Quarter Mile

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This year, I lost someone. Not like they moved away or we had a falling out - I lost them for good. I know there's beauty in it. It's twisted and it's bleak but.. it is there. I know love will come back into my life and do something to fill the gap, too. That love won't be the same, though. It's like a star winking out, bringing forth darkness where once there was radiance. Other stars will come. Other stars will be just as beautiful. Yet, those stars won't hang in the sky exactly like the old one did.

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"Hey! Twenty-two. You're up next." The coordinator spoke in the manner he always did. Like he didn't have enough time for anything, syllables seemingly crunched and crowded together in his rush. As he continued walking past, though, he paused. His eye's ran over the blue paint and the faded golden accents. Though his legs still twitched urging him to continue, he took just a moment. "Your old man's?" he asked.

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The oil from the radiator leak still clung to my gloves. The chill of the winter night highlighted what portions of my skin were now covered in the yellowish fluid. I nodded to the coordinator.

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He opened his mouth to say something, but shut is just as quickly. He returned the nod, and moved briskly onward down the line of cars warming in the pit.

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I'd patched the radiator, but barely. I re-topped off the coolant reservoir, but part of me still expected the thing to blow on the strip. Dad and I never quite got this thing singing like he wanted. There just wasn't enough time. I reckon there never could be, though. As I stepped into the drivers side and lowered into the seat, I could smell it. His cigarettes and the cheap cologne.

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"Next up, roll to the line!" the PA system blared. The clutch slipped slightly as I let off it, gingerly giving it enough gas to crawl forward. Dad always joked about living a quarter mile at a time. I figure this car ought to have one more life in it, even if it was its last.

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The smell of exhaust running a little too rich melded with cabin's scent. It smelled like so many days from the past. The light in front of me gleamed red against the black night, blurred by the smudged windscreen.

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Then, for a moment, yellow.

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Finally green.

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The clutch barely held on as I dumped it through first gear. The motor screamed and howled in the night, headless of its own life. Rubber kissed asphalt, then found traction. My heart beat faster than the drumming of the cylinders within the machine.

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The smile across my face was unrelenting. It was infectious. Every foot brought me closer to the end of the quarter mile, but also let me experience it. In rearview window, the starting line faded to yield to the horizon.

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In the reflection, the stars twinkled brightly.

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[WC: 498]

Thanks! I suppose in my head when trying to frame this world, Grym was something like the genesis to humanity - older than most other entities in the universe and looking for anything to be his equal, even if only in one skill or task.

Her body tumbled through the empty air. The camera crew collectively squeaked in horror. All which was set in motion must eventually cease, though. Her now skewed trajectory raced towards a stone outcropping on the canyon floor below. Though none could see her final moments of descent, the resultant crash which echoed through the cramped canyon conveyed more than words could.

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"Holy.. Holy shit. Holy shit!" bellowed Tory. Terren and Kilgo leapt to their feet, scrambling as they looked for... something, anything.

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"Phone! Terren, the fucking satphone!" Tory shouted, snapping into action. Grym commended that - it was as much as anyone could do in the moment. At least, almost anyone.

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Grym's body moved before his mind. His camera dropped behind him, a sickening cracking noise trailing in his wake. That's not going to be cheap, some part of his mind idly observed.

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"Grym! Wha - Jesus Christ! What the hell - " the rest of Tory's words were lost to the wind as Grym jetted himself forward into the canyon. His shoes sought purchase on the rock, but found little yielded unto them. This run would be suicidal at best for a skilled runner in terf cleets. It was madness for an untrained cameraman in worn running shoes.

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Yet, he bound forward. At least by his measure. To the crew above it practically seemed as if Grym ran in place and the world faltered and transformed itself to get out of his way. Though his shoes couldn't grip the stone, the fractional adjustments of his weights and inhuman speed made up for their transgressions.

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Remember to breathe heavily. Falter where you can. Allow mistakes to be made. Yet, he did no such thing. Despite his careful planning and personal doctrine, his heart ushered him forward. There was no telling if Kayce was bleeding out below.

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In what seemed no time at all Grym reached the crux of the canyon. He too performed a hitch into the conjoined space between canyons. It was with no small sense of admiration he moved his body exactly as Kayce had. Rare that I couldn't have done it better myself.

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The wind itself made way for him as he pushed off the overhanging stalagmite. Breezing past it, his feet barely kissed the glimmering face of the crystal monolith. He passed under the overhanging rock ledge with all the grace employed by falcon navigating a cloudless sky.

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Where Kayce had faltered though, Grym flew. To him, this was all in something like a slow stasis. He felt a small eternity rise and fall back into the recesses of time as his eyes delicately picked his route through the rock window. Rather than balling himself as Kayce had, he morphed his body into something akin to a diving pose and he glided hands first through the narrow opening in the stone and descended into the depths of the canyon.

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He saw Kayce below. A pool of midnight crimson blood grew slowly against the stone floor, seeping softly around imperfections in the surface. Grym effortlessly let his feet skid against the sloping side of the canyon to slow himself, edgerunning to the bottom of the crevice.

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He wasted no time. His hands tore off strips of his shirt with effortless strength, then deftly tied the cloth into neat bandages around her lacerated legs and midriff. Within a matter of minutes the bloodflow had been damned up and ceased.

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"Sorry I didn't make it sooner," Grym uttered to the empty darkness.

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Kayce's eyes flickered. "Grym - wha.. how the.. fu.. - " her sentence was never finished as her body once again succame to its numerous fresh wounds. Likely, she would imagine this to be some strange dream created by the flickering of a wounded mind.

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Grym sighed softly in the dank depths of the canyon. It was, of course, better that way. He took one last long look at Kayce as she lie motionless in the dark underbelly of the earth. He was certain she was stable. Trauma teams would be able to retrieve her soon.

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With that, he began to clamber and maneuver his way onward, towards the surface far away from his former companions.

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I really thought she might be it. He goaded himself for such a foolish thought, though she had been magnificent. Oh, well. I'll get my race someday. Until then - farewell, Kayce.

She moved like the wind as it crossed and twisted its way through the labyrinth of a mountain pass. Her feet clambered from rock to rock, barely keeping traction against the damp stone. When you watched someone like Kayce it was hard to acknowledge they were human - your eyes and brain clambered over and disputed that fact. She was something more in that moment; she was the fury and passion of each person coming and gone set to motion.

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The camera whirred imperceptibly softly as the lens articulated itself softly around its bevel to keep her in frame as she dashed onward. Grym felt the smile which had planted itself among his sharp features widen. Some things you really, truly, just had to see for yourself.

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"Grym! Dude, are you fucking getting this?" hissed Tory. The entire crew was entranced - they watched Kayce with all the fascination of cavemen looking into the sky and observing the stars. Objects who's power and beauty was familiar through exposure, yet totally foreign in both their mystery and their magnitude.

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Grym only nodded. His fingers gripped the sides of his camera tighter, battling to make the necessary minute adjustments and tweaks to preserve the run in its purest form. Though he would never claim it be anything impressive, there was skill to this. There was skill in being the keeper of events.

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Kayce reached the crux of the course. The large fissure carved into the earth met with a second perpendicular one up ahead. The intersection was a mess of exposed geodes and spires. Behind each apparent jutting finger of the earth lay more hidden obstacles cloaked in the perilous shadow of their counterparts.

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Canyon running hadn't been around for too long - about as long as the Sundering itself. Grym looked at the whole thing with a strange sort of reverence. In many ways it was the ultimate expression of humanity. Even after the surface of their planet had been marred and disfigured from the jagged hot beams cast out at it from the recesses of the cosmos, they managed to find joy in it. They sought even more challenge.

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Kayce grunted loudly as she made the first leap. She performed a hitching maneuver. Classically this would be frowned upon. Though hitching into a new section provided the runner with staggering momentum, it also left them perilously committed to their maneuver. Blasted off from a strong double legged kick, torso positioned forward and arms tucked, there was no room for deviation once rocketed forward.

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A number of the crew members audibly drew breath. It would be a terrible, perhaps lethal blunder for any less skilled. Kayce, however, was not like anyone else. Not really.

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She flew into the pit of exposed stone, somehow squeezing through a gap in the impossibly complex geometry. As she passed through the first layer of treacherous stone, she extended her left arm with nearly impossible precision to push of an overhanging stalagmite. This course corrected her to miss the teeth of the sharp crystalline structure which had hungrily watched her approach.

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As she passed the crystal monolith, her foot grazed its surface. The friction slowed her just enough to arc her downward, her hair harmlessly breezing against the rock shelf which had seemed poised to crack her skull.

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As she approached the last section, her eyes flitted back and forth. They scanned for any possible opening. Such was the nature of canyon running; decisions made in seconds determined the fate of the runner. Mistakes weren't permissible - at least not without paying a hefty price.

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Though the other crew members might not have caught it, Grym felt his stomach suddenly knot as his hawkish eyes observed her take a second scan. A second scan which was a few milliseconds too late.

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Kayce attempted to bring her knees to her chest, forming a ball which would barely pass through the small squarish opening in front of her. She barreled towards the opening at frightening speeds... and her knee caught against the uppermost portion of the rockface. Skin tugged against stone, eventually giving way to its unrelenting nature. Kayce yelped as she tumbled through the gap, leaving a trail of crimson in her wake.

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[cont]

"You do?" Jarrod laughed dryly. "Really? Or is this part of the act. This whole 'make them comfortable thing' you've got going on."

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Ms. Kesner relaxed in her chair, casting a speculative gaze over him. "I do. Off the clock answer - yes, I really do." Her quizzical eyes studied him for a few moments, her foot tapping lightly against the soft carpet. "How do you feel about what we do?"

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"I - I.." Jarrod struggled to formulate his thoughts. He hadn't taken their opulent meal, or their whiskey, or their wine. Part of him was determined to retain his sense of stoicism. He wouldn't give them anything - not his wants or desires or feelings. Yet part of him also knew these were his closing moments. If now wasn't the time to express his thoughts, when was?

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"I hate it. I think it is everything that is wrong with the world summarized and wrapped in a neat bow." Jarrod gave in to his weakness. He would have these few moments. The last gift of men resigned to the gallows.

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The young woman nodded, her face impassive and urging him to continue.

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"It's a neat solution, I give you that," Jarrod continued, "you cull the population and reap countless millions in energy savings. The lights of the groomed downtown streets stay lit, and the people who couldn't conceive of making this choice will sip their drinks in the warm glow of light provided by the dead. Beyond that, you manage to quell the rising population crisis. A real two birds with one stone type of deal. Hell, I can see the jagged beauty in the thing."

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Jarrod's fist began to clench inadvertently. His heart, which had remained calm all the way through this process, began to beat faster. An engine roaring to life. It drove not fear now, though, but a quiet and hot rage.

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"Of course, you even manage to convince the population at large it's a service. That by freeing us of this world you cease our pain. That by neatly cutting our souls free you forgo the sins of the thing - we will not be resigned to heaven or hell. Our payment is the smooth and impartial darkness of eternity." He cast out a condemning finger towards her. "But you, and the people like you, know all of this. You knew only the hopeless would come here. Only the destitute who have on known destitution. You profit off of our euthanasia."

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As Jarrod finished he felt his veins pumping hot blood to his face. He was turning red - he was blushing in rage and sadness and at the sheer injustice of it all. He was blushing and he hated it. His hands reached out for the crystalline glass of water. Trying to slow his breathing, he took a long drag of the ice cold drink.

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Die with dignity. You've had your say. You won't walk into the chamber flushed. You can't give them the satisfaction.

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*"*All of that is true, to a degree." Ms. Kesner replied. Her mesmerizing features had shifted into something that sat just between the boughs of regret and sadness. Looking closer though, there was something else. Something in the way her eyes softened.

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"Well.." Jarrod spoke in a voice which he fought hard to level, "I've had my say. You're welcome to yours."

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"Do you imagine it to only be people like yourself, Jarrod?" she asked. "People like yourself that come to us, I mean."

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Jarrod shrugged.

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"Would it shock you to know the majority of the staff that work on the operations level have had at least one close personal contact come to a generation center?" She blinked a few times, shaking her head slightly. "You are right in some sense. That only the misfortunate find their way to our doors. Yet, that is more often than you think not nessacrily symptomatic of socio-economic class or birthplace. Rather we take all kinds of destitution. Those destitute of heart, of body, and of mind as well."

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She paused, leaning back in her chair. Her voice was low and soft, tinges of exhaustion creeping around the edges. "When my mother come, it was shortly after a diagnosis of rapid onset Alzheimers. With what lucidity she had left, she elected this fate. It was, in some small sense, fighting back. Declaring with finality that her death would not be recessed and alone. She chose her death to be, if even in a small way, an act of compassion. That her soul might bring warmth heaters on a cold night, or luminescence to the bulbs in a room dark and forgotten. So, I suppose when you - "

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She was cut off as her watch emitted a series of low tones. The alarm. She deftly flicked her finger over the face of device, silencing it. Her eyes shot towards Jarrod, who met her gaze unflinchingly.

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"Well. That's the bell. You can leave, of course. It's an option until the very end." She extended her hand towards him, palm open.

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Jarrod wordlessly put his his hand into hers and allowed himself to helped out of his seat. He did not speak a word as they departed the room.

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The dark oaken door slowly shut as they exited, as silent as when it had opened.

Jarrod sat at a polished oaken table, the warm glow of the bulbs that occupied various ornate light fixtures reflected in its lacquer polish. In front of him was a single plate, silver and ornate, with a simple spam sandwich placed in the middle. The choice of food seemed out of place among the refined and understated taste of the rest of the room.

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Leaning forward slightly, Jarrod took another bite. Good, he noted. Despite the feeling that the kitchen staff were likely unfamiliar with his particular choice of meal, it was delicious. Some small part of him found that vaguely annoying. That people with so much could take something like that, something that he felt belonged to people like him, and improve upon it. Make it something better. He took another large bite and left the remaining half of the humble sandwich atop the shining plate.

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Part of him felt that he should be scared. Surely, anyone would be scared. Yet despite willing his heart to race, he couldn't shake the sense of calm. Perhaps the calmest he'd been in years.

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The dark door at the end of the room gently swung open, and the face Ms. Kesner pushed through the now open portal. "Jarrod, need anything?" she asked.

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She was a beautiful woman. Her auburn her fell lazily around her shoulders. Its brown and red shades complimented her stormy hazel eyes, further accented by her simultaneously simple yet elegant grey dress. All of this was starkly in contrast to Jarrod's own meager appearance.

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Jarrod knew beauty like that. Beauty that you might mistake as a casual sort of accident at first. It wasn't brought about by shades of expensive satin or gaudy makeup. There was not any overt display of wealth. Yet, most often that kind of calculated simplicity was brought about by those who'd spent their entire life perfecting the art - wolves in the clothing of sheep.

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"Some water, maybe?" Jarrod replied. Despite their best efforts to spruce the sandwich up, you couldn't get all the salt out of spam.

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Ms. Kesner raised an eyebrow and cast a disarming smile. "Water? Are you sure? You know you can anything you'd like. If you can dream it, we can arrange it."

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Worried I have cold feet, then? he thought.

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"No, thanks. Water is fine."

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The woman nodded and exited as gracefully as she'd arrived, the door closing silently on well greased hinges. What am I trying to prove? Jarrod pondered. Part of him wanted to ask for top shelf whiskey. Part of him wanted to taste wine more expensive than a car's down payment. Yet his being refused to do so. He'd leave the way he lived. Simple. He wouldn't give in to the luxuries denied to him for so long. He wouldn't surrender now - he couldn't. Not after so long.

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In the soft glow of the room, Jarrod wondered what other men and women must've felt like in his spot. Some had undoubtedly panicked. Felt the constricting darkness of death creeping in from the edges of the peripheral vision, and squirmed at its midnight touches. Of course, they could leave anytime as long as they pledged to pay back whatever items they had consumed. This was, after all, a voluntary action.

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It hadn't always been. They'd started with prisoners. Of course once the general populace caught wind of this, the bleeding hearts of the world had gone into an uproar. They'd dared to ask the question 'what is the worth of a human life?' Ironically, Jarrod knew that was probably the wrong question to ask. The answer, though most with a lesser understanding of the will of men would protest, was that many lives aren't worth the husk they were imprinted upon. A week's worth of power for a city? Shit, it was a bargain.

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He was stirred from his bout of contemplation by Ms. Kesner returning, a crystal glass of ice water clinking softly in her hand as she strode forward into the room. She deposited the glass neatly in front of him and turned sharply on her heel to leave.

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"Wait," Jarrod spoke.

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She paused, turning back towards him. "Yes?"

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"How much longer?" he asked.

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She delicately turned her wrist and inspected the shining watch which adjourned it. "About 5 minutes, now." Her features grew ever so slightly concerned. "Are you still looking to move forward with this?"

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Jarrod let out a soft chuckle. Of course that's her concern.

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"Yeah - yeah, don't worry about that."

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Though she tried not to make it obvious, a bit of tension left her shoulders as she heard his response.

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"Will you sit with me?" Jarrod asked.

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The easy practiced smile which had danced across her features earlier returned, and she flashed a white smile. "Of course," she spoke as she moved to pull one of artfully crafted wooden chairs back from the table.

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She settled in, running a hand through her hair and removing a few stray auburn wisps which had fallen lightly across her forehead. "So... are you ready?" she asked in a soft tone.

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Jarrod took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Hell, I have been for a long time."

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She pursed her lips and offered a sympathetic look. As he had wondered about the feelings of those before, he wondered how many times this woman had offered that exact look to those which had sat in this room.

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A few moments went by in the resulting silence.

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"Do you all feel good about this?" Jarrod began again, "About what it is you do here?"

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As soon as he spoke he regretted it slightly. It's not like this woman in particular was to blame for the way the world had turned out - how his world had turned out.

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"Frankly, yes." She didn't offer a sympathetic look at this. In fact, a thoughtful certainty crossed her features.

>My only crit is nitpicking -

| It was there idea to come here.

Should be "their."

I feel my soul withering. My least favorite type of error :'(

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Yeah, with a higher word count I would've like to flush out a few more bits and pieces, but oh whale. Thanks for your feedback!

Reflections of Neon

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Al's Disco Dive was, by all modern standards, an oddity - something which sat just outside downtown, seemingly unburdened by the pressures of time. The cool pink hue of its neon sign played off the damp street and cut paths of rose colored light through the fog. It was a beacon of sorts.

Gene strode through the darkness, his wingtip shoes smacking evenly against the pavement. As he approached the doors he adjusted his wide brim glasses one last time and ran a hand over his quaffed hair. Show time.

Gene didn't really enter rooms so much as take them over. Pushing open the heavy wooden doors, he flowed into the building, hips and feet moving as if they had a special agreement with gravity. He was unstoppable and untamed - he was electric. He was a man out of time.

As he boogied through the venue towards the bar, his ice blue eyes picked through the dancers. There were the regulars, of course. They swung and danced in the shimmering lights of the disco balls and other timed lighting fixtures. While beautiful in their own right, it wasn't what Gene was after. As he finally reached the bar, though, he spotted it. His purpose and his treasure.

A younger man, maybe twenty, danced alone. Whether or not he came that way or was summarily abandoned by his party was a mystery. One that didn't really matter to Gene. What mattered was the here and now.

He stuck his hand up to the barkeep. Two - my regular. Shortly thereafter two double whiskeys slid across the bar, their dark brown liquid refracting the brilliance of that soulful haven. Gene collected them and began moving towards the man, dancing through the crowd in a way that almost made one wonder if the room was simply moving around him.

"Hey there," Gene shouted over the din of the music, "first time?"

The young man blushed slightly. "Uh - well. Yeah. I came with some friends, but..." his eyes quickly flicked around the crowded room, knowing full well they would not find the party he had accompanied.

Gene shushed him, and proffered forward one of the glasses he held.

"I don't know..." the young man laughed nervously. "I'm not even - "

The raised eye brow Gene expressed seem to shut down his protest. He had that effect on people. The young man took the glass hesitantly, then downed its contents, coughing raucously.

Gene laughed lightly, and twirled himself around. As he finished his maneuver, he deftly tossed his full glass onto the top of his other hand and brought it to his mouth. He downed the glass in a deep draw, arching his whole body in a limbo-like move.

"You wanna learn?" Gene smiled.

The young man looked unsure.

"Got a name?"

"Trevor. Uh, well.. yeah. Just Trevor. And well.. I'm not sure. I've never really liked dancing, honestly. It was their idea to come here."

Gene rolled his eyes dramatically at this. "Well, just Trevor, history is nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes. Big ones, little ones, all the same. Is your dancing a crime? Is it a misfortune? If so, I doubt it's big enough to make the books. Hell, most people here won't even remember." Gene pulled him closer as he finished. "People are embarrassed by untamed passion, but I love it."

Trevor blushed again, deeper. Yet, he began to look to Gene. So they began to dance. Under the warm neon and twinkling light cast out by the disco balls, they moved with passion. Anxiety fell away as a shroud, replaced only by warmth and self expression. It was pure and simple and beautiful.

The pair did this after most of the patrons left. They did it until the workers kicked them out, past closing. So, with no effort to hide it, they sighed in all the disappointment of waking from a sweet dream as they were cast out into the cold night.

"Can I get your number?" Trevor asked. Gene smiled at this. Far from the timid boy he was only a few hours ago.

Trevor pulled out his phone, a sleek new smartphone all wrapped in a carbon black case. Gene's eyes shifted and he frowned slightly.

"Tsk. Smartphones. Call me old fashioned," he paused and gestured at the disco establishment behind him, laughing, "but I always found them distracting."

Trevor laughed, half paying attention as he unlocked his phone and began opening up a new contact template. For that reason he never saw Gene's knife as it plunged deeply into his neck. It grated on the spinal column, paralyzing him instantly. The red blood mixed with the rosy neon to create a mural of warmth, both comforting and sickening.

Gene was, at his core, a man of passion.

​

[WC: 799]

Small Things

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Elred set the small girl down softly onto one of the dilapidated chairs within the expansive tomb. Through the thick coat of darkness, a few phantom shapes could be made out. Judging by their sharp angles and rectangular bodies, they were shelves of some sort.

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"Why it so quiet in here?" the girl asked.

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"I think this place has been empty a long time," Elred spoke softly, "and when all the people left, silence moved in."

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She looked at him curiously, her mouth squirming into a strange expression. After a few moments she merely nodded, accepting this. Ever since Elred had collected her abandoned on the side of one of the roads outside the razed town of Verrdikt, she'd been a child of few words. It was hard to say if that was due to her limited knowledge of them, or the lack of appetite for them which the world had imparted unto her.

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Elred pulled a small torch from his bag. Softly, flint and steel clicked together. For a few moments only that rhythm existed in the long vacant space. From the emptiness, eventually, came light. It was soft and orange, gently peeling back layers of the inky blackness.

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What was uncovered were volumes upon volumes of scrolls. A lost collection of knowledge. They overflowed from shelves, often simply being deposited in unruly stacks across the ground.

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"Why so many of the paper?" the child asked, now with a few fingers in her mouth.

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"Well," Elred spoke contemplatively, "people used to write all the stuff they knew down. Stored it in places like this. They wanted to make things easier for people that came after them. Some people didn't like that, though. Thought that people had learned too much. Departed from the faith of the twenty divine - so they all got locked away. Forgotten."

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"Like me forgotten?" she whispered.

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Elred winced, his features soft under the gentle firelight.

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"A bit. People often discard things, not knowing their worth."

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Though he doubted she really got the nuance of the statement, the girl gently smiled with the far off look she often had.

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"Will words tell us what to do? To make it good again?" she pawed at her cheek as she spoke, a strange look coming over her. Hesitantly, she asked a question that she'd voiced many times since joining Elred. "They tell me my word?"

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Elred knew what she meant to ask - her word, anyways. She had never known her name. He began to leaf through the first of the shelves, getting a lay of the structure the scrolls had been formed into.

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"Well, they say everything you need for a better future and success has already been written," Elred laughed lightly. "So maybe someone figured out how to make it all good again."

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He doubted that was an easily achievable objective, regardless of the tombs harbored knowledge. Looking at the poor girl though, it didn't really seem like a time for nuanced opinions.

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"And who knows? Each town did have a Yeuomen."

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She cocked her head.

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"Sorry - a writer of words. They kept track of things like births and dates. Collections of events."

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Sadly, Elred knew their skills were probably very underestimated and largely underemployed in the times before the shattered reclamation.

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She smiled a far off smile again, eyes not quite focusing.

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"My word?"

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"Yes," Elred returned her smile. "Your word."

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Elred glanced through shelf after shelf. On the Topic of Cold Weather Fertility, The History and Significance of House Verneer, and Appropriate Methods of Long Term Storage for Perishables. All undoubtedly useful - but not the answers he sought out. He masked his frustration - the girl didn't need to see that.

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"My word?" she probed, eyeing him as he worked.

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"No, not yet I'm afraid," Elred sighed.

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"I look?" she asked, placing one faintly damp finger on a scroll near her.

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Elred paused, a thought striking him. He set down the scrolls in his hands and walked over. Perhaps this journey wouldn't be wasted after all. They'd need many to remember the forgotten knowledge - at least if they ever made it that far.

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"Quite a good idea," he said, patting her gently on the back. "Do you see the squiggles? They are called 'letters.' This one here is 'V.'"

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She furrowed her brow, pointing at the letter shown to her.

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Elred pressed his front teeth against his lower lip. "Vuh - Vee. Like that."

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She repeated the sound, clearly concentrating. "Vu- Vuh. Vee?" She looked upward, questioningly.

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He smiled, nodding on encouragingly. So they went, squiggle by squiggle. Letter by letter. Word by word. Though this was not the knowledge Elred desperately sought, he took solace in that for today it would be enough.

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Perhaps finding one word would make this worth it.

​

[WC: 795]

Thank you for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed it, and appreciate the prompt.

Loss is a strange thing. Art and pop culture like to romanticize it - turn it into something jarring and howling, something that hits you like a car crash or rocks you to your core in a fiery explosive episode. Who knows? Maybe for some people it is.

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It wasn't like that for me.

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Loss for me was different than all of that. It was a gap. It was reaching for something only to have my fingers trace through hollow and empty air. It was flicking a light switch and still finding myself in darkness. It wasn't explosive, it wasn't instant, and it didn't feel like anything I could learn from.

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It was erosive. It came in slow like a moonlit tide. It washed against my shore and took pieces of me bit my bit. Then again, I suppose when she left - or disappeared - it wasn't like someone dying in a car crash or being gunned down. It offered no such immediate closure, even if the closure was dark and definitive. It only asked a question. The first day it was asked in an urgent but soft tone. Then a week later it was speaking. Months later it was desperate, screaming. It asked itself so often, so unyieldingly, that after months you simply have to answer. I had to answer.

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I finally had spoken the words to myself. She's gone. She's really gone, and she won't come back.

​

So then I was there. Sitting in that thinly cushioned chair, surrounded by people who kept trying to cast discreet glances towards me - to see "how i'm holding up."

​

It was crisp outside, finally the coming of autumn. She drew quite a crowd. The gazebo was packed, with attendants overflowing into the large garden on the hill. Of course there was no body, so we figured we would have it outside, somewhere beautiful. If her soul resided anywhere, that's where it would be. She never really fit into a stuffy church scene, anyways.

​

The wind gusted sharply as the last speaker finished, casting a torrent of sharply red leaves across the crowd which popped against the ocean of black formal wear. Like her giving us all one last goodbye. Stylish, understated, and resplendent. Distinctly herself.

​

Her mother came over to speak to me. I smiled and laughed as she reminisced. We took turns sharing our favorite stories - like the time she tried to jump on a passing fish from the boat to catch it, earning a serious sting from the catfish. It wasn't really all that funny then, but now it just seemed to fit. We spoke for some time, fighting back the darkness with these little bits of her light. As we spoke though, our stories began to wear out. The battery grew weaker and the light flickered. So, in that coming darkness, we shared a goodbye.

​

Then I sat alone in that gazebo as the sun began to set behind the hill. Or so I had thought.

​

She stood a ways back, by the walkway. When I saw her, my heart skipped a beat. Maybe two. That auburn hair was so distinctive, her mannerisms unmistakable. For an instant, all the color returned to my world. As my footfalls pounded against the wood of the floor, then across the dried up grass, pieces of me began to reform.

​

"Annie!" I shouted, "I - oh my god!"

​

But as I drew closer her face shifted into a look of deep sadness, bordering on fear. Her lips parted as if to say something, and her eyes grew wide.

​

"You're here. You're here." As I drew near my arms moved of their own accord, reaching for an embrace that would fix everything.

​

"No - no, I'm not," she tried to speak. As she began though, I had already enveloped her.

​

I didn't mean to cry. I didn't even feel it coming. I hadn't felt much of anything in what had seemed a very long time. But there, for some time, all I could do was weep.

​

Her body seemed so rigid, though. Her arms came around me, but timidly.

​

"I'm not her. I'm so sorry." The voice that came was just like hers. The same airiness, the exact cadence.

​

"What? What are you talking about? It's - it has to be..." I reluctantly pulled from the embrace and looked at her.

​

Her hazel green eyes stared back, accentuated be her sharp cheeks. She wore her distinct pout. Yet... something deep behind those eyes wasn't right. A spark was missing.

​

"I - ..." she began, "I'm her sister."

​

"She doesn't have a sister. She.. Annie? What are you talking about?"

​

Her pout deepened, her lips arching into a deeply sad frown. Her eyes softened as she spoke, struggling to find the right words.

​

"I'm so, so sorry. I just... I had to come. I had to be here."

​

My heart pounded faster. I could feel sweat forming on my palms.

​

"Our family was - well, I'm somewhat estranged. I didn't mean to do this. I didn't know you were still here. I thought the service had ended an hour ago. I'm - " she stuttered on for a moment, but her look said everything. It apologized for the joy she'd brought, because the pain that came behind it hurt worse than before. It was the understanding and brief transfer of heartbreak born all over again.

​

"I should go," she whispered, turning sharply on her heel.

​

"Wait! You can't.. you can't go! Wait!" I pushed to follow her, quickly walking behind. She sped up though, spouting an apology as her pace quickened.

​

My legs gave out a few steps on. In truth I'm not sure why I had started. There was no logic in it, only the desperate throws of someone reaching for something which was vacant.

​

I watched her go. She sped along over the crest of the hill, her figure bobbing as she made her escape. I watched her grow smaller, backlit by the setting sun. I watched until she finally came over the top and disappeared into the distance beyond.

​

The wind kicked up one last time, a few red leaves dancing through the trees. The swirled lazily towards me, and touched my coat tenderly. One last time.

I just looked back and see that I totally flipped pronouns for one sentence. That one leaves me a bit red in the face, hahaha.

​

Thank you for your feedback!

Dad

​

The memories that choose to stay in our heads are strange things, often illogical. These small shards of the past lodge themselves deep in the recesses of our mind without rhyme or reason. If I could remember more things about my father, I would. I'd have remembered his smile. His faded globe and anchor tattoo, and the exact ways it needed some touching up. He always said he'd get to it, though. That there would be time.

​

All at once though, there wasn't. He was gone. The world stopped spinning for me. Every color was a shade less vibrant, every breeze blew just a bit softer, and each passing cloud provided less shade. All of these things, logically, had to be the same. Yet they weren't - because I wasn't - and nothing could remain how it was once was.

​

"That's the way it is sometimes. Shit comes and goes. Every now and then, though - here and there, you get pieces of it back. So just wait a little longer. For now to pass and there to come."

​

It wasn't really as profound as I think it sounds. Something he said after my first girl broke up with me over text. College.. what can you do, right? But for some reason I hear that in my head a lot. Not the words, but his voice. The ways his eyes squinted from his smile as he said it. He didn't smile too much, which is maybe why I find it so critical, so important, that for that moment he did.

​

Of course with my Sarah, I try to do things different. My old man was far from perfect. Mom said it was the military that made him all rough around the edges like that. Clean cuts that never quite got sanded down, even by the gentle grit of family life.

​

I try to do some things his way, though. The Chinese buffet after each first day of school for my daughter. The drive up to that rinky Hawaiin themed waterpark each summer. Collecting the best bits and pieces. Of course, now she's getting older. Too cool for it all.

​

The other day, though, she was telling me about her friend moving - how she felt like a piece of her was leaving to Colorado, too. Then it just bubbled up.

​

That's the way it is sometimes...

​

So then, for a moment, the sky seemed deeply blue. The autumn gust more crisp. The sound of the passing cars on the freeway was less of a drone, and more of a comforting hum. For a small instance, the fractals of time and love and memory coiled themselves into a twist. They brought him back, if only for a minute.

​

It ended, of course. As all things must end. Yet somehow I felt maybe now and again, here and there, these little slip ups might keep coming.

​

So I wait, but ever shorter. Look forward, but know he's closer.

​

I love you, Dad.

​

[WC: 499]

Some days I wake to the warm reaches of the light cast out by that distant star, and am immediately struck by a familiar thought. Well - a feeling, really. To put it to words I suppose I wonder if other people feel loneliness the same way I do. That little pit inside of you that rolls around throughout your stomach like a marble. As it clatters through me, it touches my heart. Sometimes my mind. At each turbulent crash it bears forward a strange melancholy, the pondering of my existence. If I could ever be loved, or find love? Or if it even matters.

​

I've been here for some hundred years, give or take. I stopped counting back when the roads were noisier. Cars louder, the smell of gas and oil runoff polluting my nose. 'Here' being somewhat relative, of course. I move apartments, houses, even campsites every couple changings of the seasons.

​

I've been sloppy. Amongst humans, they have a term: 'Serial killer.' I've listened to documentaries and strange radio cast about these defective creatures. An anomaly noted in them as that most of them are not caught through the perseverance and clever workings of their pursuers. Rather, they want to be found. To be seen. Noticed as they truly exist.

​

Maybe that's why I did it? Left small clues. The trimmings of my too long nails, yellow and hard as iron cast out across my floor. After all - no one goes in here but me, right? Perhaps that's why I molted freely in my homestead this time, rather than venture out into the secluded reaches of the Viamese forest just off the highway. Let the smell waft through the air vents as my most outer layer peeled away and sloughed off me, releasing the smell of solvent.

​

I was still surprised when she noticed, of course. Maybe my mind had tricked itself up to that point that it still didn't want to be found. You wouldn't think an old woman like her would be so keyed into her surroundings. Then again what else have old women to do?

​

Now, her eyes follow me through the halls. I feel them. Their ice blue iris's and tired whites streaked with blood vessels which still clung onto their decaying frame. I can sense her presence through the thin living room wall, always listening. Smelling. The clockwork thumping of her heart as she lay in wait.

​

And.. it feels.. good.

​

Good to be thought of. Skepticism, fear, annoyance, or what have you. All negative emotions by their usual connotation. Yet when you've had none for so long, does it matter? Does not even the soured and ichor ridden coolness of sewer water do something to quench a throat that has not tasted water in days?

​

So I drink, and I drink deeply.

​

I leave more hints. Let my facial features sag and grow sallow in our small passings. Elicit her fear, and consume it like the last crumbs of a death row inmates final meal. Relish it.

​

Of course this will end. I know that much. Not due to her decaying mind sparking its dying neurons to corner me, no. It will end from my apathy. It will end when this feeling grows too large to be contained by my ageless frame. It will end when I can no longer fool even myself.

​

It will end when I am seen. When I am free. When the consequence is finally a timid thing in the face of continuing this life... this existence.

When Ms. Abeleine left, everyone could feel it. Nothing physical. The thermostats read the same. The lights continued their output. The low drum of traffic outside the office remained in its steady flow.

​

Everything was the same - but different.

​

It was less vibrant. Sunlight seemed to lose some of its hue. When groups gathered by the watercooler to chat during break, eyes would softly scan for her auburn hair lurking somewhere in the background. The small oven in the breakroom did not waft the scent of the premade cookie dough as she felt a tray should be made that day because it was 'all fuzzy in here.'

​

Everyone was happy for her, of course. Getting her dream job overseas. After all, who deserved it more? She had been a team player, kind, determined. The whole package.

​

Her going away party was a rowdy affair. Tim couldn't recall the last time he'd even had three drinks, much less however came after that. It was somewhat of a blur. Yet despite his flawed recollection he could see her figure sliding through the room and eliciting laughter from each passing group. Despite her imminent departure casting a sense of gloom, for those brief hours she dispelled storm clouds.

​

It had been hard to find where she had bought the cookie dough. Apparently there was an in-group with a local confectionary shop. Tim found it not the least bit surprising she had mingled herself into their good graces. Who else? In truth the only reason he even found out about them was by using her name as a guiding light in his search.

​

The cookies rose up just like hers had in the worn out breakroom oven. The smell still brought folks in to look. It didn't evade Tim's notice that when they entered to inspect the source of those heavenly smells, they quizzically looked this way and that. Their scans ran over Tim, seeking out another.

​

He couldn't blame them, really. The cookies tasted good, but not quite right. The orange light of the oven filaments was just a bit too dull. On one hand he felt foolish. Foolish for trying to imitate her. To bring what it is that she'd brought. On the other hand, a smile began to take form on his features. It wasn't a gleaming grin, but it was there all the same.

​

Because she would've tried. For some reason, the thought of that seemed like enough.

​

Tim felt she'd left something tiny in the office. Just a fragment. A memory, but one that drew small breaths. A figment.

​

Wasn't that something to smile about?

All forms of life are different. Shape, size, color, texture, voice, and a hundred-thousand other features might easily distinguish one from the next. It was with no small sense of pride that the Third Prime Congregation of Malakais had coined the phrase "We so divided - All stronger united."

​

Despite this cheery sentiment though, it was undeniable some species paired together better than others. The U'Larak and San-Saium might bond deeply over the finer points of fate mapping. Reshi and Renaris both drink in the same blood red sunlight and claim it to be more pure than any other system.

​

However, Renaris and U'Larak begrudgingly manage sharing space with one another, malice built on the sentiment of heresy to the unspoken union - the U'Larak claiming them to be slaves to superstition. This atop their starkly different physical needs compounds to form some rather tense trade districts. One suffering in the others natural environment while affixed with effective albeit uncomfortable BSO devices.

​

Many in times of great strife and anguish feels a burning. A simmering distaste for their fellow galactic residents that with each passing comment, each look from irregular eye, and each sneer delivered from foreign mouth that threatens to rise to an unsustainable and destructive boil.

​

But this does not happen. Tempers cool in time. Memories rise through the steam of clouded mind, bringing perspective. Bringing sound. Bringing music.

​

The Humans had been the first. In some ways, they might even be considered the founders of the entire Third Prime. Though at that time it was simply The Prime, given that there had been no knowledge of the previous two wiped out in cataclysmic events of the cosmos.

​

It was a great shame they never went on to see what would come of them. Of what their small action of rebellion in the face of annihilation might manifest.

​

Eight of them drifted through the unblinking void of the cosmos, their home-world finally collapsed, brought to temperatures completely unsustainable for their lives. In the impartial blackness, with no aim and no purpose, they sent out a broad spectrum signal to anyone or no one at all. Their transmission rattled through the great nothing, pawing at each passing star. Channel 10.55.7; 771.

​

First, it was jovial. Fast. Some mockery of their fate. Scornful. Willing to dance until the lights shut out and they had to be escorted - or rather smothered, out of existence. But that fell through. That thing we now collectively know as 'Jazz.'

​

In the last hour of their transmission, something else was played. The roots of so called 'Jazz.' It was slow. It was haunting. It brought with it all the beauty of a flower brought to bloom, and all the tragedy of one born unto the shade to wilt away quietly. It needed no words to speak, nor guide to follow. It was call and response. It was the breathing of life and rattles of death. It was all the joy that was and shall be, and all the grief passed and yet to transpire.

​

It was 'Blues.'

​

What was found from these waves which bounced through eternity, their senders long deceased, was the one common ground every consciousness could share. The heartache of loss. The fear of joy for the bitter than must come. The unity of love, joy, and hope paralleled against the inevitable trudge of loss, grief, and anguish.

​

Soon those phantom waves were joined by new ones. Some decades later a third chimed in. Then a fourth. Until soon, a galaxy once thought devoid of life became a swirling starscape of music, alight with an ever growing array of sounds. The strange airy tunes of the Kek-an. The thunderous beats of Renaris coldroms. The violent and clashing percussion of the U'Larak.

​

But among all that new noise, one station is universally reserved. No formal writ of this was ever published. Rather, it needs no speaking. No declaration.

​

10.55.7; 771

​

For that airway was carved out of time long ago by those eight doomed travelers. One need only tune in momentarily, in times of great doubt, to remember the only truth that ever really ends up mattering.

They say that the sword we live by, we die by. In the confines of black rock, suffocating for eternity but not being graced with the kiss of death, I contemplated that. As much as my mind could manage as it deteriorated.

​

Could another man take that from you? Wrestle the pommel of your existence from your hand, strip you of the cutting edge which you employed to carve out your will unto the world?

​

He lays with my wife now. In the eyes of my child, I have not been replaced. No. You cannot replace what never existed. I held his hand. A small, tender thing which collapsed into my gloved palm. I saw the wind playfully tug at the few wisp of hair which protruded from a newborn head. In the grey light of the dawn he saw me. Didn't comprehend me, but saw me.

​

That's all been erased, though. Covered like frost might blanket an unsuspecting valley as the cruel winds of winter pounce upon a warm and unexpected summer field, too content with it's own infantility to grasp that all things might change in time.

​

Of course, they don't know i'm free. The both of us. The oath stated that the minds of men may conquer that of a beast. Clearly they left out some tidbits. Yet, my mind is no longer my own. Not the mind of a man. Merely the shell that remains after the nut has been cracked. No mind - no prison. No beast.

​

The beast spoke to me in the flaming tongue before he scampered off into the darkness. Made threat and promise, curse and lament. Where he went I do not care. Some will suffer. Many will die. I want to let loose an acrid laugh at the thought which struck me as I watched the receding light of its ember torso - that they'll blame ME for this. Somehow.

​

That doesn't matter. So little does once amble your way to the peak of your soul and gaze out at the crashing sea of quandaries which encapsulate it. Watch the riptides of hate pull out what small flotsam of love and joy try to find purchase on the shore of the heart.

​

As I walked through the midnight sun, I tried to feel some of the hatred. Some of that anger, so hot that it might thaw my receding mind. I bite my tongue, willing blood to pool. When it comes though, it bears all the weight of a rain drop in a maelstrom. Tactile upon impact but meaningless on soaked ground.

​

When I find them, I shall grant two kindnesses and one justice. My wife and son need only be released from this miserable consciousness. Whether or not they realize it, their lives are already gone. Taken by the phantom hand of fate which was coerced and guided by the will of man. When they beg I hope that I will feel pity. Hope that the twangs of sorrow might play one last time from the worn and feeble strings in the harpsichord of my essence.

​

I know that when I condemn him to the living earth, though, that I will not feel. His squirming figure will do nothing for sightless eyes. For that should bear no weight on one scale or the next. It will not be an act of scorn. Nor will it be the petty revenge of the man who was once was. It will only be the act of balance, ensuring that all things which once were made out of order are returned in kind.

Home

​

Some days when the rain patters against the small window of our bedside, I think it's you speaking to me. Through the tapping and shaking of the window pane, I hear your sighs and I hear your screams. In the gentle light of a spring shower, you giggle. Through the cold and caliginous dark of a storm, you wretch and moan.

​

They say that home is where the heart is. I have been homeless for some time.

​

I like to think I'm diseased. That a terrible mental illness took me those years ago. Twisted my thinking, clouded my mind. You said you saw through me, though. Said that when you peered into my eyes, I had always been this way. That I was born this person - weak, insufferable, and malformed. In that moment, a cloud cleared for me. I saw through you too.

​

That knowledge ignited something in me. Something I wish was sickness, or a bout of hysteria. But it wasn't. In the right situation, we are all capable of the most terrible crimes.

​

Tonight, you knock against the window again. I listen and tap my fingers to your rhythm. I can't explain, but you feel closer every night. I see you in the shadow of the open pantry door. When the rain has ceased, your footfalls are the creaking of pipes. The whirring of the air conditioner is your breath. Each day you breach further into this house. Each day I am farther from home.

​

I know that you are the mold. It grows up in every dark pocket. Relentless. No ground is too sacred, and no place a safehaven. Is it you which I feel growing in my mind? The tips of your fungus eroding at my soft tissue, clawing for purchase in my skull? Sometimes I try to breath as deeply as I can, to let you in. Haste you along. Let you crowd my airways and find purchase in my throat.

​

When I slammed your head into the corner of the fireplace I was so certain you'd be gone. But now you're here. You're here so often, so unmistakably, that we are as one thing. One being.

​

This run down shack is never going to be my home again. Nor will the one across the street, or across the state, or across the ocean. But I am your home now, aren't I? Your last vessel to cling to on this miserable rock. Every footfall I make leaves your spores. Every sound that reaches my ears you listen.

​

But I've destroyed a home before. Do you smell the gasoline? Can you taste it? Can you feel it running on our skin? Pound away at the windows. Flicker your lights. Do anything you want.

​

If I can't keep my home, neither can you.