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Billy stands lost in the doorway, much smaller than I remember. Bruno barks, unsure of who he is, but eventually picks up Billy’s scent and lies back down. Billy has lost more weight and his cheeks sink in like tiny potholes, reminding me of one of those stray dogs we saw in Mexico last year rather than the thirty-two-year-old man I dreamed he’d grow up to be while carrying him in my stomach those long nine months.  My same brown eyes reflect back at me as my son gazes at me through long, fringy, matted hair. He holds out a tiny box-shaped gift wrapped in newspaper when a sudden breeze comes through the door, chilling me straight to my bones. Billy steps into the hallway, and I close the door, shuddering subtly as I take the present from my son’s weathered hands and wish he won’t stay too long this time. "Happy birthday, Mama!"  Billy hugs me, but I barely hug back, afraid he’ll snap in half, like one of those reused birthday-candles whose wax melted one too many times I keep in the pantry drawer.  My husband Will places my cake on the table and swings his arm around his namesake’s shoulders while they sing  Happy Birthday . Billy insists I make a birthday wish, so his father shuts off the lights and I close my eyes tight before blowing out the candles.  What could it hurt, I think, ashamed of my impulsive wish. My wishes never come true anyway, like my wish for a baby boy who'd have eyes the same shade of green as his daddy, a little boy who'd make friends easily in school, a teenager who'd return money he'd stolen from his aunt's purse or an addict who'd finally get sober. My husband never loses faith, but he always ends up heartsick and disappointed, and it makes me so mad. I've lost my son a dozen times over the years, and I'm tired of grieving.  Later that night in bed in the dark, Will asks, "What did you wish for?" I lie there quietly in my shame, pretending to be asleep.  ~~~~~~~~~~~ We last saw Billy ten months, three weeks, and two days ago–my birthday. Like most weekends, Will and I keep busy, leaving us less time for wondering. Will’s hands work a jigsaw puzzle while my hands work the needles in the yarn and the radio plays softly in the background.  Bruno growls strangely, even before the knock at the door.  Will fits one more piece in place and says, "I should go check."  My husband opens the door and takes two steps back. A man in uniform, hat in hand, steps inside and asks, "Are you the family of William Ward, Jr.?"  My husband turns toward me, eyes ablaze with what seems more like an accusation than grief, melting me until I snap in half like a used-up birthday candle and wish.  Margo has worked in public education for over thirty years and is the mother of two daughters and the best rescue dog ever, Harley. Her work has appeared in places such as Bending Genres, Maudlin House, The Dillydoun Review, MER, HAD, and Roi Fainéant Press. You can find her on Twitter @67MGriffin .

Reviews are actual. Story is fictitious.  * 1 star we all basically had to get drunk so we could make it through the night  When the five-star reviews slipped, George’s family gossiped: He was never equipped . He lacked the ambition   of his father (rest his soul). Relatives shook their heads knowingly from a comfortable distance, free from the burden of offering help.  Without his father to guide him, George wondered what to do each day. Initially, he wandered through the hotel, recreating scenes from The Shining  in the vast corridors with children-guests (“free tricycle rides!”). Yet he struggled to maintain the business while preserving his freedom to watch M*A*S*H reruns.  Every morning for as long as he could remember, his father Andreas had swiped the top of the marble reception desk, holding his dusty finger accusingly toward the clerks or commending its spotlessness when no soot took hold. George was jealous of the desk. He smiled wickedly to himself when someone insisted it was not marble, but dyed alabaster. The gorgeous twenty-foot limestone slab was shipped at great expense by George’s grandfather, Panagiotis, when he opened Hotel Poseidon on the boardwalk in the 1950s, funded by his wife’s seamstress income and investor friends with gambling spirits.  During the golden era of Hotel Poseidon, guests swarmed the hotel to be noticed, lounging by the Mediterranean-inspired poolside. They dined at its Michelin-starred restaurant, choosing the correct forks. Billowy beds comforted tired guests in luxurious, expansive suites, with private views of the Atlantic unfurling from ornate balconies. The hotel was the gem of the boardwalk. Some speculated a mob connection, but Andreas insisted the Greek mob was inactive, and the Italians had other priorities.  While Andreas surveilled the counter like a drill sergeant (“First impressions are everything!”) he failed to inspect one of the most troublesome places. George trailed after his father at the hotel, hoping to be fed. Andreas mistook George’s quiet disinterest as filial devotion. He crammed hospitality advice and cookies into his son’s head, dragging him to conventions and business meetings.  “Your boy is spoiled,” warned Panagiotis from his deathbed.  George watched his father’s hands as he waved at staff or helped the maids sweep the hallways. He envied his diamond-studded rings and gold chain bracelet. When Andreas waved at him to grab the broom, George pretended he saw something on the wall. Rather than work, he preferred offering small bursts of wisdom to improve the hotel. Andreas failed to recognize his son’s insights, dismissing remote-controlled vacuums, snack-delivering robots, and Ataris in every room.  George’s usual dark mood dispersed once when his father praised him for convincing a guest to upgrade their room. My son , Andreas gushed, unaware George had fabricated a bedbug infestation in their original suite. George’s beady eyes beamed up at his dad, his sallow cheeks coloring. Yet accolades were as rare as the steaks that sealed Andreas’ fate. Mostly, Andreas found fault. He nagged George about his shoes (“Put them on!”) and attire (“I said business suit, not sweatsuit!”) Privately, he worried his son might be dim-witted like a faltering light bulb. George overheard this concern and something inside him sank. He thought of his sister in college. Though he had no inclination toward learning or books, he aspired to appear bright. Finally, the opportunity to shine materialized. An urgent business matter summoned Andreas to Los Angeles. He patted his son’s back. “I need you to respond to ALL reviews while I’m away.”  George vowed to impress his father.    *** 3 stars: Buddha, A voice of acceptance  Rounded down from 3.5 stars. Great view. Hated the carpet, but what can you do. George flinched when Andreas shook his shoulders. “ ’If you don’t like it, leave the country ?’ George, your grandparents were immigrants!” Having failed again, George stared at his bare feet, eager to return to the pool. “You said to respond to all reviews,” he mumbled. The next summer, Andreas fell backward into this same pool while chatting with soon-to-be-alarmed guests. Speculations followed his heart stoppage: Too much lobster and steak. Grief due to his louse of a son. George was like Queen Elizabeth, some hyperbolized, taking the throne at 25, such a tender age. How will he find his shoes, let alone manage his family legacy?  ** 2 stars: Nice view The view of the ocean was nice...the elevator wasn't working sometimes. Staff were nice. George made immediate preparations to manage the hotel successfully. He wore his late father’s rings, but they slipped off his thin fingers and he lost them. He also spoke to staff using his father’s casual tone. “Howya doin’, Gail?” he said, winking at Gail, or maybe Gertrude. Complaints were tiresome, so he forbade anyone to share them once he took over. He instructed his special assistant, Sammy, to print only positive reviews and, after showing him, to deliver them to the Boardwalk Bulletin.  Maybe they would write a story about his hotel and drum up business.     With dwindling guests, George dismissed several staff, including the chambermaid Betty. He was pleased at this money-saving opportunity since she was hired by his grandfather and was the highest paid. Sammy pled with his boss to give staff notice. George scoffed. “I’m a businessman, not in social services.”  When a positive review appeared again, George rejoiced. He would continue his family legacy and please his father, beaming down at him from his heavenly suite. ***** 5 stars: A nice stay Hello Betty This is Will from Room 250 . You were so awesome and nice to us. Sorry we didn't see you when we left last Saturday. Had a blast. We will have to book again soon. Have a grest day. Hope you get to see this Given so few positive reviews, Sammy began compiling neutral ones. After congratulating himself, George asked, “Who’s Betty?”, only half interested. He grabbed a handful of veggie straws from his desk and re-read the review, wondering why he was not mentioned. He sighed then headed to the tiki bar, where he went every morning since his father died.  “Hola! The usual, jefe?” Jorge greeted him under the thatched roof of the cantina, partly shading him from the morning sun. George covered his eyes from the blinding reflection of the beer taps and nodded. He liked Jorge, whose name he knew because of the “Jorge” plaque on the bar and since they shared a name, even though Jorge’s was spelled wrong. (He assumed “Hore-hay” was a Spanish nickname for “bartender.”) “Turn off that tropical music crap, George!” he complained, running his finger along the bar to check for dust like his father, but doing nothing if it appeared. “I can’t hear myself think.”  He walked to the pool loungers with his Long Shore Iced Tea. He smiled to himself, remembering his father’s advice: Stay close to the guests. Sometimes, he even lay on a lounger next to guests, which increased turnover. An opportunity, George knew, to entertain more guests.  ** 2 stars: Great bartender  The so-called restaurant was not staffed. Ice Machine is broken. Ice cost .50. Even Motel 6 has free ice. Two stars for the tiki bartender who was nice. Tiki bar could have used some outdoor background music.     George, a man of routine, read the morning paper after his drink. He continued receiving his father’s hard copy since he did not know how to cancel the subscription. Andreas’ office had been behind reception to monitor the front desk. George felt this proximity a violation of privacy, namely his own. Nosy staff could misconstrue his inactivity as an invitation for theirs. He opted to relocate his idleness to the finest penthouse (suite 500). He enjoyed the room service, the 360 degree views, and many long naps.  One morning, George gasped. Jorge was not at the tiki bar. He tramped to the front desk: empty. Had he fired everyone? He stormed back toward the lobby elevators to return to his room but slammed his fist on the wall when the elevator never arrived. He kicked the luggage left carelessly by the stairwell. His mood improved when Sammy brought him a positive review.  ***** 5 stars: Ocean view Oh my God beautiful view. Simply gorgeous and even though the elevators were broke we still had help getting all of our luggage up there. George asked Sammy to organize a mandatory staff party both to locate staff and thank everyone who remained. Only Jorge and Sammy showed. Sammy assured him it was not personal. After twelve-hour shifts, climbing five flights of stairs might prove difficult. George cursed the no-shows, but not by name since he didn’t know them.  Undeterred, he decided to throw more parties and invite key business people. “It’s a numbers game,” he confided to Sammy. Soon, a tall flaxen-headed maiden emerged from the stairwell, out of breath from traipsing up five flights. “Good God. Why isn’t the AC working?” She swiped pooling sweat from her peachy forehead. If it weren’t for her beauty and three Long Shores, George may have ignored her since she mostly complained. Vivian Ann hated parties; she came for the networking. Yet he stood transfixed as she told him about her degree in hospitality management from the esteemed University of Phoenicia (slogan: You’re going U.P.! ). Her knowledge could right Hotel Poseidon’s rough ship, so George somehow persuaded her to nuptials.  Vivian--the next Steve Wynn?--began her tenure during a challenging period for the hotel catalyzed by Jorge’s unsolicited feedback. “Jefe, a guest jumped from their suite into the bushes rather than take the stairs.”  George, showing off for his new wife, did not hesitate. “Remove the bushes.”  * 1 star: Stuck We CARRIED our stuff up because we got STUCK in the hot elevator. Thank God I tried opening the door because it worked and we got out. Today when we checked out someone was stuck in there for 10 minutes and counting. Two small children tumbled forth from the newlyweds, playing with outlets in their grandfather’s abandoned office in soiled diapers. They squealed and toddled by the feet of desk clerks to keep them company. The clerks embraced the responsibility, missing their own offspring while working double shifts.  In addition to facilitating unpaid daycare, Vivian increased the cost of ice to $1 (inflation) and made an “out of order” sign so weary guests no longer frantically poked the elevator button before returning exasperated to the empty lobby. She retrieved fallen bricks from the building and placed them into a bucket near the shaft gap of the fourth floor elevator (where it remained stuck). She duct taped yellow crime scene tape (found by the former bushes) from the bucket across the opening. Staff dropped their cigarette butts into the bucket or down the shaft, depending on their mood. ***** 5 stars: Beautiful location Don’t let all the bad reviews scare you from the Poseidon! I still booked it for the ocean view. Would recommend! Our front door didn’t close very well, but it locked at night. Staff smoked in the lobby, but that was fine with me. Oh, and the elevator was working while I was there! Once a week, Sammy lumbered up five flights of stairs to his two bosses since positive reviews had trended up from one per fiscal quarter. Sammy was hesitant to share the latest review, not entirely sure if it was positive, negative, or a mix. Seeing the five stars, he warily showed George the paper.  George leaned back in his chair and smiled up at Vivian. “My Viv. You are unstoppable.”  Vivian lifted her chin and handed the review back to Sammy. “I couldn’t do it without you, dear.” Sammy, relieved, drove to the Boardwalk Bulletin .   * 1 star: Payola They have an offer. If you give them a good review, you get money off for your next stay.  As an independent thinker, Vivian took the opposite course suggested by so-called experts. Case studies her professors shared as cautionary tales piqued her sense of creative empowerment as she ran experiments to prove them wrong.  ***** 5 stars: Will stay again! Such a great stay !!!! The rooms were clean. and the staff so accommidating. I will stay again!! Guests returned regardless of their ability to spell or form complete sentences. Each exclamation mark, an exponential success! Yet one day George gasped at the spreadsheet Vivian gave him with their latest financials. Profits had decreased exponentially. This would dip into his fun fund. Vivian wiped her forehead and snatched the report back, inspecting it closely.  “It has a few misprints, I see,” she sighed. “I’ll get you a corrected version, dear.” She blamed the secretary fired months ago. Fortunately, George’s memory for staff or numbers disintegrated like sand castles at high tide.  George encouraged Vivian to fire the operations manager he supervised, what’s-his-name, so she could oversee staff directly and he could finish season six of Little House on the Prairie . He kissed her grateful face. “Your degree and interpersonal skills are a gift.” Thereafter, the buck stopped with her, especially when she pocketed crumpled cash tendered for room payments by older guests and conspiracy theorists not wanting to be “tracked.” She fielded complaints and problem-solved with front desk clerks. Some enjoyed her help so much they left the desk to her for hours. * 1 star: The customer is wrong I can’t believe how unprofessional "Viv", the owner's (George’s) wife is. She’s the most rude, inconsiderate, and threatening business owner I have ever met. She yells and uses profanity when speaking with her staff and customers (that’s me). Every morning after guzzling his Long Shores (garnished with fresh mint because Vivian complained about his breath) George ambled by reception, standing tall. He and Viv exchanged loving smiles even when she patted his hand to stop it from swiping the desk.  One morning, Reception was empty, so George shrugged and walked toward the elevator. A wildly gesticulating guest blocked his path to the stairwell. “Where is everyone?”  George detested arguments, which always led to work. He thought about his father and gathered courage, holding his hands behind his back, standing tall.    “Sir, I can … help here … you?” He sounded flat, contrived. Sweat gathered between his toes.  George did not understand most of the customer’s words, but felt a flash of insight. He handled the matter with the authority of his father and grace of his wife. The front desk clerk returned from wherever they were with the maid and glared at him. George felt their admiration as the customer marched off. Inspired, he took a washcloth and bar of soap to clean a sink in one of the rooms.  * 1 star: Nogo I didn’t stay!! Elevator broken so my 80 year old parents had to walk 6 flights to see a disgusting and dirty, bug ridden set of rooms. Tried to get them to refund us immediately. The owner George told us we were never getting our money back bc his hotel was beautiful and he’s never had a complaint. Meanwhile the maid told us not to stay there and another family was leaving too. We had to press criminal charges with the police on advice from Mayor Asimnos. Reported to Chamber of Commerce, Board of Health, and BBB.  Though George never read negative reviews, Vivian had no such policy. She prided herself on her professionalism no matter how poor an impression their hotel left on nine out of ten guests. She felt a sudden urge to pivot.      “George, we need to talk.”  He leaned back in his father’s old chair, his bare feet crossed on the desk. He set aside the cartoon section and gazed up languidly, puzzled by her serious tone. He wiggled his toes to entertain her. She ignored his feet and put her hands on her hips.  “I’ve made an executive decision.”  George shrunk before Vivian’s towering body. His feet fell to the floor like twin soldiers and he sat at attention. He tried to follow her voice but the words clattered around aimlessly in his head. Shrieks from the balcony distracted him. Sammy had begun storing the children out on the “play porch” while he worked nearby, afraid to report they had pulled out several electrical outlets in other rooms.  “Usually Sammy takes the children away.” He gestured toward the noise, hoping to distract her, too. Yet in contrast to George’s deficit, Vivian’s attention was pure surplus.  “I want to change our name.” She lifted her hands to indicate each word as if on a marquee: “‘The Poseidon Oceanfront Resort.’” George flinched. An unexpected pang of loyalty to his family’s legacy overcame him. “What’s wrong with Hotel Poseidon?”  “Oh, honey,” she said, tussling his hair. “Leave the business decisions to me.”  George frowned. He rarely challenged her, more out of apathy than fear. Her education also intimidated him, and he stared down at his toes. Vivian smiled. “Cute toes!” He tucked them in and remained silent.  Vivian knew perception was key. As she learned in marketing, words were at least as important as actual services in the customer’s experience. The results were immediate. Sammy printed the first almost-good review in months. Still, sweat trickled down his temple since it was not altogether positive.  ** 2 stars: Bar tender was incredible ELECTRICAL OUTLETS WERE FALLING OUT OF THE WALL. No point in complaining tho. Two good things about this hotel, 1. The bar tender WENT TO THREE different stores to find mint to make us mojitos, and the walk to the beach was great. George glowed, but Vivian shook her head. Why didn’t Jorge ever stock enough mint? He knew those drinks were popular. She highlighted “mint” in green then scribbled on the review: inventory mgmt! Sammy, feeling slightly nauseous, beckoned the shrieking children down the corridor. They giggled and toddled after him to the vending machines, selecting their favorite chips and cookies by banging on the glass. He lugged the tots and treats to the swimming pool, where they fed stray cats and seagulls, throwing crumbs around the ledge and into the water, laughing. Sammy had let them adopt the cats after they dragged them into the hotel one day. He added “feed the cats” to his list of ever-increasing chores, hoping the children’s happiness would correlate positively to his continued employment.     The name refresh garnered a few new bookings, but to Sammy’s dismay, the reviews for their “resort” began a familiar pattern.  *  1 star: A pool for everyone The first room we were put in was like the maids quarters. The top lock didn’t even lock. The second room they upgraded us to had a kitchen but also a lot of rust and a moldy cat piss smell. A used washcloth and an open bar of soap were on the sink. 90% of the vending machine was sold out and the ice machine was also broken. The air conditioner in the building barely worked the rooms were humid and smelled. The pool walls and floor were slimy and has seagulls swimming in it!  Vivian stood next to the ice machine, her brows furrowed intently as she tightly grasped a wrench and glanced from her phone to the machine. She scribbled something on a piece of paper. Sammy saw her  and rushed to tell Jorge the machine was being repaired. He slumped against the wall and crossed himself. He would no longer need to fetch ice from the store. He walked up three flights of stairs with a cooler, but was stopped cold by the sign: WANT ICE? GO TO ANTARCTICA . Jorge rushed back past the tiki bar to grab his car keys, waving at Vivian and George who lounged by the pool. They pointed at their empty glasses. The children floated in colorful tubes, chasing the gulls.  *  1 star THIS PLACE IS BY FAR THE WORSE YET, YOU WILL NOT SLEEP TIGHT BECAUSE THE BED BUGS WILL BITE Vivian implemented another concept from her university education: cross-training. She decided all staff should perform more than one job. Though her motivation arose from staff shortages rather than staff development, she presented the change as an “opportunity for growth.” She proposed the barkeep maintain the grounds and gardens, the front desk staff assist the maids, and the valets double as repair persons. She awarded one valet “Employee of the Month” after she fixed the ice machine, placing her framed photo by the scoop.   George cursed when Jorge called him to settle a dispute. He reluctantly approached the front desk manager slash maid Jennifer as she stood restrained by Jorge, the barkeep slash landscaper and security guard.  George no longer needed to ask “Where is Vivian?” since staff now intercepted him preemptively. “Vivian is shopping for air fresheners and new bedding,” Jorge said, struggling to capture Jennifer’s wayward arm.  George stomped his bare foot. “Crap always happens when she’s gone!”  “I just can’t take it anymore!” Jennifer yelled to no one in particular. She tried to slam her fist for emphasis but Jorge caught it.   “What’s happening?” George asked, without wanting to know.  “That jerk stole our microwave!”  “What jerk?”  “The guest jerk! All they do is complain. Then they take the microwave! Hey, let me go!” Jorge loosened his grip. “I’m sorry,” he apologized, “But you tried to hit him….” “I’ll bring this matter to Vivian, post-haste!” George said pre-haste, in a confused yet authoritative tone, then trudged off to his suite before more could be asked of him.  George sank into his couch and watched Oprah and ate popcorn. Upon Vivian’s return, he had all but forgotten the incident. She dumped piles of evergreen-shaped “new car” and “fresh beach” fresheners on his desk then sorted them. She paged Sammy. “Hang these in every bathroom,” she said, handing him the “new car” bag. “And these,” she handed him the second bag, “Near each entrance. When a guest enters the room, the first sensation they encounter will be….” she inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. “The beach,” she sighed.   George dropped a kernel on the floor and one of the toddlers stuffed it into her mouth. The phone rang and he glanced toward Vivian. Her nose was buried in the bag of “new car” Sammy held awkwardly for her while he answered the phone. “Ma’am, it’s Jennifer.”  Vivian cradled the phone with her neck. “It’s simple,” she rolled her eyes. “Charge them for the microwave.”  Sammy broke away then paused at the door. “Uh, one thing…”  “What?” Her crimson lips tightened into chili peppers. The brand refresh failed to conjure the glut of positive reviews she expected, and her mood had soured. Sammy regretted speaking.  “ I…it’s just that…there are no microwaves in the rooms. We never…” The girl toddler began choking. “Are you contradicting me?” Vivian turned to look at her child curiously. Her face had turned blue-green. She rushed to her side. Sammy dropped the bags and, in a single swipe, extracted the kernel.  Vivian grabbed him by his shoulders. She shook him. “You saved her life, Samuel!” He dropped his head, which wobbled as she continued to shake him. “You will be rewarded.”  * 1/5 stars:  Microwaves Disgusting. I wish i didn't have to give any stars. The dirtiest hotel I have ever stayed in. The vents look like they haven't been cleaned in years. Everything has rust and grime on it. There were fruit flys everywhere! Whenever we needed something the front desk/maid had the worst attitude. We had a kitchen, and the smoke detector was removed. We had to switch rooms because the ac didn't work in the first one, and then the desk/maid accused us of stealing the microwave from the first room, that was never even there. A microwave!!!!!!! DO NOT STAY HERE!  Sammy noticed flies swarming around half-full energy drink cans and a sticky substance along the baseboard. He approached Jennifer about missing this grime during the maid portion of her shift.  “First I’m in trouble for taking naps. Now I solve the problem, and still get heat?” She swung her arm back from the desk as if to pummel him. Sammy quickly ducked, but she just pulled a key from a hook without looking and handed it to the younger of two men checking in.  Now slightly afraid, Sammy told Vivian how well Jennifer managed the desk. She could almost do the job in her sleep, he added. Vivian replaced Samuel’s photo with Jennifer’s on the template George mistakenly printed, crossing out “Wanted” in Sharpie and writing “Employee of the Month.” She treated her to a manicure. Viv loved an entourage, but also knew staff, like customers, must be kept happy. Besides, Jennifer’s nails were the first thing guests saw. They should make an impression.  Things would turn around, Sammy reasoned, if he could help his bosses manage the small details. He decided to clean up after the front desk/maids to ensure smooth operations, and check the fly traps. When an older guest collapsed following a five-story climb, Sammy felt grateful he had learned first aid as part of Vivian’s cross-training program. George, passing by, bent over to invite him for a drink. Sammy made an unintelligible noise due to his CPR administration. George paused momentarily, shrugged, then walked away.  Afterward, Sammy slumped against the wall, exhausted. He began smoking just to get breaks, hiding in vacant rooms and staring out at the ocean. He vowed to get his life in order as soon as he had a moment to think. When he heard beeping in his head, he knew he must lie down, if only for five minutes.  * 1/5 stars: Don’t fall off little alarm They gave us our keys and there was someone already in that room, the customer service was garbage, they were never at desk or they where nodding off at the counter. The elevator very rarely worked, making it difficult for my older father going up the stairs to 5th floor along with another guest who literally looked like he needed an ambulance after doing all those stairs. Our room smelled like mold and mildew and we had to leave balcony door open in order not to feel sick from the smell, the fire alarm was beeping and falling off the wall. Paint on walls were chipped and crumbling off.    After his nap, Sammy stopped by the tiki bar to find George. He feared he took his lack of response personally. George, sipping a minty Long Shore, seemed unperturbed. He patted Sammy on the back.   “Samuel!”  Sammy cringed when Vivian’s menacing tone surged across the pool. She rushed toward him. He would tell her he revived an AC unit and a guest earlier to show his break was well deserved. He felt less like a special assistant and more like a servant.  “Can you paint?” Vivian panted, sweat beading up by her hairline from the quick sprint.   Though Sammy only painted once (in fact, the room instigating Vivian’s request) he replied, “Yes, ma’am.”  George, disliking work chatter, took a drink to Jennifer to help her relax. Not finding her at the desk, he gave it to the other front desk/maid, who downed it like a shot.  * 1 star The room had a stench of cigarettes. You can almost taste it. There was mold around the AC. The bed was uncomfortable and there was trash from a previous tenant. I went down the next day to complain and was met by an employee who said the staff went to get their nails done, and she didn't look/talk quite sober. We stood on the 5th floor and the elevator was broken. Location to the beach is great.  Vivian sensed George distancing himself from resort operations. Combined with her aversion to accounting and desire to pursue the “big picture” (rewarding clerks with manicures) she assigned him the bi-weekly payroll.  In a rare moment of alacrity and innovation, he discovered a way to automate the task so he would not have to do it. Simply enter the information into a free program he found online, and magic: Everyone gets paid.   ** 2/5 stars The Elevator didn’t work when we arrived so we had to carry all our luggage up to the 5th floor luckily they had it running by the end of the day but it didn’t feel safe. Our door barely shut properly if we didn’t slam it, it could be simply pushed open. Sadly we over heard the maids saying they didn’t get paid and that the owner “forgot” to do the payroll for them and it isn’t the first time it’s happened.  Vivian noticed a surplus of funds in their account and decided to repair the elevator. She asked Sammy for quotes, then found George at the front desk since the front desk/maid had passed out. She told him she read how wearing shoes indoors generated more moisture, leading to dirt and toxic residue in carpets. George, a long-time proponent of walking barefoot (putting on socks was tiresome) nodded his approval vigorously.  Vivian instituted a no-shoes while cleaning policy, which the desk clerks slash maids initially ignored. Eventually, they found it freeing to clean the rooms barefoot, carefully minding any needles or worms. (The latter staff wrapped in bedsheets, then flushed down the toilet. Some sheets were bloody anyway from cleaning their foot wounds.)   * 1/5 stars The rooms were super nasty, rooms smelt like dirty feet, mold in the bathroom. My sisters bathroom in her room, the paint was peeling and the toilet wouldn't stop running! Sheets are terribly stained, worms in rooms. Owner is a creep! The only exception Vivian made to the no-shoe policy was for the janitor/chefs in charge of cleaning the pool after they reported ruptured feet. A liability. As Vivian walked through the second-floor hallway she saw a guest stop and point at the maid’s bare feet, about to complain. She could sense a complaint forming like a wave cresting. Quickly, she redirected.  “Are you a Gemini?”   ** 2/5 stars My blanket had a blood stain on it, but the location is amazing. If you’re religious you wanna throw up a prayer before getting in the elevator and for the love of God bring sandals to wear around the pool. I think they used broken glass as a filler in the concrete. But again... amazing location. George bought an outdoor fireplace to install by the tiki bar. He noticed Jorge shivering during the colder months, and took pity on his inability to mix a good drink while shaking. Jorge thanked him profusely for the addition, though the warmth only reached George at his barstool. He then bought two dozen tiki torches and told Jorge to light them up around the entire hotel every night. “Since you’re still shaking,” he said generously.  Sammy emerged from the poolside showers with the children, dripping. “Thank you, boss,” Sammy said, rubbing his hands together, watching wearily as the children toddled too close to the flames. “Just a reminder to pay staff double this pay period.”  Though George accidentally sent the last batch of checks to Nigeria, he blamed no one except the Nigerians and his staff. “People and their money!”  * 1 star The awning above the entrance to the lobby caught fire while we were there. No alarms were sounded and no one came to the room or called the phone to advise us to evacuate until the fire department gave the all clear. I only knew because I heard the fire trucks. Sammy hauled the children downstairs when they demanded to see the fire engines. Before, he would have cringed in anticipation of a negative review. Yet each unfavorable review meant bookings somehow continued, and, he felt with gratitude, his job.     *  1 star Pros: Location Cons: It SMELLS, you have to go to the 3rd floor to PAY for ice. It looks like 1980 inside Despite the customer always being right, returning guests seemed to ignore the opinions of their brethren. Vivian’s initial enthusiasm for making improvements waned with each year as there did not seem to be a cause and effect. Despite her efforts, the complaints continued, but so did the bookings. She spent less time managing and more time reading mystery novels while Sammy homeschooled her children by the poolside.  The Poseidon Oceanfront Resort boldly continued crumbling over the imposing Atlantic. George and Vivian watched a tall wave break on the beach for the thousandth time under the dishwater sky of January, hungover after ringing in 2020. What else could go wrong, they laughed together from their balcony. We have dealt with everything. Eleni writes literary fiction exploring the interplay between compassion, civilization, and wildness. She likes to laugh at/with herself and others. She is writing her first novel and several short stories and creative non-fiction pieces. Her Op-Eds have been published in The New Republic and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She also creates comedy skits and drums for a diy indie rock band . Her favorite food group is vegan cupcakes. She was raised in Seattle and has grown older in Durham, NYC, Philly, and now Athens, Greece. Join her on Instagram @ elenibinge  & https://www.facebook.com/EleniDVlachos

It was David who brought it up. “So your boyfriend made a movie,” he hollered at me out the car window. David is my husband. Eighteen years. He’s funny, right? Because I don’t have a boyfriend.  This was in January: a Friday, still dark out at 7:20 in the morning, and fifteen below. David sat in the driver’s seat of his electric blue Nissan Leaf, reverse lights on, ready to back out of the driveway to deliver the three children to their three respective schools. My fingers were bare, dexterous so as to fasten Lennon, my youngest, into his car seat, which not-quite accommodates him in winter, cocooned from chin to toe in what looks like a tiny spacesuit. After kissing Lennon’s balaclava-clad forehead, I slammed the back door when David – fifteen below! – rolled down the passenger-side window and leaned across Paige, our 12-year-old daughter.  I was not quite sure how to respond, so I pretended to not hear him.   “Ew. Mom has a boyfriend?” Paige asked, disgusted.  I briefly covered my smile with my hands, exhaling a bit of warmth into them. Then I blew kisses and my fogged glasses obscured whether I received any in return. Paige’s window rose shut. I was taking a much-earned PTO day. I coordinate the performance art programming at the local modern art museum and while you don’t do that for the money, I’d amassed comp time amidst a tsunami of night-and-weekend holiday events we’d just wrapped up. The subzero temperatures limited my menu of day-off options, but I’d settled on two indulgences once I caught up on laundry: a hot yoga class at Inergy, and an entire glorious afternoon nestled on our sunroom couch with my down comforter and a book that had nothing whatsoever to do with parenting or performance art.  But David’s remark in the driveway rather disrupted my self-care extravaganza. David was referring, I could only imagine, to Metadata  – Blake Bentley’s first feature-length film. It had been on my radar since August, and Allie had confirmed its release via text a week before: OMG. Metadata!!! You will DIE. It’s on Netflix.  Allie is my former college roommate, a real live Hollywood actress who you probably don’t know by name but whose face you would certainly recognize, and also and more importantly she’s my very best friend, dubious career choice notwithstanding.  At any rate, I still don’t know how or when David heard about Blake’s film and I don’t think I’ll ask. Films aren’t really David’s thing. And good Lord neither is Blake Bentley. I don’t even keep up with Blake’s career. I mean, when I’m reminded it exists, I do feel vaguely happy for him. He’s arrived, hasn’t he? That’s nice.  But generally, Blake does not cross my mind.  I haven’t even seen him since 2005. He told me then that making movies was all he wanted in life, though on that particular occasion, he wasn’t optimistic. We were both twenty-six. Baby adults. Blake worked in advertising, self-loathing and sullen about selling out and resentful of the rare successes some of his film school classmates were seeing. Not long after, actually the same year I was promoted to Associate Performance Arts Curator at the museum, a position I hold to this day, Blake won a big award for a cell service commercial. It starred Bea Arthur and debuted during the 2008 Olympics. It was, I think quite objectively, hilarious – I always found Blake hilarious. But anyway, for him, that commercial was a game changer. In Blake’s final email to me, sent on Wednesday, September 26, 2009, right after my daughter Paige landed on earth and right before Blake’s (first) wedding, he mentioned that his sitcom pilot had been picked up. I read the email while pumping in a museum bathroom stall. Typing one-handedly on the laptop perched precariously on my thighs, I replied: “That’s amazing!!!” He never wrote back. I have never since included more than one exclamation point in an email. The show ended up being wildly popular, but for some time I avoided watching it. This was the long-nights-short-years stage: as soon as Paige hit thirteen months and started sleeping through the night, her brother Archer was conceived, and we barely weathered the two-under-two storm. Four years later, on the horizon a future where mortgage-sized daycare bills, febrile seizures, and BPA-free sippy cups were but distant memories, David was promoted to the chief suite and we overindulged in two celebratory bottles of Krug Vintage Brut. It was after Lennon was born nine months later when I finally did watch Blake’s show.  Allie had been in between projects and flew out to Minneapolis to lend a hand while David traveled to Dublin for a tech conference. Allie was useless where changing diapers or reading bedtime stories was concerned. But every night, once the kids were down, she made us each an Old Fashioned, I pumped and dumped, and we binge-watched all five seasons of “Choose A Life.” The show capitalized on late ‘90s L.A. nostalgia: the brooding disenchantment of not-quite-making-it in the entertainment industry. But it was glossy and cute for primetime, so no cocaine. Allie had slept with two of the supporting-role actors featured in Season 4.  “You gave me chlamydia, asshole!” she shouted at my 72” flatscreen. “Gross. I’m sorry.” “It’s treatable,” she shrugged. Allie can shrug off anything.  Hormonal, sleep-deprived, slightly drunk, and officially outnumbered by humans incapable of meaningfully contributing to their own daily survival, I could see through blurry eyes the show’s appeal. It evoked a pulse, or maybe a sense of place, that made me homesick. But Blake had not transcended the tortured artist trope. The main characters were three male roommates in their early thirties, all stuck on the artist’s pendulum, vacillating between grandiose and doubtful, as they tackled in every episode a different existential crisis, a different complication in their predictable romantic entanglements with girl in adjacent apartment / artsy barista girl / girl dating best friend. And these women were props. Conventions to propel the plot, centered on the real stars: the vortex that is Los Angeles and a trio of impossibly attractive, self-defeating men all clearly addicted to intensity. My therapist once theorized that Blake was addicted to intensity.  You know who is not addicted to intensity? David Rockwell, my husband. Eccentric first impression aside, he’s a very steady person. No swinging pendulum. An occasional bad day, sure, when he’s battling a cold or misplaced his keys or when Apple stock has plummeted or news of a thorny HR issue has just graced his inbox. But generally, he’s neither stuck nor self-defeating. To my knowledge, no femme-props thrust his narrative.  David runs the IT department of a medical device start-up. He emerged as a sort of software wunderkind during the tech boom of the early 2000s, and got his first six-figure job at seventeen. He has always preferred to be called David – not Dave, never Davey – because David afforded him a more authoritative air when, unable yet to grow facial hair, he had started out in his field. Now he has a generous beard, mostly silver, although the hair on his head is still dark. David regularly reads The Economist , bakes two loaves of 100% whole wheat sourdough every other Sunday, and meditates at the lakefront Zen Center on Friday mornings before the rest of us are even awake.  I met David on a Thursday night in March of 2002. Three months earlier, I’d packed up my entire life into a teal Honda Civic and driven from Santa Cruz to Minneapolis. The draw was an entry-level job in the Walker Art Center’s communications department.  David was a regular at the Walker’s “Next Gen Modern” events – booze-infused, invitation-only parties meant to secure the charitable dollar of young professionals in the Twin Cities before some other non-profit got it first. My colleagues and I were required to attend, supplying social lubrication on an as-needed basis. Everyone hangs out with their high school friends in the Twin Cities, so being fairly new to Minneapolis – and two thousand miles away from my own high school friends – I was happy to have something to do at night. Even if it was technically work and necessitated branching out of my own diminutive tax bracket.  David introduced himself while we both waited in the cash bar queue – Next Gen Modern’s hotbed of flirtatious possibility. He wore a dark gray Hugo Boss suit and I immediately wondered whether the number on its price tag had exceeded my monthly salary. He was cute, in a Scandinavian way, and tall, which I like, and he leaned down to hear me through the din. He laughed freely at my jokes and maintained eye contact throughout our conversation, not once scanning the room to evaluate preferable networking opportunities or blonder, leggier women. Maybe this was normal adult behavior, or Midwestern behavior, I didn’t know. But hitherto I had not experienced such undivided attention, while dressed anyway. Once we each held a stemmed plastic flute of sparkling wine, I touched his forearm as an experiment. He leaned in a bit closer and it was then that I noticed his lips: juicy delicious, I’d later tell Allie. David seemed to read my mind: “Do you like tacos?” We kissed in the Walker Sculpture Garden while waiting for a cab, and then again at Chino Latino in between margaritas, and then more vigorously in the back of the second cab we shared that night. As the driver idled outside my Loring Park apartment, David sucked on my bottom lip so hard that it evolved into a hickey by morning, which I didn’t know was possible.  The next day, slightly hungover and wearing maroon lipstick, I interviewed my work colleagues to discern the appropriate passage of time before I could call him. Was two days too eager? David texted at 11 a.m. Do you have lunch plans?  When I met him outside the Uptown Diner thirty minutes later, he placed his hands on my cheeks, bent down so that our faces were inches apart, and said, “I like you so much.”  Now, of course, our origin story is two decades stale and buried beneath the mundanities of family life: permission slips, mac and cheese, wrinkled math homework and stray Lego bricks; ripe, sweaty pajamas strewn on the living room rug; sock balls proliferating like dust bunnies beneath beds, couches, radiators. But then, I found David’s initial enthusiasm almost embarrassing. It dawned on me, though. David wasn’t amassing material or narrating a sexier version of his life as it unfolded. He would never write a book about meeting me, dwell on details like my margarita-sweet mouth or the fogged-up windshield of the cab. David never notices the details. I don’t know what he notices. I was Californian and artsy and I suppose I added texture to his already-clear track. Whenever our evening schedules kept us apart, he called. On week two, David was on the phone with his mother when I overheard him refer to me as his girlfriend. Blake Bentley, on the other hand, never called. I was never his girlfriend. We first crossed paths at a party in February of our junior year – I was at Cal Arts, Blake at USC. Allie and I hosted the party at Allie’s mysteriously rich Uncle Carl’s condo in Santa Monica, where we’d been enlisted to housesit for two weeks and feed three moody cats.  For years this party was legendary in the collective memory of those in attendance. Allie finally sealed the deal with Lance Olsen, who’d fancied her since welcome week at Cal Arts but only that night temporarily ditched his Mormon teetotalism and garnered enough liquid courage to make his move. Two seniors known fondly as the Gay Justins got so high off Lea Garcia’s boyfriend’s mushrooms that they jumped in tandem from Uncle Carl’s third story patio into the courtyard pool, which was hypothermic in temperature, but – thank heavens – neither covered nor drained for the winter. RFB – a nickname, short for Repressed Friend Brett (we had a lot of nicknames in the theater department) – spearheaded a slobbery spin-the-bottle tournament, later linked to a mono outbreak on campus. Also, we lost one of the cats. I always skewed more uptight than most drama majors, possibly more repressed even than RFB, but at parties I’d still end up smoking pot out of an apple under the deft tutelage of Korean Gay Justin or taking three shots of Goldschlager followed by a chaser of Catholic guilt. I liked inching towards out-of-control and then panicking my way back to my baseline prudishness.  At the party with which we are concerned, it was around 1 a.m. when my drink-induced elation waned. I surveyed the room: Sticky red Solo cups populated every horizontal surface – window sills and marble counters, Uncle Carl’s state-of-the-art stereo system; a stream of bong water dripped off the glass coffee table, pooling on a zebra-print rug that I hoped was not an actual dead animal hide. I figured we’d had a good run and were lucky nobody had gotten hurt and it was time to signal a winding-down trend. I collected as many partially-filled cups and beer bottles as I could carry and headed to the kitchen to exchange them for bleach and a sponge, when Allie grabbed my arm. “Relax,” Allie said. “Like, how fabulous is this party?” Allie was in my class but almost a year older and decades worldlier. She’d grown up in Burbank and her dad worked in film production, but wasn’t a big-name producer normal people hear about, and to this day I have no idea what exactly he, or any producer, does. At any rate, early exposure to the industry gave Allie an edge. Vidal Sassoon hair and legs for days didn’t hurt. She was the lead in every mainstage production that included a sexy female protagonist. And she grabbed on to every opportunity she could to “hone” her craft. On Tuesday afternoons, she worked as a standardized patient at UCLA’s med school, guiding America’s fumbling, future top doctors through their inaugural pap smears and breast exams. Allie’s giant emerald eyes were only half open as she grabbed the stack of cups from my hand, and I wished I could look as pretty sober as she looked stoned.   She took the topmost cup, poured in equal parts vodka and Fresca, and handed it to me. “It’s the conquests you’re going to remember, Claire, not the cleaning.” I had written off the prospect of conquests at that point, but I could at least revive my buzz. “Ben just got here, and he brought like really cute friends and there is one whose face you are totally going to want to eat,” Allie whispered in my ear. She gestured with a perfectly-shaped eyebrow towards the front door. And there was Blake Bentley, with two other presumably heterosexual males (worthy of note at a drama party) and Ben Sloane, Allie’s high school classmate, a film studies major at USC. Just that day we’d invited Ben when we ran into him at Trader Joe’s, Allie and I each pushing an unwieldy shopping cart full of cheap beer and rail-quality vodka, obviously prepping for a party.  I try not to overthink what this says about me as a wife and, you know, functional adult, but all these years later, I can still describe in considerable detail what Blake looked like that first time. He was about a foot taller than me and skinny, with short dark hair that formed a sharp widow’s peak on his high forehead. He wore loose but not baggy jeans and a tight-fitting baseball shirt with a heather gray torso and navy sleeves. I immediately noticed the rigidity in his posture, a restraint entirely inconsistent with the effusive, incestuous energy of the party, the energy of my college career.  Allie looped her arm through mine and escorted me to our newest arrivals. Ben’s face widened into a loopy grin as we approached, leaving me with no doubt whatsoever that he held romantic aspirations toward Allie. Who didn’t? He formally introduced us: “my film program buddies.” Blake’s eyes met mine and I knew right away he was going to be important for me. “Drinks are over here,” I said, lacing my fingers through his and directing him to the bar, the others following. Blake opted for Coors Lite over vodka. Close up, his eyes were starless-sky dark and he blinked – like he walked – deliberately, slowly. We must have engaged in some obligatory socializing initially, pretending to ignore winks of encouragement and RFB’s “hit that, C!” But before long, Beck’s Odelay  blaring on Uncle Carl’s built-in speakers, Blake leaned towards me: “It’s kind of loud and crowded in here, for talking.” We ended up in Uncle Carl’s office, upstairs, away from the actual party. There was a large empty desk and bookshelves full of records and a framed sketch that Allie swore was an original Picasso. Blake and I melted into a copper distressed-leather loveseat, my legs stretched over his lap, his beer-free hand resting on my thigh. Youth. Blake was from Missoula. He was obsessed with movies and baseball and had already decided that his senior project was going to be a parody of Pulp Fiction . He showed me his idea book: a tiny notebook with a built-in pen that he kept in his pocket. I flipped through the pages, laughing at the cryptic phrases scribbled throughout: “tuna pet” and “Sick Boy zombie?” and “Uma Thurman drag queen.” I found a blank page and, emboldened by liquor and the proximity of his mouth, wrote my phone number. “Just in case,” I said. “I was going to ask,” he said. I told him I wanted to live somewhere besides California, just for a bit, because I wanted to see what else was out there but knew that California would always be home. I didn’t think I’d act after college. I wasn’t as funny as the Gay Justins or as hot as Allie and the thought of spending my twenties being sad about not even getting quirky best friend parts made me want to vomit. Then, to lighten the mood, I did my own impression of Will Ferrell’s impression of Harry Caray, which I’m sure was absolutely terrible, but Blake laughed out loud, and his smile was gorgeous, and I’d trade big-audience applause for that laugh any day. Four hours in, I worried I’d misunderstood the situation. When were we going to make out already? Was there gum in Uncle Carl’s desk? My thighs tingled as I thought about Blake’s tongue in my mouth, but dawn was about a catnap away, and a mounting tiredness tempered the heat of the moment. Right as I thought maybe we were just going to doze off until morning, Blake eased my legs off his lap, and then his hips onto mine. He tasted like beer and spearmint, a combination that turns me on to this day, because of him? The couch didn’t fit us lengthwise, so after kissing for a while (that’s it, truly), we spooned on the floor and fell asleep.  In the morning, Blake borrowed my toothbrush – an intimacy I construed as true love indeed.  For the next several days, I indulged an insatiable desire to replay the best portions of our night together to anyone who would listen. The general consensus was that this was definitely going to be a thing. But when a week passed with no word, my friends’ once-fervent endorsements soured.  The odds of this being a forgettable one-off incident would have been greater had Blake not resurfaced just often enough to fuel my enduring infatuation. I forgot to mention – at that same party, while Blake and I christened Uncle Carl’s office, Ben and Allie got high together and a communal epiphany dawned: they should, like, totally hang out. I assume Ben’s epiphany included just him and Allie, no clothes. Allie’s epiphany, however, involved a massive overhaul of our social lives. And so commenced an era, during which we regularly hung out with Ben and his USC film friends, sometimes even Blake, mostly at parties, always varying degrees of inebriated. When Blake did show up, we invariably ended up flirting then making out – in Ben’s dorm room, on the beach, outside bars, at a Maroon 5 concert when they were still called Kara’s Flowers and the cost of admission was a one-drink minimum. I’d invariably wait for his call – this time – and it invariably never came.  At the end of our senior year, we planned to meet Ben in Venice for a bonfire. He showed up with two of his friends, but no Blake. Ben’s face was solemn, ridden with regret as he divulged: Blake had a girlfriend. Her name was Beth and she was a drama major at USC and very loud. Ben always thought it was going to be me. I think he meant that to be comforting, but it just made me want to punch his face. After graduation, equipped with a BFA in Acting and no aspirations to act, I returned to Santa Cruz to live with my parents. I wrote press releases and program notes for the Shakespeare Festival at UCSC. I saved money and missed my friends and fantasized about Beth farting at an audition or breaking out with sudden-onset cystic acne the morning of her first screen test. I confessed these thoughts to Allie, who said I needed to figure out my life and overnighted me a batch of magic brownies. I applied to entry-level jobs in arts organizations all over the country. In August, evaluating offers for a program assistant position with South Coast Rep in Orange County, and in the communications department at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, I opted for the latter, figuring the farther away the better. A lot happened then, because that’s how it goes in your twenties, strings of impulsive decisions unwittingly made, defining the tight trajectory of your entire future. In Minneapolis, I fell in love with seasons, the Twin Cities arts scene, and David, of course. We were engaged within a year of that Next Gen Modern event. I heard from Allie, who had heard from Ben, that Blake and Beth got engaged at around the same time.  In July of 2004, exactly five days before my wedding, a note from Blake arrived quite unexpectedly in my email inbox: I hear you’re getting married. That makes one of us. Beth and I broke up. Congratulations. He’s a lucky guy. My sticky brain, evidently not fully relieved of its faulty Blake-hard-wiring, spun: was this a sign? Timing was uncanny. I logged into David’s and my Crate & Barrel registry and saw that nearly everything we’d selected had been purchased. Signs were not a thing. David and I got married the following Saturday, in the Walker Sculpture Garden. ***** Just before our first anniversary, David advanced to a director-level position at his company. This was major; he would oversee over a dozen developers and finally get a seat at the table. A sizable raise and massive stock option grant were also in order. His boss, Stan Schwartz, saw his younger self in David and had no small hand in facilitating David’s promotion. Stan was the most Minnesotan person I’ve ever known: he held season tickets for Gophers football and periodically invited us to tailgate along with his high school buddies; his four sons all played club hockey; and his wife, Kimber, taught scrapbooking classes from her art shed on their two-acre waterfront property in Deephaven. David didn’t have much in common with Stan, but he liked that Stan liked him and knew that his expedited rise within the company depended on Stan’s favor.  One unbearably humid evening in early August, Stan hosted a small congratulatory reception in David’s honor. It was casual, yet catered: pickles rolled in ham, Reuben sliders, a keg of Grain Belt. I nursed a glass of saccharine rosé, served to me on the rocks, and mingled with the wives, all of them a decade or two older than me, most advanced degree-holding stay-at-home moms. They found my job fascinating and raved about the Walker but, when pressed, conceded they’d never actually been. Once we ran out of things to talk about – this was before I had children – I excused myself and headed towards the chips-and-dip table, where Stan was bellowing jokes and David and a group of his colleagues responded with on-command laughter. As I approached, I heard David say: “Claire too! She puts a quarter of each paycheck into a little slush fund.” David avoided eye contact as he put his arm around my shoulders. All the men laughed, their brows sweaty and their armpit stains dark and moist. I laughed along with them. In the car, I confronted David. “You think my savings account is cute?” I asked.  “I was joking, Claire. Stan was talking about giving Kimber an allowance and then someone said their wife just got a part-time job and she called her money hers and his money theirs, and I was just trying to stay afloat in the conversation.”  “You called it a slush fund.” “Well,” David hesitated. One smart way to stay steady is to avoid conflict. “It was a joke. I’m sorry.” “It was demeaning. I’m sorry I don’t have stock options or an employer-matched retirement account. I just get a regular income, and I save some of it. Is that a problem for you?” “No, I’m not mad,” David said. NPR was on and he turned up the volume. “But it’s not like you use it to pay the bills.”  ***** The week after Stan’s reception, marital dynamics still fraught, I received a phone call from Myra Steinem, one of my former professors from Cal Arts. Myra had been hired as the Artistic Director for a small but well-respected theater company in Pasadena. She was the first woman to be offered this role. Her budget covered one full-time staff person and she wanted it to be me. I would be a Jill-of-all-trades: marketing, fundraising, casting, running lights in a pinch and probably bartending at opening nights. We would focus on amplifying female voices and revisiting the classics through a feminist lens. It was the opportunity I had dreamed of since I’d ditched acting but had never allowed myself to envision. I would get to be near Allie, all our college friends. David didn’t get how moving to a more expensive city to earn less money could be my dream or what a scrappy theater company with two underpaid staff could offer that an endowed modern arts museum could not? These were the wrong questions. I visualized a widening chasm between us, taking on the shape of South Dakota, Wyoming, then all the states separating California and Minnesota. I tapped into my “slush fund” and bought a plane ticket to LAX. I booked my Friday flight on Tuesday and told David on Thursday night. Before heading to MSP on Friday morning, I went through my email archives and clicked Reply: Blake! I’m so sorry to hear about Beth and hope you’ve recovered some. I’ll be in West Hollywood with Allie for the weekend. Want to meet for a drink? It would be fun to catch up.  I arrived in Los Angeles midday, to a high sun, dry hazy air, and the smell of hot pavement. Allie and I spent most of the weekend cuddled in her bed, under the same purple duvet she’d had in college. I helped pick the best ten of her recent headshots, all gorgeous; deep-cleaned her fridge while she slept in on Saturday morning; and skimmed through her stacks of US Weekly  and Back Stage West . On Sunday, my last night, she straightened my hair and lent me some strappy heels. “Have fun but please don’t fuck away your marriage,” she advised. “He’s just a dude, Claire.” We each did a shot of tequila.  Blake arrived in a red pickup truck. He looked good. Better than I’d remembered. More chiseled in the jaw but also older, maybe in a tired or sad way. He wore what Allie referred to as “everyman’s black going-out shirt” – fitted, long-sleeved, thin pale stripes. We faced each other awkwardly in Allie’s doorway and smiled, shy and amused and an inappropriate degree of excited. Blake opened the passenger door for me and we drove together to Dragonfly, a bar in Studio City, Blake’s choice. We sat on a burgundy velvet couch in the lounge, which was dimly lit by candles and warm gold lanterns hanging overhead.  I asked Blake how he was holding up in the aftermath of his botched engagement. He was grateful that Beth had cheated on him before they were married with two kids. He worried that he’d never trust a woman again. About his job, he said it was making him dumber but he didn’t want to be defined by how he paid the bills. I asked how the Pulp Fiction  parody went and Blake sat up a bit straighter and his smile widened. “I can’t believe you remember that,” he said. He had called it Pulp Future  and I could tell he was proud of it.  As our server delivered a second round of gin and tonics, I was overwhelmed by the actuality of Blake beside me. I felt more like myself. My phone lit up on the table. I flipped it open and read a text message from David: Thinking about you and the job. Has Myra offered it to someone else?   “Is that David?” Blake raised his fresh drink for a toast.  “Yeah. He just wants me to call him tomorrow.” We clinked our lowball glasses. I texted David: Still out at a bar tonight. I’ll call you in morning before my flight.  Then I put my phone in my purse.  “So, he’s like the world’s greatest programming prodigy, I hear,” Blake said. “Are you jealous?” This was better than winning an Oscar.  “Does he know about me?” Blake asked. David and I had, of course, early in our relationship, suffered the standard epic conversation about our respective pasts. He was aware of my Blake infatuation, but its profundity was lost on him. For David, meeting me eradicated any of his own lingering questions. I suspect he thought our relationship had resolved any past ambiguities I’d harbored as well. “He knows that once upon a time I liked you a lot more than you liked me, and from his vantage point, it all worked out for the best,” I said. “Oh that old story,” Blake shook his head slowly, a coy admonishment. “Our timing was the catastrophe, Claire. Not our feelings.” This was bullshit but I couldn’t help but love it. Star-crossed trumped spurned every time, and it gave some consequence to the unearned ease growing between us, aided by alcohol and nostalgia, intoxicating in equal measure.   We were the last ones in the bar and it was nearing 2 a.m. I tried not to stare at Blake’s lips, glossed with a shiny slick of gin. Our server had left for the night, leaving just the bartender to close. He blasted Coldplay and the AC in a passive-aggressive effort to galvanize our departure. I was wearing a spaghetti-strapped tank top, no bra. “You have goosebumps,” Blake’s gaze lingered at my shoulders.  “I’m fine.” “I just want to touch you.” Blake leaned away from me on the couch and clasped his hands together behind his head. “I can’t believe you’re someone’s wife.”  I couldn’t either. I didn’t feel like someone’s wife.  “It’s your fault,” I said, and I meant it. I’d lost count of my drinks and a subtle rage bubbled in my stomach.  “I didn’t see it,” Blake said. He took both my hands in his. “I didn’t see this. I am clearly the one who missed out here.” Later, we sat in his truck, our torsos twisted to face each other. I considered how the inevitable had blurred with the impossible, how alcohol had complicated things, because we wanted things complicated. Blake placed his hands on the sides of my face and when we kissed, it was familiar, and we did that cinematic thing where you start slow, then resist an inch and stare at one another before diving back in more deeply. But before the deep dive, my phone buzzed.  I pulled away and rifled through my bag. It was 4 a.m. and my flight was in four hours. I had missed three calls from David and seventeen texts from Allie. One, sent a couple hours before, said: Don’t hate me. David kept calling. I panicked. I told him where you are.  Her last message read: ARE YOU DEAD IN A FUCKING DITCH???   I imagined Blake and myself getting into a drunk-driving accident and dying. We’d crash on the 101 with the HOLLYWOOD sign illuminating our mangled bodies, my crimson blood mingling with Blake’s on the windshield. David would be embarrassed and he’d hate me forever and hating me would soften the blow of becoming a 26-year-old widower. His next wife would be a lawyer or maybe a dermatologist, with a 401k, immune to sinking ships of druthers, her only weakness the crispy edge piece of tater-tot hot dish.  “Allie can pick me up here,” I said to Blake. “You should take a cab home.” He nodded, expressionless. I kissed his cheek, grabbed my purse, and unsteadily made my way to a bus stop bench a few yards away, where I sat down and called Allie. Blake waited in his pickup until she showed up and then he sped away down an empty Ventura Boulevard. A week later I received a package at the Walker: a VHS recording of Pulp Future.  While Allie and I drove back to her apartment that morning, gathered my stuff, and rushed to the airport, I didn’t call David. At the Northwest Airlines gate, I scanned the waiting area for the seat most isolated and fit for wallowing. And there he was  – David, sitting in the row nearest the attendant counter, head hunched low, resting on his hands, folded in his lap. He’d taken that crack-of-dawn flight to LAX, on the plane that was about to turn around and return to MSP. He wore crumpled grey jeans and the blue “Bike to Work” t-shirt I’d bought him for his birthday in May. “David?” My head hurt from gin and grief. I had imagined Blake intercepting me at the airport. “Claire!” David stood up and practically sprinted the thirty feet between us, before wrapping his arms around me. He kissed my hair. “You should take that job. We can make it work here.” “Didn’t you talk to Allie?” I asked.  “I don’t even care. You had every right to be mad. I fucked up. Let’s just look forward. It doesn’t matter.” David’s hands cupped my face now, softer than Blake’s. His eyes were dilated and watery, dark circles swelled underneath and dried sleep had crusted across his left lower lashes. “Myra hired someone else.” That would be true soon enough. I put my arms around his waist and buried my face into his blue shirt.  Never during our flight back to Minneapolis, or that week, or in the seventeen years subsequent did David ask what happened between me and Blake. So you can see why his mentioning the film came as a bit of a shock. It was literally the first time David had said anything about Blake Bentley. Ever. In our whole marriage.  ***** I did not watch the film straightaway. Watching Blake Bentley’s first feature film all by myself sounded sort of dirty. I scoured some crusty dishes and started a load of towels. I missed Allie and texted her so. She was on location somewhere in Canada – something about studio tax credits and cheap grips. My phone vibrated on the kitchen counter:  Have you watched it? I have been waiting too fucking long to discuss! Three dots danced underneath the message, and then: Now we’re both almost famous. ;) I hauled my king-size down comforter to the basement, threw the towels into the dryer en route, settled into our faded microfiber couch. I unearthed the slender black remote buried between two couch cushions, scrolled through our various underused digital subscriptions until I got to Netflix, and started Metadata .  And… the film is about me. Me and Blake. Mostly Blake, actually, but there’s us, intense and aspiring and oblivious, overanalyzing the world and its discontents, dancing and drinking and swapping barbs then saliva. I mean, we – the real we – were different. But also the same? Two college dreamers drawn to one another, albeit unevenly? Embellished with all the cinematic trappings: first impressions and much-anticipated messing around and missed chances and almost-theres. Beck blaring loudly at a party; a scene filmed at the actual Dragonfly? And something I’d forgotten! But I’m certain it happened. They are outside the bar: the woman, married (alas), and the man, eyes opened. They each hold a cigarette, and the woman uses a match to light first his, then her own.   Him: I can’t believe we’re finally on a date, and you’re married. Her: It’s not a date. Him: What would you call it? Her: An investigation. I’m collecting data. Him: Ah. So it’s a meta date. Except in my memory, I had been the one to coin “metadate.” I remember thinking that was very funny of me. Of course the end is different. Not happily-ever-after different. The two succumb to a lippy embrace and then part ways, true enough to life. But it’s Blake’s story and so it’s about Blake and I’d never really thought about it before but I suppose Blake’s life did change after he drove away in his red pickup. The film sums it up in a very filmy way. Man is initially self-deprecating and forlorn, heart broken, dead-end job destroying his soul; then the woozy attraction, seeing himself through her eyes; the man sits up a bit straighter, yields more easily to laughter, his old lost self restored. A montage ensues: An airplane takes off in his rearview mirror. Closeup wistful grin. He types furiously on his MacBook and scribbles in his pocket-sized idea book; he pitches his idea, confident in the board room. Then contract signings, screenings, toasts. In the final scene, he places a framed award on his desk next to a smaller frame, containing what looks like a business card centered behind the glass. The camera pans in and we see: a matchbook from Dragonfly.   I couldn’t help but be flattered. Not every person is lifted out of life and put into a film, you know, enhanced with a fresh bob of curls, perky unbound breasts, and a gleaming set of pearly whites. Yet there I am: suspended in an enchanted series of frames or pixels or whatever magic it is that Blake toiled for two decades to perfect. And I don’t say “perfect” hyperbolically. Blake has perfected this story. Captured it wholly and lovingly. Layered on dimension and meaning that entirely eluded the version repressed in the recesses of my own memory. But then, it wasn’t such a turning point for me.  **** Later in the afternoon, I wondered if I should send Blake an email. The children came home on their respective buses and left their soggy snow layers heaped in the mudroom and I asked Paige to prepare a snack for her brothers. I withdrew back to the basement, to fold the towels and think about what I might say. Offer praise for a job well done? Say thank you? Or perhaps you’re welcome ? It would be very crisp and witty, of course. Unsentimental, but gracious. I’d write simply to convey my admiration, and, conceivably, also to confess how strange it is to see oneself onscreen. How strange it is to see that an experience, our shared experience, from essentially a lifetime ago – which for me was quite distressing and disorienting and sad, and for me anyway, highlighted how my options had narrowed before I realized I had any – was for him, evidently, valuable material. All those details I’d held close and to which, some years, I’d fallen asleep, were for Blake a commodity. **** David’s schedule doesn’t vary. At six o’clock, just before he was due to arrive, I heated up some leftovers for dinner and asked Archer to set the table. When David walked into the kitchen, he kissed my forehead and squeezed my ass. My therapist would call this a “bid” and on another day I might have welcomed the attention. As I ate my dinner and gulped down a hazy IPA, which David had poured into a pint glass for me, I looked across the dining room table and pondered my husband. I decided that, had I stayed in the red pickup and taken that theater job, my life really would have been no different. Frozen in time seems to be where I wield the most influence. I am no David or Blake. I don’t aspire or avail myself of the right things or wait for the right time. I don’t take or leave with much intention. And that knack for framing a loss as a gain – it has always been just out of reach. I don’t resent their successes. Systems are in place to ensure them.  It was my turn to put Lennon to bed. I sang him a showtune in lieu of lullaby, tucked him in, and kissed his salty forehead. David was standing in the hall outside Lennon’s door, evidently waiting for me.  “I saw Metadata ,” he said. “Oh,” it turns out I had not really expected that. “Did you like it?” I asked, suddenly aware of my hands, which I wanted to put in my back pockets but my yoga pants were pocketless. “It’s about you,” he said. I laughed a bit meanly, despite myself. “It’s about Blake Bentley,” I said. “But yes, some parts seemed to be inspired by real events.”  David opened his mouth to say something and then stopped. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and on the exhale opened his eyes to meet mine. His shoulders – which I hadn’t realized were tensed – visibly relaxed. “Thank you for choosing me,” he said.  I was about to say “I didn’t have a choice,” because I really never felt like I did. But he seemed very earnest, so instead, I said, “Thank you for choosing me.”  On Friday evenings, we usually watch TV or play a board game or snuggle on the couch with a glass of wine and complain about coworkers or the weather or Republicans. If the indoor air temperature is suitable and we both happened to shower that day and no children loiter nearby, peppering us with a litany of made-up needs, we might end up messing around. But that night, I told David I was tired and wanted to go to bed. I had nothing more to say at that moment to him or to Blake Bentley.  Upstairs in my bedroom, I texted Allie: But what happens to the girl? She wrote back promptly: Right?? Well, what do you expect.   He’s just a dude, Claire.   Edith-Nicole Cameron (she/they) is a former lawyer who reads, writes, and mothers in Minneapolis. Her poetry and prose appears in Literary Mama, Brevity Blog, Last Stanza, MUTHA Magazine, and River Teeth Journal's Beautiful Things. For fifteen years, she’s spottily written about food at www.CakeandEdith.com . You can find her more recent ramblings at Writing it Out .

Early on, when food remains on ransacked shelves and you can find still-crisp apples rolled into dusty shadows and your mouth fills with saliva at the expectation of sweetness, you love a fighter called Medhi. He had a different life to you, up to this point, a brutal life that inadvertently makes him apocalypse-suited. You are soft when the world falls, softer than dust-matte apple skin, and he makes you feel safe for a while. In a looted sleeping bag you consume his affection like fresh fruit, somehow knowing it won’t last, can’t last. It’ll wrinkle and darken and blur with mould and you’ll slip from the crushed feathers, Medhi’s knives in your boots, and go looking for new sanctuary in other dusty shadows.  Later, when stores are trashed and full of stink and the last apple you eat is from a gnarled tree and so sour, your stomach burns for days, you love a follower called Nadine. She’s part of a group of shattered souls drifting from one broken place to another, certain a safe haven must be over the next hill. She tattoos brambles on your inner wrist. You are like them,  she says, lush, the perfect balance of sweet and sour . You mask your thorns and give in to a closeness with Nadine, who is warm and bright even in blackberry-dark basements and her passion makes you almost believe in havens right up until the screaming starts and she’s torn from you, and torn apart.  Much later, when food is snared and skinned or scavenged from the new dead, you trade cans for dried plums and love a preacher called Angel. His church is a motel off a lonely road and his flock are hollow-eyed women and manicured men made killers. Angel uses a crossbow, way back in the trees, so his hands are never blood-spattered when he pulls you onto the grubby mattress and his mouth tastes like crabapple memories. He accepts what you have become and you’re grateful. When the church falls, in a biblical battle of fire and blood, Angel is way back, hands clean, in a way. You leave him sermonising about God’s Will to the various dead. You think maybe it’s time for demons.  Too late, when you trade your own spoiled flesh for slivers of canned peach, your heart feels like the peach’s stone, devoid of flesh, yet you love a tyrant called Desmond. His leather-sweat body swallows your self-loathing, spits it out. Thrust down into blood-soaked earth, your breath falters. The thought you could die and be buried in one groaning moment is a kind of oblivion. Loving and fighting are dirty now; rage and passion mangled together. When Desmond bores of you, his eyes find a desperate girl, more bone than flesh, more child than girl. Shadow-hidden, you slide your knife into the base of his skull, not sure who you’re saving, then you creep into the woods with the dead and the night swallows you.  Just in time, when food is grown and reared, you stash your knives under a real bed, feel strawberries burst sun-sweet between your teeth and you love a healer called Sorrel. She uses rewilded nature to soothe and repair and in her gentle embrace, something crumbles inside you, and your heart rewilds too. This love cleanses; you struggle to deserve it, but Sorrel soothes. You speak of all the lovers, their sins and desires part of you like faded brambles. You love whenever you can, whoever you can , Sorrel says. Nothing lasts: not apples or lovers or the dead. So, eat now. Love now. Then autumn arrives, and you find hope, still-crisp, in mist-chilled fruit and in yourself at the start of the world.  JP Relph is a Cumbrian writer hindered by cats. Tea helps, milk first. She mooches around in charity shops looking for haunted objects. JP writes about apocalypses a lot (despite not having the knees for one) and her collection of post-apoc short fiction was published in 2023. She got a zombie story onto the 2024 Wigleaf longlist, which may be the best thing ever.

As the hopper rose in elevation, past the treeless hills that banked marshlands in waiting, past the serrated black mountains of shale and iron, and finally, past the planet’s newly self-regulating atmosphere, Corrine double-checked her notes. Her Cress-issued electronic notebook had new soil and silt caught in its seams and screw holes. Ruby sunlight cut through the cabin at a hard angle, lighting the fine golden dust that suffused the air and coated every surface. Now Corrine could only read through the small portion where her thumb had been scrolling. She paused to wipe dust off of the screen with her forearm and continued typing,  finalizing the ground crew’s order for the bombmaker. 33oW, 5oN through 26oE, 12oN: Meso Standard 56oW, 8oS through 41oW, 3oN: Michigan, Deciduous Plus 15oE, 16oS through 38oE, 25oN: Saltwater Group E. Note: Temperature now fluctuating along expected patterns (see table 7a). Strait is ideal for Category A Migratories, but Categories B and C would also be compatible. Ask Em about concentrate supplies. 55oE, 20oS through 64oE, 13oN: Temperate Mixed. Note: Secondary habitat regions. Likely only needs six drops to establish canopy before arrivals. Corrine finished typing this last note when a thudding noise broke her concentration. Nikoletta had removed her boots and lobbed them over her shoulder toward the airlock at the rear of the hopper. They bounced and knocked against the door. The amber soil that dried thickly around the boots cracked away on impact. One landed upright, the other on its side.  Corrine looked up from her notes and said, “It looks like you’re playing craps. We should put marks on your boots and place bets.” Nikoletta let out an exaggerated guttural sigh. Corrine caught Nik’s eyes, saw Nik’s open mouth, slack and vacant in exhaustion. Nik’s face broke off from the act, her mouth cracking involuntarily, and she and Corrine laughed the same aching laugh. “Hell yes,” Nik said. “Can’t wait to win stacks of dried noodle flavor packets.” “Would be the only way to scare up the spicy shrimp ones,” Corrine said. She powered off the notebook and stretched as dramatically as her seat’s harness would allow. “I’m still convinced Alain is hoarding them.” Nikoletta called toward the front of the hopper, “Alex, when’s the last time you’ve seen a spicy shrimp?” Alex remained facing forward, one hand on the yoke, one dangled behind him. He exhaled hard. “I dunno,” he answered. “I dunno, who cares?” Both women loudly booed. Corrine pulled off one of her own mud-covered boots and launched it toward him. It sailed wide right and hit a small handful of toggles on the console in front of Alex. The interior lights shut off instantly and were replaced by the red backup bulbs. The women booed louder, fighting against their own spontaneous laughter. They couldn’t see his face, but Alex’s body was shaking as well, delirious in the red light. He reached over and manually triggered the fire alarm. The two biologists and the chemist pilot spent a minute cracking up underneath bursts of crisp, clinical beeps, stunningly loud and just below the threshold of pain. The three were still gasping and bent against their harnesses as Alex punched the settings back to normal. Now several kilometers above a cloudline that was brewed in strategic, violent jolts six standard Earth years ago, the Queen became nakedly visible, a matte silhouette in three segments. Over time, this cresting view became commonplace for the ground crew, though they still caught occasional pangs of disbelieving awe. The Queen steadily dwarfed the approaching hopper until its impossible hovering mass consumed the whole of their vision. This sensation was staggering yet brief, hopelessly entangled with the opposing sensations of imprisonment and obligation. The Queen had been their home, their workplace, their employer for thirty-two months now, and their reverence toward it could only extend so far. As they approached, Alex toggled in a series of commands, and the familiar grind and click of landing gear in motion could be heard and felt throughout the hopper. Upon reaching the heaving gray vessel, external observation lights flooded the cabin with a harsh cleansing white, bathing the crew’s squinting faces, catching thousands of airborne dust particles in slow motion. Alex pulled up unexpectedly, positioned the hopper over the Queen’s thorax, and began a slow descent. Still recovering from a laughing fit, Alex asked in his best monotone, “So where do you two want me to drop you off? Is this okay?” Nik punctuated the words of her yelled response by stomping her bootless feet. “I! Am! Going! To! Stab you!” “Alex!” Corrine cried. “I haven’t seen a real bathroom in two months. In ten seconds, I am going to use you as a toilet.” Struggling to keep a composed tone, Alex replied, “That sure will make for an interesting incident report. Now it looks like there’s an exhaust duct to your right that might get you inside, would it be okay to land–” The electronic notebook connected with Alex’s shoulder blade, jerking the arm that held the yoke. The hopper went cockeyed. One of its landing wheels made contact with the dense steel of the Queen’s exterior. The three burst into laughter again. Nikoletta let out a long, groaning yell. Alex pulled the hopper forward to the docking entrance within the Queen’s open mandible. They connected with the outer airlock, and Alex made a single loud clap at the moment of repressurization. The muddy airlock door at the back of the hopper opened to reveal a steel-white paneled hallway. This first interstitial space within the Queen functioned as a makeshift mud room, a space for hiking boots, for duffels and coveralls, a demarcation between the dirty hands-on business of terraformation and its clean, computational counterpart. A four year contract would be a long time for the crew of six, and the cleanliness of the bridge quickly became a self-evident priority. Having already undone their harnesses during the docking procedure, the two biologists ran out. Corrine, the supervisor of the team’s ground expeditions, was still wearing her left boot. She kicked it hard against the hopper’s airlock then took off, making a crooked half-run toward the apartments in the Queen’s thorax, yelling the whole way. Alex was spent but still smiling as he heard Corrine’s voice trail off into the steel halls. He stretched and entered slowly, hearing the crew’s laughter underneath wordless, repetitive music as he approached the common area. He found that Nikoletta had already joined the rest of the crew in the loungers near the bridge. Demetrius, the Queen’s pilot and comms tech, raised a short glass of amber liquor upon seeing Alex.  “Welcome, welcome, welcome!” Demetrius said. His eyes were wide, flickering with a puzzling excitement as he held the drink. Alex knew Demetrius and the rest of the Queen’s permanent crew to greet the ground team warmly upon their returns, but those receptions were routine. They were sincere but tired. This felt new, Alex thought. It felt off. “They won’t tell me,” Nikoletta complained while accepting a similar drink from Emily the bombmaker. “We have news,” Em said smiling, dragging out the last syllable into a long “ooh” sound. Alain, the Queen’s engineer, was looking at the floor and laughing to himself between sips from his own glass. “Where’s Corrine?” Em continued. “We need all of you in here.” “She’s running errands,” Alex said while heading toward their bar, a rolling stainless steel surgical cart the crew took from the med bay. “Picking up dry cleaning, stopping by the deli.” Em interrupted him, “No, no, no, we’re making the drinks. That’s part of the deal.” She and Demetrius cast each other a wordless glance.  Corrine walked in wearing clean sneakers. She offered a sweet but exhausted greeting and curled up at one end of a lounger. “What news?” she asked. “One second,” Em said, jumping up to make drinks. With her back to everyone, she called out, “No peeking.” She returned and handed identical short glasses filled with the same amber cocktail to Corrine and Alex. “What news?” Corrine asked again. Demetrius held out the drink in his left hand then gestured to it with a flourish of his right. “First you must drink,” he said. Alain still hadn’t made eye contact with any of the ground crew and was rocking slightly now, laughing to himself. “Oh, simply out of the question,” Nik said. The three members of the ground crew each took heavy swallows then looked expectantly to the Queen dwellers. Demetrius pulled out a remote, and the six of them watched as the central eight-foot by ten-foot viewport became a digital display screen. Demetrius gave a hearty, “Ta-da!” as a large legal document filled the display. In all-caps, bold at the top of the page, comically oversized on the vessel’s largest screen, read the words “NOTICE OF CONTRACT TERMINATION.” It took just a moment to sink in before Alex exclaimed, “What!” He stood up and started running laps around the loungers with his head down, lurching at a dangerous forward angle, cracking up. Corrine threw back her head and cackled.  Nikoletta put down her drink, started clapping, and shouted, “Yes! Yes, of course! Of course! Why not! Yes!” Em broke in, “Dem, pull up the news story. Everything about this is beautiful.” The central display shifted to a business report posted in Axis Capital detailing the outright buyout of Cress-Intractiv by the LinneFabar Group. The ground crew cheered. Nikoletta kicked her feet as Demetrius highlighted text within the news story. He read aloud, “LinneFabar plans to dissolve most of the business arms within Cress-Intractiv, with the exception of its entertainment division Truant Bloc and its streaming provider Haptic, both of which will see extensive restructuring in the coming months. The CEO and founder of Cress-Intractiv, Nicolas Olivér, was unavailable for comment regarding the sale of his company in time for this article’s publication. As part of this sale, he has been granted a seat on LinneFabar’s board. At present, it is unclear if he will be given a further role within the company.” “Olivér!” the ground crew shouted simultaneously. Alex jogged over to the bridge console and turned the music up louder. Demetrius switched back to the legal document and scrolled down a few pages before highlighting a section titled “Effective Date.” He read, “As of DATE–which is this morning,” he said as an aside, “all present and future terraforming operations will cease. This includes projects that are currently en route to new terraforming sites. Terraforming projects that are in process, regardless of the project’s phase, are to immediately cease all activity. In addition, terraforming projects related to the regular maintenance of previous sites are to immediately cease all activity.” Corrine howled. “Wait, wait, this is the best part,” Em called out. She read, “All terraforming teams must return all materials to COMPANY at the earliest possible convenience. All vessels, including any vehicles, provided technology, and tools therein, must be returned to COMPANY at the earliest possible convenience.” “Wait!” Nik said, still laughing. “Okay, okay, wait. Okay, so we all just got fired. But!” She had to pause to catch her breath. “Yes,” Demetrius answered, nodding a wide, red-cheeked smile. “Yes, exactly.” “We all just got fired,” Nik continued, “Hundreds of millions of miles away, two and a half years years into building a new Olivér rock, and they are literally asking us–” “Yep,” Demetrius said. Alex broke in while making himself a second drink. “Hey, if you could bring all of our stuff back, that would be really great. Please? Yeah, yeah, you’re definitely super fired, but all of our stuff, could you bring it back? Please?” Em waltzed over to the surgical cart and took the drink from Alex’s hand. “Trust me, I’ll get it.” Alex watched her, mildly stunned. Had she ever spoken so close to his ear before?  “Hold on, hold on,” Corrine said. “Like, we are right now, as we sit here, currently fired? Contract over? We are, right now, making zero dollars? Are we even getting paid for the return trip?” Demetrius gave a closed smile and answered, “Yes to fired, yes to zero dollars, sort-of-kind-of to the return trip.” Alain started rocking in place again. Demetrius continued, “LinneFabar is only willing to pay quarter-time while we’re in cryo, and then they’re dangling a small payment based on the condition of the ships and the concentrates. We get paid after an inspection.” Alex smiled wide and started jogging in place with his head thrown back. Corrine and Nikoletta cheered. “Oh my God,” Corrine said laughing. “But then what can they actually do to us out here, other than withhold the saddest little payout in history? There’s no one remotely close. Are they gonna shell out for an escort? Call the cops on us?” “The next letter is gonna be really mean,” Em said. “They’re gonna underline stuff. Hold on, let me make y’all another round.” She turned back to the surgical cart and began mixing a new batch of cocktails. “Yeah, this is what, whisky ginger and what else?” Nik asked, rotating in the lounger to look at Em, who only answered with a suggestive shrug. Nik turned back and said, “Right, if they can’t touch us from this far out, we’re kind of in a position to demand more money.” Demetrius said, “Thought of that, too. It’s early, and there’s still plenty of shuffling going on, but if LinneFabar never takes up any of the terraforming projects, and it sure looks like they won’t, we have nothing to bargain with. I think they’d be happy to let us rot out here.” “Jesus, that’s definitely true,” Nik said. “I still wonder if we could wait them out, for a bit anyway. There aren’t many applications for concentrates outside of terraforming. If LinneFabar isn’t planning on taking up the projects themselves, I imagine they’re at least looking for a buyer to offload all of that inventory.” “We could literally just finish the job and live here if we wanted,” Corrine said. “Or we could start chugging redwood and marlin juice,” Alex called, slowing from a jog to a trot. Alain burst into a new peal of nervous laughter. Emily the bombmaker returned with a tray of fresh drinks. Alex continued, breathless as he sat down, “Or start making freakish and forbidden mistakes of science. They can’t fire us twice.” He grabbed a new drink. Corrine said, “I’m only half-joking. I could learn to build log cabins now that I have a hold on a studio I can no longer pay for.” She took a long sip from the fresh cocktail. “Even if I could pay for my hold, the building doesn’t even exist right now,” Em said laughing. “It literally won’t be there if we head back now.” Corrine leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, glass held at an angle. “We could just live here until our fuel runs out in, what, a decade? Start working remote clickjobs from the console.” “Cool if my Dad moves into the spare apartment then?” Nikoletta asked. She let out a long groan. “That’ll be a real fun conversation. So, you know how I’ve been paying your rent? Well, funny story…” “Finally time for me to meet a nice widow,” Alex said, “one who’s rakishly beautiful and cursed with a terrible secret and rich in square footage.” “Make sure to ask if she’s cool to adopt five dead-broke twenty-somethings,” Corrine said before finishing her second glass. “Yeah, I’m still confused. We don’t work for Cress, because Cress doesn’t exist anymore. We also don’t work for LinneFabar, but LinneFabar still expects us to return Cress’s terraforming ships and concentrate tanks. But also LinneFabar has no plans to continue terraforming. Did I get all that? Yeah, Em what’s in this? What’s the secret?” Em and Demetrius grinned toward each other. Alain finally looked up and spoke. “Okay, so, nobody get mad.” Corrine’s eyes widened. Nikoletta looked backwards and studied the surgical cart for the first time since returning to the Queen. Nothing jumped out as she took an inventory from left to right: the nearly empty fifth of whisky, a just-opened identical bottle, the long-expired grenadine, two open cans of ginger ale, the bitters, the soda water, the still-untouched handle of gin that no one liked, a glass of water, the half-full scotch, and the plastic jug of vodka with maybe two shots left. For a few seconds, the only sound was music. Alain continued, “You know how we keep concentrates for a few dozen spore genuses?” Corrine slammed her palm into the lounger and looked to the keeper of the concentrates. “Em, you didn’t.” “Yes I did,” Em sang, adding a touch of vibrato as she held out the last syllable. Alex went to the speakers and cranked the humid, stomping music, his head knocked back in laughter. Nik started clapping then put a hand to her mouth. Corrine started slapping the lounger with increasing force, calling, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Em. Em! Alex, holy shit, turn that down. Em! How much psilocybin did I just ingest? You guys dosed us? Em, what am I on right now?” Hearing real distress, Alex turned the music off. Em’s face dropped to match the sudden shift in tone. “It is so, so little,” she said. “I dissolved 150 milligrams into three liters of water. You’ve had maybe a shot and a half, barely anything at all. Not even four milligrams.” Nikoletta looked back and clocked the glass of water on the surgical cart. Corrine’s breathing was audible as the crew went silent for a moment. She placed her glass on the low steel table between them and asked, “What else was in it?” “Nothing else from the concentrates,” Em said. “Just whiskey and ginger ale. Sorry, I absolutely didn’t mean to freak you out. It is such a small amount.” Corrine exhaled, her focus darting between Em and the empty glass on the table in front of her. No one was comfortable holding eye contact with anyone for longer than a moment. Corrine felt the expectant weight of the crew accumulating by the second. “Okay. Okay, sorry guys. I was just surprised,” Crorrine finally said. She paused for another moment and picked up her glass. “Jesus, Em, you scared me. So, I’m assuming this didn’t get recorded in the log?” Demetrius leaned back into the lounger, tension cautiously leaving his body. “To quote our dear friend and chemist Alexander, ‘They can’t fire us twice.’” Corrine’s shoulders relaxed. She rested against the back of the lounger as well, taking the cue from Demetrius, wanting to show that she was a good sport. With slow relief, she said, “It’s cool. Sorry, I just need a minute to digest those and see how I’m doing.” She looked around at five hesitant faces and offered a full, obliging smile. “What the hell is this? Please don’t let me stop you.” Alex beamed, fell into a rolling chair, then launched himself toward the loungers with a single hard kick against the bridge’s console. “Do y’all have any idea how long I’ve wanted to break into those tanks?” He asked. “We have so many options.” Em sensed it was safe to smile again. “Believe me, I’ve been building a menu ever since the notice showed up this morning.” Nikoletta tip-toed to the surgical cart, downed the rest of her glass, and made a new drink with equal parts vodka and dissolved psilocybin. She sipped it, then turned to the crew. “You know, if we want to make proper cocktails, this mushroom juice needs to be much stronger. I have no interest in a drink that’s half water.” “Heard!” Alex called before locking eyes with Em. He felt a shiver and asked, “You’d be cool with that?” “Obviously,” Em said, leaning in. Alex kicked his way toward the left-side hallway that led to the Queen’s abdomen. He braked with his feet, changed directions, and said, “One quick second.” He rolled back toward the console, turned the music back on, then ditched the chair. He and Em took off down the hall together. Nikoletta made a face and chuckled after trying another sip of her watery test cocktail. Corrine looked up and said, “Jesus, I forgot about your Dad, Nik. I guess the sooner we get back–” “No, no, no,” Nik interrupted. She joined Corrine on the lounger. “That’s for tomorrow. I think we deserve to worry about nothing for a nice long moment. I don’t know, I’m still in shock, but it’s starting to feel nice, you know? I don’t think I’ve been truly relaxed since our contract started.” “Fair,” Corrine said. She let her head fall onto Nik’s shoulder and was now eye-level with the watery vodka cocktail. “That as good as it looks?” Corrine asked. Nik laughed, “I feel bad wasting it.” Demetrius finished his own cocktail and said, “I think Em only used a percent of a percent of barely anything to make that. We effectively have an infinite amount of psilocybin. I cannot imagine our new overlords would even notice or care how much was missing. I feel like we are more than entitled to it at this point.” Nik put the glass down and rested her head on Corrine’s. “I’ll wait for those two idiots to come back with a proper mixer.” She glanced down conspiratorially to Corrine, then to Demetrius. “Anyone else pick something up there?” Alain grabbed Nik’s abandoned cocktail, downed it, and let out an exaggerated, “Blegh!” He fell back against the lounger and started laughing again. “This is incredible.” He closed his eyes and bent his head at painful angles from side to side. “Of course. Of course this is happening. It’s perfect.” Corrine raised her eyebrows toward him and asked, “You okay, Alain?” Alex and Em were giddy as they passed by the apartments and reached the code access airlock at the end of the thorax. This code requirement was an irritating security precaution that Demetrius and Alain tried and failed to dismantle every few months. It was especially hopeless now, as overriding code access-only doors required authorization from someone within a company that, as of this morning, no longer existed. However, as the keeper of the concentrates, Em secretly preferred this slight hindrance, disliking the idea of the entrance remaining propped open to everyone at all hours.  Em punched in the code without looking, and the airlock door swung out to reveal the Queen’s abdomen, a vast multi-level chamber whose arched steel hull stretched back more than a kilometer, whose avenues of densely packed black tanks revealed themselves hundreds of meters at a time above and below them as the cool lights of this cathedral snapped on in series. At the distant click of the final lights, they could just make out the compressed gas tanks at the end of the abdomen, towering and impossible with light glinting off their reflective white surfaces, the perfect grinning teeth of a monster. Alex had only been in the abdomen a handful of times, as Alain acted as assistant to Em when it was time to pack concentrates into individual bombs. Made from a thick green biodegradable canvas and stacked high as flat sheets, the bombs assembled like origami, folding along crease lines to create the shape of pointed diamonds. Each bomb yielded the interior storage capacity of a refrigerator. The crew would first place an upside down pyramid weight inside to keep the bombs oriented in freefall, then they would pack in combinations of concentrates, synthetic fertilizers, and a simple remote trigger.  These bombs would drop out of the back and fall toward the surfaces of worlds in waiting before a precision mid-air whip-crack implosion would spit organic material hundreds of kilometers wide, raining down the ingredients for life or the embryos of life itself. The crew could further determine the moment of detonation within hundred-meter windows above the surface to adjust the density of these downpours. Each moment of contact marked the meeting of strangers, materials that were biological aliens to each other, and after several years of predictably unpredictable growth, these budding planets, wild and unknown, would receive a visit from a different Queen and a surface investigation conducted by a different ground crew. In this way, new destinations would be molded in increments, sculpted by figurative and literal degrees. In only a few decades, human colonies could land and find familiar crops ready to harvest.  Em jumped into the driver’s side of the electric two-seater and turned to Alex. “Grab a clean tray of erlenmeyers,” she said, pointing back to the shelves of glassware by the door. Alex gave a quick salute and pulled out a tray of sixteen erlenmeyer flasks, each safely spaced apart by thick blue foam. “Alright, spores first,” Em continued as she flicked on the car. Alex fell in next to her and yelled, “Wait!” He leaned over the side and pulled out the charging adapter. “Okay, spores first and then–” Em took off, racing down narrow ramps and avenues, driving deep into the abdomen at a reckless speed. The labels for each level and section were written in over two dozen languages, and they were moving too fast to read any. Em accelerated into the lower decks, taking turns at too-comfortable speeds before stopping in front of a series of black tanks indistinguishable from the others, each ten feet in diameter and fifteen feet high. Without having to double-check, Em reached out of the vehicle and smacked open a nozzle on the outside of one of the tanks. A viscous line of homogenous gray syrup inched out in slow heaves. Em caught it in a flask that she whipped around with her other hand. Alex watched as the spore concentrate rose to meet the black 200 ml line when Em closed the nozzle, waited for the stubborn final drops, then handed the flask back to him. With fifteen more flasks waiting empty in his lap, Alex gave a healthy, cavernous clap and asked, “Alright, where are the fertilizers?” The sound of pumping dance music grew as Em and Alex traveled back through the thorax. In the bridge, they found Nikoletta, Corrine, and Alain dancing, taking turns looking as purposely idiotic as they could near the console’s speakers. They had dragged the loungers and table off to one side to create an impromptu dancefloor. The Notice of Termination flashed joyously behind them on the central display screen. Evidently, Demetrius had created a quick program that showed the document cycling through a series of bright, celebratory colors. He was still absorbed in something on the bridge’s computer, typing one-handed in bursts and stutters while taking sips from a glass in his other hand. Alex was pushing a second surgical cart loaded with diluted concentrates, and Em called out with an exaggerated, “Yoo-hoo!” Unspoken and with a single mind, the crew all decided to theatrically tip-toe in the direction of the surgical carts, each trying to look as classically sneaky and guilty as possible, shushing each other very few feet. Em noticed that Corrine had a new drink in her hand, thank God. “There’s a few different strains here,” Em said. “Couldn’t tell you how each one is different, but you’re only gonna need a couple drops this time.” The beakers of clear liquid each had their own dropper and were labeled with a bit of torn blue tape. Alex demonstrated by pouring two fingers of scotch into his glass followed by a few drops from a beaker simply labeled “B.” “Voila,” he said before taking an ambitious sip and coughing. “A very generous gift from Daddy Olivér.”  The rest of the crew made themselves new cocktails. They made a beautiful toast to their fallen executive and began to dance again. The six of them were in love, reveling in this surreal unity, in the sudden derailment of having no work to do while confined to a space that allowed no other way to earn money, in the absurdity of simply being where they were, comically and incalculably far from another living human for no reason at all now. They kicked their legs, made faces, and got down to the serious business of looking as stupid as possible. Demetrius was the first to break off. He jogged back to the computer and was joined by Nikoletta a few songs later.  “Whatcha’ reading, Demmy?” Nik asked. “Are we all hired again?” “It is so much better than that,” Demetrius said, not looking up from the screen. “I managed to find LinneFabar’s entire organizational tree. I also just, totally by chance mind you, happened to find Nicolas Olivér’s new direct messaging account at LinneFabar.” Nik steadied herself with both hands on the desk as she tried to read over Demetrius’s shoulder. The words on the screen weren’t quite staying in place. “Not sure I’m following, Dem.” “I wrote a code that will send him an inter-company message every week from a different low-level employee,” Demetrius said. “Middle managers, product photographers, the people that copy and paste ad text on their website’s backend. They’ll all be sending a private message that looks like this.”  The bridge’s giant central display changed from the legal document disco lights to a coding program, and Demetrius highlighted a short paragraph at its center.  Wow! Can you believe little Caddie is alreay 2? Welp it’s true! Her party is happening this Sunday at Funky Dunks same place as last year. The caterer fell through so we’re all pitching in with a covered dish. Most dishes are spoken for but we still need someone to bring potato salad easy enough for you to handle I’m sure! Thanks Again and see you there! “Dem, you are an idiot, and I love you,” Nik said. “And you misspelled the word ‘already.’” “I did?” He asked, squinting. “Huh.” Instead of correcting it, he added an additional error to the next sentence so that it read, “Welp it’s is true!” He gave the screen a ponderous look before asking Nik, “Too try-hard?” Nik laughed, “A touch, yeah. Leave the first one though. It plays, I think.” “It absolutely plays,” Demetrius said while hitting the backspace key. “So yeah, the name of the kid and the covered dish also cycle through a dataset, so there’ll be different ones for each message.” Em called out from the dancefloor, “Dem, you left your signature on, you know that, right?” Demtrius looked back, not understanding. Em pointed to the corner of the central display, to Demetrius’s full government name and Cress employee ID at the bottom of the coding program. She kept dancing with her pointed arm stretched out. “Your signature is still on. Was it on when you pulled all that proprietary and private LinneFabar data?” Em put extra stress on the plosives, lining them up to the music’s kick drum. Demetrius’s eyebrows rose in cartoonish surprise. He laughed, downed the rest of his cocktail, and looked from Em to Nik. He knocked the base of the empty glass against his head, and with a long exaggerated “h” sound, called out, “Whoops!” “Looks like it’s lawsuit o’clock for you, Demmy boy,” Em said, laughing and making circles with her pointed hand in time with the music. Corrine was marching in place and making wild takeoff and landing signals with her arms. She was winded and chanting every few steps, “Let me! Represent you! In court! You ding dong!” “God, you’re an idiot,” Nik said before making clumsy, mischievous motions back to the dancefloor. She slipped in a puddle of someone’s spilled cocktail, falling sideways and bracing herself with a flexed forearm. Alain stopped mid-plié and ran over to help her off the floor. Unharmed, she laughed and thanked him as he pulled her up by both hands. Alain responded by dropping to the floor and doing military push-ups directly above the offending puddle. He clapped in mid-air each time before his hands landed with heavy smacks back into the spilled cocktail again. He managed an even ten before returning to his stuttering approximation of ballet. Alex took a break from his increasingly hazardous side-shuffling, and he risked leaning into Em’s ear. She responded with sharp, smiling nods. The two took off toward the abdomen with purpose, Alex dragging a couple fingers along the steel-paneled wall as they disappeared down the hallway. Just inside the abdomen’s entrance, solutions of ephedra sinica, zinc oxide, tetra amine, iodine, hydriodic acid, hypophosphorous acid, and red and white phosphorus were in a line where Em and Alex left them. They had left all of the solutions open save for the white phosphorus, which they stoppered to control its odor, an overwhelming rancidity that set off alarms deep inside their lizard brains. The two fumbled with goggles and gloves. Alex was eye-level with the solutions and kept leaning in and out, giggling silently to himself. “Funny to wear these when we’ll be drinking this stuff in a minute,” Em said after snapping on the second rubber glove. She snapped it against the inside of her wrist a few more times with increasing force, noting the ripples of sensation, the wake that traveled outward from one nerve to the next, curious to know if she could document the termination of this signal, the last nerve to receive it, the first nerve to refuse the order to carry it further. Or perhaps a ghost of this sensation reached all of them, registering in ever-shrinking fractions at the ends of her toes, doubling back from that outer bank to return in increments to the source on her wrist, subliminal now, a covert movement undetected by her nervous system at large but unmistakable to the individual gatekeepers, counted as only a handful of electrons now, present in the most literal definition, in its mere refusal to be nothing. “This is normally smoked, right?” Alex asked as he began mixing hydriodic acid and red phosphorus.  “Drinking should be safer. Greater control over the dose, won’t peak all at once,” Em answered as she started making a competing cocktail with iodine and hypophosphorous acid. “Same concept as the mushrooms, ingesting it gives you a gradual arc, a less severe comedown. We gotta do something with the white, if only for the effect, right?” “Obviously.” Alex began mixing a third batch. Seeing how quickly Em worked, Alex sped up his own dropping and measuring, anxious to show how capable an assistant he could be. The two breathed through their mouths after he exposed white phosphorus to the air. “How have you never invited me to do this before?” “This?” Em laughed as she added distilled water. “Making low-dose meth with company property?” “Well, yes, exactly that. But I mean any of it,” Alex said. “Dummy,” Em said, and she bumped her shoulder into his. “Job descriptions, I guess. And I don’t know, I’m probably a little overprotective of this space. Too precious with it. I’ve gotten attached over the years.” Alex returned the shoulder bump, causing Em to spill half a dropper of zinc oxide on the counter. They laughed, then choked on the smell of white phosphorus. “You’re the mother hen,”  he coughed out as they backed away from their work, “laying and hatching eggs.” “No, Alex,” she said, making hard eye contact and pointing with another dropper full of iodine. “I am the Queen herself.” Returning to the bridge, Em and Alex found the rest of the crew split off into two crying couples. Dense, sweaty music was still pouring out of the console’s speakers. “That’s exactly the thing, that’s exactly it,” Nikoletta was saying, heavy tears ready to fall down her face. “He wants to act like it never happened, and like–” She made wide gestures with her arms.  Demetrius was nodding and leaning at a severe angle against the left observation panel, his forehead a mess of wrinkles. His own eyes were swollen and wet as words fell out. “It’s gotta be hard to–and I’m speaking, if I’m speaking out of turn, you know? If I’m speaking out of turn, stop–let me know. To reach a sense of, of closure here–here being the, you know, the situation in itself, of itself, but here in the literal sense, of being in this space–literal environment I mean, and, and, and–” Corrine and Alain were embracing across the room. Alain pulled away and wiped his eyes with long drags of his arm. “You’re right,” Corrine was saying, “but it’s not like there are these specific, correct words you can say.” “I’m just so scared to wade back into it at all,” Alain said before giving way to a new burst of tears. “I know there aren’t any objective, magic words. I know that. But trying to say anything at all could just cause even more…” Alain couldn’t finish the sentence. His face was a map of red distress, and Corrine embraced him again. Pummeling and ecstatic dance music was playing to an empty dancefloor. From the bridge’s entrance, Em filled her lungs with as much air as they allowed. “Absolutely not!” Em bellowed. “What on earth! No, no, no, unacceptable.” She skipped over to the console and had trouble finding the volume dial. Her eyes achieved focus, and she turned the music down to conversation level, then switched it to the earnestly inspirational classical piece they liked to play as a joke during chess matches. Alex was pushing a cart that had someone’s comforter draped over it. He consolidated the bar detritus and found that most of the alcohol was gone. The cans of ginger ale and soda water were empty, and the gin had finally been opened. The crew collected themselves, ran hands through their hair, took steadying breaths, then made their way toward the surgical carts. The change in music recharged the air and softly reset the stifled interior. Once the crew was gathered, still a bit raw and reluctant, Alex said, “So, I would just like to start by saying I love all of you deeply and would happily murder your enemies with no hesitation. Your attention, cutie pies.” The crew seemed to soften, and Alex assumed the role of a crackpot presenter from a centuries-old World’s Fair. “I present to you– oh, Em, the lights. Aha, yes, very good, yes this is just right. Ladies and gentleman, I dare you to resist looking away as I present…”  Alex pulled back the comforter. In the now-darkened bridge, six vials glowed a faint yellow and white. They floated in the middle of the room, the only visible lights.  “Awful, terrible, stinky glow shots,” Alex announced. One vial seemed to travel into the air as Alex picked it up. “No idea what’s going on in here,” he continued, breaking character, “but one of you sweet, beautiful gifts from heaven is gonna take this with me.” Corrine, her voice arriving from nowhere, asked, “Didn’t exposure to that make people lose their jaws?” “Forever forever ago,” replied Demetrius as he picked up a vial in the darkness, “after years of breathing it in for fifteen hours a day with no ventilation and zero dental care.” He held it close to his face, his eyes just becoming illuminated, hovering, widening. “Sure,” Corrine answered. “Isn’t it also literally an actual forreal chemical weapon?” “Jesus, it smells,” Nikoletta said. “Can we cut this with something?” “Vile vials,” Demetrius spoke in a grave tone as he brought the glowing chemical solution close to his open right eye, nearly making contact. “Vile vials.” The edge of his closed, peculiar smile was faintly visible. “No, ma’am, what you’ve got here is a down-the-hatch situation,” Alex said.  Em jumped in, “There’s only just enough white phosphorus to make it glow. It’s pretty harmless.”  “We made some much less scary ones if you want,” Alex said. “You won’t hurt our feelings.” Alain wordlessly grabbed a glowing vial and downed it. He hollered and pounded a single heavy fist against the floor. “Yep, yep, yep,” he said, beginning to laugh, then interrupting his laughter to howl again. “Yep, that’s what you want. God, I need something else immediately.” Alain groped around one of the surgical carts and filled the now-empty vial with gin. He swallowed all of it. The remaining vials floated around the room as Alex handed them out. Demetrius counted down from three and the white phosphorus methamphetamine cocktails disappeared down the throats of the crew, with the exception of one. After a minute of convulsive wailing, Em hit the lights and passed around the handle of gin. Demetrius approached Corrine, the vile vial still untouched in her hand. “Look, I’m not trying to be a downer,” Corrine said to Demetrius, anticipating the conversation. The rest of the crew was choreographing an interpretive dance to their classical chess soundtrack. “Believe me, I’m okay with the…” Corrine paused. The passage into Demtrius’s right ear began to widen as her vision of his face cracked. “With the concept. I’m just already pretty fucked up. And this is literal poison, right?” It grew to the width of his head, an open black punch bowl. His face was folding. “What I’ve learned from all of this,” Demetrius said, making a non-committal gesture toward the bridge with his arm, “is that life is hardy. It’s sticky. You probably know even more than I do, seeing it on the surface. Grows anywhere, everywhere, where we do want it, where we don’t want it, where we weren’t even trying. Humans especially. Despite our best efforts, we can’t seem to rid the universe of ourselves. Staying alive, proliferating, multiplying in spite of. Life is sticky, you know?” His eyes caught focus on a seam where two steel-white panels met on the wall behind Corrine’s head. How exacting is that seam? What was the spacing tolerance used by the ship’s planners? And why did they find this music funny? It was gorgeous. The panel seam responded to his focus by layering itself, fanning out, a stack of steel-white envelopes. His teeth were crushed foil. Corrine exhaled as she fell onto the edge of a lounger and said, “Dem, I’m not quite sure that’s…” It wasn’t a punch bowl. Something was making a nest in the side of his head, a nest of charcoal and dustmotes. They were gathering, living on a perpendicular axis of gravity. “Here, I’ll make you something less scary.” He took the white phosphorus shot from Corrine and shuffled off, returning with a glass of clear liquid. “No phosphorus in this one. In fact, I think this one contains zinc oxide, a natural antiseptic. Gets used in skin creams.” He no longer felt individual teeth, but two unbroken rolls of metal foil, crushing against each other, compacting. Corrine sniffed the glass and laughed. “Sure, I’ll drink your skin cream. I always drink skin cream. Perfect snack at the cinema.” “Exactly,” Demetrius said as Corrine started drinking. “A tub of it that you have to eat with a cupped hand.” “A bear paw,” Corrine corrected. The babies were hatching. Alain was whooping for the feel of it, unloading the contents of his lungs, disconnected from the beat of the music. He danced by slamming his weight into the deck with one steel-toed boot over and over, his head slamming down with it, a human jackhammer. The floor was a bent sheet, a pure sine wave. It lacked a third dimension. His body was a needle against it, dragging across the hills and valleys but never piercing the surface. A soft-focus halo of neon pulsed with every heavy step, rippling outward from his stomping foot. A neon halo radiated from each of the crew now, a slurred glow under the cabin’s can lights. He left briefly to vomit behind the console, then returned. Alex understood hands now. He watched and understood that hands were always correcting themselves. He was dancing in and out of people. Inside and outside of them. Their hands were in a constant state of reevaluation. Their hands. His hands. Even settled, they would only ever adjust their course in time. Em was in front of him more often than not. The gin appeared and shrank and was gone. He was in front of Em more often than not. Corrine was doing that mom dance with her hands that he loved. Finger guns, hopelessly unreliable, they were constantly adjusting themselves, their muscles tensing and relaxing. Reevaluating, always. Couldn’t trust their aim in a crisis.  Demetrius brought over two armloads of clear chemical solutions. Some glasses had labels that no longer held meaning. Most remained naked. Nik grabbed one and downed it like it was water. She may have thought it was water, Demetrius thought. He should have clarified. Someone should get water. Someone’s heel knocked over one of the solutions, and Demetrius dropped to the floor and began licking it up, kicking his legs. He was their lifeguard. The crew created a dance circle around him and cheered as he followed the moving puddle with his mouth. The cheer became a yell, the yell became a chorus of full-body screams, a playground test. As a unit, they bowed over him with praying hands. Nik’s hands could not come apart, and they never would again. She accepted this new reality, was hopeful for its future. Back on his feet, Demetrius spent a long minute putting the legal document disco lights back on the big screen. Corrine vomited moments after its flashing colors reappeared. The whole crew, Corrine included, repeated “Ooh no!” in an identical falsetto. They each took a few steps to the left. Nik was spinning Alain, Alain was spinning Nik. Both would pause to curtsy to the other, seeing how low and respectful they could get, a game of genteel modesty as brinkmanship. Alain’s head was a spilt handful of ball bearings, wet and glowing from the blood of cracked glowsticks. They were lapping hard against his skull, sinking down the drain of his throat now. His hair flushed down along with it. Alongside it, not on top, not following after. He was becoming one. The solutions were running low. Alex and Em were back in the abdomen. Alex picked up half-full solutions from their previous batch. The remainders, hanging dividends, the dividers. Dividends. No, not dividends. Remnants, waiting to be factored in again. Remainders. Left to be dealt with later, and later was now. Each gloveless hand held a few flasks, and Alex was swirling them, at first clockwise in his left and counter in his right. It was wrong. Not like that, not against, not in conflict. He had to switch, counter in his left now, clockwise in his right. The reversal caused the solutions to splash over their glass tops. The liquid met in mid-air, no longer strangers, falling into the flasks of their neighbors, falling onto Alex’s moving hands. In concert now, in harmony. Always reevaluating. He watched his hands become blurred circles, multiplied and indistinct. Multiples. Dividends. No, not dividends. “Memorized,” Em said, preparing her own phalanx of leftover erlenmeyer flasks. “I’ve it memorized. I’ve it mem’rized.” She wasn’t using droppers, but instead leaned in to eyeball the concentrates as they slid into different solutions. As a test, she let her eyes close while viscous, pencil-thick lines fell toward the counter. “Mem’rized.” “Who’s it?” Alex kept asking, his eyes stuck to his own blurred hands. “Who’s it? Who’s it?” Em clapped and squinted at the sensation. She tried again, her hands horizontal this time, then back to vertical. Alex wasn’t helping, she saw. “Done, done, done,” she said, gathering up her new babies. The colors of Alex’s blurred hands were lost traces of white, thrown silver, a glowing and teeming ruby. The ruby was the blood inside his hands, he knew, visible through his skin. Blood through his skin, barely contained. He couldn’t believe how fragile he was, how paper-thin, how even when his hands were in motion, he could see the pink blood inside them. Should he stop to slap the backs of them? Bring the blood even closer to the surface? Amplify their signal, their saturation? Where did Em go? He was suddenly alone in the abdomen. Tears grew in his eyes, and his hands slowed down. He understood where he was again and took deep, steadying breaths. He’ll make it up to her. He can do that. He’ll make something new.  In the bridge, Em found the crew sitting on top of and underneath the console. They had switched the music back to classical. Demetrius was speaking slowly, his back draped over a panel of black knobs, “You know how often people try to overdose and fail? It's nearly impossible. Especially with us. We’re still young. Immune systems in full swing.” “We're trying to overdose?” Nik asked from the shadows below the console. Seated even farther behind her in the recessed and dusty dark was Corrine, cross-legged, her head ducked down, silent for a minute now. “No,” Demetrius laughed. “I'm just saying that as… a… an… example.” Em caught the end of this conversation and jumped in. “We're being smart about it,” she said, dropping off a new set of unmarked flasks. She placed their foam blue carrier on the floor in front of Nik. “I do this every day. I mean, not this. No, yes this. We’re doing this correctly, I mean. This is the way to do it correctly, carefully measuring single drops at a time, ingesting slowly, letting it take effect in a nice, slow arc. We’re being smart about it.” Alain was lying on his stomach across the console, his face red and dangling over the front edge. His shirt pocket caught on a metal toggle as he tried to slide his head closer to the new flasks. Nik cracked up at the sight of his pathetic upside-down head, at his sweaty hair pointing toward the floor.  “Poor dumb baby,” Nik said. She picked up one of the new flasks and tried to gently pour it into his smiling, inverted mouth. Some made it in, some ran past and inside of his nostrils. He coughed, then inhaled as hard as he could through his nose. From deep underneath the console, Corrine made clicking insect noises. “This is good,” Alain said, getting dizzier. “This is doing correctly.” He reached a tentative arm over the edge of the console to take the flask from Nik. He made a mess trying to return the favor, spilling the solution over Nik’s chin and down her shirt before making it to her lips. “Life is sticky,” Demetrius said, his eyes tilting back, looking through the observation window toward the screwed-up pin-lights of distant stars. Corrine’s body was against the floor now. She was trying to sneak around Nik, who was making out with Alain’s upside-down head. Corrine paused when one ear made contact with the plated ground, and she listened to the living organs of the Queen, a body in as much internal motion as her own. Corrine continued sliding out from underneath the console in slow, deliberate silence until she reached the collection of new flasks on the floor. Her mouth was stuck open and inhaling dust. She picked out a flask for herself. Alex was in the med bay, under the counter. In the counter. He was looking for something, wasn’t he? Held by charred wooden arms, it was peaceful. How did it get so quiet? That’s right, he walked in here to find… He turned to look out from the womb and saw a trash can. He walked in here, and the first door, “door number one” he called it, roar of applause, was the trash. Traded places with it. Codeine. He would have to leave home to search through more drawers, wave goodbye to Mother and Father. The glass doors normally slide open but they could be pulled too, I bet. Alex’s bloody hands searched through the thin boxes of pills and dripping medicines that were packed in wide, wide shelves. Standing on handfuls of cracked glass, he found the correct blisterpacks by their shape. He and Em will fix the glass tomorrow. Kintsugi, it will be better than before, a work of real art. They’ll blow powdered gold across the fresh-repaired cracks. Alex could no longer read. He defecated where he stood with glass underneath and inside of his boots. The two-seater crashed into a white tank that held compressed carbon dioxide. Why would he be here if he didn’t need carbon dioxide? What was it, codeine and… codeine and… the tank was glowing white, it grew taller, stretched the length of the ceiling. Cold blue lights cleared a path for it. Gasoline. Codeine and an accelerant, red phosphorus, iodine, hydrochloric acid. Grocery list. Fuel for the bombs was near the compressed air tanks. “Overfloweth,” he whispered as gasoline ran over the lip of a flask and down his bleeding arm. “Overfloweth,” as he leaned in to inhale the running tap. Gross realist. He held out his tongue. The crew was fucking on the crooked pile of loungers. Alain’s pants never made it over his steel-toes. Shocked by the flashing colors on the central display, Alex gagged on stomach acid. “Hey,” he tried, standing next to them and holding out a pitcher of cloudy pink liquid. “Hey.” Em, undressed and much too pale, took Alex’s belt buckle in her fist and pulled him in. She isn’t this pale, he thought, and she needs to be taken to a hospital.  Alex found a way to set his pitcher on the low metal table near the loungers while his clothes disappeared. Vomited blood landed next to and inside of this new cocktail. With each beat of the electronic music, the ceiling took a deep breath, remade itself from concave to convex, closer to their heads each time. What was he sweating? Alex’s hands were leaving smeared red trails over Em’s white and blue body. She was one of the ceiling lights from the ship’s abdomen, that’s all. No hospital, that’s alright. She took his bleeding fingers into her mouth. Alain fell backwards off of Demetrius and onto his bare ass. He tried to reach his bootlaces and wept heavy tears. Shuffling back to the table on his knees, he took sips from the pitcher of cloudy pink liquid without using his hands. Shit ran down his leg. Corrine saw him struggling, helped to tip the pitcher into his mouth, then climbed on top of him. Nikoletta began to cry once she saw Alain’s tears, then laughed hoarsely as the lounger that held her and Demetrius tipped over. The floor didn’t matter, and they didn’t need it. She would remove it with her hands. She would force her fingers into every seam and remove the floor with her hands. An excavator, another builder in the family. An un-builder like her father, it’s genetic. A laid-off excavator waiting one hundred entire forevers away. The tears came back. “God, I need water,” Demetrius said, and he made uneasy steps toward the irregular collection of clear liquids lined up under the console. He drained one and sat cross-legged, his eyes refusing to cooperate. The world had less color before this. Nik’s body seemed tinted, exaggerated as he watched her scratch into the floor. Flooded skintones, flooding past their own borders, too much color somehow. “Might run out soon,” he called to no one, and the bridge shook with each syllable. He’ll be more careful next time. It wasn’t safe anymore. He crawled over and stroked Nik’s back. “Wanna make something with me?” he whispered as he helped her to her feet. Nik smiled and nodded, her eyes open too wide, too overcrowded with veins. “How hard could it be?” Demetrius asked as he, Nik, and Alain looked out into the abdomen, toward the endless sentry of black tanks.  Alain was now wearing a t-shirt and nothing else. He sat on the floor next to the electric two-seater, stood up, sat back down. “I will roll two dice,” he spoke into the distance, holding out a hand that held nothing. “The first will tell us the level. The second will tell us the aisle. Wait. I will roll three dice.” He looked down at his empty hand. “The third dice is for which tank in the aisle.” He looked up at Nik and Demetrius. “Ok, ready?” Corrine was dripping through the Queen. She was lying down in the middle of the dancefloor, her ear pressed against the surface again. Her wet skin was welded to the deck, and the groans of the vessel were her own. The ons and the offs of the circulators, the heavings of great, distant machines were her lungs now, were her beating heart. She was out of reach forever, certain that she would never breathe again. The Queen was distributing her body, her lifeforce, throughout its lower decks, and she was helpless to stop it. In the dusty underneath, in the black pitch that kept secrets, a layout not of rooms and walls, but of unseen machines, of gray cable snake pits, of crates of duplicate parts that tarnished just the same as they waited their turn in absolute darkness, enduring the tragedy that is their incorruptible dream of one day serving the only purpose for their existence. This was the industrial landscape that held the wisps of Corrine’s dissolving body. Her trace and indefinable remains shared space with the solemn and roaming dustmotes, the tangled gossamer of charcoal mist, defying gravity with the lights out, moving upright and tree-limbed, varicose, traveling in somnambulist waltz through the cold and unlit space. They float in silence, dragging a short train of dust against the floor behind them, languid and unseen, while she is further dissolved and scattered. She lives now as pistons loosed into shallow mist, as gearboxes kicked and spilled out, as spares and glass outcomes.   Corrine pressed her ear harder against the floor but could no longer pick out her heartbeat from the series of patternless hums and clicks below. She was truly lost now, parceled. Held apart. In a moment, she will drip clear through the bottom, through and into the airless pull. She will become distant nothing. “Hey, Corrine, have you tried this?” Alex asked. Seated on the floor, he shuffled over to her, bearing the pitcher of pink krokodil. He took a heavy swallow from it before placing it next to Corrine’s eyes, black and unblinking. Her hands stayed where they were, flat against her side, but they would move soon enough. He picked up the pitcher and swallowed hard. Hands were reevaluating. “You can leave her,” Em said. “I think the others are in the abdomen.” Em knew everyone had the airlock code, but couldn’t they have asked her first? They just waltzed in there on their own. How could she be alone in this, in understanding the disrespect of their being in the abdomen without her? “Alex, we should find them. Leave her, she’ll be fine.” Alex took a departing drink from the pitcher and left it next to Corrine’s rising and falling body. Corrine was alone on the dancefloor now, hearing arpeggiated swells of mannered violins. Unhearing. Her eyes stared straight through a liquid pink mist, a slow motion storm moving on top of itself. Catching, resetting, catching against itself. She was famished. Em and Alex found the rest of the crew after minutes of chasing laughter that folded in waves inside the endless cathedral hull of the abdomen. Nik and Alain had their heads cocked back, both steadying a dropper over one eye. Demetrius was trying to whistle. He kept falling back into one of the tanks, first on accident and then on purpose. He noticed Em and Alex and turned his head slowly, playing the villain. “We think it’s tilapia,” Demetrius said, narrowing his eyes and grinning. “We’re playing the tilapia challenge.” “Your face is,” Em started to say. Nik and Alain emptied the droppers into their eyes. Their bodies were crushed wastepaper. They buckled and fell to their knees. Both were cackling on the ground. “You’re making a face like you expect me to be upset,” Em finished. Demetrius’s face split as Em’s eyes unfocused. She couldn’t make it whole again. Someone else’s face and body grew like a plant in its place, a seventh crew member whose mouth opened to the floor, past the floor. It was the heavy black door that led to the break room in the foundry where her father worked. How long had it been since she last had one of those automatic hot chocolates? Corrine found plenty of water to drink, but she didn’t know how to find food. She kept hitting buttons and toggles on the console with a closed fist, would occasionally hear a new, distant noise, but no food would appear. After hitting one of the buttons, the light of the central digital display screen shut off, revealing the hanging black absence outside, but that wasn’t enough. Why was the Queen keeping food from her? She had to eat, too. Running out of buttons, she slumped to the ground, her back resting against the side of the console. Her head fell forward, and, appearing as a miracle, noodles materialized in front of her. Dried noodles. A blessing. Exactly what she needed. An actual miracle. Exactly when she needed them. “Ferns! Ferns! Ferns!” The echoes of the cheering crew in the Queen’s abdomen were physically overwhelming Em as she forced down 50 ml of straight concentrate. She was topless again. The beaker shattered after she dropped it to steady herself against a tank. She took a risk on a burp and put both fists in the air. “Ferns!” Em cried, tears in her eyes, victorious. The cheers were horrifying. Her legs were caught against the floor. Stapled. She would have to remove the staples by hand, wrench them out through her boots, through the middle of both feet. Only moments apart from each other, Nik and Alain stopped clapping and gagged hard. Lurching, spasmodic movement inside their necks whipped them into violent seizures. The concentrate had traveled from their eye sockets and into their sinuses. Now it dripped down the back of their throats. As Demetrius watched, unsure how to move, colors were escaping from the laws that bound them in his vision. Nik and Alain looked like thrown paint as they shook against the ground. The entire ship had the look of heavy brushwork, globbed and piled into a third dimension. Wherever he looked, an overflow of excess paint was congealing and dripping down into a puddle somewhere that Demetrius did not want to find. Em leaned over the railing and watched as her bloody vomit grew smaller, reoriented itself in mid-air, separated into a chain of islands, then gathered back together as it was caught by the avenue below, a new red unity.  Seeing Nik and Alain locked in twin body spasms, Alex knew this was the crisis. He made finger guns. No, that wasn’t it. Where were they? He flicked on the two-seater. He thought he was speaking words, but no one seemed to react. It must be the same as reading. He suspected that spoken language was beyond him, too. He tried again to confirm this hunch, but this time everyone responded by piling onto the vehicle. That must have been what he asked for. Someone’s body was shaking against his own, digging into his upper back. They were staring into the glinting white teeth of a leviathan. He heard someone else’s speaking voice. He wondered if he could respond. “Air tanks,” Em said. “You have to turn around.” She looked down at her hands as they were holding Nik’s convulsing body. When did she become a ghost, a translucent blue ghost that was somehow able to hold on to Nik’s shaking green army jacket? Demetrius was running the sink in the med bay and delivering water to Nik and Alain, both relatively stable now on the same bed. Identical yellow vomit was pooled on the floor on either side of them. No one could find the med bay’s trash can. Demetrius filled up another pitcher of water for himself. He had held onto a small erlenmeyer flask of what he thought was tilapia concentrate. He watched it slide into the pitcher of water. Alex found Corrine sitting in the middle of the dancefloor, still listening to their chess soundtrack, alone and unmoving. He saw that Corrine painted her face while they were in the ship’s abdomen.  Alex joined her on the floor and said, “I think we’re all drinking water now. Do you want some?” It wasn’t face paint, Alex realized, but blood from her scalp. Portions of Corrine’s hair were missing. Corrine’s mouth curled slightly. She nodded yes. Alex left and found a pitcher of water in the med bay. He drank some himself before carefully administering it to Corrine.  As they sat, the bodies of Em, Nik, and Alain appeared around them. Nik sensed alarm upon seeing Alex and Corrine on the floor, but she couldn’t categorize it. A pulsing hell grew behind her eyes and roundly rejected all incoming concerns. She sat down beside them, and that simple motion tore a patterned lattice of pain deeper inside her head, a new and unknown geometric framework that constricted and shredded through nerves, segmenting the meat in her skull into strict, acute angles that continued into the back of her neck. Breakers of white bile swelled without warning, and it required incredible will for Nik to turn her head away from her friends before the mass choked its way through her throat and poured onto the dancefloor. Her head still turned, clear acid shining around her mouth, one of her hands found Corrine. Nik rested it on Corrine’s leg.  Demetrius was counting the glasses of chemical solutions lined up underneath the console. “That’ll,” he said. “That will. That is. That’ll.” His eyelids were the tin beaks of birds of prey, and they were snapping shut around his eyes. The talons of weaker birds were trying to escape through his iris. He couldn’t let the tin beaks around his eyes stay open too long. The smaller birds might escape. Nik and Em both accepted glasses from Demetrius. Em danced to the classical music as if it were the bass-heavy electronic from earlier. She spread puddles with her shoes. Her lungs were hot. Alain, still pantsless, rolled across the floor toward the console and picked up a half-full glass of solution. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a silver packet of spicy shrimp flavoring. He dumped the whole thing in. Alex asked Corrine if she’d be okay, and he left her sitting with Nik and the pitcher of water. He had to make a call, and he knew his list of contacts was behind one of these steel-white wall panels. A memory came back to him of writing out a list of numbers longhand in case of a personal comms malfunction. Grows reel lisp. He sensed that the list was behind the panel that was neither the most nor the least tarnished, the wall panel that was at the precise midpoint of discoloration. He found it near the hallway that led to the thorax.  What Alex sensed next was the presence of a thin blade, a skewer, a letter opener spanning the distance between his right temple and a point above his left ear canal. The sound of its dull tip dragging across bone and scratching into the inside of his skull resonated throughout his body, blocking out all other sound. It was doing something better than scratching. It was engraving. It was engraving capital letters. He was locked in place with an arm stretched toward the half-tarnished wall panel as he waited for the blade to finish engraving these words: GROATS SURREY LIFTS. Of course, he thought. It was always going to be this message, a message appearing as a miracle. An incorruptible purpose forever engraved inside of his skull. He was certain now. This would be the rock on which he would build his church. The pain inside his head was incandescent, a cascade of ruptured glass vacuum tubes, glass darts by the thousands firing past his eyes and down his neck. His arm wanted to reach the wall to balance himself, but it wouldn’t connect. The pad of his index finger, its ridges and canyons, its vibrating and busy interior, would approach and retreat from the steel wall one slow millimeter at a time. It’s cold, isn’t it. It’ll be cold, I bet. Em was yelling words of encouragement to Alain, who opened up the back of the console and was pulling out bundled groups of thin cables as far as he could without breaking them. The cables broke anyway. He must have found the surgical stapler in the med bay and was attempting to staple exposed cables to the walls of the bridge. The staples had trouble piercing through steel, so he climbed barefoot on top of the console to try and staple them to the ceiling, which was made of a more giving polymer. This was serious work, and Alain muttered to himself as he fired staples. “System. Nervous. System,” he said. His toe caught an array of metal toggles, and he fell face first into the console. “Nervous.” Em told him to keep trying, enjoying the sensation of pulling her feet away from the increasingly sticky deck as she danced. Nik managed to assign focus to Corrine’s face, to the drying blood diluted by sweat, to the white residue collecting around her mouth. She held Corrine by both shoulders and said, “Up, poor baby. Up.” Corrine managed to get one foot on the floor, but she couldn’t sort out her second step. Nik looked to a dancing Em for assistance. Has Em always been so pale? In the blur of motion, her white and blue arms were flightless wings. The last thing Nik saw was the pitcher that Corrine held, its contents a dark and cloudy gray, the suggestion of a slow clockwise whirlpool inside. Then Nik saw nothing as the stone weights tied around her eyes dropped over the side of the dock, pulling her eyes deep inside until they drowned, drowned, drowned. With loose wiring in one hand and a surgical stapler in the other, Alain bumped into Alex, who seemed distressed in his movements. Distressed in his absence of movement. Alex’s outstretched hand held a mess of cracked and drying blood, and the lids of his eyes visibly spasmed. Alain got on his knees to find the least invasive part of Alex’s body, a point of minimal injury. This had to be a loving act, a kindness for a friend in trouble. Alain chose a point at the center of Alex’s right calf. He used two fingers to hold a yellow wire taught against Alex’s pant leg, and with his other hand, he pulled the stapler’s trigger. “It’s automated,” Em said to Demetrius. The two were crouched in front of one of the computers, and she was helping him read. The chairs were missing.  “Right, it’s automated, but it’s real, isn’t it?” Demetrius asked. Em scrolled through the new legal document, then had to look away from the motion blur and throbbing white light of the monitor. She stopped scrolling and was relieved to see the end of the document. “It’s real. I’m pretty sure. You probably tripped something.” “That… was… fast,” Demetrius spoke, struggling to hold the weight of his head. “Fabar men. Fabar men. Linney Fabar men in suits. Men in suits are waiting for me.” Demetrius laughed a single laugh. Em caught something that threatened to climb up her esophagus. “Can’t they drain your account from here? If you don’t respond in ‘x’ amount of days or whatever?” “Well, let us just take a look-see at this here decree,” Demetrius said, his head falling to the opposite angle. His hands opened and closed around nothing at involuntary intervals. Em squinted at the monitor and answered, “No.” “Or consider,” said Demetrius. “Or consider,” said Em. “Or consider,” said Demetrius. “Or consider,” said Em. “Or consider,” said Demetrius. “Or consider,” said Em. Nik kissed Corrine’s shoulder. She had a sunken memory of someone’s blanket thrown to one side, and she found the comforter after a minute of casting around with outstretched arms. She wrapped Corrine in the drier side of the comforter. Nik rested her chin on Corrine’s shoulder. She whispered something and received no response. Nik then took careful, glacial steps away from the voices in the bridge, met the cold touch of a steel wall panel, and, aching and eyeless, found her way to her apartment. Inside, Nik had to pause every few steps to endure columns of pain. In creeping increments, by the edge of a braided rug, by the back of a chair, by the chipped corner of a composite desk, she finally reached the personal comms hub in her apartment. She still retained the muscle memory of powering on the machine, and, now hearing its familiar soft-static hum, she found the contacts dial and felt it click three times. “Good morning,” Nik spoke into the hub’s onboard microphone. Had she ever started a call this way before? Those greetings held little meaning here, orbiting a planet with nineteen hour and twenty-two minute days. She fought through a temporary paralysis that rose as scaffolding from between her shoulder blades. “I am starting over. Hey, Dad. I will be back sooner than we– than I thought. We. Than anyone. I am sorry. I do not understand. I love you. The account,” she said, wincing through the sensation of rebar dragging through half-congealed concrete behind her forehead. Her nails scratched farther into the chipped corner of the desk. “Is against. Yet. I will fix it. I’m sorry. I'm seeing you sooner. Love you.” Nik was unable to see the screen, unable to read the error message reporting that all outgoing comms would be saved and retained within the vessel until connection was restored. Outbound signals were severed. Cables that were crucial to their transmission were no longer inside the bridge’s console. Some were knotted under a lounger. Some dangled from the ceiling. One was stapled to Alex’s leg. Demetrius was having trouble writing new code. Em’s arm typed over his shoulder, and she smiled in approval. “Obvious,” she kept saying. “Obviously,” he would respond. The tin beaks around his eyes were snapping shut with increasing force.  Nik was back in the bridge and sitting with Corrine on the dancefloor. Both were inside of the comforter, and they held each other close. Corrine kept spitting up. Alex had trouble breathing through the drain in the floor. He imagined the holes in the metal growing wider. The drain was inhaling the cloudy pink solution that he mixed earlier. The solution was leaving his body through the back of his leg. Where was that pitcher now? He couldn’t breathe through the drain while it was drinking codeine, gasoline, and red phosphorus. He needed to make more for himself. Immediately. Watching the drain drink from his leg, he felt his face with a wet, pruning hand, and he found that his whole body wept for this loss. Of course it was. Why didn’t he have it? Why can’t I drink it right now? This is the saddest I have ever been in my entire life. Slow, deliberate, Alain dragged a shoulder along the wall that led to the showers. He found Alex sitting underneath a running shower head with both legs outstretched, fully clothed and soaked through. Next to him, half underneath the falling water, was a scuffed gray trash can ready to overflow. Single-use gloves and wads of swollen used facial tissue floated inside. Shower water flowed freely past and inside of Alex’s open mouth. His eyes were glass. The regular rising of his stomach was the only visible movement, his concave chest collecting and releasing shallow pools of water. Collecting, releasing. “Hey, we’re leaving,” Alain spoke softly, afraid of interrupting his friend. “You should come with us if you want.” The stream of water running down Alex’s face broke around his mouth as it tried to speak. All it could do was part, reshape, close again. He saw that one of Alain’s eyes was a red mess of burst capillaries, a codeine blisterpack. “Yeah,” Alain said, the weight of his body on one shoulder. Alex found it odd to be a passenger in the hopper, found it odd to see it so crowded. Demetrius held the controls, his body falling toward one side. Demetrius flinched in and out of unconsciousness, waking each time to the crack of a snapped tongue depressor, the sound originating from somewhere inside himself. Em placed her hands on Alex’s headrest for balance. Alex didn’t notice until she spoke. “We wanted to watch it,” Em said close to his ear. She chose to stand for this trip. Alex wondered why Em didn’t think to invite him, wondered if she would have left without him. Alex turned to see Nikoletta and Corrine slumped in their harnesses, their heads facing their bare feet. Alain’s eyes were stuck to a window as the hopper descended and broke the manufactured cloudline. The ruby light of a foreign sun reflected on Alain’s face. None of his muscles reacted.  “Did you bring it?” Alex asked Em, his mouth impossibly dry. Corrine began hacking, her body a violent stutter against her seat harness. Em didn’t answer. Alex would ask Demetrius. It was somewhere in the hopper. Piles and piles of hair exited Corrine’s mouth and collected at her feet. The wet accumulation was clotted and iridescent, crude oil black and moving between her toes. As they approached the planet’s surface, Alex heard the familiar sub-bass grinding of landing gear in motion. It was unmistakable, and it was wrong. The wrong grinding, the clicks arriving out of place. Demetrius de-accelerated as they reached a level clearing along an unnamed coastline. Alex remembered too late that he left the hopper’s wheels out when he last docked into the Queen. Demetrius wasn’t familiar with the hopper’s controls, and he hadn’t noticed either when he toggled the landing command. The wheels were fully retracted back inside now. With force and with purpose, the hopper planted itself deep into fresh, waiting silt. Em’s kneecap met the corrugated floor first, then the rest of her. Unfastened tools and supply packs spilled out and littered the cabin. The scuffed gray trash can tipped easily, spilling soaked garbage and shower water down the length of the hopper. “We’re okay. We’re okay,” Demetrius said, slowly swiveling to see the crew. “Yeah. We’re okay.” It was dark in the hopper. The planet’s surface reached halfway up the observation windows. Alex and Demetrius spent a minute struggling to open the roof’s emergency hatch. They helped the crew out of their harnesses and pulled them through the roof one at a time. Nik, awoken by the landing, kept asking for Corrine, but Corrine remained silent. The two found each other on the roof and sat cross-legged together with their hands clasped.  It was only a short jump from the roof to the dirt. Demetrius slid down the side of the hopper, and, for the first time, he made contact with this planet. He staggered and tripped in the direction of the freshwater lake. It lapped softly in the distance with an easy consistency that suggested it had always been, that it had always moved with this certain, solemn rhythm, giving no indication that only recently did it escape from ice caps in stages of intentional greenhousing. The peaks of its brief and countless waves gave the impression of a rose gold vanity mirror in a state of perpetual cracking and refracting. Turning his head, Demetrius fell in the direction of the jagged black mountain range, mountains with edges yet to be dulled by erosion, their finer splintered details kept secret behind fallen curtains of delicate amber fog, a powdered gold blown across the sky. The tin beaks around his eyes were open wide. They never told me, Demetrius thought as he stepped his first step into glinting pink water, a lake like a jewel case, blushing under this curious ruby sky. The view of his submerged bare feet in ruddy sand remained perfect, disrupted only by the natural distortion of light through clean unfrozen water. How could a place be so untouched? It is past beauty. New terms are needed, a new scale that we must never know. To even know the words is to ruin this place. To even observe it is to ruin this place. It is pure of import. It has yet to arrive at meaning, and it must never arrive. Nobody can know these valleys and these oceans lay waiting. They remain meaningless, unchartable, unutterable, objects of literal perfection so long as the human mind is forbidden from assigning consequence, forbidden from hanging weight and expectation.  A warm breeze traveled across the cracked and refracting rose gold vanity mirror and met Demetrius’s waist-deep body. He allowed himself to be held in its breath. Looking down to the clean image of his toes buried in silt, salty tears fell fast and easy from the tin beaks around his eyes. I must never assign thought to this world. It is past purity. Perfection in meaninglessness. How absurd is it for my body to hold space in this world? How presumptuous for me to breathe and exchange its air? My lungs are a corrupting presence, an engine of slow despoilment that can only unbalance this land, can only drag it further from an unknowable purity. Not to mention the violence of my arrival, the intrusion of steel and propellant. Unacceptable. Too ashamed to turn and look at the hopper that I know must lie behind me still. Even the trace wake of my skin and hair is a pollution. The salt from my tears landing in this freshwater is an arrogance. This is a world on a knife’s edge. Too fragile to look upon, a planet built by vast and accumulated circumstance, alive only in paper-thin margins, a miracle existing within the smallest window of potential physical manifestation, and I dare ask it to tolerate the foreign virus of my walking body, my sweat and my breath, an intruder who can do nothing to improve upon this purity, who can only sully it with every shedding cell?  Far above, a heavy striation of bruised charcoal clouds parted to reveal an unknown sun, and in the moments before the sky collected itself over again, the lake that surrounded him glowed the color of thin honey and rose petal from the inside out. They never told me. Alex watched Demetrius stumble farther away from the hopper and into the water. Em’s head was tilted back as she watched the movement of dense cloud figures. She was propped back against her arms, her useless and swelling leg hanging over the hopper’s edge. Alex saw that the skin around her gashed knee had turned purple and black. If Em felt it, she gave no indication. Alain was scrambled behind the eyes. The world dimmed behind numerics and cracked neons, speeding figures set against a hanging black absence. The characters eluded coherence, and he tried and failed to slow the images. They persisted, kept racing whether his eyes were open or closed. He sensed an acceleration in his vision, a ruby light singeing through his optic nerves, through his sense of balance. And yet, words untethered swam in a countercurrent, undaunted, appearing as a miracle, a spawning against the motion blur. These words broke the surface of heavy glowing traffic and drew breath, and for their effort, Alain resolved to speak them aloud. “Life is sticky.” They registered as pure phonetics, thudding, sinking immediately to the drowned bottom. He could not solve them, they were a subliminal reflex that carried no meaning. Though he knew he must have fathered these words, he could not claim them. His sense of gravity and orientation, of his proportion and plotting within the world’s grid, was beyond him now. Speeding cracked neon was the whole of his sensation. He could not claim his own body as it slid headfirst, inching in slow heaves back into the emergency roof hatch. “Okay,” Em said, her eyes on the mass of clouds that held steady above their wrecked hopper. “In a minute, I think.” Corrine was watching the sky now, too. She weakly pounded an open palm onto the roof. Alex expected a flock of birds. But they didn’t do birds. They do pollinators. Birds arrive with colonies. A portion of the bruised charcoal clouds grew brighter. Corrine pounded the roof again, and Nik squeezed Corrine’s other hand tighter. “Hey,” Corrine said, watching the area of glowing clouds. As the brightness increased, the portion of lit clouds narrowed in diameter. “Hey,” Corrine said, pounding faster with her open palm. Nik put both arms around her and wept through unseeing eyes. Something crept through Em’s throat, and she coughed black tar down her shirt. The glowing portion of clouds tightened and grew brighter, grew hotter until it reached a fiery white point. Alex watched as the Queen burst through the cloudline, kilometers above their heads, every one of its observation lights set to full brightness.  It was falling at an angle, abdomen-first. Its size was wrong. The space it occupied was wrong. Why was he seeing the Queen like this, with his body exposed to it, his skin sharing the same air as the vessel’s screaming exterior? It kept growing larger, but how? Nothing should ever be so large. Alex found it impossible to understand it as a vehicle, as a vessel. It read as pure architecture, as acres of unknowable heaving structure. It was an entire site unmoored, plucked up whole and flung from deep nowhere, lit for dead midnight and growing larger still. Somehow it was falling in silence, an endless moment of pure, helpless sight. Senseless. It should be crying. Wailing. Its array of alarms should be coughing and gasping as it sensed its own weight against the rushing atmosphere. He should hear its screaming. Senseless for it to keep growing like this. It read as a singular, private apocalypse. No one is supposed to see this. Somehow, it was still advancing, accelerating, filling more and more of the sky with an unyielding steel gray and dragging dozens of gashed white light trails behind. Em’s eyes widened, black bile dripping off the point of her upturned chin. It would be landing much closer to the hopper than she expected. Alex fell into the emergency hatch while Corrine’s pounding turned frantic. “Hey. Hey.” Alain was in the pilot’s seat, his unbreathing body draped over the yoke. Alex smacked on the engine toggles. The hopper sparked to life with the yoke already pulled to a hard angle under Alain’s weight. The hopper stuttered and groaned against porous dirt, digging itself deeper into the earth. Corrine was screaming now as Alex tried to pull Alain’s body out of the pilot seat. The surface around the hopper brightened far beyond daylight as the Queen grew improbably closer, seeming ready to make contact where they sat. Not exactly where they sat, Em knew. It will touch down a few hundred yards along the coast. She saw that Demetrius found the water, was shoulder-deep now. She looked farther down to the black vomit syrup on her shirt. This is valid, Em thought. I can use this. Hydrochloric acid, stomach tissue, organic plant material. I can separate it, use all of it. Easy. She studied the material closer. It was a liquid, and yet it was swimming. A black liquid swimming back up her shirt. Strange for a liquid to swim, for a substance to move against its own state. The crew was divided by shrapnel. The Queen’s ruptured air tanks fired concentrates into the planet’s surface at hundreds of kilometers per second and blanketed the coast with concussive waves of black smoke, of hydrogen and methane, of carbon dioxide and oxygen, of helium and nitrogen. Organic material climbed into the clouds. Some concentrates fell back promptly as viscous storms, landing onto the surface in sheets. Some concentrates were captured by the atmosphere, traveling far afield before returning as rain. This world took a hard, deep breath and inhaled all of it. In time, this site would become a paradise that its creators could never enjoy. The crew’s rescuers would find a planet no longer suitable for human life, but ideal for someone else. Hundreds of millions of miles away, Nicolas Olivér was standing in a bare office. He was directing a picture-hanger and pointing to a spot on the cream-white wall above where his redwood desk might go. As he side-stepped to a point on the carpet where his chair would sit, he received a notification. Seeing the automated emergency message, he was reminded that he needs to ask Lynval to remove him from the terraforming operations list. Nicolas deleted the notification, then received a stranger message. When he sees Terry later that day, he’ll ask how normal it is for LinneFabar board members to attend birthday parties for the children of warehouse inventory specialists.

I stole a lot of things when I was 13 and 14. My family lived in Virginia Beach then. My father, who’d been an enlisted man in the U.S. Navy since he was 17, retired from the military while in Virginia, and went into sales. Our family moved off the naval base and into a working-class neighborhood about eight miles from the oceanfront. I never would have dared to steal while we lived on base, not with all the military police always lurking around.  With Craig, a friend I’d made in the new neighborhood, I stole records from the Farm Fresh grocery store close to our houses. Farm Fresh kept a small collection of records – a combination of current hit albums and back catalogue titles that were reliable sellers. Craig and I would pool together enough money from our paper routes for one album, and we’d go into Farm Fresh and buy the record. They always bagged the records in those big paper sacks normally used for groceries. Then we’d go right back to the music section and stuff another album or two in our bag, then walk out. I remember us buying The Cars’ first album from the grocery store a couple months after it came out; then we went back in and ripped off a copy of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti . With Ricky and Grant, two guys I knew from when we still lived on base and who came to hang out with me sometimes, I stole odds and ends from Roses department store. New locks for our bikes, candy, cigarettes, lighters, and other odds and ends. We’d lift packs of More cigarettes from Roses, then ride to the woods behind my family’s house and smoke out there.  My new friend Dean and I had a thieving routine worked out, involving a bowling alley a couple miles from where our families lived. We’d ride our bikes out to the bowling alley, then hang around across the street, in the parking lot of Tom’s Tiki Tavern. We’d watch for when people drove up to the alley. Once they were out of their cars and had gone in to bowl, we’d ride over and see if they left their car doors open. And if they did, we’d root around the seats, floorboard, and glove compartment, checking for booty. We got coins this way, along with cigarettes, cassette tapes, etc. When we got coins, we’d go into the bowling alley and use them to play the pinball machines. I did some of my best thieving in the early morning. Craig, some other guys I knew, and I were all morning paper boys. We had to have our papers delivered by 6:00 a.m., meaning we were out and tooling around on our bikes when most people were still sleeping. As we each completed our respective routes, we’d take note of any worthy goods sitting around on people’s lawns or porches. Then, when we were all done slinging papers, we’d ride back through the neighborhoods and steal stuff. Our favorite item to take was bikes. If we saw a decent bike left outside and unlocked, one guy would leave his bike chained up somewhere and ride to that house on someone else’s handlebars. Once at the crime scene, that guy would jump off, grab the loose bike, and we’d haul ass out to the woods. There, we’d strip the stolen bike for its best parts, divvy them up, and toss the unwanted pieces of the bike into a creek. The first time I got caught stealing was at Farm Fresh. I was in there alone, just before Little League baseball practice. I wasn’t out to steal records, just a pack of grape Bubble Yum gum to chew on the way to, and during, practice. I had a couple dollars in my pocket, but who wants to pay for gum? I grabbed a pack of Bubbleyum off the shelf, then went into the store’s bathroom, where I shoved the gum into a pocket before I peed at a stall. When I was just about done with my business in the bathroom, I looked into the mirror in front of me and saw that a store employee, wearing a Farm Fresh smock, was standing in front of the bathroom doorway, his arms folded across his chest. When I tried to walk past him, he grabbed my arm and led me out into the store. “Is this him ?” he said, to a nosy-looking woman who was standing outside the bathrooms. “Yes. I saw him take the pack of bubble gum off the shelf. He was looking around while he did it, like he was making sure nobody was watching. Then he took the gum into the bathroom. I’m sure he was trying to steal the gum.” My nerves were going pretty good. But I told myself to stay calm. “You mean this  gum?” I asked, looking at both of them and brandishing the pack of Bubbleyum. “Yes,” the woman said. “I bought this gum from 7-11 across the street before coming over here. Do you wanna walk over there with me and we can ask the guy I bought it off?” The woman looked skeptical. But she said, “Maybe I was wrong. I thought I saw you take it off the shelf here.” “I had it when I came in. I was just in here killing time before baseball practice. I took it out of my pocket, because I was thinking about opening a piece in here. Then I realized I needed to use the bathroom.” The woman still didn’t seem totally sold. But she told the clerk, “I could  have made a mistake.” I said, “You did ,” and walked away from them. Then I rode my bike to practice, popping purple bubbles. The second time I got caught stealing was at a novelty store that opened in our neighborhood. Craig and I decided we wanted a whoopee cushion from there. We couldn’t wait to start playing pranks on our family and friends with the cushion. We had no intention of paying for it. We doubled to the store on Craig’s bike, in case we saw a good bike around that we wanted to steal. We lingered around the novelty store for just a couple minutes before Craig grabbed a whoopee cushion and we hurried out. As we opened the door to leave, we heard, “Wait! Damnit!” We got on Craig’s bike quickly, with me on the handlebars and holding the whoopee cushion, and started riding away. I looked back and saw the store clerk chasing us on foot. When we were about two blocks from the store, Craig’s bike chain popped off and we crashed. The store clerk snatched the whoopee cushion out of my hands and told us he’d have us arrested if he ever saw us in the store again. The next time I was caught stealing was when Dean and I did our thing at the bowling alley parking lot. After breaking into three or four cars there, we rode away on our bikes, trying to think of what else to do. We had some pot I’d gotten from my sister Marie’s boyfriend. We were thinking we’d go out to the woods and get high. But as we pedaled, a K-9 police truck suddenly appeared, its lights flashing, and came to a skidding halt just in front of us. “Park your bikes,” the policeman said as he got his dog out of the truck. He held on to the dog as it growled at us. The cop walked right up to me. “I saw you break into that van at the bowling alley. Don’t bother lying to me, because I watched you do it.” I didn’t understand why he was only berating me, and not Dean. But I wasn’t about to argue, not with that dog looking mean and showing me its teeth. “What you did is called breaking and entering. It’s a crime. I could probably get you put away in a boys’ detention home for that. You think you’d like it there?” I had no idea what life at a detention home would be like. But I figured it wasn’t fun. For some reason, at that moment, I thought of my uncles Joe and Johnny, from Massachusetts. That’s where I was born. We had a big extended family there, on my mind’s side. My grandparents came over from Portugal on the boat. When the navy transferred my dad to Virginia and we moved, my mom was the first of her parents’ 10 children to ever leave Massachusetts. My uncles would be so ashamed of me. They both raised their families while working in factories. I was sure their kids - my cousins - never stole. I never did, either, before we left New England and were isolated from the family. “No, sir. I wouldn’t like it there.” “Then you better not ever let me see you anywhere within a mile of that bowling alley again. Or anywhere else where you’re thinking about stealing from decent people.” “Yes, sir.” “Get outta my face, then, before I change my mind and take you to the station.” I don’t know if I applied the three strikes and you’re out rule from baseball, or of it was just the memory of how I felt with that police dog glaring at me; but I stopped stealing after the K-9 cop incident. Anyway, I had better things to do, like going out with a pretty blonde girl named Jill. Brian Greene writes short fiction, as well as journalism features on books, music, film, and fine arts. His work has appeared in approximately 50 print and online publications.

Of course, he’d be born on a Sunday. A day I use to believe in, now holds weight heavier than my swollen belly. The June morning started slowly as the humid heat, among the Pineywoods, rose across the field like spirits searching for heaven. Deep Texas has many ghosts, and I knew them well. The high grasses in the front yard whispered like the gossips in my school hallways. I heard she had sex with every guy on the football team. Well, I heard she did it with a college boy. I never blamed them for not having imaginations that wouldn’t go dark enough to even scratch the truth. My own mind protected me from it too.  Before Momma and Daddy left for church, my stomach started squeezing in on itself. Forcing my breath to quicken. I noticed her shoot me a glance through the mirror by the front door. For a moment, I imagined the mother within her setting aside her red lipstick and saying, I’m here.  Instead, she pursed her lips and walked out to the car muttering something about being a Pastor’s wife, and what would they think if she was late? And Daddy, well, he just avoided me. I guess our mistakes are easier to forget that way.  Sixteen and alone in that tiny white house is where my body opened forever. I headed for bathroom during the next contraction, and it started to pull me under. Under what, I couldn’t tell you, but it felt like swimming in Jell-O. The pressure in my body made my knees buckle, and my hands gripped at the slick waterproof walls. A crab in a bucket, desperate for a way out.  You did this to yourself, I could hear Momma say. Like the consequences of my sin meant love had to be withheld. But then again, she only loved hard. Said it would make me ready for the real world. I think it only made me search for love in all the wrong places. What do I know? Mother knows best. The edges of my vision fade into a dim haziness. The baby is coming now on this cracked and yellow-stained linoleum floor. Waves of intensity, laced with sweet drops of rest. A final rush of adrenaline, and my mind reels into a frenzied oblivion. Yet, there is a strange comfort in the way death holds your hand when you give birth. It sits near you like a companion, a reminder of how close we tread between life and death as girls. Maybe that’s why they try to silence us and make us feel small. There is nothing small about the universe, with all of its stars and planets.   A flash of sting and I’m back in my body. There is no way to know how long I’ve been in this tiny room except the sun had set and rose again at least once. Where is everyone?  Momma and Daddy were only supposed to go to the morning service and back.  Something scratched and sniffed on the other side of the half-opened door. A round fox squirrel peaks her head around and sits up on her hind legs, exposing her warm caramel belly as if to say, what are you doing in my house?   She was right. This wasn’t my home. I found this abandoned house on my walk home from school a few weeks ago. I remember now, telling myself how I would have you here, away from the house the Devil got to a long time ago.  Still, wave after wave washed over me, layering on top of one another like a tsunami and I surrendered. Your scream blended with mine and I pulled you, slick like a rainbow trout, to my chest.  Alexander. I rub your name on you like a healing salve. A wren sitting on a branch outside the broken window, sings her happy song with confidence. I know she’s calling to me, the way a soul knows when it’s being spoken to. Your baby bird mouth searches for my milk. You are safe here . I try not to think of how even the best of moms can only promise this for so long before the world presents all its dangers.  His sleepy fingers curl around my thumb as a tear lands on his cheek. An anointment between mother and son. This life is cruel, the way it gives a child to a child. I’m so sorry, I whispered down to him. Reaching for my backpack sitting on the toilet, I pull out a pen and a piece of paper.  As I write my note, I study his face, his lips moving in a rhythmic suckling motion.   My sweet boy, My body will forever ache for you, to hold you, to know you.  I love you. Still bleeding, I head for the fire station.  Vanessa Butler, born in San Diego, California, now resides in London, where she continues to nurture both her academic and creative ambitions. She earned a degree in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and later completed a Masters in Public Health at the University of East London. Vanessa’s academic journey has deepened her understanding of the interconnectedness of science, health, and society. These themes often feature prominently in her fiction and poetry, where she explores both nature’s beauty and the challenges we face in public health.Outside of writing, Vanessa enjoys crocheting, illustrating, and spending quality time with her two-year-old son. She believes in the power of creativity to inspire and provoke thought, and is eager to bring her skills to an environment where both her scientific background and artistic passions can flourish.

The poor dogs of Budapest were having a hard time, and it didn’t look like it was getting better any time soon. Over the past few weeks, there had been growing numbers of dogs disappearing, at first steadily, one or two here and there, but the frequency had been increasing, and scores of dogs had seemingly vanished into thin air in the previous couple of weeks. What had at first been a slight concern -  and presumed to be random occurrences of dognapping - was now very much an epidemic. The first suggestion of this disturbing pattern was noted on October 25th, which was 48 days ago. This isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things, but if you were a dog owner in Budapest, these 48 days would have seemed to stretch out interminably. On the evening of  October 25th, Delphine took her pet Saluki, Ariane, for a walk in the park close to her house, as was their custom. The park is located next to the Danube River, which runs through the heart of the city, and with it being five minutes away, was the perfect place for her to take Ariane for a much-needed run, also clearing her own head after what was often a rigorous day at work. Delphine would keep Ariane on a leash until they arrived at the entrance to the park and then let her off. Ariane knew the drill well. She would show the utmost poise and restraint whilst tethered, then bolt as though from the starting blocks when the time came, sprinting headlong as soon as the tension around her neck was released. Dogs were allowed off the leash in the majority of the park, and Delphine had never worried much that Ariane would act in a foul way, even if she were to stray into one of the few more protected areas. She was well trained and incredibly intuitive, so once she had shot off, Delphine could meander through the park at her leisure, stop and sit for a while if she liked, take different paths even, knowing that Ariane would come back to check in every now and then. This evening's walk started the same as any other; they strolled calmly alongside the river towards the park gates. It wasn’t bitterly cold by any means, but with it being late October, the air had a definite chill once the sun was down. It was a weeknight and they had left a little later than usual, so there were fewer people on the path. Delphine liked it when it was quiet as she could better take in the dark surface of the river shimmering in the city lights. She had grown up around a lot of water, so seeing this was a simple pleasure. Her breath was just visible, rising and disappearing before her eyes, and she looked down at Ariane to see if hers was as well. Her dog looked back up at her gaze with her long muzzle closed tight. They were nearly at the park entrance when rain started falling, not hard, but enough that it introduced that next layer of chill, pronounced somewhat as Delphine hadn’t taken a hat or umbrella with her, which she quietly cursed herself for. Anyway, Ariane certainly didn’t care about the cold or the rain so  Delphine knelt down and unclipped the leash. She had barely straightened back up before Ariane was sprinting across the first open patch of grass. It was late, it was cold and it was wet and Delphine didn’t feel much like walking - it had been a particularly long day at work - so she followed the main path through the park, this being the best lit and shortest of all of the routes available. Once or twice she saw Ariane appear from a row of bushes or a thicket of trees, cast an open-mouthed grin at her owner and then disappear again. Delphine was nearly three-quarters of the way through her loop of the park when she noticed that she hadn’t seen Ariane for a while. She had been walking with her head down, faster than usual due to the rain, and hadn’t been thinking of much other than getting home to warm up and eat. Delphine took a lot of pride in barely ever having to call Ariane, as though the less she had to do it, the more it consolidated both the dog's intelligence and her skills as an owner. But she was in a rush tonight and only thought twice before succumbing. “Ariane.” she called, casually. After a few seconds, there was no sign of the dog, so she repeated the call a little louder, not deeming it necessary to use anything more than her name. When that attempt and another thirty seconds or so had elapsed, Delphine had her first thought of something being out of the ordinary. As much as she hated to do it, she decided she’d have to shout now, aiming it in the direction that she had last seen her. “Ariane!” The words flew off into the darkness. “Where the hell are you?” Delphine muttered to herself. The rain was falling harder and she had to make a decision as to what she’d do next, not having been in this position before. She looked in every direction and could see no-one else in the park, no-one that she could ask for help; one of the few times that she rued a lack of people around her. She cupped her hands around her mouth and continued along the path, hoping that Ariane was waiting at the gates for her to catch up. She would shout her name every few steps, each time towards a different corner of the park, but still there was no response. When she got to the end of the path, the bright lamps at the gate showed clearly that no dog was waiting for her, just rain falling steadily through the light and onto the slick black paving. Delphine was worried. Until this point she had only been asking herself when Ariane would appear, considering how she would discipline the dog for causing her such a fright, but now that it seemed increasingly likely that she was lost, the panic set in. Delphine immediately turned around and retraced her steps through the park, deciding that going back along the same path was the best option; she moved somewhere between a power walk and a jog, shouting as loudly as she was able to the whole time. Delphine was not a noisy person in any area of her life, and a few times she realised that she probably hadn’t ever used her voice in this way before. These thoughts quickly fell aside as another ten metres, then another twenty metres provided no joy in her search. Towards the point at which they had entered the park, she took a side path to a small, circular seating area which was home to some vibrant flower beds. One of the only times she’d had to reprimand Ariane was here, when she had been a few-month-old puppy and was still building her recall abilities. Delphine hoped beyond hope that she would arrive to find her dog guiltily looking back at her from one of the flower beds, a foot or so deep in an eagerly dug hole, or maybe chewing on some of the tulips or lilies that were kept here, but when she turned the corner onto her imagined scene there was nothing; just the scant moonlight and more rain falling to the ground. Delphine started to cry. You can’t ever anticipate exactly how you’ll feel about a pet, or react when they come to some misfortune, but Delphine was utterly forlorn. The only sounds she could hear were her own heaving sobs and the thick raindrops slapping against leaves and bouncing on the path around her. Ariane was gone, for sure, and she knew it.  Ariane was the first poor dog of Budapest, or at least as far as we’re aware. Delphine stayed in the park for another hour that night, traipsing back and forth, shouting until she was completely hoarse, shivering in the increasingly heavy downpour until it became too much and she returned home. She phoned the police to lodge a report, and the next day, on their advice, she went to the station to show proof of ownership and provide them photos of her beloved dog. The officer taking her report was a man in his 50s by the name of Henrik, a First Lieutenant who hadn’t risen in rank for the past twenty years of his time with them, but this was mostly because he didn’t want to. The extra work it would require and the responsibility that it would bring were just too much for him to concern himself with, but whilst he was fairly low ranking, Henrik was respected, because he could speak to people in a certain way. If there were ever someone coming to lodge a report, or give a statement, then those in his precinct would look to have Henrik deal with them, if at all possible, because of the solace he could provide. Delphine had said that she would be arriving at 8am sharp, and as such, Henrik was lined up to greet her. When she appeared, it was clear that she was distressed, though this didn’t faze Henrik. “Hello, Madam,” he said in a deferential tone. Not pitying or authoritative, just a human sound. Henrik noted Delphine's red, puffy eyes and smiled at her in his soothing way. “Please, if you’ll come with me, we can get you comfortable and try to make this process as quick and easy as possible. Would you like a drink of some sort? There’s tea, coffee, water, maybe even some juice if you’d rather.” Delphine only shook her head and followed him down the sterile corridor. Once they’d arrived at the assigned office, Henrik held the door open and invited her inside. “Take a seat wherever you’ll be most comfortable,” he said, and followed her in, shutting the door softly.  “As I say, we’ll try to make this as painless as possible for you,” Henrik said as he sat down opposite Delphine, sliding a pad of paper and a pen in front of him. “If you can tell me exactly what happened with as much detail as possible, I can get this report filed and start looking for your dog immediately.”  Delphine recounted the previous evening and really did spare no detail; her account was incredibly concise, which impressed Henrik. He made his notes as swiftly as he was able, only asking once or twice that she pause whilst he caught up, then politely inviting her to continue. As soon as Delphine reached the end of her story, she stopped speaking and clasped her hands, staring at a space on the table between them. “First of all, Delphine, I’m very sorry to hear about Ariane. I have a dog of my own and I can only imagine how you’re feeling, not knowing where she is. On the positive side, your statement is comprehensive, and with this, we have the best chance of getting her back as soon as possible.” Delphine nodded but didn’t raise her eyes.  “I’d like you to call all of the local animal shelters as soon as you have a chance, and if you use social media then post in any places that you think could prove useful, as well as these,” he said, handing her a piece of paper which he had handwritten earlier that morning containing page names, groups and communities that could possibly offer help. “From here, I’ll lodge your report and we will start looking for Ariane right away.” At this point, the person in Henrik’s company would often let out some kind of sigh of relief, or show an ever so slight curl on their lips, assured by his words, but Delphine was unmoved. Her hands were clasped tightly, her gaze unmoving.  “Delphine, are you alright? Is there anything else that I can help you with, or offer at the moment?”  Realising that her role was finished for now, she stood up silently and held out a cold, white hand.Henrik got up hastily from his seat and reached for it, taking it in his own much thicker grasp. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” she said a little unsteadily. “I have a rather bad feeling about this. I know that these situations must come up all the time, but this doesn’t feel normal. Do you know what I mean? It’s obviously bad, and of course I can feel it in a much more visceral way than anyone else would because it’s my dog that’s missing, but something about it just feels unusual, maybe freakish in a way. It’s hard for me to describe, but, do you follow, Lieutenant? Have you ever felt what I’m trying to describe?”  Henrik was a little bewildered, which was uncommon, but he remained as measured as ever and allowed just an extra second or two for a response to form. “Delphine, I think that I understand what you’re saying. These types of situations are very complicated to begin with, and then some strange feeling or omen can come over us, and it just makes the whole thing even more cloudy. I only have the details you’ve given me, and like I say, it’s a very extensive account, but as for any particular strangeness in this case, I’d have to pick that feeling up as I learn more. I hope that what I’ve said makes sense. It’s hard to provide anything more substantial when it’s brand new to me.” Delphine’s underslept eyes peered into Henrik’s as he finished speaking, and she gave his hand - which incidentally she’d been holding the whole time that he spoke - a squeeze and then let it go. “I appreciate your time and your words, Lieutenant. I think that you do understand me,” and with this, she turned to leave the office. “No need to see me out, I know the way.” Forty-seven days had passed since Delphine’s report was lodged and in this time, almost 400 dogs had been registered as missing in Budapest, with the volume of cases growing by the day. There had been twenty-eight alone in the last 24 hours. The numbers were unfathomable given that there had only been 284 total in the twelve months before this outbreak. When Henrik had taken Delphine’s report, the police showed no interest. Of course, someone was assigned to follow up, check the usual avenues pertaining to illegal dog trade, etc and see whether something came up, but for all intents and purposes it was of incredibly low priority. By the time a week had passed and the cases had gone from two or three a day to eight or nine a day, there was city wide attention growing in the situation. A week later, it was nationally recognised, and by now, around a month and a half on, it was topping the headlines across the country and making news in other European outlets. Delphine had said that something felt unusual, and so it had turned out to be. The numbers themselves were completely out of whack with anything normal, but the fact that these dogs were disappearing at such a rate and not reappearing was causing the police major headaches. Whenever a dog went missing, it would usually be picked up changing hands in some shady circumstances, or else found by the local animal authorities or at a shelter, but these dogs were nowhere to be found. Every single one that had gone missing was unaccounted for, and that was downright bizarre. To add to this, not one of the dog owners had seen someone take their pet. They disappeared in myriad ways: some of them out on a walk, some whilst in the garden, some being left in the car whilst their owner popped into the grocery store, but in not one case had anyone seen a person make off with their dog. The police were without a sniff of a clue, until today.  This morning, the morning of Thursday, December 12th, Delphine came back to the police precinct in which she’d filed her report. This time she was unannounced, but Henrik was working any and all hours that he was awake these days, and after a small amount of sleep in the early morning, had just returned to work. He recognised her the minute she walked through the door and approached the reception slightly more hurriedly than usual, intercepting her at the front desk just as she was about to speak to the officer manning it. “Delphine. It’s Henrik, I’m not sure if you remember me.” “I certainly do, Lieutenant. I have something to show you,” she said, patting the small bag hanging from her shoulder. “Of course. Come with me,” he said, motioning them in the same direction as they’d gone 47 days prior. Henrik had been awake through most of the night, a fact that he hadn’t registered physically until just now as a deep and heavy lethargy set into him, passing over his eyes and trickling all the way down to his leaden feet.  “I’m going to grab some coffee. Would you like anything? It would be no bother at all.”  “Oh, a coffee would be nice, thank you.” “It’s nothing special, but it does the trick on these long days,” Henrik said with a smile, leading them to the kitchen.  They passed through a few nondescript hallways and arrived at the dining room which was also a pretty drab affair. Off to one side, a large island served as the focal point of the kitchen and the rest of the room was a collection of identical round tables with three or four chairs around each. The entire space was monochrome, save a few posters containing a little colour. Everything looked new, but imbued with some kind of dullness that gave it a different sort of age; a weariness. Delphine took the room in and followed Henrik to the workbench that had the appliances, including a filter coffee machine.  “Ok, now comes the important part. You’ve got to choose your favourite mug.” Henrik pointed to a deep drawer with a generic label maker sticker. The black letters were all in lowercase, which Delphine found interesting, and they spelled the word ‘tasse’. “One of the officers was learning French a while back and stuck these labels everywhere to try and help.” Below this drawer was one labelled ‘plaque’ (plate) and below that ‘bol’ (bowl) and so on. Delphine whispered the words to herself, reflecting that many people presumed she spoke the language on account of her name. In fact she barely spoke a word of French. She opened the top drawer and chuckled as she looked down into it. There were dozens of mugs staring back at her and they were all identical; a dark shade of navy blue with a pair of white stripes wrapped around it. Delphine picked one up from the middle and saw that there was a small Hungarian flag set into the stripes. “Looks like I’ve found the one!”  “Ah, a fine choice!”  Henrik poured them both coffee from the pot into their generic mugs and looked over to the large window on the opposite side of the room, easily its best feature. “How would you like to sit in here instead? There’s more light and a bit of a view, rather than those stuffy interview rooms.” “Sure thing.” Henrik led them over to the table that sat against the window and fell into his seat heavily, again feeling the strain that his many years mixed with minimal sleep were taking on his body.  “I’d like to know how you’ve been since we spoke last, but you might want to just show me what it is you’ve brought in. I have all the time in the world, but it’s up to you, Delphine.” Delphine had been up and down, or more correctly, way down and on her way back up. It had been close to seven weeks since Ariane had been removed from her life and she had experienced varying stages since then. For the first few days she had routinely gone about her life, that is until she returned home after work to an empty apartment, saw Arianes bed, food bowl, and other effects and realised that things weren’t routine at all; that the living creature she most closely shared her life with was gone. On a morning, it wasn’t so bad, as Ariane was not a morning dog and tended to stay on her bed asleep, or half asleep, whilst Delphine showered and got dressed - usually hurriedly - before leaving for work. In this part of the day, they were living separately. The evening was when they spent their time together and that had been taken away. Delphine had actually gone to the park each evening for the first four days and walked it back and forth, side to side, all the while without any real hope of finding Ariane, but doing it just the same. Once she had let go of this idea, this ritual, she’d drifted into a period of pervading gloom. She sat at home on her own, listlessly, doing very little, sleeping at irregular hours around her work. All thoughts were consumed with the loneliness that she felt and these interminable bouts were punctuated with sharp reminders that she had no idea where or how Ariane was. She could be lost, injured or worse, and this made Delphine confused, ladling feelings of helplessness on top of her solitude. She wasn’t much of a social being, but any outside contact with friends dried up totally during the weeks she was buried in this phase. Over the last couple of weeks things had slowly gotten better, but in a way that was hard to describe. The feelings of loss were the same, the loneliness and despondency didn’t change from their earlier forms, but there was an understanding that nothing could be done, and this brought some relief. When Delphine felt the sharpest pains of abandonment and isolation, a touch of this comfort came over her if only she grasped for it, as if what had happened might be for a reason, and even the idea of a reason was enough to cling to. This sense of hidden purpose was a soothing voice for her. Yesterday, on returning from work, Delphine had flicked open her mailbox. There was no lock on it, and every day she acknowledged this detail without it making a distinct impression; it was just a fact that anyone could access her mail if they wished to. The box was never opened with anticipation, just a perfunctory action taking place, but today it held a surprise; there was a white envelope with her name and address handwritten on the front. Delphine never received letters like this, rather the usual bills, junk mail, the odd appointment confirmation, things of that sort. She pulled out the letter and looked at the handwriting, studying as if she might be able to figure out whose hand had created it but knowing full well that wouldn’t be the case. Once inside her flat she opened the envelope and saw the top of a glossy photograph poking out. Of course, she knew that this had to be linked with Ariane going missing. She’d known it the second she’d seen the ink on the envelope, but now she was faced with something tangible. An image. She held her breath and pulled the photo out quickly, thinking it would somehow help with the pain of seeing something unspeakable. But it wasn’t. It had a strange composition, dream-like in a way, but it was undoubtedly a real image that had been taken of a real scene. The background of the shot showed a lavish party taking place, glamorous looking people milling around in front of what seemed to be a grand, villa style mansion. They all looked natural, so Delphine felt confident that it wasn’t staged. People were drinking, some of them dancing, and from their expressions, it was clear that they were having a good time; a party or celebration of some sort. One half of the foreground was taken up by a swimming pool giving off the lustrous glow that comes when water is lit from below, illuminating the darkness of night. In a crescent around the edge of the swimming pool were three wooden sun loungers topped with cream cushions running the length of them, two of which were angled towards the house, the third facing the camera. Both of those looking the other way had people on them, their shoulders and backs of their heads visible over the frame of the lounger, and on the third sat Ariane. She was not looking directly at the camera, but in the general direction, just past it, maybe at someone or something in particular. Her mouth was slightly agape with the very tip of her tongue poking over the front teeth - an expression that Delphine knew well. At first glance of the photo, with Ariane sitting there, Delphine’s heart had started to pound. As would be natural, the first thought was that of foreboding - my dog has gone missing and now someone has sent me a picture of her, this must be bad news - but the more she studied the photograph, each element of it, the setting, the people, the environment and then again and again Ariane, she began to calm, and by the fifth or sixth time going over it she felt only curious about this oddity in her hand.  Delphine opened her bag and handed the photograph over to Henrik without a word. She took a sip of her coffee and watched his eyes scan over it, his face offering no reaction. For what seemed a long time, she continued to take sips and was surprised by how good it tasted. Henrik sat there with his neck craned slightly, looking down at the strange artefact. His eyes flitted to and fro, but still his expression never changed. Finally, he put the photo down on the table between them and looked up at Delphine. “This is very, very strange,” and he took a sip of his coffee. “Receiving something like this is incredibly uncommon, and honestly, at first glance, doesn’t give any indication as to what is going on. Of course it has been taken somewhere, and with the little it shows, we can start looking into where that might be.   How do you feel about it? and feel free not to answer if it could be distressing to do so.” Delphine listened to Henrik speak and matched the words alongside his placid expression, his calm demeanour. “Firstly, the coffee is really great. I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget to tell you. This picture has actually brought me some solace. I don’t understand the meaning of it, and I can’t imagine why someone would have taken her if their intention was just to send me an odd photo, but seeing her like that, unharmed, looking healthy even, it tells me that there is something happening I’m not supposed to understand yet, or maybe ever. The look on Ariane’s face? I’ve only ever seen her look at me that way, never anyone else, and here she is pulling that same face. She’s fine, no, she’s better than fine, and so I think that I should decide to be fine as well. I do want her to come back to me, but I only want that if I know that she’s coming back to be happier than where she is now…” Henrik listened, nodding here and there “.. of course, there’s no way I can really find that out unless I see her… anyway, I feel sad and happy. Still baffled by the meaning of it all, but at ease.” Delphine actually laughed at the end of the sentence “I’m sure that sounds like gibberish, but there you are.” Henrik took a moment to let her words sink in, looking at Delphine and then at the photo. His phone started vibrating in his pocket just as he was about to respond. The timing was not good - he never liked to answer his phone when he had company - especially in the current setting, but he knew that he should answer it, just in case it was important. “Sorry, Delphine, I’ll have to get this. I’ll be just a moment.”  Henrik stood up and took a few steps away from the table speaking calmly and methodically, as he always seemed to. Delphine spun the photo around so that it was facing her and leant down to look at it again for the umpteenth time, and as she did, she noticed something that she hadn’t seen before, leaning closer still to be sure of what it was. Henrik slid his chair out and sat back down opposite Delphine, prompting her to look up. His face was unsettled, which wasn’t something that she’d seen before, and just before she was going to speak, to tell him of her discovery, he started to talk in an uncharacteristically shaky tone. “That was my wife on the phone. She just went to pick up Lilith from the groomers, and she’s disappeared.” It is December 14th now. In the past 72 hours or so - presuming that Delphine’s photo arrived early, on the day of December 11th - there have been dozens of dog owners coming into the police station to present photos that they have received in the post. The photographs have all been taken in different locations, but each of them exhibits a similarly joyous scene set behind the respective owner's dog, and as far as dogs can look similar, they have the same kind of middling look on their face. Many of the owners are completely distraught. They speak to Henrik and others in various states of anguish, some in floods of tears, some grovelling for their beloved dog to be found, some even becoming aggressive in their protestations that the police are useless, neglectful of their case and indifferent to their personal agony. A smaller portion of those who come in are perplexed by this development; they struggle to understand what could possibly be taking place, and when Henrik and his colleagues can offer no explanation, they end up leaving the station bemused, a disorientated air about them. During this whole period, some interesting - in most instances concerning - trends had formed throughout the city. Once the missing dogs had become a well-established phenomena, a not insignificant number of Budapest dog owners took certain measures. Sales of home security systems skyrocketed for one, and on any given day, you could see several installation vans lining suburban streets, bringing the latest technology to the homes of these fearful individuals. A more disturbing statistic was the sharp spike in firearm license applications. Fortunately, this wasn’t a simple process, and as such, the city didn’t instantly fill with anxious gun-toting dog lovers, but those who were worried enough were arming themselves in whichever way possible, purchasing rubber bullet guns and the types of blades and blunt instruments not often highly sought after. Unfortunately, the tension did cause some nasty incidents to occur and several people ended up hospitalised due to unprovoked assaults from jumpy dog owners, two actually losing their lives. The increase in violence across the city did nothing to quell the rise in the number of dogs going missing. One thing for sure was that none of the other dog owners seemed to exhibit the tranquility of Delphine. She was apart in her outlook on this now widely shared situation, and by this point her life had regained much of the meaning and happiness that it held before Ariane’s disappearance. Despite missing her, and of course wishing that they could one day be reunited, she had found a substitute for her dog's presence in the conviction that she was being cared for and ultimately living happily.  Unfortunately, the same can not be said for Henrik. His dog Lilith is a twelve-year-old Border Collie that he had fostered since she was just two months old. Whilst he has worked long hours for her entire life, he was still undoubtedly her person . His wife would feed her, let her out when needed and complete any everyday tasks that were required, but Henrik was her person. He would walk her each morning as soon as he woke up, taking her on long routes around the city. He would bathe her, brush her, talk to her, train her and have her on his lap on those evenings he was at home. Henrik was not an angry man, and other than a few instances in his much younger days, had never felt any particular animosity for anyone or anything, but in the days since that phone call from his wife, he had been unable to quell a feeling of rage that had infused him. If he was suitably distracted, then his normal composure and mild disposition would return, but given a second to think, any slight opportunity to reflect on her disappearance he would feel the burning ignite again, his teeth clenching and his hands becoming tight fists at the ends of his arms. One problematic aspect, possibly the most taxing, was that he didn’t know where to place the anger. He felt a disembodied fury that he couldn’t project at a particular person. Neither was there a wider group to act as a focal point. He did, however, feel a deep resentment for his wife. She had been the one who took Lilith to the groomer. He had told her to stay in the room with Lilith and the groomer the entire time, but she had left to complete another errand. When she’d called him with the news, he didn’t even ask why she had ignored his instruction, because he knew that hearing any explanation or excuse would have just made it worse for him. The other part of it was that she had never shown Lilith the same love that he had, or at least not the same type of love, in his eyes. It was a paradoxical conflict for him, because he wanted Lilith to be his dog, truly. He wanted her to love him more than anyone else, especially his wife, and whilst he would vie for her affection, and duly receive it in abundance, he still couldn’t help but begrudge his wife for not trying as hard, not seeming to care as much. He couldn’t displace these feelings, and what’s more, he didn’t want to get rid of them, even though he knew how poisonous and illogical they were. They felt vital to him. A necessary force that he may need to harness at some point.  On December 18th, six days removed from her last visit, Delphine again showed up at the station, and again, Henrik was there, this time stewing in the dining room in which they’d last sat together. A junior officer led her through and she had sat down opposite him before he’d even realised she was there. “Hello, Lieutenant,” Delphine said pleasantly, an unintentionally cheerful inflection to her voice. Henrik attempted a smile, but there was no fooling her or anyone else; he was as stiff as a board.  “I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to let you know that you can stop looking for Ariane.” Henrik couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His eyes lit up and genuine glee burst from his mouth. “Oh my god, they’ve returned her? That’s incredible. I didn’t think they would just start turning up again so easily, but this is wonderful news. I’ll have to start contacting the other owners to see whether their dogs have also appeared.” With that, he sprang from his seat and tapped his pockets as if trying to quickly decide what to do next. “Lieutenant,” Delphine said calmly. “Maybe you should sit back down.” “But why? We need to get this news out as soon as possible, well, as soon as we’ve confirmed that the dogs have started being returned. Imagine the news stories! and Lilith..” The name came wistfully from his lips. “No, you’ve misunderstood, Lieutenant. Ariane hasn’t come back, I just want you to stop looking for her.” Delphine pulled another photograph from her bag and handed it to the unbalanced figure of Henrik. He looked at the photo at first without seeing it, attempting to compute Delphine’s words. After taking a moment to try and compose himself, he pulled it closer to his face, squinting to take it all in. The composition was similar to the hundreds of others that he’d now seen. This one showed a sports field with players clad in short-sleeved shirts and shorts. Football, he quickly realised. In the background was the supporters' stand, hundreds of spectators with their arms aloft, cheering, revelling at what they were watching. The rest of the frame was made up of the players exhibiting similar ecstasy; a group of five or six were huddled together, their arms enmeshed, grabbing their teammates' shirts intensely. The rest of the players were scattered, some on their own, looking skyward in rapture, others in twos or threes, holding each other's shoulders or jumping into each other's arms, all of them in a state of euphoria. The picture looked like scenes from a World Cup victory, the players crying tears of unbridled joy. In the midst of the revelry, just set forward from the rejoicing players was Ariane. She had been captured in profile, jumping some three feet off the floor with her mouth wide open, tongue lolling from the side of an unmistakable smile. For a second, her face looked like a completely human expression, a smile the same as the hundreds around her, but he then realised that this was, of course, just a happy dog. A dog that could feel the energy and was channeling the same excitement, full of the elation she was being fed. Delphine watched as Henrik pulled the photo away from his face and it dropped from his hand to the floor, his eyes glazed.  A week on from Delphine’s visit was Christmas Day, December 25th. Henrik and his wife didn’t have any family in the city and the few friends they did keep up with had decided to get away over this period, going for a few days to other European cities or travelling domestically to stay with family. Henrik’s wife had wanted to do something similar. She pitched a few ideas to Henrik, knowing how distraught he was with the loss of Lilith, and tried to convince him that it would be good for them to get away for a while, have a change of environment that might ease his worries, if only for a while. Henrik refused point blank at each and every suggestion, even though he knew that they were good, and knew that she needed it just as much as he did. His pig-headedness had shocked her, for he had always been considerate, and even if they did end up disagreeing on a matter, they would do so respectfully, discussing an issue until they both understood each other. As she tried to access this rational part of him the only response she would get was some version of ‘what if they send a photo while we’re away’ she would explain that it would only be for a few days, and even if he stayed to receive it right away, what difference would it make? Her empathy ran its course after he had shut down every option, and she had decided that she would go to stay with her mother anyway, with or without him. On Christmas Eve, Henrik came home from his shift just before 11 pm. The house was tidy and his wife was gone. Their modest apartment still had all of Lilith’s effects laid out, as if she were the one just out of town for a day or two. He came into the noiseless space and sat on the sofa alone, his hands firmly clenched. Henrik had no distractions at all, no Lilith, no partner, no work to take his mind elsewhere, so he started to think about Delphine, the way that she had given up on Ariane, how she had been able to smile and even laugh. He didn’t understand. How could someone act that way when something they were supposed to love had been taken away from them, stolen from them no less? His hands ached from the pressure and he unclasped them, holding them up in front of his face. “Where is my photograph?” he said to himself. There were deep gouges in his palms where his long fingernails had dug into them. “Where is my photograph?” he said again, reaching for the small side table and picking up a mug that he had left there days ago, a small amount of dark liquid swilling around the bottom of it. He thought about the stickers on the drawers at work. “Tasse,” he said to himself as he threw the mug at the wall in front of him, the ceramic making a sharp crack and breaking into a few pieces, old coffee dripping down the white paint. “Lampe,” he said, and wrapped his hand around the base of the lamp and threw it in the same direction. It was plugged in, consequently whipping towards the ground when it ran out of cord, bouncing off the hard laminate floor. “Bougie,” he said, gripping the candle like an American Football and throwing it with venom against the wall, the glass of the candleholder thudding into the plaster and dropping to the ground. Henrik looked for something else within reach but nothing was close enough. He turned to the shelving behind him and saw the ornament right above his head. His wife had commissioned a fine glass figure of Lilith to be made in honour of their dog's 10th birthday. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and had sat in the centre of the arrangement ever since, often making Henrik smile when he would look up at it and then down at Lilith herself, or vice versa. Henrik turned around on the sof, and propped on his knees, managed to grab it down, bringing it close so that he could look at the detail on it. “Chien.” The likeness was remarkable, and whilst he’d forgotten the name of the artist, he had always held them in much esteem. He loved this figure. “Where the fuck is MY photo?” he screamed as he turned and threw the glass Lilith against the wall. Another week on and it was a new year, January 1st. For a while now, the number of vanishing dogs had been dwindling, until yesterday, on the 31st, there was but one report made. Henrik had taken the report and all but knew that it was the last of it - no more dogs were going to go missing. In the intervening days, he had a dozen or so owners come back with second photographs that they’d received, a week from the first, just like Delphine. Four others presented a third photo, but the vast majority got in touch to let him know that they’d received nothing further. Most were one and done. The news outlets were well aware of the different circumstances that people were experiencing and speculated as to the inconsistencies among them, making tenuous links to different categories, breeds, or characteristics of the dogs that could be the defining factor in whether an owner received a photo or not. Those who did receive a second photo tended to become even more confused, and those who hadn’t received a first were even more embittered. Meanwhile, Delphine had received a third and just this morning a fourth. In every image, Ariane was increasingly radiant, each time more animated. It hardly seemed possible, but it was true. For Delphine, these pictures offered a continued source of inspiration, and as her improved mood buoyed her through the week, it was again boosted seven days later when another arrived; a perpetual cycle had begun. She had planned some changes to her own situation, deciding that she would cut back her working hours to afford her more time to tend to her personal life, and with this extra freedom, take up something truly meaningful. What that was she didn’t know, but she was convinced it was waiting for her. Delphine contemplated getting another dog, but now wasn’t the time. The photographs of Ariane would amply fill her up, and sure enough, on close inspection, she could just make out the letters on her collar tag DL; Delphine’s initials. Letters that hadn’t been there before.   Daniel is a UK native that has been residing in New Zealand for close to 10 years. He produces short stories, prose and poetry. He has had short prose pieces published in Salient, Shabby Doll House and miniMAG and short stories featuring in CRAFT literary and Northridge Review.

I open a library book of poems, a mix of earthy and intellectual I’d say, if forced to label the flavor after a few pages. And there she is – the Queen of Spades. She’s come all the way from Vegas, a casino/spa I find when Google does its thing. A perfect combination. A dozen personas flash by: the poetry-reading gambling addict, the math teacher at a conference indulging in blackjack and a scrub, the bachelorettes, ill-suited and loud, and on and on. But coming from a card-playing family – pinochle on holidays around grandma’s table – I feel affection for these royals, although it’s bothersome the king always beats the queen. But this queen has escaped and though I’m tempted to welcome her into my home, to give her the privilege of marking the pages of many books over time, I finally decide to send her back, tucked somewhere in the middle, to be discovered by another who might be intrigued and conjure countless backstories although it’s just as likely she’ll be tossed in the recycling bin with only the electric bill and a coupon for Greek yogurt for company. No more couplets and metaphors, slant rhymes or similes, and whatever began in Vegas is still there, as, according to the rules, it should be. Mercedes Lawry’s most recent book is Small Measures  from ELJ Editions. She’s also published Vestigesfrom Kelsay Books, three chapbooks and poems in journals such as Nimrod  and Alaska Quarterly Review . Additionally, she’s published short fiction as well as stories and poems for children.

In my twenty-first summer, I learned how to be nocturnal. Once I realized I prefer the dark, it was simply a matter of reorganizing my time. I got a job as a night shift security guard on a college campus and started going to bed right as my apartment yellowed into morning. I ate Chinese takeout for breakfast and IHOP waffles before I fell asleep. It was hard to be friends with anyone, but at the time I wasn’t worried about that. I was a freshly minted grown-up, and everything in my life felt suitably upside-down. The chosen weirdness of that summer made the far more frightening chaos of simply existing easier to stomach. The job at the college was boring. The campus was in the most affluent corner of town and didn’t need half the security guards it hired. My duty was not so much safety as to keep up appearances of safety—if an alumni donor were to enter campus at any hour of the day or night, my job was to make sure they wouldn’t reconsider their donation. I wandered in a lot of slow, menacing circles. I picked up lots of trash using those little metal tongs. Sometimes I’d find a half-empty pack of cigarettes or a nice new lighter.  Mostly, I just walked and listened to the dark. There were a few weeks I was seeing a girl at the college, a cute redhead I’d swiped right on because her bio said bet I can outsmoke you  and I like a challenge. She’d meet me midshift, like one or two a.m., and we’d get high behind the physics building, and she’d rant to me about posthumanism and dystopia and economy collapse and I’d say it sure turns me on when you talk like that  and we’d fuck against the cold cement wall and then right away she’d stumble off to bed and I’d stand in the solid darkness, listen to everything invisible and alive surrounding me, then shrug it off, zip up my pants, get back to the job. It didn’t last. Turned out she was a bit crazy. When I broke it off, she tagged the side of my golf cart with a lopsided owl and the words hoot hoot motherfucker. I’m still trying to figure out what that means. Not that I think about it anymore, really, not her or the job or even that whole summer. But when I do remember, I wonder. There was one night that comes back to me still. Or morning really, those first strains of light meaning it was almost time for me to clock out and head off to bed. On my final lap of campus, I spotted a homeless man staring into a hole in a tree. I thought he must be drugged up on something, a substance that animated the unmoving, conversing with what he took to be the tree’s open mouth. Then the man turned around. I remembered abruptly that I was wearing my deliberately intimidating black security guard uniform, that by all the rules of my job I should eject this outsider from campus. All summer, I’d never actually been confronted with a situation in which I was expected to do any guarding. I didn’t want to now. He was just a guy, a down-on-his-luck guy.  I waited for him to become frightened by my imposing appearance. I waited for him to run from my obvious institutional power so I wouldn’t have to assert it.  Instead, the man pointed into the hole in the tree. Hey kid,  he said,  check this shit out.   I approached, a bit cautious, and saw movement in the opening. Inside the tree was a nest of baby birds.  I said, would you look at that?   And the man said yes, yes I would.  We smiled at each other, and he was the one without teeth, but my mouth felt hollow and empty of something important. In the half-light, we watched the babies move over and around each other, making tiny bird murmurs. Their speech felt very nearly comprehensible. We stood there for a long time, trying to understand. Then there was a whir of great wings and the owl mother alighted above us. She was huge and flat-faced and angry and her claws were sharp and we gave her plenty of space, backed up from her nest and stood at a respectful distance. Her world wasn’t one in which we belonged, but I think, in that moment, we both wanted to.  The sun came up for real then, forest shot through with perpendicular golden light. The owl went flurrying into her hole. Together, the homeless man and I turned, like we’d been summoned by the dawning back to our human lives, and walked away. I gave him four dollar bills and the half joint I had in my pocket. Then I drove home and slept until the sun went down. That week, I got fired from my job because another security guard had watched me watch owls with a homeless man rather than telling him to get lost. He followed the man afterwards, told him to get lost, and reported me. I didn’t care. I wanted to work somewhere I didn’t have to fuck people over. I sent my resume out in great paper flurries, worked one bad job, then another, then two at once, realized everyone was fucking each other over all the time, kept at it anyway. Hell, I’m still here. I’m still working, a desk job now, something that doesn’t keep me up all night and gets the bills paid and at least keeps the damage I do at a manageable distance so I don’t have to think too hard about it. Some nights, though, the insomniac of that summer still comes out in me, a nightbird which spreads its wings when the sun goes down and urges me out of my house. I walk again, in the silvered moonlit blackness, listening for living things. I think if I throw myself out into the night, again and again, I might begin to see a way forward through the dark. “What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio  objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're  blue.”  —Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk:  Expeditions and Encounters Whale If you are a child, you might find the world a perfectly comprehensible place.  Let’s say you are, because otherwise the suggestion is ludicrous.  Let’s say you are six years old, your shirt is sticky with strawberry ice cream and your parents have taken you to the natural history museum in order to demonstrate that you are not the only creature that has ever lived. Say you fall asleep in the car on the way there, and dream of a universe which exhales neon all over you. Say you are disappointed to wake up. You know what,  your parents probably don’t figure into this. Your parents know of the multiplicity of the natural world and don’t care much about it. They probably don’t think it is worth explaining to you, at your young and tender age.  It is much more likely you will have to figure this out for yourself. So let’s say you are six years old (but let’s leave out the ice cream, it’s too sticky), and say you go on a toddle down the street and happen to find your way into a natural history museum (say you have five dollars in your pocket from selling lemonade, or however it is that children earn their incomes). So you get to the ticket stand, your head rising just barely to the counter. You put your small hands on the plastic surface streaked gray to look like stone, and you look up into the tired eyes of the ticket-taker.  Say you say, I would like to learn about all the living things who have ever lived. How much does that cost? Say the woman behind the counter looks down at you over half-moon glasses and wonders who has lost their child. But say she is a good sort of human who has devoted her life to helping others find meaning in a dying world. So when you come dawdling into the museum in search of knowledge, something so simple, say she feels a stirring of camaraderie between herself and you, six years old, trying to make sense of your place in the order of things. So she comes out from behind the counter and takes your small hand in hers.  She says to you, we’ll start small and get bigger. How does that sound to you? Say you agree this sounds wonderful. It is your most tried and true strategy, to begin at the roots, closest to your eye level, and work your way up. So say the ticket-taker brings you first to the entomology wing, where opalescent beetles and fuzzy green moths and great long-legged spiders are pinned to slices of clean white paper. The invertebrates , says the ticket taker. The spineless ones. The phylum which has dominated the earth, although you won’t catch many people saying it.   Say you imagine yourself without bones, just a skin-bag of life-juice skittering across the ground in search of sustenance. So this is how most of the world lives, you think. You wish for a million billion creepy-crawly legs. You wish for an exoskeleton, jewel-bright and impenetrable. Then you are on to the fish, fins flashing phosphorescence through the dark of the water. Here is where the bones begin,  says the ticket-taker. Next are the terrariums, scaly loops of snakes and beaded lizards lazing in the warmth of false suns. And from there, say you walk to the hall of taxidermy, where a thousand birds fly through painted skies above fields of frozen megafauna, trapped in crystallized time, like amber, all feeling drained from their clear glass eyes as their bodies live out forever their most characteristic movements, one paw caught poised in midair, a tail swiping away a long-dead fly, all those heavy hooves which will never hit the ground. And then you have reached the final hall, the hall of the whale, where the great creature’s skeleton swims suspended from the ribbed vaults of the museum ceiling, and you look up through its long-fingered phantom fins to its vertebrae, fit together, the world’s puzzle solved and hung on iron wires, a kind of art enough to shift the bedrock of history, enough to make you think there must be some maker out there with a scalpel and opposable thumbs, or else one able to enact the simple magic of everything which calls itself different but arises from the same cosmic soup, even you, even the whale, its great beaked skull, its mouth which could inhale you like plankton and spit you out all fluorescent-glowing, its empty-socket eyes which watch you way down there, tiny feet on the museum floor, a brand new life form, a cosmic speck, yes, which is beginning to understand its place in the universe.

The first time Nicole encounters him, they are at a youth event, one of those big multi-church affairs, across several days. Nicole’s church is only here for one day, a volunteer afternoon, BBQ picnic, and concert. Her church’s volunteer contribution involves hauling junk, trash, brush, and leaves out of people’s yards, in a crumbling downtown neighborhood. So when Nicole arrives at the picnic, she’s still got a big old t-shirt on over her concert clothes and a pair of her mother’s gardening gloves scrunched up in her back pocket. Her arms are sore. Her purse is with a youth leader, locked in his car, so she can’t touch up her makeup. She’s scarfing down a couple of hot dogs, when a school friend taps her on the shoulder. “Hey!” the girl says, “Have you met Jonathan? You know, from my  church? You should talk! I think you’d get along.” Nicole turns to see she’s got this boy, this Jonathan, standing beside her, looking bored. Jonathan isn’t wearing work clothes. He’s wearing a Christian band t-shirt, a slouchy black sweater, and un-distressed jeans. He looks her over, evidently unimpressed. Nicole offers a hand, introduces herself. He barely returns her greeting, glancing back into his book, his fingers tucked between tented pages. “What are you reading?” she says, for lack of anything better to say. “You wouldn’t know it,” he says. Nicole already can’t imagine why anyone would think she and this boy would get along, but she tries again. “Well, try me. I know a lot of books.” He shows her the cover, rolling his eyes, with a can-I-go-now attitude. She barely gets a chance to read the title, only catches the author. He’s right, she hasn’t read it. Because it’s old. Really old. And boring. She excuses herself from the conversation, and he seems just as happy to be done with it as she is. So much for that, she thinks. But then, there he is again. This time, they’re at a youth retreat. One she didn’t expect him to be at. This time, it’s because someone wants to win an argument. A stupid theological argument. Something about forgiveness, and who does and does not get a chance at heaven.  On this issue, Nicole will not budge, and she’s not really interested in arguing about it. In fact, she’s been trying to leave this conversation for the better part of half an hour, by the time this boy, Jonathan, walks up. But the friend arguing with her refuses, absolutely refuses, to drop it, insisting that Nicole’s reluctance to judge, to condemn, is just as morally suspect as if she’d committed the sins in question herself. “That basically makes you a murderer , you know?” the girl says, “You know that, right?” “I’m sorry you think that,” Nicole says, and tries to leave it there. Grace means grace, Nicole thinks, whether you like it or not. Grace means grace, and grace is for everyone. Not just the people you like. That’s what Nicole’s Grandma always says, and Nicole loves her Grandma, trusts her, with a deep and ferocious loyalty.  Jonathan is here to tell her why that’s wrong. As if she should care. She tells him as much, right away, “Why should I care what you think?” “You never know,” he says, “you might learn something.” Nicole’s mouth snaps shut. For a moment, she can only seethe. But, she shouldn’t speak out of anger, she thinks. So she swallows her words, breathes in, collects herself. “I’m not even sure what your church’s theology is,” she says, voice full of forced calm, “I don’t know you. You’re certainly no better qualified than I am. Why should I want to learn anything from you?” That gets him. Really gets to him. Jabs right up under his skin, at something deep. Something she didn’t even know was there. He begins to rant. He rants and rants. Gets right up in her face, in the middle of a room full of other teenagers trying to carry on their own conversations. His voice rings in her ears, a fine mist of his spit, his contempt, dusting the powdery finish of her makeup.  She listens quietly, while he enumerates his pedigree. His father is a pastor, he says, and a venerable one, a truly great  teacher. So are both his grandfathers. It’s a family tradition. Something she  wouldn’t know anything about. Soon, he will be going away to seminary. And then he too will be a pastor. He’s been reading theology since the seventh grade, he says, not on his own, but with the guidance of “great leaders.” Like his father. He wants to know why she thinks her mere “thoughts” can compete with this kind of quality education. He wants to know why she thinks she can “logic” her way out of biblical authority. His biblical authority. Which is not just his, but his father’s and grandfathers’ before him. How lucky she is, to get an opportunity to benefit from so much learning, so many generations of wisdom. How foolish, to throw it all away in favor of her own, craven  will. He really uses that word, “craven.” She’s not convinced he knows what it means. “Are you done?” she says, when he finally peters out. “No,” he spits, but clearly he is done, because he spirals back through a few of his points before falling silent for a second time. Then, the punch, “What do your parents even do?” he says, “Because they’re not any Christian leaders I’ve ever heard of. And frankly, I think someone should talk to them about the kind of guidance they’re providing to their kids if they’re going around spouting off ideas like yours. ‘ No unforgivable sin,’ ” he repeats, the claim he finds so offensive. Adrenaline pumps through Nicole’s chest, lingering after his display of aggression and authority has ended. She should walk away, leave this conversation, walk right into the women’s bathroom, if that’s what she has to do to end the argument, but he’s got her hackles up now. Nicole’s Grandma is a recovering addict, an AA Mentor, a respected church member, who volunteers for anything and everything, especially if it will put her in contact with the kind of women, the kind of people, this boy seems to most resent. Inconvenient people, difficult people, down-on-their luck people. People like Nicole’s Grandma. People like Nicole, who have issues, who have made mistakes, and who know they will keep on making mistakes, and needing grace, probably for the rest of their lives. Sometimes, Nicole thinks, her Grandma’s grace is not the grace of this church, or any church, at all. But something more akin to love. Unconditional, empathetic, whole with the understanding of having walked the same paths, worn the same shoes. Not that her Grandma would ever agree. When Nicole has complained, in the past, about people like this boy, their dogmatism, their strident, arrogant Christianity, Nicole’s Grandma has been firm, unbending. ‘Oh, Nicole,’ she says, ‘Jesus doesn’t care about any of that! Ignore all that crap. Focus on Jesus. Focus on his grace. It's the only thing that matters.’ Nicole wants to get up in this boy’s face, ask him if he’s ever really had to seek forgiveness for something, if he knows what it’s like to really need grace, the kind her Grandma talks about. The kind that actually matters. Instead, she says, “Show me in the book, then.” “What?” “Show me where it says that in the book.” She pulls a Bible from her bag and holds it out to him. He sneers at the NIV on the cover. She rolls her eyes. “You can use your own Bible if you want. Show me where it says any of that? Chapter and verse.” He sputters. Takes the Bible and looks at it. Then shoves it back at her. “You expect me to provide citations? To a verbal conversation? Is that it? Look up my father’s sermons on the subject and you’ll get all the chapters and verses you need. You’ll see that I’m right.” She flips through the book, finds a verse, clears her throat, “Luke 6:37. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” She flips forward. “Romans 2:1 …for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself…” He scoffs, “Well of course. But there have to be limits.” “Tell me,” she says, “tell me where in the book it says there are limits.”  “So what, you think people should just be able to do whatever they want ,” his tone is mocking, “and then come to God and no matter what it was, it all goes away and we all just have to welcome them  into our community?” “No,” she says, “I don’t think that. But I’m not God. I don’t think it’s my place to decide who’s forgiven and who isn’t. Do you?” “I’m done with this,” he says, “This conversation is a waste of my time.” And with that, he turns on his heel, and marches out of the room.  With a shrug, Nicole returns her Bible to her bag. That’s enough of that for one lifetime, she thinks. She tries to walk away, but a friend trails after her, down the hall. “I really think you should think about what he said… I mean, his dad is my pastor, and he’s a really smart guy, and…” “Why is excluding people so important to you?” “What? I’m not… I’m just…” “What? You just think some people  don’t get the same forgiveness you do? Because some guy at some pulpit said so? I don’t care who he is. He’s human. He’s fallible .”  “That’s so disrespectful! He’s a rightful authority. You can’t… That is so wrong ! I’m going to tell one of the leaders you said that!” Next thing Nicole knows, she’s being hustled into a corner of the retreat space, to sit with one of the female small group leaders and two male pastors. They quiz her about her ideas, ask her if she knows what it means to have a “rebellious heart.” The female leader tells Nicole she thinks it’s important for “us women” to remember that we don’t have biblical headship over male religious authorities.  Nicole says that’s fine, this pastor is not a pastor in her church and as far as she can tell, no one believes in following anything any random pastor says, just because they’re someone else’s pastor. The woman tells her that’s true, but she feels it's a bit different when that pastor is part of the same spiritual “conference,” and that, regardless, it’s important to be polite. Nicole says she’ll keep it in mind, and they let her go.  The following morning, Jonathan stares daggers at her across the room. But he doesn’t move to speak with her. And, for the last day or so of the retreat, she manages to avoid him entirely.  They’re a lot older, next time. The final time.  It’s been years since Nicole last attended a youth or young-adults group. Though, for the sake of Nicole’s Grandma, and her fervent, no-nonsense faith, she’s tried to continue attending church. She’s not at church, or even a church event, this time. Instead, she’s standing in the entryway of her friend’s parents’ house, waiting while her friend tugs on shoes and a jacket, then searches the entire house for her purse, so they can rush out the door together. He, Jonathan, arrives with a guitar case in tow, a friend of her friend’s older brother. They’re in a band together, it turns out. Some kind of Christian rock group. They eye each other warily.  “Hey,” he says, “Nicole, right? Still got a lot of strong opinions?” “You’d probably think so,” she says. He laughs. “Did you ever check out my dad’s sermon?” “No.” “Pity,” he says, “he’s a good speaker.” “I’m sure he is.” “You should catch a service at our church sometime,” he says, “hear him speak in person. Or me. I’m preaching at the church now, first Sunday of every month.” This is why he’s talking to her, she realizes. He wants to make sure she knows about this. Who he is now. Who he is becoming. How he has walked in the well-worn tracks of his forefathers, taken on their mantle, as if it were his own. “That’s nice.” “You should come by sometime,” he says, “Who knows? You might like it.” He turns to go. Tosses the last line over his shoulder like he’s been harbouring it, holding it close, all these years. “Might even learn something!” Unsure of what to say, Nicole says nothing. Pulls out her phone and stares at it, as if anything were happening on the quiet screen. And then her friend is ready. And she leaves. Emily Strempler (she/her) is a queer, German-Canadian, ex-fundamentalist writer of inconvenient fiction. Raised in a deeply conservative prairie community, she married at eighteen before leaving the church and moving out west. Her work can be found in numerous publications, including Broken Pencil, The Bitchin' Kitsch, and Agnes & True.

As we enter the barn, I prepare myself to be hit by a stench, but I’m greeted by the aroma of a bakery. The interior shouts success. It’s spotless and bright like a cloning facility. Large screens scroll commodity prices and flash Cake Cattle — The Sweetest Investment in Agri-tech.  Might make a good headline for my article.  I remove my notepad and ballpoint pen from my shirt pocket as Wilkins leads me to the first stall where a brown steer munches at a trough. “Our best-seller,” he says. “What do they eat?” He scoops his hand through the feed and lets it trickle through his fingers. “This is the maintenance diet — a proprietary blend of grain, sugar, and flour.” The animal looks normal but feels spongy when I press my finger into its side.  As Wilkins cuts a small chunk from the neck, I wince, and the beast snorts. I hesitate when Wilkins hands me the morsel. Seems strange to be eating something that’s looking at me. I take a breath and put the sample in my mouth.  “Rich and moist — good chocolate cake.” I scratch the steer’s forehead. “Sorry, buddy.” I nod to a calf in the next stall. Its hide is a patchwork of cowhide and what appears to be frosting. “That one —”  “Is about halfway through its transition.”  “Walk me through the process, Mr. Wilkins. Not too technical though. Our readers have short attention spans.” Wilkins explains how calves, at birth, start on nano-bot feed that modifies their genetic structure.  … their genetic structure , I scribble.  “By the time they’re yearlings,” Wilkins says, “beef flesh has become cake. And trust me, the market’s devouring it—our quarterly returns have never been better.” … never been better. I   look up and shake my head. Wilkins leans close. “I don’t understand all the ins and outs, but it’s a great way to diversify my herd.” He snaps off a horn from the chocolate cake cow. The steer stamps its hoof.  “That doesn’t hurt?”  He takes a bite of the horn. “Marzipan. It’ll grow back. And they’re more profitable. Regular steers are a one-off, but cake cattle are productive for five years.”  “Some people think it’s cruel to turn cattle into walking birthday treats.” Wilkins shrugs as if he’s heard it all before. “No worse than being walking sirloins and roasts.”  His words bite more than I think he intends. As bad as being  … I write, then tuck my pad in my shirt pocket.  “Now, let’s take a look at those pig pies,” Wilkins says. “You’re going to love the cherry.” I tell him I’ve had my fill. David Henson and his wife have lived in Brussels and Hong Kong and now reside in Illinois. His work has been selected for Best Microfictions 2025, nominated for four Pushcart Prizes, Best of the Net, and two Best Small Fictions. His writings have appeared in various journals including Roi Fainéant Press, Ghost Parachute, Bright Flash Literary Journal, Moonpark Review, Maudlin House, and Literally Stories. His website is  http://writings217.wordpress.com . His Twitter is @annalou8 .