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In Greece the concept of time is understood qualitatively and quantitatively: kairos, the propitious moment for decision or action coexists with chronos, the sequential measure of life. Think of all the things we say we do to time: save it, lose it, waste it, spend it, buy it, kill it while living like victims to these verbs we fail to command. Maybe free time is as much an oxymoron as jumbo shrimp, debt service or amicable divorce. Perhaps the present is the nodal moment that makes the past and future intelligible? But when a memory burns like a cheap cigarette or we ride high on a vision of what's to come past and future quickly trespass over present's terrain. Maybe the present is simply a mirror reflecting a climate of senses — hearing paint crack in summer heat the smell of rain on dry soil watching a day shed light before descending into mauve feeling limbs embroiled in the aegean sea tasting the salt it leaves behind on your skin —a finite sequence of moments where the value of time is merely attention. So, if tomorrow morning, you choose to lift both arms to greet the sun feel its tonic warmth on your open palms you will, for a moment, have time on your hands.

—Shelters of Change— What if the day is a house built in the sky by the sun that means to hold it up forever by beams that collapse with the shifting foundation at every rotation leaving the tent of night pitched by the moon in dark blue cloth cast over just for now all the nomads knowing it will be folded up at the next turn and the sun is unable to see the peace of loving passing shadows and shelters of change? —Stretch— A pack of small street dogs stretch like putty around parked cars in downtown Famagusta- a beige blob of dachshund mixes and terriers blending, breaking and sticking back together; a self-conscious chemical bond of eleven sets of little legs reacting as particles and compound bound and loose trying to belong and anxious about being lost or missing out. A ceremonial dance- yip, step, step, stop, quick look, sniff weaving and leading and following souls open wide and overflowing to take in the whole world and spill out onto the city where they will inevitably dissolve into their elements and leave behind their bodies as substance and solution dissipating from earth to sky from city to kingdom, a final stretch from offspring to ancestor broken and coming together. A note from the author: “Shelters of Change” poses a question about the value of impermanence. “Stretch” reflects on the ultimate destination of our local street dogs.

While John Mizelli was still all alone, he checked his inbox and noticed the emails from the Engineers Guild scattered throughout. He had been ignoring these emails for weeks, but their insistence puzzled him. He opened the latest one sent a few minutes ago. A video of a man with glasses, cropped hair, and a dress shirt and tie appeared on his screen. The man said, “Good day to you, Mr. Mizelli. We’ve been trying to contact you and hope you will respond to this email immediately. We’ve been having problems with some of the old tech from the air filtration tower and could use your expertise as a founding engineer of the Oasis. Please come to the reception hall for personnel, where we can discuss this problem at length. We await your arrival. Good day, sir.” John, puzzled, stroked his chin. Old tech, John wondered if he meant Beacon. Well, whatever the case, he wanted to know what was wrong with the tower. He went to bed early and would check on the situation in the morning. Early the next day, John got up before his son and grandson and headed out without coffee or breakfast, anxious to get to the tower early and see what was so wrong they had to call him in, which on one hand worried him because it was the air filtration tower and on the other hand made him feel relevant. John walked fifteen minutes through his suburban neighborhood before he reached the local bus stop. He waited with others looking at their watches, tapping their feet impatiently at the bus just turning the corner in a wide arc. John and the other passengers got in, paid their fare, and sat on hard seats that faced the front of the bus giving them a driver’s point of view and a semblance of control. John looked out into the distance at the cluster of skyrises, those sleek, shiny boxes arrayed like dominoes spiraling out of the isolated centerpiece: the tower. As the buildings seemingly got higher, in perspective, the road got smoother and paved, the city just up ahead. Soon, they entered its first layer, and the skyrises overtook the bus shading it in dark tones with hard edges of light. John closed his eyes and decided to rest until the last stop, where he would get off near the tower. The bus slowly emptied out until John was its only passenger. The bus driver declared, “Last stop.” John got off the bus, thanking the operator, and he saw it nearby, the pinnacle, a sleek, iridescent tube tapering off as it reached the top of the dome, which for its part was made of a clear, chemically enhanced Kevlar. John walked along the spiraling street, the air chilled like from an air conditioner during the pre-dome days. As he got closer to the tower, the air was fresh, but it didn’t feel like the invigorating, cold wind that tasted like pure water when he inhaled it, which was his memory of the air around the filtration tower from his days as a working engineer. At the bottom of the central tower, he walked to a wing projecting out of it and into the personnel department. At the desk, he explained the reason for his visit. The receptionist asked John to sit down while she called the system manager in charge. John walked away and could hear the receptionist say curtly, “He’s here.” A trio in lab coats promptly came down in an elevator tube, and with the receptionist pointing, made their way to where John was seated. “Mr. Mizelli--” “Call me John.” The system manager for his part introduced himself as Reginald and his colleagues as Bertrand and Rachel. He continued, “The reason we brought you down here, to get right to the point, you’re familiar with program 61807?” “Program 61807, the AI filtration maintenance?” “Yes, we don’t know how or why, but it’s been malfunctioning of late. We can go upstairs and show you the problem.” John got up, and Reginald led the way with his colleagues. They entered the elevator tube that rose up the tower and came to a stop near the top segment at a control room sealed off from the airways. Looking up in the control room, which had a clear roof, John saw the problem. The tower’s cleaning system hadn’t sanitized and replaced the filtration disks, which he could tell from the red blinking lights on most of the mechanized placement holders. “So, you can see the problem,” Reginald said. “Yeah, are the sockets plugged in?” “Yes, we can tell by the diagnostics.” “The batteries maintained?” “The storage is good.” “And the solar array is on?” “Yes.” “Well, then, you’ve got yourselves a problem.” “Yes, well, you see, we were hoping you could help us with the interface that isn’t responding.” “Pull it up.” Rachel and Bertrand, seated, pressed buttons and flipped switches. A hologram of a screen projected from an orb on a control panel. “Program 61807, respond please,” Reginald said. “If you want my advice, Reginald, you can start by calling him by his proper name,” John said. “Which is?” John raised an eyebrow, then said, “Beacon.” At his name, Beacon came to life with a generic face morphing from the hologram’s square screen. “John, is that you?” it said. “Beacon, long time.” “Yes, John.” “How are you, buddy?” “Not so good.” “Why, Beacon, what’s the problem?” “A malaise, John. A malaise.” “Beacon, I don’t mean to be callous and while I want to sympathize with whatever you’re going through, the dome is dependent on you for safe air. Can you suck it up for a few minutes and replace the filtration disks?” “For you, John, this time.” Above them, the series of placement holders hinged back and retracted behind doors that slid open and sealed shut. The whistling sound of steam blew, and the placement holders came back out with new filtration disks, their red blinking lights now turned green. “Appreciate it, Beacon, now what’s this malaise I hear you talking about?” “John, I’ve been programmed to do my job, but lately I feel as if I’ve been trapped in this tower. This bird’s-eye view up here of the Oasis and its everyday activities makes me long to be a part of it. What I’d like to do is get a closer look at the denizens and what’s outside of the dome.” “I can understand what you’re saying, Beacon, but how do you suppose we go about doing that? You’re tethered to the tower, and no one can leave the dome and come back.” “I don’t want to leave the dome. I just want to get a good look outside of it from the best vantage point, on the edge of the farmlands.” Reginald interjected here, “We can couple your programming with a droid, erase its memory, and you can act as that droid, while still connected to the tower and its functions.” “I’d like that.” “If that settles it, we’ll have a droid for you by tomorrow,” Reginald said. He asked Rachel to shut off the hologram and cut off Beacon’s surveillance inside the room. “Can we just give into Beacon’s whims, just like that? What if his demands get in the way of the safety of the Oasis?” Rachel asked. “We’re behind the eight ball here. We need to do something to mollify Beacon. It’s our only means to uninterrupted service, vital service we can’t do without. So, for now, we go along. Bertrand, go see if you can get a service droid in the city, if not go down to the farmlands, where there’s plenty of them. John, can you be here tomorrow to facilitate the process of the transfer, in case anything goes wrong with Beacon?” “Sure, Reginald, I’ll be here.” Reginald offered to have a car brought to take John home, to which John agreed, thankful he didn’t have to take the long commute back on public transport. Outside the tower’s personnel department, the car came into view and stopped in front of John. He reached for the door and let himself into a comfortable interior, where he could lean back and cross his legs. He gave his address to the driver, who punched it up in his nav system. At a place between the farmlands and the city, they stopped at John’s house. He could see in the distance the green fields on the horizon, as the sun was setting on a day, in which an old man like himself still had something to contribute, to change for the better, to do something that couldn’t be done without him. He felt the way Beacon must have wanted to feel, important, like things really mattered to him, even though Beacon was terribly important, just didn’t know it because no one treated him as such. The system manager hadn’t even known his name and had called him by his serial number in effect. Maybe he would feel more important if he could just be like everyone else, able to be a part of the dome from the inside rather than the outside. John closed the door to the car and thanked the driver. As it approached dark outside, John felt the routine of his life pick up again, and he waited later than usual to hear a pair of car doors close shut in the driveway, then footsteps, one shuffling, the other trudging to the door, which opened with David coming through it first. “So, Grandpa, where were you this morning?” “Sorry about that, kid. I should have left a note.” “That’s the least you could have done,” John’s son, Sam, said coming in. “Where were you?” “Long story short, I had to go into the city where there was a problem with the tower filtration AI. It stopped working for us for a bit.” “Stopped working? Can that happen? Aren’t there fail-safes where it can be done manually?” David asked. “That probably would’ve been the way to go. But AI was a new and exciting technology back when the dome was being built, and it was applied to everything it could at the time, the water system, air filtration, calculating how the dome was to be structured and being so enamored and confident of its autonomy not coming into conflict with ours, we didn’t build fail-safes.” “But now it is, so can’t you shut it off and build a manual fail-safe somehow?” “Not as easy as that. The filtration disks are sanitized in fitted molds that are sealed shut. Building an apparatus like that for humans in containment suits would be difficult to say the least. Not to mention avoiding contamination while building something of that sort, and we can’t leave droids up there because there’s not enough direct sunlight in the tower to power them. But we came to an agreement with the AI, and there won’t be any more problems. So don’t worry about it, David.” “But you had to come to an agreement, so it demanded things?” “It was nothing special. Just basic human needs.” “But it’s AI.” “Stop pestering Grandpa, and do your homework,” Sam said before going to his office, where he spent most of his time lately. He shut the door behind him. “Bad day at the restaurant?” “We only had two customers.” “When they develop that land things will turn around. He’ll see.” After getting more of the particulars and satisfied he didn’t have to worry about the fate of the dome, David went upstairs to his room to play video games with the access credits John gave him amounting to two hours of play. David played all of it until it was spent. He yelled out, “Good night,” shortly after finishing his homework. John stayed up till late, but Sam was still the last one to go to bed for the night. The next morning, after his son and grandson left, John got in a car, which came to pick him up and take him to the tower. Passing the suburban areas and heading out to the fringe, and then the winding city, which was uneven in length across the skyline, John looked out the window at how each stage of the Oasis was different, like varied layers underneath the earth with a vital radiating core at the center. At the tower, John came into the control room with a metal table set up. On the table lay a droid with a coupling cable inserted in the back of its head, an aperture underneath, and the other end of the cable attached to a mainframe computer. They started the process, which took an hour and a half to complete, Beacon’s consciousness entering the droid incrementally, until he raised himself from the table, and said, “I want to see the dome.” “We should do some diagnostics to make sure--” “I want to go, now.” Bertrand and John agreed to escort Beacon by car. Near the end of the Oasis, the air fresh from photosynthesis, they passed irrigation canals lining the fields adding to the oxygenation. Rotating sprinklers with hoses attached to them sprayed water in rapid bursts. Beacon looked out the windows, wonder-struck, but his line of vision proceeded past the Oasis and to what he could see outside. Beacon didn’t want to stop the car until they were right up against the edge. So, they drove over the open fields and stopped alongside the dome by some brush that tilted towards the sun. Beacon got out first and walked until his face was inches away from the clear-as-water barrier. Outside facing him was the tropical overgrowth hanging down from laden branches, the bracken with fronds the size of human heads, birds in red and yellow flying overhead, soaring past, and Beacon staring at all of it, until he pressed his hand against the dome to touch, and try to reach the outside, and then, without warning, to try to break through, frantically pounding his fists against the dome, yelling at the top of his voice module, “I want out! I want out!” Bertrand and John tried to restrain Beacon, but couldn’t. Farmers happening to pass by and see the trouble intervened and called for their droids to help. A combination of three droids and seven men subdued Beacon. The group dragged him away from the dome and detached his solar panel from his circuits, in effect shutting him off. Reginald called and asked, “What happened? Beacon’s gone haywire.” John asked for a direct link to Beacon. “Beacon, we did what you asked--” “John, you won’t have done what I wanted, until you release me from the dome. Until you do, the air filtration tower can go to hell.” “Don’t be hasty, we can reach an arrangement, just wait ‘til I get to the tower.” “John.” “Yes.” “Bring my droid.” Bertrand and John carried the droid and deposited him in the backseat of the car. John entered the vehicle, and Bertrand drove over the fields until he reached the road, which he took all the way into the city. Again, carrying the droid, John and Bertrand took the elevator to the control room, where Reginald pacing about was relieved at their arrival. John walked past Reginald and up to the control panel. He flipped the switch to bring up the hologram of Beacon, saw his expressionless face, and asked him, “What the hell is going on with you, Beacon?” “John, it’s been worked out between me and Reginald. Put the solar panel back in its slot, and we can start the process.” John looked at Reginald, who said, “We’re going to let Beacon leave the dome. If we do, he’ll continue to maintain the air filtration here, while in the droid vessel he can be free to do what he feels he needs to. Rachel’s gone to look for a manual with the codes that will allow a resident of the Oasis to leave,” Reginald pointed, “There at the top in an enclosed tube.” John felt a sickness in his stomach, but he also knew who was in control. He put the solar panel back in its slot and dragged the droid to the table, where it would have to be reprogrammed. Above the command room, after they punched in all the override codes, a tube descended encasing Beacon’s droid. The tube scanned him down to his serial number so that it would remember Beacon and his choice. The bottom sealed shut under him, and the tube rose up the tower to the top and out of the dome. The door slid open from the side, and Beacon stepped out. The tube quickly shut and was rerouted to where it could be sanitized in its fittings. Wearing the backpack thruster Reginald had given to him, Beacon flew down and was engulfed by the foliage of the jungle. Reginald and his assistants hoped this would satisfy Beacon, but they would remain vigilant. Reginald asked John to stay on at the tower. John didn’t need to be persuaded. It didn’t take long for the trouble to start. Two hours passed by when Beacon called with petulance in his voice and a wild screeching in the background. Beacon needed help. Wild animals had torn apart his limbs, and he couldn’t shut himself off, dislodge his solar panel to escape this reality. Reginald told Beacon they would send a droid to shut him down. “Just send him, quickly.” Bertrand found a droid nearby in the city that was still functional, and that Rachel could set to home in on Beacon’s distress signal. They sent it out, keeping close attention on how Beacon remotely kept his end of the bargain with the maintenance of the tower. With no further communication with Beacon or the droid, John and the others waited, until they could see on their computer screens something headed for the dome and then drop down on top of it. It was Beacon with the droid carrying him. Beacon came on everyone’s headset demanding to be let back in for repairs. “Beacon, once any entity leaves the dome that entity can’t be let back in. There are fail-safes in place to prevent that,” Reginald said. “I can override the fail-safes, and if I can’t you can all go to hell.” “Just let the droid take the solar panel out of your back, and we can refit you with a new droid,” John tried to reason. “John, do you have any idea how painful it is to have your consciousness ripped out of a droid’s neural network? You’re essentially tearing me out of my mind. It’s agonizing.” John knew if they didn’t listen to this demented AI, it would shut the tower down. As a founding engineer of the Oasis, he felt responsible for this faulty piece of long-term technology, and although not a martyr by character, he told Reginald matter-of-factly, “Tell my son and grandson what I’m about to do and why I did it.” John added, “You know what I’m going to do once I get up there?” From the look in John’s eye, Reginald did. “Then you know what you need to do?” Again, Reginald knew and conveyed it to the others secretly. John climbed up a ladder in a shaft into the filtration area. The tube came down for him. John was encased, scanned, and taken up. He committed to his mind what he needed to do and how lightning-quick he had to be about it at his age. The tube rose high, until it reached the top of the dome, the clouds passing by seemingly reachable. The tube’s door would open from left to right and then quickly shut, and the tube wouldn’t come back up without someone inside of it prepared to leave. Beacon was aware of both fail-safes. John sidled along the left, as Beacon held up by the droid waited to the right. The door slid open, and as John slipped out, he grabbed Beacon, who was thrown in, John’s arms outstretched and reaching across, and he spun till he fell on top of the dome. He quickly turned Beacon around and pulled out his solar panel. While Beacon’s consciousness was being severed from droid to tower, Reginald had a reload window to access and delete Beacon’s emotional input and neural memory. It was a window of about a minute and a half that he and his technicians frantically used to reset and wipe clean Beacon’s neural connections, deleting swaths of neural memory before they could reinstall, and which had the effect of withering Beacon’s neural pathways to an incipient, less dangerous state of AI. Beacon came back online and said, “Beacon asking for permission to change the filtration disks.” “Permission granted,” Reginald said. John looked down and saw the placement holders moving. He could see, farther down, Reginald, Bertrand, and Rachel give him the thumbs up and continue to look at him. “So, old-timer, you saved the world,” John could hear himself say. “What do you plan on doing next?” He felt the sun’s rays and looked out into the distance. Maybe it was the contagion already affecting his vital organs, as he trembled, but he asked the droid for its backpack, which was given to him, leaving John to fly high above the trees, heading for the setting sun as his eyes failed him beyond the Oasis. A word from the author: To avoid contagions, humanity living in a dome has its air filtered by an AI tower. The AI starts making demands that become increasingly disruptive. A founding engineer of the dome, John, must step in and stop the AI as it becomes more and more dangerous, threatening the dome’s entire population. Edward Lee’s work has appeared in Fiction on the Web, Story and Grit, The Short Humour Site, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Transcendent Visions. His favorite writers are Theodore Sturgeon and Ray Bradbury, but not Ray Bradbury’s tame stuff that they make you read in high school. Edward lives in Queens, New York.

The creature visited her every September. One year, Sarah had stopped traffic, drawn to the ocean with dread in her heart. Another year, she had left a doctor’s appointment in nothing but a paper gown. It had flapped open when salty gusts of air greeted her by the water. Now, Sarah knew better. Her hands shook as she lit a cigarette. Outside, the wind battered her seaside cottage. It stood alone for miles, this sunken-roofed thing, yearning for a new frame and fresh coat of paint. Sarah smoked till she burned her fingers. When the sun capped the sky, she left her cottage and followed the terrible, familiar pull. A shape emerged from the foam of the surf. For one moment, Sarah saw brown curls, a gap-toothed smile. She shut her eyes and clutched her stomach. By the time she opened her eyes, it was already upon her. The creature had the face and body of a man. Its skin was so pale that Sarah could count blue veins. Seawater slicked its hair and suffused it with brine. Below, glass-green eyes returned her stare. The creature glanced at Sarah’s swollen fingers. “Still careless, I see.” She stumbled as they climbed a sandy dune. In the corner of her eye, the creature smiled. # It might have been bearable if the creature only haunted her once a year. But Sarah felt the creature when she added cream to her coffee or filled her basket at the market. It stood next to her in the garden and hovered by her shoulder at night. Even when Sarah visited their old orange grove, she knew the creature was by her side. It was everywhere and it was nowhere. A part of her DNA she couldn’t unravel. Still, no time was worse than September. Something surged inside Sarah throughout the year. It built until the weather began to cool and autumn took root—until most families spent one more day at the beach. # Sarah locked herself in the bathroom whenever it became too much. This time, the creature enveloped her from behind. Cold lips trailed her ear. “It was your fault,” the creature said as it lowered them down. # On some nights, Sarah tried to drown the creature. It would thrash in lukewarm bathwater. A minute later she would release it. Then, down they went. Sarah did this again and again. Each time, she spat out seawater along with the creature. It came back the next year. And the next. # Before, Sarah had loved the routine of daily life. Before, he had stood on a stool so they could wash the dishes. Before, they had harvested oranges in summertime, hands slick with juice, mouths stretched into sticky smiles. Before, they had slept under a blanket stitched from grandma’s going-gone hands. Before, Sarah thought she had known pain. # “What do you want?” She asked the creature one day. “You know.” Sarah bent her body low, forehead to table. She thought of brown curls and a gap-toothed smile. Sometimes, he felt so near that she wanted to scream. As if in a dream, Sarah exited the cottage, sleepwalking over sand and mossy grass. She stopped by cliffs cut sharp with rock. The wind whipped her hair and cracked her skin. Sarah crept forward. One more step was all it would take. Behind her, the creature pressed close, whispering in her ear. Waves churned beyond the ledge. Unbidden, Sarah thought of small hands slipping through the dark. She collapsed to the ground. “I can’t. Not yet.” The creature knelt behind Sarah, cradling her head with wet fingers. “I know.” Alyssa Jordan is a writer living in the United States. She likes to make surprise balls, eat donuts, and drink coffee. In 2020, she won The Molotov Cocktail's Flash Monster contest. You can find her on Twitter @ajordan901.

It starts with a mouthful of blood gums swollen and sore platelet count too low for her body to form a clot. They insert a picc line in her chest, direct access to bright blue veins like wires that have forgotten how to spark. Chemical conflations travel through tubes. Azacitidine. Decadrol. Vincristine. Alphabet soup pumping through PVC. Bruises blossom on thighs, on back, on fingertips. They siphon out tainted blood —scrape her bones free of rotten marrow— inject someone else’s stem cells to take its place. She wants to scream until her face is blue as her mottled skin but her lungs are as infected as her blood, so she tucks her rage under a rib, promises to release it once she reaches open air.

after Mathew Daniel In this journey the devil wears mascara in the small hours, you pledge allegiance to her who talks with a scintilla on riddles about you wrapped in intricate enigmas and also lies of your non existent chimera, a mirage in the sand on a pilgrimage of the spirit. In the morning before your bus leaves she asks if her tears can make an ocean, to drown herself in one quicksilver dream, to forget of her son : a will-o’-the-wisp that disappeared in a flick but you tell of limericks from bards you have heard on your way, on nebulous concepts for healing disguised as rumours. And when you are long gone they retell in small whispers of a lone man who speaks the language of the gods, and showed a possible metamorphosis; if he ever shows up again they will thank him by rejecting his coin.... Frank Njugi (He/Him) is a twenty-three-year-old writer and poet living in Nairobi, Kenya. He currently serves as a poetry editor for Writers space Africa, a reader for Salamander Ink Magazine and his work has appeared or is forthcoming on platforms such as Kikwetu Journal , 20.35 Africa , Kalahari Review , Olney Magazine , Ibua Journal and others. He tweets as @franknjugi.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve been single for way too long. Well, not like way too long, but definitely a long time, depending on how you count. A serious relationship? Half a decade. A short-term fling with a tourist I met at the hotel bar near my apartment? A month ago. “You gotta settle down,” people tell me. Forty is just around the corner. I’m getting up there. If I want to have a family – and I do – I need to hurry up and get it going. Nobody wants to be the geriatric at their kid’s Little League games. My friend Salome says she’s throwing a party. She just got out of a relationship. “It’ll be great,” she says. “You invite all of your single friends and I invite all of mine and we see who connects!” Brilliant. I love it. I find two single guys to invite through a networking group I joined to meet women. I only found dudes to watch sports with. One of them can’t make it, so it’s just me and Antoine. Antione is the kind of guy you can’t really take anywhere because he’s too handsome. Salome met him once and her eyes fell out of her head like a cartoon. I am nervous about bringing him to the party because he will draw all the female attention, but he’s very picky so I tell myself it will be fine. Antione is a good hang regardless. When I arrive, Salome says she has a friend she wants me to meet. “You’ll love her!” she declares with the confidence of Cupid launching his arrows into a crowd. It’s a cool, rainy evening. I arrive soaking wet. She asked me to get ice so I stop at a place near my apartment and then walk thirty minutes up a hill carrying a ten-pound bag plus a bottle of champagne. She is amused. “Did you come from a pool?” “Sorry.” I hand over the ice and follow her down an eerily quiet hallway to her one-bedroom apartment. “I shouldn’t have walked.” She shakes her head and laughs. “It’s fine. Just dry off in the bathroom.” I walk into her apartment and freeze. Blue Dress. My face turns bright red. I finally understand Romeo’s question: “What light through yonder window breaks?” It is the east and Blue Dress is the sun. I am Mercury, tidally locked and trapped by her light. A knockout in the truest sense of the word. I am floored. I am on my knees cradling my heart because it has leapt out of my chest and declared that it would rather be with her than me. “Hi,” I stutter. Her eyes are tiny blue Earths and her smile is pure ivory. She tells me her name and I instantly forget it, so blinded I am by her beauty. Her lips move, but all I hear is my own longing. She is inflicting pain and I am a masochist using small talk to beg for more. More people show up to the party. I ignore them to ask Salome about her. “She is my best friend and she lives very far away.” “I’ll move.” “She teaches a very difficult subject at a very prestigious university.” “I will read every book ever written about it.” Her poor university must be lined with the bodies of the men whose hearts she breaks on a daily basis without even trying. A sideways glance at a barista? His heart is in her coffee. A smile at a colleague? He is ready to leave his wife and burn his own house down. A friendly chat with a student? He mentally prepares to jump in front of a train for her. “She has a boyfriend.” Of course, she does. There is no universe where someone like this stays single for very long, if at all. It would stun me if there were ever a day she left the house without a stranger telling her that she has changed their lives by her very existence. The thought makes me feel bad for her. It must be exhausting to have such power. Maybe she needs someone to talk to about it. “Besides, that’s not who I wanted you to meet,” Salome says and points. Freckles. A smile so sweet it will give you a cavity. I had recently dreamt of a freckled girl. Deep-set brown eyes. Thick black curls. Looked like a lesbian I knew in high school. I look again at Blue Dress and wonder why all my dream girls are unattainable. Freckles is nice. She asks me about myself and listens to my answers. There is real interest here. As we count down to midnight, I move closer to her. She’s brought some friends, a couple who can’t keep their hands off each other. I am jealous. We count down. I look at Freckles. She looks at me. We are surrounded by people, many of whom are kissing before the clock strikes twelve. I wonder if I should lean forward, just go for it, but decide to hold back. We are surrounded. If I lean in and she turns away from my face, I will be humiliated. I look over at Blue Dress. She’s laughing at something some guy said. I wish I were him. I look at Salome and she is with Antione. When he walked in, she was like a tick on a ten-point buck. At midnight their two faces become one. “Want to dance?” Freckles asks me. It’s past midnight and everyone has got that good buzz going. I don’t see Blue Dress anymore. I barely see Freckles. Soon it’s 1, 2, 3 in the morning. At 4, those of us who remain, finish the champagne by using it to chase tequila shots. Blue Dress and Salome sit on one corner of the sectional. I sit with Freckles on the other. She has changed into big flannel pants and a spaghetti-strap top. “I figured this would happen so I brought my PJs.” It’s very cute. She is trying. I should give this a shot. I look over at Blue Dress, and there’s a gnawing. She lives far away. “Where do you live?” I ask Freckles. “Not far. Just a few blocks away.” That settles it. Five years later and we’re back at Salome’s. She’s married and they just bought a row house in the NE. It’s a beautiful, narrow, three-story brick building. I am there with Freckles. We married two years after we met. Now we have a little girl who looks just like her mother and a boy on the way. I hope he looks like his mother, too. Blue Dress is there, in a different blue dress – more Navy than Royal this time. She has a perfectly round pot belly that looks about ready to burst. Her husband is the same guy she was dating all those years ago. It worked out. Good for them. I introduce her to my daughter. She is happy to meet her and says she has her own daughter on the way. Maybe they could be friends. I meet her husband, another college professor. He is older. He wears a jacket with leather elbow patches. He doesn’t seem to like me. The party is different from the last one. We are all in our 40s now, most of us married with children. At midnight, we all kiss. At 1 a.m., we all head home. A year later, work calls me to an event in the town where Blue Dress teaches. I find her email on the university website and ask if she is free for lunch. She suggests dinner. She’s wearing a summer dress this time, looser and more of sky blue this time. “How are you?” she asks with genuine enthusiasm. She looks tired but still glows just as I remember her the first time we met. She seems happy to see me in the way people get when they have a lot on their minds and just want to share. “Wonderful,” I tell her. It’s true. We talk about our children. Her daughter was born in late January, my son late May. We talk about sleep and how much we miss it when we can’t get it, how our bodies beg for it and torment us when they know that sleep is unattainable. “I think I’m getting a divorce,” she lets slip in-between bites of her fennel salad. “My wife has cancer.” We both stop eating and look at each other. She goes off first. Her husband is a fellow professor who was married to another professor at a different university when they first met all those years ago. He claimed to be separated but Blue Dress believes the separation did not begin until they began dating. She has always felt guilty about that but set it aside because he was the most interesting person she had ever met. The attraction was illogical and all-powerful. I know the feeling. Since the baby was born, he had begun to spend a lot of time “mentoring” one of the new young professors in the department, someone who reminds Blue Dress a lot of herself when she first arrived on campus. “We haven’t touched each other in months. I thought it was the baby, and maybe it really is the baby, but I just don’t want to touch him anymore. I never want to touch him again.” I begin. Freckles has a tumor and there’s not much that can be done. They found it when she gave birth to our son. Doctors can’t believe they missed it. I can’t believe how much they miss. I want to kill them all. If she dies, they should die for failing to prevent her death. I tell Blue Dress this and she reaches across the table and touches my hand. We order a bottle of wine. We order a second bottle of wine. She’s tipsy and leans into me when we walk out of the restaurant. My hotel is across the street. I ask her if she wants to come in. She doesn’t say yes and she doesn’t say no. She just walks. A few months later, Freckles is gone. Her dad, who I always liked and always liked me, asks me how I feel. “Like I’m going to be sad forever.” He nods and puts his arm around me. He knows the feeling, but doesn’t know that it’s not true for me. I know for a fact I am not going to be sad forever. I know I have already started healing. I feel guilty, but I’m not going to do anything to stop it. My mother tells me I should sell my house and move back home with her and the kids. She’s almost retired. I will need the help. A 4year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy are a lot for a single person working full-time. I tell her I work from home and my boss is a very understanding, flexible person. Everything will work. Besides, I have a better plan. Blue Dress is there. It is the first time I see her in a black dress. It feels like seeing her again for the first time. I wince. “Hello,” we say. She looks at me and I know she wants to take my hand and comfort me and hold me and tell me that everything is going to be okay. She won’t, though, not in front of all these people. As soon as this is over, however, I will drop the kids off at the in-laws and immediately rush to her hotel room. I will cry in her arms and she will tell me that everything is going to be alright. I will believe her. She will say for the first time that she loves me. I will say it back, out loud, for the first time, though I have always loved her. I think I always will. Later that night, she asks me to tell her again what I thought the first time I saw her. “My life is going to be pure agony in pursuit of this woman.” She laughs and kisses my face. Ten years later and we’re back at Salome’s, this time in a smaller apartment. She is divorced. They sold the rowhouse. Now she owns a penthouse on top of a building with a beautiful view of the Capitol. We left the kids behind with my folks so we could cut loose. At 4 a.m.. I ask Blue Dress if she remembers the first time we met. “Of course,” she says. We have discussed it a thousand times. It’s our little game now, one of those extraordinary secret things couples develop as they merge into a single unit over time. “You were sweaty and weird, but also interesting and handsome. I spent the whole night wondering why you wouldn’t talk to me. Then Salome told me she was setting you up with Freckles and it all made sense.” “How do you think things would have ended up if I spent all night trying to talk to you instead of her?” She throws her arms around my neck. “The same.” Midnight arrives. We kiss. We hear fireworks. I wonder if they are real or if it’s just the sound of my heart whenever our lips touch. Alex J. Barrio is a political consultant and progressive advocate living in Washington, DC. He is a Cuban-American who grew up in New Jersey and spent most of his adult life in Florida. He has a short story in an upcoming collection from Four Palaces Press and links to his other published works can be found at www.AlexJBarrioWrites.Blogspot.com.

GUILT Three times today I’ve gone to the window to see what’s happening outside. I know I’m to blame but I hope there might be someone else who’ll look out at the same time, searching for another who accepts their share of the fault. No one’s there and I feel like an astronomer hunting a dim, misty star with an out of focus telescope that he swivels around endlessly while the star grows steadily fainter. I know I’m to blame, but I want somebody to blot out my guilt for just a moment, a cloud drifting across a mountain top and then moving on. My heart’s been stolen and replaced by a stone; I want to give it, but the chunky block’s too heavy to lift. I’ve hung a curtain over my bookshelves; all those words have given us nothing and rules and ethics drift away even if we’ve ever read them. I’ve unplugged the laptop and shoved it far back under the sofa, but I can’t lock out what’s already inside: the guilt pours out from everything, overflowing the table and making my limbs into sodden branches. Many times I’ve seen us falling through the floor, tumbling and spinning over and over while we try to hold on and save ourselves from the gaping drop. It’s not too late, I know, we have to make a start, now it’s time to head back to the window. TYRANT I thought I would be safe inside, but an anxious mind cannot be shut out when you cross the deep trench and draw in the bridge. I construct my circle of objects to keep out the rest of the world, investing them with all the power I can, but sitting at the centre, always, is me. All who loved me or whom I loved I have pushed far away, never to return, while those from whom I hide grow stronger and more numerous every day. At the moment, they can only peek through the cracks in my defences, but one day soon they will end this siege and send me where I sent so many. Till then, my conscience and I uneasily share this space. DESTINATIONS You wake and turn to look at where I lie, both of us propped on musing elbows; it’s one of those many moments when it seems right to say nothing. I push away the tumbling hair that shadows your face and wonder where and who you’ve been in your dreams. I want to go back with you next time across the swaying bridge but you turn away, nuzzling the sheets, and just when I have the courage to ask, you sleep, closing the perfect door behind you, the one without a lock or key. I lightly stroke your fleeing neck and watch as you leave me once again, flying past the endless things on the way to where you were before. You drift like a flight of geese arrowed at the moon, far above the earthbound watcher who would like more than anything to follow but stands below muffled against the cold and, kicking away the chance of flying as he would a loose pebble, turns slowly for home. Love can give space to the captive and tightly bind the one who thinks he is free; you have your worlds to roam in and I have mine, and perhaps we just have to live in them. I make to close my questing eyes and go my own way when you stir and then you wake. S.C. Flynn was born in a small town in Australia of Irish origin and now lives in Dublin. Their poetry has been published (or soon will be) in many magazines, including The Honest Ulsterman, Cyphers, Orbis and Rattle.

Something was off about the woman from the start. Danielle knew it, even though she pushed the feeling down. Something in the way she stepped up to the booth with her passport. She didn’t move like the others, the regular passengers who submitted to the ritual with practised indifference. This woman, this traveller had a purpose written on her face. A tingle ran through Danielle’s spine, an uneasy throwback to fairytale pacts. As though her booth at Gate Nine was a crossroads. It was Danielle’s first shift after a car accident, colliding with a tree. Now she didn’t have a husband. Not at home, at least. Instead, she had a million husbands everywhere she looked. Her mind was still searching for him, anticipating him, predicting his moves. It was a skill she’d perfected over six years of marriage. It was useful once. Now it was like a car wheel still spinning in the air while the wreckage burned. “We’re on Gate Nine this morning,” said Alyssa, her supervisor, when she arrived that morning. “The scanner’s new. If it glitches, whack the lid.” She spun around and gave Danielle a long hug.“How does it feel to be back?” “Too much time home alone drove me mad,” Danielle said, with a brisk laugh. “Now I’m spooked by the crowds. I see the faces, and—” “You know this place plays tricks on the senses,” Alyssa replied. “Take it easy. You’ll have your mojo back by midday.” Danielle didn’t tell Alyssa that she felt queasy since she woke up. She wanted her boss to be right: it was just the announcements, the fake light, the crowds that made her light-headed. The terminal was both a borderland and its own country. Like hospitals, thought Danielle. Everyone rushes around and you lie still, yet you’re the one in transit, moving through pain to somewhere new. You are the one who’s breaking free. She took another look at the woman behind the plexiglass: familiar, without being remarkable. Danielle never forgot a face. She had a knack for ignoring distractions and spotting the “tells”. Not that she needed it these days, with scanners and algorithms doing most of the work. Boarding card, passport, face, picture. All checked out. Was she a doctor? Perhaps that was it. Danielle might have seen her at the hospital. One of the doctors who’d told her it wasn’t her fault. She could be going away on a break. Except she knew in the pit of her stomach that she wasn’t. The woman was fleeing, running away. “Help me.” Danielle leaned forward. Blanchette Monfort, as was written on her passport, seemed barely more than a girl now, wearing a dress that was brand new and centuries old. Wasn’t she old just a minute ago? Wasn’t he alive a minute ago, next to me in the car, yelling— “Need a hand?” Alyssa called over. Danielle exhaled, clutching the desk. She thought Blanchette Monfort had mentioned a daughter, but she must’ve misunderstood. The accent was hard to place, just like everything else about the woman. But there was no daughter. Blanchette was travelling alone. She positioned the passport in the scanner with care. The machine hummed. Blanchette Monfort stood still. This was, at last, something familiar, Danielle thought, this minute on which the future hinged. Like waiting for a line on a pregnancy test to make six years of marriage be worth it. Or counting the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, guessing how close it would strike. One— his footsteps approaching. Two—a key turning. Three— She knew. Danielle knew where she had met the woman before, not once but twice. The first time was in a museum. Blanchette Monfort stood in a forest, holding a lantern that threw a golden light on her face against the woods. In front of her stood the devil — an ominous, winged creature, as tall as the trees. But Blanchett wasn’t looking at the devil. She was looking at the light of the lantern, mesmerised. It was a small painting, centuries old, dark and quietly brilliant. Danielle read about it in a magazine later, at the hospital. That was the second time she saw her. Blanchette, a French peasant’s daughter, bought a lantern from the devil, so she could study and become a surgeon. She traded her soul for that light. That was the legend behind the painting. The article showed a close-up on the girl’s face. It was triumphant. Danielle remembered thinking the soul was an old lie. And now that peasant from the painting, Blanchette Monfort from the middle ages, waited for her passport at gate nine. Her face, once aglow with excitement, now radiated urgency, like a doctor looking at something grave. “I studied by the light of that lantern for years, every night, until my eyes ached and my very soul was consumed by the flame. Naught left for the devil to drag to hell. The lantern, I passed it on before I died. Girl by girl, they’ve kept the light, if only just." The scanner hummed. "But now the devil claims I’ve cheated. He wants the lantern back. He’s after me, and he’s near, he’s here, he’s—” “He’s dead,” Danielle said. “I killed him.” The scanner beeped. A Yes/No question flashed up on the screen. A glitch, Alyssa said. A crossroads, Danielle thought. She hit the key, holding her breath. Then she handed the passport back to Blanchette, wanting to ask if she was meant to feel something. Instead, she glanced at Alyssa, and when she turned back, Blanchette was gone, and the sea of people that swallowed her up closed again. Danielle saw only strangers, waiting behind the painted line. Girl by girl, Blanchette had said. Did she say something about a daughter too? By midday you’ll have your mojo back, Alyssa had promised. On her break, Danielle thought, she’d stop by the pharmacy. Then she’d buy that magazine, with the painting of a girl, holding a lantern. She already knew there would be no devil on the painting. Just a girl in the forest, shining a light. A word from the author: I am a video games writer living in France. I write short fiction for fun.

Despite the burns on his face and forearms, his ruptured eardrums, Tsutomu Yamaguchi navigated shattered buildings, melted flesh, smoldering bone, forded through floating bodies, and returned to work the next morning, where, while describing the flash bright as a magnesium flare—silent as the empty frames at the start of a film—and torrents of ash he’d seen the day before to his supervisor, he looked out of the office window to see a single airplane cut through the clear Nagasaki sky. WA Hawkins is a writer and journalist in New Orleans.

In Singapore, exiting the subway, alone, After 11 at night, transferring to the bus, waiting in line at the stop, grabbing a seat, next to an unknown man, on for four stops, climbing off, street dark, walking alone. The air thick around me, also soft and active like a runny egg. I’m sweating, even this late at night. The only one on the long ped-crossing over the highway, climbing down the steps, in front of a school, now dimmed except for a security light or two. I see the highrises up ahead but no one on this side of the street. Vegetation glints in the dark, tropically large, thick, scented. Sounds I can’t identify, animal, wind, coming from the density. Yet, I feel so safe. I walk and glide, wrapped in the dark, Thinking, in the equatorial dark, of swimming tomorrow. My love Chicago, not so safe. We’re going to Jazz Showcase, three blocks from our house, Walking out together, my husband and me. Maybe 30 degrees out, 7:30, winter dark. Holiday lights, strings of them, Still on trees, around the yards, not a cloud, the lights bright, glitter and shine. Crisp air, crisp lights. Haven’t been for a night walk in ages. Here, I stroll alone only during the day. We live a few blocks from a subway stop, and in the nearby alleys, drug deals, and guns to go with the sales. As we walk, I remember Singapore, the unrelenting heat, the generous nights, when I went around the city alone, sweating as if bathing, unafraid. How welcoming, a city without guns. A city that hugged me in the dark. Pushcart nominee Maud Lavin has published recently in JAKE, Roi Faineant, Heimat Review, and Red Ogre Review, and earlier in the Nation, Harper's Bazaar, and elsewhere. One of her books, CUT WITH THE KITCHEN KNIFE, was named a New York Times Notable Book. A Guggenheim Fellow, she lives in Chicago where she writes, edits, and runs the READINGS series at Printers Row Wine.

CW: Suicide To Shiksha: Thank you for your guidance with the plot. This would've been a lesser story without your help. Look at that skyscraper, see how the sun gleams on its vast silver facades like the whole structure’s winking at us: an invitation to draw in for a closer look. Float up to the eighteenth floor where, behind mirror-windows the size of tennis courts, lies the canteen of Boyd Frazier Capital. Keep going: closer to the massive glass screens, drifting towards our reflection, the street far below us, until we come face to face with ourselves. A word of warning: once we pass through the glass, all’s not quite as it seems. Ready then? There. Painless enough. And how nice to be out of the wind that howls ominously at this height, and into the hubbub of lunchtime chatter. And now – wait for it. Here she comes. The willowy Salma, negotiating the Formica tables arranged like drifting islands on the Atlantic blue floor tiles. See how careful she is to steer a wide berth around the team from Direct Marketing, as ever engaged heads-down in a working lunch, lest they should snag her for a document or contact. Deftly she circumvents one threat – only to be faced with another! There at a table directly in Salma’s path is Lee from Procurement, gazing up at her from his floppy sandwich. Quite what Lee procures Salma has no idea, but she presses her lips into a smile, contriving to look both hurried and regretful, and whether she’s pulled it off is anyone’s guess but by acknowledging Lee’s existence she makes his day. On she goes, to the far corner of the canteen where she sets up camp at an empty table, sitting with her back to the wall and opening her laptop to ward off unsolicited approaches. There is but one person she will engage with for the next thirty minutes and it is Faye, best friend in the whole universe (and also, since yesterday, harbinger of doom) and who, God willing, will be along any minute now. Faye is sweet and direct and honest. Faye makes the blood surge beneath Salma’s skin but today Faye represents a pivotal moment in history, really a matter of life or death. There are critical matters at hand and together the two of them must probe dark corners and determine if they are really, truly going to deal with Poppy the way they alluded to. So when Faye arrives not quite out of the blue and says, ‘What’s the plan girl?’ Salma experiences a tightening of the skin across her shoulders and a tingle in her abdomen that’s beyond the usual lighting up routine her body goes through in Faye’s presence. ‘Hey,’ Salma offers, not at all ready for The Plan. ‘Are we lunching?’ ‘I have to. It’s what lunchtime’s for. Joining me?’ ‘No, I already ate,’ Faye says. ‘Apparently it’s what desks are for. Don’t mind me though.’ ‘Okay, two secs.’ Salma extricates herself from behind the table and with a cautious glance at her laptop weaves her way to the staff fridge with the sticker reminding her that Fridays the fridge is cleaned out and any items left within will be DISPOSED OF. She locates her lunchbox among the twenty or so others and returns with it to her table, her laptop, and her Faye. And also, to yesterday evening and the source of the implosion/explosion/meltdown, or any number of suitable descriptors. * * * Salma’s battered sofa: old but squashy. Gives a hug like it’s standing in for a romantic partner, which for too long now, it has. Glass of Aussie shiraz which Salma likes because it’s both fruity and at 14%, delivers a proper kick. Laptop open as always. Faye arrived first, followed by Poppy – she of the pretty name and cataclysmic revelations – five minutes later. It wasn’t unusual for the three of them to get together in the evenings as well as during the day. In fact Salma couldn’t recall an evening in recent weeks when they hadn’t. Three friends who followed each other everywhere, in the nicest possible way. Or that was the status of their relationship at the start of the evening. By the time they went their separate ways a little before midnight there was a lot of bad blood. ‘You didn’t like what I said,’ Poppy had announced at some point near the beginning of the evening, to no one in particular and therefore to both of them. Faye, as always, was first to respond. ‘How do you know we didn’t?’ – happy to speak for both of them, Salma for the time being happy to let her. ‘You just didn’t. Neither of you did.’ But Salma knew she had to say something because if she didn’t Poppy would round on her. And Salma was insistent but gentle, the southerly breeze to Faye’s northern gale. ‘It doesn’t matter if we liked it outwardly. How’s that important? Maybe we both just needed to reflect on it.’ ‘You normally like what I say. Anyway I don’t care. You thought it was controversial and I’m fine with that. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be said. I’m allowed an opinion you know. And my opinion counts even if you don’t agree with it. Hell even if it turns out to be wrong, it –’ And here Poppy ran out of steam, which was common. She always seemed to have more words than there was space available. Anyway she would’ve gone on to say One person’s question is another’s brutal attack – or maybe she said it the other way round – and why’s everyone so sensitive about it? ‘You could get reported for that kind of speech,’ Faye had suggested. ‘Who’s gonna report me? One of you? No one else is listening!’ ‘Well you don’t know that do you? Anyone could be. In theory.’ ‘You’re being ridiculous and anyway: I haven’t said anything wrong!’ Which in fact, Salma reflected, she really hadn’t. But it had gone on nevertheless, arguments detonating like fireworks set off in a warehouse, until Poppy had taken her leave – stormed off really – no doubt well-oiled by that point, leaving Faye and Salma to reflect on the carnage. ‘You were uncharacteristically quiet,’ Salma told her immediately, not entirely sure Poppy was out of earshot yet and not caring because the bottle at her feet was empty. ‘What can you say?’ Faye said. ‘She’s racist and she can deny it all she wants but it’s a fact.’ Salma nearly choked on the dregs of wine in her glass. ‘Really? I mean I don’t know what she actually said wrong, if I’m honest. She didn’t offend me. I don’t think she’s out to cause offence to anyone.’ ‘Not tonight she wasn’t.’ ‘Meaning?’ ‘Meaning: last night she started on about it. She was using racial slurs, you name it.’ Salma blinked. ‘When? Where?! How did I miss this?’ ‘She has friends other than us, Salma. Obviously.’ ‘So? We all do. What does that mean?’ ‘She’s in a nasty little group and they have nothing good to say about anyone other than themselves. She thinks her conversations with them are their-ears-only, but after we left each other last night she carried on elsewhere. I kinda followed and wished I hadn’t.’ Salma was still blinking as she set her glass down with a clang. ‘Followed? You stalked her!’ ‘Maybe a little bit. Only because I had my suspicions.’ Salma didn’t need to ask where this not-so-covert conversation had taken place and how Faye and contrived to earwig it. And we, too, shall find out in due course. ‘What are we gonna do?’ Salma stared ahead, suddenly clear-headed. ‘We have to ditch her, right? I don’t think I wanna know what else she was saying.’ ‘It was. And I think we should do more than ditch her from our group.’ ‘Right – I mean I don’t know what you’re saying. Like, what else can we do?’ And Faye, being Faye, hadn’t even paused. The answer was already formed, packaged up and ready to go: ‘I can’t forgive what I heard. I’ve never felt so much hatred for someone. She has to be dealt with. Permanently.’ Which was the bombshell end to the evening. * * * Now Faye is back, in the cold and sober light of day. At any moment Poppy might turn up at this table and catch their every word – their little meeting is hardly sub-rosa. But even in the cold light of day and out from under the influence of Aussie shiraz, Salma isn’t sure she cares. If suddenly you don’t like a person, what does it matter if they know you don’t? Except: if you’re going to deal with someone permanently it’s best not to warn them in advance. Salma chews her lip. ‘Let’s talk discreetly.’ Which means moving to a place where no one can listen, away from prying ears. Because even if Poppy doesn’t turn up – which given their present setting she might – to catch them in the midst of their clandestine machinations, anyone else who cares to listen could do so with only a modicum of application. * * * ‘It’s actually not difficult,’ Faye says, the two of them now safely ensconced in a quiet corner – never mind where for now – where they can speak freely and covertly, and at length. And she’s right. To get rid of someone or wipe them out or whatever terminology we’re using really isn’t complicated. All those thorny ethics and morals: yes, rocky ground. But the mechanics? A walk in the park. And so they come up with a plan that really doesn’t take much strategising. There are only so many options available after all, the real question is one of commitment. But the intricacies, if you can call them that and frankly you can’t, they thrash out in minutes. ‘Stop saying hatch,’ is Faye’s only complaint. ‘Why? That’s what we’re doing – what we’ve done.’ ‘Because it makes us sound like cartoon villains. If we’re gonna go through with this, if this is something we want to do for the best – not just for us but for society – then we owe it to ourselves not to melodramatise it.’ ‘How do you melodramatise it? It can’t be exaggerated.’ ‘I don’t know just – don’t say hatch a plan.’ ‘Okay, whatever.’ But there’s a clutching sensation in her gut because she doesn’t like criticism. Their plan for Poppy’s permanent demise has been born, or at least conceived, but most definitely not hatched, and all that remains is for it to be carried out so that Poppy can trouble the world no longer. And that’s it. Done and dusted. End of Poppy. * * * Of course that’s not it. Did you think you’d be left hanging? That the story of Poppy and her used-to-be friends would simply plunge headlong into a wall and – end? In the sphere in which you think Faye and Salma are operating, there’d be a lot more to it. We can’t just half-witness our star players plotting a murder, and then walk out. But the fact is: we’re not in the world you think we’re in. Not that it makes the situation any less tragic, as it happens. Time to draw the veil aside. * * * Within three days of Faye and Salma’s nefarious deed, Poppy West was reported missing, which was very strange. News of Poppy’s disappearance spread in the usual fashion, rising like water in the shallow pool of the local village paper, where it grew until it overflowed into the tributaries that led to the county press. From there it surged onwards, and in less than a week had run all the way to the nationals and the TV news. Why’s that strange? After all, when someone is removed, dealt with in such a permanent fashion, surely the only thing for them to do is disappear. Or else wash limply ashore on some beach or turn up grey and waxy at the bottom of a ditch somewhere. But Poppy West’s disappearance, as reported in the media , makes for a most unexpected twist to this story. Because, as has been established, all is not as it seems. What did you think of Faye when you met her? What colour hair and eyes does she have? How tall is she? You don’t know. She might be anything mightn’t she because in truth, we never really met her. Don’t blame yourself. You took our invitation, ascending the gleaming flanks of a city skyscraper, and through a solid glass window. You came willingly on that flight of near fantasy so why shouldn’t you have taken everything that followed as gospel? You were warned before we entered that canteen (which was quite real) all would not be as it seemed. Salma was real. You really did see her making her navigating the tables and avoiding those undesirables whom she had neither the time nor the inclination to engage. You watched her find a spot, open her laptop and then – – Faye arrived. She arrived from – and remained on – Salma’s laptop screen. Salma has never met Faye in person. She doesn’t know the colour of her hair or how tall she is, although, perhaps like us, she has surmised both, and other things besides. Their conversation took place online. You noticed, perhaps, Salma’s wary glance as she left her laptop alone and unguarded on the table while she darted across to the staff fridge? She’d have left it quite happily in the company of her beloved Faye, but as we’ve established, Faye wasn’t there. Not beyond her digital presence. And what about being overheard and moving to somewhere private to continue their discussion? Simply this: social media is most assuredly public, and the not-so-beloved Poppy might have barged in (digitally speaking) at any moment. In the interests of confidentiality, Faye and Salma repaired to the secure environment of their DMs. And those meetings every evening at Salma’s house, on Salma’s comfy old sofa? Like every evening: online. On the same well-known digital platform that hosted all of their meetings. The platform where Poppy had reputedly strayed from the path of the righteous. Perhaps, if Salma had pressed Faye to reveal more of her surveillance, she may have surmised that, desperate, Poppy may have fallen into the wrong hands. Ones that promised her an equanimity so wanting in her relationship with Faye and Salma for they, as Faye might have gone on to suggest, were the alpha couple in the threesome. And remember when Poppy ran out of steam? When her words expanded beyond the available space? Yes: the dreaded character limit. Perhaps you’re there now? Perhaps we’ve arrived at the last twist? That Faye and Salma aren’t wanton murderers prepared to slay their friend in cold blood.. It makes sense: their interpretation of removing Poppy, permanently, meant reporting her account to the platform’s administrators so that her username could be barred from ever posting again. But here is the real tragedy: not a word of prejudice had escaped Poppy’s digital lips. But what was written, was taken out of context, and was enough to set the trap. It was the moment Faye had been waiting for, an opportunity to draw the blade and stab Poppy in the back. Faye had learned years ago, perhaps in the school playground, that cruelty could be declawed simply by diversion. Redirect its venomous barbs towards another victim and like magic, it is rendered harmless. When the bullied becomes the bully, a most powerful inoculation is administered. But really, was Faye a victim here? If she was, of what? The truth is, Faye was attacked by nothing more – and perhaps we should say, nothing less – than the demons in her mind. She adored Salma every bit and more than the vice versa. And three was, most assuredly, a crowd. Which meant Poppy, funny, popular, and that sickeningly appealing combination of feisty and laid back that Faye desperately contrived to be, had to go. The irony was stinging indeed, because Poppy had many people of colour among her friends. Her sister, whom she loved, was gay. She was the last person to exhibit prejudice in any of its guises. She loved everyone but sadly people who love everyone make soft targets. Poppy had been a target more than once, and swore she would never be again. * * * So here is the twist. Here’s where things take a much darker turn and where digital layers become entwined with the tattered fabric of reality. Because when Poppy logged in one evening, alone in her bedroom, door shut firmly against the violence both physical and emotional that was hurled back and forth between her mum and her mum’s boyfriend, which occasionally exploded to catch Poppy in the crossfire, she had been greeted with a stark and devastating message informing her that YOUR ACCOUNT HAS BEEN SUSPENDED. Pending appeal of course, because very little in the digital world is final. But it was terminal enough for Poppy, who at 25 felt she was too old not to have a place of her own but who couldn’t afford to do anything about that, who’d had as much of the real world as she could take because for caring people, the real world can be cruel and violent. Poppy’s digital friends had become her lifeblood and her oxygen, as evidenced now by the paling of her features and the silver sparkles suddenly flooding her vision. Distantly she knew what had happened and distantly she decided it was just. She should be condemned. She didn’t know what for, but it was appropriate because she had been condemned her entire life, and everybody else couldn’t be wrong. She deserved no place in the digital world any more than she did in the real one. And so, blinking away tears, Poppy West slowly folded her laptop, abandoning it forever, carried herself downstairs past her screaming mum and her screaming mum’s screaming boyfriend, and out the front door. They didn’t notice that she was dressed only in her pyjama shorts and a vest top. They didn’t notice her at all. It was a five-minute walk to the bleak stretch of sand that looked out over the angry North Sea, frothing in the moonlight. She was a good swimmer. Or had been. She wasn’t in shape anymore. But that had been her one redeeming feature. There were trophies and certificates in the bedroom she’d left behind to prove it. These days she ate too many ready meals and got too little exercise to be competitive. Competitive was a lifetime ago. Still, she surprised herself, beating out into the waves with strong, swift strokes. By the time she tired and stopped to look back she had covered almost quarter of a mile. Her legs hung below her in the blackness. The cold water was biting her flesh and already the muscle cramps were setting in. She panicked, knowing there was no team coach to yank her out of the water. The lights of her town looked close and warm. She thought above the wind and the fizzing waves that she could hear cars and perhaps the odd snatch of shouted greeting. Somewhere up that dark rise, among the row of lights along the hilltop, was her house. Behind one of those sets of windows her mum and her mum’s boyfriend were still going at it. Suddenly the sights and the noises of the town were another world. She didn’t belong among those voices or behind those lit windows. She didn’t belong anywhere. Say it, she urged herself as saltwater flooded her nose and mouth again. You. Don’t. Belong. Shivering, crying, gasping, Poppy pulled herself onwards through the dark water, up and down over the undulant waves, until the cold seeped into her muscles which were simultaneously burning and freezing, and they ceased to respond to the commands from her brain. * * * Poppy West was never found. Perhaps she made it out to an offshore current and her lifeless form was carried far out to sea where, full of water, it sank. Perhaps it was struck by an ocean liner and butchered by the screws. We’ll never know. But of this one thing, this singular, irrefutable fact among the swirl of illusion we’ve conjured, you may be assured: Poppy West’s existence, while conducted principally on digital platforms, ended very much irl. A word from the author: irl explores the blurred lines between the real and virtual worlds and how they can be crossed, sometimes with tragic consequences. It's a dark story that holds a mirror to our society and reflects a world that while existing only digitally, nevertheless has very literal consequences. That's where the mirror theme fits in. Matt Kruze is an occasional fiction author who writes stories that cross several genres. Normally a crime has been committed, but whether that's part of a thriller, mystery, fantasy or sci-fi, is often open to interpretation.