February 1 Anthony, What about me is not enough? Why am I not enough for you to love? Give me a reason for doing this, however bizarre, lie to me. Please –Wait, any answer that you compose will never silence my mind. I can’t need you. You traded my trust for an erection. In result I forbade my emotions as just protection. To give you my heart, you only made it bleed as you bargained my loyalty. Like a dog I was true to you, but like a dog you behaved treacherously. When I was struck with love for you I forgot to pay any heed to your lust going elsewhere. I will not forgive your infidelity because in turn it will scathe my morality. I cannot erase your actions; rather I shall temporarily distract my heart with debris. I don’t want you. With Bitterness, Your Once Love Rico (Enrique), The subtle pungency from your lips linger as they pair with a creation of smile lines that compliment your squinting devil-may-care eyes. Allow your breath to hover beneath my nose before thrusting it upwards. Our intertwined lips remind me of the tenderness I’ve yearned for as it reinforces the brewery. Your bottom lip consumes mine as my pleasure consumes your fingers. The calluses where your fingers meet your palm edge against my throat. The meeting of our flesh rewires my brain to want you. Only you? To trail your tongue across my neck marks a path of an alcoholic as the intoxication of Crown Royale Original and Jack Daniels Peach fog over me. Perhaps my vision hazes with all of you being smudged upon my glasses. In comfort with feeling wanted you’ve marked desire onto me. I need someone; to feel “loved”. I want some lust; from a Rebound. With Carnality, Your Illicit Appetite Von (Stevón), Along with your home you opened up your arms to hold and nurture me. Laying in your bed staring into your gentle eyes, though only for an hour gave me a sweet sense of tunnel vision. My palms sweat while my mouth dries as it holds my thoughts. I would have believed you were sculpted by the Greeks. As you put your hand on my waist our magnetism holds you there. I’ve forgotten how to breathe around you. I fear if I blink I’ll awaken from this daydream that is your being. I am never apart from you for you’ve learned how to transport our memories into my thoughts and to invade my mind through the gentle forehead kiss that marks our departure. Whole Heartedly, Your Wonderful Dream Anthony, To see you weep brings some sense of defeat. I find myself missing the saliva we shared that combined us as one. You forgot to cherish my love, and with the death of us I’ve begun to spiral into perish. I’ve used a man and a gentleman to fill the desperation of love and affection in your absence. No one's body alone will succeed to feed my lust compared to the way you would thrust it onto me. No emotional attachment I made was ever enough to sever the tie I have with the memory you, of us. I aimed to dim us in my moments of weakness, but all I accomplished was wanting to go back to you. Why? What in my mind believes that to be a plausible idea? I cannot continue to hurt others because you’ve hurt me. No matter what you've done, in my heart there will always be love for you. The kind I feel when we're skin to skin as I discover the intent of love in your eyes. Staring at your naked body, your truest form being glazed by our cum shimmering in the dancing sunlight. I miss your embrace, the way we’d prolong the end of our visits, the way we'd meet our foreheads together. I miss You. With Longing, Your Love Rico (Enrique), On your bed after sex you played with my hair and we cuddled until sunset. You revealed that I became more than an orgasm, that you wanted intimacy other than pure physicality. – I’m sorry. I’m unsure if I ever liked you, but I liked the desire you felt for me. The purpose I gave you was to be my Sabotage, but I can no longer accept my mirage. The face you see is not my own, but a way to lure your company. I fear all, if any, emotions that could arise out of us this; I cannot allow for it. With this, I will let you go to protect myself. With Disregard, The Object of Your Frustration Stevón, We were never an option because you were a distraction. In the end, I cannot oblige to only be a friend. I can’t not be by your side without needing to confide my emotions for you that stir inside. I could not bear to see us apart, But… To be held in your arms, hand on my waist, staring at the fibers of my being in your gaze… I hate to say, but you fell in love with the image I drew in the stars. The real me is only a few billion miles far. Forgive me for being someone I’m not. Someone to assume consume your heart. Regretfully, Your Illusion

Zali lay in her tinker bell sheets as the sun streamed through her bedroom window. The birds sang as they did first thing in the morning, leaving her wondering what their chirping meant. They probably sing to their babies to wake them up she thought to herself, or maybe they’re taking role… yeah that might be it. As her mind wondered on, she stared at the popcorn ceiling adorned with glued stars that glowed in the dark and made out shapes among the textures. Wish I could join you in your tree, reaching her small palm in a dramatic gesture toward the window she sighed; I would sleep on a branch if you didn’t want me in your nest. She would lay there until her stomach growled then she’d kick the sheets off with her feet and roll out of bed. Being the first one up on Saturdays meant she could watch the looney toons in the living room with a big bowl of Zucaritas until her amá and apá got up. When she finished her bowl of cereal, Zali put her dish in the sink, slid on her white sneakers and sprinted to the backyard. Outside the clouds slowly gathered but the sun still warmed the top of Zali’s head as she swung back and forth in her dusty juegitos. The creak of the swing and the singing birds was all that filled the morning air. Sometimes Zali would gather all of her strength as she swung and pointed her feet toward sky then launched herself off. Being in the air made her feel like she was flying, like the birds that lived in the pine tree. With sweat streaming down her temples and rosy cheeks she’d spend her morning swinging, gathering rocks and squinting her eyes at the sun until she had to look away, until thirst overtook her. “Did you see me fly?” she’d ask amá in between chugs of water. “Si mi pajarita,” amá would answer back. But this morning her amá did not say anything back, all she did was smile and nod at her. Without giving much mind to her amá’s response, Zali walked back to her room while still recovering her breath, kicking off her white sneakers and threw her body onto bed. That day she heard the phone ring more than the usual two times on Saturdays when amá spoke to her friends. In her room Zali worked on the bird drawing she had promised tia Luna, because tonight after diner she would give it to her. She wanted to get the borders right and make it the most beautiful drawing her tia had ever seen. Tia Luna always spoke to Zali like she was her friend, she also played along with Zali’s imaginary plots, and they would act them out with their whole hearts. By afternoon Zali finished coloring the wings. “Zali—come say hi to tio Paco,” apá called out. As she reached the living room, amá was wiping something from her face while speaking to someone on the phone. Tio Paco leaned down and gripped Zali’s nose with his hand and said, “Como as crecido!” Putting a flat hand on top of Zali’s head he measured it up to his ribcage. She hadn’t seen Tio Paco since she was maybe 3, and now, she was 8, but she always heard stories about him from her amá and tia. Back in her room Zali drew the finishing touches on her drawing, raised an eyebrow and eyed the glitter container in her coloring box. The birds outside still sang, and she whistled along as she addressed the drawing to her tia, drawing a moon instead of her name. “Noooo no noooo!” loud cries came from the living room. In that moment Zali’s heart dropped into her stomach, the birds stopped singing and the silence that proceeded was filled with the thumping of her pulse. She opened her bedroom door and with curious ears and weary eyes, she approached the living room where the group of adults sat. Her apá blocked her view, “there’s some pizza on the table,” he said. “Apá, I heard someone—” “You love pizza, don’t you?” Zali clasped her hands tight. “Is amá—” “Tio Paco got it just for you,” he caressed her hair, his hand almost the size of her whole head. She glanced at him with knitted brows but all he did was smile softly and nod towards the pizza boxes. Her small fingers trembled as she opened the box, she fought every urge to lean her head past her dad’s wide figure. “Apá it has pineapple.” “There’s pepperoni in the other box,” apá replied. Zali opened the other box, “apá it has mushrooms.” Apá took a deep breath and said, “míja take off the mushrooms.” “Okay...” Zali replied as she began to take off the mushrooms with a scrunched-up nose. She poured herself some mango flavored Jumex and sat herself at the kitchen table. The conversations grew quiet as the adults in the living room whispered now. Zali looked at them, the faces of her amà and apà, and wondered why they weren’t laughing like they usually did. All Zali could make out from their conversation was tia Luna’s name being said, over and over. As she could not understand what they all spoke of, Zali’s mind began to wander off to the last time she had seen tia Luna. It was last weekend that tia Luna had come over, as she usually did, to have diner with them. Amá drizzled canola oil into a pan until smoke came up, crushed a garlic clove and dropped it into the pan, as it sizzled, she poured a cup of rice and moved the kernels around with a steel spatula. Meanwhile, tia Luna mashed pinto beans in another pan. They all sang along to Juan Gabriel playing on the portable radio on the counter next to the microwave. “Suvele Zali!” her tia half sang. Zali left her seat by the kitchen window, put the volume up and slowly made her way between amá and tia Luna. Zali loved when tia Luna came over because she would join her in the backyard after diner every time. As Zali pushed and pulled her legs in the swing, tia Luna climbed up through the slide and laid at the top of the juegitos. As the sun began to set and the birds went to sleep, tia Luna would tell Zali stories about a valiant green bird. Her stories always ended in moralejas about life that sometimes Zali did not fully understand but still enjoyed hearing. “Did you know that this valiant green bird is real?” tia Luna asked Zali. “Really, tia?” “Yes, it used to come visit me and talk to me all the time after your Tita passed” tia Luna said in a half daze. “Not anymore?” Zali glanced at the sky, the moon was full and bright. “No, one day it said, Luna you’re a valiant bird like me now, so I have to tell these stories to someone else, and it never came back” tia Luna smiled when she said this. “Do you miss it?” Her little hand reached out to the sky and covered the moon with it. “Sometimes, but I carry all of these stories in my heart, so it’s okay.” That night when her tio left, a storm descended upon the house. The rain tittered on the windows and the wind whistled. Among the sounds of the storm, suddenly, Zali heard the singing of a bird. This singing did not come from the pine tree next to her window though, it came from further into the backyard of the house. Zali wrapped her tinker bell comforter around herself as she walked down the pitch-black house to look out the kitchen window, What if it’s injured — or lost? She moved the lace curtains and peeked out. Her juegitos were in view, at the top, a green bird flapped its wings and sang louder than the thunder. I think it’s stuck. Zali opened the back door, and as she was about to step out into the wet ground. “Quetzal what are you doing up?” Her dad rubbed his face and yawned. “There’s a bird up there apá I heard it, I think it’s stuck, we have to—” She looked at her apá’s face, “Apá why is your face wet?” she asked. “Come on let's watch a movie,” apá said. Zali glanced outside and the bird was gone. Apá cracked open the CD case, took out the disk and placed it in the DVD player. Zali laid her head on her apá’s lap, and together they watched Peter Pan for the third time that week. Her eyes began to feel heavy, but she fought the sleepiness. She felt a cold drip on her cheek, Is that rain? she looked around the room then came upon her apá’s face, “apá — are you crying?” Apá wiped his tears with the sleeve of his shirt and cleared his throat. “Why didn’t tia Luna come see us today?” Zali’s eyebrows arched, “I think amá missed her, that’s why she didn’t laugh today—is that why you are crying?” Apá took a deep breath, smiled and said, “tia Luna went away, mija.” “Where did she go?” “With some family, míja,” apá’s voice trembled. “How long will she be gone?” she wiped her palms on her sparkly sweats. Apá’s eyes began to water again and Zali panicked at the sight of him crying. He finally embraced her in his arms, shaking her whole body as he wept and all she could do was hug him back. The days that proceeded were cloudy and gray and many family member visited Zali’s home, some of them stayed and slept on the couches and took over her bedroom. She slept in her parent's room where her amá cried almost every night while apá hugged her and kissed her forehead. When everyone was asleep and the whole house was silent, Zali would hear the bird singing outside. She’d tiptoe out of the room and out the backdoor, there that green bird would be flapping its wings on top of her juegitos, almost as a greeting. “How do you do Quetzal?” It would always ask. Sometimes Zali didn’t know how to answer because she didn’t know what was wrong, all that she knew was that she was lonely and confused because anytime she would ask anybody about tia Luna they would start to cry or ask her about school. “Bird?” Zali started. “Yes?” The green bird replied. “Why do people go away?” “Sometimes their path changes, and they have to leave, but they will always be with you in your mind and heart.” “Will tia Luna ever come back?” “Maybe not in the same way you remember her, she may be a song, or a tree or a bird flying across the sky.” Zali would gaze at this green bird, its long tail flowing in the air and its red chest where its heart was and she’d think, if tia Luna were ever a bird she’d be as pretty as this one. Then, one day they brought a great shiny box into the house, amá said this was tia’s casket, where she would lay to sleep. Tio Paco and amá adorned with gardenias around tia Luna’s casket and underneath it, they placed a picture of tia Luna. At the thought of seeing tia Luna again, even if she was asleep, Zali’s heart fluttered clenching the drawing she had made her, what seemed forever ago. “Amá, when can I see her?” Zali’s eyes sparkled as she gripped amá’s hand. “We have to wait for the priest and everybody else to arrive,” amá wiped tears from her face, “go play outside, míja.” That afternoon, so many people showed up that not everybody could stand inside the house. Some of them stood by the front door while others gathered around tia Luna’s casket. Zali could glimpse at her between the frames of people blocking the view. Tia Luna lay there in her favorite green dress with painted red lips. Somebody grabbed Zali’s hand, not sure if that hand belonged to her amá or tio Paco, she followed as they led her down to tia Luna’s casket. Zali grabbed the folded drawing from her pocket and placed it on tia Luna’s chest. Tears began to stream down Zali’s rosy cheeks, and she reached to touch tia Luna’s hand. “She’s cold amá,” Zali stumbled away and glanced around in search of a familiar face until her apá lifted her into his arms. “Tia—,” Zali’s stifled sobs filled the room and her apá rubbed her back. That night Zali woke up in her bed and wondered if she had dreamt tia Luna in that big shiny box, when she heard the bird singing. Wrapping her tinker bell sheets around her, Zali stepped out of her room. The casket still stood in the living-room with gardenia’s all around, it was closed, and the green bird rested on top of it. “How do you do Quetzal?” “Amá said that tia Luna was asleep,” Zali rubbed her eyes,” will she ever wake up?” “Tia Luna is dreaming a different dream from you and I, but one day we may join her in the same dream.” The green bird flew around the room now and Zali watched its green wings shine underneath the moonlight. “In the meantime, you have to make new memories to tell her about when you meet her again.” “But I miss her,” her bottom lip quivered, and tears welled up in her eyes. The green bird perched itself on top of the casket again. “It’s okay to miss her but remember that you can always find her wherever you may look for her.”— “You will be okay Quetzal, one day that missing will turn into laughter as you remember her.” The green bird floated in front of Zali now, the gentle breeze its wings produced tickled her face. “How do you know that?” “Because Quetzal, tu y yo, somos iguales—somos valientes.”

“What a piece of fucking junk!" I shiver to look through my car door window into the dark forest with snow falling harder than the meteor that took out the dinosaurs. My car broke down as I tried to take a shortcut to a nearby hotel. Should I have gone to the mechanic sooner to work out a few kinks? Maybe…but maybe my car should have considered breaking down when I was parking in the lot of the hotel instead of leaving me to freeze to death. Damn it, why did my stupid car say goodnight to me! Should I wait here till morning? Waiting in here is better than going out there, then again I could end up a dead popsicle either way. Just grab my phone, turn on the light, and start going in any direction, just a bar is all I need to call for help. Dad would kill me if he could see me now, “Oh honey we live in the glorious Canadian wilderness, always have something ready to warm yourself up, the snow here is killer.” I don’t have extra clothing, blankets, or even a pillow to outlast the cold till morning. Midnight is about to be my last night if I don’t do something and do something soon…I want to see you again dad, even if it’s just so you can chew me out over being a moron tonight. I take a deep breath and look out my door window again, I got this, I can do this. It’s going to be a long night, venturing out is a bad call, hypothermia and frostbite are more likely to get me before help does, and at least in here I have some wall between me and the blizzard. It’s been hours and I am too scared to sleep, I'm pretty sure I can die if my body temperature gets too low, then again does staying awake really change that? God I wish my phone had service, all I can do is keep playing Tetris, but even then I have to conserve battery if I'm gonna try walking somewhere in the morning to get service. My eyes feel heavy and if it wasn’t for the sound of sobbing I'd easily pass out…why am I hearing sobbing out there? Is someone lost too? No no, I have to focus on myself, maybe I’m just hearing things…maybe I’m just hearing…no, if someone is out there I have to help, it’s what I would want for myself. I take a deep breath and turn the flashlight of my phone on as I open the door to my car. I feel like someone shot icicles out of a machine gun at me, snow begins to stab me and winds pierce me. Even covered in layers, wearing gloves, a scarf, and a beanie does little to make me feel warm. I force myself out and up, slam my car door behind me, and shine my light in front of myself. I can see some ways in front of me, but my peripheral vision is clouded by pitch black. At least if a pack of wolves or a bear decided I look appetizing my expiration will have meaning. I begin walking toward the sobbing which is past the treeline of the remote road my car is currently napping on. Crazy, crazy is what this is, I think to myself as I begin walking and the sobbing gets louder and louder. At least I’m headed in the right direction, however, my heart sinks, the sobbing stops, and my phone’s light reveals a big man kneeling in front of a white spruce, his head darts up and makes eye contact with me for a split second. I immediately turn my light off and sit down, back myself up behind a birch and cover my mouth to stop the chattering of my teeth. Great, now I'm alone with a stranger in a remote area, lucky me. As the potential danger of the situation hits me I feel a chill, not from the ice running up my back, and I wonder if crawling back to my car and locking the doors is a better choice than approaching him. “Hello? I saw you, do you need any help? I would rather be left alone right now, as quickly as possible, if that’s ok,” his voice is cracking, yet soothing all the same. I swallow my worries and decide to stand back up and shine my light at him again, as I do so I see the man has a gun, a handgun wrapped in all his fingers. I feel my heart sink and my fear spreads across my face, his eyes widen and his face turns red, “NO NO NO, IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK, here let me just.” He does not finish his sentence, merely holsters his handgun and avoids eye contact with me. I feel tense, like I’m intruding on something I’m not supposed to, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach. “What are you doing out here?” I ask with hesitation present in my voice. The man softly and quietly responds, “I am um…out hunting for jackrabbits, you can call me Inuksuk, Inuk for short, you are?” I wasn’t an expert when it came to hunting for jackrabbits, but I don’t think coming out when it’s this dark and cold with a handgun is ideal. “Well Inuk, my name is Willow, and unlike a hunter such as yourself, I'm pretty lost out here, my car broke down and I really need any help I can get.” He gets off his knees and approaches me, I am still contemplating turning my light off and running, he looks at me for a while and murmurs under his breath before speaking, “My truck is a ways back from here, I can give you a ride to wherever you want but it better be close.” I feel like something else is going on, I just met Inuk but he is offering to help me, and it’s not like I have many choices besides getting murdered by him or being a bloody snow woman. We start the trek to his truck. There is an awkward silence in the air, so naturally, I decide to open my mouth to gauge him, “Why jackrabbits of all critters? Don’t you think they’re kind of cute?” Inuk quickly retorted, “Cute!? Those pests eat everything, they even eat their own young when they're starving, like kids chowing down on Halloween candy.” I take a closer look at Inuk, his facial features are fair, and I zone out a little looking into his hazel brown eyes wondering if I will see some malevolent spark. I think my staring and lack of a response to his comment made things more awkward, he puts his gloved hands in his pockets and looks straight ahead away from me. “Well when you put it like that it sounds like they can be pretty self-destructive despite being cute, the jackrabbits I mean.” Inuk looks at me and I can swear I see a small smirk forming at the corners of his frown. “Well sometimes they are better off laid to rest, their voracious appetite can put others and themselves in a bad spot when crops need to be harvested.” I can’t help but nervously giggle at this morbid topic, being afraid of my current situation. “I think all creatures have a purpose, even if they are destructive or self-destructive, they have some value, wouldn’t you agree?” Inuk looks lost in thought for a bit over my statement, then he stares at me, my mind begins to race, I wonder what’s going through his head, is this the part where he decides to shoot me because he’s a serial killer after all? “I can see someone like you having purpose easily, something tells me you're talented,” he remarks sincerely. I smile at him, “Yeah, talented at not being prepared for the tundra I’m moving into.” Inuk chuckles and we finally get out of the forest and into the open. I see his truck with its lights on and the driver’s seat door wide open. He tells me to hop in and I slowly walk for the passenger seat, cautiously closing the door behind me, cutting off the icy demons from sapping my soul further as the already turned on heater blasts me with rays of sunlight. He gets into the driver’s seat and closes his door as well, “So where to? You got family around? A place to stay?” I thought for a bit before answering him, “Well my dad is far away, I'm staying at a nearby hotel, I actually grew up here but moved away for a while to go to college, and now the prodigal daughter has returned for good.” Inuk puts his hands on the wheel, and slots the truck keys into the ignition, doing a u-turn then driving forward. “I’ll leave you off at the nearby hotel then, I know the place, afterward I'll be on my way.” His words enter my ears, my mind races with possibilities of something going wrong, it seems like Inuk doesn’t have bad intentions, at least, so far. Then it hits me, the truck left unlocked and running, his loneliness in the darkness until I showed up, the gun in his hands when I found him kneeling. He’s helping me, and I'll return the favor. I feel determined to stop him from coming back out here. “You know I haven’t been here in forever, I could use some help getting reacquainted, would you mind sharing breakfast with me tomorrow? I could use a local friend.” Inuk keeps his focus on the road and I feel like he won’t answer me, but he spoke, “I’d like that…thank you, Willow.” I look over at him, “What are you thanking me for? I would have been ice cream come morning if I didn’t find you, I appreciate your help, it means a lot to me.” I look straight ahead at the snow-covered road, silhouettes of red oaks passing by, out of the corner of my sight I can swear I see single tears come out of Inuk’s puffy eyes, and another thank you said so silently I can barely make it out. I feel content, something tells me I will see him tomorrow, and hopefully a few more times after that, in all honesty, a friend would be nice here in my old stomping grounds. “Do you know of Atshen?” he asks. I respond with another question, “No, what is Atshen?” He tells me it is an evil spirit that hunts in the permafrost, it can take hold of people's minds and make them give in to despair. I ponder why he is bringing up something so random considering our previous conversation, “Do you think these evil spirits are real?” Inuk takes a deep breath, “I don’t know, maybe they can be an excuse, something to throw our issues on to avoid accountability.” I think I understand what he is trying to tell me, more or less, “Well if that is the case then we would all have Atshen no? We all struggle to keep going when things get rough, I know I did before I bumped into you tonight.” Inuk appears less tense up to this point and my own hesitance feels, less so, “Why did you listen to me back there, when I asked if you needed help, weren’t you scared I would hurt you?” I ball my right hand into a fist, rest my arm on the door next to me, and rest my face on my knuckles, “I think between freezing to death and taking a chance with someone who might shoot me, the latter seemed more favorable.” Inuk’s grip on the wheel relaxes, “If I’m being honest I wondered if you were a ghost coming to haunt me, I was pretty spooked to see your pale face when your light revealed me, looking like the Corpse Bride.” I furrow my brows, “From my point of view, I thought I ran into a murderous Smokey Bear when your eyes first met mine.” Inuk starts laughing at my comeback, and my slight annoyance at his comment concerning my appearance being ghastly fades away into a small smile on my face. We remain soundless, on this silent drive through the snowfall, at the dead of night.

Llegué al lugar donde el cerco de alambre de púas me obliga arrastrarme para pasarlo. Dos flores silvestres con toda la intensa belleza salvaje del campo, solitaria cada una, perfectas en luz. Me miran, con el pecho en la tierra, levanté mi rostro y alterné mis labios para besarlas, fue como si la hubiera besado a ella y como si me hubiera correspondido con su dulce y cálida boca. Las comparé con ella y yo. Ahí estábamos, ella desde aquel lugar del infinito que tanto imaginamos e inventamos y yo aquí atado a la gravedad de la tierra. El llanto brotó cuando sentí la ternura de su frente al besarla, todavía quería protegerla del dolor o al revés. Al unísono con mi llanto me atreví a reclamarle al creador, los rayos de sol me golpeaban junto a unas cuantas gotas de lluvia, un medio día de marzo, el llanto fluía y los por qués salían de mi corazón junto al olor de la tierra húmeda, en parte por la bendición del cielo, por las lágrimas de mis ojos y toda el agua que escurría por mi nariz. Las flores no dejan de mirarme, al momento pasé mis manos para secarme el rostro y la tierra se me pegaba. Sorbí el llanto con mis fosas nasales, chorreado como un niño, bese sus pétalos cual si fuera su frente cansada, pensé si esto sería la nada, lloré ante ellas sencillas y bellas ante dos sencillas y bellas flores, arrodillado y arrastrándome por la tierra crucé la cerca, me pregunté si ese momento sería el todo, ella y yo ahí. Todavía no terminaba de levantarme; arrodillado aún, levanté la mirada, mi vista fue más allá de las silvestres florecillas, un rebaño de ganado descansaba bajo los ardientes y apacibles rayos del sol, arrullados por las chicharras del medio día, abrían y cerraban sus parpados con sus largas pestañas y me veían con simpatía. De pronto vi un becerrito blanco como la nieve desperezarse, se puso de pie y se acercó a mamá vaca, menos blanca, más sucia y estropeada por el tiempo. Le bramó al oído y ella empezó a estirar sus miembros, abrió sus patas y cobijo a su perfecto y amado pequeño en sus senos, la blanca leche chorreaba por ambos. Cayeron unas gotas a la tierra, la misma a la que yo todavía estaba hincado, si ya hubiera estado de pie, abriese caído nuevamente de rodillas, junté mis manos en oración y sentí correr por mis venas la divina presencia de Dios.

For every two beats of the heart’s echoes, La Muerte welcomes new souls into her afterworld. Or so it’s been told, at least to me. The story went a little something like this, you see. Place a hand to your heart and listen closely... Thump-thump… Thump-thump… These souls would all arrive (often alone) to the dark void that awaits us in the beyond, each of them as incarnations of pure white with no face. In fact, the most they were allowed to carry from their living form were the very strands of hair that rested on the top of their heads. Some wore freckles of red that marked the fatal wounds that led them to this place, and those who passed from illness simply remained as clean slates. Many of the souls there were already old and ready to meet her; she could tell just by the way they approached. Each of their hairs reflected a brilliant silver at their roots, and they would have their arms outstretched either in front of them or to their side, as if they had their walkers or canes to support each of their shaky strides. The conversations they would have with Lady Death herself usually consisted of either these old souls sharing how fulfilled they were with the life they made, or they were complaints about the chisme they heard on their death bed. There really was no in between, but regardless, this immortal being welcomed listening to them all the same. If she really wanted to know the whole truth, all she had to do was stare into their hearts to extract their life stories, but never has she felt the need for this innate ability. This goddess much preferred to lend her flock a listening ear as a way learn about the happenings on the ever-changing living world. Once in a while, however, she’d receive the sudden surprise arrivals that would leave her in quite a blur. Sometimes she would be met with a little soul waiting all alone. A soul so small and light that she could probably carry five or six on her back at a time. These ones often arrived with so much energy that they could barely stay on their feet, and on these occasions, La Muerte would lovingly kneel and offer her hand for them to hold. Other times she would meet a mature soul idly waiting at her feet. These were not too childlike like the littles, and they were definitely not as grumpy as the elders. These were among the quieter ones that she would see, and really the ones who always reminded her of her eternal role. They would immediately mourn, and search for the beating of their heart the second they saw her skeletal form towering over them in her flowing robes. These were the ones that even she knew had been robbed the most of receiving wisdom’s white hairs. But no matter. Once every arrival stood before her ready to walk, this silent void would then become brightened by the most vibrant yellow glow of a marigold bridge forming behind La Muerte. Petals joined each other tuft by tuft, and the pathway stretched so, so far into the void, lighting the darkness with their orange light. This experienced shepherd of souls then properly welcomed her herd from death’s door, and with open arms she guided them all forth with her mighty crook. Over the eons she had grown accustomed to her routine of guiding as little as one soul every other mortal hour upwards to groups of a hundred per day. La Muerte liked to count them all at every ten steps just to be sure none strayed along the journey, and of course to be on time for the next arrivals. The next group was always signaled by the marigolds building a new bridge for her to use accompanied with her beloved heartbeat chime ringing twice – the same one you heard earlier – and the end of their journey was always marked by the tall gates of her realm. Her kingdom where the dead rejoiced in their eternal rest, celebrating the freedom from the financial stresses that humanity invented, and the freedom from the fears of waking up the next earthly day. There the Land of the Dead stood, brightening this afterlife with saturated color and vibrant laughter from the bony residents within. With her grace, this eternal shepherd commanded her golden petals to dissipate the ghastly white forms of her herd and reveal to them their new skeletal designs made from their very own bones. Each of their skulls was beautifully painted in colorful lines, and the hollows of their eyes glowed a bright gold, gifting them full sight. At her will, the gates would open for them all, and once inside, each and every arrival strayed from the group to go on their separate paths. Whether it be to find loved ones who had been waiting for decades, or to find their own little corner to do the waiting themselves. La Muerte relished her role as the shepherd of mortals for these moments. For the sight of her once disoriented souls taking their first steps to explore this new world awakened anew. ‘Their new life,’ if you will. The distance between death’s door and the gates to her land was not too far, and it gave her something to do. She had a purpose, as the people would tell her often over the centuries, and it was something they would also often comment being jealous of. My, would you agree with such a thought? Well, eons pass and the Land of the Dead continued to grow and expand to fit everyone as best it can. Until suddenly, an unfamiliar pattern would emerge… Thump-thump, Thump-thump… Thump-thump, Thump-thump… Thump-thump… The arrival of a new era had come, and the weight of the shepherd’s crook grew heavier and heavier with the increasing surge in losses from the other side. No matter if they were human, reptilian, avian, or any other mammalian. All were sent to her doors. The hundreds she used to guide turned into thousands; The one soul per mortal hour was a bygone statistic. But do not fret, this goddess did not fear the sudden change. La Muerte is an eternal being, so, she would keep to her routine and fulfill her eternal duty for everyone. No matter what. The shepherd commanded her petals to form bigger bridges to fit everyone among her massive herds and with her towering height she would lead them all towards her gate using the light from her crook. As the shepherd walked side by side with her newly arrived souls of white, she quickly noticed a curious, yet concerning new pattern. Many of these bodies seemed much, much, much more heavily painted in red. Rather than the small freckles or even the occasional thin red lines she was accustomed to seeing before, these new markings represented more like intense blotches. Many had multiple all across their chest that went through to their back, others had a completely painted head in this bloody hue while the rest of their body remained white. Most horrifyingly, there was more than one who had arrived with a completely reddened body from head to toe! She halted on the bridge while her herd continued forward to further analyze this new sight while some loose marigold petals helped keep the herd moving forward. The souls who wore these marks were not the old she was accustomed to guiding in massive groups, and they weren’t just the silent mature ones who would avert their gaze. These were little ones… little ones who were on the road to maturity but got sent to her much, much too early. They all walked together in a massive huddle, each of them holding one another by their arms. La Muerte would then go on to count how many there were. She did not want to do so at first, but this was her purpose after all. This shepherd of souls had counted over a hundred of these lambs, tightly holding to each other to not get lost. To not be alone again, she supposed. La Muerte then decided to walk by their side. She wanted to learn more of the world that led to this, and to hear their voices tell their story. At first the young souls shielded themselves away from her towering eyes when she got close, and they trembled. “I bring you no harm, child,” La Muerte uttered softly, “I wish to know the year you hail from, and nothing more.” She was met with silence for a time, but do not forget the eternal patience of an immortal. So, they continued their walk together. It wouldn’t be until maybe twenty steps or so passed when one of these souls would finally speak their first words. “I…I don’t know,” they answered, “I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know...” This soul in particular was marked in a massive red blotch on their chest with hints of slashes stretching across their shoulders. “I see.” La Muerte would continue her walk at their side. The pillars of her gates shone brightly up ahead, but they were still a great distance away from reaching the end. La Muerte thought to use this final stretch as a chance to speak with them one last time. “What is it that you do remember, child?” She would finally deem to ask, “I ask not a visual of your final hour, but rather a scene that you can still see from your Earth.” While the souls still clung to one another, the kindness from their shepherd had finally allowed them the courage to look up and meet her gaze. These arrivals may not have had a face, mind you, but with the way their shoulders finally relaxed, and their posture slightly straightened, a wave of calm was felt flowing throughout the herd. “Pink crosses,” one finally blurted. Whomever that voice belonged to was hidden deeply in this herd, so much so that La Muerte could not locate the soul it belonged to. “I see.” The goddess and her flock finally stood before the gates to her realm, and for their sake, she ordered the marigolds to grant her flock their eternal skeletal forms. This act was meant to break away from the bloodied slate of their blank forms, yet this sight was far beyond what she hoped for her souls. Broken bones from head to toe, and not in the mortal sense. They could still move their limbs without feeling pain’s sting, but each of their bones were irrevocably fractured. Pieces were missing completely, and their surfaces were completely dented. Many of their skulls were undeniably incomplete, not even the beautiful painted patterns could distract from that fact. Some had parts of their jaw absent, others had multiple holes going through the top of their head. From head to toe they all wore scars from their final hour, and as the Land of the Dead’s gates opened to welcome them in, five new marigold bridges formed behind the weary shepherd to carry more. La Muerte’s crook suddenly grew a whole lot heavier to wield with each arrival, and as this goddess turned to stare in horror at each of these bridges that now waited for her, she nearly dropped to her knees from the weight of loss. Just before she could collapse, however, a horde of loose marigold petals from the last bridge had immediately flown to her aid. They opted on their own to help their lady by creating a firm petal stool for her to sit on, and they then provided their support in lightening her curled staff by lifting it as well. “I fear…” she whispered, “If this surge continues to heighten…I cannot continue to bear this weight on my own…Not for much longer…”

PART 1: Bull Feed them. Clothe them. Wash them. Comb their hair. Hospitalize them. School them. Give them toys. All and that 12. A hard-working mother. That’s who I am. God sees me. I am justified. Justice will come to me. Justice will come to their fathers. They will receive their rewards. Every one of them. I am tired. I want relief. I scroll through my phone for the release. No sooner, I see Three mouths coming towards me chirping, “Mommy I’m hungry”. McDonald’s. A quick meal it is. Such a relief for that quick meal and for me too. My precious 12. Clothes scattered on the floor. “Don’t worry about that now,” 12 said. Your rest is more important for me. 12 has given me a nice place to live. It’s a lovely place. For me and my three children. I have to give them a bath. Just a quick wash. Sometimes, I tell them to wash themselves. They are smart. They need to know how to wash themselves. I can’t spend much time on this. I have to return to 12 soon. I don’t have much time on their heads either. When I finally get the time, I have to comb out the kinks. Their crying. It’s unnecessary. “Ouch, it hurts” they say. They are doing too much. If they don’t stop, I will have to pop them. It is ridiculous that they do all this crying. Now don’t let it be long hair. That’s even more strenuous to deal with. That’s too much work. Short hair is more manageable, like mine. At times, I can’t get to 12. Please! Be reasonable with me 12! I have to take them to the emergency room. Something is wrong with them. Something is always wrong with them. They always charging into things that they shouldn’t get into. Please understand 12. For you are the one that gives them iPads and toys. It gives me relief to see them intrigued by them long enough for me to have energy for you tomorrow. Don’t you get it now. I need to have energy for my 12. I don’t have the time really for nothing else. I’m tired. So tired that it will cause me to get angry. I get angry. I’m stressed most of the time. I get irritated. You understand. My children come galping at me saying I’m hungry. Wait a minute! I’m on the phone. I need rest. Give me a minute! Clothes on the floor. I’m sorry. I forgot them. I forgot that they were right there. I was tired. At least they have a roof over their heads. We live in a nice apartment. Of course I’m not going to leave them dirty. Are you crazy? But I can’t take much time on washing them for that long. I’m tired. It would be better if they do it themselves without me being there. But at least they are washed. I can’t get to their hair either. I don’t have the time to manage it. Please don’t let it be long. It’s too hard. I can cut it to make it easier to deal with. That’s what I can do. That’s all I can do. I’m tired. Suddenly something is wrong with them. Something is always wrong with them. It comes up out of nowhere! I could be in the middle of doing something and all of a sudden I hear a loud burst of crying somewhere else in the house, so I have to take them to the emergency room again. I can’t get a break! I wish the school would keep them longer. And, in the summer, I need to come up with something quick! I can’t stay home to watch them. I have to see 12! “Mommy, come play with me, they say. “Come and play with me mommy.” NO! I can’t play with you. Go and play with your toys. You have your iPad. You have the tv. Where’s the remote? Where did y’all put the remote at because I can’t play. I’m tired! Mommy is tired. So tired ALL the time! DAMNATION to your father! To all your fathers that left me and are no good. I WILL RECEIVE JUSTICE! GOD COMNDEM THEM. THEY WILL PAY! Smoking. Raging. PART 2: Crouching Lion Why do you always feed them fast food? They need some real food. Something that will stick to their stomachs. That’s why they’re always hungry! You are not feeding them properly. Including yourself! You are overweight! You are messy. Not a good cleaner. Why do you always leave clothes on the floor. The place is a mess! That’s good you put them in a good apartment, but you could have had a home instead with me if you didn’t have that attitude. Why is it that every time you run their bath water, you always leave them in their alone to play in the water? Why are you telling them to wash themselves? THEY ARE TOO YOUNG! They don’t know how to thoroughly wash themselves. That’s why the water is always so dirty. You don’t clean them good. Tangled hair. They scream when you touch their manes. What are you doing to them? Why didn’t you untangle it before? And whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy on God’s green earth would you cut their hair? It’s bad enough that our hair can’t grow like that. You damaged their hair. It won’t grow the same. What are you doing to them? You always going to the hospital. Something is always wrong with them. Are you not watching them like you should? You are not watching them properly. That’s why they are either hurt or sick. Why don’t you want to deal with your own children? Every time I turn around they are either with their grandmother or someone else has them. Saying that you need a break. YOU always need a break! Partying, clubbing. You always have them playing with their toys alone. You always have them on the iPad or watching tv. They want to play with YOU, their mother! Why do you shove them like that? Why do you talk to them like that? Correction half of the time turns into abuse. You abuse them. You neglect them. You are not a good mother. You are always tired because you can’t get a lion to take care of you! PART 3: Charge Bull: Damnation to you! Who are you to tell me that? I AM A GOOD MOTHER AND I AM WORTH IT! (27) I AM A GOOD MOTHER! 28 Justice will I get from you! (30). I will get you! (32). You all are not right. (37). None of you are right. (38). I am a good mother (39). I am good to them (40) Not one of you. (41) Not one of………….. 42. Fairy tale. Cinderella. Glass slipper. Daddy? Why don’t I have a glass slipper? Why don’t I have one? It looks so pretty with The white dress. Maybe even pink. With my Little pink shoes. I even have a sparkly crown with it. Look Daddy! I’m a princess. Am I a princess Daddy? Where are you? Was I ever one? My body looked like Cinderella before I was alone with mommy. I had hair before mommy cut it. I was happy before mommy Start to yell at me. I didn’t get into trouble until after you left. Daddy? I wanted to play princess with you. You were the King. Mommy was the Queen. I was the princess. You ruled With an iron fist. You had power in the palm of your hand. Daddy, you were the greatest! We played princess once before time. You said no boy can get to me. They wasn’t even allowed in my room. You had my brother play bodyguard with me, even though he got on my nerves. Daddy, I did a lot of exploring when you left. You said That I needed to be protected more than my brother. Men Think differently than women. We get into stuff easily. We cry Easily. You said that’s why God created you and my brother so that We wouldn’t get into trouble, but I got into trouble. I got into things daddy. Three of them I can’t get out of to this day. I was told that I won’t be able to get out of it until 18 years have passed. They give me aches. I am pained most of the time. Mommy and me Gotten into trouble easily. You wasn’t there to play bodyguard with me. I got loved, bitten, torn, tossed, and left to die by mean lions. I am very confuse daddy. If I was to ever see you again, Would I still be call your princess? I know I’m not exactly like Cinderella. I’m bigger than she is. I have no hair, but when I wear a pretty wig, I have long hair. I have three children. She has none. I had 5 men. She had one. Does that make me more wanted if she had one and I had 5? I gotten more attention than her. I get angry at times but that’s Because I’m alone by myself. Just like when you left mommy alone with me. Daddy, tell me. Am I still a princess? Those mean lions say that I can’t be one. Can’t I? Elder Lion: I’m so sorry baby girl, but you can’t be one. You have gotten into so much trouble. Bull: I can’t be one? What are you saying daddy? You agree with those mean lions? How can you say that? You LEFT ME! YOU LEFT ME with my mom! Why did you leave Me with her? She was mean to me and didn’t give me any attention. She didn’t care for me good. Why did you make me? Why did you and Mom make me? You were the leader daddy. You said you know more than mommy did. If she wasn’t good, why didn’t you leave her alone? I could have never been born to suffer like this. I could have never been born! Elder Lion: I’m sorry baby girl. I’m so very sorry. Bull: Daddy, you told me that being a princess was the greatest thing a girl can ever be. It means everything. If I can’t be a princess, then Is it okay for me to sleep? Can I lay down and sleep daddy? I can make myself sleep forever. The pain hurts so much. That’s what I did when I was little. I would sleep and the pain Would go away when I wake up. I’ll just sleep it off. I’m sleepy daddy. I’m tired. I will go and sleep forever, daddy. I will go and sleep. I plan to sleep….. Daughter. My daughter. Does thou know that if Thy father and mother forsake you, I will lift you up. If they forsake you, I will lift you And teach you the way and lead you on The straight path, different from your Father and mother, and escape from your enemies. Daughter: Father. I am older now. I am withered, Used, abused, fat, and ugly. Who wants me? What lion king would want me now? I am crippled. Daughter. Does thou think that anything is too hard for Me? For Sarah, your ancestor, laughed at me. To think it was Impossible for her to give birth at an old age. Have you not known? Have you not read that I added 15 more years to Your ancestor King Hezekiah’s lifespan when he pleaded to me Because he was about to die on his bed? When Sarah gave birth To Issac, didn’t I let her live to see her son grow up Until he was 37 years of age? I am I AM. I am everything. I created everything you see before you every day. I am the God of all flesh. I am the potter. You the clay. I can do what I please to my clay creation. I can restore And make you anew. Hope thou in me. For I am your only hope. Don’t you know my history of being merciful? I am a merciful God And with me is plenteous redemption. I shall redeem you and others Like you from all your inquiries. I can save you. Heal you from all Your troubles that compass you daily if you will seek to find me. I cannot heal your whole situation if you are not willing to find me. Find Me. Seek Me out. Ask, and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be open the keys of understanding. The secret to success. Come and find me Daughter. For I know your plight. Behold! It is I, that gave you your hardships. For I gave it to you Many generations passed. I gave you your pain. For the pain The many yous cause Me before time. I pleaded with you. I took you back a many times before and you still you listen not. You refuse to listen to your Father. Therefore, I took everything away. Because of your disobedience and follow not my rules, I took away Your natural slim figure and gave you a bulge. I took Your protection (your men) away and subject you to Mean, irresponsible, hurtful lions. I took away your Children (abortion, homosexuality, interracial relations ( The wearing away your race from extinction), kidnappings, Selling off, auction off, rape). I subject you to humiliation (debauchery of your men (sodomy), chains, a yoke of iron Around your neck). I took away your gentle, quiet spirit and Replace it with anger, hate, and rage. I took away your natural Beauty, your long hair and made you bald (aloticpa). Don’t you know that your fluffy hair once covered your entire body When you obeyed Me? Don’t you know that I gave you A natural slim figure when you obeyed Me? You didn’t even Have to exercise because I planted in your kind a natural girdle. Your slim figure went back to the way it was when you had Children, with your husbands. I took away your identity. Your heritage. You don’t know who you are and whom you belong to. You own nothing. You have no inheritance and because you have no Inheritance, your enemies call you inferior, worthless, cattle. A byword You are. I took away your culture (THE LAW) and gave you into Lawlessness: Fornication (dealing with multiple people instead of one), Confusion (not knowing how to marry and keep marriage), Whoredom (dotness), loudmouthness (anger), glutton (obesity). Nobody wants you. Never going to be nobody’s wifey as the saying goes. I made you undesirable. Unwanted. You suffered because you Didn’t listen to me, daughter of Zion. Princess and Mother of Nations. Your kind did not listen. Daughter. My daughter. Come back to Me, Your Father and I will come back to you to give you hope again.

I lie on the cool floor and watch him stumble through the door. The musty smell of stale beer is strong in the air, mixed with the smell of fresh grass outside. This is one of those days. I can tell the minute he walks in; his eyes look wild, and his movements are erratic. I tremble inside; it always ends the same. "Buddy!" he slurs before slumping onto the couch. I wag my tail, expecting to get a scratch behind the ears or play fetch. Some days are like this. Today, however—this is one of those days. He glares at me, his voice piercing. "Get out of the way!" My stomach tightens, and I can feel the fear—I shrink back. I love him, even when he's mean to me; I know he doesn't mean it deep down inside—it's the drink talking. Oh, how I hate it when he drinks beer. I move close to him by the edge of the couch, hoping that he will soon calm down. Instead, he tells me to move. I curl up in my corner, trying to be small—this will soon pass. But as night falls, something changes. The bottle empties, and I see a glimpse of the man I know beneath the haze. He reaches over for me, and my heart screams for not knowing what might happen next. He might give me treats, licks maybe? —cuddles maybe? “C'mere, boy,” he whispers softly. I run to him, my tail wagging—even though I’m afraid of what might happen next. Maybe tonight he will remember how to love me. Maybe we'll be okay tonight; maybe he is himself again. He holds me close; he runs his fingers through my fur, and just for a minute, all the harsh and mean words and all the long nights spent hiding in my corner fade away. He calls my name so softly, as if he is telling me a secret. I take advantage of this moment; I don't know when he will be like this again. I lean into him, taking in the warmth of his body. Times like this don’t come around very often. We stay like this for a long time, deep in our own world. I do not move an inch, as I do not want this moment to pass. I press against his hand, and I get the smile I am hoping for—a glimpse of a grin appears on his face, the shade of the tree beside the window blocking his features. I tilt my head to the side; the moonlight reveals it is indeed a grin—a reminder of the guy I love. “You deserve better,” he mumbles, pulling me in tighter. I want to bark and tell him how much I love him, and I will never leave him. Even if I do, he won’t understand, or maybe he will get mad at me for barking and hit me—so I stay silent and in the moment. I don’t want it to end. Moments later, he gets up and heads to the kitchen. Another bottle. So unpredictable. I wonder if all owners are like this. Sweet sometimes, mean sometimes. Complicated.

The girls make clay sculptures outdoors, and Millie makes an elephant. The head starts off too big, leaving just enough blue clay to fashion a thin belly. How selfish the elephant’s head is, hogging all the clay—she slides it away with her thumb slowly, slowly, until she gets bored and instead snaps away a handful of chunks. If the elephant were alive, it would trumpet angrily upon having its face disfigured. If she had more clay, she would give it Dumbo’s big ears. Mrs. Murphy, the girl scout leader, walks behind the girls as they build their sculptures over the long wooden tables. There are about two dozen tables for just twenty girls, who form groups of three or four. Millie sits by herself. A few days ago, when Mrs. Murphy asked why she sat alone during a painting activity, she just shrugged and continued, feeling content with the pink paint spreading over the paper, amazed that it did whatever she wanted it to do. She remembers painting a pink elephant that day. “That’s beautiful, Millie,” says Mrs. Murphy when she sees her clay elephant. “Good job.” Excited, Millie takes her elephant to Sonia and Lisa, who sit side by side. Sonia’s arm rests on Lisa’s shoulder as Lisa covers her face with her hands. Is she crying? With a sudden sense of duty to make Lisa feel better, Millie bounces to the other side of the table. “Look at the elephant,” says Millie. Taken aback, Lisa stops crying. Her eyes peek through her fingers and fixate on the elephant’s clay eyes. “Look at it and don’t think of anything else,” says Millie, remembering those wellness gurus on TV who speak slowly to make you feel at peace, moving their hands in wide circles. “Imagine riding an elephant in the savannah—” Lisa giggles, “—the sun hitting your face—” “Oh my God, shut up,” says Sonia. “What?” says Millie. “Shut up and leave her alone. Go.” She feels stupid as she glances between them. Sonia shooes her away with her hand. Lisa says nothing. She walks away silently, feeling like squashing the elephant between her hands, but she places it back on her table very slowly so it knows she doesn’t really mean it. She glowers at their backs. Sonia must have gotten angry because her sculpture sucks. A boring butterfly. She must be one of those girls who join gangs because their moms beat them, so she has to make everyone else miserable. While waiting in line for the bathroom, Sonia’s beautiful straight brown hair hangs down to her hips. With scissors in hand, Millie silently slips the blades behind Sonia’s neck and cuts with a shik. … Sonia bawls at Mrs. Murphy’s side while other girls gather around her, consoling her as if she didn’t deserve it. Only one girl stays at the table but even she eventually drops the sculpting to join the commotion. Millie wants to make sure Sonia knows she regrets nothing, so she stays semi-visible behind a tree trunk and makes her most I-don’t-care-what-you-tell-them face, slightly raising her eyebrows and giving her the side-eye like the other girls do. With rising sobs, Sonia points to the restroom cabin, then to Millie. She clasps her lost hair as if it were her dead child, which then cuts with a pair of invisible scissors. The girls gasp. The troop looks at Millie, who pretends to be drawing on the dirt with a long stick. “Millie,” Mrs. Murphy calls. “What?” Millie says, a bit too loud. “Come here.” “No. You’re going to yell at me.” She tries to paint it as a joke half-way, but it comes out even more awkward. She imagines herself like a homeless, crazy man talking nonsense. “Why do you say that?” “I’m not playing that game!” says Millie, her eyes in the dirt. “I’m not playing,” says Mrs. Murphy, but not in a mean way—more like a defusing-a-bomb way. “Come here.” Millie walks towards her, crunching leaves beneath her shoes. If you get angry, you lose. If you get angry, you lose. She stops at several steps-distance, imagining herself and Mrs. Murphy talking with the homeless man. If you get angry, you lose. “Did you cut her hair, Millie?” Millie’s stomach sinks, her stick idly scratching deeper lines in the dirt. She avoids Sonia’s face especially, knowing she’d do something to make her even more angry. “Why did you do it?” Millie shifts her weight back and forth. She tries coming up with something smart that makes everybody get on her side, like in the movies. She replays her response in her mind, her heart hammering faster as she visualizes herself saying it out loud. Then she catches Veronica circling her finger near her right temple: She’s crazy. That’s it. Millie throws a pebble, flinging her arm so hard it hurts. It hits Veronica’s forehead. A sharp scream. Veronica bends, clutching her head. Mrs. Murphy kneels and moves away Veronica’s hand to see. A bloodstain. Millie puffs her chest as though she had expected that. It’s okay—it’s okay—it’s not like she broke her skull— The girls scream and scatter. But some stay within Millie’s reach, trying to run away, but not really—one laughs and spreads her arms like a bullfighter until Millie chases her. “Girl! What is wrong with you? Everyone, stop! Stop!” says Mrs. Murphy. If the bullfighter girl hadn’t hidden behind Mrs. Murphy, Millie would beat her up. Veronica keeps crying at Mrs. Murphy’s side. “She said I’m crazy!” “Millie—” “With the finger!” says Millie, her face red with tears. “Like this!” “Miss! Miss!” says another girl, tugging at Mrs. Murphy’s sleeve. She and her friends do that Oscar-winning act where they have no idea what Millie is talking about. “Veronica was just doing her hair—look—like this! We did nothing to her!” Veronica’s other friends nod fervently in agreement. “They’re lying!” “Come here.” Mrs. Murphy purses her lips and yanks Millie’s arm. “I’m done with this behavior, young girl. What happened to you? And this week you were doing so well. I’m going to call your parents.” “No!” Mrs. Murphy doesn’t expect her to tug so hard, nearly tripping when Millie runs to the forest. … Clinging to a tree so nobody can see her, Millie imagines what it’d be like if they found her dead in a ditch. Then they’ll be traumatized forever and regret not being nice, but it’ll be too late—she’d be laughing at them from the ghost realm. Everyone in the troop would be wearing black suits and umbrellas at her funeral on a rainy day, ashamed of themselves. They’d forget all about Sonia’s stupid hair and Veronica’s even stupider head. Those two would be the ones crying the most, knowing it was all their fault. But then Millie’s parents would be sad, which isn’t as good. Maybe she could mail them letters so they know she’s alive, tying the notes in squirrels’ tails like in Drake & Josh. She could even live with a pack of wolves and become one of them, like Mowgli in The Jungle Book. Are there even wolves in this forest? What if there are and they eat her? Maybe wolves aren’t such a good idea after all. While planning her new life in the forest, the girls march near the tree. Through the foliage Millie sees their little heads scattering and looking behind bushes and big rocks, but nobody thinks of looking up. “Millie! Millie!” they call. “Come back! Where are you!” “Live happily ever after without me!” Millie mutters, squashing Sonia’s head between her index and thumb. … Clumps of blueberries! She runs and snaps handfuls of them from a bush. Perhaps she can sneak into the camp to get her backpack, but for now she stuffs them in her pockets. It’s a shame they’ll stain the uniform, but now she’s a survivor, she reminds herself—life in the forest is tough and she’ll have to do without some comforts. As she fills her mouth with blueberries, a brownish hairy caterpillar over a mossy rock draws her attention. Millie recalls a bearded man on TV who eats insects for their protein, which is disgusting even if he tries to convince himself it’s not. Even if this is her new life, she will never eat worms. She places a tree branch in front of the caterpillar and watches as it climbs onto it. The caterpillar twists around, picking the best branch. Aren’t you a smart caterpillar? Will you look as fluffy when you transform, or will you become bald? In any case, pray you don’t look like Sonia’s butterfly! She chuckles, carefully replacing the caterpillar on its rock. Mrs. Murphy’s teachings are already proving useful for her new life: Fuzzy and bright, it's all right Hairs or spikes—best turn back! After a while, a rustle in the grass makes her stand up. At the edge of the clearing, she sees the twitching of a small snout. A piglet! Millie runs at it, and it flees. “Hey, don’t go! Wait!” The piglet runs surprisingly fast for its size, squealing as though Millie will eat it. If you think this is fast, wait till you see this! But a faraway, deeper snort makes her stop on her tracks. A huge wild boar charges at her, its head low and its hooves lifting dust. Millie screams and flees the other way around, running faster now, her heart beating in her throat like a trapped mouse. She climbs on a tree, not even thinking if it’s one of the good ones—she’ll become as light as a feather if it means the branches won’t snap. She clings so hard the rough bark stings her fingers. She pictures herself living in this tree forever and never touching the ground again. Breathing fast, she looks down, and the wild boar, exuding a strong smell of musk, circles around, snorting. Millie grabs a handful of berries and tosses them far away. Attracted to the scent, the boar charges toward the berries. Millie takes the chance to climb higher, hoping that the boar will forget about her. She stops breathing to become as quiet as possible, hearing distant snorts, then a rustling, then nothing—just forest sounds. She’s afraid it’s just hiding and waiting for her, so she stays in the tree for a long time. … By the time she has the courage to climb down, her arms and legs feel wobbly. Her hair undone, her uniform dirty and dusty, Millie wipes her eyes, sniffling. During the boar attack, she lost her sense of place. She feels eyes all around her. The clouds tease her, forcing the forest into an eerie darkness whenever they hover under the sun. Her ankles hurt bad from all the walking. Sitting near a lake, she hugs her knees, her fingers making idle waves in the water, the reflections of the trees and clouds being cut in thousands of pieces. If she stays still enough, the waves make the lake appear as though it's growing larger, rising over the forest and the sky, and she must blink fast from time to time so it doesn’t swallow her whole. “Millie!” Millie jumps up, frantically looks around, and hides behind a bush. When the troop appears on sight, she is filled with both fear and relief. They didn’t see her; they were just calling for her, though with more desperation than before. If this felt like hours for Millie, it must have felt like days for Mrs. Murphy. As they get closer, their light green uniforms and insignias get bigger and clearer. Millie’s heart hammers so loudly she’s afraid they might hear it. Maybe she can jump and scare them and laugh it all off—but they look so worn out they might just get angrier with her. Lisa and Sonia walk behind the others, with Lisa reviewing tree trunks as though the others hadn’t looked well. Sonia lifts her shoe, letting out a disgusted “bleh” at a squashed bug in her sole. “She always ruins everything,” says Sonia, scraping her sole in the ground. “Shut up already!” Lisa yells. “Me? Me? What did I even do to you?” “She ran away because of you!” she yells. “She wanted to do something nice and you had to be—you had to be such a fluffernutter!” Sonia’s mouth opens wide. Millie’s does too—she covers it with both hands. She never thought Lisa could talk like that. “Excuse me?” says Sonia. “Yeah—yeah, that’s right!” Lisa nods decisively. “So, you know what?” She slides off her friendship bracelet—one Sonia made for her two weeks ago—and drops it on the ground. “This is yours!” “I’m not picking it up!” says Sonia. “Fine—I don’t want you to!” “Fine!” Sonia slides off her own friendship bracelet and drops it harder. “I hope you’re happy!” “I am!” says Lisa as Sonia stomps away. She stands in the middle of the small clearing, alone with Millie. “Psst,” says Millie from behind the bush. Lisa turns, troubled. “Psst. Over here,” whispers Millie. When Lisa reaches the other side of the bush, she lets out a humongous gasp. … On the way back, they ask her many questions. Where did you go? What were you doing all this time? Millie tells them all about it—the tree, the blueberries, the boar, and they listen as though she had survived alone on an island for ten years. Still, Lisa makes sure they remember she found Millie first, locking her arm in hers and acting as her manager, which Millie is grateful for because she had never talked to so many people at once. They had even hugged her and started crying when she stepped out the bush—even Veronica—, and she had no idea of what to do except cry with them. Before reaching the camp, Mrs. Murphy, who had kept close to Millie the entire way, gathers them all in a tight circle and whispers to keep this adventure their little secret, and the girls nod at each other and chuckle with a twinge of devilishness. … Lisa and Millie sit at the wooden table making friendship bracelets. Lisa had told her she likes orange, so Millie picked all the orange beads she could find. Lisa found this funny—the good type of funny. Lisa pretends she doesn’t notice Sonia glancing at them. She sits all alone at her table. They haven’t talked in a whole week since their fight. Sonia keeps her hair in a ponytail now, and Millie once heard her cry in a restroom stall. When Millie and Sonia accidentally make eye contact, Sonia doesn’t look angry—just sad. Millie and Lisa smile lightly at each other. They pull beads to make a bracelet for Sonia, too.

La conocí un viernes santo bastante caliente, el 12 de abril del 37’ para ser exactos, y se me pegaba la camiseta en la espalda por el calor que hacía. Eran las dos de la tarde. Las calles vacías, amarillas, los cables entre poste y poste colgaban bajo el invisible peso del calor, aguados, y en cada esquina el diablo soplaba bocanadas calientes sobre la brisa. Camine colina abajo, bajo las sombras de moros viejos que rompían las banquetas con sus raíces gordas y los árboles de lilas que rebasaban las bardas con coronas de vidrio de botellas quebradas; sorpresas para al amante de lo ajeno que se aventura a entrar a las casas sin perro. Ahí iba yo, saltando las mismas banquetas, manchándome los dedos de la cal de las paredes y sacándole la vuelta a los perros bravos. Llegué a la plaza de Balderas. Ésta, hervía en gente y música y a un costado la iglesia que dormía ya después de vaciarse de los feligreses del pueblo, daba espasmos esporádicamente bajo un cielo agridulce, lloroso, como a media luz, y el calor atosigante la tenía moribunda ya, cansada. Todo aquello era como un mar bravo alrededor de una isla católica de granito y ventanales largos y delgados, como los ojos de un sonámbulo, con oleajes de fiesta y de sensaciones: me adentré entre la multitud y como uno se adentra al mar, me sentí abrumado por la música, por los aromas de la comida en plancha, pero, sobre todo, porque aquello parecía un arcoíris caído, un sueño infantil, un mundo ajeno y cubierto por las lonas que daban sombra. Y fue ahí, entre todo ese tumulto de fiesta, donde la encontré, justo en el centro de los puestos. Así que llegué, pasando frente a la cara de la iglesia sin voltear, me senté y le pedí un café a quién sería mi mujer para toda la vida. La había visto el día anterior, afuera de la panadería, ya por la tarde. Le gustaban las magdalenas, me fijé, y las conchas de chocolate. La miré y lo supe. Así nada más. Tenía que conocerla y hacerle saber que sería mi mujer. Le temblaba la mano, de piel color arena húmeda, como cuando la marea baja y deja al descubierto los granos vírgenes del suelo arenoso. Volteando su gruesa melena hacia el lado izquierdo de su rostro me dejó verlo: un rostro de mañana, de promesa esperanzada, con un par de ojos de mirada profunda y salvaje, como la de un lince a la espera bajo las hojas de hierbas, acechando. Una mezcla de dulzura, inocencia y salvajismo extremo. Me perdí en aquel rostro, sin dar lugar a algo más que asombro genuino al detallado toque sensual y abrumador que despejaba aquella mujer bajo los rizos oscuros de su melena alocada. Un par de labios gruesos, carnosos y rosados sonreían genuinamente, sutilmente escondiendo una boca grande y de sonrisa amplia, el destello de un par de arracadas de plata titilaba como monedas al aire entre dos amantes del azar, entre sus rizos oscuros, acentuado su largo rostro hasta llegar a un cuello delgado y largo sobre un par de delicados pero fuertes hombros al descubierto color pastel. La profundidad del océano de aguas negras en su mirar me devoró, y por un segundo se fue sumergiendo mi enclenque bote a través de la garganta del mar y hasta sus secretos al fondo de un par de ojos maravillosos, con mirada escrutadora e impulsiva, atenta a todo detalle visual o persuasivo. Una mujer joven, pasados los veinte o apenas allí, no más de veinticinco, y yo, apenas de quince. Ya de frente a ella quede pasmado: una belleza radiante y nebulosa, abrumadora, no de manera arrogante sino de manera misteriosa, esotérica, con la promesa de despertar entre nubes de incienso y noches eternas de sudor y rasguños, de poemas de la mano de una baraja española y un cansancio placentero a través de miradas y miel. Le pedí que se sentará conmigo. Que le había escrito un poema. Me sonrió. ]°[ El viejo escritor dejó su lápiz sobre la mesa, junto a la taza de café. Éste, rodó un poco hasta recargarse en el platito de peltre astillado y así evitó rodar hacia la orilla. Ya varias veces había perdido lápices bajo la estufa, otros bajo la alacena. ¿Cuántos lápices no habrá allá abajo? Pensó, intentando recordar las innumerables ocasiones que se quedó sin nada con que escribir, los suficientes como para volver a empezar. No volvería a cometer el mismo error. Sus rodillas no se lo permitirían. Aunque fuese cincuenta y seis años después del primero. Pero sí volvería a empezar. Tal vez habría otro escritor bajo los muebles, en otro mundo donde los lápices fuesen del tamaño de los árboles, y nunca dejarían de existir. Se imagino un bosque color amarillo, entre colinas y senderos de tinta azul, con suelo de papel y nubes rosadas de borrador. Loco, se dijo. La guerra deja a todos locos. Un mirlo color negro y oro llego de repente cerca de la ventana. El contraste de sus plumas con el verde esmeralda de las hojas y el azul lodoso de las colinas no se le pasó desapercibido, las cortinas parecieran aletear por igual, alegres y vivarachas como solo los pájaros saben ser. Llegó y cantó desde la rama más cercana, y el viejo escritor pensó que poco le faltaba para entrar a la casa y cantarle desde el hombro. Pero nada. Nunca entraba. Le dejaba la ventana abierta cada mañana, incitando, pero nunca caía. “Ya es noviembre.” Le dijo a nadie, tal vez al mirlo, mirando el viejo calendario en la pared rosa que daba a la recamara, “y como pesa el día.” Cada noviembre lo sentía igual: pesado, cuajado, como si tuviese que cargar un muerto agusanado sobre sus hombros. Un muerto conocido, vestido de militar, con las mismas medallas que el viejo escritor guardaba bajo la cama. La guerra había terminado hacia veinte años ya, y sus escritos habían relatado el día a día de la guerra civil. Era lunes, había amanecido tibio y sin lluvia. Los aguaceros de octubre habían llegado algo tarde, arrastrando el calor un poco más allá, el pueblo parecía hundirse en las calles de lodo, y las colinas vestían de verde y girasoles. El rechinido de los resortes viejos del colchón le avisaron otra vuelta de su gitana. Seguidos por un largo suspiro de alivio. Había tenido aquella pesadilla otra vez. Una pesadilla que la llevaba al pasado. Le había despertado en la madrugada, cerca de las tres, siempre cerca de las tres, y sacudido los demonios del sueño. “Despierta tú, ándale ayúdame que no puedo con todos.” Solo dijo eso. Casi lo grita a todo pulmón y luego volvió a dormir entre suspiros y quejidos adoloridos. Ya estábamos viejos.

The smell of corporate processed pizza serves as a grim reminder that the hills have more than eyes but have mouths as well. I was a pizza delivery driver, a working college student in love with my soon to be fiancé, scrounging the dismal paychecks biweekly by biweekly to keep myself afloat in the city of El Paso, Texas where the rich live in the mountain’s slopes and hills and the poor and middle class below them. My name is Henry, and I am one of the poor who live under the watchful shadow of the upper class elites. College is an expensive matter but I make it by with government funding as for the rest of life’s necessities, I’m on my own. As I stated, the paycheck of a pizza delivery driver isn’t a sufficient source of income to make a living, but there are little luxuries that come with it. The solitude of being on the road is calming and I can listen to anything I wish to from music to podcasts as I deliver in a timely manner. I can leave the store and go on delivery when all shit hits the fan in the store, sometimes taking up to four deliveries so I can spend as much time as I can away from the store. My employees are mix and match, much like our pizza deal we offer; there’s Alan, a large heavy set man in his late forties with a heart of gold, Tina; a college kid like myself, studying criminal law and trying to get her way into the police academy. Then there’s Phil, my coworker bestie, who I usually smoke out with after our shift is done and play videogames online on our days off; he’s four years younger than me but is built with over sixty pounds of muscle and stands far taller than I ever could. Then there's my manager Jess; a sixty-year old man who can be a real sweetheart like Alan but can lose his top when no one’s following orders or the deliveries aren’t going streamline. My happy little work family. One thing to note is the reliance on making tips, and knowing just which neighborhoods provide the largest ones. There’s the projects just off of Mesa street, where you’ll make the worst of the worst tips. You go up Westwind and you’re bound to make decent tips from the supple middle class homes. But the best and truest tips come from the neighborhoods along the foothills of the Franklin Mountains and gated communities along it. But no one is just able to pick which delivery to go to, you have to wait in a line of all the others delivery drivers waiting their turn and the deliveries coming in order of oldest to newest, and the chance your name lands on that big delivery on that small eighteen inch monitor with a GPS map of the area. Thunderbird Drive is a small road but it leads straight into the mountainous neighborhoods- one second you’re past middle class homes, the next you’re eyes are bewildered by the sudden shift of greenery and the immaculate designs of houses so large they might as be the equivalent of twenty-first century mansions, or sometimes they really are. They sit so high up into the mountain you can see over their beautiful fresh green yards and the desert, or you’ll pass the country club, which is split in half by Thunderbird. To the untrained, these roads can turn into a spiraling labyrinth and where you entered one way, you may just exit another by the many deterring roads. But of all these roads lies one, dimly lit of any street lamps, where high beams are required to see the road before you- Singing Hills. It's like just the others with similar immaculate houses, but the people who live there are another breed. Every delivery its the same thing, you knock on the door and there’s always a man or woman in their middle ages with a wide and perfect white smile to greet you. A company policy we have is to never enter a customer’s home, even if invited in, one of the few policies I actually uphold, but always on Singing Hills the customers beckon me to come in, but I never do, and never would. 508 Sing Hills; I was greeted by an elderly whiteman beckoning me to come indoors from the rain while he grabbed the cash for the order, “I can’t,” like I always do, and he said back, “Suit yourself,” with a grinning distasteful smirk. After ten minutes of waiting at the door in front of a videocam doorbell, I rang again in hopes he didn’t forget he needed to pay for his food. But there was no answer, only the sound of my car running and the patter of rain falling. Another ten and I make my way back to the car, sure Jess would’ve called me by now to check what was taking me so long. Reaching the car door I noticed my tire was deflated, not only slightly but flattened to the point I would need to pull out the extra full size in my trunk. Frustrated, I confided with a sigh in light of my circumstances, and did the only sensible thing and began switching out my tire to the sounds of synthwave blasting in my car. It was once the tire was off after five minutes of getting my hands dirty with sludge and oil that I began to hear singing coming from somewhere nearby, like chanting. Investigating it sounded to be coming from the backyard of the house. I struggled as quickly as I could to get the new tire set and headed around the side to investigate and hopefully get the payment needed before Jess would rip me a new one. It must’ve been some sort of neighborhood gathering because the large backyard was filled with people in the midst of some ritual. The smell of smoke filled nostrils then at the sight of a burning pyre with the man who was supposed to pay for his food at the pyre’s base leading the chant. I’m not a god-fearing man but I can tell the difference between something innocent and benevolent from something malevolent. At the far corner stood a statue of the previous conservative president in gilded gold. Being not a conservative either, this was my clear indicator the man could keep his food free of charge. There’s something that slashers film get wrong every time someone gets hacked or cut, the pain isn’t instant. But the body knows something is wrong in those first two seconds. There’s no pain but only that sense as a growing tingle travels up to your brain at mach speeds and then the want to scream out in agony fills every want and need you could ever have in the past and future. And you just stand there pulling a face like a toddler who just pissed their diaper, because you probably did. I’ve never had a history of asthma but maybe this is what it feels to lose your breath; that tingling sensation in my ankle intensifying and pulling me down to the ground. The metal jaws of a bear trap biting through my leg held me down and a chain bolted to the ground hindered me from leaving. The chanting stopped then as the swelling pressure in my eyes commanded I bleed streams of tears with a newfound need to pry open the metal jaws. The voices of many drawing nearer, my skinny fingers slid between the flesh and metal for some small grip and I began to pry open the trap. It was the, “Get him!” of unfamiliar voices that sent shivers down my spine before the trap availed me freedom and I hobbled away back to my car. I heard the sounds of hands slapping the body and windows of my car as I shifted from park to drive, speeding off with only two bars of my gas meter remaining. Twenty-one dollars and ninety-eight cents, that’s how much it cost to ruin my future. Unable to afford medical insurance, the medical bills from the hospital stacked up and I had to drop out of college to pay them off; I’m still paying them off. The police ruled in the man’s favor that I was trespassing and I was charged for it, gaining a criminal record. My fiancé, being a christian, later left me as I grew verbally paranoid and hesitant of anyone religious. I was able to keep my job, and months later was promoted to assistant manager where I’m constantly on the food line making pizza after pizza and walking with a limp that’ll forever stay with me, serving as a reminder that the hills have mouths and a desire to gorge on the less fortunate.

Wilfred Scott was not a man that was easily shaken, he never subscribed to the superstitions of most sailors, but he did have his own fears of the sea. The sounds of the ocean at night had been one, the whispers, the way the waves crashed against the ship, like a beast letting you know it has you right in its grasp, or how the noises would contort almost like voices, combining together to claw into your mind like worms through an apple making you question if you could ever really trust your perception. His captain, one James Hawthorne, argued that it was this fear that made Scott such a good sailor, “keeps you aware” he’d say. Hawthorne was an elder fellow, around six decades in age, heavier build, and skin as pale as the barnacles that infested his hull. Hawthorne sailed for time immemorial and in his eternal vigil he learned a few lessons he had passed down to Scott “The sea is a fickle woman Scott! Her temple comes down like the wrath of God, but God as my witness you will never meet another woman who’s love is any more sweet” He said with a hardy laugh. “And boyo? So long as you’re on this ship, you keep my Lantern lit.” The Torchlight was an average fishing vessel, it was big enough to house the crew quarters where Scott and Hawthorne slept and a small booth in the middle of the ship where the helm was held but otherwise was unadorned besides the lantern outside the room where the helm was held. The Lantern was what the ship was named after, but Scott found it surprisingly… bland. It was a metal lantern, a wax candle inside emitting a white flame, nothing entirely special about it. Except that when he looked closer on some nights Scott could swear that the lantern never once dimmed no matter the distance he was on the ship. Hawthorne was obsessed with the lantern, he always insisted on changing the lantern himself, and when they had been caught in a storm Hawthorne grabbed the lantern before running to the crew quarters for safety. Wilfred tried for years to get an answer out of him, but it was only when they picked up a researcher from the city that he answered “The lantern? Is that why you call your ship the Torchlight” said Thomas. Scott liked Thomas; they had much in common, mainly that they were both relatively young men, who the captain usually regarded with a polite dismissal. Though uncharacteristically the Captain answered. “Aye, the name’s a reminder of me first rule.” Hawthorne said staring out into the void of the ocean in front of him. “Right, but why the rule? Can’t be for the visibility, it’s a wax candle you’d get better light from the stars that thing.” Thomas continued asking questions, but beyond the first Hawthorne didn’t answer though Scott could see him rising in anger. Scott spoke to break the tension “Tom, whatcha researching out here anyway?” Thomas has joined them on some research expedition, something about an ‘ecological wonder’ “Thomas, not Tom, and yes. The fish outside the harbour have been seen with several peculiarities, the University is sending me out to discover the nature of the anomalies” his answer was calculated to not reveal too much, but Scott and Hawthorned knew exactly what Thomas was talking about. In the past few weeks more and more fish had appeared with varying degrees of mutations. Wilfred wrote down the weird fish he encountered in his journal, one had three eyes, another two tails, see through skin, teeth growing on the scales of the fish. It terrified him, but he chalked it up to some University tampering, to find that they didn’t know what it was either scared him. “Well… I hope you find whatcha lookin’ for. It would help out the business, believe it or not people don’t like eating fish that has more than the regular amount of teeths” Wilfred said, getting only a polite chuckle from Thomas. It wasn’t long before the night crept up on them, Wilfred usually would have taken over for Hawthorne during the night but the captain usually liked to keep vigil on the first night, and as such Scott led Thomas to the crew quarters for rest. Wilfred awoke in a jolt, the sound of a lighthouse horn screamed in the distance. He stood and gathered himself and moved out of the crew quarters. It was not uncommon for the sounds of the ship’s foghorn or a lighthouse horn to awaken him and as such he went off to enjoy his smokes. He took one out of the pack and stared off into the abyss of water. The water always pulled on him, the way the starlight shone on the water, reflecting the beauty of the world had always made his fears feel irrational. How could something so beautiful terrify him so? He walked about the ship performing his duties before the water pulled him in too deep. He cleaned up the deck, pulled in fish traps, the like but throughout he couldn’t shake the feeling of the air being pulled from him, not quite suffocation. He looked around and notice that the captain was gone, the ship had been moving by itself. He checked the crew quarters only to find Thomas was gone as well, he was alone the only warmth on the ship was the lantern. He searched the ship frantically, once, twice, three times. It didn’t take long before he looked out at the water, scared that the men may have fallen overboard, he tensed when he saw bodies in the water. The bodies were blurry and shapeless in the distance, he grabbed the lantern to make out the forms in the haze. The bodies were waterlogged, skin sagged and yellowed where the rot was creeping in. The bodies rose above the water, sea foam pouring out of their mouths, algae clinging to their skin, and as Scott stared he swore he could see things move about the body pulling on it like a puppet on its strings. As they moved Scott saw it clearly, a small fish with silver scales ate out of the body of one of the corpses. Wilfred’s body loosened, burning liquid was caught in his throat, and as he was about to throw up his ears were bombarded with the sounds of the lighthouse. As he turned to face where the horn sounded, he saw the same silver fish grown to the size bigger than the ship, its eyes hollow as it bit deep into the hull tearing it off as simply as ripping a napkin. The ship began to sink, Wilfred’s grip on the lantern loosened and fueled by adrenaline he ran for the top of the hastily sinking ship, but the further he would climb the faster the ship would sink, until there was simply nowhere else to go. And as the ship sank he could hear them, the sea worms, the slugs, the crabs, the silver fish, and other creatures that he dare not think of. They would devour him, as they did the Captain or Thomas. He felt the reverberations in the water as his head sunk below. Then with a start, Scott awoke. The sound of glass crashing had awoken him with a start, he clutched his throat and gasped for air. Thomas hit his back in an effort to help Wilfred cough out what he had been choking on. Scott finally coughed up the thing stuck in his throat, a few silver scales and sea foam. “The Lantern!” Hawthorne screamed as he moved towards the shattered pieces of glass on the ground below where the lantern was held, he fell to the ground clutching the remnants of the lantern in his hand with such force that his hands began to bleed. Wilfred, who was still coughing up sea foam, instructed Thomas to grab the medical supplies in the room. Thomas walked over to the Captain, Scott in tow. Thomas attempted to bandage the wounds, but Hawthorne simply threw him off, although after Thomas had tried to bandage his wounds the captain seemed a bit appease, he jumped up, turned off the engine to the ship, and moved to the edge of the boat, pouring the blood from his hand into the sea as Hawthorne recited a prayer. “Mother of Seas, who’s womb has birthed the world. I ask thee for forgiveness. This soul begs for mercy for the transgressions cast upon you…” Thomas looked at Wilfred who was looking at the Captain with horror. “Sea Madness, had to be?” Thomas said, Wilfred didn’t answer. He knew there was something in the ocean, Captain had told him to keep the lantern lit and he failed. All Wilfred could hope for was that his dream was just a dream, and that the Captain was just a superstitious fool, god have mercy on him if he was wrong. Scott turned on the engine and tried steering away, only to find the engine was broken. The last thing Hawthorne did was lower the anchor to keep them stationary. The only thing that moved the ship was the breath of the ocean. Wilfred paced around the quarters hoping to find any letters or journals Hawthorne may have kept about the lantern as after his prayer Hawthorne was inconsolable. Thomas began his search for any food that had been packed, but all he found were rotten fish and moldy hardtack. The only food left were the malformed fish Thomas kept for his research. It took only one day for Thomas’ hunger to outweigh his apprehension. Hawthorne and Thomas had eaten the fish. Wilfred held onto his portion simply staring at it. The fish was a mass of scales and tissue the he swore had been staring at him, after his dream the idea of eating fish disgusted him. It had been good that he didn’t eat the fish as a few hours after consumption Hawthorn and Thomas began cramping and experiencing violent bouts of vomiting, he led them to the quarters as he figured out what to do next. He pulled the anchor, hoping the waves might take them somewhere, anywhere really. And in the meantime he’d attempt to repair the engine. As the two men rested, Wilfred could hear Hawthorne’s stomach growling from outside the quarters, when he entered the room Hawthorne had been clutching his stomach like it was fit to burst. Wilfred had moved to him and began attempting some sort of first aid, but as he got closer he noticed that the cuts he received from the glass had been healed, stitched up with silver scales. Wilfred carried Hawthorne to a storage room in the quarters, barricading him inside. While inside he found some notes on engine repair, which helped him get the engine to a barely operable state. As Wilfred manned the helm, sweat pooling on his forehead from what he saw on the Captain. Night descended on them, and in his hunger fueled mental haze he couldn’t tell if this was their second night at sea or their tenth. The waves grew fierce crashing into the hull. Wilfred's eyes drifted like the waves and in his tired state he could not see where he had been maneuvering the ship, rocks disappeared and reappeared in the blink of an eye and when he moved out of their direction and turned it was like they never existed at all. The hunger was getting at him, pains shoot throughout his body, and the water began to become clearer. There were parasites in the water, the same parasites from his dream, the ones that ate his body when he drowned. There was no mistake, they were waiting for him, for the ship, for Thomas and Hawthorne. He was afraid, if hunger didn’t kill him, was it fate that he would die at sea? Devoured by monsters in the water? As these thoughts surged, something broke through the whispers of the ocean, the sound of meat ripped and torn. Wilfred let go of the helm and moved towards where the sounds were emanating, the Crew Quarters. He opened the door. Cartilage and meat had been splattered across the floor. The body of what Wilfred could have only assumed to have been Thomas was splayed in the middle of the room. Vivisected, torn asunder and picked clean. Thomas’ eyes in the pulp of the meat that had been his face stared at the creature that slew him. The creature was tall, wearing the ripped clothes of Captain Hawthorne, its body was composed of silver scales, its head was that of an anglerfish with the light on its head glowing a bright white. It chewed through bone and had been gorging itself on Thomas. Wilfred stared at the creature, frozen in his desire to run, to scream, to hope that by not moving at all the monster would ignore him, and yet he found himself doing none of these things. He moved forward, this creature, this Anglerfish had eaten when Wilfred starved himself. He protected these men, he served his Captain. And both men were gone, no one could judge him if he decided not to waste the meat. After all, who would ask him to eat those mutated fish? The Anglerfish turned towards him, it looked at Wilfred with familiarity before walking slowly towards him, it was not rageful, or malicious, but neutral, doting even. It put a hand on the First Mate, it’s mouth opened more and more until from the depths of its mouth had been as dark as the Oceanic Abyss itself, and from this darkness came a hand, rough and scarred. And it was holding a Lantern. Wilfred grabbed onto it, and the creature returned to the remains of Thomas as Wilfred felt the bumps on the back of his neck turn rough as he recalled the words the Captain told him oh so long ago. “Keep the Lantern Lit.”

Whatever our few neighbors thought of us, no one ever bothered Roz and I when we snuck into the boarded-up Thai restaurant at the center of Lula, no matter how often we did it or how obvious we were. By the time our graduation rolled around, we had already broken in enough times to claim squatters’ rights at eighteen. Between then and the age of eight, we staked our territory with signs in our illegible handwriting and a hidden stash that included a radio, books and magazines, flameless candles, and threadbare towels we threw over the dusty tile. On most days, we’d sprawl out like cats in the sun and rifle through our entertainment while we smoked a bowl. I had always thought we could’ve claimed the whole of Lula through squatters’ rights. Half of it was a ghost town, anyway, and had been since the construction of Interstate 10 split the city in two halves. The already small populace of the newly-designated south side began to steadily fade away. It was gradual, subtle, at first, until one day the dust clouds drifting over the road dissipated like a final sighing breath, and all the lights of every house and business were snuffed out. Windows that once sparked with hidden life were now sightless eyes, boarded up or punched out. The brittle grass yellowed, trees grew gnarled, and every door was locked shut. Until Roz and I got to it, of course. Roz has been my best friend since Kindergarten. We were known as “Lula kids” for most of our childhood, since we had to attend a public school one town over with ours having been shut down decades before. We didn’t become friends on our first day of school, but rather the second — I had joined her in hiding under the seats on the school bus in an attempt to try to outfox the bus driver and trick him into taking us back home. We warmed up to each other instantly, and agreed we were exceptional to every rule just as fast. Years later, and somehow we were still friends. Roz had blown through breakups, makeups, and mistakes while I spent my free time staring at the knockdown of the ceiling plaster in my bedroom or doomscrolling for hours under blankets. Our life paths reached a fork in road when puberty smashed my face in with a brick, then got confused and put Roz in for the facial reconstruction surgery. We made an odd pair, with my plain, frumpy appearance, and Roz, anything but plain and frumpy, with her short, ruffled red hair and freckled face. She was… radiant. Even though I expected the spike in male attention, it never stopped making me feel defensive. Irritated. Jealous. Afraid. Despite it all, despite her every opportunity, she never stopped being my friend. And I was grateful. I never wanted to know a life without her. But I’m going to have to. Tomorrow she’ll be leaving for an out-of-state college. A real college in a real city. Not Lula, which is all but an echo. Not Lula, which is nothing but half of what it once was, split down the middle. Not Lula, where one day I will walk away from and look over my shoulder to see it was all a mirage— shimmering, shimmering, shimmering, gone. It was an overcast Sunday when Roz told me. We were walking back to my house when she stopped me, eyes cast to the ground, that she had accepted a full-ride scholarship to an arts college in California. I said nothing at first, then continued walking. The scuffing sound of her footsteps on gravel dragged slower and slower, and eventually receded completely. I didn’t turn back, then. I knew she wouldn’t change her mind, and I wasn’t going to push. We didn’t speak for a few days, until the stab of fear I felt as I struck out the first week of summer brought my walls down. In a way, I understood. There was nothing for us here, as much as we tried to make clubhouses out of Thai restaurants. We have today. I’ve been reassuring myself with this thought over and over again. We have today. I mouth it silently now, standing with my feet on the rear pegs of Roz’s bike and gripping her shoulders for balance. She pumps hard on the pedals. The motions are all familiar to me, the sounds too— the click-click-click of the freewheel spinning, the whoosh of the tires as we glide over the sidewalk. We’ve done this countless times. I don’t like thinking about how this might be our last. Flying down B Street, I’m struck by the whirl of memories that flash through my mind. Everywhere I look, I can see echoes of our younger selves: ice cream cones in our hands that are dripping down to our wrists, racing or chasing each other, eating shit when we flop around on roller-skates, skipping and giggling and stopping to tie shoes. It makes me want to laugh and cry simultaneously, so I close my eyes and try to focus on Roz singing to herself, low and under her breath and all but lost to the wind. It’s a tune I don’t think I’ve heard of. It comforts me. When I open my eyes again, dusk is falling in slow motion. The blue sky melts into a soft purple, stars shining like the faux diamond studs Roz used to wear, years ago. Stars, I remember hearing in her younger, higher voice, the thing I like the most about where I live is the stars! The memory is cut short when Roz swerves into the empty parking lot of the Living Waters Community Pool, the tires chewing up and spitting out gravel in a screeching grind as she swerves into a skidding halt. She jams the kickstand and the bike slouches into the ground, both of us dismounting. I quickly let go of her shoulders, suddenly self-conscious and eager for something else to focus on. I let my attention fall to the building ahead of us. It was built in the early 1950s, like most commercial properties in Lula, and indelibly tied to the short period where there was an uptick in population. When that dried up, they took the Living Waters with it, leaving behind a low, flat-roofed cinderblock building and an empty pool. A fence ran along the perimeter and came between us and the outside grounds, which were paved with cracked concrete. The only character that remained of the building itself was in the blue trimmed eaves, dark blue accents on the windows and doors, and the mural on the wall facing the parking lot. It’s an image of choppy waves, washed with indigo and white, and a sparkling dolphin arcing with its fin slashing the sea. As we approach, the pool reveals itself: it remains as barren as the last time we saw it, save for trash lining the north edge. As I watch, a breeze invites a plastic bag into the air for a waltz. Roz moves past me. At the fence door, she stoops forward and pulls out a golden-painted key from where it’s looped around her neck, fitting it into the lock and twisting. Of course, it wasn’t the original lock. We’d taken care of that one after our first visit. I had swiped a pair of bolt cutters from my dad’s tool shed, met with Roz at the fence, and with the force of both of our grips on the handles, snapped it in two. In its place, Roz produced a heavy-duty lock that I’d never seen before with a smile and showy flourish. I remember our conspiratorial smiles as we split up on our way home, Roz lifting the necklace out from under her shirt and wagging the key at me, pointer finger against her lip. In the present, she glances at me over her shoulder. I go for a smile. The glance turns into a look. I want to say something to her, I realize. I want to say this is my worst nightmare, this is my worst fears realized, this is too much for me to handle. I want to say something, but nothing comes out, and I only nod. Neither of us need to speak to know what’s wrong. There’s still enough light to see her expression shift into one of understanding, eyes shaded with a melancholy I recognize though her lips form a tight smile. She opens her mouth like she might say something, thinks better of it, and simply grabs my hand. I pray to God that she can’t feel the rapid pace of my heartbeat through my fingers as she pulls me along through the threshold. My eyes fall onto our shadows, stretching and in our closeness becoming one, and the thudding of our disjointed footfalls makes me imagine us as just one misshapen animal. Her hand slips from mine as she turns to lock the gate once more, and I mourn the absence, then feel guilty for the longing. I dismiss myself with a nod toward her that is more assured than I feel, and retreat to the sandy outcroppings past the cracked concrete. I kick around in the dirt until my foot connects with something solid, then drop to my knees. I sweep my hand over the dirt until I uncover the army green strongbox. Another sweep and the sand storms off in a miniature storm. I flip the latch and take out the hand crank flashlight. Six cranks and a beam slices through the gloom. In the time I was gone, Roz’s thrown out two beach towels, one of which she’s sitting cross-legged on as she types away on her phone. The stomping of my boots connecting with the ground makes her snap her head up. I’m careful to maneuver the flashlight in my grip to keep from blinding her. There’s a beat where we make sharp eye contact, like two strangers sizing each other up for the first time. I look pointedly at her phone and sigh dramatically to break the tension, and she rolls her eyes with a quirk of her lips and sticks her phone in her bag. Sitting down across from her, wringing my hands together in my lap, I start to question why we came here. Rule-breaking was our favorite pastime as kids, but we’re eighteen now. I don’t have the mind for play-pretend, or the carelessness to start fires small enough to stomp out, or to add to the words graffitied on the walls around us. Hell, we haven’t set foot here in ages. There’s nothing in this moment except for us, and everything in between. “Do you remember what we left in the time capsule?” She asks, breaking the silence. For some reason, it only registers to me now that these are the first words either of us had spoken since I hitched a ride on the back of her bike. “No. I still don’t,” I replied, shaking my head and feeling dumb for it. We had buried a time capsule here, in fact, before the strongbox. Fifth grade, I think, because I remember Rosemary complaining about her new braces as we struggled to strike the ground with the heavy shovel. “You’re thinking about it?” “Yeah,” she leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, cradling her jaw in her hands. I couldn’t read her expression. “I wish we’d found it.” “Yeah, me too. If only the rain wasn’t so bad.” The memory plays before my eyes. We were on the edge of sixteen and grappling with it, struggling to reach back inside to the kids we once were. Rain pelting our backs and thunder cracking distantly, loud enough that it felt like the air ruptured. We threw down our tools and cried, because for some reason losing the time capsule hit harder than any number of candles on a birthday cake. Thinking about it now, my face crumples. “I’m sorry,” she says, so softly I doubt for a moment that she’d said it at all. I can feel her eyes burning holes in my head but I refuse to look her way. I feel like a wad of tissues has bubbled up into my throat, and I’m swallowing around a buoy, and once the floodgates open I’m not sure I can close them again. I don’t want her to see me like that, even though I know that’s irrational. She’s seen me crying, laughing, screaming, and I’ve seen her just the same. Now, though, I tip the flashlight over so the beam stays projected away from me. “Are you…?” I want to say a hundred million different things. I hate this. I hate knowing my only friend will be hundreds of miles away. I hate that there’s nowhere we haven’t been, that everywhere I’ll see us together somewhere in time. That we won’t listen to music at a head-splitting volume when her parents weren’t home. That we won’t meet at the park to do nothing but talk for hours. That everything hurts. I’ve never known a life without her, and I don’t want to. We’re two, as inseparable as lungs. We fit, as a heart muscle contracts, effortlessly and subconsciously and automatically. Being without her would be like missing a limb. Instead I say: “I don’t want you to go.” My voice cracks on the last syllable and it’s all gone from there. Tears pour out from my eyes faster than I can blink them away, and a painful sob rips out of my throat as I lurch forward into Roz’s embrace. With a sort of slow, disassociating recognition, I feel her shoulders shaking as she holds me. Both of us are shuddering as we cry together, loud and disruptive. Like kids, in Kindergarten, who had no one else. We were five years old again, clutching onto each other. We stay like that for what feels like hours. After we’ve huffed out the last choking breaths, we rearranged ourselves so we’re cross-legged again, knee to knee.I can’t see her face. She puts her left hand on my shoulder and leans in. I mirror her, and our foreheads knock together. “I know,” she says soothingly. She takes my hand in her right. I breathe in, out. I let go.

A voice, like a shovel stabbed through gravel: “Now, if you wanna be a gravedigger, you gotta know three things.” My father, unable to feed three children, sent me off to work for the local church, where I was promptly given to the aging groundskeeper as an assistant. The Old Man sat before me, hunched in his old wooden rocking chair, the one luxury afforded to his stone hut. Through the lone window, we could see the graves placed under our care. “Number one is ain’t no such thing as too deep. It’s backbreakin’ work, but durin’ them rainy seasons, them graves get picked up by the flood and float on down to the front door of their livin’ folks. Don’t want Johnny steppin’ over Nana on his way to the schoolhouse, eh?” A hoarse laugh racked the Old Man, while I politely kept quiet, uncomfortably shifting on my wooden stool. After recovering from his own comedic gifts, he continued; “Now, number two is, you gotta know your audience. When you’re attendin’ to the dead, you gotta remember the livin’ are the ones you’re really workin’ for. The white folks, the ones from the big towns, they don’t wanna see that coffin enter the ground; some sorta cultural thing. But the Mexican folk, they wanna see the whole damn show. Hell, work slow (or slower than they like), they’ll take that shovel and bury their dead themselves. Nine outta ten times it’s the deceased’s sons, thinkin’ they papa needs a better service than the one your givin’, and you gotta get as mean as you can git and take that shovel back. But there’s always that one old boy, worn out worse than me, who really does do it better than you could believe. When that old boy shows his head, best step out of the way.” At this point, I was only halfway paying attention, as the Old Man was mostly lecturing probably happy to tell somebody about his musings and observations from several decades’ worth of deathcare, occasionally punctuating them with gravelly laughter. But when the room was suspiciously quiet for several moments, I refocused on the Old Man. He now lost the excited glimmer in his eye, seemingly lost in thought. I spoke up, asking about the third thing I had to know. “Eh? Oh, yeah, number three. Number three, huh?” His vacant stare continued, as though he was temporarily seeing into an invisible world, spellbound by some spirit. He took a flask from his pocket, taking a long swig of the liquid inside. He returned his gaze to me, no longer the kindly old man, but a crazed lunatic whose warnings go unheard despite his best intentions: “Number three is, you see a dog in this graveyard, you do NOTHIN’ to the dog. Do you hear me, boy? You don’t shoo it, you don’t throw rocks at it, hell, don’t even look if you can help it. Do you get it, boy?” At this last question, he leaned forward, as close as he could to my face, while I tried to find the courage to answer. I had been scolded for breaking tools and spilling milk, but the Old Man was not in a scolding mood; the only thing in those eyes was fear. After another moment or two, he leaned back in his chair, unclenching his hands from the armrests on his chair, when a knock was heard on the door. He nodded in its direction, signaling for me to let in our guest. Father Murdock entered the shack, and greeted both me and the Old Man. Dressed in his priestly garb, he spoke to the Old Man in a friendly yet somehow condescending tone; “Damian, I hope you’re not scaring your guest already?” As if a switch had flipped, the Old Man became light and springy again, rising from his chair with surprising agility, replying, “No, Father, wouldn’t dream of it.” He flashed me a winning smile, then motioned for me to gather our tools; my apprenticeship was to begin immediately. My first burial, I was ordered to simply stand and watch, while the Old Man worked around the mourners. When the pallbearers arrived, he directed them to place the body on a contraption he had rigged himself, consisting of several straps and ropes to help lower the grave with considerably less stress on his body. He had bragged about this contraption all the way to the site, where he had prepared the coffin’s plot the night before. He worked diligently, with a speed and accuracy only afforded to those tradesmen who only knew the feel of their tools, to the detriment of all other feelings. While the crowd was clearly in the throes of grief, there was nothing out of the ordinary; they let the Old Man work in peace, and when it came time to lower the coffin, they vacated the cemetery, seemingly unable to witness their loved ones’ final journey. I was finally handed a shovel, and suddenly I was back on the farm, trenching alongside my brothers, turning dirt from dirt. The Old Man was impressed with my work, and we moved on. The second burial, he handed me the tools and grunted, wanting me to replicate his earlier performance. I did the best I could, maneuvering around mourners however I could, too shy to ask them to move, while the Old Man stood and smiled, probably remembering when he was in my position. Eventually, I got it done, and after a couple of adjustments from the Old Man, we lowered the coffin to its final resting place, the mourners watching all the while. While we sat and ate lunch, the Old Man was expounding upon his philosophical views on the intricacies of shovels when Father Murdock interrupted with a troubling look on his face. Upon seeing this look, the Old Man straightened out, asking in a formal tone, “Yes, Father Murdock?” “I need you two to come with me into the church. No audience for the next man.” We both nodded and cleaned up our lunch, while Father Murdock made his way back to the church alone, his nervous stride betraying his fear. As we made our way up the hill, we passed the statue of a dog, with the plaque under reading, “Grim.” Under his name, the dates 1786-1789. I stood, reading for far longer than I intended, called back to Earth when the Old Man barked my name, that same expression from the morning on his face. I had no time to ask about anything, as Father Murdock stood at the door, waiting with a similar expression of fear. When a man has no living kin to stand vigil for them, us gravediggers and some church boys perform that duty for the dead. We stood while Father Murdock gave a basic sermon, lecturing us on the importance of repenting from our sins in front of our Heavenly Father who resided in Heaven. Having heard this speech in several different forms from several different priests and parents, my mind wandered until it was again called back down by Father Murdock, whose voice had shifted from priest to fanatic: “…and it is when the Devil tempts us with riches and finery and fame that we must guard ourselves, for the only audience we shall have when we give into those temptations shall be a decrepit old priest, his aged gravekeeper, and their poor unwitting apprentice.” He wiped the sweat from his brow, and with a trembling hand, blessed the coffin and the corpse within. The coffin was incredibly simple when compared to the others; a simple wooden box with a cross affixed to the front. Father Murdock called for more hands to help carry the box, but could find no willing volunteers to even touch the thing. Frustrated and anxious, he exercised his authority in a voice I hoped to never have directed at me, commanding the other boys to help. Once we managed to get the box onto the Old Man’s contraption, the other boys ran, fleeing from the box and leaving us to deal with whatever horrors they thought likely to occur. Then we got to work. Father Murdock continued the funerary rituals, albeit with a speed bordering on disrespectful, as though anxious to get the damned thing over with. He was visibly sweating in the cold spring air, tremors running through him despite the thick robes protecting his body. Finally, he completed his duties, and left me and the Old Man to finish the job. While the Old Man had hummed and worked with a jovial attitude earlier that same day, now he worked in dead silence, with a similar breakneck pace that had me doing my best to match his pace. Once we completed our part, we took the short walk back to the hut in deafening silence. When the moon was highest and the clock read 2:15, I felt my boots thrown onto my bed, opening my eyes to see the Old Man, fully dressed and holding a lantern. He gestured to my clothes; while dressing, I heard from outside the cocking of a rifle, a sound that had me stumble onto the floor. At this loud crashing sound, the Old Man laughed for the first time since the pauper’s funeral; “Oh, don’t you worry about this old thing; you’ll be glad to have it later tonight.” Once I was ready, we walked out into the cemetery, a fog hanging over the stones that somehow did not impede the Old Man, who led me through with his memorized layout of the place. We eventually came upon our first grave, where we could hear a shovel cutting through the soil. Once we could actually see the hole, we found a gaunt, pale man, shirtless despite the temperature, hard at work on disinterring Silas Gadsden. He seemed not to notice us, but he certainly noticed the sound of the rifle’s hammer being cocked, grabbing his undivided attention. “This here’s sacred ground, son. Get your things and get out.” The pale man stared then spat; “I ain’t your son, I’m his, and he owes me. I ain’t goin nowheres.” “Ol’ Gadsden’s dead and restin’, boy. Far as we’re concerned, he don’t owe any earthly people’s a thing.” Gadsden’s boy seemed not to hear, being consumed by an anger so strong it made him shake when the dew and wind could not. It wasn’t until the rifle was finally levelled at his chest that he understood the gravity of his situation. “There’s only one thing that can disturb these graves, son, and you ain’t it.” Finally, he understood the only prizes to be found here would be buckshot and a wooden box, and so Gadsden’s son had to take his grievances somewhere away from his father’s tomb. It was only when he climbed out that I saw the pistol hanging from his waist. The Old Man wore an expression of pity rather than fear, but rather than dwell on it, he simply motioned for me to follow. And so we went. The second grave was thankfully undisturbed, and while I contemplated this good fortune, I became distracted again by thoughts of my first working day, hoping they would not all be like this, when I noticed the Old Man was gone. Though he was carrying a lantern in heavy fog, I saw no lights around me; I was alone in the mist of a church cemetery. Unnerved, I began to panic, but tried to stay calm and make my way back to the cabin. It was here that I envied the Old Man the most, not for his light, but for his guidance, as he knew the cemetery far better than anyone else; alongside my fear rose the pain in my shins, my knees, my shoulders, whenever I hit or struck all those stones sticking out of the ground. Eventually, the annoyance helped drown out the fear, and I called out to the Old Man less from panic and more to save my own body from further abuse. A particularly stubborn headstone seemingly sprouted from the mist right in front of my foot, forcing me to the ground. I fell on my arms, in pain but otherwise okay, when the fog began to lift. I was initially relieved until the clearing mist revealed me to be only a dozen or so feet away from the pauper’s grave. I lay still, listening for any footsteps around me. I got to my knees when I heard shuffling footsteps approaching the grave. From out of the mist, I could see a hound approaching the pauper’s grave, sniff the earth, and dig. Fearing it would scatter the remains all over the cemetery, I yelled as loud as I could; “Shoo! Go on, git!” He continued, so I grabbed a nearby stone and hurled it, maintaining eye contact to assert a primal dominance. The dog stopped, backed away from the grave and turned in a way that only a human could, and when I stared into its eyes, I saw not the eyes of an animal, but that of a giant pit, swallowing me whole, plunging me into darkness, and the darkness was only broken by a fiery pit, into which I had been cast for ages, agonizing ages that passed me by so slowly, yet I knew I had been there for countless eons, seeming to burn forever, joined by my father, my mother, my two siblings, wondering where I could ever find any sort of respite, what sins had I committed to deserve such a fate, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. The Old Man stood above me, as I had somehow fallen onto the cold dirt, staring at the creature masquerading as a dog. “Go on now, Grim, you got your prize. Leave this poor boy alone; he don’t know better.” The hound, satisfied, returned to the grave, now completely dug out, and dragged the corpse of the pauper across the plains behind the cemetery, while the corpse clawed desperately to the ground in eager search of freedom. “And that is why we don’t shoo the dogs.”

A woman’s cry startles me awake. I reach out for my mother, but find I’m alone under my grandmother’s silk sheets. I sit up suddenly with fear. A quick glance at the massive wooden mirror reflects a youthful boy. He’s maybe eight years old, with rounded cheeks and long lashes. I’m starring at myself, but I hadn’t seen this version in so long I almost don’t recognize it. Another scream whips my head to the tall door and prompts me out of bed. “Elroy, stop it!” The shriek pierces the air. It’s my grandmother. Why does she sound so afraid? Why is she calling out my grandad’s voice with so much horror? “Get away from him Mom! He’ll hurt you too!” Fear threatens to keep me frozen, but I force myself to walk slowly through the marbled hallway. The space is dark, the moonlight not quiet reaching it, but I hear the elegant music and see the soft glow of the Christmas party still happening at the front of the house. It’s cut off by a heavy sound. Three dull thuds. Two more screams. I stop at the wall of French doors opening to one of the estate’s gardens. It’s the most private one, made just for my grandma and the dog. But it is not private enough to hide the sounds from the dozens of guests that are slowly coming up behind me to the west wing. I take a small step outside and peak to the side. I see everything in fragments- My grandad holding his favorite autographed bat covered in splatters of red. My father jumping from behind him to tackle him onto my grandmother’s gardenia bush. Their old large dog, slumped on the floor with a battered body. I scream. I jump awake to loud pounding at my door. My body is moist despite the cold air freezing me through my bedroom window. “Dante!” I hear my mother call from outside my room. “Breakfast is ready. Come down stairs!” I fumble for my phone to check the time. 9:10. Shit. I’m going to be late to my chemistry lab. I grab clothes from a pile on my chair, hope that means they’re clean, and run out the door. “Sorry Mom!” I call out behind me as I startle her on my way to the bathroom. “Be down in a sec.” I jump into a cold shower that slowly calms my nerves. I’m finally able breath and think about the dream I hadn’t had it in forever. It happened twelve years ago, I remind myself. If it even happened at all. After all, my grandad just got reelected as Senator under his famous slogan “Elroy Arichibald: for Families, Protecting Families.” Not a chance it’s even real. And yet, the question bugs me all the way down to the breakfast nook, where the cooks sets down a table of food before leaving. My mother is sipping coffee, and my father is cutting into thick bacon while studying his speech for his next campaign. I try to sit quietly, but catch my parents sharing a glance. Then, my father puts down his paper and clears his throat. “What’s wrong, Son?” He asks in his deep gruff voice. Just as deep as when he ordered my mom to take me away after my scream rippled through the house that night. If it even happened, I remind myself. “Did Melissa finally break up with you?” He jokes. “I told you that family is ruthless and won’t let you date their eldest until you’re something of worth.” I allow an easy chuckle to ripple through me in an attempt to shake my nerves. “Not at all.” I answer. “You know her grandmother loves me.” I add, but can’t bring myself to touch my food. “I outta say,” my mother grins, “you should be ashamed for dating that girl just to get close to the Yarro’s” she finishes with a gentle smack. “That her grandmother is the Associate Director of the largest pharmaceutical company in the country has nothing to do with me dating her.” I emphasize. “I got with Melissa solely because she agreed to give me all her notes when she went into grad school.” I add to humor her. Another beat passes before I add, “although, I did want to ask you about something.” I say with caution, attempting to swallow the growing lump in my throat. “I’m having that nightmare again.” My mother’s soft gasp reminds me I don’t need to specify what nightmare haunted me for nights throughout my childhood. “What about it?” My fathers asks curtly. I let out a small soundless laugh. “I can’t tell if I’m just dreaming it up or if it actually happened.” My dad hesitates, glancing over at my mother, until his conscious wins over and he lets out a deep sigh. “Yes, Son. It happened.” At this, my mom stands up frantically. “For God’s sake Dante, why would you even bring that up?” She calls out through a cloud of strangled speech. “It was established that my father’s action’s were due to PO-580, remember?” She enunciates the last word as to shove it through my brain. “And to even mention it after the harm that it could have caused his career!” I curse at myself in my head. That’s right, there was an entire investigation that found he had been poisoned with PO-580. Criminal organizations use it to affect politicians all the time. It makes people act entirely impulsive and violent. I had found it so interesting, it started my obsession with chemistry in the first place… how could I have forgotten that? “I’m sorry mom.” I stand to kiss her lightly on the cheek. “I won’t bring it up again. I gotta go, or I’ll miss class.” The rest of the day passes through an exhausting sequence of labs and lectures. When I get to my car, I see an envelope pinned to my car’s windshield. Melissa’s neat handwriting is on the cover and reads- Couldn’t catch you between labs today, thought you shouldn’t wait longer to see it though. My grandma thinks Spring Break will be the perfect time to start. My eyebrows scrunch as I feel a hopeful but skeptical feeling climb my chest. I carefully rip the envelope open to reveal a letter with the heading: YORRO & FOWLER PHARMACEUTICALS and just under that: Research Internship. “She’s amazing,” I mutter to myself. My eyes dart through the page as I read the offer and at the very bottom, in the same clean writing: I know, I’m amazing. I feel excitement thrumming in my chest hours later. Even as I go to bed, I can’t help the blissful ache on my cheeks as I smile, reading the letter over and over again. But it doesn’t take long until the dreams start again. “I’m sorry sweetie” I hear my grandad groan. His body is hunched over the bright white toilet, his knees on the grand marble of his bathroom. “That damned dog has always been a pain in the ass.” He repeats before heaving. A perfectly manicured hand taps his back curtly. I recognize it to be my mother’s, although her long hair blocks her face from my view from… my head shifts down in a snap, seeking to look down at my hands but see none. Like I’m somehow floating between the space of reality, my body not even visible. “But for Dante to have seen me.” My grandad cries. “Dante is downstairs with his father.” She answers in a harsh tone. “He is still young. The serum will help him forget.” “I wish I could say the same for the rest of the guests.” She grits. Suddenly the world seems to narrow in on me. My brain pounds against my skull with an excruciating shock that brings black shadows behind my eyes. My breath cuts to suffocation as my body realizes that it cannot be here. My mother comes up to the cabinet, shoving things around in the drawer before tapping the back of it. It pops off to reveal a hidden compartment and she pulls out a tiny flask, barley the size of my pinky finger. She pours its black dusk into a steaming cup. “Your husband and his grand morality will not forget.” My grandad grinds out. “His career is tied to yours so he will make himself forget.” She responds coldly, walking back to him and shoving the cup his way. “Hurry up and drink the fucking PO. The cops are on their way.” The next couple of weeks have me convinced I’m going crazy. Each night my body shocks my brain against itself until my headaches become permanent. Each dream becomes harder to brush off. I think back to the dream of my mother having hushed words with Melissa’s grandmother while they hid in her office during a party. I shake my head in attempts to center myself. I was at that party and the entire time my mom was laughing and drinking with guests. Although there was that moment where she disappeared while everyone was trying to take pictures. I curse at myself for even following that train of thought. At least today will finally prove just how imaginary my dream of my grandad walking through the laboratories of YORRO & FOWLER was. Today, when I walk through those doors and don’t recognize a thing, I’ll be assured that I made everything up. I sigh in front of the mirror. At my core, I’m overjoyed to be starting my internship, but it is quickly dulled by my overtaking worry that I might be going fucking insane. Even as my shoulders tense, my face brightens when I finally stand in front of the massive glass pharmaceutical structure a half hour later. My movements become lighter with every step I take inside and confirm that I don’t recognize anything. Nothing. Even throughout my entire tour of the crisp offices in the first levels, the bright white laboratories of the 3rd floor, and even the cold lunch rooms in between. “Is that little Archibald?” I hear a deep voice call on my way out. I turn around to see a man walking up to me with the same sharp eyes and flat nose as Melissa. Her uncle is almost an exact younger version of her father. “Dan.” I call back easily. “It’s nice to see you.” “Yeah, you too man.” He says with a grin as he reaches to pat my shoulder. “Melissa told me you’d be starting.” “Yeah, I’m excited until I can explore the rest of the floors.” “What, they didn’t show you the whole thing?” “I’m afraid I don’t have much clearance beyond the off-the-counter pain meds section.” I shrug. “Alright.” A wicked grin spreads across his face. “Then don’t tell my mom.” He nods his head back to the elevator. “Follow me.” He scans his ID in the elevator and clicks the 6th floor. “Let’s show you where they keep the good stuff.” “The good stuff being..?” I ask with one brow raised. “The research on PO-580.” My head snaps in his direction. Of course, it’s the department he oversees. Unofficially, it has historically always been a Yarros in charge of that sector. “Don’t get too excited. I’m not taking you into the labs.” He adds with a chuckle after seeing my reaction. The elevator dings seconds later and opens to reveal a beautiful modern reception. To my right, there is a hallway filled with small luscious rooms and tall ceilings. “Why is it so,” I pause trying to fit this room into the rest of the image of the company, “extravagant?” Dan’s lips twitch up. “Well, this way,” He moves into the hallway “Is where we treat anyone who has been poisoned with PO-580. Since many tend to be very influential and posh people, we like to keep the place nice.” “Where you treat them?” I ask. “Is that normal for a research building?” “PO is very special case. Follow me over here.” Dan adds as he reaches for a wooden door on the other side. “This is where we explain in detail how PO and our treatment works, for those affected.” I freeze as he slides open another the glass door. The space is lit with white lights overhead and metal tables. It looks like an upscale laboratory with distinct leather details. And it looks exactly like what I saw in my dream. Of course, it makes sense for my grandad to have been brought here after the incident. But why would I know that? My voice rages in my head. I feel my pulse quicken as the floor threatens to tip under me. If that dream was accurate, were the rest? “I’m so sorry.” I cut off whatever Dan was saying . “I forgot I have somewhere to be but thank you so much for showing me around.” He blinks at me slowly then smiles. “You’re remembering now, aren’t you?” “What?” I ask in shock. “I, uh-” My head is reeling. I rub my temples trying to ward off a headache then turn around and jab my finger against the elevator button. Every reality, dream, lie is slamming behind my eyes. I’m going to throw up. I force myself into my car and 10 minutes later, I’m screeching to a stop in front of Melissa’s apartment. I knock on her door with frantic knuckles and pray that she’s home. She opens the door moments later and smiles instantly. “I was just about to call you. How was your first day?” She asks with excitement. I grab onto her shoulders and move her into her apartment, kicking the door closed behind me. She looks at me with wide eyes as I tell her, “I need you to tell me if I’m losing my mind.” I open my mouth to tell her everything, but her nails suddenly dig into my forearm. Her face turns into a tight smile. “Dante,” she says in an enthusiastic tone, even when her face is anything but. “You seemed to have learned quite a lot on your first day.” “What? Why are you,” “You’ll have to tell us all about it.” She cuts me off by digging in deeper. Then, immediately after and almost inaudible she grits, “Smile.” I blink until I hear her grandmother’s voice from the kitchen. “Did I just hear Dante come in?” She steps out followed, by my grandad. “Yup.” Melissa says with a gorgeous wide smile. “He’s reeling about his first day.” Instinct takes over and I shape my face gleefully. “It’s been insane.” I laugh.

Amos Jenkins curled his wrinkled fingers around the firm interior of his coat pocket. Each footfall on the snowy sidewalk reminded him of how desperately he desired the warmth of his bed. His body was becoming too tired and withered for this walk and each day he knew it more. It only made matters worse that he never felt safe walking through this part of town at night. The air smelled always of car oil and exhaust, each alley Amos walked past reeked of garbage, he could almost see the stench seeping out of dumpsters and leaky trashcans behind restaurants and smoke shops. Despite all of this he loved this city, when his kids lived with him, they would all look out at the view he had from his apartment window every night. The Detroit skyline was a brilliant shining curtain of stars that spread out for them to see. It was magical, but he also knew that for all its magic it was not the safest city in the world, at least not his part of it. So, back when the kids were younger, against his wife’s wishes he met up with a friend of his from work who knew a guy and bought himself a pair of shiny brass knuckles. He had never used them, never really intended to, but having their weight in his pocket had always made him feel safer. The cold traced longing circles against his cheek so Amos tugged the collar of his winter coat up further to force it out, wishing he had not forgotten his scarf that morning. Amos could feel the dry cold in his shaking bones as he looked up to check his path down the street. Only twenty feet or so and he would be on his block and home free. Nineteen feet, there was a couple across the street huddled against their car. Eighteen, a wino dragged himself across the parallel street towards the nearest bar. Seventeen, his neighbor’s college age son Brian huddled up in a large puffy coat, sneaking cigarettes against a telephone booth only a few feet away. Sixteen, a hand grasps Amos by the shoulder of his coat and drags him off his feet into the nearest alleyway. Whiplash twirled Amos’s concepts of his surroundings, pain snaked its way through his hip and lower back where his body knocked into the wall of the alley. “Make this easy and empty your wallet fast.” The voice came out gruff, strict, and straight to the point. Amos collected his senses and stared at the man. He was young, likely early thirties from what Amos could make out in his eyes and through the thin cloth mask that covered his face. “Don’t make me laugh” Amos said with a smile on his face. “I’m an old geezer what kind of treasures are you expecting to get from me? Some pocket hard candy?” Amos chuckled. The mugger’s left arm pressed against Amos’s chest and with his right he lurched forward and backhanded Amos. His head spun as the mugger reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out something Amos couldn’t quite make out between the blow to the head and the darkness. A cold metallic *CLICK* came from it and Amos knew immediately what it was. The mugger placed the barrel end against the old man’s forehead and the chill of it pricked his skin. “Are we taking this seriously now?” the mugger asked. He smirked and fear reached into Amos and began to strangle his aging heart. “Ok, I’ll give you everything I have.” Amos frantically reached into his pocket and found his wallet. Right next to his wallet however, he felt something else, the familiar weight of his brass knuckles. He wasn’t an idiot, the chances he could get a hit off before this criminal could shoot were low, resigning from any courage he might have had, he grasped onto his wallet and pulled all the money he could out of it. “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” A voice shouted from the entrance of the alley way. The mugger’s head shot in the direction of the alley opening and Amos found his chance. In the most fluid motion he had had in years Amos let his wallet fall to the ground, slid his fingers into the brass knuckles and flung his fist out his pocket and into his attacker’s face. Amos felt the pressure of the man’s jaw snap under the weight of the knuckles, he had definitely broken his own wrist in the process but it would be worth it. The mugger fell to the floor, and Amos did not stick around long enough to see what happened to him, he grabbed his wallet from the ground and shuffled towards the street. “Are you alright sir? I heard a scuffle and came to check it out.” The voice said it with such concern that Amos felt a great sense of relief. He finally looked at who it was in front of him and realized it was Brian fresh from the phone booth, traces of smoke still hanging around him. “I’m a bit banged up but I will be alright, thank you, young man” Amos said gratefully. “That’s a mean right hook you have there sir.” Brian said with a smirk. Amos laughed, which made his head hurt. “Mean and illegal in most states, let’s get out of here before we call the cops on him” Brian slung Amos’s right arm over his left shoulder and together they shuffled their way on down the street.

Grandma flipped between her usual television channels. “What about these,” Rachel asks. Her tired eyes move to her granddaughter standing in the hallway, holding a storage box full of souvenir cups from various theme parks. Their once bright neon colors now muted. “I need those,” she says, quickly turning her head to back to the screen. “Come on, Grandma. The dust even looks old.” The old woman reclines in her lazy boy and continues to fiddle with the remote. “Ooh, míralo! Sunset Boulevard at seven thirty.” Rachel sighs and sets the box down next to entertainment center. She heads down the hallway, patting her shirt clean. At the threshold of the last room, she stops and stares at the maze of large black storage containers stacked to the ceiling. They stretch from corner to corner creating a black wall in front of the windows, blocking out the sunlight that tries to swim through. Rachel scans the room for where she can stand freely when her eyes fall on the shelf with outdated knick-knacks. Behind a collection of opaque vintage Coca-Cola bottles, she notices a small stuffed bear still wrapped in cellophane—the only indicator that this back room is where her mom had grown up. Rachel tries to imagine it, her mother’s childhood room. There was probably a bed with a purple duvet cover and extra fluffy pillows that cradled her head every night. The same way she held Rachel’s tiny head as a baby. Maybe some magazine cut-outs plastered all over the walls of teenage 90’s heartthrobs that she would say goodnight to before she went to sleep. And of course, pictures of her with friends and of 6lb 5oz Rachel wrapped in a pink hospital blanket cluttering the nightstand, so that she would be reminded of how loved she was every morning. There would’ve been an orange tint from the West Texas sun sneaking in through the shutters every evening, melting her essence into the walls of the room. Rachel inhales deeply, still standing at the entrance. The hot plastic from the containers circulates with the stale air and suffocates her mother’s scent out of her nose. The room darkens a little bit more. Now, the only occupants between these walls, she thought, are the things belonging nowhere. Stuffed into boxes. Rachel rubs her hands together and decides to start with the first box by her feet. She gives it a little nudge to determine how much stuff was in there and then grabs a rag to wipe the lid before opening it. She takes out the first thing she sees and laughs. “Oh God, you have to be kidding me.” She tilts the paper towards the light and squints her eyes to read the fading letters. “Monkey See, Monkey Do, a story by Rachel M.” She flips through the pages and tries to make sense of her words she wrote as a kindergartener. The poorly drawn pictures of monkeys with curly tails and oversized ears make her laugh even harder. She returns to the box and pulls out more memorabilia from her grade school days. She finds old class photos, yearbooks, and even a whole folder with all her junior high report cards. She closes the box and moves onto the one sitting next to it. She digs through piles of worn-out baby clothes and untied shoes, striking her memory once again. “Why is she keeping all of this?” As early as Rachel could remember, her grandmother always had hoarding tendencies. She kept receipts from every purchase, saved every bill statement over the years, even had batteries that were crusted with acid because she thought she would’ve needed them back then. But she also remembered that she was very well organized, too, as it carried into this room with things neatly packed into boxes which were stacked in a very specific way. In any case, Rachel decided that her grandmother didn’t have a say in what was valuable or trash anymore because this was a still a whole room buried with boxes full of stuff and things. “When are you going to go through all that crap,” she asked her grandmother today at breakfast. “There’s no time for it.” She wished her grandma would make more time to help her clear out the room as much as she gave to her T.V. programs, not missing a showing for anything in the world. “What happens if, God forbid, something happens to you, and…” her thoughts were interrupted by the clinking of the metal spoon in her grandma’s mug, “and I’m stuck with it. All of it.” “You and that room, Raquel,” Grandma said, shaking her head. “I’ve made arrangements in case something-” “But wouldn’t you like to find the things you’ve lost?” Rachel said back. She took another spoonful of sugar and dropped it into the whirlpool. “They’re not lost if I know where to find them.” Rachel took another box down from a stack, revealing one of the real walls of the room. She notices a cardboard box with a blossoming lid tucked away in the corner with pieces of cream-colored fur peeking out of the folds. She hauls it out of its nook and searches for any labels, but the box was nameless. She carefully pops open the lid and pulls out the strange fabric, holding it up to view in its entirety. It rolls down like a scroll, or something sacred—the fur trimmings tickling the tops of her feet when it reaches the floor. It was a long cream silk dress with faded splotches of deep red on the chest and abdomen area. Rachel’s hands suddenly run cold, and she drops the dress. She turns back to the box and finds a handful of newspaper clippings from January of 1996. The headlines all have the same words, but in different variations. Rachel reads through each of them with her heart beating in her throat. “Drunk driver kills 20-year-old and injures two more,” “Fatal crash kills young mother,” The last title sinks into her stomach. She can feel the words burning through her insides. She tries to remember the last memory she had of her mother, but only remembers the reason her grandma always repeated on why she had to go to heaven so soon. “Because God was running out of angels up there, mija.” Still digging for answers, Rachel’s sight becomes blurry with tears and then rage when she lands on the name of the man responsible for her questions. The stinging fire from her insides instantly rushes up to her face. She feels a ball of tears, or maybe vomit, in her throat. “I know how much you miss her,” a voice says from behind. Rachel turns around to see her grandmother standing in the doorway. She slowly walks towards her. “I think there are some pictures of her in there, at the bottom.” She digs further into the box and finds a few polaroids of a woman with long brown hair and smiling eyes. There was some of her with friends, posing at parties or backyard cookouts, but there was only one of just her. “That’s my favorite,” her grandma says, pointing at the picture. Her mother’s sepia smile was wide open, and her eyes closed just enough to see the shadow of her eyelashes on her cheeks. She was lying on her back in the grass with her hair splayed out around her head. There were small budding flowers poking through as if they grew in between the strands. A tear falls from Rachel’s eye and lands on the polaroid. She feels her grandma squeeze her shoulders before pulling her into her arms. She pushes her sobs into her grandmother’s apron and remembers the times when she was afraid to say what had happened to her mother at school because she didn’t want the pity or that she never knew who her father was because it was tragic enough that her mother was dead. She thought of the times when she grew angry with her grandmother for being overbearing and not allowing her to go to parties in high school, saying cruel things like wishing that she had died instead of her mother. She winces at the memory of slamming the door in her grandma’s face. The embrace releases and Rachel looks into her grandmother’s eyes. She sees the same ones that are in the polaroids—soft and forgiving. She wonders if her own eyes have this trait, too. “Why am I barely seeing all this,” Rachel asks. “I wasn’t sure if you even wanted to,” she says still holding Rachel’s arms. “But why keep it all,” she stares at the stained dress on the floor. “Even the worst parts should be remembered, Raquel.” Rachel looks around at the other boxes and then back to her mother’s picture. “I just… wish I knew her.” “You didn’t have to know her,” her grandmother says, “because you become her every day. I see it. Believe me.” She tilts her granddaughter’s face towards her own, her old eyes well up again. “I haven’t lost her because I have you.” She wipes Rachel’s tears from cheeks and looks down at the silk dress at their feet. “Marina wore that damn thing almost every time she went out dancing,” she laughs. “I even had to sew the fur back on a couple of times.” Rachel slowly rolls the syllables on her tongue as to not forget it. She feels it sink into her blood becoming a forever part of her. “Maybe this we can keep,” she says to her grandma, wiping an empty space on the Coca-Cola shelf with the dust rag. She positions her mother’s polaroid next to the stuffed bear. The cloudy cellophane enhances the exposure of the photo and Rachel sees her mother’s smile brighten in real time. The women stand back and admire the makeshift memorial before exiting—leaving the backroom for another day.