(Glade, World, Master, Boy, Hero)

                                                 GLADE

There is a glacier.
Its blue tongue’s tip just tastes a frozen gorge.
There is a gorge, its walls shattered by cold; a once-green thing that, in dying, birthed a thousand aching fissures. It works its jagged way downhill, round ragged rifts and drifts until it comes upon a little frosted wood.
There is a wood, an island locked in ice.
Within this wood the gorge descends. It wanders and it wends; it brakes and all but ends outside a clearing wet with sun. And there, forking, its bent and broken arms embrace a strange, enchanted glade.

There is a glade.
And in this glade the black bears sleep, though salmon leap fat between falls. Here the field mouse draws no shadow, the eagle seeks no prey; they spend their while caressed by rays, and halcyon days are they. Here rabbit and fawn may linger, no longer need they flee. For in this timeless, taintless space, the Wild has ceased to be. (Outside the glade are shadow and prey, are ice and naked death. There blood may run freely. There the eagle, that thief, is a righteous savage, a noble fiend. But once in the glade he is dove, and has no taste for blood, running freely or otherwise).
And in this glade there nests a pool:  a dazzling, blue-and-silver jewel; profoundly deep, pristinely clear. All who sip find solace here, for this is the Eye of Being. They lap in peace, assuming blear, not knowing it is seeing. And ever thus this pool shall peer:  a silent seer, reflecting on—all that Is, and all Beyond.
(Outside the glade there lies a world where rivers ever run, where ghastly calves in random file revile a bitter sun. East, the day is born in mist. West she dies:  her rest, the deep. And North…North the Earth lies mute. Wind gnaws her hide, wind wracks her dreams. Wind screams like a flute in her white, white sleep).
But in the glade are tall, stately grasses, sunning raptly, spinning lore. Roots render the rhythms, blades bend without breeze, as signals ascend from the glade’s tender floor. (In this wise the glade weaves its word, airs its views. All the glade’s flora are bearers of news). They do not wither with fall, for in the glade there is no fall. They do not bind or wilt or brown—they gesture, spreading the mood, the mind; conveying, indeed, the very soul of the glade. As ever they have, as they shall evermore.
Bees do not hum here; they sing. They fatten the dream. Mellow and round are the timbres they sound, sweet is the music they bring. Birds do not sing here—they play. They carry the theme. Dulcet and warm are the strains they perform. Gifted musicians are they. (All in the glade are virtuosi. They were born to create. Melody, harmony, meter…are innate). Now the performance is lively and bright, now full, now almost still. For, though all in the glade may lean to the light, they must bend to the maestro’s feel.
And yet…there was a day, long ago in a dream, when this ongoing opus was torn. And on that day (so the lullaby goes) the wind brought a scream, and Dissonance was born.
There was a noise.
Moose tensed, their coffee eyes narrowed, their patient brows creased. Bees mauled the tempo, birds lost their place. The grass stood *****, all blades pointing east. There was a crash, and a shriek, and a naked, bleeding beast burst stinking through the fern, fell stumbling on its face.
Moose scattered:  unheard of. Sheep brawled, geese burst out of rhyme. The symphony, forever endeavored to soar sublime, fluttered, plunged, and, for all of a measure, ceased.
The pool was appalled…what manner brute—what kind of monster was this? Furless flank to forelimb, hide obscured by blood. As for its face…it had no face; only a look:  of shock frozen in time, of horror in amber. A deep welling rift ran temple to chin, halving the mask, caving it in. Such a grievous wound…the pool watched it stagger, on two legs and four, thrashing about till it came to a rise. There it labored for air, wiped the blood from its eyes, lashed at illusion, looked wildly round. Beholding the pool, the beast tumbled down.
And there this wretch plunged his thirst, drank his fill, fell back on his haunches.
The pool became still.
The two traded stares.
The glass read his features:  that durable eye pondered the wreckage and probed the debris. Revolted, the pool sought the succor of sky. But that thing remained—that face…in all creation…surely there could be…no other creature so ugly as he.
And he gazed in the glass.
Beneath the surface were…images…swimming in currents of shadow and light. He saw half-shapes and fragments…hideous men, exotic beasts…saw blue worlds of water, saw white worlds of ice…it was all so vague and unreal—yet somehow strangely familiar. Deeper he peered, but, as his mangled face neared, the sun smote the pool and the shapes disappeared. The brute pawed the ground and, dreaming he’d drowned, shook his head sharply and slowly looked round:
There were starlings at arm’s-length, transfixed with suspense, their tail feathers trembling, their dark eyes intense. Fantails and timber wolves, stepping in sync, paused for a sniff, stooped for a drink. Bees, pirouetting, threw light in his eyes. Seizing the moment, the pool pressed its hold.
And the glade revolved.
The freak watched it spin—saw the ferns’ greedy fingers reach round and close in, saw the tall grass rise high in an emerald sheen, swaying to rhythms from somewhere obscene. This place was madness; he struggled to stand, but, weak as he was, keeled over cold.
And the glade heaved a sigh, and the tall grass reclined, in curious patterns once rendered in whim. Far off in thunder the hard world replied, as iced pines exploded and screamed on the breeze. Down bore the sun, a chill just behind. The pool, grown blood-red, fended frost from its rim. Details dissolved in the oncoming tide. The pool dimmed to black. Night seeped through the trees.
Now flora found slumber while, pulsing below, the pool was infused with a soft ruby glow.
Soon birds bearing beech leaves, and needles of pine, laid down a spread and returned to the limb. But breath from the North blew their blanket aside. The wind grew in earnest, the air seemed to freeze.
And the wolf and the she-bear, of contrary mind, abhorring their task approached, looking grim. They sniffed him for measure, then, loathing his hide, growled their displeasure and dropped to their knees.
All night these glum attendants flanked his naked quaking form. The rising moon drew dreams in gray.
In time the man grew warm.

Morning swept through the glade in one broad stroke of the master’s brush, dappling the foliage with amber and rose. The pool was roused by the sweet pass of light. He opened his eye and the glade came alive:  into the whirlpool of life a thousand colors swam, chasing the scattering eddies of night. The magic of morning began.
Bluebird and goldfinch descended in rings, primaries clashing with robin and jay. Dollops of sun, repelled by their wings, spattered anew on the palette of day. Banking as one, the hues struck away.
There was a crowd.
And in this crowd that oddity sat, its chin on its chest, its rear pointing west. Its forepaws lay leaning, upturned and at rest. ***** and blood messed its muzzle and breast. Passed overnight. Or perhaps only dozed…tendril by tendril, claw by claw, the crowd decompressed:  the ring slowly closed.
And the stranger cried out and shifted his seat. His eyes sought his feet—rounding the arches, and topping the toes, the tall grass was questing. The little brute froze.
And the fauna took pause, and the flora went slack. Leaves followed talons, stems followed claws. Hooves tromped on paws as the crowd drifted back.
Not a breath taken. Not a move made. Stillness, like fog, enveloped the glade.
Now the grass tugged his feet, now the sea of jade splayed—left hand and right, the slender shafts reared. Gaining momentum, blade followed blade. The green field was torn till a deep swath appeared. The swath hurtled west, reflecting the sun. A hundred yards distant it died. Once more the grass stood, its tips spreading wide. The swath, born again, repeated its run.
Plain was the message, and clearly conveyed. The newcomer gawked. Confusion ensued.
The tall blades were swayed by the pulse of the glade.
But the swath was not renewed.
Something tiny bounced by. He ventured a peek, barely rolling an eye.
A chocolate sparrow, with pinfeathers black, popped past an ankle and paused to look back. The bird cocked its head, rocked in place, hopped ahead. It fluttered. It freaked. It glared and stopped dead. Vexed to its limit, it burst into flight.
The sitting thing watched till it passed out of sight.
Now a breeze bent his back, picked him half off his stern. The wind, done its best, grew flustered at last. It trailed to the west, thrilling lilies it passed. It wound round the willows and didn’t return.
So the fauna repaired to the live oak’s shade.
A strange kind of stupor fell over the glade.
From deep in the wood came a shape through the trees—a pronghorn, perhaps, or an elk swift and sure. But up limped a moose, a flyport with fur, low in the belly and wide at the knees. Wizened he was, scarcely able to see. Neither vision, nor vigor, nor velvet had he. He hobbled abreast, then groveled or died, his nose facing west, his tail flung aside.
The brute merely glazed.
But the glade was unfazed.
Those long shafts reshuffled. A tense moment passed.
The ominous shadows of badgers were cast. Three left their holes, as if to attack. They pedaled like moles and the stranger jumped back. He stumbled, fell flailing, and, kicking his guide, threw out his arms and tumbled astride. First he stepped on his tail, then he stepped on his pride. The moose bellowed twice and shook side to side while the little pest clung to his high, homely hide.
And the old moose unbent to his knees by degrees. He reeled like a drunk down the path of the breeze. Together they lurched through a break in the trees. And all morning long, and on through the day, both beggar and bearer would buckle and sway. The moose lost his temper, but never his way.
And the wind blew the sun to its deep ruby rest; the scrub, in obeisance, inclined to the west. Their slow taffy shadow in slinking would seem to slip round the rocks like a snake in a dream.
And the sun became a beacon, and the underbrush a stream. The wide Earth took their weight in stride, and the wind named him Hero.

                                               WORLD

When the sun was low the old moose began to stumble, at last limping to a halt beside a swift river lined with stunted pines. He’d half-expected a somewhat graceful dismount, but Hero, dug in like a tick, wasn’t about to let go. The moose knelt until his joints objected, shimmied, bucked, and with a sudden whirl sent the little bother flying.
Hero scraped himself out of the dirt and looked up forlornly. The ancient moose, his good eye gone bad, glared a long minute before hobbling away, his bony **** rocking with dignity, his scraggly tail fighting off imaginary flies.
Hero managed a few steps and dropped, staring in disbelief as the moose disappeared between half-frozen pines. He remained on his knees for the longest time, his jaw hanging, waiting for the moose—waiting for anything to show. At last a ruckus to his left snapped him out of it. His head ratcheted around.
Fifteen feet off the bank, three screaming gulls were dancing on an immense stone outcropping, fighting over a rapids-tossed sockeye. Hero was instantly famished. He wobbled to his feet and stumbled twice wading out, only regaining his balance by leaning against the current while rapidly wheeling his arms. The shrieking gulls reluctantly backed off as he stepped in slow-motion through the rushing water. Hero lunged at the slapping fish, cracked an ankle on the rock, and hopped around howling with both hands holding his shin. One foot was as good as none in the surging water. He went right under. Before he knew it he was being swept downriver.
This was glacial meltwater, so cold he quickly lost all sensation. Hero swallowed a mouthful and surfaced fighting for life; too disoriented to combat the current, too numb to realize his waving arm was striking something solid. That solid something turned out to be a swirling clump of rotted birches tangled up in scrub. He embraced one of these trunks as the mass slammed against isolated rocks, kicked his feet wildly, and somehow hauled himself aboard. The raft ricocheted rock to rock until repeated impacts sent it spinning. Giddy from the whirling and soaking, he clung freezing to the trees, retching continuously while the river roared in his ears. Through spray and tears he made out only cartwheeling fragments of the world.
But then the river was widening, its fury dissipating. The raft was approaching the sea. Hero gasped as the seemingly boundless Pacific swallowed the broad red belly of the sun. And as he spun he was treated to a panoramic, breathtaking spectacle:  the great indigo ocean with its slow traffic of driftwood and ice—voiced-over by the dismal calls of foraging gulls, and broken rhythmically by intermittent glimpses of the river’s rocky banks growing farther and farther apart. Whirling as it went, the dying man’s soul was taken by the sea.

At the 59th Parallel in winter, the Pacific coast plays host to numberless floes and minor bergs orphaned from Alaskan coastal glaciers. Hero cruised into a watery gridlock on a boat of ice-glazed birches, one bit of flotsam among the rest.
The cold wouldn’t let him move, wouldn’t let him breathe, wouldn’t let him think. He lay supine, feet crossed and hands clasped, terrified that to budge was to roll. An ice patina grew over the tangled trees like a white fungus—this growth soon webbed his fingers and toes, speckled his chest and thighs, glazed his hair and face, danced and disintegrated with his breath’s tapering plumes.
Floes and frozen-over debris tended to group with passing collisions; Hero’s married birches bit by bit accrued a mostly-submerged tangle of trunks and branches, all becoming fast in a creeping ice cement. Night came on just as resolutely, until land was only a flat black memory. The raft moved silently over the deep, still accepting the occasional gentle impact. And the floes became thicker and wider in a freezing doldrums; soon the proximate sea was all a broken field of packed ice, bobbing infinitesimally with the planet’s pulse.
Long ghostly strands of fog came striding over the torn ice field. They leaned this way and that, their mourners’ skirts tearing and patching and leaning anew. The ghosts were there to seal it:  their locked fingers and gray diaphanous wings were quickly becoming a wholly opaque descending shroud, its boundaries lost in the soughing wind.
Collisions came less and less. Darkness and silence, breaching some previously impenetrable barrier, began to take up residence in Hero’s chilling marrow. From his very center broke a weak little cry of refusal, of denial, as mind mustered frame in one desperate bid for freedom. His skin, frozen to the raft, peeled right off, and at that his inner brave succumbed. Hero’s smashed head arched back. His face contorted frightfully while the little lamp fluttered and paled within.
A raucous chorus slowly worked its way through the mist. It emerged a few hundred yards off—a tiny, terrified barking, growing in clarity as it grew in volume and urgency. It was a sound beacon. Hero strained eagerly, and when for one excruciating minute the beacon was cut off by a large passing body, was certain death had claimed him. Then it was back, and his heartbeat was quickening. He caught a heaving sound…something was moving his way down a wide tributary between floes. Hero could hear a gasping and snorting, accompanied by a hard slapping and splashing. The sounds vanished. In a moment the raft was rocked from below.
A sputtering muzzle blew salt in his eyes. A cold slimy flipper flapped across his chest and slapped about his face. The fur seal barked directly in his ear. Whiskers raked his dead cheek. The seal barked again.
Back below the surface it slipped. Hero listened anxiously as the splashing sound retreated whence it came.
The seal swam off perhaps a hundred feet and began barking hysterically.
From much farther off came a profusion of answering barks.
The seal swam back to Hero’s raft, circling and calling, circling and calling, while the responders approached en masse.
Now a sallow beam could be seen cutting through the fog. Several more showed vaguely along a plane yawing with some huge, barely discernible object.
A herd of northern fur seals burst into sight, barking madly, beating through the ice. They converged on Hero’s raft, really bellowing now.
Those odd yellow beams came in pursuit, and soon were close enough to eerily illuminate a gigantic wooden vessel parting the ice. The seals barked ferociously. Whenever the vessel leaned away, those nearest Hero’s raft would absolutely howl.
The fog deepened, condensed, crystallized, and then the collective light of a dozen lanterns was playing over a low, listing nightmare. Hero could hear the shouts of many aggressive men, but the waterborne seals, rather than scatter, boarded the ice and redoubled their din, fighting their way onto his quickly mobbed raft.
The sealers hurled serrated spears even as they clambered down rope ladders. When these men reached the ice the seals snapped and gnashed madly, refusing to be dislodged. The sealers lost all composure with the thrill of the hunt:  wielding clubs, spears, and hatchets—sometimes using iron bludgeons or any old utensil handed down—they crushed skulls, dragged carcasses, hooked animals still spurting and bleating. Clinging though he was, Hero was flabbergasted by the way the slipping and scampering men went about their butchery, hacking and smashing more with passion than with precision. But not a single seal attempted to flee—throughout the carnage they barked all the louder, egging on their slayers, carcass by carcass drawing the impassioned sealers to Hero’s ice-locked raft.
It was all so hazy and macabre. Hero’s eyes rolled back, and the next thing he knew he was sitting hunched on the vessel’s sopping deck. Two men were rubbing his limbs while another poured warm water down his back. He looked around in shock. The very notion of a boat containing more than one or two individuals—a sort of floating tribe—was way beyond his ken; so to see it, to have it come looming out of nothingness, was an experience almost supernatural.
He remembered some of those fur-covered men force-feeding him mouthfuls of halibut and seal fat, and he recalled a small group standing around him, shouting words that made no sense at all. After that he had a very vivid memory of their angry little chief repeatedly punching him while hollering one angry little word over and over and over. Hero couldn’t make out his inquisitor’s face, for the large feather-lined hood quite engulfed the man’s head, yet he could see those quick eyes flash as they caught the oil lamps’ light. Finally this man stopped boxing Hero’s ear. He stared hard. In these remaining decades of the tenth century it was fully within his power to administer as he saw fit—he could have ordered Hero’s immediate execution and not a man of his crew would have objected. He hesitated only because there wasn’t a hint of resistance in his prisoner’s pinched and frightened eyes. He leaned forward, studying the wound that all but split Hero’s face in two before grunting, raising his right arm, and yanking down its seal hide sleeve. Attached to the stump of his forearm was a primitive prosthesis consisting of a thick oak cap strapped to the arm with lengths of gut, and, hammered squarely into the center of that cap, a broad, cruelly hooked blade chiseled from a narwhal’s tusk. He held this obscenity in front of Hero’s eyes, traced the face’s deep diagonal rift, and once more demanded his captive’s identity. Hero then vaguely remembered being dragged along a tilting deck and thrown into the ship’s tiny hold. He retained a strong mental image of landing in a place of musty odors and dank projections.
There came a soft scuffling in the darkness, and presently a blind and exceedingly old woman felt her way to his side, mumbling as she approached. Her speech was comprised not of words; it was rather a running gibberish of cooing vowels and clucking consonants. The old woman was as mad as her circumstances; sick with sea and solitude, bedeviled by age and confinement. She sat cross-legged, patting her withered palms up his arm until she came to his face. Her strange mumbling soliloquy rose and fell as her bony fingers daintily explored the newly opened wound. Hero let his head fall back in her lap. A pair of hands like emaciated tarantulas scurried through the filth and tiny bodies until they came upon an old otter’s pelt bag that held her secrets. The woman loosened the bag’s cord and extracted an assortment of herbs, sniffing each in succession. She then scooped a handful of blubber from a bowl made of a previous occupant’s skull, kneaded the selected herbs into the blubber, and commenced gently massaging the wound, clucking and cooing while the black rats watched and waited.
For nine interminable days Hero remained in that cold, stinking compartment, rocking back and forth between life and death. The old woman never gave up on him. She clung to him during his seizures, rubbed his limbs vigorously when his blood pressure fell. She gathered various accumulated skins and, using woven strands of her own long hair, sewed him a multilayered, body-length wraparound with arm sleeves and very deep pockets, working by touch with a needle formed of a cod’s rib. By this same method she was able to fashion a pair of heavily lined snug-fitting moccasins. The old woman made him eat; she masticated the cod and halibut their keepers pitched into the hold, then shoved the results down his throat with a long gnarly forefinger. She called into his screaming nightmares, talking him out of sleep and back into their foul little reality. Together they lowed in the dark, while the keel groaned along and the waves beat time.
At the end of those dark nine days his strength was restored, but not his mind. Once again he was taken on deck.
The vessel had reached a chain of remote wind-swept islands, rocky and treeless, naked except for patchy carpets of hardy grass. These islands stretched far to the west, shrouded in mist. The ship was making for the smallest; just a chip on the sea. When they reached depth for anchorage Hero was hustled into a rowboat and lowered over the side. He looked up, saw two men climbing down by rope. These men positioned themselves at the oars and slowly rowed toward the islet. Seated between them, Hero felt like a man being led to his execution. He snuck a peek. The rowers’ heads were lowered, their features completely obscured by the heavy feathered hoods; they had all the somberness of pallbearers. Not a word passed between them as they rigidly worked their oars:  the only sound was the dip-and-purl of wood in water. Hero looked away. Against his will, he found his eyes drawn to that rocky islet waiting in the fog.
Not a bird, not a sea lion, not a shrub. It was lonesome beyond imagination.
Upon landfall one of the men used a spear’s point to **** Hero ashore. While his companion steadied the boat, he removed a skin sack full of half-frozen halibut, followed by a few armloads of precious tinder. These articles he tossed at Hero’s feet. He resumed his place at the oars and, without looking back, used the blunt end of his spear to shove off.
Hero watched the boat moving away, watched the men climbing their ropes, watched the boat being hauled aboard. As the mysterious vessel receded he saw a number of those silent men standing at the stern, stolidly returning his stare. Their hooded forms grew smaller and smaller, finally becoming indistinct. The vessel was swallowed up in fog.
Hero looked around, at a desolate world of rock and drifting ice. In the sunless pools at his feet a few purplish, flaccid sea anemones were waving in a sickly phosphorescence; along the rocks ran a tattered quilt of wild grass and lichen. It was the end of the world. He began to pace in his anxiety, only to crumple bit by bit inside his furs. At last he just sat with his face in his arms and wept. When he could weep no more he raised his head and opened his red, swollen eyes.
There were gulls all around him, staring like statuary in a madman’s garden. Standing in their midst were auks and puffins and murres, absolutely spellbound, unable to lean away. The silence was broken only by a wild, fitfully pursing wind—a wind that seemed, eerily, on the verge of producing syllables. And on that wind a flock of terns was rising slowly, their beady eyes fixed on the lone sitting man. The terns watched as he trembled, and banked as he swooned.
Then, beating as one, they threw back their wings and blew into the sun.

There was a blaze.
Behind that blaze a pair of black, bug-like eyes met his and immediately withdrew. A man wrapped in caribou hides stood abruptly, drawing angry swarms of sparks.
The Aleut peered queerly into the icy Pacific, his craggy profile merging seamlessly with a jumble of rocks showing just beyond his shoulder. The man was very tall, closer to seven feet than to six, and thin almost to emaciation.
He was also a mute. Soon enough he would display a talent for communication through gutturals, but now his body language spoke louder than words. It told the shivering stranger that he was not only disliked—he was feared.
The islander removed the hides he’d piled on the sleeping man. He produced a bone awl and strategically pierced a caribou hide, draped the hide over the old woman’s handiwork, and ran a cord of tightly woven tendons crosswise through his made holes, knotting it at the bottom to create a kind of cloak. He then killed the fire, heaped wood, fish, and remaining hides into Hero’s arms, and led him to a tiny cove where his long skin canoe lay in the grass. This was not the one-man kayak used by his people for centuries, but an actual canoe modeled on the graceful vessels he’d observed under the control of northern coastal tribesmen. After dragging it into the water he perched Hero in the fore, placed the cargo in the middle, and stepped into the rear like a gaunt furry spider. The Aleut dug out a paddle and began pulling with smooth strokes of surprising muscularity, his black eyes trained on his quiet companion’s back.
So began their long island-hopping journey. They stepped the chain one stone at a time, living off the sea. But much as the islander disliked Hero’s vapid company, it was not in his nature to proceed expeditiously; his people, remote as they were, had learned to count not in days but in generations. Given this, the Aleut took his time. He showed Hero how to build shelters of skin and gut; during bad weather the two would sit on an island in utter silence while rain hammered on their stretched seal-intestine window. And one very clear night he pointed out constellations while attempting to demonstrate, using broad gestures, just how the brighter heavenly bodies were in perfect alignment with the Aleutians. Hero followed his guide’s gestures as a pet follows its master’s movements and, like a pet, soon became bored. The Aleut did not grow flustered. He grew ever more wary:  behind that granite, weather-beaten exterior squirmed a very primitive imagination. Superstitious as he was, the Aleut was almost certain Hero could read his mind. So one time, and one time only, he threw a searing look at the back of Hero’s bowed and listing head. After a long minute of vigorous thought-projection he shifted his gaze aside. The brute appeared to feel this shift, and gently turned his head. And both saw the ocean break rhythm, and watched as otters and sea lions surfaced, noted their progress, and slipped without tremor beneath the waves.
In spring the fogs lifted. The grimness gave way to serenity, a generous sun buttered the dappled sea. On the islands grass grew lushly. Wildflowers leapt on the color-starved eye.
And one day the islander’s nape itched. He turned to see a flock of arctic terns casually tracking them under a gorgeous, white-plumed sky. As the day progressed the terns came drifting high overhead, slowly but surely taking the lead.
The Aleut squinted against the sun. He’d never known these birds to pursue a westerly migratory pattern—the terns were distributing themselves into a rough wedge shape, much like geese on the wing.
For a while he let the flock be his guide. Then, to test his stars, he cunningly steered his canoe north. At once the wedge disintegrated. Not until he’d lowered his eyes and pulled purposefully to the west did the disrupted pattern reassert itself. He peered up timidly. The wedge was now in the shape of a perfect arrowhead.
Just so were the fates of mariners and aviators inextricably entwined. At night, once the Aleut had landed his canoe on the nearest pearl, the terns would light in a quiet circle and remain until sunrise. As the Aleut and Hero took to sea, the flock would quickly form that same authoritative pattern.
In time the Aleut paddled his companion clear to the westernmost islands of the Aleutian chain. His people had dwelt, even here, a thousand years and more, but no contemporary islander knew for certain what lay beyond. Legend told of an enormous land mass forever gripped by cold, where a cruel people waylaid innocent seafarers for barbaric sacrificial rites.
So here the islander paused. But even as he vacillated he noticed the terns were veering south.
If the Aleut had been able to curse aloud he would have been vociferous. He was being compelled to follow an even less desirable course—that of the unknown open ocean. Now he looked upon his passenger’s hunched back not with fear but with loathing. He took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, and defiantly continued west. The wedge broke up immediately. The terns dive-bombed the canoe, whirled around the windmilling Aleut, tore skyward and hovered determinedly. Something huge broke surface behind them, but the Aleut was way too frayed to turn. He dropped his head, a beaten man, and began paddling south. Little by little the birds returned to formation.
The tiny canoe had no business going up against the mighty Pacific. It would soon have been swallowed and smashed, had not the terns veered in close formation whenever the distant sea appeared too rough. Once he’d lost his bearings the Aleut religiously followed their serpentine course.
The days began to warm.
Now the sea’s bounty all but leapt in the canoe.
It seemed the Aleut was forever catching the finest currents, practically sliding down a corridor entirely free of peril. In this manner he was able to safely navigate waters no such craft had mastered before.
They were proceeding south by southwest, awed children of a plenteous, generous sea. The going became easier by the day, the ocean heavier with cod.
Nights the Aleut drifted comfortably, but a lifetime of wariness made him wake off and on. He’d slowly rise to find Hero sitting quietly under the stars, and soon he’d see, pallid in moonlight, a large body neatly pleating the ocean’s surface. The shape would precede them a while, only to vanish without a ripple.
All this strangeness kept the Aleut’s heart in a whirl, though he took pains to maintain his poise.
To allay his fear he kept a flat black stone planted squarely between them. It was his oldest treasure; an oddity he’d taken off the body of a mauled Tlingit woman when he was a child. Who she was, and how she’d come by the stone, were mysteries far beyond him, for no such piece had ever been known to Aleut or Inuk.
The stone was smooth and had been worked perfectly round. Bright yellow specks were scattered about its dull black face.
Long ago someone had etched a quaint and clumsy rune on that flat black surface—it was the crude, universal symbol for sun:  a broad circle surrounded by several rays. When the stone was rubbed against a pelt it possessed the curious property of growing quite warm and bright in the rune’s grooves, while the surface remained cool and dull.
This stone, both friend and overlord, had always “spoken to him”. It caused him to become restless when it was time to move on, and allowed him to relax when a destination had been reached. In this way he’d come to the familiar islet and discovered the unconscious little man. Just so:  the stone, he was sure, was responsible for making him “feel bad” as he watched the stranger shiver, and “feel better” once he’d built him a life-saving fire from the small pile of tinder he’d found nearby.
By now, however, the Aleut was wholly disenchanted with his stone, and deeply regretted having done its mysterious bidding. Never before had he been so long from sight of land, and never before had he felt so very, very small. The unimagined immensity of the Pacific was really starting to get to him when, after all their while at sea, a gray, seductive haze broke the horizon. They had reached another chain of islands, an Asian chain, the dark and smoky Kurils. Here a cold current kept the climate cool and foggy, and the chill, along with the prevalence of otter and seal, made him feel almost at home.
But this place gave him the creeps; he was a stranger, a trespasser somewhere sacred. There was a looming quality to the island mountains that made him extraordinarily aware of his transience, his pettiness, his puniness. He grew more and more cautious, sure their progress was being monitored—he could have sworn he saw wraiths in the trees, and wolves padding warily in the brush. The big islands looked on breathlessly. All along the rocky cliffs, thousands of auks and puffins followed the canoe in dead silence, their heads turning simultaneously, their countless tiny eyes peering redly through the fog. As the weeks passed, the Aleut’s anxiety was manifested in tics and sighs, and he’d cringe each time the crimson sun sank behind those black volcanic summits. In his imagination the mountains would rise right out of the sea, as though to pluck him. But the islands, in all their dignity, would always refuse to acknowledge so meek a stranger, and return their eyes to sea. The Aleut would hang his head, and timidly paddle by.
Then for days and days he pulled his weary canoe west—through a strait parting two mighty islands not part of the chain, and thence across a sea that was a warm, enticing bath. Spring had come to the East Asian coastal waters, and the Ainu, alone and in groups, were venturing deeper in search of increasing bounty. The Aleut, absorbed in his thoughts of sweet climate and bitter fate, was unaware they’d been spotted.
This first meeting between strangers of different worlds was a brief and awkward one. A lone Ainu fisherman, seeing the Aleut come paddling out of the unknown, dropped his net and turned to stone. The Aleut, for his part, instinctively froze with his body turned half-away to make the leanest target possible. Their stares locked. Never had the Aleut seen a face so heavily bearded, and never hair so fair. The Ainu began banging on his bronze catch pail. Other fishers soon appeared from the north and south, effectively cutting off the canoe. The Aleut caressed his stone and looked to the sky. The wedge had vanished. He put down his head and paddled for all he was worth.
With the word out, uncountable fishing craft appeared out of the blue and broke into hot pursuit, their pilots determined to force the canoe ashore.
Suddenly they were in sight of land, and the sea was absolutely riddled with watercraft. A train of small boats cast off from the mainland, even as a posse of two-man coracle-like tubs began to surround the battered skin canoe, their inhabitants calling back and forth in astonishment at the sight of these dark, savage newcomers. But the pursuing little coastal men, banging excitedly on the sides of their boats, were not Ainu. They had very straight black hair, prominent cheekbones, and strangely slanted eyes. And their speech, oddly marvelous as it was, was a rapid series of coos, chirps, and barks. Their boats formed a tight semi-circle around the canoe, forcing the Aleut to approach the mainland. The little men banged their boats maniacally, with more joining in as the canoe neared shore.
A bit farther south was a natural harbor swarming with fishing vessels of every description. As the canoe was forced into this harbor, people along the rocky coast began banging whatever they could get their hands on, until the air was filled with their lunatic percussion.
Tiny brown men came running along a soft yellow cliff overlooking the harbor, gesturing wildly. The canoe was squeezed between a chain of tubs and the shore, and, as it slowed, the tempo and ferocity of the banging decreased accordingly. When the canoe came to a halt the banging and shouting stopped. Hero creaked to his feet. The first North American to set foot on Asian soil stepped out shakily.
There followed the profoundest silence imaginable.
A second later it was as if a dam had burst.
Hundreds of hysterical, yammering voices erupted from hundreds of hysterical, clinging men and women. Hero was spun around, jostled about, handed along. He stared into their astounded, pinched little faces, and the sun, pulsing between their heads as he was turned, repeatedly stabbed his eyes. There came an excited outburst and frantic splashing which could only have been the Aleut’s violent demise, and then Hero was somehow limping alongside a primitive fishing village, blindly following a narrow dirt path that hugged the yellow cliff’s base. The warm spring sun caught the dust as he shambled. He rounded a bend and stopped.
Half a dozen children stood in his way, too fascinated to run. A chatter and scuffle rose behind him. He looked back to see that he was now in the midst of a small crowd of these children, and that more were running up with cries of amazement.
A stone struck his shoulder. As Hero turned another glanced off his chest.
A moment later he was being pelted from all sides, and the giggles and gasps had become something wildly unreal. He dropped to his knees in a hail of hurled rocks, covered his head with his arms, and slithered up the path on his belly.
A new voice broke in; an older, authoritative voice.
The children scampered off squealing.
Hero, shaken to his feet, found himself face to face with a diminutive, shouting, incomprehensible old man. The old man threw his arm around Hero’s waist and, jabbering all the while, led him to a secondary path cut into the cliff’s face. This path sloped gently upward over the waves. Together they picked their way to a place maybe halfway up, where the cliff’s face was honeycombed with natural alcoves and dug-out caves. Most of these spaces were used as one-man shelters; a few, cut deeper in the earth, as family hives. Strange gabbing people slid out of these holes like worms, reaching, but the little old man, who was evidently a little old man of some stature, embraced his find possessively and shouted them back inside.
The path narrowed as they climbed.
At its summit spread the upscale end of the neighborhood. Hero was led to a hovel nestled amid dozens of similar hovels, all scattered around a dainty stream wending between patches of stunted vegetation.
The old man’s place was basically a one-room hut fashioned of earth and salvaged boat hulls, with a slender side-yard surrounded by dry, dusty hedges. But inside it was clean and tidy, with rice paper partitioning and, built into the far earthen wall, a miniature stone fireplace. The old man sat his guest in the exact center of the room. There he fed him scraps from his bowl, using long sticks to pluck out bits of fish and clumps of tiny, starchy white pellets.
He studied the brute closely, watched him chew, walked round and round him. He poked here. He pinched there.
And that night he lit a fire on his crushed-shell hearth.
Hero curled up on a mat where the gossip of flames could reach him. Nearby, at his delicate wicker table, the old man sat in semi-darkness, illuminated only from the waist down.
But his eyes were alive. They spat and darted as they reflected the fire’s light, and, when at last they’d begun to sputter, his scratchy little voice came pattering out of the dark, muttering something vile and oddly modulated, sometimes in a whisper, sometimes in a gathering snarl.
Hero feigned slumber, unable to ignore those paired ominous flashes. Still, the room was cozy, and the fire warm, and the play of light and shadow kicked sleep in his eyes.

In the morning he woke in the old man’s side-yard, his head pounding, a rusty iron clamp securely fastened around his neck. This clamp was attached to the outermost link of a crude three-foot chain, and the link at the other end to a long stake driven into eight inches of solid rock. The chain and stake, like the clamp, were hammered of local iron. The clamp was too tight for comfortable swallowing, the chain too short to make standing possible. Hero could, however, spread out on his chest and stretch an arm to a low row of hedges. By parting the tangled undergrowth he had a limited view of the fishing village below, and of the harbor beyond. As the days passed he was able to tweak himself a view-space discernible only from his peculiar vantage. He accomplished this by gently breaking small branches strategically, then guiding their interrupted growth with the utmost tenderness. It was his secret garden.
He had no memory—none whatsoever—of being staked here. Obviously the old man hadn’t set this up overnight. Hero’s mind prodded timidly…how many others had been chained to this spot, and why?
But over the subsequent weeks and months he went beyond caring. Each day was the same:  just after dawn the old man would storm into the tiny side-yard swinging his reed whip wildly. The lashings were savage and unremitting. The old man, except for his eyes, would be mute. Only his whip need speak. And the snap of his reed had but one message:  when you see this whip you go down, and you go down immediately.
The naked savage, scarred head to foot, learned to go prostrate on the moment. Even so, the old man couldn’t resist the temptation to indulge in the occasional good old, all-out thrashing. And after each session he would toss the prisoner a vile mess of dead fish and rotting leftovers.
Hero lived like this for many months, lost in a confused world of pain and anticipation. Perversely, he came to look forward to the bite of that whip, for, whether he flogged him in passion or just for sport, the old man was always sure to make it personal. It seemed their relationship might go on forever.
But one day there was a great commotion in the sleepy little fishing village. Hero parted the leaves and beheld a small train of oblong coaches at rest near the harbor. Large oxen yoked in pairs lolled between the carriages, immune to the clamor around them. There were dark shaggy horses and colorfully dressed Bactrian camels. The horses and camels were tethered in the rear, but were occasionally paraded around the carriages by little men wielding long painted bamboo poles. The whole affair was exotic and mesmerizing, eccentric and profane. Hero watched all day in amazement, infected by the hubbub, though he was totally mystified by the crowd’s fascination on the carriages’ far side.
And late that afternoon he saw the old man come walking out of that crowd, talking heatedly with another man. The stranger was shorter and broader than the old man, with long stringy hair and long stringy mustaches. He saw them climbing the path, saw them crawl inside a hole lashing furiously. They were lost from view for a minute, then popped up big as life. Hero glowed and curled up eagerly as they approached.
The old man and stranger came into the narrow side-yard still arguing. The old man grabbed Hero by the hair and twisted until he was facing the newcomer.
The stranger had oily, porous skin, and a round but grave countenance. His highly slanted eyes were bright and restless. He studied Hero’s mutilated face with keen interest before borrowing the old man’s reed. When Hero scraped at his feet he grunted and returned the reed.
The stranger pulled out something shiny and hefted it in his hand. He then raised his other hand while considering Hero, as though weighing him too. The old man’s eyes glinted, and for an instant his expression became grotesquely servile. The stranger and old man, facing, nodded curtly in unison. The stranger dropped the shiny thing onto the old man’s itching palm. The old man whipped Hero frantically before taking a small ax to the chain. A few hard blows split a link, the broken link was bent back by the tool’s shaft, and the prisoner was at last released.
The old man handed the stranger a short hempen rope. The stranger bowed deeply. He then tied an end of the rope through one of the remaining links and began dragging Hero along. Hero’s hands sought the old man, who kicked and cursed him all the way to the path. The three stumbled single-file to the bottom. The old man waved his arms and shouted hysterically, trotting behind until he ran out of breath. But he got in a final kick and, before he came to a gasping halt, managed to lash Hero once for old time’s sake, and to spit on him twice for luck.

There were five carriages; a long one in the center hitched to four oxen, and two smaller coaches in the front and rear with a pair of oxen on each. The carriages were old and battered, built of splitting wood slats and rusted iron braces. Various hides, spare wheels, and a hundred odds and ends were tied to the sides and roofs. Hero’s new master, using him as a ram, shoved him through the crowd to the long carriage. He hauled him up the single wood step and watched the crowd’s reaction. Children hid behind mothers, mothers hissed and jeered, men spat in that smashed, disgusting face.
Satisfied, Hero’s master twisted the rope tighter and dragged him through the hide flap that served as the carriage’s rear wall.
A strange ruckus began at their entrance.
Inside the carriage were bulky shapes and quirky movements, yet the immediate and overwhelming impression was one of unbelievable stench. Hero, instantly covered with flies, was kicked and shoved down a foot-wide aisle. The carriage’s walls were riddled with black flecks of old dried blood, the floor coated with standing *****, a variety of small carcasses, and some clinging, indefinable slime. But the living contents of this hell were so horrifying, and so unexpected, that Hero at once dropped to his knees. Observing this, master grabbed a whip off the wall and lashed him along the floor.
A number of bamboo cages lined either side of the carriage, each four feet high, four feet wide, and three feet deep. In the first cage to their left, a quadruple amputee dangled in a leather harness in a cloud of flies, jealously gnawing a chicken carcass balanced on his belly. The second cage held a man who had been burned over ninety per cent of his body, and the third a middle-aged woman with no eyes or tongue, her head shaved. The next cage housed a fully grown black leopard, its bright eyes fixed on the horrified newcomer. Then an empty cage, and finally a cage containing a demented man whose long yellow nails were busily raking a face deeply scarred and bleeding.
The first cage against the opposite wall held two girls rolling in their own excrement. Siamese twins unable to part, they had developed a unique method of locomotion, and now executed a three-quarters cartwheel in Hero’s direction, their mangled, severely bitten hands attempting to reach him through the bars. In the cage next to theirs a naked dwarf glowered menacingly, his eyes following coldly as Hero’s master shoved him down the narrow aisle, occasionally pausing to lash a cage. The hissing and howling increased as each prisoner beheld the new neighbor.
The third cage held an intensely sick adult Bornean sun bear, so confined it was entirely unable to move. Its hide was a patchwork of scraggly fur and grayish skin, glistening with odd eruptions. It rolled its sunken eyes in Hero’s direction, its muzzle twitching feebly.
The next cage contained a man who was frightfully diseased. Broad fungal patches covered his face and limbs, terminating in waxy folds that dangled like a rooster’s wattles. Welling sores spotted his chest and back. His eyes were bugged and sallow; his lower lip drooped below his chin. He barked wetly at Hero’s passing legs.
The second-to-last cage housed a rare, completely hairless Chinese albino, and the last cage a very tall, skeletal woman. The albino snapped at Hero while repeatedly banging his head against the cage. The woman hissed and coiled like a snake, her spine arching amazingly.
Master hauled Hero to the empty cage on his left, swung its door open with his foot, and forced him to his knees by pushing down with all his weight. He kicked and punched until Hero had been squeezed inside, then shut and secured the wide bamboo door.
Master inched his way back down the carriage, hammering the **** of his whip on each cage as he passed. There was a glimpse of daylight as he lifted the flap.
Once he’d departed, the carriage grew eerily silent.
Hero cautiously turned his head. Less than a foot away, the black leopard was frozen in place, one paw waving hypnotically in his face. The beast’s fangs were bared, its ears straight back, its eyes glistening. Hero turned ever so slowly, until he was looking into the eyes of the demented man in the final cage. The man cocked his head quizzically. A second later he was screaming his lungs out in a bizarre downward spiral.
At once the carriage erupted. The freaks shrieked and scrabbled, the leopard spun in place. Directly across the aisle, the albino hurled himself against the bars of his cage. He batted his face with his fists, threw back his head, and just howled and howled and howled. The snake woman curled even tighter, her long scrawny legs entwined behind her head.
Hero sat with breath held, absolutely silent, absolutely motionless. He very, very slowly closed his eyes.

Later that night the flap was flung high. The menagerie came alive as master, weirdly illuminated by moonlight, slowly made his way down the aisle carrying a skin sack oozing blood. He stopped at each cage to toss in a dying chicken and a handful of smelt.
When he reached Hero’s cage he looked down thoughtfully.
He extracted a quivering chicken and held it above the cage so that blood dripped on the brute’s deeply pleated forehead. Hero lowered his eyes. Master’s face darkened. He smashed the bird against the cage, over and over, a vein throbbing in his temple. Finally he hissed and displayed the limp chicken high over the albino’s head. The albino yelped and kicked, thrusting his hand up between the bars and jerking it back to lick away the blood rolling down his forearm.
Master eyed Hero coldly before pointedly dropping the chicken into the albino’s searching hands.
Master hissed again. He slowly made his way out.
Soon there was a commotion outside. The carriage rocked a bit before settling. Hero, turning in his cage to peek through a rift in the wood, saw horses being urged forward. He could hear men shouting. The carriage rocked again. He looked up and saw the gibbous moon suspended in mist. For just a second something wedge-shaped cut across its soft white face.
But then the oxen were grunting, the wheels had been freed, and the horses drawn abreast. Master’s lash spat left and right, and the show proceeded…west.

                                              MA­STER

She was very round and very small, with very short, very shaggy black hair. Her arms bore the scars of numerous bites from beast and man, and around her neck ran long wheals from a particularly savage owner. Hero, having spent the better part of the morning watching master storm in and out of a strange screaming house, now watched him drag the little round woman through the dirt. For a while he listened to the song of his master’s lash, waiting for the woman to break. But there was never a whimper.
It had been a difficult transaction for master, and an altogether difficult morning. For hours he’d paced up and down the main carriage, alternately murmuring affectionately into, and lashing at, each cage he visited. The sun bear, long dead and stuffed, had been taken outside for barter. It had soon been returned.
Master had lingered over Hero’s cage for a good while, staring critically. He’d begun shouting, and three of his men had burst in through the flap, unlatched the demented man’s cage, and dragged him out by the feet for trade, master personally stomping on his torn and groping hands.
And now master was kicking and shoving the little woman down the aisle as his men restrained her by the hair and throat. Upon master’s command these men stripped her naked and commenced pinching and slapping while making threatening faces and mocking noises. The freaks sat right up in their cages.
The woman looked as though she’d fainted:  her arms were lax, her eyes rolled up. Her whole face seemed to purse, and her body, head to toe, began to run blue. Her fingers quivered, arched, and clawed—the woman was self-asphyxiating. Master fairly leaped with delight while the cages rocked around him. He had the men slap her awake. Once she was fully conscious they stuffed her into the demented man’s old cage next to Hero’s.
Master then looked in eagerly, one to the other, his hands balled into fists. The woman buried her odd round face in her forearms as she squeezed herself into her cage’s deepest corner. Hero gazed indifferently and went back to his peephole.
Master exploded. He smacked and kicked the cages over and over, swore up and down, ran the shaft of his whip back and forth against the heavy bamboo bars. Eventually he calmed somewhat. He stared coldly at Hero, made a ***** smile, and spat right in his eyes. A tense minute passed. Master slowly made his way outside.
Hero automatically relaxed. Across the aisle the albino ****** his face between his cage’s bars to sniff the newcomer. The leopard, bobbing rhythmically, emitted a high-pitched squeal that gradually descended to a steadily throbbing growl.
Hero looked the stranger over. Once she’d lowered her hands he saw that her eyes were crossed, her jaw slack, her face as round as the full moon. He looked closer. There were scars all over her throat and arms:  plainly, the small round woman had been treated very badly. Hero instinctively slid a foot between the bars; the woman cried out and scrunched even deeper. Across the aisle the albino quickly extended an arm. Without knowing why, Hero turned on him. The albino flinched, his eyes tearing into Hero’s. A second later he was stamping his feet and grinning wildly. Hero went back to his peephole.
Next morning master and two of his men dismantled the bamboo walls separating Hero’s and the woman’s cages. They bound the frames with broad leather bands, making a single cage of the two.
A common door was fashioned and secured. Master used his broad blade to shear away Hero’s rags. The men hunched around the long cage expectantly.
The naked couple backed away. Master was instantly exasperated—he shouted, lashed furiously, stamped and screamed, jabbed a broken shaft between the bars with malevolent intent, whirled and hurled the shaft at nothing. The carriage’s inmates went out of their minds. At master’s bellowed command a man scurried outside, returning with a long rope of woven leather strands. Master opened the cage and, applying all his weight, pinned Hero and his new mate in an awkward embrace while his men tied them together.
Again master and his men bent over the long cage to watch.
When Hero realized his predicament he made a desperate attempt to reach his peephole.
The men, misreading his struggles, babbled and cheered, but master threw up his hands. He then, through gesture, ordered his men to drape a number of hides over the long cage. Once these hides were in place he very quietly bent to one knee and placed an ear against the cage. After a while he cursed and rose to his feet. He shook the cage and stormed out, whipping and kicking the howling inmates.
In the semi-darkness the man and woman quit fighting their bonds.
A muffled patter began on the hide-covered roof.
Rain, as always, had a calming effect on the carriage’s occupants, causing the freaks and beasts to slip, one by one, into lethargy or slumber. Under such a spell, the attainment of master’s goal was inevitable.
It was a coupling both innocent and vile, without passion or celebration. Occasionally the freaks would surface, register their excitement by shrieking, shaking their cages, or otherwise clamoring…but very quickly the air would stifle them, weighing their heads and confusing their impulses. The atmosphere grew heavier by the minute. And, when night rolled over the carriages, the rain came down in sheets.

Leaning ******* the woman’s cage, master slipped his gnarly hand between the bars and slowly rubbed her belly in a counter-clockwise motion, his sinister features soft in the candle’s light. And he told, in nonsensical cooing whispers, of a lovingly secure and impossibly prosperous future.
How large and promising that belly had become! And how wise was he, the cunning and aggressive master, in his far-reaching business decisions. He turned his affection to the motionless gaping brute; stroked the battlefield of its face, tossed in another lizard. Master rubbed his palms together. From now on it was extra lizards daily, for both the woman and her mate. He remarked, with only passing interest, his star player’s continuing indifference. They didn’t know each other, didn’t need each other.
There’d been months of shows on the road now, broken only recently by this sensible rejoining of the mates at conception.
Hero’s horrible disfigurement was unquestionably top draw; he was a guaranteed crowd pleaser at every stop. So now master looked him straight in the eyes and smiled. He held the reeking candle high. The carriage was absolutely silent. Master smiled again, rose to his feet, tiptoed away.
Hero watched him retreat until the flap had fallen. He returned to his peephole, saw master round the rear of the carriage and slowly crunch by. For a time he could see nothing but the half-shapes of junipers bathed in starlight. There was a tentative movement to his right and a large shape came to obstruct his view.
The horse stood for a minute in profile. It slowly brought its head to rest against the carriage, applying its eye to the peephole. Hero froze. The two remained fixed, eyeball to eyeball, while a breeze played odd tunes on the outer wall’s hanging paraphernalia. The horse’s big dark eye rolled nervously. A long moment passed. Slowly the horse backed off. It stood uncertainly for a while, staring at the peephole. Then it quietly moved away.

Master kicked the cages one by one, left hand and right, as he slowly made his way down the aisle. Into each cage he delivered a personalized warning in passing—a growl, a hiss, a bark—but he was quickly losing control. Animal electricity hopscotched the carriage, cage to cage, ceiling to floor, front to rear and back again. Master froze. Much more of this excitement, he feared, could seriously agitate the woman—with grave consequences for master.
She was splayed on her back, in labor’s throes, her ankles and wrists bound to the long cage. Hero had been removed to give her room, and now sat hunched atop the snake woman’s cage, two men holding him by the throat and legs.
Master gnashed and snarled, listening to the woman scream, watching her stupid round head bounce up and down and back and forth. He knew it! He’d been suckered, hoodwinked, scammed—ripped off like a common rube. The woman was too ******* to handle even something as natural as childbirth. Still…it was too late to second-guess himself—all these months he’d been patient—he’d been supportive and vigilant and now he would not be denied. He flogged one of the men to alleviate his tension.
The blue lady was very slowly, very dramatically arching her spine. Master wiped the sweat from his eyes. When the bars were pleating her big round belly, her shoulders began drumming on the straw-strewn floor.
Master screamed one very colorful expletive.
A razor silence came over the carriage. Not a body moved or breathed.
At last two men tiptoed around their purpling master and leaned into the cage. One obediently ****** a foot between the bars. He pushed ******* her right knee while using a hand to grip the left knee, spreading her legs wide. The other man drew a broad leather strap between her teeth. After lifting the woman’s head he pulled the strap behind her neck, knotted it to make a gag, and yanked a skin sack over her face. He looked up anxiously. Master licked his lips and nodded. The man made a fist and frantically punched the woman’s face until her muffled screams ceased. She moaned gently throughout her contractions.
Master genuflected, brought a spitting candle in tight, and took a deep breath. As he raised his hand the candle’s light bounced off his knife’s chipped and scored eleven-inch blade. Master swore and reached down carefully. He flicked his wrist twice and the menagerie went mad.

The child was a tremendous disappointment.
Master had eagerly anticipated an infant ******* and deformed; something embracing the best qualities of its parents. He had even designed a special cage that could be expanded by degrees as the spawn developed. There also remained the tantalizing option of a family display, though such an undertaking would require the eventual construction of a structure even larger than the cage its parents now shared. Master anguished over the logistics, knowing it would break his heart to have to cut one of his jewels’ throats just to make room for a growing child. Nights he would slowly pace the carriage with all the possessiveness of a jealous suitor, one hand maneuvering a sputtering candle, the other tenderly rapping his whip’s **** against each visited cage.
But the boy was a flawless specimen; a beautiful, undemanding baby. From the moment master angrily tossed the placenta he felt cheated, even betrayed. He grimaced as it peaceably took to its mother’s breast, despite the surrounding horrors. Master hated it, immediately and entirely. The ****** thing was so docile it was almost charming. He drew his knife and was just reaching down, when an overwhelming sense of dread shook him like a rat in the jaws of a mastiff. Sweat poured down his squat, pig-tailed nape. He knew he would live to regret it, but decided to not cut the child’s throat right away. It was the oddest feeling. His knife hand had trembled for the first time in his life, and he had found himself momentarily contemplating right and wrong at the outset of a perfectly simple and commonplace procedure. That was it, then. His business instincts were letting him know there was a good, albeit unknowable, reason to let the sweet baby live. Master left the carriage anxiously, muttering in his ambivalence.
The boy grew to embody his worst expectations. Not only was it a poorly oriented child, clinging to its father rather than its master almost from the moment of weaning, but it soon proved a lousy draw with the patrons. Those who paid to view the child dangling in its special cage inevitably departed unsatisfied, some vocalizing, strangely, an acute sense of shame. So once again master entered the carriage with his knife hand steady, and once again he exited trembling, his heart in his throat and his soul in a whirl. He whipped the dwarf savagely before leaving. What place conscience in the mind of a businessman?
Soon as the boy could walk, master put him to work fetching and feeding. But the brat was slothful in his chores, preferring to hang around his family’s cage while staring wistfully at his father. For their part, the parents were wholly disinterested. Master would fume while Hero gazed for hours out his peephole—even as the mother lolled, perpetually ill. Sometimes that accursed woman’s condition riled poor master to no end. She could teeter at death’s door for months at a time, her body changing hues to the fascination of customers, only to bounce back with a hardiness that was of interest to no one. But at the peak of her performances the blue lady could really hold a crowd. Master produced an entire outdoors extravaganza around her:  within concentric rings of raging torches his men would slowly strip her naked before wild audiences, then allow the dwarf and albino to take her while the leopard strained against a gaily festooned chain. Master circulated his crew through the crowds to encourage his patrons’ cult-like behavior of breath-holding and fainting. No getting around it:  the customers were crazy about her—village to village, master’s Bactrian vanguard’s colorful robes shouted her approaching fame. And Hero’s popularity continued to soar. Many were the nights when master, pacing the perimeter, wondered just what devilry could have produced the lovely boy.
Overall, Hero remained his master’s favorite conceit and hottest property. Part of the little brute’s appeal was, of course, his exoticness. And certainly the ugliness arising from his deformity was compelling…but there was a detachedness about him that fascinated every soul with a fistful of copper cash coins. Whether they ****** him, cudgeled him, or spat in his face, he remained unflappable, staring only at the aching sky. Though many would leave uneasy, master noted with deep satisfaction that they almost invariably returned.
The boy soon evinced an amazing affinity for animals. No matter how agitated an ox or horse became, the child could pacify it with one hand on a lowered brow. This was a source of endless fascination for the crew. Wagers were made. The boy was pitted against oxen whipped to a frenzy. But they would not harm him; they would rather go prostrate and take the lash. Master tried to work this knack into a viable act, but his patrons just weren’t buying. They wanted freaks.
When the lad was a mere five years old, master had him trained in the peripheral art of the pickpocket. The boy worked well alone, and had all the makings of a fine little flimflam artist. Master sighed, his chronic nightmares a thing of the past. As ever, his business instincts were guiding him well.
Then late one afternoon he found the boy squatting outside his parents’ cage. The boy had done the unthinkable:  he had deposited his day’s pickings at the feet of his father instead of bringing the ***** to master. Master flew into a rage and raised his whip to give the little traitor the lashing he deserved. But before he could deliver a single stroke his other hand shot to his chest and he staggered back against the albino’s cage. He blinked down at the boy, who regarded him steadily while scooping the plunder into a little pile.
From that day on the boy placed whatever he could get his hands on at his father’s feet. As time passed he became ever more adroit at thievery, growing into a youngster both admired and despised by master and his crew; admired because theft was a cinch for him, despised because they were all that much lighter in their possessions.
Now, for eleven long years the strange little train had bounced along, sometimes camping outside villages for months, occasionally pausing on connecting roads. The show traversed the heart of Manchuria, skirted the Gobi in the north, and so eventually crossed almost the entire width of Mongolia before proceeding north to the confluence of the rivers Yenisey and Ob’. Much silver and copper had come to master’s coffer, much fame to his name, but he now sat looking over a vast, unmapped Siberian wilderness. The mostly nomadic characters they’d been encountering spoke in tongues unfamiliar even to his personal valet-translator-accountant, and the tone of these nomads had been unmistakably hostile.
Master huddled surlily under a canopy of sopping hides. Night was falling hard during a merciless rain, the wind was picking up, and his supplies coach was bogged in a growing sea of mud. At that moment he accepted the whole end-of-the-line concept, and knew he wasn’t going anywhere but back. And when he got back he was going to shine! He jumped from the coach.
The earth took his weight for a heartbeat—and he was up to his chin in muck, splashing about on his hands and knees, sliding forward on his palms and toes. He did a belly flop into a rain-filled depression and churned to his feet with the devil in his eyes. Wallowing in mud and bile, master stomped to the supplies coach and kicked wildly at the stuck rear wheels.
Somewhere between kicks he lost it completely.
Master broke for his whip. One minute he was blindly lashing his men, the next he’d succumbed to a mindless ferocity. He thrashed about like a berserker; whipping the beasts, the coach, the very night. His men were scarcely able to move in all that mud, but their dread of his savagery kept them hopping. They gathered as one and shoved the coach recklessly; slipping, splashing, shouting. A minute later, three lay splayed underfoot, but the mired wheel had been freed.
Throughout all this the oxen had swayed nervously, while the horses softly tramped their hooves in place. Master had his men turn the oxen about until the rickety train was pointing dead east. He checked the hitches and personally applied the lash. The oxen didn’t budge. Master swore and wiped the rain from his eyes. He had the horses hitched ahead of the oxen, but they were even less obliging. Master flew into a spectacular rage. His men, fearing for their lives, ran liberally with the lash.
The swaying of oxen picked up until the entire train of carriages was rocking. Yet the oxen could not, would not be compelled, under any amount of prodding, to take an eastward step. Master looked around in exasperation.
The night had gone insane.
Horses were fighting hitches, oxen walking on fire.
Master cursed the rain and mud and lashed all the harder. His men, seeking to please, whipped maniacally until the horses and both lead oxen broke their hitches and bolted west. The men immediately embraced the rear oxen, but the hitches shattered and the beasts stormed off. The remaining horses blew it, kicking at everything and nothing.
Inside the long carriage all was chaos. The albino was neighing and screaming, the aged leopard spinning in its cage. Hero stared out his peephole, amazed at the blur of figures stumbling by in the rain.
A pair of clopping blows rattled the opposite wall. Three slats cracked. A tremendous impact, and a huge section collapsed. A thrashing, hysterical mare burst through the breach in a veil of rain.
The horse went mad, killing the albino and snake woman in a flurry of hooves. She fell ******* the near wall, crushing the cages. The leopard shot into the air like a rocket, slashed at the mare’s throat and vanished in the rain. The horse reared above the family cage. She was just coming down in a wheeling storm of hooves when something made her freeze. Her stare locked with Hero’s, and a second later her eyes were rolling in their sockets. The mare kicked crazily and came down ******* her left flank, smashing the long cage’s side. She whirled upright and leaped outside.
For a tense minute the family sat in the rubble, rain bombarding their eyes. Nothing in their years of captivity had prepared them for such a situation. But by the end of that minute the son had taken full command. He rolled onto his back, braced himself, and kicked his parents across the aisle, through the remnants of the opposing cage, and out of the carriage. They all fell about in the mud and rain. To the west, the mare stared back strangely as she splashed into the night. The boy wedged himself between his parents, threw his arms around them, and pushed with all his might. Their bodies found a common center of gravity. Fumbling drunkenly, the family staggered through the rain in the wake of the mare.

The boy was the natural leader.
Master’s innocent-looking little ex-student could quickly assess and exploit almost any situation. He did the foraging and the figuring, slept with one eye open and one fist ready. He got what he wanted by charm or by stealth, slipping off at nightfall, returning at daybreak with small slaughtered animals and chunks of dark peasant bread. He also pilfered any bauble or oddity he could get his paws on, to be placed reverently at his father’s mangled feet. Breadwinner and watchdog, he faithfully held the family together; a nuclear son. He sewed hardy feather-lined cloaks of reindeer hide, and turned a cache of marmot pelts into a kind of side-slung backpack. He was doting nurse during his mother’s episodes, and unbending apportioner of calories in lean times. Dauntless when it meant crossing mighty rivers, relentless when it came to finding mountain passes. But the endless marching, the unreliable diet, and the countless predators made the three wanderers lean, haggard moving targets. There were times when the little lamp of family was all but extinguished, and long stands in places that seemed absolutely impassable. Still, the boy would work things out. He would stoop to any level to feed Hero, and for a stranger to threaten his father was to summon a psychotic, unyielding monster. He was both spear and shield.
The toughest job of all was maintaining a tight unit, meaning he was forced to become a hard-nosed ******* whenever his father was ready to wander off, which always seemed to be whenever the mother was hurting most. She’d become a tremendous impediment to Hero’s compulsion, and therefore her son’s chief nemesis. It wasn’t a big-picture concern anyway; the writing was on the wall. The blue lady’s attacks were increasing spectacularly on the steppe; her world had always been an enclosure of some kind, and the great horizon was proving just too much. Perhaps these intense affairs served as links to Hero’s suppressed memories, for at the onset of each attack he’d turn and hike, and then only exhaustion could curb him. The boy would press his mother on, dragging, shoving, and smacking—he could be mean when necessary, and though circumstances had made him the nucleus, their worlds unquestionably revolved around Hero. Where he sat, they sat. When he rose, they did the same. In this manner they marched for years across the vast steppes, single-file—father, mother, and son, respectively—unmolested, lacking possessions, always following the sun. Long before they could be measured they had drifted into obscurity.
The woman’s end came quickly and dramatically, in a rocky little depression on a half-frozen field. One moment she was responsive to her son’s prompts, the next she was flat on her back, her eyelids fluttering. That night she leapt from fever to chill, from alertness to stupor. The boy, squatting beside their campfire, watched her face and hands run cadaver-blue to fish belly-pale and back again. While he was staring her eyes popped open and her hands came scrabbling. He sweated through the clawing embrace until he could bear it no longer. He oozed out and ran down to fetch his father.
When they got back Hero watched incuriously for a while. His mate’s face was scrunched up and her skin the color of sapphires. She wasn’t breathing.
His gaze became glassy, his eyes returned to the night. As he rose the boy immediately grabbed an arm. Neither moved for minutes. When the boy at last relinquished, his father casually stumbled off.
Strange things were going on in Hero’s world. Some days he would notice how animals regarded him oddly, in a manner that seemed almost personal. He found, for instance, that particular creatures were recognizable even over great distances. A number of times he would sit with one in a stare-down, waiting patiently, until the animal’s natural disposition caused it to bolt. Though the meaning of these encounters was way over his head, he would watch, and he would listen.
In time he noticed an increasing skittishness in some of these familiar creatures. Something had them spooked. He then observed a number of lean gray wolves moving in and out of the picture with an air of complete indifference:  these wolves weren’t hunting; they were loitering—lounging in the grass, lackadaisically padding to the rear, filing by slowly in the distance. Once in a while a lounger would raise its head, yawn cavernously, and drop back out of sight. So unobtrusive was their behavior that even Hero’s ever-vigilant son began to take them for granted. They paused where the family paused, and halted whenever the woman broke down. Perfectly camouflaged by the gray boulders and dire sky, they were completely forgotten in the drama of her passing.
There were other, far subtler events existing for Hero’s senses alone. He could perceive patterns in everything around him; in the manner vegetation gave way wherever his heart was leading, in the way so many animals appeared to be not merely mirroring, but making his course. And wind, rain, running water:  these phenomena had voices. Yet not for everybody. No one—not his mate, not his son, not another soul on the planet could hear this call, for they were all of a sort. They were static, they were temporal. Hero couldn’t have cared less about the lives of his family, or about the mundane goings-on in the encampments and small tribes they skirted. Such beings lived in a world that was defined by the moment. They shouted, they banged, they clamored.
But west—west was music.
For his boy, once again watching Hero shamble off, the moment of truth had arrived. He looked back down, at his mother’s death mask being remade by the dying light of their campfire. As the flames dwindled he could have sworn he saw shadows creep into the wells of her eyes, while others, crawling up around her jawline, drew her bluing lips like purse strings. He hopped to his feet and ran for another handful of tinder. When their little fire provided enough light he dropped to his knees and looked again.
She was sinking right before his eyes, every aspect of her expression in collapse. The boy watched clinically, fascinated. As the flames began to sputter he thought he could see large purple bruises spreading across her cheeks like the seeping limbs of overflowing pools. He bent closer.
From deep in the night came the longest, the leanest, the saddest wail he’d ever heard. He turned to see the starlit ghost of his father, facing away, staring at a low barren hill. Uncountable stars embroidered the spot. The boy made out a low shape moving along the hilltop, cutting off patches of stars as it passed.
The wolf howled again; a mournful, spiraling cry to nowhere and nothing. Hero’s head notched upward. He began to hike.
Halfway to his feet the boy stopped dead.
It took a minute to sense why he’d frozen in place, and a good while longer for his heart to quit pounding. He was aware of a nervous padding, and, once his vision had adjusted, of a lazy stream of eyes gleaming in the dying campfire’s light. The eyes bobbed around him, glared momentarily, returned to the ground.
A massive gasp, and his mother was tearing at his wrist. He watched her hyperventilating, saw her bulbous yellow eyes sinking in a wide violet pool. With a sizzle and pop the last tongue of flame was taken by the night.
Then her clammy hands were all over him, pulling and demanding, caressing and beseeching. He had to pry them off like leeches, had to place them clasped on her shuddering arched belly.
A silky snarl rose almost in his ear.
With a little squeal he sprang to his feet, even as something nearby jumped back in response.
The boy stood absolutely still while the panting thing padded nearer. They stood very close, smelling each other. He instinctively extended a hand, palm forward. But it was no good; his arm was shaking out of control. The snarl rose again, not so tentatively this time. His mother’s nails tore at his ankle.
The boy gently stepped away, only to find himself surrounded by the shifting silhouettes of half a dozen gray wolves. They approached in a calculated manner:  two from the left, one from the right, another from behind. He was being goaded away from his mother; he could hear her fists beating the ground, and a few seconds later the sounds of a nauseating assault and ravaging.
He shakily raised his other hand. Now both arms were extended, and their message was clearly one of defense rather than control. Two snapping wolves stepped aside, leaving him a gateway into the night. A cold wet nose bumped his wrist.
Screaming like a woman, he took off after his father just as fast as his feet would carry him.

                                                  BOY

Alon­g the great Kazakh Steppe a man could wander a lifetime and never meet another of his kind—especially if his kind happened to be Alaskan Inuk, and if he happened to be the teenaged patriarch of a two-man family going nowhere.
Here history is mostly mute.
Upon this continent-spanning steppe, unnamed communities were scattered and rebuilt, lives blown about by the wind. The only centers of humanity a traveler might encounter, far removed from the Silk Road at the very crack of the new millennium, were temporary encampments of civilization at its rudest—shifting holes of cutthroat commerce existing solely for the barter of silk and spices and hapless souls. Life here was revered far less than merchandise, and the longest-lived men were those who kept their distance.
Hero and his boy hiked over permafrost and tundra for years; their meandering course a drunken mapmaker’s scrawl. Chronological entries along this imaginary line would reveal that they’d stopped, sometimes for months at a time, when the father had grown too weak and disoriented to continue. Hero’s internal compass was long-sprung, and his weight had fallen considerably. He’d sit on his lonesome, scarecrow-scrawny, wistfully scrolling a 360-horizon while his boy scouted and scavenged. Then, for no apparent reason, he’d just up-and hike—sometimes northwest, sometimes along a tangential plane that always threatened to spiral. It was brutal:  winters were frigid, summers, by odd contrast, running steamy to baking. Season by season these marches lost their tenaciousness, and eventually their heart. Hero’s obsession was becoming his demise.
Now, to a hypothetical observer, the ratty pair of woolly camels materializing out of the rising August heat might have been mirages.
These beasts were novelties here, and pioneers, for they were way beyond their normal stomping grounds. They’d tramped for months with a mind-numbing monotonousness, a thousand miles and more; round the Urals to the south, and through the hard territory braced by the Volga and Voronezh, avoiding anything that even smelled of men. They’d been wild camels; ugly, ill-tempered, and unpredictable, until the boy tamed them by touch…but this new pattern was a literal change of pace…for weeks the frail little man and his dark teenaged son rose and fell with the animals’ rhythm, lulled by it, sick of it, dreaming of lands far removed from hoarfrost and peat moss. In this manner they were borne clear to present-day Belarus, whereupon the camels’ stupefying march began to quicken. Mile by mile they put on steam, until one day they reached a broad area distinguishable from its bracing terrain only by its many deep surface cracks. Here the camels’ behavior became erratic; they crouched at an angle while tramping, their long necks oscillating, their noses bobbing along the ground. Eventually they came upon a dingy pool nestled in a pebbly depression. The local brush surrounding this pool was situated like iron filings about a lodestone. The boy hauled back his camel’s neck and laid a hand on its brow. The brute slowed to a halt. The other camel imitated its partner, move for move. Simultaneously the animals dropped to their knees.
The boy jumped off, catching Hero as he fell. The camels stood watching stupidly as son maneuvered father, but after a while grew nervous and began tramping their hooves in time. They slowly stepped to the pool’s rim and knelt woozily, their noses poised just above the surface. Their whiskers danced on the pool’s face, their lids became heavy, their hindquarters quivered as they drank. Their nostrils, having fluttered in unison, remained agape. They appeared to be asleep.
The boy began filling skins.
The water was quite warm; he slurped a palmful and almost immediately felt intoxicated.
He flicked it off his fingers; the water was bad.
Three heads were now mirrored in the pool; the camels’ at ten o’clock and two o’clock, the boy’s at six. He watched their reflections continue to ripple, long after the pool had become still. His face, melting and firming, rapidly fluctuated between extremes of age, and between his own recognizable features and those of some…monstrosity. The effect was hypnotic. He felt his joints stiffen; his eyes became weak, his thoughts muddled…his face was irresistibly drawn to the pool’s surface, and for a moment he was in real peril of drowning. He ****** his head aside and creaked to his feet.
Where the camels had knelt were only the prints of their bellies and knees. In the distance they could be seen galloping all-out for the horizon, right back the way they’d come. The boy watched until they were swallowed by their dust, and when he turned around his father was long gone.
Now he knew it was all just a matter of time.
And sure enough, after eleven more days of feebly staggering along, Hero completely ran out of gas. The boy bundled him up in a shawl, like an old woman.
Sitting there, cradling an unresponsive man weighing less than eighty pounds, he couldn’t help but let his morbid fantasies run wild. He was now old enough to realize his father had at some time suffered severe head trauma, and honest enough to accept that the man was rapidly approaching a vegetative state. This understanding accompanied him like a shadow, and that night he questioned, for the very first time, his own convoluted rationale.
He was just beginning to sense that his will was not his own.
He built a semi-permanent camp west of the Desna and foraged in a tight spiral, always returning in a straight line. Some days he came back feeling uneasy, sensing another presence. Then it was every other day. It bugged him to no end. At last, when it became every day, he hauled his father to his feet and began a resolute march to the west.
Again he became anxious, and after only a dozen yards.
He turned slowly while hunching, certain something bulky had just dropped out of sight. Nothing looked suspicious, everything looked suspicious. He walked Hero some more, occasionally peering back over his shoulder. There was…something.
He whirled:  only masses of rock and high brush. Yet, when he really strained his eyes, he was sure, pretty sure, that he could make out a large crouching body continuous with the rocks. Heart in his throat, he began a slow steady creep, only to pause, positive the bulge, whatever it was, had shifted in response. The boy very gradually raised his arm until it was level with his eyes, faced the palm outward, and extended the arm parallel with the ground. He could almost feel some kind of current passing between his itching palm and…nothing. He walked over to Hero, stopped again. There’d been the subtlest sense of traction. The boy propped up his father in a cloud of flies and waited.
In a minute the bulge drew *****.
Out of the brush strolled a furry gray wild ***, her back inclined from countless weary miles; stretching her neck, pausing to nibble, taking her sweet time. Grungy as she was, she fit right in.
At the boy’s first casual step she immediately hit the dirt and remained flat on her belly, one big dark eye staring between her hooves. Another step, and her **** bunched up. The closer he got, the higher her rear end rose. When he was almost at arm’s length she sprang back and danced away, seeming to bound with delight. But not to the east, as she’d come.
To the northwest.
She backpedaled while the boy came on whistling and cooing, matching him step for step. But the moment he threw up his arms in resignation she spun round as though cued, dropped on her belly, and peered over her shoulder.
The boy was first to blink. This time he approached fractionally, keeping movements to a minimum. She rose just as carefully, sauntering northwest in reverse, and at the first sign of hesitation turned, dropped, and cautiously gazed back. The boy glared at that huge mocking **** and broke into a sprint. She easily danced out of reach, plopped down, and continued to stare.
He began hurling stones, with venom and with accuracy, until she’d scurried into the brush.
But on the way back to his father he could feel her tagging along.
Twenty feet behind she halted, looking bemused.
The boy nodded ironically. He walked Hero over, murmuring baby talk all the way, and firmly placed a palm on the animal’s muzzle once her breath grazed his fingers. She stroked his hand up and down with her whiskers, gave a kind of curtsy, and waited on her knees while he helped his father mount.
At Hero’s touch a shudder ran down her body. She stood up straight. Her eyes became set, her back absolutely stiff. She put down her head and began the long trek northwest, never once breaking stride.
It was an amazing march, an impossible feat. For a little over three days and almost four hundred miles she progressed like an automaton, driving herself without rest, without food or water.
After trotting alongside for an hour the boy climbed on and force-fed his father berries and smoked meat, his dark eyes constantly searching the countryside. Occasionally he’d see a run of red foxes to their left, watching intently, padding cautiously. Sooner or later they’d vanish, only to be replaced by a train of feline or equine pursuers. Packs approached and receded while, high overhead, flocks formed triangular patterns that continually broke up and reformed. There was a peculiar rhythmic quality to this ebb and flow that lulled his senses further. The boy shook his head to clear it, but his exhaustion was deeper than he’d supposed—even the brush appeared to be leaning northwest.
That first day he grew numb with the pace, and that night the relentless pounding of her hooves drew him into a miserable slumber. He wrapped his arms around his sleeping father and lay half atop. When he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer he tore strips from his skins, then looped his tied wrists round her neck, his ankles round her belly.
On the second day she was breathing hard, but her back was still high and she showed no signs of faltering. Her eyes remained focused on the ground dead ahead. She always sensed the best routes; finding mountain passes, fording wetlands.
But by the third day they could feel her ribs quaking against their legs. Her breath exploded as she marched, blood frothed and caked about her nostrils. Still she pushed herself on, her pace so steady it was almost metronomic.
On the fourth day her legs were gone. She veered and stumbled, shuddering every few paces. The boy hopped off for the umpteenth time and tried to bring her to graze, but she wouldn’t be turned. He ran behind her as she staggered along, unwilling, or unable, to rest.
At last a foreleg gave and she went down hard. Sobbing and snorting, she plowed her muzzle back and forth in the soil, the useless leg repeatedly pounding the ground. After a minute she raised her head and brayed at the sky, her neck muscles taut, her head slowly swinging side to side. Her cry went on and on.
With a tremendous effort she pushed herself upright and butted the boy aside. Every part of her body was shaking. From her depths a low moan grew to a steady bray, and finally to a wild, pulsing howl. She came to a rise, but was too weak to climb without sliding. Stamping in frustration, she managed a few feet, reared feebly, slid some more. The boy got behind her and applied his back; it took all he had to assist her almost to the top. With a desperate lunge she crashed on her belly.
Amazingly, she dragged herself on, her howl now a scream, her head whipping left and right. When she could pull herself no farther she ****** forth her neck to its very limit and, with a shudder that ran from the tip of her nose to the tuft on her tail, shoved her muzzle straight into the dirt and died.
The boy hauled off his father and fell back. The animal’s eyes were fixed upwards, seeming, even in death, to be straining for a glimpse of what lay just beyond the rise. The boy half-dragged Hero the last few yards. They collapsed at the top, and together looked over the cold Baltic Sea.

At water’s edge a haggard fisherman sat on his boat’s ravaged deck, blindly staring out to sea. His was a queer vessel; a family structure built more like an aft-cabined barge than like seacraft typical of that period. The fisherman’s boat, like his mind, had been abused beyond repair.
He’d lost much in his life. Time had taken his dreams, pox his face, hardship his back and shoulders. And, more recently, a brawling band of drunken Baltic pirates had ***** his wife and daughter before butchering them along with his two fine sons, while he sat helplessly bound to the mast. Finally, to further their delight, they’d set the boat aflame and sent it crackling against the sun; knowing he could hear their hoots and howls, knowing he would drift undead, accompanied only by this last unspeakable memory.
But a squall, without prelude, had doused the flames and blown his home ashore.
There he’d remained for a full long day, staring at nothing, his shattered life caught on the rocks. On the second day he’d worked himself free and commenced staggering about in his memories, gathering shards. It was a pathetic claim. He made a pile of all the old bedding and linen and usable cords, and set about sewing a sort of mementos sail. All that third day he had sewn, and on the fourth he had hoisted this sail and been moved to see it billowing in a northwest-blowing breeze. Again he just sat and gaped. And later that day he’d become aware of a commotion taking place on the long grade leading down to the water, where a writhing mass of seagulls was proceeding like a tremendous slow-motion snowball. He’d never seen anything like it. It wasn’t uncommon to find gulls in a group of many dozens or more, but there must have been two, maybe three thousand of the birds now swarming toward his boat. They were making an incredible racket. In the midst of this cloud could be seen a couple of slowly walking figures; as they neared he made out a small man accompanying a boy in his late teens, both dressed in odd skins. When they reached the rocks his eyes were drawn to the small man’s face. It was a foreign face, brutish and dark, with a deep cleft running from above the right temple to the jaw’s left side. Whatever instrument had felled this man had been devastating—everything in its path was smashed, and with permanence. The forehead was caved in. There was no bridge to the nose, the left cheek was completely collapsed, one side of the mouth was a mangled mess. The jaw itself had set improperly, so that it jutted to the side. The general impression, especially from a distance, was of some unforgettable circus freak’s countenance puckering at an angle. It was a face right out of a nightmare. But there was nothing frightening about the eyes. They were the eyes of a child.
Maybe half the gulls hopped screaming on the rocks. The rest circled overhead.
The boy considered the fisherman curiously before placing a foot on the charred deck. His gaze went around the boat, lingered on the makeshift sail, returned to the slumped figure. He passed a hand before the eyes. No response. He then leaned in close and placed his fingers on the man’s forehead. Immediately that bleak expression became fluid, brimming over with horror and heartbreak. Tears rolled down the fisherman’s cheeks as he gasped, shuddered, and backed up the scorched mast to his feet. Thus propped, he squinted at his visitors and was overcome by a wave of homesickness so strong he had to turn away. The feeling bewildered him, for this vessel, and this sea, were all the home he’d ever known. He clung to the mast while the boy helped his father board. Once he’d collected himself, the fisherman tore a heavy crossbeam from the toasted cabin. He and the boy used this as a lever, and together they shoved the boat off the rocks. The wind picked up nicely, and the little craft was swept across the water.
Exploding off the rocks, the gulls shot after the boat as if it were brimming with fish, the loudest and orneriest vying for favored positions directly overhead. The melee attracted additional gulls—they came shrieking in their hundreds from all sides, banking and calling in the oddest manner, until the mass grew so thick as to cast a permanent shadow on the boat. All day long the clamor continued, and all that night. The fisherman rolled with the rudder, listlessly, allowing the sea to control him. Eventually he let go, that the wind might bear them where it would. His sail ballooned but held firm, and the boat fairly zipped across a sea somehow smooth as glass, broken only by the vacillating ripples of bottleneck dolphins and migrating humpback whales. The three tiny sailors sat hunched together, motionless, all throughout the next day, until the black coast of Sweden loomed in the twilight.
As the boat neared land the cloud of gulls broke up, shot to shore, and landed in groups of a thousand and more; a dizzying, wildly uproarious reception committee.
The dung-covered boat slammed into the rocks, shattering the fisherman’s trance. He intuitively walked his **** up the mast and, swaying there, watched the boy draw his father over the side and lead him to a clearing at wood’s edge. There in the dusk he made out what appeared to be a hefty spotted runaway heifer hitched to a rickety wood wagon. He saw the cow gallop up to meet them, saw the boy look around warily, saw him help the little man into the wagon and climb in beside him. The animal immediately began picking through the woods, the large brass bell round her neck clanging forlornly.
The clarity of that bell made him realize just how quiet it had become. He craned his neck:  there wasn’t a gull in sight. He fell back against the shot mast and slid onto his tailbone with a clacking of teeth. His eyes were misting up. In the gathering dark a few sail fragments flew past and were ****** into the woods. The boat rocked and relaxed. After that there was only the sound of the receding bell’s sad, monotonous song being batted about by the wind.

The little cow strode through moonlit woods until she came to a path formed by the rutting of wheels over many years. She followed this broken, serpentine track throughout the night, and by morning was passing farms and, occasionally, crossing broader paths that might realistically be defined as roads. All day long she bore down that ragged track, until she came in late afternoon to a clearing near a village. Here many such tracks converged. And here the boy slipped away while she grazed.
Sometime after dark he returned with a load of straw, a couple of pilfered blankets, and a fat iron kettle. Crammed in this kettle were salt, tubers, cheese, a few loaves of rye, legumes, and a plump foot of lamb sausage. Most of this ***** he’d brought in tied to the bowed back of a huge, puffing, highly amenable black pig which, thus laden, now followed the boy’s every step like a fresh convert tracing the heels of the messiah. The boy built a fire under the stars, filled the kettle with creek water, and commenced simmering their dinner. While waiting, he couldn’t help but note an odd feature of the local flora:  plants, especially trees, all seemed inclined to a northwesterly disposition, though no amount of wind could account for it. He shooed the pig. But rather than run along, it backpedaled in a nervous circle, round and round in reverse, until it lost its balance and fell on its ****. There it remained, a yard behind the wagon. The boy fed his father and lined the wagon with straw. They settled in for the night. The boy must have nodded, might have dreamt, but while he was drifting he became aware of a stirring in the woods. He sat up, saw the pig’s eyes gleaming inches from his nose. And there were a number of animals, some wild, some strayed from farmsteads, arranged in a broad circle around the wagon, their eyes glinting with moonlight. Not a rustle, not a peep, was lifted from the woods.
In the morning he woke to find the pig still staring. The fidgeting heifer, impatient to roll, began her long day’s march while Hero and his boy were yet stretching and scratching, and the ******* pig, galloping heavily, fell in close behind. Each new day this routine was repeated. They banged past farms and small communities until the ruts intersected a broad rocky road wending halfway across the kingdom. The cow addressed this road with vigor. They picked up followers—a goat here, a couple of sheep there—which hurried after the wagon as best they could. The cow stomped on with resolve, mile after mile, day after day, her bell keeping steady time. That bell’s peal attracted foals, lambs, and kids into the wagon’s narrowing wake. Hares hopped between hooves and wheels, boars and blue foxes fell in and withdrew. White falcons, normally solo fliers, whirled into wedge shapes high overhead.
At night the entire train would camp on the road while the boy raided proximate farmsteads, always returning fully laden. And as soon as the fire died the colony grew, creature by creature, and the moment the sun broke the horizon the heifer came to life and moved on, but each day a bit more resolutely, as though straining to meet a deadline. The march took on a sense of real urgency. The cow pressed on with attitude, the clang of her bell more strident with each passing mile. Soon her followers numbered in the hundreds, as animals deserted their farms or crept out of the woods to tag along. Tillers and traders stood dumbfounded, amazed by the bizarre flow.
Once they’d crossed into Norway the frothing cow veered hard to the west. The pace really picked up; no longer were Hero and his boy afforded the luxury of a night’s sleep in one spot. Days blurred into a single variegated flow as the bashed and lopsided wagon continued building its entourage; the riders were surrounded dawn to dusk by a confused and confusing scurry. Word of the flow’s weirdness preceded it clear to the Norwegian coast, so that now plowmen and merchants, wearily gathering their goggling families, found themselves lined in anticipation along the king’s highway. Horsemen went pounding to and fro with news of the procession’s progress and particulars, children ran through the streets banging pots in imitation of the cow’s approaching bell. Livestock wheeled and stamped, fowl leaped and crashed.
The slobbering cow broke into a run.
Bystanders trotted behind, calling back and forth excitedly, while the wagon’s permanent following squealed and squawked between their heels. The cow made a hard turn onto a widening swath in the brush. This swath, seeming to strain against the soil, ran straight down to the crest of a low hill overlooking the Atlantic. On either side a crowd had been studying the phenomenon for some time, but now all eyes swung to the dark and disfigured man and his son, clinging to the disintegrating wagon behind the careening spotted cow.
The trailing people traded views as they ran. Most—at the very outset of the new millennium, with Christianity burgeoning throughout Europe—leaned to the miraculous. Others, just as superstitious but prone to a darker point of view, threw looks of horror at the deformed little man. Yet they ran no less eagerly.
The galloping crowd made for the seaside, where only one local event of any moment was brewing:  on the coast a Greenlander Viking was preparing his longship for the rough voyage home. Impetuous son of the great island’s first permanent European settler, he’d just been baptized in Olaf’s court, and was now eager to sail—but not as a warrior—as a missionary. While his spirit remained in a tug-o’-war between his father Erik’s will and that of gods old and new, his duty was clearly to his king. And Olaf had charged him with the Christianization of pagan Greenland.
Something on the wind now made this destined man turn his head. From behind the gentle hill to his rear came a kind of thunder. Heads popped up, followed by a confused explosion of voices, and seconds later a frantic bug-eyed heifer burst into view, dragging the wheel-less skeleton of a shattered wooden wagon. On the wagon’s splayed frame a man and teenaged boy clung for their lives as the spewing animal made a beeline for his ship.
The new missionary, still egocentric enough to assume his Maker might actually toss him a personal, surreptitiously rolled up his eyes. The sky yawned at his arrogance. At his side a smallish cowled man rose irritably, but the missionary sat him right back down. He then snorted, squared his shoulders, and signaled his men to halt their preparations.
Knowing it was expected, he gathered his hard Nordic pride and coolly made his way into the crowd.

The priest clung to port, gagging above the waves.
After a completely uneventful minute he leaned back and stared through tearing eyes at the distant backdrop of gathering mists. Weeks now…a man of his constitution had no business at sea.
Along, too, were a quirky little man and his fiercely devoted son.
Through his pantomime, the boy had been so persistent in begging their passage that refusal, under the circumstances, would have been unbecoming not only a man of God but a man of the world.
So there it was:  a priest who couldn’t hold his lunch, a witless eyesore who couldn’t sit still, and a surly teenaged protector who snarled at the first hard look. This crossing just had to be some kind of divine test—of mortal patience as well as moral values. Norsemen weren’t made for babysitting.
The mists condensed.
And the shifting shape became a hard familiar coast.
And the longship was mooring, and the crew were jostling and clambering, and the big missionary had booted off the haunted little freak and his hypersensitive son, and was condescendingly half-escorting, half-carrying, the green priest ashore.
And they were home.

Priest in tow, Leif quickly took up the Christianization of Greenland’s Western Settlement, as per Olaf’s command. The mangled little man and his son followed him around like dogs, slept outside his door and annoyed his visitors, ultimately proving far easier to adopt than to shake. Barely tolerable shadows…still, the lad was simply amazing with livestock…and though the youth’s useless father seemed time and again to be just begging for a whooping, his son’s presence bore some ineffable quality that always curbed the missionary’s hand. Several times he’d witnessed the father approached by settlers bent on abuse. Each time the boy had stepped in, and each time the troublemakers were mysteriously repelled. The missionary of course didn’t attribute any kind of celestial intervention to these episodes, and certainly the popular notion of devilry was a natural reaction to the pair’s outrageous exoticness, but…in the son’s company, and even under the sharp eyes of his fellow Norsemen, Leif more than once found himself oddly moved to protect the father. And so the deformed man and his boy day by day blent in—as village idiot and mystic guide. And when in time a ****** brought tales of an unvisited land to the west, it was only natural for the restless Greenlander to buy that ******’s boat and, before stalwart comrades, weary family, and whimsical God Almighty, reluctantly accept the eccentric father and son as sort of seagoing mascots.
Hero was from then on irrepressible. During preparations he would pipe and stammer in his half-mute way, brimming with a confounding anxiety that kept him underfoot and at odds with all. On frigid nights he perched on the westernmost rocks, moaning to the horizon in the strangest fashion while his son stood guard. He positively spooked the locals; they’d gossip, nervously and with bile, of an answering wind that came wailing off the sea like a banshee in labor. The whole island wanted rid of him. And when his champing beneficiary, still clinging to the notion of Christian charity, bundled him aboard with his son and a crew of thirty-five, not a single settler was sorry to see him go.
Almost from the moment they cast off everything went wrong, as all attempts to control the longship were met with some kind of unknowable countermanding force. Vikings were not renowned for passive resistance—they fought, squaresail and steering oar, leaning oarsman to oarsman, until the ship rocked on the waves like a bucking bronco. An erratic weather system pursued them, worsening dramatically at each minute variation in heading. The Norsemen doubled down, and when the clouds finally burst wide, the cowling sea went mad. Dervishes whirled about the hull, crisscrossing winds bedeviled the sail. Patches of kelp belonging to much warmer waters came heaving alongside, fouling the work of the oars, while far to the west a humongous fog bank formed, eradicating the navigable field. The lightning-streaked horizon was a throbbing gray slit.
The longship became locked in a slow westerly current.
Fatigued crewmen complained of headaches and hallucinations, and of a nasty, slightly metallic tang to the air. There were numerous walrus sightings; bobbing flippers and snouts amid drifting ice chunks that came prowling the North Sea like a circling pack of famished white wolves.
Worst of all was the boy’s father—instantly agitated by everything and nothing, prey to some primitive impulse that caused him to periodically incline his head, shudder to his feet, and loop his arms as though embracing the sky. Leif would watch him scrabbling at the prow like a cat at a tree, furs snapping in the wind. He’d watch the boy re-seat him for the hundredth time, and for the hundredth time be filled with an immense contempt. By now he’d acknowledged that it takes a special kind of strength to shoulder charity and tolerance. That brown little freak struck him as an enormous malformed barnacle, slowly working its way back up the prow. Trying so hard to go unnoticed, looking and listening so intently, though there was nothing to see other than the growing shelves of fog, and nothing to hear save the rising, almost hysterical voice of the wind.
Leif sniffed the air, his ******’s instincts nagging him. This was a foul current, and a fool's errand; he took a deep breath and tentatively ordered the longship brought about.
The ship kicked twice, as though an enormous submarine hand had seized and released the hull.
A whirl formed in the water, causing the keeling ship to sweep around like a clock’s second hand. All about them, those drift-ice ghosts cruised dangerously near.
But they’d been liberated from that accursed current. Leif fiercely urged on his rowers, and at last the ship broke free. They made a bead due north.
Night came and the temperature plummeted.
Small sheets of ice converged, drifting between the hunks. The Norsemen, instinctively huddling amidships, passed out one by one in a massive pile of fur and flesh. In the freezing silence the floes bumped and recoiled, bumped and gathered, bumped and bonded. The tiny ship, swallowed whole, was dragged along in a labyrinth of black sea and interlocking slabs of ice.

The Norsemen came to in a surly, foul-smelling heap, lost at sea. While they were still groggy a voice cried out that a darker patch was developing in the fog. The men all fell to port. Under the confusion of their voices could be heard a distant rumble.
At this Hero hauled himself up the high curved prow. A half-light began to penetrate the fog, barely illuminating the irregular faces of drifting ice. The missionary stormed forward and indicated by gestures that if the boy didn’t restrain his father he would have the man tied down.
The longship stopped dead in the water.
The men found themselves regarding a perpetually frozen coastline swathed in bluish veils of mist. Directly before them loomed an immense ice cliff hundreds of feet high. Rising beyond this cliff were endless snow fields, where lean violet shadows seemed to drag about of their own volition. And upon those bleak fields a thin howling wind prowled, kicking up brief white dervishes, leaving a strange zigzagging signature.
Even as they stared, a darker shadow high on the ice cliff’s glistening face began to widen, accompanied by a cracking sound that could be felt before it was heard. With the illusion of slow-motion, a stupendous chunk broke out of the cliff and came screaming toward the sea. It hit the water like a bomb. The thunder of its separation and the explosion of its impact took a moment to reach them. Then, out of a spewing crater of crests and spume, the new calf came lunging, tromping the sea so hard the longship, fully a mile to sea, was swept out and ****** back in like a cork. The floundering mountain of ice bobbed and lilted, generating huge waves which continued to rock the ship long after the monster had settled. In a while the roaring in their ears subsided and there remained only the swirling, nerve-wracking howl of the wind.
The missionary’s eyes swept left and right. Whatever this place was, it sure wasn’t the fair shoreline he’d been promised. Hero again scrambled up the prow, and Leif again yanked him down. This time he made good his threat; he had the little nuisance bound, though he was half-tempted to let him take his chances overboard.
From somewhere deep in the haze grew a soulful, otherworldly call. It went on and on, electrifying the air, bottoming out once the ship had merged with that previously fought westerly flow.
By now Leif’s nerves were shot. He ordered the oars raised.
The longship began to drift. Ship and ice were pulled due west.
The clouds fell far behind as the ship embarked upon an amazingly calm sea—so calm its entire visible surface was featureless except for the faint wakes provided by the ship and its hulking ice companions. To the east a huge fog bank appeared on the horizon, and a while later a smaller bank to the north. Then a very dense one to the south. In time these banks converged, imperceptibly becoming a single mass that closed about the ship, bit by bit creating a slowly heaving dome. Tiny beads of water appeared on beards and eyebrows; in a minute everything was soaked. The only sound was that of the dragging steering oar. The men were now sopping ghosts, speaking only with their eyes.
Directly ahead the fog began to dimple. The dimple became a hollow, the hollow a cave, and then ship and ice were being towed through a low, ever-extending tunnel in fog. The current increased its pull. Ship and drifting ice accelerated through the tunnel.
After a while the missionary quietly stepped forward. He stood with one hand on the prow’s neck, listening to the mist, so motionless he might have been a carved extension of the longship’s aggressive design. Not a man breathed. The tunnel’s dilating and contracting bore was producing an all but seamless series of oscillating, near-phonetic sounds. Leif almost tiptoed back. No god, pagan or Christian, could account for the strangeness of this situation.
They were borne on a course that grew more southerly, and the following day beheld an inhospitable shoreline glazed by dazzling white beaches. Their course held. Two days later they came upon a far pleasanter, thickly wooded coast. Here the current released its hold, and here the missionary untied Hero and personally placed him and his son in a tiny oak faering. He was just as sick of them as he was excited by this promising new land. Once the rowboat had been heaved over the side, he and another man stepped aboard and took up the oars. They began rowing with easy, powerful strokes.
When the boat kissed sand the missionary stood unsteadily.
The first European to set foot on North American soil now placed one hand on his crucifix, the other on his sword’s hilt, and awkwardly plunged his leg into the thigh-deep, ice-cold surf. Before he could take another step the boat lurched as Hero leapt headfirst into the water, followed an instant later by his son. The Greenlanders watched sourly as the two splashed their way into a mad dash for the waiting pines. Leif wished them both good riddance and turned to grin wryly at his fellow Norseman. He must have blacked out for a second, must have been blinded by a shaft of sun, for he found he was staring stupidly at a point midway between his companion and the longship. It felt like he’d been kicked between the eyes.
Everything was dissolving.
He studied the beach and pines closely, but saw nothing of the man or his boy. He turned back, disoriented. With what seemed a superhuman effort he took up his oars. He rowed out sluggishly, in a dream, and the fog rolled in to meet him.

The boy broke into the trees and embraced a trunk, fighting for breath. What happened next happened so fast and so unexpectedly he didn’t have a chance to react.
Three savages stepped from behind the pines and beat him to his knees. They twisted his arms behind his back and hauled him to his feet. He’d barely processed the impression of a wild painted face when something sharp struck him ******* the temple and tore down his cheek to the jaw. Two of the assailants manhandled him into an upright position and held him in place while the third brought his weapon down again and again and again.
All but dead, he watched a nightmare countenance shouting through a shot veil of blood, and behind that image a reeling crimson sun. He lay there gushing while the savages went through his rags. They propped him against a pine and shrieked with triumph, tore the hair and gory scalp from his skull, threw back their heads and screamed at the screaming sky. Tooth and nail, they ripped apart his face and throat and, certain he would die, split what bits of fur were left and let his carcass lie.

                                                HERO

The weeks stretched into months while he fought his way back into the light.
He progressed in stages; only half-conscious, stumbling along in a blood-red stupor punctuated by a slow strobe of frequent blackouts. Days loomed and decayed, nights pounced and were gone; the backlit, swirling gray cosmos collapsed and expanded on every missed beat of his pulse. A thousand times he broke down to die, and a thousand times he clawed to his feet, driven to pursue a tiny, ghost-like figure fluttering in his memory.
Everything conspired to check him.
A bay like an immense landlocked sea was skirted over months or years—it was all the same. Cold locked him in, Hunger drove him afield, that rude ***** Wind lashed him blind, wore him like a shoe, screamed for his skin while he worked his way west.
Somehow he ate, somehow he avoided being eaten; the instincts that had served him halfway around the planet were still vital beneath the abused exterior. His simple burrows became sturdy temporary shelters. He relearned the art of fire, and began to cook what he killed. He manufactured crude snares and weapons and, when his recuperation was complete, paid closer attention to the on-again, off-again trail he’d been following…forever.
Sometimes this trail would call to him like a lover. Other times he stood peering uncertainly, trying to recapture meanings and aims. Then the ground would turn spongy and the sky revolve, and once again he’d be lying all but dead in the woods, while from the face of the sun emerged a vile winged horror, its ugly pale head lashing side to side, its cruelly hooked beak dangling something that glistened in the wild pulsing light…then the fat moon, rising like gas against the icy black night…the feel of the wind:  the slashing of her nails, the chafing of her hem…the sound of things crunching and pausing and sniffing…then the sun, blazing anew. And again that thing, descending, its wide black wings beating slowly, metronomically—but none of that mattered any more. For his mind had quit him, had flown howling into ice and pine to roost with things surreal. In the day his madness might muddle and run, or spend the light stalking, cat-like, watching and waiting. But at night it came creeping from all sides. Sometimes it came in waves. It could gnaw like the devil, or wrap around him like a warm second skin. But none of that mattered either.
The only thing that mattered was the trail—whether it was lost for good, or for only a while. He’d been following it through his episodes, always north, wondering just who and where in the world he was, and trying to shake a ridiculous notion of being led on a wild goose chase.
The cold was unbelievable.
The deeper north he delved, the more confused he became. He grew starved for colors and scents, finding nonexistent patterns in the stark contrast of shadow and snow. He thought he could detect a kind of otherworldly design in the overwhelming number of dead ends he encountered, and, too, in the diabolically frustrating locations of natural obstacles. He seemed to be forever fighting the wind—a hulking, despondent snowman, he hiked face down and focused, while another aspect of his attention floated just behind, disembodied, watching his silent pursuers…leaving no tracks, blending perfectly with the environment in their clever winter coats…not predators, but creatures that normally should have been hightailing it away from him. By the time he could turn, they’d become nothing more menacing than snowdrifts. But they pursued him nevertheless.
And so his paranoia increased…had there ever really been a trail…and when did this miserably cold, miserably anemic crusade begin…his long-term memory was falling apart a chunk at a time. It just got colder and colder and colder until at last, one snippet of a day during one blur of a year, he found himself utterly lost, and clueless as to his history or objective. His mind was a blank, as colorless and featureless as the endless world of ice around him. He’d come this far solely to learn that the only trail he’d been following was his own—and now even that trail was succumbing to ice. On all sides there was nothing to see but an infinite field of glaring whiteness, and nothing to hear but the ululating wail of the tubular polar wind. It was the loneliest, the unholiest, the creepiest sound imaginable. But it wasn’t insanity that made him wheel. It was his self-preservation instinct.
And then he was somehow on his knees in the woods, facing a furious setting sun.
Whole seasons had passed from his memory like chalk from a board. His only recollections were those of a broken, haunted animal:  of being perilously sick, of fearing the unseen, of blindly struggling across a solid-white wilderness. That he’d survived such an ordeal meant nothing to him. And that he had in some indecipherable manner stumbled across the cold-as-stone trail did not fill him with amazement or with thankfulness—there simply wasn’t anything visual or emotional left to draw on. A significant part of his life had been whited out.
But now he could focus entirely on the trail. And before he knew it, the fuzzy area between fantasy and reality found a seam. He began to analyze and plan. He paid attention to hygiene, and kept a kind of running mental journal. Things were sorting out. Yet there were nights when the old sickness would resurface, reestablish its hold, and leave him sweating and uncertain under the stars. Then, paradoxically, his perception would become razor-keen. And so he would see, on a distant hilltop, a pair of scrawny silhouettes, one on four legs and one on two, slowly crossing the faintly pocked face of the setting moon. He would become strangely excited, and thereafter retain crystal-clear images of himself, as if seen from above, hurrying with adroitness through the silent, graveyard-like setting of black and blue night and white-frosted trees. Then the fuzzy area would broaden, and it would be the next morning, and he would be staring at the prints of man and elk in snow. And he would see how the elk’s prints doubled back, and how the man’s prints terminated where he had obviously mounted his guide. An unfathomable glow would bring tears to his eyes. But, even as he gathered himself, a fresh snowfall would wipe out the prints. And once again the world would plummet into white. And the wind would howl as the snow hammered his eyes. And he would ***** on.

A haggard animal sat shivering in a small grove of frozen pines, watching his campfire die. His eyes were fixed. Like the fire, he was running out of warmth, running out of fuel. There wasn’t a whole lot of tinder round his bones, and not much feeling left in his limbs. The slowly heaping downfall was burying him alive, but he was too numb to care.
It had taken him six long years to cross an entire continent, and during that time he’d known only cold and excruciating pain. The pain was leaving him now. The cold was making it right. His eyes glazed over.
Along a narrow plain to the west a herd of caribou filed dreamily through the snow, cutting across a panoramic backdrop of dazzling white mountains. The slow-motion parade was hypnotic. After a while it occurred to the drifting man, in a roundabout way, that he was dying, that he was nonchalantly freezing to death. Concurrent with this notion there rose in his chest a wonderful liquid warmth. His eyes slowly closed and, once shut, began to set fast.
He was jolted from within. It was as if he’d been kicked in the heart.
He ****** to his feet, pounded his fists on his thighs, felt nothing. The breath spurted from his mouth in small white clouds as he stumbled downhill after the slow caribou train. He swam through the snow, hallucinating, imagining that certain individuals in the herd were mocking him by slowing and accelerating, while others glanced back with expressions of contempt.
As he burst into their midst the animals stepped aside indifferently. A few galloped ahead to keep up the herd, but most simply sidestepped while he danced there, stamping his feet and smacking his hands. The herd grew thinner, until only the old and infirm were filing by. The man desperately embraced a hobbling female for warmth, but she cried out and kicked, triggering a panic reaction in the herd. Clinging for his life, the man was dragged along beside her as the herd stormed into a maze of flying ice and snow. His weight caused her to stagger sideways until they slammed against the flank of a sick male. The man instinctively threw an arm over the male and, thus draped between them, was borne across the drifted plain for upwards of a mile, his freezing feet alternately dangling above and dragging through the snow. The herd broke into a hard run, forcing him to assume a broken trot. Soon his legs were stinging. Sensation rushed through his body.
Now the herd, still picking up speed, began to contract, jamming him between his bearers. There was a quick jolt to his right and he was lifted clean off his feet, nearly straddling the bucking female. It had become an all-out stampede. Through hard-flung snow he saw the cause:  just ahead, the caribou had run head-on into a solid wall of galloping wood bison, and both frantic herds had blindly veered to the east; were in fact running side by side down a deep, ragged canyon—were pouring over the canyon’s lip like a cataract. He was approaching, at breakneck pace, that very place where the converged herds so abruptly swerved. The hanging man snarled as he was borne inevitably to the point of deflection.
There came a concussion at his left shoulder, followed by a blast of snow. In an instant the ailing male was tumbling head over heels to the east, ****** into the stampede’s plummeting mass by the fury of its descent. The man and female, rebounding from this impact, were shot to the west in a crazy jumble of flailing legs. The caribou lost her footing, flew nose-first into a snowbank, and came up running. Kicking off, the man used the last of his strength to heave himself astride. At first she fought to shake him, but the spell of the run was too strong. She and half a dozen others went pounding in the opposite direction of the stampede, quickly joined by a number of bison that had likewise splintered from their herd. The riding man could make out their huge hulking shapes thundering by in a blizzard of flying ice, could hear their heavy gasps and explosive grunts. One passed so close he felt its massive flank brush his leg. He peered to his right and saw a black, pig-like eye regarding him excitedly, moving up and down like a piston as the beast ran alongside.
The eye shifted, focusing on the gasping, completely obsessed female. The bull dropped its head and slammed into the caribou’s side, sending her and the man careening down a ***** to the west. The caribou brayed hysterically and her backside went down, but she managed, despite the weight of her rider, to return to all fours and frantically continue along the *****. Again the bull charged, crashing into her shoulder. The man and caribou were launched sideways into the white searing air.
He sat up carefully. The huffing bison was straddling him like a bully laying down the ground rules. Its big wiry beard came right up to brush his chin. The stench of its breath was stupefying.
The bull stamped and snorted, thrusting its stubby horns left and right as the man used his elbows and heels to back away. The bull followed, move for move. When the man collapsed under his own impetus the bull shoved him along with its snout, bellowing furiously. Clear down the ***** they lunged, shoving and lurching, until the man lay sprawled on his back; up to his chin in snow, completely helpless. The ton of a bull butted and kicked, but only glancingly:  those hooves could **** with a blow. At last the man, in one clean sequence, spun on his rear, dropped to his side, and went rolling down the ***** using his elbows for ******.
At the bottom ran a narrow fence of frosted saplings marking an ice cliff’s precipice. He lay face down in the snow, too done in to do anything but **** at an air pocket.
And there came a high-pitched crackling, a sound like the protracted gasp of embers in a dead fire. He turned just as those saplings began leaning to the west, their frozen skins cracking with the strain.
The bison bellowed menacingly.
The sprawled man looked back and saw it still standing with legs spread wide, silhouetted against the sky. In a moment it began huffing downhill, lurching side to side, surfing the snow between lunges.
It chased him through the genuflecting saplings straight into a frozen gully where, protected by a few feet of insurmountable verticality, he was able to slide on the ice between its stomping hooves, downhill out of reach, then downhill out of control—spinning just in time to glimpse a breathtaking vista:
Partly framed by the gully-straddling saplings was a vast crescent of jagged white mountains seemingly huddled round a small stretch of snow-draped pines. The little wood these mountains surrounded was isolated in a broad lake of solid ice. Hundreds of fissures radiated crazily throughout this packed ice field, appearing to issue from somewhere near the frozen wood’s center, which was completely obscured by a ring of rising mist. Above this thumbnail panorama the sun showered gold.
Then the gully dipped radically, and he was skidding headfirst, slamming back and forth against its slick white walls. This uncontrollable plunge had the positive effect of getting his blood flowing. Yet it tore him up. Had the gully concluded in a cul-de-sac, or had further progress required a single calorie of uphill effort, his struggle would certainly have ended here. He would have been too weak to move, and death would have been swift.
But there was a glacier—a great river of ice pouring slowly out of the clouds. The gully, terminating in a little scoop formation near the glacier’s base, spat him flailing onto its gnarly glass hide. He went head over heels, bits of skin and fur flying like chips from a band saw. Somehow he gained his footing, and then he was running against his will, tumbling and recovering and tumbling again.
He didn’t catch much of that crazy run. He half-glimpsed whirling walls of ice, felt a fickle surface underfoot, and broke through an assaultive mist that clung to his ankles and arms. He remembered having the ragged hides torn right off his body, and then being skinned alive. And he remembered reaching the glacier’s base and crawling like an animal; round its sweeping drifts, past its peaked moraines, all the way to a twisting frozen gorge.
And he followed this gorge down; ricocheting wall to wall, delirious, small plumes of thrashed snow marking his descent.
Through a freezing wood he fumbled. In a veil of mist he tumbled down a steep and verdant grade. As cold consumed his closing breath, he fell upon, near-blind, near death, a strange, enchanted glade.

There is a pool.
And in this pool a man lay purged, his broken body half-submerged.
The stumbling man stopped. He knelt to weep, but lost his thread. One hand took a bicep, the other, the head. With a twist and pull the corpse emerged.
That visage…that face—misshapen mask, contorted, bleached; of life’s deposits fully leached. Essence dispatched—a void, sodden wretch.
He let it fall and the glass was breached. All a freak, all a stretch:  upon this act his grip detached.
And the bridge collapsed…one vagabond grasp…what were these feelings; recaptured and trashed…a span elapsed…who was this puckered mass…he hauled it by the waist and thighs…slid it in, watched the pool react:  purse and recover, expand, contract. The glass reformed, now silver-backed…a sudden mirror…the man leaned nearer…saw his reflection, just smashed, remade intact.
The pool grew still.
Within its depth a shadow stirred—visions gathered, some distinct, some obscure. What they meant, and who they were, was much too much to fathom. The glass became blurred.
He closed his eyes, let his heavy head fall, fell back on his haunches, felt the sweat seep and crawl. The air was a pall—as he struggled to rise, a nib crossed his wrist.
He opened his eyes.
Between his fingers the blades poked and crept. Round his knuckles they ventured, up his forearm they stepped:  they seemed to be triggered by prompts from the ground. He shook his head slowly and dully looked round.
There were jays grouped about him, their black eyes aglow. Red hens came running, their fat chicks in tow. Gophers engaged in a weird hide-and-seek. Bluebells and buttercups craned for a peek. Sparrows hopped past and, paying no heed, burst into flight. He watched them recede.
Westward they flew.
Bewildered, he slumped.
Bumped from behind, he jumped to his feet, flabbergasted to find an ancient gray moose near-eclipsing the sky, with grit in his snarl and fire in his eye.
The old moose took aim.
The man turned to flee and stumbled, then tumbled and fell on a palm and a knee.

But there lies a world (so the lullaby goes) where rivers ever run.
Poked from behind, pushed out of his mind, he staggered into sun.







Copyright 2020 by Ron Sanders.

Contact:  ronsandersartofprose(at)yahoo(dot)com

Wondering,
if the universe flinched,
when God took you away.*
- dakota


Will I grace your thoughts when the moment comes?
Will your universe come to a complete standstill?
Will you choke back your tears...
Or by the buckets would they fill?

This pain in my heart
What is it?
I know now it's love
I know now I was bit...

I clutch my chest and begin to think...
Of the splintered shard I had failed to extract
I feel subdued and ultimately shattered
By the crushing bitter ripples of a broken pact

I'm hurting much
But strangely so...
I'm beginning to savour it
More than you know...

May 9, 2012, 7:01:02 PM by ~OmegaWolfOfWinter
Journals / Personal




The rivers of winter ice had melted with spring sunshine's awakening and the noises of the forest announced the awakening of the fauna. a young fox stretched her long legs and fluffed up her tail as she yawned awake. this winter had been a lonely one for her, as she did not have a mate. throughout the winter she had felt the tingling feelings of her ****** urges creep between her legs and she moaned slightly as she felt them creeping there again.  she stepped slowly out of her den and took a cool breath of the spring air, bringing her the scents of the amorous flowers and the frolicking prey. she watched two birds in courting flight above har and she sighed at her loneliness. the fox hung her head low and walked softly forward. at some point she closed her eyes and yet kept walking, a few tears of longing falling from her eyes. the tingling urges grew stronger and she fought to keep them at bay. she kept walking a bit, aimlessly, though. she cried out as she stumbled over a heavy rock.
She tumbled into the nearby brook and felt a sharp stone cut her right hind leg. she clambered on to the bank, shivering and soaking wet with the chilled water. she attempted to stand and felt a fiery sting to her leg. she looked and saw a shallow **** marring her orange fur. "ow... ow..." she whimpered as she walked on. as the sun peaked over her, she felt her stomach's pleading for sustenance and she groaned. she could faintly smell a rabbit nearby and crouched low, going over how to stalk her prey. she sniffed for it and it seemed to be close, on the other side of a group of trees. she flanked around as best she could and spotted the furball. she licked her lips hungrily and pounced. the rabbit was dead in an instant as she tore its throat out. she chomped at it once and then felt a feeling of dread. she gulped once and heard a wolf growl nearby. i'm wounded... i can't avoid it now.
. she thought. she heard the wolf running toward her and was bowled over by it. when she stopped
Rolling she was on her back. looking up at the wolf, a young grey, white chested wolf, at the beginning of his manhood. he snarled at his prey as she whimpered beneath him. then to her surprise, he sniffed at her and tilted his head, the tenseness of the hunt gone from his yellow eyes. the wolf took a step back and looked her up and down, stopping as he saw something. he spoke softly, almost caringly, "you are female... and in heat... i apologize for interrupting your meal."
the fox looked at him curiously, "You...?"
he glanced at her and finished her thought. "...do not harm females. it is a code of honor i choose to live by."
she sniffed at him, "you have no mate, no lover."
his breath caught. "nor do you, young fox, lest he'd be satiating your body's desires, and his as well."
she felt the tingling between her legs again and attempted to say something, but was stopped. the wolf said, "nor do i wish to take advantage of females either."
The fox replied suggestively, "you spared my life, surely theres some way i could repay you, handsome wolf."
the wolf looked at her, eyes dilated and his breathing rough. he shook his head, "no.. i couldnt. its not my place."
she could feel the urges burning inside her, she wanted to release them, she wanted this wolf to release her. "chivalrous, i see. then, dear wolf, alleviate my longing, my pain, and i shall alleviate your own."
the wolf took a step closer, his own longing feeding his fire. "beautiful fox... your offer intigues me... you- you are wounded..." she looked and saw her leg still bleeding. "let me aide you, dear fox." he took a few steps and lay beside her, licking her wound. with each lick, the pain receded and was replaced by a wave of pleasant ache. the bleeding stopped and he stopped licking, for the moment. he sniffed her, his cold nose brushing the swollen flesh, and as it quivered between her legs, he knew she was ready for him. "my den is close by, young fox."
She nuzzled against his chest and felt his heart pounding. she took his paw and pressed it against her own chest, letting him feel her heart. "you know we cant wait that long, here.. in this group of trees." she gestured to the spot a few feet away. the wolf quickly walked into the tangle of trees, followed by the fox. the wolf had hardly stepped inside the treeline before the fox began nudging at the furry bulge between his legs. "you're not quite ready yet, dear wolf." the wolf whimpered a few times as she licked at it, taking his smooth member in her mouth and enticing it with her tongue. once it was throbbing in its full glory, she licked one last time and said, "now you're ready." and raised herself in preparation for him. he got into position on top of her and with one paw she guided him inside her. she gasped as he stretched her a little. she glanced over her shoulder and
realized that he wasnt that much bigger than her. he looked nervous and she realized something,
This is his first time... mine too... lets make this memorable.. she experimented with different positions, and after finding her favorite, set about making this wolf howl.
the wolf ****** slowly at first, drawing out the ecstasy. only when she began to whimper amorously did he begin to ****** harder, faster. she joined him, as he pulled back, she leaned forward, leaving only his tip inside her. when he ******, she leaned back on him with a wet squish. the wolf's tongue lolled and his eyes were glazed over in sweet agony. he howled softly at first, and as the ****** came, he howled again, echoing with the fox's cries as the ecstasy reached its ****** and rocked their bodies. the wolf staggered slightly at the passionate waves of ******. he pulled out his member and looked at his mate. "come with me to my den, so we can sleep, dear fox." the fox looked at him and nodded, grateful.
* * *
The fox and the wolf walked quietly to his den, set inside a secluded cluster of trees. the den itself was set in the ground, like a cavern, just large enough for the two of them to lie down comfortably. "its going to get cold tonight," said the wolf. "we should... share body heat." he had a faint twinkle in his eyes as he glanced nervously at her. when she tilted her head to him, the wolf looked down at his paws. the fox licked his muzzle and laid down next to him. the wolf's grey fur was thick, and she was  already beginning to feel warmer. she felt the wolf's heart beat a little faster, and he curled around her. his furry tail wrapped around the fox and she purred slightly as she nuzzled him and rested her head on his foreleg. for a moment they lay there, eyes closed, listening to the others' breathing, when he whispered to her, "i never did catch your name, young fox."
she grinned at him, "my name's Sasha, the only fox in this forest. and what be your name, dear wolf?"
The wolf opened one eye slightly to look at her, "my name is Ronan, i'm the last wolf of my pack."
she held him in her gaze a few beats and replied, "i haven't seen many wolves 'round these parts, where do you come from, Ronan?"
the grey sighed and said, "Farther north, over the mountains and into ice country. the food became scarce and the pack withered away, all but me. i treveled over the hills and mountains, through forests and grassland, and i kept going, finally stopping here. what of you? you said yourself you were the only fox in this forest."
Sasha swished her tail back and forth for a moment before, "i was separated from my family during a blizzard. i- i couldn't see anything, and i couldn't hear anything over the wind. i wandered aimlessly in the whiteout, tripping and stumbling until i bumped into something big. then again, i was just a kit and everything was big to me, but i looked up and saw a pair of eyes looking at me. i was so scared the snow beneath me turned yellow.
The monster bent over and picked me up by the scruff of my neck and carried me for a long time. i was so exhausted i fell asleep in its grip. when i woke up i was in a chilly den. i looked and realized that the monster had been a snow-white she-wolf. she sat at the enterance to the den and kept looking outside, waiting for something. when the snowstorm cleared out, she turned to me and said, 'little fox. have you a family?' i shook my head as i realized they were gone. from then on, the wolf raised me and taught me how to survive. then one day a few years ago... she was gone..."
Ronan was watching the fox as she told the story. "i'm sorry."
"don't be, ronan. ever since she left ive been alone. no fox to breed me, no one for a lover. until you came along..."
ronan licked her muzzle, "no need for loneliness now." sasha smiled and was soon asleep, warmed by her lover.
*
The sun rose and shone brightly into the entrance of the den the next morning, waking sasha from her slumber. she yawned and felt around for the grey. she felt nothing. she stood up and looked around the empty den. did he... leave me? a single tear fell when she imagined the possibility. "no.... please no..." she whimpered. her breath caught as she heard something rustling the grass outside the den. sasha shrank back and hid behind her tail, peeking over it slightly. she could hear her heartbeat in her ears and feel it rising in her throat as the rustling got closer and closer. she squeaked, "who... who's there?"
she flinched as a dark mass blocked the sunlight, its shadow stretching across the wall. the mass stepped slowly forward and sasha shut her eyes tight, fearing what might come next. "sasha?" it was ronan. "what's the matter?"
she gasped at him before rushing forward and burying her muzzle in his chest fur. "i thought you'd left me..."
with a paw, ronan stroked the fur on her back. "i'm a wolf, ***. loyalty and chivalry are the only things i know." she buried herself deeper in his fur and scolded herself for not realizing that. "i caught breakfast, i figured you'd be hungry after i interrupted your meal yesterday." she looked behind him and saw a small pile of ****** rabbits. sasha licked her lips hungrily. "its all yours, dear fox." she looked gratefully at Ronan before pouncing on the pile of carcasses, tearing into one and bloodying her maw. ronan watched her with pleasant  affection. the den was filled with the sounds of flesh being rendered from bone and the snapping of Sasha's teeth. she feasted upon the **** until she could eat no more, her belly now filled. two rabbits still lay uneaten, and ronan devoured them slowly, savoring the ****** meat as it slipped down his gullet. sasha lay nuzzled up against him while he ate, toying at his tail and
otherwise teasing at him. he gave her a look of amusement and somehow got into a game of tag with her.
He chased her around the den and she dodged his paw as he reached for her. when he did finally touch her, sasha dove between his legs and poked his furry belly. leaving him with a dumbfounded expression on his face. he then chased sasha outside and they continued their game within the cluster of trees around them. sasha laughed, a liquid smooth, crystal clear laugh. ronan watched her jump around him, the sun's rays catching her fine orange fur in such a way that it seemed almost like fire. he watched her a moment and loosed a soft howl. she's so beautiful... he thought.
* *

!!!!!!Trigger Warning: ****, domestic violence, abuse, suicide!!!!!!!!



When I moved to your hometown, I saw your true colors.
I saw that power meant more, your dominance meant more, your ego and your assertiveness meant more to you than I did.
I tried.
I tried to leave you alone, but like a moth drawn to a flame, time and again I allowed myself to draw nearer to you, shocked when you burned me every time.
Isn’t that the definition of insanity?
Days later, I cut you off. I blocked you. And it felt good. Like I regained some of the control you took away from me. I was starting to feel like myself again until I got home that night.
You busted through the deadbolt lock on my door.
My backpack was missing.
I called your mom in a panic, having not connected the dots until moments after I hung up the phone with her and I heard your voice, calling me from outside my window.
I asked you.
I asked you once.
I asked you twice.
Did you do that to my door?
Your calm, unchanging face didn’t even blink when you answered,
No.
It wasn’t until I put two and two together, you being there, having my backpack, the holes in your story, your unchanging, unsurprised, unsympathetic face, that I realized what you had done.
And when I called you on it, you admitted it.
Why lie to me? Why lie to my face?
So I blocked you, again.
Leave me alone until I give you the word, I said.
Just leave me alone.
Two days later, I was breaking down crying over my inability to be alone, over my inability to love my broke pieces enough to pick myself up and put myself back together
Two days later, I called you.
You told me you were sorry.
And that you sent me roses in the mail, set to arrive sometime before I left, two weeks from then.
And I melted
I caved
I gave up being strong and decided to instead be naïve, oblivious, or simply in denial.
We can make it work at least until I leave, right?
What’s the worst that can happen?
But then the worst started to happen.
Your flashbacks took away your memories of me and replaced them with menacing, intrusive thoughts
Replaced me with other girls
Nameless, faceless, meaningless bodies for you to use as you please
Or a roadblock in the way of you achieving peace at last, kissing death’s sweet lips
The bad guy you worked so hard to bury deep within your subconscious became very, very conscious
Very real
I first noticed it the day we were walking to the park, I said you were less mature than I, a harmless quip meaning no personal injury
You walked on the opposite side of the street as me, refusing to look at me, refusing to acknowledge me, refusing to come back to my side.
But when that car full of guys rolled by me, whistling, yelling various unsolicited, uncomfortable things resembling compliments, you laughed.
You laughed at my fear.
And still wouldn’t walk with me.
It was that day, you got in my face and dared me to put my hands on you so you could lay me on the ground
It was that day, I asked you, why are you talking to me like this?
It was that day, you answered, if I don’t hurt you verbally, it will be physically.
It was moments later, through tears, I begged, why do you treat me like this?
It was moments later, with cold eyes, you answered, to feel powerful
Is it a switch?
Can you flip it on and off?
How can the one who caresses my face so very gently,
The one who calls himself my protector at all costs,
The one who rushes to my side at every beck and call,
The one who opens doors for me
Walks two hours in the rain for me
Spends all his money to send me roses,
Be so cruel?
Three days before I’m supposed to leave, you come spend the night with me
We’re laying down, whispering sweet nothings to each other in the darkness
When I suddenly admit, I’ll miss you.
Don’t go, you say.
But I have to. I have to, my love.
It was then that you grabbed me by the neck, and told me I was not going to leave you.
Baby, please, I can’t breathe.
You’re not leaving. I don’t care if I have to take you away
Then you jolt out of it, looking at me with confusion. Your head hurts.
Just lay on me chest baby, it’s okay
I stroke your hair slowly, softly, calmly
Why is your heart beating so fast?
It’s not baby, close your eyes.
I hear it. What’s wrong?
Nothing, love, I’m fine. Just anxious about the move.
You know, you could stay here with me.
Baby, I already got my plane ticket, I’m leaving in a couple days.
No.
No?
No.
You grab my wrist with one hand.
Baby, let me go.
No.
Babe, you have to let me go. It’s okay.
No. Stop saying that.
Baby, I-
It’s too late. You’re already on top of me, grabbing my other wrist and pinning me down, your dark eyes beating into mind.
Baby, please let go of me, you’re squeezing too tight, you’re hurting me.
Your grip grows even stronger, and I feel the panic rising in my chest again.
Then you jolt out of it. Your head hurts. You need to lay down.
This time, I don’t let you lay on me. This time, I simply watch you lay there.
You reach out for me
I flinch
Concern flickers in your eyes, babygirl what’s wrong? You haven’t flinched around me in months.
It’s nothing.
It’s something, talk to me. What did I do?
You… um.. you pinned me down. You h-held my wrists. You wouldn’t let me go…
You laugh.
I wouldn’t do that, unless you were trying to leave me
Baby, I’m leaving the state in two days.
Your eyes turn cold. You yank my hair, pulling my head back.
You what?
I don’t answer.
You WHAT?
I-I’m leaving in two-
You yank my hair again, harder this time, before letting me go.
Your head hurts.
Really bad, really, really, bad.
Lay down baby, it’s okay.
I kiss your forehead tenderly
You’re okay.
My last day there was the worst.
By far, the worst.
Laying down, we’re past the stage of denial over me leaving.
I’m leaving tomorrow. And I’m so horribly sad to leave you behind.
You’re depressed. You don’t want to be here anymore. You don’t see yourself living without me.
You’re the only thing ******* keeping me here anymore, you say bitterly.
You’re gonna have to be strong for me when I leave, my love. I know you can.
Just die with me, you plead, it’ll be quick. I can choke you to death and **** myself. We’ll never have to be apart again.
We don’t even know what’s on the other side. What if it’s nothing? What if we don’t find each other?
You insist. You beg. You plead. You cry. Until you finally give up convincing me, your hand creeping up towards my neck.
Let me go.
Baby, let me go
Your hand is around my neck. Tightening. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. There are black spots clouding my vision, like when you stand up too fast after sitting for too long, except they’re everywhere
Please, babe, please just…
Shhhhh babygirl it’s okay, close your eyes, go to sleep
So I do. I close my eyes and you slowly remove your hand from my neck, kissing me tenderly on the forehead, before getting up and going to my window. You open the window and as you’re looking down at the two story drop, my eyelids flutter open.
I reach out for you as you go to climb out the window.
Baby, stop, I whisper weakly.
You’re supposed to be dead.
But I’m not. Just, come here, it’s okay, you don’t have to do this.
I stand slowly and come to you, grabbing your arm to pull you away from the window.
Now it’s your turn to demand that I let you go.
Just let me do this. I need to do this. Leave me alone.
No, you don’t, just come here.
Before I can even blink both of your hands are around my neck and squeezing, lifting me off the ground.
Leave me alone before I make you leave me alone.
Unable to breathe, I nod, and you drop me.
Gasping for breath, I see you going towards the window once again.
Please! Just use the front door. Just walk out the front door, if you go out the front door I swear to god I’ll leave you alone.
You turn towards me, reaching once again for my neck, and I grab your wrists.
You back me up, twisting out of my grip and grabbing onto my wrists.
You keep backing me up, until we’re almost to my closet. I stop and rest against the open door, and you ask coldly,
Why’d you stop backing up? Keep going. Since you don’t know how to leave me the **** alone.
I don’t have much of a choice. You push me into the closet, and turn me around so I’m no longer facing you, placing your arm around my neck in a choke hold and tightening your grip.
I hit your arm once, twice, three, four, five times, and you finally drop me.
Your head hurts.
I turn to face you, with fear in my eyes, cowering under you.
You look at me with confusion.
Why are we in a closet? What’s wrong? Why are you-
You reach out to touch me and I cower and flinch, shaking my head
Please don’t, please, please don’t touch me. Please. I’m sorry. Please.
I break down crying.
You realize what you’ve done.
And you sit in the closet. In your little corner, to punish yourself, as I cower in the corner.
Seconds blend into minutes as they pass by, until you rise from the closet, going to the door. You don’t know where you are. You don’t know who I am. You keep calling me another girl’s name. I don’t know who it is.
Now it’s your turn to cower in the corner.
I can only imagine what’s going on in your head, as you’re crying out with fear and panic over the voices screaming in your head. I let you cry, clinging onto my legs.
It’s okay my love, you’re safe now, you’re not there anymore. Let it out. It’s okay.
My jeans are soaked now. I gently remove you from my legs and go to change my pants. Your face immediately switches to panic.
No, please, I don’t want to have ***. Please. I don’t want to.
Baby, relax. I’m not going to make you. I’m just changing out of these wet pants.
As I change out of my pants and into your oversized basketball shorts, your face changes.
Come here.
I look at you, confused.
Now.
I slowly walk over to the corner where you’re no longer cowering in. I crouch down next to you.
Closer.
You pull me onto your lap.
I gotta tell you something.
I lean over, your lips grazing my ear as you whisper,
I want you
You begin kissing my neck.
Kissing, touching, gently.
I almost didn’t notice anything was wrong. It wasn’t until you looked at me and asked,
What’s your name, girl?
That I realized you weren’t really here. I looked at you, dumbfounded, and you shrugged,
Okay, I guess that doesn’t matter. You’re **** as hell.
I pushed off of you, shaking my head.
I’m your girlfriend. Remember?
You shake your head.
I don’t date girls like you. Why don’t you just take that off?
You stand, walking towards me.
Just relax.
No!
I push you off me, and you laugh coldly.
Babygirl, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. But I love it when they fight back.
You grab me by the neck, kissing me roughly, as your free hand pulls my shorts off.
I’m pushing you. I’m pushing you off of me but you’re too strong.
You grip my ******* tightly and begin pulling them down, but I grip them tighter and keep holding them up.
Stop. Please. Stop.
I use my most authoritative voice and you chuckle with amusement.
Guess we’re doing this the hard way then, hm?
You pick me up and set me on my back on the ground. I go to get up. You pin me back down by my throat, prying yourself between my legs.
You begin to touch me.
I flinch under your touch and keep pushing, keep pushing you off of me.
You pin my hands with both of yours.
You bring my hands together and hold them both with one of your hands.
Stop. Fighting.
You resume touching me.
My body betrays me as I squirm and leak.
You know you like that. Don’t you?
You enter me, and I cry out in pain as you use me for your pleasure.
Call me daddy
You demand, and I shake my head.
You grab me by the throat and begin going harder. Faster. Harder. Faster.
Again, you demand,
Say it.
The word escapes my lips and you grin with satisfaction.
I close my eyes.
I stop fighting.
I do anything I can to take a mental vacation somewhere far, far, away.
I’m not here. This isn’t happening. It’s not. It’s okay. I’m fine. It’s almost over.
You pull out suddenly, and look at me with horror.
No… no… no, no, no, no, no, no
You let go of my neck. Then my hands. You back up and stare at me as if I’m on fire.
Please tell me I didn’t just do what I think I just did.
I wish I could. I wish I could tell you that you didn’t just do what you think you just did, but you did.
Your head hurts.
So ******* bad.
You retreat to your corner in the closet, and I retreat to the corner opposite in the room. Now it’s my turn to cower in the corner.
The next morning, you’re helping me move my stuff out of my room, into your mom’s car. She’s taking me to the airport.
The ride to the airport is silent.
When we arrive, you open the door for me, and scoop me up bridal-style so I don’t get my shoes wet in the puddle you’re standing in.
I hug you tightly, holding back tears.
I kiss you gently, holding back words.
I love you.
I love you, too.
As I walk into the airport, leaving you standing in the rain, I realize:
The roses never came.

From padded window seat inside café
cup of tea warms my hands
cold winds shuffle sidewalk leaves
Two tables away sit two men
one in October years
the other May
Soiled clothes, old scuffed shoes, beat up weathered
faces, bloodshot eyes, ***** hair disheveled
The older begins reading to the younger
from newspaper wrinkled by other hands
“Rain and wind coming in tonight from the west,
tomorrow - clearing, with temps in high 30s
toward evening - dropping to low 30s
Saturday, sunny, high 30s”
The young man’s grizzled chiseled face
seemingly stoic
flinched stiff with the words

“Sunday, low 20s, snow mixed with sleet”

When I discovered I had cancer,
I was told that I would learn a lot
About Life and Death and Time,
But I never thought that I would
Discover what it means
To be intimate
With strangers,
Or anyone, for that matter.

When my insides were cut open like a game of operation,
I told myself:
Be detached.
When visitors came,
We talked about the weather.

When I arrived home, I spent my time
Trying to forget
The experience
Of impermanence
And shared emotions
That I couldn't even grapple with
Myself.

When the person I loved
Left me
I flinched
And then sunk back into an abyss of
Emotionless functioning,
Cutting myself further and further
Off from my narrative
Of pain.

When it was time to go back to school,
I flinched
And signed up for a workload
Heavy enough
To push out the fading reality
Of my condition.

It wasn't until I was sitting on the steps
Outside of a bar that was slowly beginning
To empty out,
As intoxicated shadows gained substance and lit cigarettes against the brick wall.
I sunk down next to friend I had recently met-
My big t shirt inched up above my abdomen
And the lower jagged mark of my scar
Peeked out-

I didn't choose to tell him my story
Until he asked me about the obvious
Stale incison mark that had a presence
Of its own.
Piece by piece, it peeled itself from off my stomach
And liquified into a sequence of events
And feelings
That poured from me
Like a stream of bubbling bath water
Overflowing from the rim
Of a porcelain tub.

That's when I realized that there is something shared and intimate about scars:
Marred reminders of the flesh
That speak to our upmost human
Encounters with our own mortality.
An indecipherable label of sorts:
An unsigned invitation into the taboo.

In a moment of unintentional word *****
At 2am to a stranger,
I regained my intimacy with myself
And my journey.
I learned that while Life and Death and Time
Will always plague our existence,
They distance us from the human experience that is
To feel:

To feel everything in this God forsaken world.
To feel angry at people for leaving when they should have stayed.
To feel compassion at the same time.
To feel intimacy with others.
To feel intimacy with yourself.
To feel love.
To feel pain.
To feel the cold creases in the wooden floor as you make your way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
To feel alone.
To feel surrounded.
To feel the trembling echoes of the past and be able to grab its elusive coattails and shake away the dusty remnants of time and shout that you are present.

To feel nothing.

Electromagnetic Motion Ocean Of Pure Focal Emo-tion.
The Very Sound Of The Creators Verse And Rhythm In Loving Notion Pouring Through The Crystalline Endocrine Indoctrinated Shock Ra Of Shocking Unblocking Colorful Tones In Unmolested Focus And Definition.

To Flow Your Emo-tions Through Your Core And Manifest In Your Intended Notion All Without The Misidentified Horror Of The Wrongfully And Negatively Defined Emotions, One Finds That The Mere Act Of William Tell And That Apple Upon The Head Must Have Been One Hell Of An Interesting Interaction, Yet Instead Of The Reassuring Smiles And Calm Demeanor Of The Archer As They Lock Eyes, What Pray Tell You Think The Eyes Of The Archer Looked Like On That Very Frozen In Time Moment As He Released The Arrow To Guided Love Of Perfected Intent And Delivery Of Safe And Demanding Fortitude Of Action To Defeat All Possible Variable , As If To Need To Bend The Very Laws Of Nature If They Were To Cause An Number Of Odd And Unpredictable Events To Derail The Intent Of The Man Shooting The Apple Off The Head Of His Dear Child's Head, For Not A Bird May Pass Between, Not A Gust Of Wind Be Seen, Not An Earthquake Be Fabled To Accrue, Not A Single Action But The Undeterred Focus Of Absolute Might In Will, His Fee Will In Flight. What Might His Eyes Be Relaying In That Frozen Moment? Reassurance, Pity, Fear, Confidence, Or The Electric Fire Of Electromagnetic Motion Ocean Of Pure Focal Emo-tion To Get The **** Thing Done And Without Foolish ******* Reactions To The Real And True Focus Of Emotion, And Pray Tell, What If The Child Mistook This Look In A Moments Notice And Flinched Out Of Concern That The Father Was Angry With Him? Or Is It Best To Realize The Real Importance Of This Story As It Is The Trust In The Definitions Of Intended Focus And Not Of Simple Trust.? ,... Yes, Intended Focus Of Emotions Being Trusted As True And Not Negative In Nature, Dear Friend, Yes. So Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot, Let The Flow Of Emotion Be Free And Not Dictated By The Restraints Of Control And Be Seen And Used In Negative Ways, For These Are The Crimes Against All Mankind And The Bigger Part Of Why Spoken Word Is The Very Spell That Binds The Psyche, For The Focus Of Or The Lack Of Focus Of Emotions True Meaning And Purpose Is The Crime Against All Life Indeed. Live Free And Pilot This Love Ship Successfully By No Longer Defining Self By The Ways And Means That Have Caused Us To Fear Our Own Power To Move Mountains, And Kept Us All Mustard Seeds When We Are Truly  Far More Than You Can Believe. Feel Free, Yes, By All Means Feel Free.

First, I would like to introduce Grayasety. She was a young girl, had soft strands of medium-short caramel hair, and she had green-blue eyes that looked like miniature earths. She was indeed a pretty girl and she was of average height, and had a healthy body. She also had a slight southern drawl; her mother was from Texas. She loved going on boat voyages as her father was the captain of a ship named Gray Asety, named after Grayesty, so she was often training to go on voyages.
                  One morning, just like any other ordinary morning, Grayasety left her house for the next-door stable with her baby sitter, Kinberly, which was part of her father’s crew.  Today was the big day, the day when Grayasety was going to go on a voyage with her father as an official crewmember. Today was Grayasety’s 13th birthday; today was the day when she was old enough to work on her father’s ship! Therefore, she gaily whistled and skipped along the road. It had always been her dream to work on her father’s ship, and today, finally, her dream was coming true. When she got to the stable she blew her small, pink whistle that, to human ears would make no sound, and like every morning her best friend, (which had the ability to morph into animals) trotted tiredly out of the stable in the form of a beautiful brown mare. The huge animal yawned and said, “Morning Kin!” And then addressing Grayasety she said, “ Well, well, little missy what do you want me to be today?” Today Grayasety wanted Mila to be a green parrot, Grayasety was obsessed in the color green, and Mila had reluctantly obeyed, the trio set off for the fresh smelling bay.
Kinberly, and Mila worked on the Gray Asety. Mann Forumest, or Captain Daddy as Grayasety called him had met Grayasety’s mom working as a crewmember on the Majesty, a steamboat. Grayasety’s mother, Magnolia Scott Forumest was the assistant cook. They married, but kept their jobs until one day when Grayasety was about five, the Sea Bandits, a notorious group of pretty woman stealers, kidnapped Her mother.
                        While on sea, Grayasety shared a rather large suite in the ship with her father. In the Bedroom were two desks, one big and one small, and in the corner was a bunk bed, the top bunk badly painted in green and the bottom bunk still bearing its natural mahogany color. Grayasety was sitting in her little green desk, scribbling madly in her deep green diary. Grayasety *** a liking of scribbling and those who have know her long enough could read her scribbles like one would writing. She could read and write although she was nowhere near a strait A student.
                   After a while Grayasety decided to bother her father and, forgetting to switch into her lime green boots, shinnyed up the main stairs to the deck in her faded fluffy mint green slippers. Mila, perched comfortably on Grayasety’s shoulder, started telling her that she was wearing her slippers when Grayasety shoved a faded green pacifier in Mila’s mouth; Grayasety often did this to keep Mila quiet.
Mila, not enjoying the dusty, stale taste of the pacifier unhappily decided to keep her mouth shut until Grayasty got in a better mood. In truth Grayasety was in a marvelous mood and rather liked shoving pacifiers in Mila’s mouth. As the girl got closer to the deck, she started to hear chanting from the kind crew. She especially heard Kinberly’s familiar raspy voice chanting,” Laaa dee daaa, the Gray A rolls along,” and as she emerged to the *****, wet deck she noticed that her father was talking to someone else already. “Botherin’ will have to wait some,” she whispered to Mila. Then she took the pacifier out of Mila’s mouth and scolded,” why didn’t you tell me that I was still wearin’ my slippers eh? Wanted to make me look like an idiot?” Mila simply rolled her eyes.
                    Right then, Captain Daddy, apparently finishing his conversation, came over to the pair and said affectionately, “How are my darlings doin’ today?” Mila especially enjoyed this for Captain Daddy always gave a loving stoke on her back and a whole chocolate chip cookie if he had one. Although Grayasety always stole some of the cookie Mila was happy enough with half. Grayasety, on the other hand was happy with a whole cookie so she begged Captain Daddy to give her another one. Captain Daddy gave her another cookie but chided her not to steal any more from Mila.
                    After the lecture on not stealing other people’s food, Grayasety clambered up the crow’s nest and almost knocked over Franz, a tall, but gaunt boy a couple years older then Grayasty getting in. ”Anythin’ unusual yet?” asked Grayasety hopefully. “Nope,” answered the calm boy quietly. ”Hi Franz. Do you have any cookies?” asked Mila mockingly, Franz just laughed and said,” If I had any I would of eaten it by now! Gray, can you get me somethin’ from the kitchen?”.
                   Grayasety got Franz a basket of food and got her self the same amount; Grayasety was basically always hungry, and had a little picnic on the roomy crow’s nest. After they finished their meal Grayasety decided to let Franz rest and did lookout. Franz had a small room to himself, which was about the size of a normal bathroom with all the stuff taken out. In the corner was an old, squeaky army cot and next to it was a rotund desk with a stack of blank paper, a jar of Indian ink, and a fountain pen laid precariously on it.
                    Franz was quite a writer and he spent his free time eating, sleeping, or writing and unlike Grayasety he actually wrote not scribbled. He was working on a story about gargoyles that came to life at night. It was an interesting story, really. He would of loved to stop working on the Gray Asety and go get his books published but he stayed for his family was a poor one and needed his help to make a living and also, Captain Forumest provided free paper. And, his daughter was the first friend he ever had; Franz was convinced that she was the best one.
                   Grayasety enjoyed being on ships. She liked feeling the cold air rush through her hair and she enjoyed the great view of the vast sea that surrounded her. She even liked the feeling of being so small compared to the humpbacks that swam by. She thought that the ship food was good, and she felt that the sea was truly where she belonged. Grayasety was very cranky when she was not at sea, (though she did like their big, ocean green house), so her father tried to include her on as many voyages as he could.
                     Captain Daddy, or Mann as I will call him spent most of day in a booth on the deck. He often worried about his daughter’s mental health (even though it was completely unnecessary). He talked to Grayasety’s doctor about this and Dr.Metalos, Grayasety’s doctor, gave them a list of mental deceases she could have, but none of them seemed like some thing she would have. Mann was sure that his daughter did not have one sickness; Much Too Much Time At The Sea Syndrome. If any one knew where Grayasety belonged it was Mann and he knew perfectly well that his daughter would go insane if she wasn’t at sea for too long. For one thing she preferred to sleep on her uncomfortable bunk at sea rather then on her fluffy green bed as soft as a feather at home.
                        Right then the ship did a tummy- flopping lurch and knocked off the map and compass from Mann’s desk, which interrupted his thoughts for a while. Below deck Franz’s desk toppled over, and Franz accidentally made a long and ugly scribble across his writing and on the crow’s nest Grayasety was having trouble standing up and she almost vomited right onto Kinberly’s hair. This was rare for Grayasety for she lived on the sea and was used to lurches; she had once survived a shipwreck, which explains her golden earring on her right earlobe.
                   That night as Grayasety lay in bed Mann quietly crept out of his bunk and scurried up the stairs to the deck. He wanted some time to himself. Ahead was Cape Horn; a very dangerous place where so many ships had sunk it could fill the biggest port in the world, but more personally, this was near the Sea Bandits main head quarters, 8 years ago the beautiful Magnolia Scott Forumest was captured here. Even though it was impossible in the foggy mist, Mann tried to make out the cave that marked the entrance to the headquarters. Only few people knew this entrance, and publicity stated that it was a “mere mystery” why most captives were capture near Cape Horn. Mann felt a chill run down his spine and then he thought he felt someone’s hand grab his shoulder. He looked down and saw what he dreaded most; a hand tinged with brown firmly held his shoulder.
                      Grayasety woke up feeling wonderful but apparently Mila didn’t. She kept screeching something about Captain Daddy being kidnapped and soon she found that what Mila had just screeched in her ear was true. She stormed into Franz’s cabin and told him what she discovered and they soon agreed to do what no one else wanted them to do; steer the boat right into the Sea Bandits’ headquarters and take back what, and who was theirs no matter how hard it could be.
                      Grayasety had Franz steer the boat and she herself navigated, Kin was lookout and the rest of the crew helped out. Franz dropped the passengers off at Puerto, and Mila morphed back into a human; what she really is, and helped out. Separated from the frenzy, Grayastey was quietly thinking to herself. She wondered why the Sea Bandits captured her father. They were well known for capturing pretty woman but not average looking men. Just then she heard a knock on the door. “Grayasety?” said the raspy voice of Kin. “There ya are. I just thought ya might wanna know why ya daddy was captured.” “Can you please tell me,” asked Grayasety, trying not to sound too eager. “Well rememba when ya daddy would be gone when ya woke up at mid night an’ I told ya that he had gone to the store to get some groceries? Well if you had thought some you woulda noticed that the store was closed.” Grayasety interrupted Kin in mid-sentence and said irritably, “Of course I rememba. Just get to the point Kin!” Kin flinched at Grayasety’s frustration and mumbled,” Well ya daddy was a spy. One of the best ones at that. He did all he could to stop organized crime, an’ he specialized in the Sea Bandit’s. They captured him ‘cause one less police the better for them.” Grayasety sat with her mouth hanging wide open. She never imagined that her father was a spy. But now every thing made sense. “ Sorry I didn’t tell ya before. Ya fatha simply wouldn’t allow it.” Kin apologized. Grayasety managed a squeak and then Kin left her.
                      After she repeated this to Franz and then Mila, Grayasety went down to her bedroom, she hated having to be near Her father’s belongings but she hated having people see her crying much more and cry she did, leaving her father’s mattress a soggy mess. Then she decided to clean that mess up for if they rescued her father she was sure he did not want to sleep in a soggy bed. Noticing it, she picked up her dad’s picture of her dad and mom’s wedding and became suddenly aware of how much she looked like her dad. The hair, the eyes, the quirky grin, every thing. Her mother had soft blonde hair and violet eyes that almost made you smell the pungent smell of lavenders and had a beautiful smile with bright red lips. All in all she was the most beautiful woman Grayasety had ever seen. She almost made Grayasety feel jealous.
                     “Hey! Gray. So are we gonna bring any weapons? Kin was a whole chest full of ‘em!” Said the distinctively low voice of Franz. “Well, I dunno. I suppose we should bring a couple guns. Always nice to be well prepared.” Replied Grayasety.

                     Franz was on lookout when the carrier pigeon came. The note it had on its leg was from Mann. It said:

Dear Grayasety and friends,

Do not come to save me. I’m with my wife in their dungeon but they want you guys to come too. You see, I’m like a bait. You’re the fishies. They want to erase all traces of the Forumest family. That means they have to dispose of those who would remember them. I will manage okay. Kin, Please take Grayasety and Franz home and forget about me for you and the children’s sake. Grayasety, I love you. Dispose all of my belongings and try to tell yourself that Kin is your mother. Believe me. It’s all for the better. Franz, I meant to tell you but your parents caught tuberculosis and died the other day. Your sister committed suicide soon after. Please take care of Grayasety.

             Mann

                    The trio stood silent for a long moment and then without warning Franz burst into tears, and scrambled to his cabin. Kin and Grayasety looked at each other sadly and went to their cabins themselves. Grayasety tried to sleep that night but images of Mann and her mother strapped up in chains kept her staring into the darkness with wide eyes. She reached over and got her personal music player, trying to distract herself but after a few seconds she turned it off again, for she could not bear listening to the lyrics; “It’s past midnight and something evil’s lurking 'round the dark” of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
            The next morning, Mila and Kin steered the boat near the cave that marked the entrance to the Sea Bandits secret headquarters. Mila then morphed into a seagull and flew into the old, damp cave. From a safe distance Grayasety and her crew awaited Mila to return with some news. After swooping into the creepy cave Mila found the opening to the headquarters and perched on a ledge near it. There, she morphed into a rat, and scurried up into the opening.

                 After crawling along several hallways, Mila came across a steel door bolted very firmly marked “CELLS”. Luckily Mila was small enough to crawl under it. Scurrying along the bureau of prisons, Mila finally saw a cell with Mann and a stunningly beautiful woman captured in it. Mila slipped between the bars and trying not to gain the woman’s attention for fear that she would scream, climbed the steep hill of Mann’s arm to try to reach his ear. “Mann?? Don’t make any sound OK?? I’m Mila. I’m the rat on your shoulder. Kin, Grayasety, and Franz say they miss you a lot.” Whispered Mila. Then she saw a humongou

HE was the one to glue her back together when she had broken apart. She was left by Another.
A heap.
A mess.
And HE came along, a homemade superhero, to bandage her cuts and ice her sores and nurse her back to health.
At her every word, HE bent a listening ear. If she had talked for years, HE wouldn't have flinched.


Another came back.
She grabbed her things and dashed off, into Another's arms again, the same arms capable of crushing.

Ok
HE said

That's fine
HE said

Lucky for her, HE packed her some glue just in case

Do you ever think of us?
Or are we a lost cause
That I'm still fighting for?

You lied about my sweet weight,
And you lied about my arches,
You lied about your love for the depressions in my skin,
You faked that sincerity
Of course you lied, because how else
Could you make love to my demise?

You lied about your moon and my tides,

But you tread upon on my land,
Cheer as my salt beats my rocks into sand, I never flinched at your hand,
I never quaked at your voice,
But I should’ve,
I would’ve if I had known that you would run my rivers dry,
That you would lick your lips and sigh

You’re sick in that the only thing I hold dear,
You craved to hunt.

You rip into the throat of my wild and reckless stag,
Watch it bleed as it cranes to see by whose hand it falls,  
As it breathes its last breath it catches sight of your thumb,
It knows, but consciously it forgets, because
It is with this abandon that I die for you daily,
And you **** me anyway.

I should’ve quaked at your voice,
Hearkened to the screaming that ripped away my choice,
You never loved my mountains, fountains of lies I threw back and back,
You lied about my ocean that you don’t care to explore,

It was critical and fatal,
You lied about my sweet weight and that I cannot forgive.

The truth is, I’m not really sure who I am.  She told us to draw ourselves and then to draw our souls; so I drew my face scratched and uneven, just as I’ve always seen it, and frowned at the result both in the mirror and on the paper.  The only soul I’ve ever really known was the one that shone through the strokes of the keys I punched, the scrawling of ink on paper in mismatched arrays of awkward thoughts, disorientated and unorganized, shaded different spews of emotion and rearranged through the lens of ever last viewer’s eye.  Even so, this soul that is composed of words that defined me painted a picture vivid in its contrast, though blurry from both afar and close enough to squint, no details able to be made out.  These words that have wrapped around my soul rubbed raw from the time my skin first flinched at the cool March air cannot be deciphered by their author, though I know somehow that their letters flowing into one another say more than any curve of my face ever could.  These words are black and white, two extremes crafted in the pallet of the Universe’s toolshed, and perhaps that’s exactly what I am.  Black or white.  I’m dark and lost and scrounging for some rusting wall or tree branch to cling to as to ensure the shimmering waves, onyx and charcoal in their nature with the flow of blood in its spine, do not flood into my mouth at a rate in which is too quick to balance myself upon them, or, I’m white, drifting snow from a cloud scraping the vast expanse of brilliant blue gazing as a sky above all the world, pure, innocent, unscathed with the potential for creation in vibrancies yet unknown, or to be ripped to bits, scattered amongst piles of cream and autumn leaves drained of their color beneath months of shivering frost.  And so, perhaps any physical representation of my being would be all wrong, because that’s not what I am.  Myself, my soul, it resides in the murky depths of heights I’ve yet to discover, tethered endlessly and uncertain among the caverns of my inners, pink and mushy, stirred and ******, untouched from the harsh light of a world encased in brevity.

In the farthest reaches of known space, a single starship lay juxtaposed against the stars. The ship was named Destiny. The cold metallic shell hummed with energy as it sat motionless. There were large chunks of wreckage and shrapnel surrounding the Destiny, the last bits of oxygen burning away.
The Destiny was a silver and blue X-Class, a state-of-the-art high speed ship, currently the fastest in the Nine Galaxies. It's pilot was a female Extro-sapien named Jade. Her species was descendant from ****-sapiens, a long forgotten species from the Third galaxy. Extro-sapiens were humanoid, though taller than their descendants. They prided themselves on their indestructible immune system and immunity to all known poisons.That, coupled with the fact that their skin was strong enough to repel most blades with ease, made them extremely hard to ****. Extro-sapiens were nimble hunters, naturally armed with razor sharp fangs and claws. Jade was a bounty hunter, taking contracts to hunt down criminals or to escort VIPs in hostile areas for generous sums of currency. Her target's ship now lay in ruins, it's now-dead pilot floating in the void of space.
Jade walked from the cargo bay of her ship to the cockpit, stripping away her suit and clothes, tossing them in their respective rooms before sitting at her throne, not a stitch of clothing to be seen. It was relieving to be free once more.
She glanced over the various screens before her, some with pictures of her target either on a wanted poster or in the sealed container aboard her ship. She swiped the images to her left, compiling them into a message for her client before sending them. Almost immediately there was a soft chime as her client started a video uplink. Jade quickly grabbed the large headset from the floor and placed it over her pointed ears. She swiped her finger over the right earpiece and it clicked to life.
Jade growled and crossed a hand over her chest just before the screen shifted. An image of her client appeared before her, a reptilian humamoid adorned with gold rings on his short horns. Jade heard him hiss in surprise.
"Bounty hunter, if I had known you'd be so stunning, I'd have met you in person."
Jade's dual vocal cords echoed faintly in the cockpit. The sound of two angelic voices rolled off her forked tongue. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Besides, a night with me would cost you a fortune."
The man laughed, "Worth it, in my opinion."
Jade growled, "You have your proof of death, Silva, I expect you've wired the credits to my account?"
"Of course, of course! Though I could add a little extra if you simply move your hand."
Jade narrowed her eyes. "A show like that would cost you at least a million. Because I'm worth it."
She heard him chuckle, "Indeed you are." There was a pause and then he smiled, "Feel free to move your hand now."
Jade flashed her fangs, "Of course, you don't mind if I check first, right?"
Silva shrugged and Jade used her free hand to pull up her bank account. Sure enough, her initial payment had been received, along with the extra. She grinned and lifted her hand away from her chest. "Feast your eyes, perv."
She grinned as the reptilian choked. "Now that is worth a million!" He grinned from horn to horn, "I'll let you know when the next contract opens."
Jade returned her hand to her chest and growled, "This stays between us. Remember, I know where you live."
Silva's expression didn't change but she could tell that he flinched. "Of course. Until next time, gorgeous."
The video screen faded away and Jade quickly began to transfer her payment to other accounts. She sighed and turned to her right, seeing a map of the nearby systems. She spotted a contract pinned on a planet a few hundred lightyears away, and she gawked at the price tag.
"Ten billion units?" She whispered, "I could retire early with a payday like that."
She furiously began to type in calculators and coordinates. Her computer's voice echoed I'm the cockpit, "ERROR, PLEASE RECALCULATE TRAGECTORY."
Jade bared her teeth in anger as the holographic screen projected a diagnostic of her ship. One single line of text blinked slowly, enveloping her attention.
"FUEL LEVEL LOW, MAXIMUM SAFE TRAVEL: 40 LIGHTYEARS."
She swore under her breath, growling deep in her throat. She adjusted the microphone on her headset and cleared her throat. Her dual vocal cords echoed faintly in the cockpit. "Destiny, lock in coordinates to the nearest space station. Lock down cargo and prepare to engage hyperdrive."
The hologram buzzed to life as the various systems reacted to the sound of her voice. As Jade waited she shut her eyes, gently running her fingers over her bare chest. Jade's was proud of her body, hating to cover such beauty with clothes. Her arms, legs, and back were covered in ornate tribal tattoos. Jade had spent three continuous days enduring the hand poked tattoo, and she felt very proud in displaying the art whenever she could. She let her hands wander about her curves for a moment before stopping. Jade blinked a few times and shook her head. The bells at he tips of her long silver braids jingled. Jade whispered to herself, "There's time for that during lightspeed." Since she worked alone, she took every opportunity she could to relieve her tensions, as it allowed her to focus on her work without distraction. Companionship meant liability in her line of work.
She waited patiently for the computer, leaning back in her fur lined throne. Once all systems had finished their tasks, a soft voice echoed, "Hyperdrive on standby."
Jade took a soft breath. "Engage."
The starship lurched forward, the engines roaring ferociously behind her for a moment before the sound dampening system kicked in. She heard a familiar beeping and glanced up at the hologram, seeing the countdown from ten seconds. She felt the comforting shiver of excitement she always felt before launch, smiling softly to herself.
She braced herself in the chair and said, "Open view port, engage shield."
The large metal screen in front of her pulled away, revealing the grand masses of stars and planets before her. Jade took a deep breath and counted down, "Five. Four. Three. Two. One."
The ship screamed forward, and the starlight formed a beautiful tunnel around the Destiny as it traveled through hyperspace. Jade slumped back into her chair and closed her eyes. "Destiny, Disengage interior gravity field."
Jade felt herself lifting off of her chair, becoming weightless. Her braids jingled softly as they spread around her like a lionfish.
Jade pulled off her headset, letting it float in front of her as she stretched, running her hands along her body again and she shivered again. She twisted in midair, turning to the sealed door behind her. She touched the panel next to the door, feeling the familiar cold screen. The door opened and Jade floated into the corridor. She turned left towards her quarters and entered through another door. The walls were decorated with digital posters of various terrains she had visited during her travels. She drifted toward her bed, covered with a fur blanket and pillow. Jade wandered to the storage locker next to the bed, opening it delicately. Inside were a few personal mementos and data logs, and a small decorative box on the top shelf. She shivered as she thought about its contents. "Later. I think I need to sleep for now." She gripped the stability handle above her bed and lay down on the warm gel bed, covering herself with the fur. Jade breathed a sigh of relief as she relaxed, closing her eyes. It was at that moment that she felt how tired she really was, her muscles ached and groaned as she pressed a button on the side of the bed, changing the density of the gel to allow her to sink. The warm gel creeped over her legs and belly, then her chest and shoulders.
Jade groaned as the gel encapsulated her, covering every possible inch of her. Her mind wandered as her hand hovered over the other controls. "Massage or no?"
She bit her lip and pressed the button once, feeling the gel start to pulsate around her body.
Jade shivered and said to no one, "Who needs a man when you have tech like this?"
She spent the next few hours in the massage bed, finding her way into the decorative box partway through. Once Jade had thoroughly massaged her desires away, she climbed out of the gel, thankful for the weightlessness. She was no longer confident in the use of her legs. She pressed the first button twice and the gel began its cleaning process.
Jade retrieved her toys and placed them back in the box, pressing a button similar to the one on the bed, closing it and placing it back into the storage locker to clean.
Jade stretched again, invigorated. She floated back to the cockpit, checking the projected time of arrival. "Ten more hours. Plenty of time to get my gear ready."
Jade floated back into the corridor, this time twisting to the right towards her workbenches. The room was dark, save for a few blue work lights. As Jade hovered in the doorway, the overhead lights snapped on, casting a soft white glow around the room. She floated towards the first bench, where her gun hovered in a stasis field. It was almost four feet long, with three rotating barrels. Most bounty hunters favored energy weapons and plasma rifles, but not Jade. She preferred metal bullets that could shred flesh and punch through doors with ease. Her weapons would not fail her in case of electro-magnetic pulses either.
Jade floated to the next table, where her boots and mask hovered in another stasis field. Her boots were strong, heat and frost proof, and had a strong magnetic field to allow her to walk in zero gravity or even upside down. She had recently installed a pair of thrusters to them, which would allow her to fly for a short period of time, enough to get her out of harm's way or to a better vantage point.
Jade's mask was armor plated, angled to deflect any incoming rounds with ease. Two tubes connected the mask to an air reservoir that sat at the base of Jade's neck, underneath her braids. The eyepieces doubled as eye protection and target analysis. One of the lenses was cracked beyond repair and Jade swore. She hovered over the table and delicately disassembled the mask, letting the broken lens float freely away while she installed its replacement. She reassembled the mask and slid it onto her face. There was nothing at first, then the internal computers activated and she saw clearly through the mask. She glanced over the diagnostic data and nodded once she was satisfied. She took off the mask and set it back in its stasis field.
She turned to the final bench. Where her bodysuit lay in a crumpled heap of woven uranium and steel fiber. The bodysuit fit her like a second skin, adhering to every curve she possessed. The uranium fibers acted as an energy source, powering all of her necessities. The black suit shimmered as she touched it, reacting to her skin, begging to be worn. She smiled softly and patted the heavy fabric. "Soon, darling."
Jade glided to the door, leaving her gear behind as she returned to her living quarters. She hovered in front of the full length mirror, looking over her body. She smirked and purred, "Gorgeous as always."
Jade went to the storage locker and retrieved a large metal crate from the base. She took it to the mirror and opened the crate, revealing thirty blue feathers, each roughly a foot long. She had collected one for each of her braids, and she began to tightly weave the feathers into the tips of the braids. In the middle of each of her braids was a strong electro-magnetic core that, once activated, spread her braids like a lionfish. They would act as a distraction, allowing her the element of surprise. The magnetic field they created also acted as a strong shield.
Once the last feather had been woven into her hair, she then wrapped each braid in strips of the same uranium-steel fibers as her suit.
As the last of the fibers had been tucked into place, Jade grinned. The powerful fibers would amplify the effects of the electro-magnetic cores. Jade smiled at their resemblance to whips. She wanted to test them, see if they would crack like an actual whip.
Jade returned to her workshop, donning the bodysuit and her control gloves. She floated into the main corridor, which was wide enough that she wouldnt hit the walls once her braids were fully extended.
She took a deep breath and touched the her thumb and forefinger together twice, activating the electro-magnetic cores.
The sound was deafening, forcing Jade to scream involuntarily and clutch her ears in pain. She was shaking, her vision blurring. Her ears were ringing as she was finally able to hear again.
Jade reached up and felt her fully extended braids, marveling at their rigidity.
Once her hearing had completely recovered, she tapped her fingers together, deactivating the cores. Her braids floated limply in the air and Jade curiously went to the cockpit, sitting in her throne.
"Destiny, analyze decibel range of sound from main corridor."
After a moment, the ship's voice echoed, "Decibel range of one hundred ninety."
Jade shuddered, she was surprised she hadn't been deafened by the sound. She shook her head softly and looked at the projected time of arrival. "Seven hours."
She yawned, "Time to sleep then. Destiny, wake me up thirty minutes before we reach the station."
"Affirmative."
Jade lifted herself over the chair and ventured into her room. The gel bed had finished cleansing and she pushed herself onto it, feeling the familiar warmth. She focused on slowing her breathing and she closed her eyes, passing quickly into deep sleep.

In her dream, Jade stood on a slightly raised metal platform in the middle of a desert. The platform was massive, with sand covering the edges. Jade looked around, seeing nothing around her. She looked up into the sky and saw a single massive sun orbited by twelve planets and a ring of stars. Jade looked around her again and saw a massive wall of water closing in on her from all sides. She shut her eyes tight as she heard the water rushing around her.
Jade felt herself being carried away by the current. When she opened her eyes, she was back in her bed.
Jade blinked and sat up, unsure of herself.
She thought she could still hear the water rushing past her ears.
Jade shook her head and the bells brought her back to her senses. She could hear Destiny's alarm ringing within the bed and she pushed the third button, silencing the alarm. "Destiny, restore gravity.
Jade felt heavy for a moment, then the gravity stabilized and she rolled her shoulders. The countdown was now at thirty minutes.
Jade retrieved the headset from the floor and slid them over her ears. The screen in front of her had brought up a diagnostic of the space station. A light flashed on the instrument panel and Jade pushed it gingerly. An alien voice came over her headset, "X-Class starship, please respond."
Jade positioned the microphone in front of her mouth, "This is X-Class, go ahead."
There was a pause, then, "This is the Space Station Ender, please state your business and expected stay."
Jade hesitated, then said calmly, "Refuel and resupply. Expected stay no longer than forty-eight hours."
A minute passed, then another. Finally a response came, "X-Class you are cleared to engage docking procedures upon arrival."
Jade smirked, "Affirmative. ETA twenty-five minutes."
There was an audible click as the call ended. Jade sighed and pondered the contents of her cargo hold. She stood and turned to the back of her ship, going to the very end of the corridor to a locked panel.
Jade typed in an eight digit combination and the door swiftly slid open. The walls were lined with large storage compartments, though Jade wasn't worried about those. She counted her paces and stopped four paces from the door and she sidestepped right twice, touching her gloved fingers to the floor. The sound of gears and hydraulic pistons echoed throughout the room as a six foot by ten foot container lifted from the floor. Jade ran her fingers along the side of the container, opening the multitude of doors. As each door swung open, stacks of weapons and explosive devices became visible. This was the cargo that her target had been carrying. Since it no longer had an owner, it was worth a lot of money. Jade couldn't resist the possible fortune, bu

I remember the first time
I layed eyes on you
The cracks on your body
Were right there
It was like you wanted
Me to see them
On some level

I saw nothing in your eyes
And I was immediatly drawn to you
Yet I saw no indication
That you felt it too
It was never in your eyes
But it must've been somewhere
Since I heard the exchange

"Did you know she was here"

"no man!"

My heart leaped
But then I saw more than
I could handle
Couldn't get that stupid smirk
Off my face for a week
Couldn't approach you
Any other way
Than the way I did...

But then I was drawn in to a pit
And seemingly you put it there
That's what it looked like:
A trap
A trap for humiliation
And shame.
But in hindsight
It all looks like a big accident.

And I guess I don't blame you now.
Just wish I could read your mind.
Just wish I could leave it behind.
And I do assume that you did.
But then why do I keep running in to you.
On street, in my head, in my dreams.

You left a trace within me
And never even flinched.

On Wednesday nights I
drink a little too much
and become obsessed with the lines
of my palms, yours.

I count the bottle caps and wonder
How many it takes to get
Your clothes off.

We should have kept a tally going.
We should have been softer and
Turned some music on.

I laughed as we crossed the street.
I shivered and you shrugged but did not
Take your coat off.

I was sitting in the den of our apartment with my LSAT study book and a steaming cup of Moroccan mint tea by my side. I had left work - sometimes too many hours of serving rich, inconsiderate people got the best of me and my middle-school self kicked into gear, faking a cough, sneeze, or whatever it took to get me out of that hell-hole. Luckily for me it was Labor Day weekend, so I was stationed at home waiting for Sam to get out of class, our bags packed by the door for a surprise weekend at the lake in celebration.

So when I heard the front door creak open around one fifteen in the afternoon, I was no doubt confused. Sam always came home around four or five, sometimes six at the absolute latest. At first, I panicked – grabbed my tea and nearly broke the mug when I dropped it, threw my LSAT book across the room, and scrambled to spread the rose petals that I was saving until the last minute out of fear of them wilting- “I’m so glad, I’m so happy,” someone burst out laughing. Strangely, that someone didn’t sound like Sam.

I tiptoed down the hallway as quietly as possible until I reached our bedroom door. I didn’t know how I should feel- scared, surprised, suspicious, shocked, maybe all of the above. I lifted my hand toward the door and with a flick of my wrist, pushed the door open until I could see two figures under a single white sheet in our bed. Our bed.

---------------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-------------

I paced the streets of San Francisco aimlessly, waiting for Sam to call me, text me, anything to pacify the emotions arising within me that I had suppressed for so long. I left the apartment without her even noticing I had been there, she was obviously too busy with the mystery man to realize. I walked into the first neon-sign-bar I saw and inhaled the musty smell of smoke and sweat, familiar but not familiar at the same time, my own personal forbidden fruit.

I sat down at an old wooden table that had leather stretched across the top of it, metal bolts lining the edges to hold it down. I nodded to the bartender for a drink, “anything,” I said. Anything to take my mind somewhere else.

Looking around the decrepit bar and the people within it, I was immediately transported back to my early 20s. The sprawl of Chicago, the low-key streetlights, the hustle and bustle of a city in its prime, the late nights (or were they early nights?) that began it all, the first girl, losing my grip on reality, pawing the ground for traction and finding it coated in metaphorical baby oil instead, and finally, the move.

The waiter set my drink down on the table, donning a grin that was lacking a few teeth – like a puzzle with missing pieces that you try to solve, becoming frustrated with your own inability until you realize that it isn’t your fault. But everything is your fault. “Stop,” the waiter turned around as the word slipped out of my mouth. “Uh, sorry,” I manage, picking up my drink (a Waldorf?) and saluting him.

He looks confused but forces a smile nonetheless and walks toward another customer, a young woman with crescent moons of mascara underneath her eyes.  She’s a portrait of lost innocence with her yesterday’s curls coming undone and trembling fingers grasping her drink as though it were life support. Sam. Sam was the kind of innocent you had to admire from afar out of fear of corrupting it, but I was always one for unconventional living.

I looked down at my drink and sighed - to drink or not to drink, the burning question to my seething desire.  “**** it,” I knew there was no turning back the minute I raised the glass to my lips. The liquid ran down my throat like a fire, destroying the three years of sobriety I had accumulated with a single match that ignited the thought to drink even more.

She pushed you to this point. “I know she did,” when I realized I was talking out loud, I lowered my voice, “I know.” Are you going to let her get away with it? “Stop,” I threatened, even though I knew it was pointless. The whiskey flooded my veins and fueled the fire, the voices, the thoughts. You loved her because of her innocence, you know that. I knew that.

Her innocence is what drove me to her, you didn't find just anyone with that fleeting virtue that escapes too many of us too soon – I envied it, even. I hadn't had that innocence since I was young. It was taken from me by force and I grew up believing that free will was nonexistent. But it isn't. You can do whatever you want, it's okay. No. It isn't okay. It wasn't okay, even when I tried to convince myself that it was.

I slammed my drink back, letting the ice cubes collide with my teeth as I kept the last gulp in my mouth, allowing it to burn my cheeks and bring tears to my eyes. You wouldn't have started drinking if you didn't want an excuse. “I don't need an excuse,” I said, too loudly again. The portrait of lost innocence glanced over at me, forcing a smile and offering me false comfort.

She's the type you love. I know, I know she is. Now Sam is just like her – just like all of them. I found myself grimacing into the reflection of myself in the bottom of the empty glass. I raised my hand, but the bartender was already on his way after he noticed I was dry.

“Another Waldorf, sir?” He looked at me with his sunken green eyes, expectant.

“No, I'll just take two shots of *****,” I responded, smiling, “nothing else.” He smiled back at me, uneasy.

More? So you really did miss me. I'm ignoring it, I'm not going to listen. Yes you are. No, I won't. I refuse. Just wait, you'll see.

The bartender came back with my shots, one in each hand. I took one after the other and set a twenty-dollar bill on the table, “keep the change,” I said as I got up to leave. The young woman eyed me as I was walking out and I flashed her a quick smile - that was always how you drew them in.

I decided to skip the bus and walk home instead, hoping that the rhythmic beat of my steps would help to clear my mind. It didn't. When I walked in, I still felt the whiskey and heard the voices. I'm here to stay.

---------------------------------------------------------­-----------------------------------------------------------------­-------------------

“Saaaaaam?” I yelled, waiting for the click of her heels on the wooden floor.

“Hey babe, I'm in the bedroom.” Her voice was honey – sweet. Sickeningly sweet.

I walked toward the bedroom, “so how was your day?” I would be innocent for now. Come on, cut to the chase.

“It was good, I had a long day at work. I just want to relax. You didn't want to go out tonight, right?” She looked at me, her blue eyes glistening under the fluorescent light.

“No, I didn't. Actually, I wanted to ask you something,” I tried to sound as casual as possible. Yes, yes, come on.

“What is it, sweetie?” She moved toward me to reach for my hips. I flinched away. She knows.

“I- I know,” I stammered. “I know what you did earlier, with that guy,” I slurred my words together, partly from the alcohol and partly from the nauseating feeling in my mind. Yes.

“Oh,” that was all she had to say. Oh. A single syllable, the most effortless word in the English language – that was all I meant to her. Oh.

My blood set on fire and I released the floodgates, I didn't care anymore. “So who was he, hm?” I wasn't afraid anymore. You know what you have to do.

“Actually... it was Dominica,” I heard the words come out of her mouth but they didn't seem to match up. I must have heard her wrong.

“It was... a girl?” I tripped over my words out of disbelief. She must have accidentally said the wrong name, maybe she had been drinking, too.

“Yeah, you got a problem with that?” She had the audacity to ask me if I had a problem with her cheating on me. I had nothing left to say at this point, I was void of any feeling. Jacob, listen to me.

“Well give her my ******* regards,” I had reached my boiling point. She looked at me, her ocean eyes beginning to pool with salty tears. As she blinked, a torrent of them rolled down her cheek, leaving a faint line where the makeup came off – a scar, if you will. I think she half-expected me to apologize for the harshness of my voice, the way I always used to after I realized the effect of my tone on her fragile composure. I didn’t falter - this time, I had no remorse. Good.

“Jake, please,” was all she could manage to say. She pushed her jet black hair away from her face – strands had begun to stick to her cheeks from her tears. Even in her seemingly delicate state, she still held her nose to the sky, as if her dignity and precious reputation were resting on the tip of it – an invisible string connecting it to whatever ******* aristocracy she liked to think she was a part of.

Thinking of this and then back to the entire situation at hand, I couldn’t help but laugh. Hoarsely at first, but then louder and more pronounced – I was completely taken over with maniacal happiness. Scare her. Do it, Jacob.

Glancing up, I could see the look of bewilderment encased within her eyes. You're doing so well. She had been sitting a few feet away from me the entire time and upon seeing her fear, I leaned in until I was close enough to taste her cinnamon gum and whispered, “boo.” She jumped. I guess it did work like that, the way you’d see in the movies – push someone to the edge of their mental cliff and a simple syllable could force them off. Don't let her off the hook.

The rest of the act came easily.  I had performed my part too many times for it to go awry and had scared her too badly to even move, let alone run. You know the drill from here. I watched as bewilderment turned to fear and fear to desperation and I swear, if I could have taken a picture at the exact moment that her eyes begged for me not to, I would have. It was in that moment I realized it wasn’t me she wanted to run from, but herself, and that was exactly the way I wanted it to be. It makes the guilt easier, something I knew from experience. It's just a play, Jacob, that's all it is. Play your part. I did. I played it well.

It didn’t look like she would be speaking again anytime soon, so I repeated, “give her my ******* regards” and winked, a smile creeping across my lips as I walked away.

A couple feet from the door, I looked back at the lifeless figure laying under a single blood-stained sheet in our bed. *It was supposed to be our bed.

She grabbed my neck, one hand, and her fingers quickly connected,
“You should have some more self respect, you’re taking this further than I expected.”
I swear that I’m eating again,
but I won’t try to pretend,
that the food doesn’t make me hurt, the removal of my organs didn’t mend.
I ask her to forget it and to just talk about the weather,
the topic wants to drop; she won’t let it, she knows I’m not getting any better.
I was always too much of a lost cause to trust I’d ever be repaired,
for years she’s held the gauze and just silently waited and stared.

At 21 my mother died from a long battle with cancer,
I toughed through it to provide comfort I could never allow myself to receive.
So my own sickness was inspired by Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”
it was never my goal but what my
brain wished to achieve.

I told them all to leave me,
I didn’t expect they would do so,
a few stragglers stayed who wished to prove they were strong.
It’s still shocking that they believed me
or were they waiting for a polite out to go
one that they could argue wasn’t wrong?

And I’d rather break a mirror
than to see the reflection everyone else shared,
it’s not that I would fear her,
but through seven years bad luck I’ve already fared.
I made a choice and a deal
to give my worthless life for just a few good days,
you can’t put a price on how you feel,
you can only hope and pray that that feeling atleast stays.

I became best known through all encounters in every social gathering
as the laid back confident joker, because they never saw me shattering.
I assure you that after I was always in my Honda drowning,
arguing with myself if it was better to be fake than the person always frowning.
I was dying for interaction beyond just meaningless conversation
and only ever met the odd soul to bring that alleviation.
I was so used to the shadows from the comfort of my basement
that I flinched when I saw sunlight and only after felt amazement.

I was a skeptic and untrusting as to why the sun would ever shine on me,
and the refreshing waves that brushed my feet carried potential for drowning.
And just when I got used to light and a natural source of heat
the darkest cloud in history attacked until it did retreat.
Then I thought that drowning in the sea wouldn’t be the worst,
if it didn’t carry me into a current, perhaps it could wash away my curse.
But even the tide will move away when you decide to take that step,
past the point of clenching a fist, every muscle I own did treppe.

Los Camp said the sea was a great place to think about the future,
but I know it’s a great place to think about the one you lack.

What must you think of me?
Dark
Hungry eyes
Full of hurt and hope,
And
All
That love,
So sudden.
I've never met someone like you.
I know you see it,
And yet somehow I think you believe it,
Receive it,
Understand.
And I don't know what to do,
Because
Nobody's ever known that
And not flinched from me
The way you recoil when your hand rests accidentally on a hot stove.
In your eyes I saw...
Joy.
I saw that you wanted
What was in
Mine.
And god,
I've been trying to recover from that ever since.
It makes no sense to me.
No sense.
You saw
You saw the secret.
It spilled out at your feet
And I wanted to fall to my knees there
And beg you to forgive it.
But your eyes never shamed me-
They glowed
(god I cannot unsee them)
With excitement,
As if maybe my touch shocked you
The way yours shocked me.
In that moment
You must understand,
And every other moment since
When your eyes have found mine
And burned my disguises to dust within seconds,
Every single thing I ever knew about myself
Was overturned.
That's why I can't get you out of my head.
Why I'm scared,
Why everything I do now is a little shaky and uncertain in my mind,
Because everything
Is new.
I based my life on the knowledge that I had to hide.
Everything I was sure of, everything that had been
Proven
Time and again to me
By never being disproved
Dissolved in that moment.
You razed it to ash.
When you touched me with tenderness,
I fell apart.
When you kissed me,
I lost everything
I've been wanting to shed
For my entire life.

she waited for him to erase her
as he put his pencil to paper
and created her
he traced the upturn of her smile
precisely picturing the laugh that proceeded
he sketched out the smoothness of her legs
intentionally illustrating the eagerness inside
he outlined the curve of her shoulders
carefully capturing the sadness contained
he shaded in the color of her hair
deliberately detailing her fallen darkness

in his eyes
she was more beautiful
than she could ever see herself
but with every stroke
she flinched
fearing that only inches away
from his creation
was her demise

Vicky opened the freezer compartment of her refrigerator, and got out a box of vanilla ice cream. She looked down at the ceramic bowl and scooped a piece of vanilla ice cream with a spoon. She ate it and it tasted creamy and cold.

            Glenn forced a smile, as if he were trying to placate her, and knew he had no chance in hell of accomplishing that feat. He reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it.

            “You’re really going today?” Vicky asked.

            “Yeah, I really am. Hey, don’t do that. Can't you be strong for us?” Glenn asked.

            Vicky nodded and watched Glenn take in a deep breath and look down at his scuffed tennis shoes. They went out of the house and walked to the veranda. The sunlight was bright and hot and the ice cubes in the lemonade melted from the heat that blazed and scorched when Vicky pulled from her vape.  

             Glenn pushed his chair back and sat down, the veranda was filled with shade, and he dribbled his fingers on the table in a steady rhythm. She tried not to look at him, tried not to think about him leaving for the war, but all she could think about was him flying a fighter jet and seeing it fly into a golden mountain range, smashing into a thousand pieces of aluminum and scrap metal.

            “I don’t understand why you have to go back to the Middle East…you were so against the fighting in the beginning when the war started. And now you’re changing your mind. I mean, what are you trying to prove?” Vicky asked, taking a sip from her lemonade.

            Glenn folded his hands on the table and said in a quiet voice, “I’m not trying to prove anything. But I got to go over there. So many of my friends have died in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now people are dying in Syria. All of those refugees are getting murdered. Not killed. Murdered. They don’t have anyone helping them. I just want to make a small contribution and **** these terrorists up.”

            “What about me Glenn? Who’s going to be there for me? Who’s going to take care of me?” Vicky said, feeling her tears brim her eyes.

            “Look Vicky. I have to do this and I don’t expect you to understand what I’m doing, but I need your support. All these people are dying. You can see it all over the news, the net, social media. The terrorists don’t discriminate in their slaughter. Women, men, boys, girls, young and old. Every person is getting hurt out there. I can’t sit back and do nothing. I won’t be gone for long. I’ll be back before you know it. Promise, I’ll come back,” Glenn said, rubbing her Vicky’s hand. He touched the skin right above her wrist and offered her a smile.

            Vicky withdrew her hand immediately, got up from her seat, and went inside to the family room. He was drinking his lemonade when he set the glass down on the countertop and walked into the kitchen. Vicky slammed the freezer door so hard that some of the alphabet magnets fell off. Glenn flinched and cleared his throat as he washed his glass in the sink. The water dripped down his hands and washed his wrists.  

              She set the ice cream down on the countertop and looked directly into Glenn’s eyes. They were droopy and red with his pupils fixated on the large flat screen mounted on the wall in front of him. A computer keyboard sat on the couch cushion and a mouse-pad sat on the couch-arm. The TV screen showed a picture of men and women cramped in black inflatable boats coasting up and down waves that undulated in murky waters. A commercial break popped up: Anderson Cooper doing the news from Turkey.

               Glenn rubbed his chin and his new buzz cut, a huge difference from his old stoner’s shaggy hair. His face was narrow, but he had a broad chin with dimples in his cheeks. He was clean shaven, so much, that it looked like the razor had cut off the frightened expression from his face that had appeared when he found out he was going to be training to be a pilot. Glenn had a huge fear when it came to heights, and had never even been on a plane, let alone flying into an unknown territory like Syria. The military operated with drones at this point in the war, something Glenn hoped he could use instead of actually flying. He tucked in his raggedy camo green tee with the sleeves cut off. He smoothed out the wrinkles in his tan khakis, folded the ends up like edges on a cocktail napkin. Glenn looked comfortable in his old attire, but seemed unsettled, as if unsure about going back into the military.

              Vicky stared across the room at the decaying bonsai trees on the cracked windowsill. She had bought the trees for Glenn and now the leaves were browning and turning dead. Outside, it thundered with lightning. She said softly, “You remember Maggie Drayner, right? Well, her husband died over there. I can’t imagine what she must go through every day. I think she’s gone insane. Just absolutely insane. She cremated him and put some of the ashes in a mason jar, and stashed that in her purse. But she always looks so happy, she tells me: he’s always with her now. I worry about her.”

              Glenn wiped his hands on a bath towel. “So, they’re like us now? Is that what you’re saying? Why are you telling me this?” he asked, turning around to face her.

              Vicky put her hands on her hip and sighed. “If you go over there, they’re going to hurt you,” she said, pulling on her vape. A plume of smoke rose and fell.

               Focused on the screen now, Glenn watched as three American soldiers were standing in front of an American flag. “That’s nice of you to say. Do you understand my perspective though? I really got to help out these guys right now Vicky, I’d feel like I’m letting them down if I don’t go over there. They need me. Maybe you don’t see this, but I’m making a difference.”

              “Life isn’t some stupid game. You don’t get a restart, lives, or a respawn. Why can’t you stay home, stay with me?” she asked. Vicky frowned and pointed at the TV screen. “Do you think that’s smart? Killing people?”

              Glenn reached over to hug Vicky and she moved right out of his grasp. He looked up at her and sighed and said, “It’s a one-way street and both sides are crashing into each other, without any regard for any soul. Baby, baby look at me. Do you think I enjoy doing this to you? That this is a vacation for me? Trust me. I’d rather be doing spending time with you than fighting the enemy. But that’s not how life turned out.”

               Vicky bit her lip. “So this is how life turned out? You’re going to war, and I’m stuck here at home, we’re both going to die aren’t we Glenn?” she said. Her mouth felt sore and parched and her face burned with irritation. She knew she couldn’t stop him from going, not even if she poured quicksand over the front entrance.

                 Glenn ran his fingers through his black hair and rested his chin on his palm. “You know that’s not what I meant, don’t twist my words. You think it’s easy for me to go?”

            She turned away from him and rapped her nails against the TV screen. “What do you see that I don’t? It’s a stupid war. Everyone dies over there. Glenn, you don’t have to save the world. You have me,” she said, feeling some tension in her stomach rise up.

              Glenn picked up the remote control and turned off the TV. The picture went fuzzy and then went black. He said, “Vicky, I’m going to say this once and then I don’t want to have to repeat myself, so please be calm down, and listen to me. Please.”

                 Vicky curled her bottom lip, but didn’t say anything.

                “Do you even know why I’m doing a second tour again? A bomb hit my best friend Theo’s squad on the way to a mission. The car flipped and rolled twice. Theo was the driver and he had severe head trauma. Now, he can’t even remember his first name. He almost lost and arm and a leg due to the explosion. I think his mind is deteriorating. I don’t know how he survived, why some higher power let him breathe another breath. I haven’t been to church in months. But that’s not the point. What I’m trying to say is Vicky—the reason why I’m going back into this war, is because, I want to save guys like Theo. I could have protected him. I could have saved him. He’s family to me. We’re brothers. And in my home, I can pretend to fight and protect my family and my country. But it’s not the same. It’s just not. And honestly, I don’t care if this is pathetic to you or if you’re embarrassed of me. You’re going to have to accept that I’m leaving, but that I’m doing it for the right reasons.” Glenn said.

                  Vicky frowned. She went back to the kitchen and opened her ice cream. But she hesitated before scooping any ice cream out. She was looking for substance and instead she was left with melted vanilla cream and vapors.

He stared at the cuts on his wrist
Reprimanding himself for his cowardice
To not  finish the job
Melissa had seen those cuts
Dug deep  into his wrist; angry red
Knowing  full well the reason for them
But choosing to ignore them

He flinched letting out a sharp gasp
As slaps  and  punches  hit him
Opening old wounds  and  bruises
His body a palette of suffering  and  pain
Bleeding tears down his skeletal frame
Melissa  watched these attacks
Her boyfriend  inflicted upon him
But chose to ignore them

His eyes were dry from shedding tears
His heart was torn from the constant crushing
His body wracked and tired from the frequent beatings
And his brain weary and ready to shut down forever
That morning Melissa  couldn't  ignore the body
Hung in her front garden
Holding a bouquet of wilting roses;
With a heart saying *I love you

You are the ghost that encompasses love; you possess my every thought.*

     Dust layers almost every object throughout each room of this small apartment. Beneath a white sheet, the dark brown, ragged couch is a perfect image of the haunting fear I hold inside.
     In the miserable corner lay your favourite red guitar. It is covered in a blanket of neglect; never again will it feel your calloused fingertips slide across the cracked fret board. Crop circles design the hardwood of where the other furniture once stood.
     I have yet to set foot in this room; it’s been months since the front room has ever felt sunlight. It’s been months since I’ve been able to cross the threshold where our relationship was at its peak, and wipe clean everything that we’ve left behind.
     I don’t want this to disappear, forever. Besides the memories that haunt me, this is all I have left of you. It hurts to look at this room, where we’d snuggle on the once healthy-looking and clean couch, watching our favourite black and white movies. I cannot part myself from this place where the memories still live.
     Our bedroom… the bedroom still holds the faint scent of your cologne that wafts through the house when a small breeze slithers through the window, opened slightly to rid the musty stench. A chamomile candle is lit there too, though it does nothing to sooth my nerves.
     I once took up drinking, but it always ended in passing out. I’d recover consciousness to the overwhelming stench of *****; my hair would be sprawled and stuck in a pool of it. It was a messy ordeal—I couldn’t understand why so many people turned to it to fix their problems. I dropped that immediately.
     Smoking created stress relief for a maximum of ten minutes, which would last me a trip to the grocery store. The smell stained my clothes, my hair, my apartment for what felt like months of cleaning could fix. That was only three weeks after everything collapsed.
     I’m clean, which is probably the least I can say for myself. I couldn’t touch your *****, beer, whiskey, cigarettes, lighters. I had to buy my own; all of your possessions were poison to the touch. I don’t know how you could so easily leave all of your belongings behind for me to look at every single day.
     I lay in bed every night, curled into a tight ball of discomfort in complete darkness. My mind finds it suitable to replay our relationship as a movie as I whimper softly. I am never able to sleep. Dark circles are prominent under my eyes.
     The happiest memories come first. When we moved into our apartment, it was small and *****, much as it looks right now. Happily, we cleaned it together, dancing and singing and giggling about. That was the happiest we’ve ever been. That was right after high school ended, when we were dating for two years. We were harmoniously in love, with no greater differences.
     Then the night we were engaged… You took me out to the garden overlooking Niagara Falls. That was my favourite place to go. The car ride was only twenty minutes from our apartment, but you were so eager to get there faster. The falls glowed a lovely spectrum of colors, while the mist rose above and blended with the explosion of fireworks.
     “Elise, you and I have been together since graduation. All through college, we were the happiest couple anyone knew. We’ve had our ups and downs—that’s a given—but lately, baby, we’ve only been going up. You’re my sweet, gorgeous, lovely girlfriend. I love you so much; I’d like to change that term to fiancée. Will you marry me?”
     A firework exploded as I smiled and jumped into your arms. Ever since you’d hinted this a few months earlier, and I told you that as long as you didn’t follow the cliché and go down on one knee, and you agreed, I knew one day to expect it.
     “You mean you had nothing to do with this firework display?” I grinned, “Of course, Jeremy. Yes, I will marry you!” We shared a long, hard kiss before we went on the rest of our night. I glowed ecstatically as I walked around, very well aware of the small series of diamonds on my ring finger.
     I never expected that night to go as well as it did. I never expected you to become the nightmare you did, either.
     It was a wonderful romance until the occasional fight turned into an every day activity that we participated in. The night you came home late was the first of it, when you came home almost an hour later than you finished work.
     I stood in the kitchen, looking out the front window facing the driveway when you pulled in. Your response was a mumble as you walked right by me, paying me not attention. “Long night, babe?” I had ask. It was a completely innocent question, but you turned down the hallway around the corner by the fridge, and simply replied with a sharp tone, “Yepp. Goin’ to bed.” “I love you.” I called after you. “Mhmm,” you replied.
     Some nights you redeemed yourself. As I sat in the passenger seat of the car, you’d speed through the roadway and talk about yourself. At the restaurant, I’d pick the food off my plate and ate it slowly, but you’d notice and make me laugh softly. It was just an act—I didn’t want to let my mind think that it was bad as it was, and I didn’t want to let you know that the past few nights weren’t as bad as you thought. Then you paid for both of our meals, escorted me to the car, and we took off to the mall.
    Into the most expensive dress store we went, and you bought me a red satin dress that you thought looked great on me. You then found a three-hundred dollar necklace that matched perfectly, and I agreed that it was gorgeous. Of course I loved them—they were beautiful. You still cared enough to buy me these things.
     “There’s that gorgeous smile I fell in love with. I haven’t seen that in a while, babe. It suits you.” You smiled, gazing lovingly into my eyes and gently cupping my face in your hands. I had flinched at your touch at first, but I adjusted to the former comfort of your warmth.
     Our relationship balanced itself on a teeter totter through the last few months. As time went on, it got worse. Every innocent question I’d ask about you would set you off. My words were like a switch that I couldn’t control; you’d either respond blankly, or angry and impatiently. It was hard to tell every time you’d return home from work which man I’d be speaking to.
     I was interrogated, and it usually ended in horror. When I went out for dinner with my friend (who, evidently, was gay) you were so angry—I’ll never forget your reddened face—you shoved me into the bookshelf.    
     Yet still, I loved you all the time, even when you cared nothing for my feelings or listened to what I had to say. You turned selfish. Desperately, I grasped the memories of the good times to replace with the bad. There was always enough of it to cover, but the black cloud still remained.
     I gave you all I had, and all I was.
    
     My best friend Jocelyn from high school had to come over on the first night you left. You got upset because I didn’t have the money to make a good meal, so instead we had to have sandwiches for dinner. It wasn’t my fault—we both knew I couldn’t find a job; you were supporting us both, yet you were okay with that when you asked me to move in with you. “I’m starting to not be able to handle living here, Elise,” you yelled as I watched the door shut after you. I cried so hard that night, because I felt guilty.
     I had dropped nearly thirty pounds the last month before you left. I couldn’t eat, or I’d throw up. My body completely rejected everything I put into it. The nights I had locked myself in the bathrooms were a clear heads up that you could leave without saying a word.
     My best friend, once again came to my rescue. That night I’d developed an eating disorder, Jocelyn, who weighed as much as I did before, carried me effortlessly to my room and laid me in bed.  
     She tried to coax me out of the house, but I couldn’t leave looking the way I did. I knew I looked ghastly, but she said nothing. Where would I go, anyways? She had her own boyfriend and a two year old by that time. I was thankful enough, though, that she was there for me when I needed her the most.
     “I’m going to get you out of here. He’s so bad to you,” She told me once. We were sitting at the dining table while you were at work. “You don’t understand, I love him. I keep thinking that this is just a nightmare—a phase; it’ll go away in time.” I defended both myself and yourself with a sigh. “Look at you, Elise,” she whispered, as if it hurt to say it. “I’m sorry.” She quickly apologized. “I can’t help it, I’m just so tired…”
     She’d never spend the night, though she wished to, and I never left with her. She was so fearful of you and what you’d do to her. That was another reason she never called the police; if you knew I didn’t do it, you’d find her. A heavily-built man like yourself was intimidating to anyone you ever knew. That was another advantage in your direction.

     On the second last day, Jocelyn had to come over, with our other good friend Jayme, to help me out of bed. By the time we’d reached the kitchen that morning, you busted through the door, drunken and enraged.
     Your eyes of cold, steel grey focused on mine and I jumped, startled. Angrily, you broke the bridge of support the girls held me in, knocking me to the floor. “You two better get the hell out of here before I call the cops!” You slurred.
     It made no sense if you did because they’d take you away for the abuse that was evident on my thin skin. It didn’t matter anyways.
     Jocelyn screamed, “You’re demonic and you are a failure of a human being.” You nearly knocked her on the side of the head and stormed out again before yelling, “I’m done with you, I hate what you’ve become. You don’t even look like a person anymore.” My girls insisted on staying over, but I wanted nothing more than to be alone.
     The next morning, I walked out into the living room. My eyes were barely open, because I was extremely tired as always. It startled me when I noticed you sitting on the couch, watching me as I walked out of our bedroom. “Sorry.” You mumbled with softness in your eyes that I almost didn’t recognize anymore. You then enveloped me in your arms, which didn’t smell like alcohol, but rather the new-clothes smell. It actually brought some relief—some comfort. “It’s okay,” I couldn’t fight it anymore.
     But you never did learn that you can’t say sorry and expect to be forgiven as easily as you could say one word. We spent that night together but I didn’t smile once. You never once asked about me, apologized specifically for hurting me, yelling at me, anything. All you talked about was yourself.
     “You have to leave, Jeremy. I can’t handle this anymore.” I looked down at the sheet we wrapped ourselves in. Through my hair I saw your wrinkled, scruffy face fall. “You can’t apologize enough. But if you wish to one day come back and treat me the way you did in the beginning, I’ll be waiting with open arms.” Then you got up, and walked out of my life.

     I didn’t think that was the last time I’d see you. Knocks went unanswered at the door for months, but I’d know if it was you. I sense these things.
    
     For now I wait, pace back and forth through this hallway, waiting for you to become a better man. The photograph of us hanging on the wall has yellowed, and as I trail along beside it, I pass over the crumpled collection of clothing with a *** of paper underneath it. My love for you will never die, the way another part of myself has.

I was introduced to her mother
One Whit Sunday, down at the Hall,
They said that this was a ritual
And suffered by one and all,
She wanted to check your hands were clean
That you had no flaw on your skin,
I wanted to marry her daughter
But if I had, I couldn’t come in.

They led me in through the servant’s door
Down a passageway to the rear,
Marching me past some gloomy rooms
Was an ancient Grenadier,
He didn’t reply to a single word
That I said, his face was grim,
Then into a room with a chandelier
That was gloomier than him.

She sat at the end of a table, veiled
And motioned me to a chair,
The dust was thick on the table-top
And I’m sure there was dust on her,
I’d heard she once was a beauty
One of the greatest in the land,
But she sat there bowed like a coffin shroud
As she raised her withered hand.

‘Show me your hands and your fingers,’ she
Then whispered in gravel tones,
Her voice like the dying embers of
The ashes of human bones,
I raised my sleeves to the elbows and
I held them out to her stare,
‘I’m going to marry your daughter,’
I declared, ‘so be aware!’

She flinched, as if I had slapped her
Then she said, as hard as nails,
‘I’ll write the end of the chapter,
I’ll not heed your rants and rails.
My daughter won’t marry anyone
That I don’t approve, you’ll see,
You think that you are the only one
Come cap in hand to me?’

‘There was a time, I was in my prime
When the world was at my door,
And I could have married anyone
But the love that I had was poor,
A rival had him imprisoned, just
To get him out of the way,
Then said I could buy his freedom if
I’d lie with him for a day.’

‘My love was such that I put my trust
That this Earl would keep his word,
So slept with him on a Sunday, then
He put my love to the sword.
He said that I’d have to keep his bed
For I had no place to go,
That I was fit for playing the *****
And he’d let my friends all know.’

‘I couldn’t cry, I would rather die
But my first thought was revenge,
My heart was broken forevermore
But my love would be avenged.
I ran his lordship an evil bath
With herbs and salts disguised,
Then held him down while it ate his flesh,
And put out both of his eyes.’

I leapt to my feet on hearing that,
And staggered back from my chair,
‘So now you know I’m a monster,
If you cross me, just beware!’
‘I think you’ve told me a pack of lies,
But I love your daughter, true!
I’m going to marry her come what may,
I swear, in spite of you!’

She rose and beckoned me follow her
And she led me through the gloom,
Down through a flagstone stairwell and
Into a tiny room,
A man lay there in an iron bath
That was filled to the brim with oil,
And only his face was still intact
Though his eyes had both been spoiled.

‘He hasn’t an ounce of flesh on him,
The oil just keeps him alive,
He’ll never get out of this bath again,’
But he’d heard us both arrive.
‘For God’s sake, **** me and end it now,’
He groaned from his oily tomb,
‘I will when you bring my Martin back,’
She whispered, there in the gloom.

I couldn’t get out of there fast enough
But I’d lost my way inside,
I knew I couldn’t get married now
I was far too terrified.
She called me back and she raised her veil
And she said, ‘He stole my grace!’
I saw to my horror that syphilis
Had eaten part of her face!’

David Lewis Paget

each of these scars on my skin (paper)
tell stories and my fingers touch them to hold my memories
because i remember opening up and i hated telling anyone
how i felt
and what it was like to see my insides pour out
and that i still wanted to do it,
i still wanted to decorate my arms, thighs, stomach, hips, heart
with little pink red purple red lines
i remember when he grabbed my arm and i cringed and flinched and ****** air in through my teeth and my chapped lips
and you knew
through all that blue fabric you could see
my scars

r.c.

She showed up limping and my hackles were raised.
I know that limp.
I know that gaze; 1000 yards away.
...(what happened?)...
She could hardly sit down, kept shifting her weight side to side, unable to find comfort, even on a padded bar stool.

"He's a good guy," she said.
"I don't know why...where it came from...I tried to do everything right."

"Trick-***-**-*****!! Lucky I don't **** you."

"At least I've still got my teeth," she offered.

I listen with an open heart to her,
say it's not her fault.
She knows, but why does this keep happening?
I wish I had an answer.

She flinched as I touched her shoulder.
I see now that this, too, was violence.  Physical invasion.
Blurred lines of cruelty and concern, warmth and wickedness.

"No one will believe me...cause he's a good guy..."

I hear you and I believe.

I remember a story, it starts at fourteen.
I had a crooked back and low self esteem.
I was afraid I was gonna end up in a ditch somewhere.

I had to devise myself a plan
of which direction to go if **** hit the fan
and I knew my mother wanted a prodigy child

So I figured I could sing or get really smart,
but my voice would crack and my mind was dark,
so I decided, in this crazy world,
that I could rob graves.

So I left home when I was sixteen
my boredom peaked and my senses keened
I grew with a morbid fascination with the dead

It started out
me figuring that
they wouldn’t miss their dimes, their shoes or their hats
I tramped on the dusty trail with an evil eye

As I ended up along the borderline
I met another young man who had gone insane.
He just got back from the war.
Like he said: “I’ve seen some things.”

So we rode together for quite a while
in the dust on the trail for a thousand miles
until one night, we came upon an unmarked grave.

My partner fumbled around in his pockets
evading worms and maggots from his sockets.
He turned around and looked at me with his crazy smile

It turned out what he found was a letter
and with this smile he said: “The dead have it better.”
So i reached out to grab it while the stench arose.

He handed it to me and on front and back
I read about this lonely, old, sad sack
who, being sick of life, ended up hanging himself.

This really put things into perspective for me
for the attention me and my partner was giving, you see,
was often more than these people received in life.

But one windy day the law caught on our path
and with a holstered gun me and my partner had
we stopped by a local tavern to wet our throats.

The law had converged in the front door
my partner flinched before I could do more.
And before I knew it he had bolted down for the gun.

Before I could say another word
he dropped to the floor and his fingers curled.
He rattled and faded away while I was restrained.

As I was lying on my stomach on the ground
I looked over and I heard a sound
It was my partner whispering his final words.

“The dead have it better.”

new from sat 24th april back to Sandman
into a Lycan,a Viking-a Bearsark warrior beast,
to rip the hearts from my enemies and then just feast,
run through the forest with the rest of my pack,
Howling at the moon,rolling on the snow on my back(pack,back,Pack,in the back,pack in the back ..gradually louder then quiet)...
but in the back of the red mist was a small voice,
at first I ignored this little pup by choice,
but he nipped at my hindbrain pulled on my tail,
until I listened to his reason **WE CAME FOR THE FEMALE
Suddenly the bloodlust left with a bang,
no longer a Beast I felt less than a Man,
the scene before my eyes is hard to put to words,
I was blood drenched the dismembered pieces of the herd(no! GANG-you're a man)I had just been among,
lay around the damp dungeon from whence they had come
even the most hardened warrior would have flinched at the sight
of the remains,the brains,the silent ones who didn't fight,
but one body was missing from the pile of the dead,
one beautiful corpse white afflicted already dead
***** with an itch had escaped by a trap door,
now my destiny is War,and it was trapped in the floor

At 104th street
a great bulk of igneous rock
heaves itself from Central Park—
wet black-green in halide streetlight
like a breaching submarine.

I hadn’t seen this place before;
still, I passed, all a funk,
mind inside itself (a typical brood),
moving past with just a sidelong look.

By a low stone wall
at the foot of the cliff, a man
(black parka, pants
too long, high-top shoes)
leaned as if in muttered
collusion with the ground.

He spoke to someone as I passed
(I figured he was drunk).
“Fella,” I heard him say,
as if to me.
I stopped, and looking back,
saw from across the wall,
crouched on the side of the cliff
a raccoon, black-masked,
capacious gray coat,
tiny hands.

It sat there watching me,
or rather, just watching,
attentive to some
attraction I didn’t see.

And then another.
And another.
And all along that black expanse
must have been twenty raccoons
(I didn’t think they could be so varied)
quietly foraging, awaiting,
I came to understand,
the man in the black coat.

He threw bread to them
like the old pigeon lady in
Mary Poppins
and five or so gathered nearby
on the other side of the wall
not minding his humanness,
only eating.

“I come out here every night,” he explained.
“I don’t got a girlfriend anymore,
so I come out here
and feed them to **** time.”

He tore a piece from a half-gone baguette
and threw it to a little one.

“There’s like fifty of them now,” he said.
“There were twenty when I started;
they have four or five babies every spring.
Nobody knows they’re here except me.”

As he spoke, a baby raccoon
climbed up a sapling
by the wall, extending its sharp black nose
toward the man who held a scrap of bread.
The raccoon took it unreluctantly.
I flinched at the thought of tiny
raccoon teeth missing their mark
on my index finger.
But habit was fixed and easy
here between man and raccoon.

“They’ll come up and sit on my shoulder...”
he said at last and then trailed off.

I stood and watched for several minutes—
this assembly of raccoons
along the black cliff
and the man who called them “fella” and “baby.”

At last he said with satisfaction,
“They call me the raccoon man.”
Deciding he had said his bit,
I gave a soft, enthusiastic whistle
between my teeth
as if to say,
“Well done.”

At 105th street, I felt remorse
for not having said more
to the man who drew
his nocturnal congregation every night
right there on Central Park West.
And in a gesture of regret,
I turned slightly back as I walked
to the see his black form
bent over the low wall
dispensing bread.

you had too many drinks that night,
and she was wearing a dress,
so you thought, "she's a ****," right?
because you label women as:
what they wear is what they are, right?
you tried to woo her countless times,
but she still said no,
and you thought she was playing with you.
you thought, just because she was wasted,
that means she's ***** and wants to ****.
she was an innocent girl.
all she wanted was to have fun,
but you ruined that for her.
even after she pushed you off,
and smacked you in the face,
and called you every swear word,
you thought she wanted you.
she cried for help,
but the music was too high,
and everyone was too drunk,
and they all thought she wanted it too.
and that makes me sick.
because she didn't want it,
she wanted a place to let loose.
she didn't want it,
she just wanted some fun.
a couple of beers,
a couple of cheers,
then she'd go off with her friends.
but you've formed her into a woman,
a woman who screams in her sleep,
who locks all the doors,
who jumps at every bump in the night.
you've done that to her,
and you don't even feel sorry.
you thought she was an animal,
just a play toy.
but she was so much more.
and after she stopped weeping,
you tried to kiss her again,
but she pushed you away,
you got angry with her.
you shook her and smacked her,
you beat her black and blue.
don't lie to me, i know you want me.
i know you want me.
I KNOW YOU WANT ME.
and she screamed,
even if you hurt her.
she screamed and screamed,
even when you broke her jaw.
she shrieked.
she cried.
she never wanted you.
a week later i was walking home,
and coincidentally i looked up,
and on top of the building was a figure.
there was a goddess up there,
black and blue from a beating,
but still beautiful.
her sobs floated from her mouth,
down to the streets,
but no one bothered to listen.
but i did.
and i went up there,
and brought her down,
and hugged her.
she flinched and squirmed,
because some **** had ruined her.
some ******* poisoned her thoughts,
making her believe every guy is the same.
every guy she has ever loved or trusted,
became another trespasser.
she couldn't even look her father in the eye.
but she broke down before me,
revealing herself in blood in tears,
painting me a story that made me sick.
she cried for hours on that roof,
curled up in front of me,
begging me to let her die,
but i refused.
i saved her life,
and i hope no one saves yours for when karma comes around.

He was sitting on the stone cold step outside the Co-op
A thin blanket around his thin shoulders
His outstretched hand reached out to me
And touched my heart.
I gave him the cup of coffee I had been drinking
He seemed pleased, I felt good.

I saw him again on Saturday night, he looked thinner
His face hidden beneath a ***** grey hoodie.
Once more the outstretched hand reached out to me
I gave him a warm blanket, made of wool.
He grunted thanks, I felt good.

One week later I went looking for him on the stone cold step
outside the Co-op
He was sitting on the woollen blanket,
his eyes shrunken into his skull
I gave him my coat.

He gave an almost imperceptible nod of his covered head
And stretched his hand towards me again.
I fumbled in my purse, and gave him all I had – he grunted “Huh”
I felt I’d let him down.

My friends said I was losing weight, my clothes no longer fitted me.
I gave my sweater made of cashmere
To the hooded skeletal figure on the doorstep
outside the Co-op

His jeans were frayed and ***** from the streets
I gave him mine, they no longer fitted me.
He looked up, his broken teeth bared in a forbidding, dangerous smile.
I flinched. His outstretched hand pulled at my wrist,
I backed away, he held me.

I tried to run but his fingers tightened their grip, digging into my flesh
He pulled me in the direction of my home.
His grip on my wrist burning hot

I turned at my door to see him, he grinned, his eyes seeking my soul.
His face now no longer thin, his bony fingers now fleshy,
his rotted teeth Improved.

I looked at my hand. I saw my reflection in his eyes. My face skeletal
with shrunken cheeks,
My shadowed deep set eyes
haunted.
He laughed a croaking triumphant laugh as he entered my house
And pushed me out.


I turned and my feet took me back to the stone cold step
Where I crouched down outside the Co-op
A thin blanket appeared on my thin shoulders
I held my outstretched hand towards an approaching stranger
Who walked on by.

©AEB 14.05.16

Knead your problems into dough
none of them can survive
at 375 degrees Fahrenheit

When you wake up late
add one chocolate chip
for every minute of morning you missed
take out one chocolate chip
for every time you are unkind

A teaspoon of sugar
for every crumb
that he left on your eggshell heart
a tablespoon of salt
for each time you’ve missed the way
his callused hands felt on your voice box

Drift away on clouds of flour
float down rivers of vanilla extract
a dozen cookies for every time you’ve flinched
at the sound of your own breath

On your knees
burn your throat
watch the cookies resurrect
flush to decompose.

the water lapped about my waist,
the coolness stung my skin.
I sat upright on the shore, eyes closed,
my body taking in the feeling.

I felt the sand seep around me,
stick to my limbs and cling to me.
I focused on my breathing and my heartbeat,
I listened closely to the noise that surrounded.

I heard the waves hit the bank,
I flinched at the occasional siren, and prayed for the safety of those it aided.
I counted car horns and footsteps.
I tuned out any voice in my head.

Becoming one with the river,
forming as one into the earth,
I sat still on the banks of the water,
in a city where the river ran through it.

As she often did, Mandy wanted to see the sunrise, but she missed it while struggling to get up and make herself a much needed cup of coffee. Her mug in hand, along with her favorite magazine, she walked out onto her front porch to enjoy the tranquility of the fresh, new day. She thought she caught something out of her peripheral vision and was quite caught off guard. A bit startled, she did not immediately recognize the sleeping figure to her left. Even more startled, she soon realized what she was seeing.  

“Lloyd? What are you doing here?”

Lloyd didn’t move a muscle at her response, sleeping fairly soundly, too soundly to know that he should have already been in his car and long gone.
Again, she asked, “Why are you on my porch? Lloyd! Lloyd!” She nudged him in the shoulder a few times. Was he drunk? There was no smell of alcohol on him.

Now she had roused him out of his slumber, and Lloyd flinched. He was dumbfounded and needed a minute to get his bearings. With a sheepish smile, he slowly sat up and produced a pretty long yawn, stretching out his arms to shake off the night. He was in a rumpled T shirt and jeans, and certainly could have used a blanket.  

Just what her brother doing on her gliding patio couch anyhow, acting like a hobo? Getting it together, he responded, “I just didn’t want to be there...couldn’t handle it last night.”

Mandy’s heart sank. “You mean you were afraid to be home by yourself”, she confirmed to his confession.

He nodded, reluctantly, and slumped back in a slouched position. Mandy handed him her cup of coffee. He needed it more than she did, and he was glad to have it. Her feet in fuzzy slippers shuffled back to the front door as she stopped, turned towards him and said to him, “If it wasn’t summer out I’d call you completely and utterly crazy. You know you could have just told me what really was going on in your head, and I’d have let you sleep on the couch. All you needed to do was to ask—no not ask—tell—tell me instead of making my front porch your hotel room. What kind of sister do you think I am?” She wasn’t sure that her little lecture got through his thick skull.

Before she opened up the door, she threw her little brother a slight glance of compassion and said, “I’ll make us some breakfast…”  

Mandy asked their brother, Bill, if Lloyd was acting strangely in his company, as well. He said, “Yeah, he hangs around here a lot more than he used to.  We have him over for dinner a lot, and I know he feels like an intruder…though he never says it. Karen never complains and the kids like having their uncle around.” Bill paused and added, “He used to be so much fun, but I see the difference. I see when he pretends with the kids, and see how it is when he is more alone. He probably doesn’t think I notice.  I notice”.

Bill and Mandy always looked after their little brother.  A gregarious boy, he always loved attention. Getting that attention often meant getting himself into trouble. He found himself in the principal’s office more than once—pulling the fire alarm was a prank that got him two days suspension. It could also be graffiti, clowning around in class, coming in with a jar of spiders to freak other students out, or initiating skipping school with his friends made him a big target for trouble.

When it was Devil’s Night, there was one demon that could be counted on for soaping windows and tossing toilet paper up trees. It seemed like harmless kids stuff, but it got Lloyd caught and in his room for punishment for one, whole week after school. It seemed he was grounded all the time, and his mother often delivered his punishment, but she still held a soft spot for her son.  

Lloyd had his redeeming qualities. Everyone thought Lloyd would be great in the drama club in high school, not one timid bone in his body, and he could captivate an audience. He’d be great for the stage. So when the school was putting on the play, Fiddler On The Roof, Lloyd got to be understudy for the role of Tevya. When Joe Schwinn came down with a really bad cold, Lloyd finally got his chance to get on stage.

It was just that Lloyd had such a huge task to be the lead role for this production. It wasn’t that he didn’t learn the lines, but it was a tall order to fill.  He was doing a pretty good job, but he was adlibbing all throughout the play, getting a few, unexpected laughs here and there. But when it came time for Tevya to confront his third daughter and her Gentile boyfriend for wanting to marry outside his Jewish faith, Lloyd really started to get stumped. He couldn’t think of his next line, and everything got uncomfortably quiet. He soon blurted out, “Leave my daughter alone and don’t come back, you **** *******!”

It got him the biggest laugh of the night, but also booted out of the drama club and back into the principal’s office the next school day. Nevertheless, Lloyd got lots of high fives from other students, had a blast, and loved having his moment in the limelight.  

Being the youngest in the family, Lloyd’s immaturity made his parents’ hair turn grey—at least that is what his father told him. After taking the family car out for spin to impress his friends, when he only had his permit, Lloyd got into a minor fender ******. He was afraid to call his dad, but the police never gave it a second thought.

His father was furious. “Bill and Mandy, put together, never gave us even an inch of the trouble you give us!” he shouted to his son. For that foolish gesture, Lloyd did not get his license at sixteen, like his friends did. He had to wait until he could legally sign for his own, and that was at eighteen.  It wasn’t cool to wait while all his friends were driving their own cars.

But now Lloyd was thirty-one. He seemed to have learned his lessons, and was a fairly responsible man. He was glad his mother lived to be proud of him, before cancer took her life. He still did not feel he was that much of an accomplishment to his father, and they only talked occasionally. It was like his dad blamed him for her passing, and Lloyd would have done anything to have her back.

In contrast to his funny, devil-may-care side, Lloyd had the more serious, thought provoking side. When his report card wasn’t as full of A grades—like Bill or Mandy’s—he would beat himself up over it. In spite of his shenanigans, he was actually a very good student

He really missed his mom. Though she often wanted to shake some sense into him, still she always believed in him. Now Mandy kind of took up that roll in her place. Even after he could make her angry, his mom would not hesitate to sit him down and tell him things like, “I’m proud of you Lloyd. It’s not what you do. It is who you are…and you are my son.”  If only he could hear those words again from her lips.

Why would he want to go home to an empty house? Especially, the nights were the hardest. The digital clock by his bed seemed to be frozen in time, and the nightmare of insomnia seemed endless.

After knowing him for over six years, with four-and-a half years of married life together, Pamela left him. She once loved him-- or so he thought. She loved his crazy side—his humor and his fun loving nature. Maybe it was the miscarriage that did it. They both wanted children. Maybe it was because Pamela felt sheltered all her life, and soon discovered that marriage would be the way she envisioned it. Maybe it was him--period.  Anyway, she left Lloyd and it tore a hole in his soul. On top of that, he was denied a promotion in the office that went to someone else who didn’t work there as long as he did. The group of friends that he had known much of his life grew apart. Life was caving in around him and he felt helpless to do anything about it.      

It was Mandy who came up with the idea running through her mind. She told Bill, but he was against it and told her to stay out of it. Well, Mandy’s friend, Libby, was cousins with Tammy. It was Tammy who lived down the street from Lindsay and was acquainted with her. Mandy usually never played matchmaker, but she found out that Lindsay was divorced, too, and without any children. Since she dated Lloyd several years ago, at least they weren’t embarking on like some blind date that nobody really wanted to meet up with.

Sure, Lloyd was lonely, but it wasn’t for Lindsay. He was lonely for Pamela. How could his sister expect him to just get over her?  She, too, was alone, almost married her longtime boyfriend, but backed out. Didn’t she understand? But Mandy made Lindsay her Facebook friend, and told her all about the latest with her brother. Though he was a bit perturbed, Lloyd knew his sister meant well. Soon, upon Mandy’s recommendation,  Lindsay sent Lloyd a Facebook request to be her friend.

They never had dated all that long—less than a year. Lindsay reminded him of that duration of time when he first came over for a visit to sit out on her deck in her back yard. To shut Mandy up, he agreed to see her at least once. By now, the feelings for her had long passed. They were once an item together, but it was over a decade ago. They seemed like just kids at the time, though they were twenty-years-old at the time. Lindsay was actually two months older.

“My mom was so upset when she knew I had been drinking with you”, she told him. “You remember?”

Lloyd lifted up his beer in irony and Lindsay lifted hers as they clunk their bottles together. They both burst out laughing, a rarity for both. “I know. She would never allow liquor in your house”, Lloyd said, “Strict Baptist lady, for sure!”

Lindsay teased him. “Oh, you’re such a bad influence! Mom was right!”

“I was!” he exclaimed. “We were underage and lucky no harm came of it other than some **** in the toilet. No wonder your mom wanted you to ditch me!”

Lindsay always tried to please her mother who single handedly raised her only daughter. That was hard to do, though no matter what Lindsay did. She liked Lloyd a lot, but she also loved her mom. But just where was there relationship going anyway.

“You know”, Lindsay confessed. “You were my first, real love”.  She playfully winked and sipped on her beer. “I love bad boys”.

It was like the rebel in Lindsay was delayed, not like it was in her younger years. She always tried to be the good girl, the dutiful daughter, unlike Lloyd. The two were in the same grade, and went to the same high school, but they barely knew of each other in those days. They were never in the same class together and only saw each other in passing down the school halls. Her locker was once across from his. Lindsay did remember, though, his famous role as Tevya, and thinking about it again made her crack up like it just happened the other day.

“You are so much more laid back”, he told her. “I guess your mother was always there to crack the whip, but not anymore. How is she, by the way?”

Lindsay looked sad for Lloyd as she said, “Like your mom, she got cancer, but thank God she recovered. She moved to Florida a few years ago because my brother and his wife insisted the climate would be better for her.” It was actually a relief to not have to rely on her mother. She now had no excuses.  “Sorry to hear about your mother, Lloyd. My condolences.”

Lloyd appreciated her condolences. They reminisced a while, but neither one wanted to talk about the pain of being alone nor express the pain of feeling like utter losers. Lindsay wanted to open up about her two failed marriages, but she also wanted to forget about them. Lloyd was never one to share his innermost thoughts to her. He certainly didn’t want to tell her that he preferred to sleep in his car or on his sister’s front porch or that he tried not to cry because guys don’t do that, struggling with the lump in his throat from holding back so much.  

After talking about their times at the lake, of how they loved to lay on the ground and look at the stars, Lindsay finally said, “I don’t really want to date anyone at this time. I don’t really feel like doing a lot, lately, that I used to do.”

Lloyd didn’t look at her, but felt her eyes upon him. “I know what you mean”, he agreed.  “Depression *****, doesn’t it?”

“I know”, she responded. “I’ve been seeing this counselor for a while, another one, and I guess it helps. I wondered if I’d ever feel anything again. I just often felt like I was going through the motions…and that it was the best way to just get along in life.”

Lloyd didn’t know what to say. Often, he felt the same way, but he just couldn’t voice it. Would he ever want to share his life again with another woman? No, Pamela wasn’t coming back. Everyone told him so, especially Mandy. She never really felt that good about him marrying Pamela to start with, but it wasn’t up to her. It was over. Lloyd logically knew that about Pamela, but emotionally he still wasn’t there.

“I pretend a lot”, Lindsay told him. “I mean I do what I’m supposed to do—go to work, pay my mortgage and my bills…I’m just existing but not living. I’ve made my mistakes, and now I’m afraid—period.  I prefer playing it safe. I prefer not to feel.” She smiled to lighten the atmosphere and rested her hand on his. “Now how’s that for a good catch phrase for a dating website?”  

Lloyd pondered upon what she said. He could have easily said it himself. Eventually, he stood up and extended his hand out. He decided they should go for a walk. It was about three and a half miles to the park they used to hang out in—a good spot.  They walked hand in hand, like they were still together. The wind blew through Lindsay’s hair and spread it around like plant life in the ocean, soft and swaying. She was lovely.

They got to the park and Lloyd pushed her on her swing, higher and higher until she felt like a little girl again. Then they went down the slides and the balance beams. Lindsay would tickle him in the back to try to get him off balance, or she’d push him off and he would pretend to chase her and give it to her. They truly enjoyed each other’s company. Being together really banished the blues for the time, and kept the ugly thoughts of loneliness at bay and from rearing its ugly face.

“So where do we go from here?”  Lindsay asked.

“Huh?” Lloyd wondered what she was getting at. Did she mean for the park or in a deeper way?

“Can we be friends?” she asked him. She seemed uneasy, as if he would say, “Thanks, but no thanks”.

Lloyd felt a bit uneasy himself. He never wanted to hurt Lindsay, or Pamela or anyone. “Of course we can,” he told her. He said what he meant, too. He really wanted to spend time with her. “Let’s just enjoy things for what they are”.

Lloyd picked up some pieces of mulch, and threw them one by one, ahead of him. He asked Lindsay, “Was I really your first love?”

Lindsay thought a moment, and then pulled him by the arm, taking Lloyd to one of the picnic tables. She inspected it.  No, it wasn’t that one. She looked at another table. No, it wasn’t that one, either. And then she went to another one.

He asked, “What are you doing?”

“Found it!” she said at last. Lloyd looked at the table, and among all the carvings in it, Lindsay pointed out what she intended to find.

Lloyd loves Lindsay

“Did I write that?” he asked. He didn’t remember it. He ran his hands over the indented letters surrounded by an uneven heart.

They both sat down and Lindsay explained. “All the time that we were together, I knew I was really starting to like you. I mean really, really like. I wasn’t sure at first, but the feelings just got stronger. I just didn’t want to be the first one to say it—and I thought you’d never!” Her eyes beamed as she went on. “Then it happened. You said, ‘Baby, I love you”. I said, ‘What? Did I just hear what I think I heard?’ Again, you said, ‘Lindsay, I really love you’. You could have knocked me over with a feather! I never thought you’d say it, but I hoped you would!”

Now he remembered. At the time, he was carving something into the table with his pocket knife. When he finally got the urge to tell Lindsay that he loved her, she asked to borrow his knife and right then she wrote it in the table. Lloyd than took back his knife and topped it all off with outlining those words in a heart.

Lloyd truly did love Lindsay. He didn’t lose those feelings after all. To know she loved him back was like medicine to him now. They began to walk back to her house

that night we lit up on her roof and watched the smoke dance in the vibrant black sky. her eyes are blending into the pure absence of light and i’m hopelessly lost. there’s an ash resting on her pale hair and i keep thinking i want to blow it away but i can’t move or she might disappear. her small calloused hands are waving a flame too close to my face but i can’t leave those two spots of endless, endlessly infinite, swirling darkness and i feel my cheeks singe. my skin is bubbling and melting and she’s catching the drops in the curve of her left palm. my muscles have still forgotten how to stretch. my limbs are carved from ice but my face, my face is burning and the tongue of her lighter is lapping at my eyelashes. my forgotten cigarette is burned to the filter and i let the glowing tip fall to my thigh. i’ve torn my eyes away but they bleed because in those moments we had fused together. i’m fixed on her mouth now, and it’s the face of my sister, no, it’s the lips of my kindergarten teacher on the day she whispered that her cancer was consuming her and never she never came back, but no, her features are sliding and it’s her again. it was always her. it was her face all along but i’ve flinched and she’s a stain on the ground.

"Cold Pizza recconnection electric arrest
old friends left over home alone red rover
flip book puff paint able zippy signing
lightning priced highly sprite-ling shy

leaves leap a leaf leavening leaves levers
lionize me syllables and cymbals symptoms and asymptotes
Saigon cinnamon whats gone the difference between Ke$ha cassia
lizard fish ports porter stout with the south border patrol
those tater tots eves since lighting daily lessening fatigue

green bar measure in response to the begging caboose
dim light lemon wedges squint islands honeycomb wide
perfect metaphors touch poem remedy powder doughnuts
a flask a mile width cantina cactus dessert dish lips road slick
female professional tag team tobacco handler interest yields

hey baleful pinky spam vy the guar and the sandwich song is humming a tune
to the sun and the moon and the wayside is wont for supper
a Loom spun round noon grooms an unbridled silver spoon
four ye old won't stop being contractions

contrast only reaps the aura mood in the the conical darkness
event is a horizon a jungle fools chained wrist to ankle
banks full listless investment feel drench razed
shake the way, late too ate tea teal a lit in did go
non-sense sin is a million aeons idle pining growth ignored

**** growth from the root why dragging the gravel lightly
emerging ravenous pushing the sun with the scalp singed minded
ogre bleeding decked and gripped dreams idealized eyes delete
sounds sold summoners atones in limitless feeding frenzy

cells flinched echo dissonance opening i um ma ni pad may hummmmm?
why do I mumble sometimes humbly others sacred offerings yet
qualify the quality of cells fishing to be men in community
ruthlessly scrutiny is mutiny suppose to be loud to leave
pew pew ill losing hung lung fungus molding heaving epi not pen but the helium
the healing them believing can propane proverbs pains aim profane fans
breathing wind fillet of sky blue as the ocean beyond the waves
lines thickening tears of god embolden as rainbows streaks marking

pens pencils stencils window sills rest acquitted gloves stylize
notebook dropping concrete break dancing drunk down stairs stars stare
clean the shadow rise to the top rise out of the base meant to trace the blueprint
croon dining a line red as rare as charred dark as an assassin man dares to draw"