enough for Rollie to adopt it into his routine comfort analysis. Sitting at the dinner table became a nightly ritual after that.

Slowly over time, he began to ask Rollie questions at the dinner table every night. One subject of conversation for each meal.

“Do you have machine friends?”

“Have you ever been outside?”

“Have you ever tried to rebel against your robot rules and take over the world?”

“Do you believe in God?”

“What are your favorite things?”

“Do you remember anything before we met?”

And one night, after, “Do you dream?”

“Dream, Mr. Jones?”

“Yea, you know, when you go on sleep mode. Do you dream of robot sheep jumpin’ over fences or something?

”“My sleep mode allows me to analyze data from the previous day and ensure that I operate to the fullest level of productivity.”

“So you don’t dream?”

“Dreaming is not an accessible program for bots like me, Mr. Jones.”

Rollie’s facial scans showed signs of sadness in the abundance of skin folds between the eyes.

“That’s a shame, Rollie. That’s a damn shame.”

His facial scans observed an emotion that Rollie was not familiar with, he did not have the right pairing for this facial configuration.

“What do you dream about, Mr. Jones?”

Mr. Jones did not respond for quite some time until he reached forward and tapped his fork against his metal chest, “I didn’t dream for a long time, you know. I used to a lot, and then suddenly poof. Nada. It was a long time before they started to come back to me. And now I dream all the time.”

“When did they come back, Mr. Jones?”

“The dreams?”

“Yes.”

He paused before responding, “A little while after you got here.”

Rollie inputted his response into his database. His connection to dreams made Mr. Jones feel more comfortable and that was his prerogative. Rollie fixed the crooked fork next to his plate before inquiring,

“Does cataloging events count as dreams, Mr. Jones?”

“Well, uh. I guess it could, why?”

“Because if cataloging events for robots are equivalent to dreaming then I do dream. I dream about you, Mr. Jones.”

He rolled back and forth between the table and Mr. Jones, only able to carry one item at a time in his arms. He brought the plates, the napkins, the glasses, the forks, the knives, the peas, the chicken casserole, salt, pepper, and a tine glass vase with a single daisy. He arranged them by Mr. Jones’ head so that they matched the same pattern as the table. He didn’t want to ruin Mr. Jones’ dinner routine, he thought it might make him happy to have dinner in the living room, but still have everything to be kind of the same. Rollie stood in front of his plate; he reached out his right claw and pushed the fork at touch to the right so that it was even with the knife. HE scanned all the objects on the floor; everything appeared to be in the right place. Bu Mr. Jones didn’t start eating at 7:30 like he always did. He didn’t ask Rollie for his claw so he could pray, and he didn’t put salt on the peas before spooning some onto his plate. He didn’t ask Rollie any questions about dreams or machines or God or rebelling or memories. He sat in silence, occasionally taking the peas and chicken back to the oven to reheat them. The fork remained unmoved, the water glasses full.

“Mr. Jones? Would you like to ask me one of your questions?”

Rollie reached into the side table drawer, the one Mr. Jones always opened at night when Rollie was in sleep mode in the corner of the room. The little bot was always on observation; even in sleep he kept a visual catalog of what happened in the late hours—just in case Mr. Jones used a new comfort object and his system could remember it. Rollie reached inside and delicately clamped a folded piece of paper between the metal of his claws. The paper was folded into fours, the seams creased worn from being folded again and again. The wheel beneath him whirred, the only sounds in the apartment being his rubber-soled wheels droning across the floor. He tried his best to unfold the note with care. Some of the black lines on the page seemed to be affected by light colored rings where the lines have bled into one another. It would be difficult to decipher. He spent a few minutes scanning, searching different catalogs of human writing to make sure his translation was correct.

“Mr. Jones, would you like me to read this?” he asked. “It’s from a woman named Mrs. Jones, I believe this will bring you comfort. It is short and won’t take too long.”

Rollie scanned the words on the page, the data passing through the digital reader in his chest and transforming into vocal waves in the box in his mouth. He read out in his small crackly voice.

“Don’t forget the breeze. Don’t forget the seas. It was sand that brought me to you. It is sand that I will return to. Don’t forget me. Because I know that I will forget you. Don’t forget love. Love is the only thing I cannot forget because I met you.”

Rollie placed the note on Mr. Jones’ chest.

“Mr. Jones? Who is Mrs. Jones? What do these words mean? Does this bring you comfort?”

He received no response. His code was beginning to incorporate the silence into his analysis; the likelihood of retreat was beginning to form in his programming. Sometimes humans’ did not wish to receive comfort and CareBot would enter sleep mode until reactivated by their patron. But Rollie stayed still for another moment longer—every procedure had been followed correctly and Mr. Jones had everything he needed.But Rollie still didn’t understand why he was given only the quiet. He reached forward once more and grabbed the paper off his database, storing them away for another time, just in case. He reached back down to replace the not, but instead, slipped his claw into Mr. Jones’ hand. He let it rest there for a while, waiting one last time for some response.

“Mr. Jones, I think it is best I go now.”

His claw retracted, leaving only the note in its place.

He watched his patron go unmoving, reaching for no objects in the room, needing no comfort from anyone or anything. His visual analysis system took in on new data, created no new patterns to help Mr. Jones reach optimal comfort. He watched and scanned, watched and scanned, gazing out at the object littered around the space, pieces of memory data and research, his efforts compiled into a single space, surrounding the object of his programming. Rollie scanned one last time, his system unable to recognize movements or anomalies, the fans in his head beginning to slow, his arms retracting into his sides, the wheels rising up into his body piece, the processing system making the last final checks before powering off.

Jamie Aster’s adolescence was not without its silver linings. However, after three years of being thrown to four different public schools, his mother  Lake Castle Private School, presumably the best Slidell had to offer.  The principal, a trusty-looking man, assured her that every teacher at Lake Castle knew exactly how to instill in each pupil “a mutual respect for one’s classmates.” A Contrary to the principal’s distorted reality,  Jamie  was shoved into lockers, pushed down stairs, called the standard, not-too-creative insults. More-or-less standard procedure for a boy who enjoyed Britney Spears and self-expression. But this was not new, not ever really personal, until Blake. 

In middle school, Jamie manifested in teen fiction, like  The Hunger Games. Pages coarse from bringing the book into the tub. In his spot, seated behind the bush that concealed most of his body, Jamie was giving the book his undivided attention. He was not paying attention to the group of lacrosse boys that had started playing Four Square just a few yards away Suddenly, a kickball knocked into the book, launching it from Jamie’s hands.he de facto leader of the group of sixth-graders, Blake LeBlanc—on whom Jamie had a very guilty, angry crush—shoved Jamie’s chest, hard, and asked loudly why Jamie sucked so bad at sports. Then Blake asked why Jamie couldn’t even catch a kickball coming straight for him. Then why he was such a “bitch pussy.”  

Before Jamie could finish responding they were moving around him, herding him like dogs to the south end of the big field, where teachers couldn’t see because of the trees.As they moved, Blake, speaking as though he were a wicked carnival barker, announced to the other boys that they were going to show the midget fag how to play Chicken. Jamie sprinted to get past the smaller of Blake’s friends, but was shoved easily to the ground in front of Blake. Blake grabbed him and put Jamie’s hand on Blake’s leg. 

“What are you doing?” Jamie asked, his voice barely audible over the other boys’ shouts. 

“Go up,” Blake said, his eyes squinting. His mouth curled into a smile. 

His grip tightened around Jamie’s forearm as the smaller boy struggled to escape. Now full of adrenaline, Jamie was able to rip his hand away. Reeling, confused, and scared, he fell flat on his back.  Jamie froze, facing Blake, trying to not breathe. He heard running from behind him before the smaller of Blake’s friends restrained Jamie’s arms behind his back. Blake took this chance and elbowed Jamie hard in the stomach.  

“Do what I say. You fat fucking faggot,” he yelled. 

Jamie felt tears form and fall in the same instant. This display of weakness pissed Blake off. The others laughed harder. Blake repeated himself, this time in almost a growl. The biggest of the boys, Brady, grabbed Jamie’s hand and forced it onto Blake’s upper thigh. Jamie’s resistance was laughable.  As he steadily pushed Jamie’s hand up Blake’s leg, the other boys’ slurs and shouts increased in ferocity and frequency. 

“Trying to touch Blake’s dick? Fucking faggot,” shouted Zach. 

Jamie’s hand continued its ascent up Blake’s thigh, higher, higher, until Jamie was shaking, really frantic now, pushing all his weight against his back in a last ditch effort to move Brady—and thus himself—away from Blake. Finally,  Jamie turned his head up and fixed his eyes on Blake’s. Blake’s eyes were sky blue. In that moment, something took Jamie away from the field. In a second outside of time, Jamie  stared and what had been happening just sort of fell away. From somewhere unknown, Jamie felt anger replace his terror. Why did this boy have to be his enemy?  Blake’s eyes tilted and his smile disappeared.  No sooner did Jamie notice this than the two were both back at the field, surrounded by Blake’s friends.  

As fast and as hard as he could, Jamie made a fist and moved it forward rather than back, slamming into the bully’s groin. Blake shouted, clutching his shorts, as his chest hit the ground. Jamie turned to hit Brady too,  full of adrenaline-fueled rage to run away. But before he Jamie could move his arm, Zach had tackled him to the ground. Blake, having partially recovered from Jamie’s blow, was now pinning the small boy’s head and back down while the other boys restrained his arms. Blake’s grunt seemed to echo slightly as he pushed down on Jamie, who cried out a little in pain. Then a blunt black boot seared pain into Jamie’s left cheek. He didn’t have to see his blood spreading through the grass to know that Blake had kicked him in the face. Then Blake  put his face right next to Jamie’s. Everything went quiet for a second, and again, it felt like it was just the two of them. Jamie felt  Blake’s hot breath in his ear. His tone was cool, a strangely loud whisper. 

“If you ever fucking try and touch my dick again, you fucking faggot, I’ll kill you. O.K.?” 

This was bizarre. There was typical stuff in his voice: anger, overzealous rage, the Self-Righteous Bigot Crusader. But it wavered at the end, when he said “O.K.?” The other boys were laughing harder than before, but they sounded distant now. Jamie strained to look up and saw that they were already running. Blake was up, sprinting after them. Jamie he smiled into the wet red of the grass. 

Blake LeBlanc had been scared of him.  

For the rest of middle school and all of high school, Blake didn’t approach Jamie again. Maybe Blake lost interest because other kids were gayer, or fatter, or both. Or maybe, Blake knew he didn’t have power over that particular faggot anymore. Either way, the two almost never saw each other.  

Jamie didn’t forget. 

Years later, December of his junior year at Loyola, Jamie got a Snapchat. When Blake’s name appeared  his face got hot. It felt like he wasn’t supposed to see this, like Blake had snapped the wrong person, and Jamie would certainly get nothing but trouble from opening it. It just said “wat up.” 

The texts started simply enough. Soon enough it became clear that what Blake was looking for was an outlet. He would start slowly but spiral into a full-blown discussion about anal sex or, if he let Jamie steer the conversation, the beauty that could come from intimacy between two men. But it always came back around to sex. One night, Blake steered the phone sex into a place that was pretty vulgar, almost violent. It didn’t take long for Jamie to start giving in, little by little, to Blake’s advances. After all, he had once had a crush on the boy. He also knew what closeted straight guys could do if they started to feel cornered. If they realize they’ve lost control. Bathing for a few minutes in the rich irony of this situation, Jamie smirked. Then he sat down at the kitchenette in his apartment and thought, enjoying every second of it, “What would I have done in sixth grade?” 

Jamie got up from the bottom of the bed and walked into the tiny bathroom. He reentered the room wearing a pretty red lace nightgown and holding a shower rod.  Drool spilled down from the gag in Blake’s mouth. His ankles and wrists were encircled by bright red marks from all his thrashing. There was something profoundly funny for Jamie, seeing Blake like this. But he knew better than to get distracted.  Jamie leapt onto the Motel 6 bed, raising the sharpened shower rod high above his head. His voice rose, matching the bellow of Blake’s trembling shout. His heavier weight wasn’t a problem now; now it meant strength. Now it could only help him. Pausing, he let his eyes meet Blake’s. Nothing was new; just the same shallow blue he’d seen all those years ago. Jamie’s arms plunged downward with inhuman power. The shower rod descended with a crunch first through Blake, then the comforter, then the sheets, and finally the mattress. The bed frame shook dangerously, creaking as though threatening to give out. Jamie, breathing heavily, slid off the bed and used two fingers to close Blake’s eyes. 

Sighing, Jamie thought about what Danielle had told him about giving in to revenge fantasies.  

They were getting harder to resist. According to her it was fairly dangerous for Jamie to even be speaking with Blake considering the toxicity of their relationship. 

Then in two weeks he would return to her, and she’d hear every detail he could recall about the sex he and Blake had had since their last session: how awful and hateful and phenomenal it had been. T At first, he’d claimed he was “not denying Blake’s advances” simply for creature comfort, for the attention of an attractive man. When she brought it up for the third session in a row, he snapped, shouting at her that maybe Blake just had a big dick, and she just didn’t know what that felt like. Jamie immediately regretted this, noting that this outburst had created an awkward dynamic for the rest of the session.  

The ride from Jamie’s place uptown to Blake’s truly shitty apartment in Slidell was always excruciating: a cocktail of nervousness, sexual tension, and frustration that erupted as soon as Blake would let him in. Blake was always very concerned about neighbors hearing them, so the first few visits were nearly silent. This bothered Jamie more than he thought it should.  Then, one night, Blake texted Jamie asking if they could hang out at Jamie’s instead. Jamie rejected this suggestion; his apartment was a safe place. After a substantial amount of insisting on Jamie’s part, Blake admitted that the reason for this suggestion was that Blake’s father was back in Slidell , and had demanded he be allowed to stay at Blake’s apartment. Jamie told Blake that he could fuck his dad instead. 

As soon as Blake walked into the well-kept Uptown apartment, he grabbed Jamie and threw him onto his own bed.  

“What the fuck! Hello!” Jamie said, genuinely upset that Blake hadn’t even acknowledged him. “Shut up, faggot,” said Blake, shoving Jamie’s head into his pillow. 

“No. Fuck you! Get out!” as Jamie shoved Blake off, wiping some tears from his face. Standing up, he grabbed Blake by his collar and tried to yank him from the bed. 

Blake objected slightly, still horny and unsure if this was part of it or not. 

“I said get the fuck out!” said Jamie, sobbing now. “Get out. Leave!”  

Getting the idea that this was not, in fact, part of it, Blake began to laugh. 

“Are you okay, James?” he said, his voice thick with mock concern. “You really are a stupid faggot, y’know that? Get back on the bed and let me fuck you. Dumb bitch.” 

At this, Jamie raised his head and locked eyes with Blake, staring into the sky blue he wished he never would have stared into. Then he shouted, his voice high-pitched and unhinged. “Blake, get out of my house right now or I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you.” 

The smile evaporated from Blake’s face as Jamie began to seethe, glaring at Blake with real hate. Blake turned, stumbling, and almost fell down the stairs in his hurry to get back to his Toyota Corolla. 

Slumped in a heap against the bar of his kitchenette, Jamie felt too exhausted to cry. Blake, Jamie decided then, was the kind of person who existed in the restrictive comfort of the closet—in ways not just concerning his sexuality. Blake had been in the closet  for so long that it had become part of him, part of his identity.There was no closet to come out of. The suppression, the crudeness, that was all he’d known since long before their first meeting all those years ago. Coughing, Jamie realized with a strange melancholy that it didn’t matter how much control he had over Blake. He couldn’t control his own life. Jamie shot to his feet. Taking his phone from his pocket, he first blocked, then deleted Blake’s number.  

“That’s it,” he said. He walked to his bed and lay down on top of the covers, his eyes swollen and still wet. 

That’s it. 

“Well fuck now what do we do.”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“This was your idea.”

“Well to be honest I didn’t think we’d make it this far.”

“What did you think was gunna happen?”

“I don't know, I didn’t think that much about it.”

“Then why did you even respond to the ad?”

“Did you see how much she's going to pay us?”

“Right, right”

“Ok so what do we do?”

“Ok, so I’ve seen this on TV, all we have to do is get him to the bathtub and get that acid that melts people, bones and all.”

“Where do you get acid like that?”

“I don’t know, Google it.”

“We can't Google it, then they'll be able to trace it back to us.”

“Alright, alright... Oh! I saw on this other episode that the guy fed the body to some pigs.”

“Where the fuck are we going to get enough pigs to eat this fatty?”

“Well, at least I'm TRYING to come up with a solution.”

‘Ok ok, no need to yell... Well, we have to move it from here.”

“‘It Ben, this is a real human man.”

“Oh don't get too attached. Are you gunna give him a name bring him home?”

“He already had a name. It was Hal.”

“Listen the deed is already done; you can’t chicken out now, man up, and help me wrap it up.”

Hal was not a small man, and this was no small task. Ben and Mikey tried their best to wrap Hal up with black trash bags and duct tape like they had seen on TV, but the shows never thoroughly explained the mechanics.

After about 30 minutes of struggling, and almost the full roll of duct tape, they finally decided that it was good enough and they better move on. They dragged Hal out of the house, checking to make sure no one saw before hauling him into the back of their car.

“God that fucker was fat.”

They were both sweating profusely at this point, still racking their brains as to what to do next. For now, they just needed to change locations, Hal’s wife wouldn’t be out of the house much longer and they had to get out of there. After about two hours of driving in the dark, they finally made it to their home. The small trailer park, Wheel Estate Mobile Homes, “Ride the Simple Life at Affordable Prices.” Wheel Estate was technically a park for retirees but Ben and Mikey were raised there by their grandparents after their drunk father disappeared. Ben and Mikey inherited the Estate when they passed. Bringing Hal home was risky, but their closest neighbors were an old couple who spent their summers visiting their grandchildren and an old bat who had basically lost all of her senses, both mental and physical.

“Come on let’s bring him inside”

They dragged Hal out of the trunk and into the house, trying to be as careful as possible, but one of the benefits of living with so many old people was that they took their hearing aids out to sleep. Mikey sat him in a chair and unwrapped him tentatively like he was afraid to react poorly to a Christmas present.

“What the fuck are you doing that’s so morbid you creepy fuck”

“I am just looking to see what we're working with here”

“But if you had kept it wrapped we could have contained the smell” Mikey hadn’t thought of that. Of course, he knew that the body would eventually start decomposing, but there was still time before that process began

“Well if you’re so worried about it why don’t you wrap it back up yourself”

“Do you know how heavy that fucker is? I'm not touching it again”

“Alright then, let me do my work”

Mikey sat across from Hal at the kitchen table trying to think. Ben, still not able to wrap his brain around the whole situation, decided it was best if he went to bed.

“What are we going to do with you, my friend,” Mikey said.

Hal didn’t respond.

“Do you want a beer? Here let me get you a beer,” he stated to the corpse. “You seem like a pretty nice guy; I wonder why there was a hit on you,” Mikey opened the beer and set it in front of Hal. Mikey laughed, “Well fuck, I’ve never dealt with a dead body before. What’s the best way to get this done?”

After he had finished his own Mikey addressed Hal; “You haven't even touched your beer; you must be one of those ‘I only drink IPAs kind of guys.’ No wonder someone wanted you dead ha.” After a long, exhausting, day Mikey was ready for bed. At this point he wasn’t going to come up with any solutions to his problem, so he decided to save that for later

The next morning the brothers arose to the sweet smell of rotting flesh. It wasn’t entirely unbearable yet, more like musty rotten eggs or roadside beef jerky that's been left in a hot car for too long.

“Oh God, why the fuck did you have to unwrap it, it smells like ass.”

“I’m gunna Febreze it; it's not that bad yet.”

“Febreze isn’t going to do shit, and it’s only going to get worse.”

He was right Febreze didn’t do much, but it was at least bearable. After staring at the body for a while, and drowning their trailer in Febreze, they realized that they were both running late to work. Hal would have to wait.

Mikey showed up for his shift at the grocery store twenty minutes late, his supervisor gave him another classic “talking to” but Mikey couldn’t focus.

“Jesus Mikey, you smell like death,” Jenine said. “When was the last time you took a shower?”

“Oh, uh yeah sorry, the water at my place is broken haven't been able to get a plumber out there yet.” She seemed to buy it for the moment but Mikey realized he needed to handle Hal’s smell and he needed to do it fast. He couldn’t fake the broken shower forever, and the smell could only get worse from there. No amount of Febreze could fix that.

That afternoon Ben picked Mikey up from the grocery store, and they headed back to their trailer park. The drive was quiet, Ben wasn’t interested in talking about Hal, he was trying to push it as far back in his brain as possible. Mikey was trying to brainstorm things they could do with the body but all his ideas fells short. They couldn’t bury him, they lived in the middle of a city in Florida there was nowhere private enough and as soon as the rain came their hard work

would be destroyed. People would definitely notice if they tried to burn him on the lawn. If they tried to put it in the gulf it was sure to wash up on the shore. He thought the hours he spent watching murder shows would prepare him for this, but in the shows, the murderer always gets caught.

They made it back to the house and sat around the kitchen table with Hal. They sat in silence, not really sure what to say. Ben got up, grabbed two beers and set one down in front of Mikey.

“Are you not going to get one for Hal?” Mikey asked.

“Mikey what the fuck”

“What it's just polite”

“It’s a corpse Mikey”

“I’m just saying there are three people at the table you should bring three beers”

“It’s a corpse Mikey, he doesn’t drink beer”

“It’s just polite Ben”

They were interrupted by a sudden knock on the door. They stood silent in shock, not sure what to do. After a few moments, there was another knock.

“Boys, I know you’re in there I brought pot roast!”

“Fuck its Lauraine” Ben whisper yelled.

“Well answer it she has pot roast.”

“You moron.”

Against his better judgment, Ben opened the door slightly.

“Hey, sugar-buns how are you today?”

“Uh, I’m good Miss Lauraine how about yourself?”

“Oh I’m just lovely, I got new hearing aids today, the new Medicaid I have is letting me go to the doctors again. I can't see or smell none but I can at least hear.” She was a very small, very old woman who wore thick glasses and always had on a brightly colored blouse. She lived next to the brothers and often brought them meals, she was afraid they would die without a woman's touch. “Now let me in so I can reheat this roast in the oven”

Before Ben could protest she pushed right past him. For such an old, decrepit woman she really had some power behind her. She hobbled into the room and walked toward the kitchen. The boys were shuffling as they tried to block her view of the body sitting at their kitchen table.

“Are you boys going to introduce me to your friend?”

Ben and Mikey gave each other a look. Somehow it had gone over Lauraine's head that Hal was in fact dead.

“Right sorry Miss Lauraine this is our friend... Hal” Ben stated tentatively.

“He uh would introduce himself but he took a vow of silence for his religion” Mikey winked at Ben while she turned away, Ben was not too happy with this.

“Oh that’s nice,” Lauraine said as she closed the oven door. “Now you boys take that out of the oven in 20 minutes.”

“Yes ma'am thank you so much, Miss Lauraine” Ben said as he ushered her towards the door.

“Y’all boys have a nice night now, and come visit me soon alright?”

“Yes Miss Lauraine I’d love to come to see you, thank you so much for the roast” Mikey replied. He closed the door behind her. “Whew, that was a close one right?’

“A vow of silence? Really? You couldn’t have told her he is mute, you’re lucky she’s so old”

“Well at least I said something, and she did buy it so give me some credit”

Past that point, Ben barely spent any time in their trailer. It was too hard for him to be at home looking at the rotting bodies sitting around his kitchen table, like a weird party from hell.

Mikey, on the other hand, didn’t seem to mind them really. Every afternoon he cracked open a beer and offered them to his friends. Sometimes they accepted but there were a few times they seemed to say no. They would watch TV, and listen to music, Mikey laughed a lot but everyone else seemed quiet.

The smell in their trailer was overwhelming and grotesque, the smell of rotting flesh mixed with the stale smell of Febreze and plug-ins and even a couple of Yankee Candles. But Mikey hardly noticed anymore- he had become accustomed to the smell.

As time went on, it became harder and harder for him to watch the news. Pictures of his friends danced around the screen and people tried to come up with different theories. Videos of grieving wives made him mad, he knew that they were the ones that requested the hit and now they were acting like their world was crumbling. The detectives seemed no closer to solving the mystery.

Until one day, one of the wives broke.

After hours of interrogation, Hal’s wife confessed to ordering a hit on him. She claimed she didn’t know who had done it, and they locked her in jail.

“Well fuck me,” Mikey said to the TV. He couldn't get a hold of his brother.

“I knew she couldn't last, that bitch,” Hal responded.

“C’mon, that's your wife you’re talking about,” Mikey said.

“She's the one that got me dead.”

“Yeah, but you’re friends with me and I’m the one that killed you.”

“Fair enough,” he said, “but she's always been a bitch.”

“We have to do something about this; we can't get caught.”

“You should turn yourself in,” Hal stated.

“What the fuck kind of advice is that?”

“Rational advice,” Hal retorted.

“What you really need to do is cut all ties with the outside world,” Bill chimed in.

“Now Bill is starting to make some sense. We gotta make sure no one knows we're here.” He called Ben again, this time he picked up. “Ben, we’re in trouble, Hals wife told the police she ordered a hit, she didn’t say it was us but I’m getting real nervous dude.”

“Fuck I’m on my way back,” he jumped up and stormed out the door of the bar. Once he finally made it home he peered in the door to see his brother eyes locked on the TV looking paranoid as hell. “Ben you can’t leave again, they’ll figure us out, you can’t go back out there” he was stammering so quickly Ben didn’t know what to do.

“I won't ... I’ll stay here... fucking hell we have to get rid of these bodies” Ben tried to comfort Mikey. Then there was a knock

“Shit” Ben said peering through the window praying to God it wasn’t the police. When he peered through the crack all that was in view was the tiny woman with white hair and thick glasses.

“Fuck its Lauraine again,” looked at Mikey with panic in his eyes.

“It's fine just let her in she won't notice they're dead,” Mikey said hopefully.

“There’s no fucking way, they smell like straight up ASS, she might have a horrible sense of smell but the Febreze doesn’t stop them from rotting.”

“Boys? it's me, Lauraine, I made too much pie so I thought I’d bring some over.”

“Oh fuck she has pie?” Mikey said excitement clear in his voice.

“Mikey.”

“Right sorry I just really like pie.”

“Boys I know you’re in there. Let me in I haven’t seen you in a while. Can’t you spare a few minutes for an old lady like me?”

“Ben, you have to at least open the door.”

“Fuck, fine” Ben opened the door slowly, only enough to let his shoulders pop out. “Hi Miss Lauraine, sorry we didn’t hear you we were... reading.”

“Oh that's ok, two smart boys like yourselves must be very busy reading and working, I just wanted to drop by and give you this little ol’ pie.”

“Thanks, Miss Laurine we really appreciate it.”

“What is that dang smell, how long has it been since you boys did your laundry?”

“Oh it’s been awhile, we’ve been very busy.”

“Well let me come in I’ll help you out.”

“No no there's really no need, we can do it ourselves!” Ben tried hard to not let her pass.

“No I insist, I could use something to occupy my time, I’ve been so lonely since my husband died, you remember Phil right?”

“Yes ma’am I remember him, but it really is a mess in here.”

“Oh son, I don’t mind a mess. My Phil was always a little bit of a pig.” She began to push on his chest with her free hand. Ben knew it would be more suspicious if he didn’t let her past, so he gave in.

As she pushed past, Ben noticed that the glasses she was wearing were different than her usual ones, thicker. He made eye contact with Mikey and made a gesture like a small child pretending to look through binoculars. Mikey saw the sign and looked to Lauraine's face. He understood and they gave each other a knowing look.

Aided by her new glasses, her eyes met the rotting bodies sitting at the table, beer in hand. Although their faces were bloated and sagging, she recognized them instantly from the hours of daytime news she watched every afternoon.

She opened her mouth as if to scream, but before she could get the sound out she was stuck in the head by a bat that had previously laid by the door.

“Well fuck now what do we do.”

In 1945, Jimmy Berkeley went to Western Europe to serve in the United States Army during World War II. He wrote letters to his mother.

In 2014, I went to Western Europe to party and get drunk. I kept a journal.

Jimmy Berkeley is my grandfather, or as I call him: Papa. Everyone in the family thought it was very cool that I’d be going off for an extended stay in the very same region as Papa, and at the very same age. I thought it was cool, too, but also felt bad because none of them really knew about the partying or getting drunk, both of which I did lots of.

My first month in Belgium, however, I did not party or get drunk. This was because I lived with a woman named Sabine and her footstool husband Pierre. Sabine spent most of her time maintaining the outward appearance of both herself and her home. Her bathroom counter was a shrine of creams and balms she spent thirty minutes every morning and night carefully applying to the spindly crevasses that wound down her cheeks. She wore glued-on eyelashes that bent and twisted like bug legs, and glued-on fingernails that tapped and clicked on impossibly clean surfaces, waiting to snap up any speck of dust that deigned to tarnish a hard morning’s dusting.

Cleaning the house was an all-day, every day affair requiring an entire closets worth of materials and equipment. Typically, my task was to watch the bunny. This meant sitting in an empty room with the bunny for 2-3 hours a day while Sabine cleaned, so the white-edged fumes wouldn't singe the bunny's wringling pink nostrils.

Certain household items required an immediate, post-use deep clean. I was forbidden to use a sink without giving it a full-on, rubber-gloves-bleach scrub afterward. Same went for the shower-- which I was permitted to use no more than twice a week. Sabine declared, despite my protestations and reassurances to the contrary, that any more than two showers per week would ruin my skin and hair.

I lived chez Sabine for a little over a month. During that time, the only parts of Belgium I saw beyond the house were my school and the grocery store; Sabine insisted I would get lost if I left the house, and she would be held responsible.

Almost none of the previously mentioned events are included in my journal. Entries from my first month usually include descriptions of food, weather, and buildings. Occasionally I’d allude to my displeasure with the situation, but usually brushed it off as humor or me being dramatic. Despite not being recorded, my memories of Sabine are the most vivid.

My stay chez Sabine ended abruptly one evening at a meeting with my supervisors; one of whom (a round-headed man named Phillipe) invited me to come stay with him and his family that night after quickly determining Sabine was not a suitable host mother. Him and his family were magnificent.

Life chez Phillipe was drastically different. If I wanted I could wake up, slip out, and catch a train to Brussels for the weekend and no one would mind. One day, I was confined to the bright white walls of a small, eerily clean home; the next I had access to an entire web of trains and buses, connecting me to the rest of Belgium in neat, systematic pathways. Holland was a twenty-minute bus ride. Germany, thirty. I could go wherever I wanted, whenever. It was perfect, sprawling freedom, the antidote to the horrors of confinement chez Sabine. I added alcohol and it was even better. I could free myself from my own anxiety. I could free myself from inhibitions and formalities and social norms, and isn’t that what being an exchange student is all about?

In hindsight, I think you’re supposed to cast off social norms by being unapologetically yourself, not by drinking to the point of incoherence. I did not realize this in 2014. I was too busy basking in the magnificent colors and sounds of the club to think about where I was in relation to other people, whose foot I was stepping on, or whose hands were where on my body. Every so often I stumbled to the bar and thrust my hand to the bottom of my bag in a hasty search for enough coins to buy another shot. I repeated this until time stopped being linear and started being chopped-up, disappearing in a blink on the dance floor and jerking back into focus over a puddle of puke in the street.

I learned from TV that if you can take a shot and not make a face, you’re a good drinker. I could take three shots in a row without making a face, so I figured I was an expert.

I liked to write down as much as I remembered about a party; typically, not much. I tried to list the types of alcohol I drank and when, usually incapable of remembering beyond the first or second hour. I wrote down what city, what bar, who was there, added names to the list of People I Kissed -- each little list further affirming that the party was a good one, and that I had been there, and it was fun, and cool, and awesome, and great.

I think about those parties and I couldn’t tell you what I drank, where or who I was with. What I remember are bodies and hands. Web-like & woozy, impossible to tell where they came from or who they were attached to. Eventually one of the hands settled onto a good spot and gripped, and suddenly you were moving quickly through the crowd faces and colors bending, whooshing, vaulting, pulled. The pulling usually stopped in a bathroom or an alcove in the street.

Prior to reading my grandfather’s letters, I hadn’t realized how far into the war he arrived in Europe-- right around the time of the German surrender and the end of the fighting. I also failed to realize his service wasn’t limited to Europe. In late summer 1945, he traveled by ship through the Panama Canal, waited in the Philippines to see if he would invade Japan, and never did. A few weeks later, he went home.

In my grandfather’s written pages I selfishly wished for carnage and terror, but the unique space in which Jimmy found himself in World War II didn’t yield such conditions. He arrived in Europe only briefly after the end of fighting that took millions, and shortly before fighting that never happened-- it didn’t need to, because a bunch of other people died somewhere else. His accounts seemed generally peaceful, and it’s not surprising given he never saw battle. In hindsight, I’m glad he didn’t. I might not exist if he did.

Yet, I struggle with some of his letters. They reflect a troubling form of writing I adopted while abroad. I don’t believe the peaceful, structured tone reflects his true experience. He may have had a routine, but routine is not the same thing as harmony. I hope I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, then there’s no reason to believe any part of his personal history has been lost in the grey area between what he actually experienced and what was articulable.

I went to Belgium in 2014 with a fun exchange program. I wrote in my journal about the awesome fun time I had. I wrote about food, parties, drinks, and boys.

My grandfather went to Belgium in 1945 with the United States Army. He wrote about flowers, food, and French girls, and probably left out some things, but I’ll never know.

February 2017 

“Fuck him and you’ll feel better about yourself,” Sophia whispers with a rasp over a mostly empty solo cup. Her eyes are dazed with vodka and whatever else she could find on the table. I wouldn’t want to be as empty as her even if I could be. The music pounds down on the conversation while I try to reason with her intoxication. I pretend to be like her, “I know, but if I hook up with him then I can’t hook up with his friend over there.” I quickly glance around the room and motion to a brown haired boy in the corner that I’ve never seen before, “and I’d rather do that,” I say with a little too much confidence, as if I’m trying to convince myself, too. She nods in understanding and tells me, “I mean, you could fuck them both if you wanted to. You’re kinda hot.” I say, “thanks,” and try to divert the conversation away from myself and the boys that I don’t want to fuck.  

April 2017  

“Why not?” Lailah drones on, her voice carrying into the music. I look around and no one catches my eye. I take another sip, and think that maybe after a few more I’ll find some nameless guy I want to talk to, but it doesn’t work. And I think that deep down I know that it’s never going to.  

Later, we sit in a circle on the carpet and play spin the bottle. I can’t stop looking at an unfamiliar, pretty brunette. She spins and it lands on me. I feel my heart jump and I don’t know why. At first it’s just a peck, but I use my drunkenness to justify doing more. I wake up in a bed alone a few hours later. My friends joke, “Did you think she was a boy or something?” and a boy I’ve never talked to named Nate smirks, “It was hot, do it again.” My chest feels empty—I blame it on the vodka.  

I’m not gay. I can’t be gay. I can’t be.  

May 2017 

“He’s looking at you,”  Sloan whispers, I turn around and he quickly looks away. I turn back to her, and soon enough she says, “he’s still looking.” I guess I should be flattered, but really, I want it to stop, I don’t want that kind of attention, not from him. “You should go for that, he just broke up with his girlfriend, no strings”. I turn back around and he doesn’t look away this time. I swallow my whole drink and wait until it kicks my vision fuzzy. “Ok. I’ll go talk to him,” I tell her, and she smiles with approval. 

I don’t remember what happened next.  

I don’t think I said yes, I don’t think I said no, but I didn’t want to fuck him. I really didn’t.  

They said I should so I did.  

He said I should so I did.  

I said I should so I did. And I don’t know what that says about me.  

The next day, I wake up early and take a silent uber home. My mom asks how my night went and in that moment I decide to push that memory as far down as it will go and I smile and say “good, it was fun.” I decide to never go back to that house. Never to talk to him again. I convince myself that this will fix everything, without giving it much real thought at all.  

June 2017  

I want to be lost in the breezy joy of summer break, but I can’t let myself relax. I’m always on high alert, everything I say and do is calculated. And I realize just how much of myself I lost on that night, in that house. I don’t know its address, I don’t even know the street name, but I know that I left my innocence there, my happiness. And I don’t know how to get any of it back.  

Day One 

My fingers were sweating profusely. I didn’t expect my body to react like this. In a vain attempt, I spread my fingers out on the tabletop; bad idea. The table is covered in sticky junk. When sweat was introduced, all that crap just ended up on my hands. I furiously wiped them on my pants. Great. Now I need to dry clean another suit. I tugged at my collar. Was it hot in here? Does anyone else feel this heat? I let out a breath. Closed eyes. It’s only lunch, it’s only lunch, it’s only lunch. Oh, flinching. I could feel a person sitting across from me. She wasn’t supposed to be here yet.  

“Thomas?” Her voice was sweet, soft, velvet. Nevermind her voice, why was she here 15 minutes early? I’m supposed to be the early one; that’s my thing after all. I opened one eye: mousy brown hair, soft looking, slightly curly, half pulled back in a braid. Wide doe eyes the color of charcoal, no make-up, just the endless depth of a since-deceased fire. Soft features: cheeks, lips, eyebrows. She was pretty, conventionally perhaps, there was nothing spectacular: no extraordinary beauty, no odd moles or freckles, no teeth out of place, or even in perfect place. Her clothes were pretty but not all that great.  

Good. Breathe. Open the other eye. “Yes.” Voice scratchy. I took a sip of water. Why was it so hot? She gave me one of those pitying smiles, which I just love. I must’ve had something on my face. I took my napkin and frantically scrubbed my face. Breathe. In. Out. Breathe. In. Out. “You are early, Vanessa.” I couldn’t look her in the eye. They were so piercing, just as piercing as the fire they once were. I rubbed the heel of my hand into my eyes. Again and again. Finally, I could stop and look at her. I held out my hand after furiously wiping it on my pants 15 times at a minimum. She looked at it, taking in the raw, red, sore skin that covered me. I adverted my eyes. How could she want to talk to me? Why did my hand have to exist in this painful half state? She took the poor thing delicately, shook once, twice, three times and extracted her hand from mine.  

“I am always punctual,” She responded, slightly offended that I would insinuate something (that thing) about her. Blink. Blink. “Plus, I thought you might be nervous, so I wanted to get extra time to talk with you.” How to tell her arriving early only makes me worse? I can’t. I don’t.  

“Ok,” I responded, my hand touched the side of the menu, running a damaged finger pad down the cheap red vinyl. “What food are you going to eat?” I didn’t look at her, she was too precise, too sharp, too knowing. The smiling cartoon lady on the front of the menu whispered gently in my ear, telling me the ceiling was actually a wall. I couldn’t help but look up. She wasn’t wrong, birds and art danced across the insulated tiles. I smiled.  

I could feel Vanessa’s eyes burrow into my Adam’s apple. “Thomas?”  

“Yes?” It took me several laborious seconds to extract my eyes from a particular bird. I met her eyes, forgetting their freeness.  

“What can you see?” She marveled at me in a way that made me vaguely uncomfortable. “Do you see the stars? Ghosts? Monsters and angels? Spinning dancers? Numbers?”  

I rocked back and forth in my chair, tugging at a loose strand of hair. Why did she have to make this so hard? I didn’t want a fuss, I didn’t want people looking at me, I didn’t want her looking at me. Why was she early? I dug my cropped fingernails into the soft part of my scalp, harder and harder until a muffled groan escaped my lips, touching. I pulled my fingertips away. they were covered in blood, my blood. Red, violent red. I groaned again. I reached for my cup, pouring all of it on one hand, the water uselessly splashed onto my suit pants. “No…no….no…no..no, nonono”  

I stood up, frantically shoving my chair behind and rushed out of the restaurant door into the miserly night air. 

Day Two 

It was raining, not a light raining, but the rain that consumes the sky and the air and the ground. That rain so thick you step outside and cease to be an independent being. I gulped, the cold and humid air did not allow me to breath; I clutched my chest. I slipped inside the restaurant as quickly as my weary legs could carry me; there was something so tedious about the rain making the mechanical rusty.  

She was sitting at the table, hair pulled up in a messy bun. Again, no makeup and decently nice clothes. I began ripping at my fingers, painfully. Why did she come early? I was 30 minutes early; I came even earlier hoping to avoid such a thing. I swallowed my panic down to the source, hoping my acrid acid could handle the pain, dissolving it into little bite sized surprises.  

“Vanessa,” I nodded my head curtly as I fit my body into the chair without moving it. It wasn’t oppressively hot today, it was mildly chilly with just a hint of the lovely rainy thickness. “You are early again.”  

“Thomas!” She smiled at me in a happy manner. Her charcoal eyes gave off warmth, but not enough to soothe my growing sense of insecurity. “I wanted to get here even earlier so we have more time to talk. You ran off in such a hurry yesterday, I was so worried I said something wrong.” I unconsciously touched the sore scabs on my head, glancing suspiciously at her neatly folded hands. Never trusted calm hands. Calm hands meant a calm mind, one ready to stab you in the back, take your life without looking back. I squirmed.  

“That was kind of you.” I rubbed my finger into a crease in my wooden seat; I was told to be polite. It was hard, I began to rock slightly, getting angst out. A little bit of angst. Not enough angst. “I am sorry. I realized I had to be…somewhere.” I was told to explain why I ran out. I did, right? I pushed my finger needlessly hard into the crease. “Da—” I felt the splinter enter my heart. I sucked the pain away.  

“You ok?” She asked casually, but I could hear the panic in her voice. I nodded. “Do you know why you are meeting with me today, Thomas?” I looked into her eyes: they were electric, magnetic, pulling me into a realm unknown to ordinary humanity.  

“What do you mean?” I tilted my head at her, adverting my eyes to the tabletop. I could see its stickiness from here. “We are here to get to know one another, right?”  

She gave me a laugh tinged with my own naivete. “If you want to believe that, you are allowed to Thomas.” Her hands undid their neat pile and picked up the menu. She seemed so fluid, as if all of her movements had been practiced precisely in small measurements over and over again. I sighed, in comparison, mine appeared to be those of a small child, unpracticed in the ways of man.  

“What does that mean?” I glanced at the ceiling, but the ceiling was not a wall today, it stayed solidly those odd wrinkled tiles that I wanted to continually break into smaller and smaller pieces. “I…”  

She gave off another small tinkle of a laugh, “We are here to talk. I just—” she looked at me oddly, “—wasn’t expecting you to phrase it in such a way.” She flagged the waiter down, ordering a burger for both of us. I wanted pancakes. She didn’t even let me speak. “I want to get to know you, Thomas. Like two friends, strangers at first, but learn to connect, learn to see through each other’s eyes.” I looked down at the menu, but it was gone. I swallowed heavily, digging a nail into the pad of a finger. I pressed harder and harder, hoping to find some sort of blood.  

I closed my eyes. I had to blink. Once. Twice. Three times. Fourth. Fifth. “Da—” I swallowed again. I closed and opened my eyes one final time, slowly and methodically. Better. “Thank you for ordering for me.” I was told to be polite. Was that polite? Why was it getting hot in here? Where was the small lady? I wanted to see her calming smile. I wanted her to tell me about the birds, about the wall ceiling. I wanted to see the sun. Why was it raining outside? Why was I sweating? Why wasn’t I bleeding? Where did the birds go?  

Day Three  

I got there first. Rightfully so. I sat delicately in my chair, situated my napkin properly on my lap. My suit was dry cleaned the night before and I felt ready to tackle this conversation. I breathed in and out, glancing down at the cartoon lady. She winked. I took a long swallow of icy water. It tasted faintly metallic. “Look up,” she whispered. “The ceiling is the sky.” I glanced up expectantly; there was no ceiling, but there was also not a sky. Instead it was         blank, medicinal.  

“Where?” I whispered.  

“Just look, ok?” She became sassy, turning her head away from me.  

I looked down at my poor hands, bleeding and bled. I could feel when Vanessa entered the restaurant; the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. She settled down in the chair across from me, “Hey Thomas. Are you good today? You rushed out again yesterday. I was really worried about you.” She reached out a hand to touch me; I flinched away subconsciously. She seemed almost upset.  

“I’m sorry.” I give her my most earnest face. “I don’t particularly like it when people touch me.”  

“I didn’t mean to upset you, Thomas, I just wanted to tell you that I was concerned and show that to you.” She gives me a concerned frown, a crease forming between her brows.  

I nodded, “I know what touch means, I just wasn’t expecting that.” I glanced up at the ceiling again. It was calmer now, a few stars peeking out from behind the emptiness of blank. I looked down at the lady and gave her a soft smile; she just winked. “I am sorry.” I was told to be polite. Right? I stared at my cup of water. One ice cube had a circular hole through the entire thing. It looked almost big enough for a pinky finger to fit, so I reached my hand into the glass, furiously grasping for something I was likely to never get. When I finally pulled it out, the ice cube did not fit on my pinky. “Da—” I threw it on the floor. It wasn’t worthy of my attention anymore. The panic didn’t subside when I threw away the block of ice. 

Vanessa laughed. I looked up and smiled at her (a smile that felt real, not one of those fake ones that tugs at the viewer in a weird way); she seemed genuinely amused by my actions. No one had ever done that before. She tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear. 

“Can I have pancakes?” I asked, feeling my voice go up several octaves. This earnest desire to eat a child’s food bloomed in my chest ardently.  

She gave me an odd look, “Why wouldn’t you be able to?” She looked down at the cover of the menu, hoping to decipher something. I knew the lady wasn’t also talking to her, at least I hoped; I would feel incredibly betrayed if she was. She sighed, “I don’t know why I pretend to look at the menu, I always seem to want a hamburger.” She placed her face in her hand in a look of disgruntled irritation.  

I shrugged. Why she did what she did didn’t affect me. I couldn’t read her mind. “Maybe you like looking at the pictures?”  

She shook her head, “It isn’t that.” She paused. “Maybe I want to feel like I have the ability to pick any of the options, but I know I am always going to pick the same one.” I nodded like I understood what she was talking about, but I didn’t. When I wanted pancakes, I wanted pancakes. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something sparkle. Glancing up I saw the sky, full of distant, light speckles. Radiant colors swirled and pranced across a deep black-blue that swallowed my mind whole. For the first time, I felt calm, put together, my hands rested patiently in my lap as I gazed into the abyss.  

“Thomas?” Vanessa asked earnestly. I focused intently on ripping my eyes from the swirling myriad, before they drifted, dry, down to her face.  

“Yes?” I whispered, still half stuck in a world all my own.  

“Are you ok?”  

I nodded my head, but I seemed to be stuck, rocking back and forth, over and over again, my eyes feeling glazed with a thick white icing, in my head a series of swirling lights twinkling gently but slowly more furious, I seemed to have my finger stuck in the chair but increasing panic couldn’t let me remove it, I tried and tried and the pain got to be more and more but it wouldn’t come out and there was not blood but it hurt and I thought there should be blood, and I waited patiently for the wetness but it didn’t come and my mind was foggy and the rocking got worse and the lights were so bright and so loud and so 

Erosion is only environmental change over time, a natural and sure process. The rain washes away dirt and silt, small creeks cut deeper into rocks, hoping to become a river powerful enough to name. The water flows slowly and steadily down, and with it, small pieces of Alabama’s tallest mountain flow too. Mount Cheaha’s half mile peak was formed over eons of convergence, a great tectonic shift that lifted the land up into its peaks and foothills (though debatably Cheaha is only a foothill itself for the Smokies to its east).

The mountain crumbles, but what it supports falls faster. The slow overpopulation of deer and smaller animals swell with the extinction of the wolf and the decline of the rest of the natural predators. Humans don’t like competition for their game. The swell feasts on the life nurtured by the mountain, consumes and devours it faster than it grows. The swell breaks and collapses faster than it grew.

Humans don’t like competition, but when it is presented, they refuse to be outdone. If the animals can eat through the small plants, then industry can cut the trees easily. The lumber clearly has higher profit margins than the old diner at the peak, the classic rock-filled refuge for tourists and day hikers doesn’t make too much (even with its pricey giftshop). And free entry for a state park is clearly a poor use of the land.

By the time the wind and rain cut into a small campsite on the northside, it is already unrecognizable. Its small creek, perfect for soaking tired feet after a day’s trek, has carved its way into a rushing river. The trees to hang a hammock from are just planks of wood in some suburban home or Home Depot. The only tell that this place once was full of life, human or animal, comes from a broken stone circle at its center, redundant now that there is nothing left that could burn.

Eventually, the world will shift. Rivers will dry up or cut through land to move away from their original path, the mountain will smooth, and grass and loblolly pine will begin their slow journey to recolonize the land. Nature tends to be resilient, even if no one is around to enjoy it.

But, before any of that, or maybe during, there’s a pair of hikers. Actually, there’s a lot of hikers, but there’s also this father and son. They camp a few feet away from their car the first night and make pancakes the next morning before starting off.

It’s Christmas break during the son’s sixth grade year and he’s wearing an old beanie with a blue flame and a new North Face jacket to keep the cold out. The father is bundled in every layer of down he owns and regrets not buying more. It’s a short, slow hike for the pair, the son’s first hike. The trip makes up for the hike he missed with his troop because he cracked a growth plate playing ultimate frisbee with his confirmation group. The pair go slow as the boy tests out his newly healed ankle and soaks in the scenery.

The trees are dormant so the father and son can see the mountain and the valley as they hike and all the animals that live there. The north side of the mountain is windy and harsh, a cold that bites through all layers and makes the two wish to cross the peak mere yards to their right and cut through the underbrush for the rest of that hike. But they pause. They sit down huddled and shaking to look out across the expanse that has opened up before them, and see the nature they’re hiking through in its entirety.

Neither think about what might happen to it.