The keys clatter onto the counter. The sound makes me feel old. I am not sure if I am fond of the feeling or not. For some people, it is the sound of a weary, set life, of idealistic dreams faded, of compromises and broken promises and unfulfilled goals. But to me, it also sounds like security. The clatter of keys sound like security to me—it means, as I daydream, that I am successful enough from the high-salary hypothetical job I am coming home from, that I am unlocking the door to a hypothetical high-class apartment, one big enough to have a hypothetical marble counter on which to toss my keys.

But I have no hypothetical dream job, no hypothetical high class apartment to go home to, and the hypothetical marble counter is just made out of some kind of plastic. I put down my bag and shuck off my shoes and cross to small area known as the kitchen.

Then again, I think, it's a bit alarming how quickly and easily we get used to these things. It had been almost a year since I had graduated. To think the summer before my freshman year I had been frittering away my last days of summer before my first year of college. What could I have been possibly thinking about then, I wonder to myself. I amuses me that I am examining my younger self as if it were a curious sociological anomaly. As if everyone had responsibilities by that point of their lives.

I turn on the stove and boil some water to make macaroni and cheese. The Easy Mac kind. As I wait for the noodles to cook, I check my email. There is mostly spam, a few correspondences with family and friends back home. I look through them and wish that my life could be more efficient. I wish I could be doing something even as I glance through and reply to those emails whose contents are made trite simply by the instantaneousness of their digital transit.

hey melanie,

still being the mel-in-melodramatic? don't want to spring more bad news on you, but i got an email from the alumni association. hope you still remember our jr year english teach. . .

Suddenly I remember what I was thinking during those idyll last days of summer. I had been writing a list.

1. I had scrawled. Alex Garland wrote The Beach when he was 26.

2. Helen Oyeyemi wrote The Icarus Girl when she was 19.

I get up to check the macaroni. Too much time has passed, and I haven't written a single page. I squeeze the thick cheese from the packet onto the cooked noodles. Plans, outlines, sketches, notes in the margins—that is all my progress has amounted to so far. I stir.

I want to refuse. After all, I don’t really like the guy. In fact, his perpetual irresponsibility grates on my nerves. Yet there is something about despair that steals one’s will away, and, as if some prying outsider, I hears the word sure slip presumptuously past my lips. The moist sweatshirt I’m pulling overtop my head covers what is an otherwise plainly visible wince, but throwing it to the floor with the rest of the dirty laundry does nothing to diminish just how stuffy the room suddenly feels. Spraying on some brand-generic deodorant and slipping into dress slacks, I turn to leave, making sure to qualify my statement by saying, “After work.”

The thing is, we’re best friends.

Snatching my keys and glasses from the counter, I step for the door, and that’s when it hits me. Full stop, I stand there, trembling, the post cards I had scornfully put aside accusing me from my periphery. Throwing my mind back to a time when I foolishly thought myself deserving of happiness.

Summer. A small group of students had decided to take a course to occupy their grasping minds during the lull between semesters, I amongst them. Even with part-time work, it was all too easy to feel restless, and sitting in a dark room playing console games just wasn‘t satisfying anymore. We knew we couldn’t learn anything by it, just as we recognized the emptiness in fraternities, streaking, and unruliness.

There were five of us, including the teacher’s beatific daughter.

Eight weeks later, we were as close as five people could be. And had recalled something long dormant, from when we ran barefoot through backyards seeing what wasn‘t really there, but was plainly visible through the eyes of our soul.

“Sable, are you alright man?”

I shrug my shoulders, pocket my keys, and make sure to close the door behind me on the way out. No eye contact, no words. I’ve rehearsed this, and hope he understands, just like every other time. That’s why he is my good friend.

On the other side, a tender breeze caresses Hunter’s stubble. What is he doing, standing on a hill, crushing strands of dew-laden fescue beneath supple, doe-skin boots that are ridiculous and inappropriate given the values he swore to her? Errant, worthless values, just as he is errant and worthless. Scruples that only exist in another world. Cleansing his thoughts, he remembers listening for something, someone; a sigh emanating from the overgrown, writhing forestation nestling in the cleft of two weary hills where the valley is most narrow. Further down, it explodes into a grand plain that distinctly and inevitability transforms into a gathering of crumbling mortar and glaring lights, but neither the mortar nor the lights are of interest to him.

Recklessly, he bounds down the slope and into the cathedral of wood and leaves. Branches crackle, snap, and ensnare under and around his feet and ankles before he comes to a panting stop, stills, and listens. Listens for the rhythmic breathing of a woman just below his gaze. The second of the night, if dawn hasn’t yet erupted over the ridge.

Upon finally reaching the outcropping that would serve as our shelter, I had balked only momentarily as I realised that our dwelling lacked a bed (or, indeed, actual walls) before the weariness of the day had began it's final onslaught upon my decaying resolve to Just. Stay. Awake. Dammit.

While the benignity of the stranger had absolved my fears somewhat, sleep had still seemed rather ill-considered,
yet Hunter (as he revealed his name to be) had conjured up a small fire; the flames of which had winsomely danced to some whispery, veiled melody. The spellbinding movements, in cooperation with the fires warmth, had simply enticed my eyelids to move further down; guiding me in closer to the harbour of sleep.

Hunters next few words had barely registered but his insistence that 'we'll figure it out in the morning' (Figure... what... out? I had vaguely managed to mumble softly), had been the final lullaby that had whisked my consciousness away. In such a state I found the rugged, stony floor to be almost comforting.

I have often read about people waking up in strange, unfamiliar places and having to take a moment to remember where they had been prior. I was offered no such respite from reality; upon waking up I was all too aware of the knowledge that I had slept on the ground in the middle of nowhere. I was also quick to note that my mysterious benefactor was missing.

My eyes scanned the encompassing region for any evidence of his resting form but found none. If I'd had the strength I'd've probably shot up with in confusion but, as it was, I was only able to drowsily haul myself up into a sitting position.

"Hu-Hunter?" I called out meekly towards the sun.

After a few moments of waiting the sun had still not replied to my timid question, so I called out again;

"Hunter? Are you there?"

Despite the extra confidence that permeated through my second question, I once again received no reply. A sudden feeling of isolation tried to impinged upon my sullen self but I was quick to bat it away like some bothersome insect. Reassuring myself that he was just outside, I determined, in quiet reply to the grumbling of my stomach, that he was 'probably out getting food no doubt'.

He could probably use some help. Standing up and shaking the drowsiness from lethargic limbs that begged to rest more, I checked that I had all my (meager) belongings, imprisoned my recalcitrant locks in a ribbon and set off to go find my altruistic stranger.

Sounds emanated from behind me and formed themselves into words.

"We've run out of milk."

It was simple, it was blunt; the way she usually spoke when she wanted something. The red-painted lips the sounds escaped from continued;

"We're on our last roll of toilet paper and there's, like, no vegetables left. All we've got is those mushrooms."

"And you want me to do what about it exactly? I don't drink milk and I like the mushrooms," I replied with a bit too much venom at the sudden distraction my roommates words caused me.

Leaning against the pale door frame she stared disapprovingly at me.

"I thought you were going to get off that thing and go shopping with me."

My audible groan was enough to make my roommate to roll her eyes and leave the room again, tossing the words "Fine then... but I'm not getting you anything," casually over her shoulder.

The horrifying thought of having to watch my friend pig-out on snacks without having any of my own to munch on caused me to recant my inferred replied. 'Finefinefineeeeeeee! I'll be there in a sec, just let me-'

My mother used to chastise me for spending too much time with my head among the clouds; I used to think I didn't spend enough. Lately though I have begun to wish that I could spend less time immersed in the whirlpool of my thoughts. This was never more true than in this moment; the one with the abrupt realisation that my feet were no longer parallel to my shoulders. The outcropping was steeper than it had seemed the previous night.

The floor seemed to have decided to rush towards my head and I barely recognised the earsplitting shriek as my own voice as I began my hurtling descent towards the bottom of the hill. DAMMI- Despite only being conscious for a few minutes it seemed my limbs had schemed to find the fastest way to return me to that peaceful state (and in such an un-peaceful way too I would've lamented).

The shriek seemed to fade as all went dim.

She shook her head to clear it, tangled hair whipping across her face and small beads of sweat flying. She'd been dreaming of swamps again, lulled to sleep in the big chair in her living room by the gentle, inexorable motion of the celestial sphere. She'd forgotten to draw the metal over the walls and ceiling again, and by noon the glass all 'round had caught the sunlight like fireflies in a net, focused and trapped it 'til the sweat coursed freely down her neck. Raindrops on the glass glimmered like stars, casting lights about the room rather than shadows.

(Slumped over my desk, bleary from sudden exposure to lamplight, I gather my eye sockets in my hands. It's late. I glance at the digital clock. It's fucking late. I lick my lips, wipe the flakes of dried saliva from the left corner of my mouth; there's a damp, wrinkled spot on the script before me. I try to wipe it off, but the spit has already soaked through.

I shake my head to ward off the sleep, and bend over the paper to discern where I'd left off reading.)

A few drops still pattered against the glass roof, borne by the wind that had so goaded the previous night's storm, now reduced to a sort of silent song that merely coaxed the trees to sway. The sound of the rain was soothing; she resolved to go outside and cool down, to bask in the buoyant breeze, under the washed-out, watercolor sky—she approached the glass doorway. She slowed.. she lingered there, and at the threshold she balked, resolve gone. The beaming world outside frightened her; she felt sick, and dizzy, and in her mind she began to float because there was nothing holding her down; unable to propel herself, she flailed in place near the ceiling until the feeling passed.

She managed to draw closed the walls, then; the metal shutters obscured the day and she slid wraithlike through darkened halls, finding her way like a blind fish in a cave, pressing ever back through the stifling lightlessness to the chair at the center of the living room, into which she sank quivering and crying.

For a while she'd thought she was ill. She'd sleep during the day with the metal shutters closed, and watch the stars through her walls at night. She'd stand trembling at the threshold for hours, as if nothing less than the gale to end all gales churned outside; as if the act of entering it would tear her apart, or bear her so far off into the sky that she'd never survive the fall.

"Break a leg," he tells me, smiling. And I, I smile back at him. Oh, there's nothing but us in that moment—and then I'm pushing through the curtains, layer after layer of thick, heavy red velvet; waves the color of roses break over me. Dimly, I acquiesce the impossibility of this—I should be onstage by now—the waves push back relentlessly; my arms begin to ache. Tendrils of unease unfurl from the knot of compressed apprehension that had long since taken up residence there—since the date of the auditions, or perhaps before, when I'd met him—

The lamp sways in front of me—no; I'm the one swaying, it seems. The words swim on the page and I wonder briefly whether I was dreaming then, or now... seas of scarlet curtains swim behind my eyeballs. The nascent, festering knot in my stomach shifts a little as I get up, as if it could be detected with an X-ray or perhaps extracted like some sort of toxic bezoar.

(Still sniffling gently, she slowly falls asleep. Once more she dreams of swamps, and the impossible, spectral beasts slinking through them..)

I stagger to the bathroom—it isn't far. I flick on the light, knowing it will blind me; I raise a hand to my eyes, squinting, blinking rapidly. When the phosphemes dispel I stoop to wash my face, hoping that the water and the light will clear the curtains of sleep and of dream from my eyes. The hope is vain, though—I'm spent, I know, and there's nothing for it but to go to sleep in earnest. So I perform my restroom mundanities and make my way back, killing lights as I go, 'til nothing remains between myself and the Dreaming.

(Or is she dreaming?—eyes closed or open, the darkness is complete. She finds she can move around, if she likes—ah, a lucid dream, then. Her home is a vast marsh, and she wanders through it, sinking into the floor occasionally. She wonders whether it stains her clothing when she does—she can't see; she can't see anything. But she knows her way, and she finds herself by the door again, a great metal door this time, and without thinking, without resolving anything, she reaches out to it; she's observing herself slide it open and it seems she isn't dreaming after all—

When the scarlet curtains swamp me this time, I'm prepared. I arm myself with reality, with reassurances, with reason above all—I sense the end before it comes; I sense it as a flood of light.

She's outside, now, and the sun is caressing her eyes...
From between the scattered trees, she glimpses a forest in a vale betwixt two hills.

Compensation. What a funny word, I think, gazing down at my paycheck. As if any amount of pay for my menial tasks at the company really serves as retribution for the wasted hours of my life. Hours I no doubt would waste anyway, be they on a stupid game or masquerading as a whole human.

The brilliant story I have been saving is now foggy in my memory, and I am positive that the retelling will be lacking. So, when I head out to dinner with my roommate, I will probably never bring it up. If I head out to dinner. Will the consequences of not going be worse than the actual attendance? It doesn’t matter. Whatever he wants, he will get, because I lack the will to fight and care not to vanquish his will to do what I can not.

Outside the rotating doors, a solitary leaf spirals to the ground.

He watches it idly, mind reeling in tandem. Its colors grow richer, the lame beige deepening to copper with accents of bronze and burgundy striking through and shimmering metallically in the blades of light cutting through the canopy. It lands, settling on a palatial, white throat, and Sod flinches at the stark contrast. Hands dropping to his sides, he remembers why he was shaking her, and why he is shaking. Abruptly forcing his knees to straighten and his feet to support an unsteady frame, he wonders if any of these phantom females are real. Is his mind playing with him? They’re so strikingly familiar, so obeisant, so pure.

So dead.

A gasp erupts from his throat and he rushes away. Foolishly in the morning light. Loudly through the brambles of the meadow bordering the forest. Like a criminal. Like a murderer. Like what he is. A groan carves its way out of his mouth, thrashing forth on a crest of spittle, and he dashes headlong through a stream. Then an arrow rips into his flank, and he drops into the water, gasping for breath. In a moment of shock, he watches the slow current bear his blood away, his paling fingers flexing around a cruel shaft protruding from beneath his arm. Pushing himself up, he wills himself to flee, but by the time he pulls his cheek from the flood an indomitable force is pressing down from the other side.

May the glory of the Lord endure forever.
May the Lord rejoice in His works.
He who looks at the Earth and it trembles.
He who touches the mountains and they burn.

I will sing to the Lord all my life.
I will sing to my God as long as I live.
May my meditations please you, as I rejoice in you Lord.
Praise you Lord forevermore.

“So how is dinner? Knock knock? Anyone there?”

“What the hell are you playing? Turn it off. Now,” I shout, gazing angrily across the table toward the proprietor, forgetting not only myself but my friend.

Elysian expectations yield to lurking horrors of the inscrutable - what am I doing? Vain, worthless poetry, quoth I in tedious rote! Can it be said there is comfort in an empty rite? Not for me. Not for me. Such a sentiment is a wholly meaningless abstraction of experiences; a quaint bulwark I contrive solely to separate frailties: to barricade my fears in autonomous chambers and forestall their collusion. Nebulous syllogisms do nothing to ease a hemorrhaging soul. Nothing!

Libertas re vera. Oh, it is a pitiless monster. May it shred the lids from my eyes.

Sweeping across the knoll is a hasty breeze darting with algor across the monuments to the dead. As numbing as the wind and rain and granite are to flesh, there is no anesthetic for the beleaguered consciousness. I embrace blind sleep in closing my eyes, but my mind hastens to palpable dread. Embellishment on the matter does it injustice. Enough words of delay!

I hate myself. She is dead. Where her spirit went, if anywhere, I don’t know.

Such sharp pain does further cruelty by reminding me of my own mortality, for I know not where such a bankrupt spirit as mine will, if anywhere, go. My own selfishness eludes me and, through sheer exhaustion, my body slips into a deep, shivering slumber atop the grave of my...

“He is a sorrowful one, isn’t he?” squeaks a tiny voice very near. A peculiar sound, fracturing from the patter of an afternoon drizzle.

“Who said that?” chokes out Sod, lifting his portrait from muddy ground and opening a blood-shot eye to see a crude palisade jutting awkwardly skyward. Bark is peeling haphazardly off the poles, but the sharp edges are nonetheless intimidating. His tongue cleaves to his dry hard palate and his breathing is laborious. Even the faint, hazy light stings his one open eye: a brilliance eclipsed as the small form of a field mouse navigates its way into his field of view.

“Well, look at that, he’s awake!” it peeps, leaning close to Sod’s nose and twitching the long, stiff whiskers extending from its own.

“What sort of sick dream is this?” Sod moans, receiving a handful of mud in his clawing hands on trying to push himself upward, alas, to no avail.

A little chorus of high-pitch laughter emanates from the ground near his head, and he sees two more little mice come into view. The first, their spokesman, says, “He says he is dreaming. Hah! Look at that. I suppose were I him, I would wish I were dreaming too.”

“Stop vexing and let the lug rest,” declares a noticeably older voice.

Celestial tears dribbled along the ground, sundering along my body; the spray created a sparkling silhouette, casting rainbows of the sky’s cimmerian soul. My eyes shine in darkness, the paradox of the human mind. Water pervades the senses, yet I feel kin to its polar freedoms. Where the snake coils and the timid mouse retreats, I go. Ever more transparent, all passes through and naught but the questions stay, through wind and rain, sun and shade. The price of freedom is my contentment, its vast place resettled by the torrents of loneliness, flourishing waves to pound in the loss. Only by having no isle, can the erosion of that sea be avoided. Spectral existence is my fate, to be until unseen.

My feet, though I know no such word, take me along the muddied path. A placid pool comes forward to meet me and though I see clearly, my appearance holds no corporeal value. What I see is the face of terror, maligning the instinct of companionship. I cannot help myself, nor draw those who can.

Thunder drowns out the water and my screams, booming across the scalloping hills. The oppressive onus of my thoughts crushes my sanity, and I flail madly, slamming my fist at the ground. Fatigue and the piercing cold burn me, whips licking at my skin. I manage to crawl underneath a thick bush, each blade of grass an explosion of sorrow and pain. Darkness rushes to my aid, my only companion...

The brief solace of my slumber is broken, mercilessly dragging me into a body pained by endless paroxysms and enough self-culpability to smother. Some wayward leaf rustled... Why?

"What! Show yourself trash... only trash would wander here..." I shout, releasing a pent up fury, spewing madly as a volcano. It boiled my blood, the passionate hysteria of my frenzy threatened to burst forth from my heart; my black little heart. An airy howl berated some branch, cracking it... Enough!

And I fell down back to the spinning earth, ensorceled in some stupor. I felt empty. The vast oceans of hate, vanished; evaporated by sheer ferocity. It felt good, nay, euphoric.

Mockery. An insinuation of weakness. Insufficiency for even this crude masquerade. These perceptions of the rodents’ commentary arouse a contempt in Sod. Furiously, he wrestles away the wet soil, denouncing splinters of pain with sharp intakes of breath. Oaths go unsaid, but nevertheless pollute his mind. He can feel it in his arms, skull, and chest; the pounding of his heart imitating his discordant thoughts. Latching on to a safe and familiar scrap of knowledge, Sod snarls, “This is not real”, peripherally aware of how pathetic his outburst is. There is no immediately reply. Instead, an unfortunate breeze hangs on Sod’s sweat-beaded skin like a wool blanket laden with the reek of spoiling harvest goods.

Finally, “If so, you are not the master of your imagination,” emerges from the elder mouse as a meditative riposte.

“What’s that suppose to mean?” inquires Sod, incredulous of the reply as much as his predicament, exposing itself to his vision as a prison compound of sorts.

“Writhing in poverty and pain is not the intended state of man, nor a condition man willfully entertains. It is thrust upon him by one whose desire is the maturation of the soul. Given the option, you would delude yourself,” comes as an explanation.

Now on his side, Sod lurches forward, leering down at his company. The cloudiness of his eyes has since dispersed with the pain he felt on waking, and he can focus again on the details of his environs. The mouse, for example, is brown blotched with silver, but otherwise unremarkable. Certainly nothing worth opening his eyes for, so he closes them and takes a long breath, drawn to restore composure. Instead, it rekindles a fire in his ribs, erupting through his throat as a gasp of pain. Frustration and agony collide, and Sod condemns the rodent’s philosophy, shouting, “There is no guiding force in this universe, you fool. I torment myself because I deserve it!”

Unphased, the mouse calmly says, “Then I shall listen to your why.”

At first Sod is repulsed by the notion of confiding in vermin, but then the tide of his arrogance swells and, confident in his bitterness, his eloquence, and his wretchedness, he complies: A Cynic's Story.

“Join me,” repeats Sod, his voice absent the finality of a story’s end.

An awkward, vainglorious moment lingers after his recitation. In it, hot sweat pours down his shoulder blades, moldering in the filthy, fetid rags of his tunic and deteriorating into the briny tang and aroma of sex. She had tasted like the private beach where they hadn’t fucked. Oh, how he had so wanted to, and even shucked his shorts and dragged her through the evening surf in a juvenile effort to win her over, only to be caught and wonderfully embarrassed. The recollection makes him shiver, and he whimpers—a repulsive little expression exposing his emotional purgatory and physical arousal. To him, it is a phantasmagoria of memories, justly owned, without excuses; something precious, to be cherished unquestionably. For any observer, it is sick; like an addiction, its effects on his life are as devastating as they are vile.

A tiny voice mercilessly tramples Sod’s wallowing, muttering, “Pathetic.” The other mice peep their agreement, one going so far as to accuse, “You’re totally getting off on … whatever this is.”

Astonished and furious, Sod cries out, “She’s dead! Whenever I close my eyes and think of that day, I hear her asking me to join her!”

“Your selfishness deludes you,” notes the elder mouse phlegmatically.

“Selfish? Heartless vermin, I loved her!” Sod insists, pounding his fist into the muck, as if his exertion matters.

“What have you done to show her that love?” asks another.

Petulantly, Sod answers, “Are you not listening? She is dead! If you’re going to tell me something, tell me something real!”

“Real, eh?” snorts the elder mouse, leaning forward on a toothpick of a sword. “I’ll tell you a story, then.”

"Stories," began another voice, "will only serve to delude him further." This one did not lack the finality of a story's end and also it held the frailty of an infant. David appeared, not at all the Biblical hero, but instead a child. His features seemed... worn, for his age. He seemed sick and pale in the sparse light, and and atop his head sat a scoop of messy blond hair. His skin was pale but unblemished, and his clothes were in miraculously decent condition. He had been hiding in a box, but the hazardous weather had thrust him into view. Raindrops drummed their silent beat into the earth and jagged bolts of electricity flashed throughout the sky in amethyst bursts -- but anyway... David. No other feature of his was particularly remarkable, save the eyes. They were deep-set and foreboding, the color of emerald. He parted his mouth, drew his tongue to wet his chapped lips, and spoke, "Welcome to the graveyard, enjoy your stay."

His hand rested on the limestone sarcophagus, as though he needed something to support him. The young boy hyperventilated, as though breath had been suddenly stolen from his lungs and cast far, far away. Nevertheless, his gaze persevered. It scrutinized Sod's every detail, but found nothing, and he was confound. A moment of silence. The deluge outside seemed to end abruptly, as though the entrance of this new character in the play was a grave thing indeed. Pale shards of moonlight painted the landscape, and David's energy returned. The stars had reinvigorated him, given him the necessary uplifting so that he could indeed enter this tragedian drama and put an end to it. An assortment of expressions passed his face. He was, of course, cycling through his very scarce collection, searching for the right one to describe the times. He settled on knitting his brows together and frowning, projecting the image of a stern father, perhaps scolding his immature daughter for staying out past curfew. Or maybe she had done drugs with her friends and had come home on a high.

Did it matter?

He sat down on the grass. It undulated softly, still tickled by the wind. That, coupled with the perfect black outside, made David feel lost at sea. Well, it was not too incredibly far from the truth: he was indeed lost, and the Dark Atlantic waited above, always. So his roll began.

As sunset molds a chilling hallow from a peaceful glade, Sod’s environs decay to a midnight barricade bristling with garish pine spears. At the ready, they haphazardly lean from crumbling furrows and offset dusk in an insidious display of oozing red and slumping, pale flesh. Awareness slinks in, the now-realized scent of death intermingling with rotting barley flaring his nostrils and teasing his hackles to rigid spines trembling with cold and a warning. Lightning sears the monochrome image of hell on his soul, then abandons it to the black.

Yet he snorts, groundward gaze callous, sullen; the abrupt vicissitude sterile in his mind, despite his tense reaction. Yes, palpitations agonizingly batter his ribs; yes, sweat splatters frigidly beneath his arms; yes, his body absurdly disregards his commands and his throat ridiculously refuses to form a piteous wail of frustration—but his mind scoffs at the crudeness, the audacity of this manipulation! Then Sod’s frailty sponges away the passing moments with the tenderness of a rake, shredding the mice, the story, and this dreamy hell from his consciousness.

“Welcome to the graveyard; enjoy your stay?” taunts the unseen thunder, polluting innocence with a threat.

My eyes twitch, but don’t close. Darkness gathers depth, and objects, once imperceptible, come into bleary focus. My side aches, but it is just my weight on her gravestone. My gravestone.

Sitting up with a tired grunt, I squint at the night. Tearcrust distorts my vision, so I rub it away. It is no longer raining, but I can’t stop shivering and the water pooling on my lap from the creases of my jacket doesn’t help. Funereal monuments stand out from the night as stark reminders of my nightmare. This is a place of peace, of escape, of her, and I feel violated. Not like it would be the first time.

Thrusting the thought aside, I try to concentrate. With a sigh, I rub the back of my neck. The hairs are on end.

“Enjoy your stay?” hits my ears, and I drop to all fours with a yelp. In my periphery is a voyeuristic little punk with his arm draping a tomb. Before thinking, I furiously shout, “What the fuck kid? Why are you out here this time of night?”

As I walk out of the bathroom, my bare feet sink into cool, gritty carpet. A picture hangs on the wall opposite me. In it are Edna, David, and some older boy. It occurs to me that I am probably wearing his pajamas.

Exiting the hall, the trip is shorter than I remember it being, and I round a corner to find Edna waiting for me with a teacup and saucer. Separated by a small dinette and two barstools, she stands in her kitchen, itself an extension of the living room where the theme of aging joy begrimes the floor tiles and counter backsplash, miniature pink tulips decorating the latter. Whether they are hand-painted or stenciled, I can’t tell, but the acrylic shimmers underneath the uneven light spilling from a milky glass fixture overhead. Taking the shadows into account, the ceiling looks like the blurry projection of an Iron Cross. As for my host, she is wearing a terrycloth robe and lines of unease, doubtlessly reconsidering her offer. Despite this, the porcelain in her grasp is not trembling with the obnoxious indictment of insecurity. Poor though she may be, this symbolizes an enviable confidence.

It starts rattling as soon she releases it to me.

“Thank you,” I say, grateful my words are as bleary as my eyes. Shutting them, I lift the tea and deeply inhale its therapeutic curls of steam. Lack of familiarity with the scent becomes a refuge of inquisitiveness—a silly distraction to ponder while ignoring Edna’s inspection.

“You’re welcome,” she finally speaks, her tone difficult to read.

Pausing for a sip, I add, “For the pajamas, too,” doing my best to seem content as a stray pulled out of the rain ought, even managing to coerce a half-smile to my face along with some pretense of humanity.

She nods, matter-of-fact, and looks beyond me and into the living room, where David is. Following her, I see the sofa is now a bed, complete with plain sheets and pillows. The shadow of the frame, dominating the bulk of the room, obscures my tread marks across the carpet.

“Sorry about that.”

She ignores me, and calls out, “David, go to bed.”

“I am in bed,” he counters, and I detect a quaver of frustration in his voice. His manner isn’t rebellious, but entreating.

“Sable is sleeping there tonight. We discussed this.”

“The floor is fine,” I offer, but she gives me a glance that tells me no guest in her home, small as it may be—as is obvious by the fact that David’s sleeping quarters are apparently a fold-out in the living room—will be sleeping on the floor.

“I’m not a baby, and it is big enough,” David insists. Now he tinges it with aggression.

This kid must have very few friends, and is willing to take advantage of whatever he can get. As for me, it really doesn’t matter, so I try to make light of the situation, and joke, “Is he harmless?”

“Are you?” she looks me in the eyes and says, not snapping defensively as expected, but with a measure of delicate concern.

Holding a stare is not my forte, and I avert mine to the specs of debris floating near the bottom of my cup. No, only my intentions are harmless, otherwise I am an impotent, insipid child whose selfish negligence is as lethal as any killer. A shrug is my answer, but, reflecting on its insufficiency, I force out, “Nobody should have to suffer.”

In response, she takes cup from me, washes it, and turns out the lights. On her way to her own room, I hear her say, “Good night, boys.”

Standing there in the dark, I have no idea what to do. No, I know what to do—sleep. Sleep like the dead.

“Lay down, Creepy,” David chides, and I hear his fist thump the pillow beside him.

Thin beams of light bleed through the shutters, a particular one, revealing the torrent of dust that floated in the air, illuminates my yellow-stained teeth as my face contorts in the facial spasm of a yawn; or so I imagined the sight. My eyelids felt leaden, gilt in the exhaustion accrued during last night's escapades, and were nearly crusted shut. A single spring in the mattress protruded most uncomfortably, jabbing my back with near viciousness. I wanted to raise my left hand to rub my eyes as I roll out of bed, smacking the snooze button to silence the Waa-Waa of the Ambulance alarm, the only sufficiently strident sound that could break my slumber, and stumble into the bathroom so I can prepare for work. I wanted to, but...

“Tiger Milk”

My adolescent love of Milk, which, like many of my habits, I never quite outgrew, alloyed with my contemptible urge to forget myself in a bottle of liquor had resulted in the curious concoction of milk and vodka aptly named “Tiger Milk”.

I try to pronounce the word, muttering my thoughts as I often do, but the result thoroughly frustrates me. My tongue seems to loll, my lips are too slack, and my jaw is hanging unhinged. My eyelids part, with greater effort than Moses used to part the Red Sea, and I was blinded. Was this some twisted caricature of heaven? Everything seemed to glow as if blanketed in a ubiquitous white effusion. It wasn’t that I really thought so, but my mind often wandered and jumbled and garbled my thoughts. It was somewhat reassuring to know that this stupor, though it made me clumsy and irritable, had not altered my mind. No... Suddenly I begin thinking of the strangest objects, and feel the urge to speak in rhyme.
“What…?” I slur, confused by the contradictions and oddities of my own thoughts, my mouth still utterly refusing to cooperate.

My vision clears, slowly becoming more and more acute, until I finally recognize the squalor and filth that was my room. A limp hand smacks me in the face, and I blink, trying to maneuver my finger just under my eye. What focus is required just to rub my damn eye. A fleeting thought crosses my mind, scampering quickly away from me as the rabbit being pursued by the hound. Everything was so sluggish, as if submerged in gelatin, but finally I make the connection. Vodka = Alcohol = Inebriate

An equation greater than Einstein’s, I scoff. With a drunken sneer plastered on my face, my throat issues some grotesque burble. I think I am trying to laugh, but it is so distorted that it seems more like the mewling of a dying animal. Fuck.

How much had I drunk?

Driven by some forgotten purpose, I am out of the bed and standing half dressed in my kitchen, battling with the spinning room to bring a coffee mug to my lips. It is bitter, straight black, but I feel a tingle run down my limbs. Reminds me of the first time I kissed a girl; what was her name? With shake of my head, I resolve to disregard such inconsequential thoughts. If this coffee doesn’t work, I might have to break out the peppermint oil, I think, reeling myself back from that tangent.

“Peppermint oil burns like hell, but it sure as hell wakes me up…” the thought of it was exciting and dreadful simultaneously, an interesting contrast.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Gazing at the white marble, I can feel something more than my reflection looking back at me. Could a reflection be something more, like a ghostly intimation of some alter-ego in a parallel universe? The fanciful thought is momentarily amusing, until somebody bumps into me. His words pass by me, swallowed in the incessant din of the city, but I understand his intent. I stir, walking out of the middle of the hall, as if waking from a daze.

Life has seemed more like a dream than reality lately, making me wonder if this world was a waking dream. Could this be a dream, my real life what I perceive to be a dream in this universe?
My psychiatrist seems to be determined to rid me of these so called “avoidance tendencies”. The official psycho-babble is that I’m unhappy with my life and that these “delusions” are my escape.

The elevator chimes and slows, floor seventeen. I stride quietly out of the parting door, my slacks rubbing together at the thighs; a sound that has always bothered me.

Sometimes I wonder if the psychiatrist is the crazy one. In a world of mad men, the mad man is the only sane one… isn’t that some famous quote?

“Good morning, Mr. Warren.” I nod my head slightly.

“Well, do you have those internal audit reports from finance yet, guy?” he replies aggressively, and my perfect façade threatens to crack and shatter into a sneer; I hate when he calls people whose names he cannot remember, “guy”. Images with lurid detail flash across my vision, superimposed over the endless sea of white cubicles and that somehow condescendingly polite smile of Mr. Warren. A few unpleasant thoughts cross my mind, one BDSM in nature; less because I would take sexual pleasure from it, but more because of my thirst to bask in this self-righteous imbecile’s shame and agony.

“Of course, Mr. Warren. I called them yesterday after lunch; it will be on your desk by closing.” It sickened me that I had to act and pretend every moment of the day, all in the hopes for a dollar or two raise and promotion. This perfunctory existence was maddening, and my rage threatened to explode into a crime of passion any day now. I wanted to commit a crime just to break the monotony of work, drink, sleep, work, drink, sleep.

He grunted and continued his daily patrol, harassing employees with a reserved zeal. Like a fucking cannibal slavering over the half-dead, insatiable in his quest to taste our flesh. Most of the people here looked half-dead anyway, pale and thin and weak. A man being berated by Jones had become nearly livid with embarrassment, and began typing furiously on his keyboard as if to show his sincerity.

I sigh and plop into my chair, enclosed in my cubicle. The sheer vastness of the workday ahead presses down on me, oppressive with every breath, leeching my strength. A day like any other, I suppose.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Crimson swirls around the drain, dyeing the water from the faucet. I wash my hands with such purpose, serenity, it is nearly unbelievable. I smile contently, as if my greatest desire has been fulfilled. It disturbs me too, my conscience poking at me indignantly, but I can not deny my actions, or deny the pleasure.

In my younger days, before I had been tied down by marriage and aged by divorce, I was a lively person and traveled often. I had been proud of my body and had been quite interested in martial arts. It didn’t seem like that long ago, seven years; I still have a little definition, the vestiges of my once toned body. Martial arts had been a hobby, a pleasure, but I had warped and twisted its purpose, yet I didn’t care, which scared me the most.

As I stare into the mirror, into the depths of my eyes, the so called window into the soul, I remember the details vividly. Mr. Warren demanded those internal audit reports, even though I received them late, and I was forced to stay after-hours, without overtime, to finish it. Down the elevator, a mumbled greeting to the security guard, out the door, and into the dark maw of the parking garage. I felt uneasy even then, walking between the isles of luxury cars. There was a pretty run-down apartment building just across the highway.

As I near my car, fumbling with my keys and pressing the unlock button, a dark silhouette jumps out. He is crudely dressed, compared to my crisp suit, but what is most disturbing is his wild look. He lunges at me with an open knife, his movements appearing slow and drawn out, adrenaline pumping through my veins. At first, I am too shocked to move, but suddenly, subconsciously, I drop my briefcase and grab his wrist between my forefinger and thumb, breaking his wrist with a sharp twist. My hand shoots out, hitting him in the throat with the webbing between the thumb and fingers, collapsing his trachea and silencing him before he can yelp in pain; the whole experience is surreal, as if I am watching someone else control my body, as if I am just a spectator. He crumbles onto the ground, eyes wide with fear, pain. But I don’t stop; I keep beating him, his blood staining my fists.

With shake of my head I dispel the images, trying to focus on the towel, on drying my hands. I was excited, yet the consequences hung dreadfully over me, and this time the contrast was not so pleasant. Numbness spreads over me, and I cannot think. I simply fall into bed, mindlessly pulling the covers over myself, letting the sweet embrace of darkness envelope me, caress me until this world left and another came.

The couch wasn’t particularly uncomfortable – well, it had been at first, but David had gotten used to it. He overheard the conversation between Sable and his mother. Of course, comprehension never dawned on him: he was young, and with youth came an impenetrable barrier between the real world and the imaginary one that built itself in his mind and freed itself through his eyes and ears and mouth. “Lay down, Creepy,” David chided, and his fist thumped the pillow beside him. “I don’t bite.” He grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.

Sable grunted and complied. David felt somewhat claustrophobic. He scooted as far away as the couch fold-out allowed to give his guest as much space as possible. Then, when he had situated himself and deemed it as comfortable as was possible, he said, “I used to have a brother and a father.” There was only a very distant semblance of sorrow hidden in his voice. He tried not to think about them. Kenneth, his older brother, had died a year or so before, but he had been made a true martyr. David’s father Stuart had been a drunk and a psychopath. He had regularly abused the three of them, and then wasted what little extra money they did have on beer and drugs.

One day, in one of his inebriated tantrums, he had punched Edna so hard she hadn’t gotten up. He had laughed, the pig-headed swine, and it was clear he wanted to rape her. Kenneth had landed a blow to his face, but Stuart had been older and more powerful even in his graceless fury. Kenneth had been brutalized and stabbed, and with the last of his strength, he had retrieved the family’s gun from their bedroom. He had missed, however. Stuart, sobered into a mirthless insanity, removed the gun from his son’s clutches and shot him. David still remembered watching from the hallway, seeing that blood pool under Kenneth’s body, watching his brother’s fading eyes locate him and his broken lips whisper a wordless goodbye. Then, he had been gone, and Stuart had proclaimed, “Lost my mind? No, I left it all over the wall!”

Bang.

And that he had. David voiced this to Sable, to Creepy. He remembered the flashing lights of the ambulance and Edna’s shriek and the men in uniforms who had come. He remembered the rainy day and the black umbrellas and the gray field and the tears and the holes and the casket and the solemn ‘goodbyes.’ He remembered it well. It had been the last time he’d ever cried, that day in the rain, and no one had seen it, but no one had assumed it was just the raindrops landing on his face as he stared up into the sky and the invisible dusting of stars that hung there.

And he voiced that to Sable, too. And then he sat there, quite cozy in his little spot there, and he slowly drifted off to sleep. He dreamt about the cold stares of those around him, and how he returned those stares with his inquisitive emerald eyes that held within them the hidden knowledge of something so distant, and he dreamt about the devil, and he dreamt about Dante, too, locked in the devil’s fiery embrace. From the hallway, Edna watched with those vigilant, intelligent eyes of her own. She had a certain natural distrust that made itself known to anyone who had ever met her.

She heard David’s soft snoring. He was a good boy. A bit disillusioned by recent events in his life, sure, but he was still a good boy... That monster she had called a husband had wrought so much of his hatred into tangible being; a single crystal tear slid down her cheek. She bit her lip, and began to ponder over the situation of their unexpected visitor. She couldn’t cast Sable out, she knew, for to do so would be too cruel, and he had, after all, said so righteously and so correctly: nobody should have to suffer. Unfortunately, the world and all its people had different plans. She looked at the clock in her bedroom. 1:07. She sighed, took her pain medication and her stress/relief pills, and slipped under the covers.

Within moments, the world had faded to black.

Sitting on the edge of the fold-out opposite David, the mattress protesting under my weight, a dart strikes my heart. Am I sinning irredeemably with this betrayal, this abandonment of ritual? The night of her funeral, an event I heard of later as I was too timid and guilty to attend, I had cried myself to sleep while clinging to the granite slab in disbelief. It was unusually clement that night, that year, comforting even, but comfort has little to do with the fact that I now should be freezing atop the barrier separating me from her. Instead, I am now warm in someone else’s home, at rest in someone else’s bed, and wearing someone else’s clothes—a departure even from my relatively normal routine where, in a medicinal stupor, I nakedly collapse atop sheets I can call my own, much to the offense of my roommate.

Needing to abandon all thought, I lean down and force my cheek against a lumpy pillow. It smells faintly of mothballs. Bedsprings bite at my side, and the unnatural sensation of sheets and garments coils around me with all the affliction their creases can inflict on my torso and neck. A few moments pass, and I shift my weight to smooth out the wrinkles, but that does nothing. Frustration creeps in, and, just as I determine to sit up and pull off this wretched shirt, a callow voice melts the stuffy air behind my back.

“Those are my older brother’s pajamas. My daddy killed him,” are as startling to me as the first words out of the kid’s mouth, and immediately any craven demand of physical appointment disperses behind a cloud of rage and sorrow. Before I can acclimate to the discussion in time to interrupt with a sincere, but utterly impotent, gesture of commiseration, he continues, flooding my mind with halting whispers of the cruel event.

It feels wrong that I am being so cold, so distant, when he is exposing so much. Perhaps he isn’t aware of it, of just how intimate these thoughts he freely shares will become in a matter of years.

As in every case, where I know what is proper, I ruminate over the implications and try to talk myself out of it—but there is no suitable evasion to withhold comfort. I roll to my other side, my legs bumping into his, and face him. David doesn’t retreat, but merely pauses in confusion, which he seems to dismiss for the sake of finishing his story. I have no idea how long he talks, but when he is done, I wrap my arm around him, say, “Goodnight, David,” pulling him him into a brief, clumsy hug.

It has been a while, but it feels right, so I allow it to continue.

A moist heat gathering over my heart breaks me out of my trance. His head is against my chest, and he is breathing evenly. By the time I gather the courage to tell him part of my tragedy, the soft, nasal whining of a snore accompanies the throaty sighs. He is asleep. Thinking better of the idea, I close my eyes, and pray for silence in my dreams, knowing I won’t receive it.

* * *

The next morning, it isn’t the oscillating blare of an alarm clock, but the persistent, high-pitch chime of a doorbell that rouses a man from his Tiger Milk coma.

Standing outside his door is Amanda Torres, just as she had been standing for the past five minutes; calmly, professionally, pressing the doorbell every minute on the minute. The angular planes of her face slope upward into a pinched mouth and intense blue eyes. Accompanied by the tight bun of auburn atop her head, her face gives the distinctive sensation of dissatisfaction and suspended belief. Straight shoulders, pulled back in a casual indifference, are held in place by a coal gray jacket that chisels the outline of her lean torso in straight lines, punishing the very notion of femininity. It drops down past her waist and flares out around her hips, hiding the top of her trousers, which are of similar lines and color.

Once more, she lifts her finger to the doorbell. It rings, and after a few moments the door opens. On the other side is a man, disheveled and unshaven. She had woken him up, evidently from a deep slumber. His pupils indicate he is hungover, although his breath doesn’t immediately reek of it.

‘A closet drinker,’ she surmises, reaching into her jacket and withdrawing her credentials. Pushing the badge under his nose, she says with a tone of sharp disdain, “I am Detective Amanda Torres, of the St. Glears Police Department. I would like to ask you some questions.”

“Huh?” the man says, clearly not awake enough to grasp what is happening.

“May I come in while I wait for you to get dressed?” she says, looking into his eyes. He is still having trouble concentrating.

“What’s this about?” he finally asks.

“A murder,” she replies, in a resolute but apparently bored tone. “This is very serious matter, and I would appreciate your cooperation.”

As realization dawns, so does sobriety and the torrent of reality that accompanies it. Memories return, floating atop waves of conscious, soaked in the spray of this destitute sea. I am nauseated, now feeling the immense gravity of my situation.

Though I am concerned, and my demeanor must surely show my unease, I attempt a smile and beckon her to step across the threshold. I turn, stumbling out of the entrance hall and down the corridor to my room. Faint red splotches adorn my knuckles, a single scabbing cut running along my left-middle-finger-knuckle. I rub them, as if to absolve myself of sin, and wipe away the evidence. My heart is beating, throbbing as I wallow in this deluge of guilt. But I know, deep down, that I am neither sorry nor remorseful; I feel guilt because society says I should. A spark of anger threatens to ignite this alcoholic haze: a paroxysm that looms ahead, a dark path of no return.

“Would you like something to drink?” I manage to shout whilst shoving my legs haphazardly into a pair of musty jeans; suddenly I realize I must not have been wearing anything but off-white briefs and a wrinkled dress shirt. A nervous laugh bubbles from my throat, as if unsure of whether to laugh or cry. Clad in casual attire, and a waning confidence in myself, I step back into the Hallway.

“No, thank you. I can wait until we get to the station.” She replies curtly, hiding behind her profession and a wall of feminist ideology, built to protect that fragile little ego. I know people like her, and their dishonesty with themselves makes me cringe with distaste.
“Well, please sit down.” I motion towards a couch, “Let me just grab some coffee and we can go.” My tone is surprisingly pleasant, deceptively calm. As my hand wraps around a mug, an impulse surges through my arm, my grip becoming deathly tight. I pour the cold, straight black coffee into the mug and quickly dodge around the counter. She has not sat down, I observe, instead fidgeting near the doorway, obviously anxious to leave.

I throw a worn leather jacket on, and step towards the door. She is already walking, and I hastily lock my door and turn to follow. I sip the coffee, grimacing from the bitter taste, boring holes into the back of her head with a glare. Already this day seemed onerous, and I could hardly imagine it becoming better. I wasn’t sure if I was scared, angry, or impassive. I seemed to cycle between them, unable to decide who I should be.
My fist ached with phantom pain, a recollection of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. My brain screams against it, reminding me of the consequences, of the rules of society. I remember once caring so much about my future and its promise, but this empty existence is tasteless and dry to my palate. The feelings and passion of the last night are growing, in memory, and at present; a phantasmagoria of spinning insanity and blood and screams.

My hand is poised to smash the ceramic mug against her pristine hair, but I hesitate, still bound by some vestige of morality. I redirect the motion into a sip, grimacing once more at the bitterness, and complacently walk at her side. With nothing to lose, I wonder, how long can it last.

“Wake up” a familiar, unwelcome voice snarls in Sod’s left ear.

A sharp boot to his ribs emphasizes the command.

Cracking open his eyes to permit a sliver of light the penetration of his weariness, Sod examines the shadow on the ground. Stout, with a mess of spiky hair made hard with lime. A battle hatchet dangling from a broad belt. Yes, he does know this fool.

“Hello, Kylun,” he acknowledges unhappily, dragging his chest out of the mud and adjusting his view to take in the angry, red, bulging silhouette. Wiping the front of his tunic off, he observes that the rain was not entirely his imagination. The mice are gone, but the pine stakes outlining the perimeter of the compound remain, and the time is—ah, who knows or cares of that triviality anymore? It is light, which means it is day, which means there is drudgery to endure.

“Aye, and to you, he who cannot settle on a name, and instead identifies himself with his role. When you left us, you were Scout. Then we called you Traitor. Well, now you are Prisoner. It suits you, don’t you think?” he hears Kylun inelegantly boast.

“I suppose it does,” Prisoner humbly replies.

“Hah! It certainly does. Well, Prisoner, you thought you could just defect and get away with it, eh?” Kylun asks of him, but—without the courtesy of awaiting a response—grips the scruff of Prisoner’s neck and compels him to his feet. His strong hand fills with the wooden haft of a short sword, the blade rusty and dull. “We’re marching, and if you don’t fight and die, we’ll kill you like the traitor you are.”

“Who are we fighting?” Prisoner asks.

“You damn well know who. We’re fighting the City.”

“Why?” Prisoner almost presses while automatically tucking the gladius into his belt, but stops short. Kylun will have no information as to the real purpose behind these conflicts; instead, he will vomit some nonsense about fighting because they are told to by their betters. Instead, Prisoner satisfies himself by declaring, “Something is terribly amiss.”

“Nevermind that,” Kylun answers with disinterest, “we’re moving out now.”

Indeed, Prisoner is not alone, nor had he been. Eyes of terror and resignation gaze up at him from pits in the ground, from which they cannot escape due to the seal. Other eyes, wide with horror and rage, but long since dead from impalement, peer skyward in a plea to any benevolent force capable of guaranteeing salvation—if not in this life, than in the next.

He cannot decide who are less fortunate, but his pity extends to those whose doom is a slow death by starvation.

Further away, beyond the fence, a body of soldiers is decamping. The trail of his boot prints matures toward that formation, beside which are those of Kylun. It is a mangy sort of assemblage, half nomad and half marauder, wearing inexpertly skinned and tanned animal pelts—still bloody—, belts of chain-link, and colorful wool—all held together with gristly pins of bone. Not out of necessity, but choice. To think these are businessmen, pastors, musicians, and politicians who deign to embrace this special degradation. Yet here, without absolutes, they choose to urinate, defecate, and spit tobacco openly before their comrades, male and female alike. Prisoner has no doubt the meat they engorge on as they secure their trappings may very well be what remains of some of their less fortunate captives.

“Why do I yet live?” Prisoner demands, not arrogantly, but necessarily.

He watches Kylun shrug absently, as if trying to recall an esoteric peculiar, then the rogue finally answers, “That”—there is a gesture toward the corpse-heavy stakes—“abuse means nothing when done to you. You delight in it, as though through the pain you might find redemption. Hah! You are an imbecile, I say, but one without will. Better to force you—but nevermind that! Did you hear, he was executed?”

“He who?” Prisoner instantly questions, his words reeling with an unnameable perturbation.

“Professor Cimerreau,” Kylun laughs.

Prisoner suddenly ejaculates “No!” and does not hear or say anything for a long while.

When he sees again, the daystar is burning hot against his neck, bodies are marching thick around him, the air is putrid, and a newsprint is in his hands. Kylun is saying, “It is gibberish, I dare say, but read it anyway and curse your life. Hah!”

He reads:

“The last words of Professor Arties Cimerreau, prior to his execution, follow.

‘Metaphoric of a parent deceiving a child to the belief that they may exceed their highest expectations in life, this world turns to a variety of Gods and prays its hollow petitions for perfection; a goal only resulting in the decimation of entire cultures, where hopes are dashed, spirits dwindle to ghoulish memorandum, and backs are stained with the vitae of a best friend’s melancholy betrayal. Emotional and spiritual genocide sweep the globe: a sphere menacingly turning on a spindle of hate. Created Gods, insinuated Gods, Gods cast into the abyss of fallacious denial, and wraiths echoing behind the footsteps of prospect, ever holding us back, pushing us forward, and casting us aside like rags. This is Mortal mind.

Where is the line drawn between possibility and insanity, crushed spirits and bruised knees? Foolishly leaping off cliffs with dreams of flight when walking has only recently been mastered, our aspirations are set far too high. Death or insanity are the only possible culminations of such extravagant goals. To dream, and to believe the dream, are two entirely separate realities. Mortality has suffered the consequences of such fool-hearty notions. Again, our goals are set to high. The result will be chaos, painful defeat, and in the end the clutch of darkness.

A deadly rift opens beneath our feet, subjecting us to an unbearable decision: shall we lower the bar or raise it? One hand is blackened with the lie that we can surpass our prior goals; goals we could not touch the heels of. The other holds a hammer yearning to descend on our unsuspecting forms, and dash us to pieces with the bitter reality of failure. Balance was lost when Justice removed her blindfold, when truth became subordinate to desire, when dust became flesh and flesh became lightning. So now, faced with this plight, where do our actions lead us? Into denials and distractions—anything to prolong the eulogy that keeps open our tomb.

Now standing a hairs-breadth away from the void of reason, the edge of a knife under our feet, and nothing preventing us from plummeting downward, the collective folly is realized. All the lies fed compulsively to one another lifetime after lifetime have ceased. Silence, prolonged and agonizing silence, holds the floor. We have fallen.’”

Prisoner gulps, and a tear inexplicably traces the pallid contour of his cheekbone. Yet, with an air of ignorance, despite the hole in his throat, he betrays, “What of it?”

Kylun, with great oratory dexterity, stemming from his acquisition of authority over Prisoner, confides, “Nobody knows! Devil take him, but he was nevertheless executed for it in the same clinical manner that he euthanized countless others for the glory of the City!”

“Something is terribly amiss,” Prisoner repeats.

“Nevermind that, I said!” Kylun spurts. “We’re almost there. See the lights? Those monstrosities of nature looming ahead of us?”

“You’re insane!” Prisoner gasps, realizing where they are and their intentions.

“There are thousands of us, trust us, Prisoner, we will make a dent in their pride,” Kylun asserts, his tone stern and for once actually threatening, a departure from its typical mirthful vulgarity. Certainly, their numbers are greater than before, and a swarm of brown, green, crimson, and pale yellow stretches out around him.

“This isn’t real,” Prisoner reassures himself, turning aside so as not to be heard.

* * *

‘Cooperation, but there is something creepy about this guy,’ Torres determines, securing the rear passenger door behind her lead. No cuffs, but the security cage is sufficient to keep him from pulling a reckless stunt. At the very least, it will keep her safe from him during the commute to the police station a few minutes downtown.

“Is it necessary to lock me up back here, lady?” he asks, just as every other civilian had, for the last fifteen years, inquired of her on the event their of first time in the back of a police car for non-recreational purposes.

Brief, sharp eye contact hammers her canned response home: “It is for your own safety.”

He rolls his eyes, and she makes a mental note of it.

After locking the passenger door, Torres walks behind the vehicle to the driver’s side, visually scanning for any inconsistencies. Nothing is out of place. Sliding in, she adjusts her rear view mirror so she can observe him and the road simultaneously. The compartment smells of cleaning product and is pristine; there are no food wrappings or bits of dust desecrating the hard plastic dash and fake leather bucket seats. No excess baggage, like the string of partners and relationships she had left behind the day she made detective. She stands tall on her own merits, now. The ridge between her eyes crinkles in a bizarre substitution for a smile, and she turns the key and starts the engine.

A sigh of satisfaction wouldn’t be unearned, but she settles for tensing the muscles of her jaw.

‘Best not to let him think I’m a pushover,’ she muses to herself; ‘It is better to appear hard than weak.’

Traffic is uneventful, and the red lights are less temperamental than usual. Most people are already where they aught to be at this hour of the morning, she realizes. Half past nine. The sky is overcast, threatening rain.

He asks a few questions on the way to the department, but she remains as grim as possible, expertly deflecting his curiosities with noncommittal verbiage. If he is guilty, let him sweat it out with worry; otherwise, if he isn’t, he has nothing to worry about, and this is just a minor inconvenience from whatever boring ritual he no doubt calls a life.

Six minutes later, she pulls to a stop in the parking lot behind the police station: an old, deteriorating, three story relic of grander times with red—some darker than others—brick construction, concrete reinforcement around the windows and atop the turrets at its four corners; the town’s initial armory and militia headquarters, when such concepts were necessary. For those not familiar with the building, it stands as a brutal fortification recalling to mind those ancient times when castles were red with the blood of opposing serf and yoemen armies and the shrieks of political opposition rang shrill in unsanitary dungeons.

To her, it is an immovable symbol of justice; a monument to security in uncertain, modern times.

Torres lets her charge out of the vehicle and escorts him beneath the keystone with the nigh-indistinguishable engraving St. Glears, 153rd Militia. She signs in, drops him off in an observation room, and promises to be back soon.