He wanted to see the universe age. That’s all he told us, before swiftly and unceremoniously swinging the nose of our class VII starship toward the biggest black hole in the galaxy. Our pilot for the past nineteen cycles, until this event Kylar had never shown a spot of worry. He was fastidious to a fault. Always arrived on the bridge with every button polished. The fact was, we trusted him. We still do, somehow. 

Looming ahead of us was a vast nothingness, visible through the viewport. The whole ship shuddered. Three ensigns tackled Office Kylar, and the Captain slammed the thrusters into reverse, but it was too late, we were already caught in the black hole’s irresistible sway. 

  Everything we had been taught at the academy promised either an instant or a prolonged death in the heart of the dark star. We experienced neither, but the mood on the bridge was dour, nonetheless. We didn’t know how long we’d have to contemplate our deaths (forever, as it turned out) but we all understood that in an instant, our lives had forever changed. Those of us who had been daydreaming of dry docking on Neptune to visit loved ones or plotting the path to the shadiest casinos on Pluto were forced to abandon all contemplations, plans, and private optimisms. Life had ended. Our bodies just didn’t know it yet. 

“Well,” said the Captain. “Fuck.”

“Can we kill him? Kylar?” asked the First Mate. She was practically frothing at the mouth. 

“Why bother?” asked the Science Officer. “What’s done is done.” 

“Isn’t there any way out?” asked another voice, whose we don’t remember. We don’t blame them for clinging onto hope. 

“It’s a black hole,” said the Captain. 

“Supermassive black hole,” Ensign Adler corrected.

“And we’re…in it…” Kylar crooned, mouth muffled by the buffed, metal floor. 

The First Mate kicked him in the skull. “The hell were you thinking?”

“Have we crossed the event horizon?” The Science Officer stroked their goatee as they peered out the viewport. 

Ensign Adler glanced at the readouts on the wall. A blinking outline of our beautiful ship was bisected by a hazy blue line. “We have. But they haven’t.” She pointed at the back end of the map. 

“Oh God, it’s going to pull us apart,” moaned the optimist. 

“Hush. We’re beyond existentialism,” said the Science Officer. “This is fascinating. Ensign Adler. Kindly open the bridge door?” 

“You’ll see now, you’ll see…” Kylar whispered. 

The door hissed open, and together we gazed into the future. 

The hall outside the bridge was a wide promenade that stretched all the way to the other end of the ship, lined with comforts and amenities for crew and passenger alike, sold out of neon-bright storefronts. An enormous window — broad, circular, and segmented like an ancient clock face — dominated the opposite end, gazing out on the stars between the twin prongs of our powerful thrusters with their purple-blaze plasma.

This, at least, was what we all expected to see. Parts of our understanding remained true, yet already it was changing, blurring by at the pace of an android watching old movies on twenty-four times speed. 

“What…the…hell?” muttered the First Mate. 

“That’s our crew. Those are our passengers,” gasped the Captain, as blurred bodies, aging before our eyes, dashed to and fro like so many insects. Between us and them lay the hazy aurora of the event horizon, cutting the ship in half, a wall of time. 

“We are firmly caught in gravity’s grasp. They say a black hole is like a well so deep, and so vast, that nothing in the universe can escape. Not light. Not starships. Not even time. We’ve left reality. We’re…here, now. Watching them.” The blueish light of the event horizon flashed in the Science Officer’s eyes. 

“Can—can they see us?” the Captain asked. 

“Nothing escapes. We are beyond them now.”

“Why aren’t they getting pulled in after us?” Ensign Adler stepped near to the door and peered cautiously out at the zipping, time-skipping vista. 

“The thrusters. The most powerful ever built, we were told, and they’re proving their worth,” said the Science Officer. “The Captain must have hit them at precisely the right moment to place us in perfect equilibrium. Half in, half out.”

We all — even ship-sentencing Kylar — sat together in a semicircle, unbuttoning our stiff uniforms, removing our starched hats, sharing in solitude as the universe passed us by. The only sound was the Science Officer, scratching notes onto a legal pad, as we stared transfixed the silent film of Time itself. 

Generations lived and died and lived again on the back half of our ship. Greenery grew up as we gazed. The descendants of our fellow travelers used what little they had to terraform their tiny planet, making themselves a home perched on the rim of reality. A temple was built up around the boundary. We watched them burn offerings to the dark. Sometimes, people even crossed through, only once they had grown weary of Time. We welcome them into our circle, invite them to join in our Watch. To them, we are as gods, from a distant and half-forgotten age.

We are watching still. Kylar tells us we will thank him when the universe fizzles out and we’re still here. He says he has saved us from ephemerality. Some of us even believe him. 

I created the stars, but regretted it instantly.  Father told me not to create matter, so as not to upset the universal balance of nothingness.  Father said, To create anything is not only superfluous but painfully misleading and will only lead to needless suffering.

I did not go to Father, but to Mother, Mother of Eternal Night.  She said she forgave me for creating the stars and if I created nothing more, then no great harm would come to the universe.  But I got older, and whoever created Boredom was the true culprit of Disharmony for I couldn’t help myself when I gave into my impulses and created planets and moons.

It was then that Father sought me out to destroy me, for he knew where all this was going and he was right too; I was creating in order to amuse myself, not out of any virtuous principles whatsoever.

I did not want to die again like I had so many times before.  Whenever Father got the notion in his head that I was being a disobedient son, he would kill me and I would have to go through the obnoxious process of being reborn, a process I can’t describe here because there is no language to describe it.  I hid on the third planet I created and there was nothing but rock and thick vapors.  Father is so confused by material manifestations; I knew he wouldn’t find me on this planet.  In hiding, I began to create all kinds of things and quite by accident created Life, that is, I created Time, the very thing Father most feared I would bring into existence.

Father was really too old to be Nothingness, but he somehow held on to his position.  In fact, his powers have somehow expanded even greater than in his youth, for now he is the all-encompassing Abyss.  He is now everything that is truly important. So much so, that he doesn’t seek me out any longer, he is far past worrying about my silly habit of creating. 

And now I have created all this life, and I am remorseful because the poor living entities were somehow—from my sloppy alchemy—imbued with Purpose and Hope; they suffer in such a way that I will never be able to comprehend.  But if I could find a way to communicate with them, if I could just find a way to understand their language, I would like to tell them to be happy because I know for a fact that their energy force will not last very long, therefore their suffering is short lived, for soon Father will wipe out all my creations and it will be as if they had never existed.

  There are only so many Twizzlers a child should enjoy in one sitting.

Come with me. 

Look under the bed there. Don’t worry, she can’t see us. You’ll get used to that soon. Well, maybe not soon. Took me a few months, really. But you will.

Do you see how, because the packaging is translucent, and because Mom is a lazy mess, Mary is able to wad up the wrappers and tuck them in the corner back there without detection? Masterful. Sometimes at night, I get hypnotized by watching that red night light reflect off the wrappers. It’s really something. No, Mary doesn’t notice at all. She sleeps hard, that child. 

My gosh, I have to say, I am thrilled to have you here. So much is happening lately and I haven’t had a chance to talk about it. I didn’t know you were coming, but I think it’s great that you’re here. I know you can’t have any questions, but I’ll tell you everything I know. 

All right. In this house, the kids are getting older, but they’re still not old enough to get into any real trouble. At least not around here. Pretty affluent neighborhood, no crime to speak of. Private school, small classes, highly involved parents. They’re lucky. We have a fortunate family here. 

Let me show you the kitchen. 

Mom and Dad just installed one of those child locks on the pantry door, but that’s more for Soren than for Mary or Finn. Finn can definitely open the pantry door on his own, but Mary struggles. I’ve seen her do it once, but only once. Soren just cries at it. Like that will help.

Don’t you wish you could remember being a child? If I concentrate – like on those nights when I’m in Mary’s bedroom and the night light bounces around the room and I relax a little – I can remember. I know I don’t truly remember. Maybe I make up the memories because I’ve seen Mary and Finn and Mom and Dad talk about last Christmas, or their last birthday, or whatever. I know they’re remembering. But on those nights in Mary’s room I let myself imagine memory. Like a curtain drops down and then all at once I remember bones. My bones. My solidity. My ability. How my fingers simply made something happen. Snap them together, and everyone looks. In that instant, I command change. Do you remember that? No, don’t worry. Of course you don’t. You’re brand new. You’re blank. 

And I don’t think I remember, either, of course. Maybe it’s all just jealousy. 

Regardless. The kitchen.

I think you’re here to take Mary over. Maybe I’m being shifted to Finn, or even Soren. I’m sure they’ll let me know soon. But I’ll tell you about Mary.  

To put it simply, Mary is a sneak who likes candy and dislikes brothers. Mom and Dad think they’re so smart to tuck the Twizzlers into a Tupperware and prop it behind the cooking oil. I’ve heard Dad say he re-packages them like that because he doesn’t want them to get stale. Finn complains he hates the smell, but I think it’s because they think it’s a better way to hide the stuff. But sometimes, when Dad is cooking and when Mom is upstairs, Dad leaves the pantry open. Mary, the affectionate sleuth that she is, spends much more time with Dad on these evenings. She comes in and hugs him and asks him if she can help in the kitchen. He always directs her to the pantry to get the little step stool out, so that she can see above the counters. Just watch next time he cooks. This plays out in almost the exact same way every time. He asks her to get the step stool, she goes into the pantry, spends just enough time in there to seek out exactly where all her little treats and treasures are, and then she fights with the step stool that hangs on a hook. Inevitably, he has to go over and help her get it down, and because he’s immersed in cooking, he doesn’t think about Mary being in the pantry. So when he situates that step stool, he doesn’t even bother to shut the door behind them, because alas, his hands are dirty and he will need to get something out of there soon, anyway, so why bother? Even though Mary is peering into what amounts to be the safety deposit box of her little kid dreams. 

This child is ruthless. You won’t understand and you won’t believe me. You’d think she’d be as intoxicated by all kinds of candy, and that you, my friend, are here to keep her from getting in trouble with it. But I’m telling you, Twizzlers. Twizzlers. In the beginning, before I got here, she took all manner of Twizzlers and hoarded them in one or two different places in her room – the tent they have set up for her, and in her closet. Now like I said, Mom is a lazy mess, and even when she finds the wrappers and throws them away, she never really remedies the situation. Apparently, it seemed innocuous at the beginning. But then Finn entered the equation. Big brother Finn, Mary’s menace, comes in hot one day, to the point of tears, complaining that he can’t stand the smell of Twizzlers. He was only like five or six – Mary was probably four – and so he hadn’t really had a lot of exposure to the candy. But I guess some kid at kindergarten handed out Twizzlers to the class for Valentine’s Day, and Finn had to leave the classroom because he couldn’t stand the smell. I know, right? Gosh. Do you know those Magic Markers? I wonder what Finn thinks of those. I’ve never seen Finn with them, but I bet he can’t handle those, either. Such a strong scent. See, this is why I’m so happy you’re here. I am telling you, I think I’ve smelled Magic Markers before. No, I know that doesn’t make sense. What I mean is, I know I’ve smelled Magic Markers before. And Mary has never used a Magic Marker. I don’t think there are any in this house. So how could I have smelled one? Isn’t that amazing? And I have the sense that I hated the scents of some of them, like Finn hates Twizzlers. How could I know that? How is that happening?

But yes, I need to keep telling you about Mary.

Here comes big brother Finn, home from school that day, and little Mary hears all about his trouble at the Valentine’s Day party. She stores this information in her little head and keeps it for a later date. 

This is when I integrate. Like you, I was blank. Theresa was Mary’s guard then, and here I was, integrating into her household. She was really strange about it. But I didn’t know any different, or really anything at all, so this all occurs to me later. Because apparently, well, when a new guard integrates into your space, it’s bad news. Or so I’ve gathered. 

Anyway, Theresa and I spend some time together. A few months, maybe. She shows me everything I need to know about the family, and the rest, of course, is natural now. What we’re here to do. We guard and protect. Hard to do with adults, but nearly impossible with kids. They’re always everywhere. That little one, Soren, starts climbing on top of counters and launching himself off stairs. And then there’s Mary.  

Mary goes into kindergarten, Finn is in first grade. They’re in a new phase of siblingdom. They’re at school together. They have some of the same friends. Over the year, Mom and Dad introduce Red Vines and those cherry bites and other off-brand Twizzlers, none of which affect Finn the way Twizzlers do. And so here comes Mary, going to her first kindergarten Valentine’s Day party. Finn has been hassling her, something about one of her Barbies or Frozen or some such. She’s annoyed, but Finn doesn’t back off. 

Mary brings her homemade Valentine’s Day box to school. She plops it on her desk and then she watches everybody else to see who is handing out which treats. Little kids Connor and Elijah each have a bite-size Twizzler taped to the Valentines they’re dropping into their classmates’ boxes, and so Mary devises a plan. Little Mary takes her bag full of M&M singles, all fastened by Mom – who I guess is good for something -- to those itty bitty Valentines for each of the kids, and dumps half of them into the little drawers they have in those kindergarten desks. She walks up to Connor’s desk. All the kids are kinda milling about at this point, some handing out specific Valentines to each kid and having to stumble over kindergartener’s handwriting on the fly as they’re approaching the desks, and others are dropping cards at random in the inevitable shoebox. Needless to say, nobody notices Mary slinging her whole bag of Valentines across the room. Connor is shuffling through the ones he still has to distribute, and Mary comes up and says, “Connor, you give me all your Twizzlers and I’ll give you all my M&Ms.” Remember, she has half her M&Ms back at her desk. He looks at her like she’s nuts. She straight up stares him down. “Nobody will notice. You think everybody goes home and makes sure they got a Valentine from every single person in the class? Nah.” She shakes her head, willing Connor to do the same. “Besides, weren’t you sick yesterday? They’ll all just assume you were out today, too.” Connor pushes his glasses up his nose. He eyes the coveted M&Ms. Sure, they’re not the peanut ones because they’re in school, of course, but they’re still pure chocolate. 

It’s early on in the party, so his bag is pretty stuffed. 

“Looks like I have more than you do.” 

“Not true,” she counters. 

He’s six, and he is no Mary, so he takes her word for it and they do the exchange. Mary slides back across the room.

Back to her desk, Mary dumps all her new Twizzlers into the drawer and puts the rest of her original M&Ms in the bag. She knew Connor would be easy, but Elijah is different. Elijah is social and chatty, and probably took a bunch of time writing out everyone’s names on the cards himself. All those little names on all those little cards. Lots of too-big letters. Gosh. I can almost see them now. I was there at the party, but I didn’t have to get that close to the things. But right now, I can see those little Valentines. Tiny squares full of squished-up letters. I can see a Molly on the cards. Molly. Not Mary. Pretty close, though. It’s a pretty name. Molly. Who is Molly? Mary never talks about her. I don’t think they’re friends. But I definitely know that name. 

Anyway, at the party, Mary collects herself and approaches Elijah.

Little Mary smiles at him. “Hi.” 

Elijah beams. “Hi!” He rummages in his pile of Valentines for Mary’s. 

“Hey, that’s okay. You don’t need to find mine. I just have a favor to ask.” 

Elijah pauses. His hair sticks up all over the place. Not because of Mary, but because he’s in kindergarten and doesn’t know how to brush it.

Mary drops her bag on Elijah’s desk and kinda leans into it, like maybe she’s seen Mom do to Dad. Elijah is busy chewing his fingernails and watching all the kids in their class eat their candy. Mary tells Elijah that she’s got this brother who is really mean. Elijah perks up at this. 

“Mean how?” 

“Like, really mean. He pulls my hair.”

Elijah’s eyes get big. 

“And he trips me sometimes. And he hides my Barbies and my LOL dolls.”

Elijah darkens, probably thinking about his own sisters at home. 

“Yeah, but LOL dolls are pretty dumb.” He fidgets, clearly wanting to get out of there.

Mary reads the room. “Yeah, but you know what else he does?” She leans even closer to Elijah. 

Elijah worries. “What?”

“He trains my little brother.”

Mary falls back a little and waits for that to land. 

You see, little Mary knows that Elijah has a little brother at home. But it’s not like Elijah talks about his brother all that much, which is the creepiest part of this. No. Mary remembers, back in the first week of kindergarten five months ago, that Elijah shared that he had a baby brother about Soren’s age. So Mary clocks that her brother and Elijah’s will get older at the same rate, and that all the terribly annoying things little Soren does are probably similar to Elijah’s terribly annoying little brother. And little brother Soren is almost always terribly annoying.

Elijah drops his fingers from his mouth. “He trains your little brother?”

“Yes. He does. He showed him how to hide my toys or bite heads off my stuffies. Which is hard to do. And Finn trained Soren to go after me when I get home from school. Finn says, ‘Mary’s home!’ to Soren, and Soren turns and runs right at me. Sometimes, he knocks me over if I’m trying to take off my boots. Sometimes, Finn will tell Soren to hide things, even in my room. Sometimes, he gets Soren to throw food at me. He trained Soren, and he needs to pay.”

Elijah wavers. “Pay how?” 

“You’ve got Twizzlers.”

“Yeah? My mom says everybody likes Twizzlers. And they’re easy to tape to Valentine’s.” 

“She’s wrong.”

Elijah’s fingers jump back to his mouth.

“My mom is wrong?” He trembles.

“Not everybody likes Twizzlers.” 

“No?”

“Finn hates them.”

“Okay?” Elijah shifts from one foot to the other. “Mary, do you see Miss Larson? I gotta go – I need to find her.” 

Mary watches Elijah shimmy. 

“Oh, I know where Miss Larson is. She’s in the hall, helping with the bowling station. Do you want me to get her for you?”

Elijah bounces. “Yes! Please.” 

Mary turns to the door as if to find their beloved kindergarten teacher. But she turns back to Elijah. “Under one condition.” 

Elijah crosses one knee over the other. “What!” 

“I give you my M&Ms, you give me your Twizzlers.” 

“But I have all my Valentines written! That took me days!” 

Mary starts gathering her M&Ms and says, “Okay, okay, I understand. Don’t worry about it.” With her original bag in hand, she turns back toward her desk, away from the door. 

“Mary! Okay! Here are my Twizzlers!” Elijah shoves them over his desk. 

Mary squeals. She empties her plastic bag on top of Elijah’s desk and sweeps her new Twizzlers into it. Then she prances off to find Miss Larson, bouncing around as little Elijah suffers. 

I know. Unbelievable. You don’t have to look at me like that. I didn’t do it. She did. Our little Mary. Well, your little Mary, now. 

If I had hair to pull out or knuckles to crack that day, I’m telling you, I’d be bald and arthritic. But I’m not either of those things. Bald. Mary has great kid hair. Big and brown. A mess, like her room, but it suits her. She twists it a lot. You’ll need to watch for that. You don’t want her to get it in knots. She’ll pull at it sometimes when she’s mad or distracted. That’s another thing. That pulling feeling. I think I had hair, long hair, when I was living. Long hair, long enough to put into a ponytail. But I can’t be sure. This is why I’m so glad you’re here. I wish you’ve been around as long as I have. I want to know if you remember, too! I can’t be sure if I actually remember hair, and ponytails, and Magic Markers, and snapping fingers, or if I am just picking that up from Mary. But Mary doesn’t snap her fingers! This is why I need to talk to someone. Where is this coming from? 

Have you looked in a mirror yet? I know you just got here, but you have to wonder. No? You don’t know what I’m talking about. To wonder. I guess you’d have to have a memory to do that. You have to have a memory to compare to your current situation. You don’t, yet. I’m pretty sure they don’t want you to know that I have them. Memories. Maybe that word doesn’t even mean anything to you. 

Listen, they can’t find out. I hope you can keep this between us. 

But yes, Elijah and Mary. Elijah didn’t wet his pants. Mary found Miss Larson, I guess, right in time. And Mary made off with a bag full of Twizzlers. 

Which leads us to our predicament. Your problem, I guess. Your main task.  

Our Mary hoards Twizzlers. She’s quite a collector. And it’s not because she wants to spend all night snacking on the things. No. She doesn’t even seem to like them. Well sure, let’s be honest, of course she likes them. But not like you’d think, given how many she’s accumulated. 

Come on, let’s go back to her room.

Take a look around. I know you already know about the wrappers under the bed. And in the tent, there in the corner. Yes, she did eat those Twizzlers. She’s not made of steel. But what else do you see in this room? Yes, other wrappers. Other candy wrappers. Yes. Lots of clothes on the floor. Lots of dolls. Some dismembered dolls, you’re right. I think she has mastered the use of scissors. But what else? What about her closet?

Go ahead. Tell me what you see in her closet.

I know. You’re confused. The closet is not, in fact, a pantry. It’s supposed to be a place for clothes and toys, maybe. But not half full of Twizzlers.

Do you wonder why I think Mom is a lazy mess? I realize she has other kids, and I’m pretty sure Mary keeps everyone occupied outside her room. But, a closet full of candy is what I’d call alarming. 

This child keeps Twizzlers to terrorize her brother. I’m telling you, I’d watch out if I were Soren. This sister is not to mess with. I’ve seen them at the breakfast table. Finn makes a face at her, and sure, she cries for a moment, but then her face changes and she composes herself. I think she knows better than to smile, but you’ll be able to see when she makes her plan. Finn knows now, too, but he can’t help himself. Sisters are meant to torture sometimes, even though he knows he’s got it coming. Mary will wait two or three days and then Finn will wake up screaming because she put Twizzlers under his pillow in the middle of the night. You just can’t leave her side. And other times when Finn upsets his sister, she will tear off little bits of Twizzlers and drop them in his lunch bag. They’re hard to see that way, but the smell is unmistakable. Ruins his whole afternoon. Meanwhile, she’s eating her turkey sandwich with the other kindergartners, loving life even more than usual. 

You’re right. I’ve been talking at you for a long time. And you just got here. You know what you’re supposed to do. You know you’re supposed to look over Mary, to protect her, to keep her safe as well as you can. You must have been a very grounded, stable person in life, because you’ve really got a tricky charge, especially just after integration. 

I remember that. Integrating. What is that feeling? Can you describe it? You’re still blank now. That emergence. I bubbled into being. I fizzed up from somewhere, and then I spread out, flat, like a pancake. I’ve seen Mom and Dad make pancakes a thousand times, and of course I’ve never eaten them, but I know what it’s like. I’m telling you, I can taste pancakes. I know how they sit on the tongue. I can feel them against my teeth. I can’t tell you how I know this. I’ve seen the kids and Mom and Dad eat pancakes now for a couple years, sure, but I know the feeling. I have the feeling. I mean, I’ve had it. 

This is happening once a day now. Twice a day? I remember. I remember things. Like chewing. And you’re not going to believe me, but I think I’ve had a Twizzler before. Of course we can smell the smells and see the things around us, just like the living. But I promise you, I have eaten – with my own mouth, with my own teeth – a Twizzler. 

And I think this is why you’re here. No, no, I mean, of course you’re here because you just integrated and of course you’re here because you’re a guard, but I think you’re here, in this house, to start guarding Mary because I’m having memories. 

Yes, of course, I will show you the rest of the house in just a minute. But please, listen to me. I need to say this. Theresa told me the day before she moved on that there is a program. A place. Somewhere else. For guards, like us, but I guess more specifically like me. Guards who start remembering. There is this place where they’re sent, and she wasn’t clear on the details. But at this place, this program, something like school, they are taught. Or re-taught, she wasn’t sure how to describe it. And she seemed scared, but she didn’t tell me that. She seemed nervous. She’d been remembering things. She told me, every once in a while. I think just here and there, but she didn’t know what they were – memories – except that she’d hear the family talk about remembering vacations or remembering last week or remembering Easter dinner. So she knew what memories were, sort of, and she knew they were coming up more and more often. But after a while, she started to recall images of people. From her own life, she thinks. Not people the family knows or recognizes. People from elsewhere. And then, she said, she started to try to find more memories. She started to try to fill in the faces and the bodies of people from her life. Mind you, at this point, I didn’t have memories. I’d just integrated and she was showing me around, just like I am – 

Oh. 

I see. 

Right. 

Well then. Let me show you the rest of the house.

I.

Chichikov pulled up with his associate Tanya to the nicest house, in the richest town in the County. The appointment was expected, as Chichikov had a very niche, and specific set of wares he was selling. As they got out of the car, they were dressed like those who lived there. It was Summer, so Tanya wore a nice white dress that was borderline appropriate, revealing everything and nothing, while Chichikov wore boat shoes, khaki shorts, and a blue golf shirt; accompanied with fancy sunglasses that screamed “I’m a traveler, but I could buy your house.”

Chichikov knocked.

The lady of the house answered – thirties, martini in her hand, hair messy – and invited them to come in. They followed and stood in the game room with a large Maypole in the center. “I made that,” the lady declared, “you can ride down it.”

“Like a fireman’s pole?” Chichikov said.

Tanya smirked.

“Let me see if you got what I need,” the lady of the house said, pointing her finger to the table in front of her.

Chichikov opened the bag and placed the product on the table. He had done this before, nearly three months as his business empire expanded. The first being almost by accident, almost like a joke, some rich guy coming out of a fiduciary company.

“How much?” he asked Chichikov.

“Two thousand,” Chichikov responded.

“They’ve been worn. It’s got holes!” he said.

“Jorge ‘the flash’ Esposito owned them. Best player in the league in the early-two thousands” Chichikov said.

“I remember!”

“He’s on the street now. You want him on the street?”

“No,” the fiduciary man said.

“Well, two thousand. I get half. He gets half. That’s the arrangement.”

The fiduciary man nodded and bought the shoes “On principle,” he said.

Chichikov laughed to himself; and handed “the flash” a portion of the proceeds – twenty dollars. “Why?” Chichikov thought, “should the homeless “Flash” earn money on worn, old shoes; and we should he, Chichikov, not benefit more for doing all the work. He’s ‘the Little Red Hen’ here?”

And what turned to be a joke became a fad, and soon more fiduciary, more stock brokers, and more wives of these people sought these shoes – these ‘Dead Soles’ as his business was named.

The woman of the house looked down, shifted her hair to distract Chichikov, and looked down more to distract.

“I don’t like these,” she said.

“What’s there not to like?” Tanya added, “We have women’s and men’s”

“I just find that the price for these is too high…” the lady said,

“Fifteen thousand for the women’s shoes. The star we got it from was on that show The Way the Table Flips she was the harlot. Here are the shoes that she wore – “Chichikov showed an AI picture of the “actress” wearing the shoes. The woman looked closely.

“I still don’t like them,” she said, “maybe we can go cheaper…” she purred at the end.

Chichikov knew this game. A nice way to weasel out of the price. And he was not falling for it.

“The price is set. You called us here from my apartment to buy these shoes, and now you’re changing your mind. Tanya! We’re done!”

Tanya stood. For men she would honeypot the deals more, but her presence with women was always a concern because the more secure women would find her a friendly presence, but less secure would create a rivalry.

“Wait!” the lady said, “I want the shoes! I’m the only one without them!”

“Then let’s make a deal,” Chichikov said.

And with the Chichikov would make his sale – this time relinquishing four pairs of shoes.

“Another good day,” Chichikov said.

“My cut,” Tanya said.

Chichikov took out his phone, sent her fifteen thousand dollars, then put his phone away. Tanya’s phone dinged when the transfer hit, and then she kissed him – a fifteen-thousand-dollar kiss.

“But…that rich lady took all our inventory. We need more,” Chichikov said.

“I’ll stay in the car this time,” Tanya responded.

II.

They drove to the nearby city, and located the stomping grounds. The buildings could be described as “surreal decay” where windows were broken, houses had the appearance of faces watching you, and the bodies of the inhabitants looked like zombies or corpses; some sprawled on the street faces contorted in a disembodied way, others stood as though they were frozen in stone.

Chichikov liked this arrangement. The contorted street bodies, laying in their own feces and waste, you simply take the shoes off. Similarly, the frozen, Medusa-like stone people could be tipped over and shoes taken.

When he arrived and got out of the car, he saw his first “victim’. The young man looked like he was twenty-one years old, got a bad fix, and lay flat down. Chichikov came over to him, and began tugging on the right shoe.

“Not worn enough,” Chichikov examined it further, “Jordan’s ‘26”

Chichikov put it to the side.

“High school star down on his luck, turned to drugs, but the shoes have power; and wearing these shoes will give you power…yes…that’s the story…” Chichikov said to himself.

He pulled the other shoe off, but tugged hard.

The kid woke up, but looked into Chichikov’s eyes saying nothing. They froze looking at each other. Chichikov knew in the kid’s state he had only three minutes of life left.

The kid’s mouth opened. Yellow bile poured out. He began choking on it. 

Chichikov stood, watched the kid ride out the overdose, watched as the grim reaper snatched the kid away, then took the other shoe.

His next ten minutes were not as interesting, merely paying off the homeless and aware drug addicts with twenty-dollars for their shoes.

In all, Chichikov earned ten pairs which he was estimating would take him in roughly one-hundred-and-forty thousand dollars before Tanya’s fee, and then the extra hundred-thousand for the “Jordan ‘26” that had the name “David” on the side.

Returning to the car, Tanya looked from her phone, saw her partner, and unlocked the door. 

When they got back, Tanya added more to her fifteen-thousand-dollar kiss, inside an apartment where the phantasmagoria of the two shadows could wake the dead.

III

Chichikov spent the next week “perfecting” and “curing” the shoes. The more worn-out shoes had to be patched slightly; only needing to survive one wear, or maybe two. Chichikov would say upfront that “these shoes are not to be worn” they are “memories and ghosts of the past that should be cherished”. Thus, he made sure that the shoes had that aesthetic of that “worn and used”; sometimes leaving it outside in the hot sun, drying them off, like creating mayonnaise into a “secret sauce”.

But the only shoe that was left untouched was “Dave” that served to be of a premium brand, a “Chateau Le Fete”. They sat, locked away, not even allowed to be touched. They were meant to be genuine.

“How beautiful,” he told Tanya over his steak and eggs, while she ate cereal, “shoes that came freshly off a corpse, a final wear before eternity.”

“Quite,” Tanya said, uninterested but faking; and much like her former perfection “faking it” was necessary, and being with Chichikov provided safety from that.

“A new part of our racket could be having people jump off buildings, and landing in a large pillow pile…and really place emphasis on the Dead Soles aspect of our business.”

That evening “Dave” went live with the price of one-hundred-thousand dollars. Its description read: “You can’t take it with you…but we can embrace what remains…” 

In a few days, Chichikov got a call of people interested in “Dave”

Off Tanya and Chichikov went to the suburbs.

Two grieving people greeted them and invited them in.

“It sounds so strange that we’re having this discussion,” the father said.

“Not at all,” Chichikov said, “Sometimes we need peace…”

“Like we said, our son…” the mother paused, sniffled, then continued again, “our son…we knew…he was lost…knew what that junk did to him…”

“Terrible…Terrible…” Chichikov said.

“And our son did die from that junk…” the father said.

“And…beasts took our son’s most prized possession – his shoes…” the mother said.

“Taking people’s shoes is truly a despicable act…” Chichikov said, “but these shoes here are a comfort…please…one-hundred-thousand dollars…”

The parents picked the shoes up. 

“Gary,” the mother began, “I feel a strange connection with these things. Like they belong here.”

“I feel that connection, too,” said Chichikov.

“You know…these shoes look exactly like the ones that our son had,” the father said.

Tanya looked at the shoes.

“Even to the very name “Dave” we’d put it in the same place. It’s like the shoes are telling us to buy them, so we can be no longer be terrorized by the dead; as though by buying these shoes we can still have a piece of our son.”

“Maybe we should reduce the price,” Tanya said, with that sense of dread (or guilt), “even for fifty-percent off…”

“That would sound great!” The mother said, “for us grieving parents…such a discount could…”

“No!” shouted Chichikov standing, “What I had to go through to get these shoes! No! I watched him die! I could have called for help! But I watched him! I’m not selling it anything for less!”

The shoes hit the ground with a loud – THUD! – finding its place next to the couch.

IV

Lying on the street was a man covered with a newspaper that read “Chichikov Exposed!” A passerby saw the man, and pulled up the paper revealing a grotesque specimen underneath. The passerby revolted at the site, and just before he was about to leave, he looked down. The man had remarkably nice shoes, despite being a total wreck. They looked nice, ones that cost a fortune.

“Nice shoes!” the passerby said, “Shame you don’t need them anymore…”

And the passerby put the shoes on, leaving Chichikov with the old ones.

  At the knock, Deirdre Harrow rose from her spinet. She peered past the door then opened the oaken slab wider and allowed him past her, stranger or no stranger. The flames behind the firescreen knew him and leapt their welcome where she did not, but the invitation lingered in the air like the frost from the breath of the words that had once passed between them, so long ago that only their ghosts remained. 

He dashed the cloak from his shoulders, an unseemly lurch to his elegant shadow and the snowflakes scattered, melting before they reached the floor. He looked his request to her, falsely humble, like a lover who knows the conclusion foregone. She curtseyed for all reply. He had been long away, long indeed from the country entire. 

“You were expecting me,” he said at last. He lifted his tone at the end and used formal address, but it was not a question.

“Not in the least, but there’s tea all the same,” she lilted, cleverly stepping aside any address at all. 

At first he thought, impossibly (or not), that a baby’s cry in re came piercing his misformed ear. This in fact turned out to be — or did it turn into? — the keening of the wind he’d just left behind him, unless it was the whistling from the kitchen. Deirdre hummed along in do and vanished into the dissonance of a darkened doorway towards a kettle unseen. Diabolus in musica, he smiled askance. Invitation indeed. Her spinet lay quiet now in the corner, but he was no fool. 

When she reappeared, tray in hand, she gestured to a love seat. Her pale and delicate hands arranged her panniers, billowing pillows of cerulean silk that kept him at a remove nonetheless. Reaching deep into the pockets beneath her petticoats, she drew out sea glass, a pomander, a pocket book swollen with letters, a hussif, any number of keys, copper, brass to brillant gold, the firelight catching on to the heart shaped handle of the gilded one. Then she removed a knife, a walnut shell, a phial of rose water, and more. The stream seemed never ending until out came a lover’s eye token that favored his own gaze. She tossed this trove before him so that the treasures settled spinning on the rosewood table. They reached stillness only when she drew forth finally thimble, thread, and fabric and began to embroider before him, her hands lying tender over the purest virgin wool underneath, just the size of a bassinet’s berth.

She hummed still one remaining note of the tritone, raised it sharp now as her needle, following on the heels of another and then another. As a sole melodic line, all alone now, the song seemed a weak one. It haunted, though, something to do with lullabies, unless it was lovers forlorn and forsworn, one or the other, words long forgotten, past remembrance even before waking memory. He tried to place them, or at least finish out the song he could swear hung yet over her spinet, while her floss blossomed into quick pink buds under her fingertips. He gave it up — everyone, even he, knew where fairy tunes led— and lifted the porcelain to his slim, livid lips and sipped in silence, waiting for her to break it first.

That silence however seemed to feed the rosebuds as they burst from the fabric into scent, as her fingers, however frozen, drew them forth from the woven support, scattering blooms in their wake, as one she had done from her bare footfall in a graveyard garden long ago. Pink petal after green leaf over and over appeared across the fabric, like a chant repeated from the pout of her pink lips. Deirdre Harrow hummed on alone, undeterred by the wind falling quiet and coy.

“What have you for me then?” He gave in finally, surveying what the pockets had held, searching for something he did not seem to find, though his eyes rested on the walnut shell. His gaze feigned indifference. As though simply occupying his large hands with other than the tiny tea cup handle, he overturned the walnut shell to its wrinkled, crinkled, meatless insides. A sidhe squirrel kit might have lived there, snug. It had not been so cozy during his own residence in that labyrinth, only cramped and hard against his poor hide before he shrank to its needs. She had caught him before, laid that trap and he had fallen into it. This time circumspection prevailed, innocent though she played it.

His own hand dared further and caressed the fabric covered now half over with flowers, of just a size to keep the chill of an unknown world off newborn flesh. He strained his ear once more against, maybe, a creaking cradle, then the moaning wind and patter of small sleet against the window pane.

He remembered then the topiaried roses where yew spread over the tombs, where willow witnessed blood spattered on the blooms when she had done her worst. Now, each bit of red thread she drew through the virgin wool reminded him of — but not only of — how he had snagged his cloak on a thorn and with her needle had caught him up and placed him in a nutshell. That needle had not been kind. 

His breath escaped him. She slipped a fraying thread’s end through her petal lips, to slip it anew through the needle while her song — a cradle song, surely — trailed off. Whether merry or mournful he still did not know, only that it had cracked something open through which he might spy, through which he might step, though wary.

He inched closer, and tucked behind her ear a glistening curl that had escaped her linen cap, recalling a rose slipping past the iron gateway of that garden, that graveyard, a rose tree writhing, climbing, defying the bars that kept it back from the air the living breathed.

She did not move away from his gesture. She did not move at all. He took this as his answer and nudged his rustling way against the silken hills of her panniers. The letters within them had held secrets, promises, in ink and tearwash, wept as much as penned and the keys unlocked hearts she had stolen across the hollowed hills, across the western reaches to the doors and the isles of dawn. He felt his way, his fingers reaching to her pockets and came up empty, with nothing of the riches she had produced but shortly before. 

Or had it been shortly? An hour? Two hours? More? The long past-dusk did not help tracking time, the darkness coating the windows, setting off only snowflakes against the blackness (staring in on their tête-à-tête, curious as to what might come to pass).Those hours slipped by much as the years had since last they had met where wild roses defied a sculpted garden’s laws. 

Their tea long cold, she went to the armoire and brought out a carafe. The cut glass of the curved profile echoed the lines of her own standing body, and left him longing for a taste what it held. She poured him five drops in the minute glass, one for each petal on an eglantine. It warmed the inside with the spirit of long-gone fruit haunting ripe on the tongue until it became bitter, not fruit but nut. He swallowed. The cordial burnt his throat, yes, but something else as well. 

The hearthfire fought off the chill, a losing battle. He shivered. She did not. She kept her eyes steady on the rose blossoms budding out of her fingertips and into the hooped fabric stretched taut into its circle frame. Was that a scent of a lover’s garden at his nose? Wild roses escaping a cemetery, a garden where the souls blow free?

She dipped a candlestick into the hearth place, while the lace at her elbow dripped like melting icicles. She shushed the moth that played at the lone flicker of the taper flame, soothing it with a caress. Becalmed, it flew to a shadow-licked corner above the window where cobwebs danced with the invading draft.

“Deirdre Harrow, you are playing with me, and you must ask yourself if that is very wise again, if ever it had been? “

She raised her lids to him. 

Or at least to a point past his shoulder. But the blue of those orbs stopped him short, even so, like the sky that once set off petals of deepest red. He caught his breath only to release it again, sulfur and bitumen foiling the rose pouring forth from her embroidery, as if those buds opened up onto a garden he once knew, as they said over in the lands of France, like his pocket, like the back of his hand.

“Come now, tell me….If I cannot have your soul –” he insisted upon the formal you, like one lost in a shipwreck to driftwood long dead.

“Not my soul, no but my heart, if not free, is available.”

“What need have I for a heart?” he replied, feeling his way around her defenses.

“There are those who say that a heart is all thou lackest, something pulsing in thee, the beat of it,” she addressed him in their old way, the old familiar form they had known in other guises. 

“And well you know there once pulsed something strong — “ 

“ — all for the love of thee” she sang again, mocking, from the old tune of the demon lover. “Absent lover will fondly cry,” she scoffed the ancient adage of hollow hill wisdom and raised an eyebrow, and turned to him now, gazing into his gaze. He dropped his first. “Thou canst not have my soul, foolish Devil, and my heart has its price.”

The flame leapt once more, dancing its anticipation. Wind insinuated its way past the window pane. Snowflakes peeked in, anxious, if snowflakes indeed they were.

“And what price might that be Deirdre Harrow?” He took to his knee. “What wouldst thou do to me, now, this time"?” Unable to help himself, he reverted to the old address, “And which heart will you give me in the end? Your own? Do you swear this time? or will it be another story of pawning off something you purloined from some other unsuspecting soul?” 

She reached now into her pocket once more, as though distracted, out again came a small hourglass, an egg, a hagstone, a poesy ring, a feather, a silver christening spoon, and finally a bottle of salt. “Thou must renounce thyself, and all thy ways and means.”

“Where didst thou learn churchman speak? “

“At Hell’s doorstep, with our babe, its cerement heavy upon it as starlight.” 

He remembered, he regretted, confiding in her the secrets of how heavy stars weighed, but too she had twisted it out of him, where he had never meant her harm, in childbed or other. He sealed her cheek’s velvet curve with one kiss, softening his hardened smile, dry and cracked.

“I know you of old, and your tricks too; false as the sky in March, as spring come early!” he chid, “And I forbid thee to weep. Thou art no woman for to melt into tears at a needle’s prick of your thumb. Thou art no woman at all.”

“All the same I bore your child,” She picked up her thread with her song once more, as drops of red sprang from her unthimbled thumb stained the blossoms scarlet from tender pink. Onward she stitched, onward she hummed. He could bear only a few notes further, then begged her quit. 

“It never died!” he cried, 

“Tell that to tomb lading it, and the shroud too." 

Hither and yon a yearning gust sorrowed. The door flew open, the wild wind rushing round them from the west. Its sound rang familiar in his ears, a strident call once known, time out of mind, and loved, though nameless.

“I remember being lost in a walnut shell; trapped and lost at once, wandering its halls and mazes, where thy fairy tunes echoed off the walls, the gall that once coursed and congealed within, choking me of all incantation outward, to break free—” 

“— Yet here you are.”

“No thanks to you and your fairy gifts.” 

“Will you abide by your word? This time?” 

His fingers left the long-empty phial of liqueur. He had indeed promised her to receive it, the soulless babe, so that it could make its way across the waters of the dead. His idle hands took up the lover’s eye. Back it blinked at him, like a mirror with a mind of its own, the iris now green as a willow bending over a tomb, now grey as the granite headstone. He tossed it aside and slipped one missive out of the be-ribbboned quire. He broke the crimson wax: virgin letter yet, it seemed, but dragonfly wing frailty at its creases, falling apart in his hands, told its own tale. Seal or no seal, a pair of eyes, likely blue, had read and read over, and read again those words spreading across and along it, crisscrossing each other like a labyrinth of meaning and unmeaning intertwined. 

“— I shall have – ” the letter began in walnut gall ink, like the blood of the shell that had held him sure for centuries gone. The words lay dark as the soft earth mounded over a tiny form that lay now, hopefully slept, under a willow, under a rose, biding and abiding, under the burden of  stardust, a creature of middens dug through by time and tide, barren of ghost. He stalled and sipped again at the crystal, the spirit of walnut slipping bitter down his tongue and throat, the gall of the letter ink.

Further he read aloud, clearing his voice, raised against the wind’s persistent whistling, against the crackle and flicker of the hearth beyond. Rain blurred the window for something had further melted the sleet now to weeping. For what reason, he knew full well, as better still did she. Frantically with fingers numb, she stitched her roses over the stretched virgin wool, just the shape to surround a tiny body, soulless and nameless, and keep it from the bitter cold.

The dark ink tinged his eye from green to brown and the lover’s eye token followed, and blinked at the chill, the gale outside sad as a babe born with no where to turn when it died, as it must. 

She would never forgive him, only summon him these moonless nights once in a long, long misery of time, between which she might closet him away: before the walnut shell came the locket, and before the locket came the stopped watch’s fob, preceded by the broken flute and then the music box. She had threatened him even with a reliquary and its reeking saint’s bones. He tried to recall what prisons were his before that (though the thimble on her ring finger gave him pause nor was the needle case reassuring) and could not, when he looked at her eyes again after all this time. At a halcyon glance, they tripped up his memory. And the lips so like what she blossomed forth upon the tiny blanket, just the size to cushion a cradle, a coffin he never carried. He pressed his mouth firmly, one pale lip against the other, and turned back to the letter, words he could not remember committing to paper, thoughts he could not remember committing to word. 

“I cannot call it, back or forward. You know this.”

“For you never named it either, and you its father. We lost it, into the hills, then under them.”

“Churchman talk, once more. Imprisoned, I could not.”

“And yet you wrote.” 

“That I did.’

“I never read your letters.” Whether hers was declaration or taunt he did not know, though the brittle blue-tinged folds in the paper called either for a lie.

“But you answered them.” 

“You prayed me, how could I refuse? Come now, bless me.” She leaned to him.  

And he retorted “Nay bless me – I do renounce my ways and means, churchman speak that it is, lay this salt upon my lips like you did once to passing birds so that they you might dance the winter long to their song.” She took the bottle of salt and brought it up to his whence his words drew their life.

“Nay, Deirdre Harrow, I believe the priests have a way of laying sacred flesh on the tongue. You must place it on my mouth with your own. This you know, with your way of things holy.” 

It was not a kiss, it could not be a kiss, never was it a kiss, and yet she kissed him, the salt sealing their lips in a dying thirst together.

Only the child, desolate, flew by in the night, burdened by winding cloth, and nowhere to lay its head. Snow returned, a driving snow and she went to pull the shutters upon onto the blizzard coming in now, like fate, but stopped herself short. The wind battered the pane, snuffing the candle. Nameless of its father, its mother could not call it back to her breast and so she wept out the lullabye that spoke of lovers false and rose briars and graves long gone, the chords of it like a door open to him, yet there lay madness, he knew, to which a walnut’s innermost mazes came as naught. 

Only the fireplace lit them now. The chill settled between not so much their words but those unsaid. Within those echoes, he carried a log over and fed the flickering hearth flames, drawing down the chimney song. The wind picked up again and again she turned her notes against that moaning, the devil’s chord. The babe become rain and wind and snow wailed its despair. Deirdre Harrow rose and at her spinet and voiced the fa that should sing the devil into a stupor. Or nearly. He hardly knew how to embrace such an invitation. 

“You have no mercy, have you?’

“Upon the Devil?”

“Whom once you wed. What was thy heart that is not longer thine nor mine? what price must I pay?” She wiped something away at his eye’s corner, a drop of something. At that the lover’s eye blinked green as a willow, grey as a tombstone, brown as walnut gall, brown as the mound of earth over the graveyard’s tiniest plot, tinged with red like the petals blown over it; In remembrance he suffered her to grab the eye and throw it into the fire. The following burst of spark for a moment blinded him, like love itself. 

As his eyes recovered he beheld her drawing her needle from the final ‘broidered rose. He refused to be banished anew. Recalling still her wandering over the hills hollow as the hearts she stole and buried willy nilly, he patted at his left breast, his sinister, and something beat there like wings against a window, irregular but alive, much as the wind blustering and blistering gust of snowflakes fluttering like a babe unbaptized and as such melted into a cold strident call would brook no refusal. From that pocket he reached in, fumbling, searching, and drew forth the key to his own heart forged from the iron she never could hold. 

Deirdre Harrow winced at the sight of it. Instead of working her own ends of imprisoning him for yet another century, millennium, or more, she held the baby blanket up to him, to his embrace. Its scent of roses fresh and soft, wild roses, inebriated him, as she hummed the diabolus in musica - fairy song again, sweetly discordant. Perhaps he would be taken in spite of himself, let himself be kept this time in a phial of perfume or even a grain of sand. Her thimble case seemed to him now a kind of heaven that he never could otherwise know. He longed for it, or for her, or both at once. 

Yet he chose.

He marked her forehead and lips with the metal and threw his heart’s key on the fire, gone after the lover’s eye, as the wind demanded. Too, it called him now; it summoned him up the chimney into and over the flame and smoke, one with it.

After he whistled upward, in the hours that followed, the fire died, if not the storm which further wailed its despair into the lightless night

The love seat lay empty, the spinet dumb. Cordial poured and puddled from the tumbled carafe over the rosewood table, dripping onto the floor. There came a knocking, knocking: the wind pounding like loose shutters in a storm and none to hear but the babe in the empty cradle rocking. 

   Illirin pushed the heavy tinted glass door and stepped inside. He immediately felt a muffled hum that seemed to vibrate from beneath the floor. The sight of the space caught him completely off guard: instead of a bustling lobby filled with bright posters and pleasant background music, he found himself in a small room with matte metallic walls and rows of chairs lined up against them.

   "Excuse me," he murmured softly, though no one paid him the slightest attention. 

   He stepped back outside to double-check the sign on the door. It read: "Input Data Processing."

   Gathering his courage, Illirin pushed the door open a second time. This time, his footsteps sounded more confident. Even so, he self-consciously walked along the wall and slid onto the edge of an empty chair. The seat felt cold and hard, and the hum from beneath the floor seemed to grow even louder.

   The visitor to his left was muttering something to himself, scribbling notes in the margins of a notepad.

   "Is it your first time?" Illirin asked timidly.

   "Yeah," the stranger replied without looking up from his work. "They say if the script gets approved, it’ll launch in the next cycle. But I still don't believe they actually read them..."

   "Oh, they read them," a sweet creature to Illirin's right chimed in confidently, adjusting the blue hood on her head. "And very thoroughly, too."

   "Illirin Txaron!" a tall figure in a gray jacket suddenly announced, appearing near the entrance as if out of thin air. 

   Illirin involuntarily straightened up in his seat.

   "Your ID number is confirmed. Follow me," the same low, flat, emotionless voice added. 

   Txaron hurried after the gray jacket toward a door labeled 407, which slid open with a soft hiss. This office turned out to be spacious, featuring a panoramic window that overlooked a metropolis of skyscrapers. Behind a massive desk sat a lady in a tight-fitting gown made of dark fabric that sparkled with microscopic glints as she moved, resembling a starry night sky.

   "Have a seat, please!" she said with a strained smile. 

   Her tone was impeccably polite yet so detached that Illirin instantly felt like an unwelcome guest, interrupting her from far more important matters.

   "Tell me about your work," the lady continued. "Does it contain absurd situations?"

   "Yes, there are a few," Txaron clarified.

   "That is important!"

   "Of course, I understand."

   "No global catastrophes?"

   "Certainly not. Just global warming."

   "A shift to a warmer climate? Splendid! Are you a novice author?"

   "Yes," Illirin answered shyly, nervously smoothing the edge of his sleeve.

   "Perfect. We are looking for fresh ideas, a novel scriptwriting perspective. Hand your work over," the lady said, extending a hand with long nails.

   Txaron leaned forward, rising from his seat to pass his printed manuscript across the wide desk. From this angle, he caught a glimpse of an adjacent room, where dozens of huge screens flickered in the semi-darkness. Various scenes flashed across them, showcasing fragments of unfamiliar lives.

   “Is that them?” Illirin nodded toward the screens in awe. 

   “Who is ‘them’?” the lady in the starry gown asked back coldly.

   “The people!”

   She pretended not to hear and merely kept leafing through the pages of the manuscript.

   "What about military action?" Txaron suddenly inquired.

   "Acceptable! Encouraged, even! You know, visually it looks quite spectacular. We need drama. After all, would you watch a movie where everyone is absolutely and endlessly happy?"

   "I suppose... no."

   "Exactly. No one would. We need drive. But, I repeat, within normal parameters! Let's not push it to an apocalypse," she laughed hoarsely, her long, piercing gaze locking onto Txaron.

   He noticed her vertical pupils and, unable to maintain eye contact, hastily looked away.

   "Are you nervous?"

   "A little... Why is it so cold in here?" Illirin glanced sideways at the digital thermostat, which showed +25 °C. He shivered and mechanically resumed fidgeting with the sleeve of his jacket.

   "It cannot be higher. This is a laboratory with high-precision equipment," the lady snapped, not looking up from the manuscript.

   "I get it," he whispered, rubbing the rough, pearlescent skin of his chilly hands.

   "Now, then... First, we will sign the non-disclosure agreements. We pay 0.5 dramilies per character. Alternatively, we can offer a one-year video feed subscription package. You can choose whichever suits you best. And, as a third option, instead of payment, you can become a direct observer. We only grant this privilege to our finest authors."

   "An observer?" Txaron echoed ecstatically. "Oh, without a doubt, I’d love to take a look!" he exclaimed, his eyes burning with a violet fire.

   "Ah-ha! Everyone wants to look! And watching their reactions to the events you wrote in your very own script – well, that's priceless! But first, let's sign the documents," she laughed again, lightly slapping her hand onto the desk so that her long nails clicked sharply against the wooden surface.

   Illirin forced a weak chuckle to please her. "You know, this has been my dream since childhood..."

   "I bet it has! And now you’ll be able to go there and watch the plot unfold yourself, from the front row, so to speak."

   "It’s not dangerous, is it?"

   "One hundred percent safe. Even if you are spotted, nobody over there bothers to seriously investigate. Eyewitnesses are just dismissed as crackpots. You might get caught on camera, but it's usually such low-quality footage that nothing can be made out.

   "But what if the military gets involved?" Illirin pressed on.

   "Our vehicles can alter speed instantly – from a dead stop to a faster-than-light leap in a fraction of a second – while also possessing a protective force field that leaves them completely impervious to their weaponry. In any case, at the slightest hint of danger, you will be immediately recalled to our dimension and return home."

   "Understood, thank you."

   "Vildars, you've got to take a look at this – it's been ages since I read such utter nonsense!" the lady called out, turning toward the room with the screens. 

   First, the assistant’s smiling head popped out from around the corner, followed by his hand giving a thumbs-up. 

   "Yup, trash and absurdity: the ultimate trends now. That’s what sells!" the head replied. 

    "It's an absolute masterpiece! I'm certain we can quickly transcode this script and launch it straight into simulation!"  

   "That’s a plan, let’s do it," the assistant agreed.

   "Anything else?" the lady addressed Txaron once more.

   "Excuse me, I heard that special permits are required to be an observer?"

   "Oh, don't worry about that, it's quite simple nowadays. We'll issue you a pass to Earth," she said, giving a double-eyed wink while her other three eyes remained perfectly still. "Well, congratulations, you are now an observer!" 

   She rose from behind the desk and solemnly extended her hand. Their rough palms met for a brief second, and Illirin felt cold, almost icy bumps on the lady’s skin.

The sunrise looked emerald, filtered through the thick smog that hung over Crystalfall. 

Edd sipped coffee from a metal canteen as his horse-led wagon rolled down the highway. The extinguishing crystal-powered lights above heralded daytime’s arrival.

An auto-wagon pulled past him, its exhaust fogging the air behind it. The machine cut him off, forcing him to pull back hard on the reins. He fumbled his open canteen onto the leather bench. 

“Son of a bitch.” 

He picked up the canteen—some coffee yet remained inside. He screwed on the canteen’s cap and cleaned the spillage off the bench with an old rag.

“Sorry, Velvet. Damn machines have no manners.” 

Edd flicked the reins, and Velvet picked up speed.

“You won’t have to deal with them anymore after today,” he said. 

Today would be Velvet’s last day running a route. She’d been his partner for twelve years. He’d had a few good horses, but none with a temperament as terrific as hers. 

It might be one of his last trips, too. 

He veered off the highway and down a ramp towards Harrow’s Belly. The route took him through a few industrial areas where he’d drop off goods: machine parts, medical supplies, textiles. He’d already memorized the list. 

The first stop would be at Hank’s Reliable Mechanical. Edd was running a little late, so he took a shortcut.

Velvet could maneuver the back roads of the Belly easier than any auto-wagon. The machines might save companies money, but he argued he could still do it faster. That was the union’s argument, too, before the Crystal Company had bought most of the union reps. Those who didn’t have a price showed up to work one day with a new injury and a new opinion. 

The Grossheim Wagoneering Co. was one of the last companies using horse-drawn wagons, and Edd might be one of the last wagoneers.

“Morning, Hank,” he called to the mechanic. 

Hank put down a hammer and wiped his hands clean with a rag. “Right on time.” He’d been banging out a dent in a Crystal Company auto-wagon. 

“How’s business?” 

“Pretty good.” He slapped the auto-wagon's steel body. “These things break down so often that I’m always busy. I barely have time to service regular folk’s cars anymore.”

Hank didn’t ask Edd the same. He usually would. 

A rusted-spotted automaton whirred to life and stomped out of the garage. It began to unload the crates of metal parts from the wagon. 

“Today’s Velvet’s last day,” Edd said, hopping down from his seat. He handed Hank a receipt. 

The mechanic scribbled his name. “I wish I could say the same. Oh, that reminds me—wait here.” He went back to the garage. 

The automaton took the last crate from the wagon and stopped next to Edd. Two exhausts jutted from its back, fuming with green smoke. It turned its head to Edd with a creak—glowing green eyes meeting his own. Edd gave a nervous wave. Its eyes pulsed, then the automaton turned back and continued into the garage. 

Hank returned holding a red apple.

“They teach those things to think yet?” Edd asked. 

“Not that I’ve heard of. They gave me one for taking up a contract with them. It’s an older model, but it sure helps around the shop.” Hank handed the apple to Velvet, who accepted it happily. “Call it a retirement present.” 

“I’ll take one of those, too.”

The men shared a laugh. Edd prepared himself for Hank’s deathgrip handshake and met it adeptly.

“Always a pleasure, Edd.”

“See you again soon,” Edd said, knowing it might not be true. 

#

Edd turned out onto a narrow side street and then cut across a busy two-way road, picking a gap between the traffic. He could always count on Velvet to make it safely. 

A wagoneer from Lightfoot Logistics, a rival company, stopped his horse to let Edd cross. 

“Thanks, Darrel,” he called in passing. 

Darrel’s nod and grunt would be as much kindness as Edd would get. Darrel’s horse whinnied at Velvet. 

Harrow’s Belly had changed much since Edd started as a wagoneer’s assistant thirty years ago. The air was cleaner back then. He couldn’t stand the smell of the crystal-gas exhaust that now filled the air. He’d developed a cough that he felt was related. All the doctors he’d visited disagreed. 

People had changed, too. More unkind and cold, like the technology that replaced them. 

An auto-wagon wouldn’t remember your kid’s birthday or get help when you were having a heart attack. It’d just keep on driving.

Edd’s next stop was a medical clinic. He never enjoyed making deliveries here because the doc had a soft spot for treating people with The Glow. Edd had sympathy for their affliction, but didn’t want to risk catching it, no matter how many times the doc told him he couldn’t. 

A pale purple light illuminated the privacy curtains hanging in the clinic’s windows. The light came from the treatment they used: a cocktail blended with crystal light that was supposed to help slow the disease. Edd guessed that the wood crates he carried held the cocktail. He could hear glass clinking with each step. 

He rang the bell. 

A minute later, the doctor half-opened the door—a thin man in a too-big coat. “You can leave the crates right there. I’m a bit occupied at the moment.”

Edd noticed a green substance on his sleeves and hands. Groans and coughing came from inside the clinic. 

“No problem, doc.”

He put down the crate, thinking it’d be nice if he had an automaton. His knees ached. 

Velvet neighed at him from the street. He laughed and went over to stroke her muzzle.

“Just one more stop, girl.”

His knees hurt a little less, but his stomach growled. 

“Maybe we’ll take a lunch break first.”

Edd knew of a diner in the area that he’d been to a few times. The owners were Redbrighton immigrants, and their food was consistently good. Their teenage daughter loved caring for Velvet while Edd ate. 

He crossed under a bridge where a train sped overhead, jammed with people. The loud rattling didn’t faze Velvet. 

He passed by some broken-down cars and an overturned auto-wagon that looked stripped bare. An apartment building had its windows boarded up. A few scrappy kids observed him from an alleyway, then ran into the darkness. 

“This area’s really changed,” he told Velvet. Now that he thought about it, it’d been at least five years since he’d been on the route that brought him through here. “I hope the diner’s still open.”

It was.

The name wasn’t the same. 

He parked his wagon and tied Velvet to a lamppost. “I’ll bring you something good. Promise.”

The windows looked dirty. It seemed like no one was eating inside. Strange, he thought, given it was lunchtime. 

A bell rang as he entered. He waited for a server to greet him. “Hello? You open?”

A man in a grease-stained apron pushed through a set of squeaky doors and leaned over the counter. “You’re here to eat?” he asked, flexing a metal prosthetic hand.

What an odd question, Edd thought, then said, “That’s the plan. Any specials?”

The man looked Edd up and down. “Fried fish sandwich. Three silver. Comes with a baked potato.”

It didn’t sound great, but the price was right. 

“Sounds good to me.”

The man nodded. “Sit wherever. I’ll get it started.”

Edd took in the empty diner. “What happened to the Lantices?” Edd had hoped to catch up.

The man paused for a moment. His metal hand whirred as it tightened. He shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bell,” he said, then went back into the kitchen. The doors swung shut behind him. 

Edd found a table near the window where he could see Velvet. A few neighborhood kids took an interest in her, stroking her soft mane. 

He remembered sitting in a place like this with Lenny, the old-timer who taught him everything he knew. It had to have been almost twenty-five years ago. 

“There are two things you need to know, Ned,” Lenny had told him with a mouthful of lemon cake. Edd never corrected him. “The best places to eat,” Lenny wagged his finger with each word, “and never make an easy job easier.”

Without Lenny, Edd would’ve probably—definitely gotten fired. One day, when Edd didn’t report to the depot, the old man showed up at his house and dragged him to work. 

“The amount of trouble he got me out of,” Edd laughed to himself. Not long after he became a wagoneer, the company laid off all its assistants, so Edd never had a chance to pay Lenny’s kindness forward. 

But his mentor was a gritty old bastard, too. He’d been a soldier in the Expansion War when Crystalfall annexed Redbright, Tassleton, and Greathale. Lenny never brought up the war much, but he did like to talk about his father’s stories of the city before the crystal fell from the heavens. 

“This place was just a bunch of farms,” Lenny would start the story Edd had heard many times. “No cars, no trains. Just a man and his horse riding under endless stars.”

Lenny died a year before the first auto-wagon hit the streets—about ten years ago. You can’t see the stars from Harrow’s Belly these days.

The kitchen doors swung open. 

The man brought him his food on a white plate. The fried fish had a nice golden color, and the baked potato had a dollop of butter melting inside. 

“Looks great,” Edd said.

The man nodded and went back into the kitchen.

Edd finished the meal and left a decent tip. The food was good, but the server was a little curt.

The man returned to collect the dirty plates.

“Do you have any apples? I’d like a few for my horse.” Edd inclined his head out the window. 

The man cracked a small grin. “I might have a few.” He went into the kitchen for a moment and brought out a small bag of apples. “She’s a beautiful horse.”

“The old owners had a daughter. She used to love feeding her.”

The man looked solemnly outside at the kids admiring Velvet. “The Lantices sold the business to me two years ago. They moved back to Redbright.”

“That’s a shame. Really nice family. Do you know how their daughter’s doing?”

The man wiped down the table. “The Glow got her.”

“Oh.” Edd didn’t want to know any more. “I’m sorry.”

The man put down the bag of apples and pocketed Edd’s silver. “I hope she likes them.”

Edd left the diner and walked to Velvet with an apple in his hand. The kids noticed him and scattered. One girl dressed in black remained. 

“Would you like to feed her?”

The girl beamed at him. 

Edd handed her an apple. “Just hold it up to her mouth.”

The girl raised the apple cautiously. Velvet nibbled at the girl’s hand. She giggled as the horse chewed. 

“I think Velvet likes you,” Edd said.

“Come on, Sara,” a boy called out to her. 

The girl frowned. “Goodbye, Velvet,” she said with a wave and then chased her friends into an alley. 

Edd untied Velvet, then hopped into the wagon. He shook his canteen, happy to find he had some coffee left. He sipped the last of it, hoping it’d get him through the day. Lenny’s canteen kept it nice and hot. 

“Alright, let’s go,” Edd said, snapping the reins.

The last stop was a clothing fabrication factory. They’d ordered expensive cloth from Tassleton. The factory’s tailors would make marvelous dresses with plans to sell them in boutiques all over the Heights. Edd had seen the dresses on a model once—very…

An auto-wagon struck Velvet.

The horse went down hard and thrashed in agony on the pavement. Velvet’s screams didn’t register right away. When Edd realized what had happened, he leaped from his wagon and briefly chased the auto-wagon.

“Stop! Fucking stop! Come back here!” he yelled before it sped off into the distance. 

He turned back to Velvet. 

The horse tried to get up, but couldn’t. She stayed recumbent. 

Velvet looked at him, her beautiful eyelashes above amber eyes. Her breathing was heavy and nervous. 

Edd caressed her muzzle, then assessed her injuries. Her leg looked mangled. 

One of Lenny’s last lessons entered his mind. 

“Listen, Edd, no one thinks it’ll happen to them,” his mentor had said, navigating a tight back road. “You’re on a good run, the day’s going smooth, and then bam!” Lenny clapped his hands together. “Your horse goes down. Maybe another wagon, maybe a pothole. You take one look—and you know they ain’t getting back up.”

That’s when Lenny gave him one last gift: a sharp pickaxe, and his last bit of wisdom: how to use it.

Edd tried to shake the thought from his head. He looked at the injury again, closed his eyes, and turned away.

He went to the wagon, grabbed the heavy pickaxe from under the leather bench, and returned to Velvet, remembering the old man’s instructions…

“You make an X from the ears to the eyes.”

Edd traced the lines on Velvet’s head slowly with his finger. 

“The soft spot of the skull is in the middle.”

Edd marked the intersection in his mind.

“That’s where the brain is. Look them in the eye, tell them you love them, then swing hard; don’t hesitate.”

The pickaxe drove clean into Velvet’s skull. The horse twitched and then stopped. She wasn’t breathing anymore.

Edd pulled the tool out and tossed it aside. It clanged on the pavement.

He fell to his knees.

Cars drove around him, honking. A few bystanders looked at him in horror.

He looked at his shaking hands.

“I… I’ve got to make a report. I can’t leave her here like this.”

Edd’s knees hurt as he forced himself up.

He stared into Velvet’s eyes one last time.

No one stopped him as he walked away. He apologized as he passed the small crowd. They parted for him like he had The Glow. He felt nothing.

#

Edd took a train from Hanimoy Street Station. 

The conductor came by. Either because he was in uniform or from the look on his face, the man didn’t bother him for a ticket and kept walking.

He got off at Thresher’s Circle, walked to the delivery depot, then went into the owner’s office.

“What are you doing back so soon?” Mr. Grossheim Jr. asked from his tufted leather chair. The room smelled of cigar smoke.

“I need to make a report, sir,” Edd said.

“A report? You know I don’t handle that, Edd. Talk to Benji. He’ll—”

“Velvet’s dead, Mr. Grossheim.”

His boss blinked. “Wait, what?”

“She got hit by an auto-wagon. She’s still in the middle of Hanimoy Street with the wagon. I had to euthanize her.”

The office fell silent. Edd could hear the assistant’s typewriter clacking.

Mr. Grossheim cleared his throat. “I’ll get someone on it right away, Edd. We’ll make sure we get everything back.”

Edd nodded, then turned to leave.

“Hey, Edd,” his boss called. “Why don’t you go home early? You look like you could use the rest.”

Edd nodded and then took his boss’s advice.

He slept little, and when he did, he dreamed of Velvet, watching himself like a spectator within a crowd. They jeered at him.

“Murderer!”

“He’s not a murderer; he’s just doing what he has to,” he whispered.

“How could you?”

“What else can he do?” he asked.

No one answered.

He woke up just before he watched Velvet die again and went to work early.

Edd found his wagon at the depot where it normally was, and one of Mr. Grossheim’s managers waited there for him.

“Morning, Eddy,” said Benji. “Sorry to hear about yesterday.”

“Thanks.”

Benji turned to the wagon. “We found it looted—not a big surprise. Looking at your delivery log, only the textiles were stolen. Don’t worry, though; our insurance will probably cover it.”

Edd nodded. “That’s good.” He looked into the wagon’s front seat. Lenny’s coffee canteen was gone, too.

“Also, Mr. Grossheim wants to see you in his office. Nothing bad, but I wouldn’t keep him waiting. He’s got those leeches from the Crystal Company in there with him.”

“Thanks.”

Edd shook Benji’s hand and then went up to the office.

Mr. Grossheim’s secretary had him wait in the hallway. 

He overheard the end of a conversation through the door.

“We’ll discuss the acquisition next week. It’s been a pleasure, Jon.” Strange to hear Mr. Grossheim’s name, Edd thought.

Two well-dressed men with green crystal lapel pins exited and passed him without looking. 

The secretary waved him in.

Inside the office, Mr. Grossheim had his face buried in one hand and a lit cigar in the other. Edd knocked on the open door. “Mr. Grossheim?”

His boss sat upright. “Edd, come in, take a seat.”

Edd sat down in one of the two pleated yellow chairs in front of Mr. Grossheim.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright.”

“That’s good.” Mr. Grossheim turned to take a small urn off the shelf behind him and put it on his desk. “For you.”

Edd swallowed hard. He gazed at the urn, the image of his pickaxe driving into Velvet’s skull playing back in his mind; the clang of metal on pavement; the girl in black who watched him do it. He closed his eyes and took a breath.

“Thank you,” he said. Edd took the urn.

His boss puffed his cigar and blew out a cloud of smoke. “I know how close you wagoneers get to your horses. It’s the least I could do.” He tapped his ashes onto the floor.

Mr. Grossheim said, “I’m sure you’d like to get back to work, but there’s a problem. We don’t have another horse to give you. The city won’t let us buy any more.”

“So what does that mean?”

Mr. Grossheim sat back in his chair.

“I talked to the C.C. about your accident. Someone who saw the whole thing made a report, so they’re willing to compensate you for the damages if you agree to say nothing about the auto-wagon.”

Edd hadn’t even thought of that.

“They’re buying out your pension, too.”

“You’re forcing me to retire?”

“I’m not forcing you to do anything, Edd, but I can’t promise the offer will be here if you stay.” Mr. Grossheim picked up a piece of paper on his desk. “You’ll get the full amount upfront plus compensation for your horse.” Mr. Grossheim pushed the paper over to Edd, wet with two signatures.

Edd eyed through the terms. His heart skipped. 

“Two hundred thousand?”

He checked the commas and zeroes a few times. Two hundred thousand silver. 

“That’s right.” His boss offered him an onyx and gold pen. “All you have to do is sign.”

Edd looked at the blank space waiting for his signature.

He took the pen. 

It was heavy. 

#

Edd’s new farm was an hour’s drive south of Crystalfall—not far enough to escape the smog entirely, but his cough wasn’t as bad here. 

You could still see the city’s tall, glowing green skeleton on the flat horizon. 

His neighbors kept to themselves. He’d wave, they’d wave back. That was it. 

They enjoyed the quiet, too. 

He leaned on a plank fence, sipped coffee from a new canteen, and watched the two stallions he bought run across the paddock where he’d buried Velvet’s ashes under a heavy stone.

On a clear night, he’d swear that maybe he could see a star or two.

bits. glittering. shiny bits on slick white.

“glass.” “floor.” bits of glass on floor. me lying down. why lying down? am sleep? am crawl? get up, slooowww. hear self say “Uhhhhnnnnhhhh.”

   look round. big. big place. slick floors, stretching away. in middle, open space. many levels. floors below, floors above. fake pond. real tree. moving stairs. many rooms with signs say “Sale.” “Twenty-five percent off.” “New for Spring.” all over, more glass.

i put hand to head. head hurt.

also, us. many us. some standing. some getting up, saying “Uhhhhnnnhhhh.”

it event.

now remember. us here for event. i part of event. they part of event. event starting? event over?

not know.

why event? try remember.

something like… want. feel want. us all hungry for something. 

  but what?

there. smeared on railing: red. dark. sticky. on floor, too. i pull my hand away from head and look. skin gray. but also red. on knuckles. under nails. seeing red, something in me shake. sides of face pull back. now remember: happy. red make happy. this what want? think maybe—

loud crash. big pieces of glass falling on floor, exploding into little bits. look up. up, up, up. to top of place. skylight. big hole. raining bits. sky beyond: gray. smoke. smell.

  now us all getting up, moving together toward moving stairs. all going “Uhhhhnnnnhh,” like it hurt walk. look others. try understand. what happening. what want.

  this one in front: wear “suit.” gray. arms torn. red on collar. this suit for “deal.” “board meeting.” “ROI.” he want these things? his mouth hang open, eyes blank. 

  this one behind: all blue. blue skin. blue clothes. different kind of suit. what called? ah! called “scrubs.” for work by sick. we sick? no. just hungry.

this one beside: wear “dungarees.” “hard hat.” belt with “hammer.” stumble onto stairs, holding head. look confuse. much red on neck. stuck through neck (what word? ah! yes) “screwdriver.” feel face twitch again. screwdriver through neck… funny? remember funny. but is it still—

stairs end. almost fall. catch self and shuffle ahead, toward big windows. big hole in glass. us climbing through, leaving building. it not have what we want anymore. maybe had before, but not have now.

lurch out onto gray broken ground. “sidewalk.” ahead: “street.” much happen on street. much cars, turned wrong ways, smashed into buildings, doors open. much sound. shouting, horns, “car alarm.” much smoke. and also—many, many, many. coming out cars, coming out buildings, coming out ground, out “subway.” crouching. running. lying down. but now see—most of these not same as us. all “them” look different, somehow. skin less gray. clothes less torn. they part of event? they part of different event?

this one, holding onto post: his eyes… look want. look like want no more event.

but… us came here for event. why? why why why. try remember. try understand.

this one: white dress. married dress. face color of sky. hold dead flowers. look this way. look that way. where her person married to? gone?

this one: lady with big round belly. tiny gray hand coming out of belly (this funny? ha ha?). water come from eyes and run through red on face.

this one: black dress. man dress. “cassock.” X-shaped necklace. face green with X-shape red scar. hands press together. mouth open. try make sound. sound of—

screams.

i hear screams, coming from over there. woman standing over small body. child body. all red.

i look my hands: red. this red make me happy, before.

i look at red on child. that red… 

  bad. make throat lurch, stomach shrink, face tremble. make want weep. make want scream. make want look at sky and shout—

“Hey! You think this is funny?!?”

  over there. a man. one of “them.” standing on hood of car, liquid spilling from eyes, face mad.

  “Dressed the way you all are? You think this is funny? Some sort of fucking game?”

   he looking at me?

“This is real! It’s really—"

   now he choke, like he have screwdriver through neck. but he not have. just choke. when words finally come, they come high and broken.

“Happening! Oh god! It’s really happening! And you fucking DARE make f—”

BOOM!!!

him, them, us: all look down street. bits flying and so much gray, billowing up and coming down fast. we all turn and move. i try also go fast but cannot. feet slowwww, like not remember how.

“Uhhhhnnnnhhhh.”

(remember!)

“Uhhhhnnnnhhhh.”

(please remember! how go fast!)

“UhhhhnnnnhhHHHHH! ArrrggghHHH!”

big step, big stumble. arms reaching out, ahead, for something to help—

BOOM!!! 

dark.

whooooOOOOO whooooOOOO whooooOOOO.

loud. shaking. me lying down, and everything shake.

i open eyes. small place. white walls. boxes bolted to walls. windows on fronts of boxes. inside: “bandage.” “oxygen.” “AED.”

“—mostly cleared the area. What a fuckin’ nightmare,” hear someone say.

“Gonna be a double overtime kind of night,” hear other someone say.

“Uhhhhnnnnhhh,” hear self say.

“This one’s awake,” first someone say. “Sir? Sir. Okay. Yeah, you can sit up if you want. Slooowwww. Let us help you.”

“Uhhhnnnhhh.” sit up. see man. he wear type of suit. dark blue. “uniform.” letters on chest. one side say “EMT.” other side say “FDNY.” also woman, wearing same kind suit.

behind, lying on stretcher, another “us.” this one: also wear uniform. brown. red band on arm with “X” with little feet. bad. green face with small black mustache.

this one… ha?

think maybe was ha before, but now maybe… not so much.

or maybe was never ha.

(you think this is funny? dressed the way you are?)

“Sir, can you tell us your name?”

   EMT look at me. i look down at self. also wear suit. funny suit. orange and green stripe suit. big shoes. floppy collar. red all over. hear self say “Clown?”

man frown. say to woman, “Still in shock.” say to me “How many fingers am I holding up?”

hear self say, “Four.”

“Good. Can you tell me what day it is?”

day? 

  it day of event. feel pockets of clown suit. one have “money” and “identification.” (name: Doug Silliman) other pocket have crumpled paper. i give it to EMT. he get sticky red on hand. make face. mutter “Fuckin’ fake blood.” lady EMT smirk. man EMT wipe hand on pants, read out loud: “Gotham Zombie Crawl.” look partner, say “That explains it. If it’s not the goddamn drunk Santas, it’s some other ridiculous shit.”

“Gotham what now?” lady EMT say.

“Care to explain? Ah…” he glance at my ID, “Mr. Silliman?”

“it event,” i say. sound bad. do better. “It, ah, theatrical event. You know… costumes? Makeup? I my own. I did my own. Makeup, that is. My girlfriend Tina helped sew… Tina! Oh, god, is she ok?” 

“The attack was confined to midtown. Was Tina in the area?”

“Area? Ummm… was she? Area. Place. Big place. Stores. Escalators. Like in that movie… what was it… Dawn of the… Oh! Dead. Tina hates it. Too much… too much, um, gross… too much violent… too much red. She not… she doesn’t like it, so… no? No! Thank god…”

“Okay, okay. Take it easy. Your speech is a little confused. That’s not unusual, after a big shock. Just rest. The words will come back.” he looks at his partner, mouths trauma.

 she’s still smirking. she points at the other guy. “Can you explain him?”

 no. i can’t. right on cue, he extends an arm, goes “ArrrghhhHH!” 

 she frowns, clears her throat. “A bit ironic, isn’t it, scheduling your little zombie crawl on the same day as a Level One emergency Event? And of all the places to be today. Can you explain the, ah, point? When you do this, what is it that you want?” 

my face feels hot as I begin, “Want? us want, um, that is, we want…”

words shamble back into my head, slow at first, then faster. want. what we want? that is… What do we want? we want to feel, amid a daily barrage of horrors, multiplying, one spawning the next, a horde of numbing news items and dismaying developments. to feel, despite it all: solidarity. joy. even the despair we fail to utter. a Shape. we want shape… We attempt to give a shape to these feelings by making ourselves up to look like zombies. look. look this one. you can see it, here. and more: to give shape to this other thing approaching, felt but not seen, or maybe just not recognized, at least not in its entirety. a larger something. a looming disaster of brain rotting proportions. also, control. we can’t control what’s happening, but maybe by giving it expression… How is this all just occurring to me now? somehow, i never really thought about any of this before, but now, sitting in this ambulance, siren wailing, wheels bouncing over pulverized pavement, clarity descends rapidly, almost painfully. it’s not just ironic, this aligning of events. it’s symbolic. but i don’t say any of this to her. instead, i just say

“We just wanted to have fun. You know, lighten shit up. With everything going on?”

“Mmmm,” she says.

outside: another BOOOOM!!!

arg! pain. sharp. it lances through my head and the window of clarity slams shut. pain so bad it scrambles my thoughts, my words. owwww. uhhhhnhhhh! arrrrghhhh! head hurt! hurt bad!

it Event.

Event now.

Event forever?