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Mel had been in the ICU on ventilator support for three days. His wife was by the bedside that Saturday morning as Dr. Fromberg checked the settings.

Satisfied, he turned to her.

“I think we’ll be able to get him off the ventilator by this time tomorrow, Edith.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Well… We’ll give it a try.”

She added several frown lines to her forehead as she looked from the tubes and lines to Dr. Fromberg.

“Could you make it the day after tomorrow?… I mean, it’s been so pleasant not having to listen to Mel for the last three days.”

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David Sydney is a physician. He has had pieces in Little Old Lady Comedy, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday, 50 Give or Take, Grey Sparrow Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Disturb the Universe, Pocket Fiction, Hotch Potch, Mad Swirl, Every Writer, Sip Cup, and R U Joking.

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This story is a song because the heart doesn’t use words; it resonates, and the mind does its best to interpret and transcribe. Though this tale is from years ago, the song did not age. I don’t always hear it, but then I pick up a book and see a dedication to me in his rewriting of one of the book’s narratives…

Christmas is coming
and I’m trying to think of
what to inscribe in this book
for Laura
I thought of starting off
by saying that it’s really
a very beautiful exchange of
values when Laura puts
her clothes on in the morning
and she is brand new
and even though you’ve seen
her put her clothes on before
each time is different
and each time adds
something to the last
and you know
that once again
it’s morning and
you are with
someone you
love

K
E
Y

The Key Man. Aptly nicknamed by my favorite teacher, mentor, and friend, who was part of the Parkway school program that we were all being educated in, or had graduated from. He and I had attended different units in different parts of the city, and he was a bit older than me. The nickname was a clever reference to his actual name, a unique one, and also to the part he played in my life.

I met him at a party, we were loosely being set up. My high school friend knew I was nursing a broken heart and was trying to shake me out of my gloominess. She said that she had gone on a date with him and they didn’t click, but she thought that he and I might. Parties tended to bring out my awkwardness, so I went out and sat by the Koi pond. He came out with his camera and started taking pictures of me. I’m guessing they were not the candid shots he was hoping for since his sardonic remark was “how moody.”

I liked him. He was smart and funny and creative and affectionate. He saw me. He was open to me. Little by little, his kindness, generosity, wit, and loving nature restored me, seduced me, and delighted me. We were compatible animals. And I did fall in love with him.

When he was not away at school, he lived in his parents’ home. Making a good impression on an Italian or Jewish mother when you are dating her prince is important, and I most certainly did not complete that task successfully. I’m pretty sure her vote from the very first moment I entered her home was a no; I was not good enough. With my eccentric vintage thriftstore-chic wardrobe, and my unfiltered answers, especially regarding choosing not to go to college since the only thing I wanted to do was paint, and my parents saw that as an impractical luxury.

I felt like a peasant in her eyes, knowing that my parents could not have paid for any college, regardless of what I studied. Both immigrants, my mother, an unpaid homemaker committed to raising children, of which I was the fifth and last, and my father, on early retirement, due to disability, from his insurance sales job. Essentially, I was on my own.

Ultimately, I was banned from sleeping on the premises of his parents’ home for using a particular bathtub to wash up in, forgetting that it had developed a leak. Since I had been informed of it a few weeks before, I guess unconsciously I assumed it was fixed. This branded me as not being very bright, or perhaps just thoughtless. No point in trying to argue my case; I had no right to.

Before it happened I truly enjoyed the time I was able to spend in this part of his world, his room on the third floor of his family home: laughing, explaining our philosophies, having sex, then waking up with a smile, and washing up (in the aforementioned tub) before heading down to the kitchen to hear an explanation of why his toast must be burnt before applying the cottage cheese and agreeing that this particular cantaloupe we were sharing was one of the best, and finding a good cantaloupe is too rare a phenomena.

I remember some very happy days traveling to Boston to visit him—at his place on “Myrtle, rhymes with turtle” as he would say—when he was at school.

We maintained an open relationship, since he was in college in Boston and I was at work in Philadelphia (it was the promiscuous 70s), but when I came to stay with him, or he was in Philadelphia, no one else existed but the two of us.

We were both Bohemians in our own way. His interests were music, writing, and film. He liked to experiment with sound and video. My interests were visual art through drawing and painting, creating unique fashions for myself, and writing.

The critical part of him sometimes mocked me in a way that was often very blunt. I had a notebook I carried with me all the time and scribbled ideas for poems and stories in it. He once grabbed it from me and read part of it and said, “girl, you can’t write for shit.” Several months later, I showed him a poem I wrote about a woman jumping in front of the subway train I was on. His previous declaration was amended to “girl, you really can write.”

We had different ideas on religion and spirit, neither related to the ones in which we were raised, that we were not demonstrative in, but I remember both of us standing on a rocky beach near Boston, each throwing a stone of our past year of sins into the waves to observe Rosh Hashanah. This was the first time I saw him tear up, and it made my heart swell.

On one of our first adventurous dates, in Boston, I think, his inner cranky bear emerged. I went sailing with him. It was the first time I had ever been on a sailboat with anyone, anywhere, and he did nothing but yell at me the whole time because I didn’t know what to do or how to instantly understand and follow his orders.

That beast was balanced by the beauty in our other adventures together—and there were many in Boston, certainly, but mostly in New York.

After graduation, I helped him pack up and move to a loft in Soho. We enjoyed easy access to art installations, films by Truffaut, Buniel, Bergman, performances by Don Cherry and Sun Ra, Elvis Costello in Tribeca, walks to whatever was up at CBGB’s, browsing record stores, delivering his tapes, and enjoying all kinds of food. Japanese was a favorite, but I remember razor clams in Chinatown, Luna in Little Italy, and the original Ray’s Famous. Since I would often stay with him for a month, give or take, I would look for day work like cleaning jobs to contribute to expenses.

Sometimes we would go on independent adventures and report our findings when we got back. Staying at home in his loft was fun too. Reading stories to each other, sharing music, and sharing ideas…

I was into nature religion. For him, music was religion, and he taught me much about his gods. He gave me a broader vision on music, on art, and on life. I gave him a heart grown three sizes larger, filled with my love. Evidenced by his encryptions: the king of hearts playing card flanking my nakedness in his place, to greet me when I awoke so I would not forget; and the sweet things he would say: once while replacing a lost button on his shirt, and feeling homespun I guess, I asked him if he wanted children, his response was “two by you girl, two by you.”

When we were apart, we would write letters to each other often, between New York and Philadelphia, including drawings, photographs, and sometimes he would send me a train ticket, once addressing it to Laura Borealis and declaring it a one-way ticket to his heart.

In an attempt to give him a tangible expression of my gratitude, I scraped together a hundred bucks for him to spend on his travels with his parents. The idea was for him to treat himself, but instead, he brought me back a moon harp…generous to a fault.

A million things are still so very vivid in my memory, popping up in no particular order, meaningless to anyone but me: his dark sense of humor, “Etan Patz and the missing persons band;” his beat poetry, “Our love is stronger than dirt;” passing a huge painting in a gallery window of a donkey laying next to a naked woman and hugging her, his comment “that’s like me and you,” both hilarious and endearing; having a gun pulled on us when I chastised someone for almost running us over; a woman blowing a whistle and screaming in the street and me opening the window, leaning out and yelling that I was going to call the police. Her attacker ran away, and we brought her inside. She later brought me a rape whistle.

Then there was ”Don’t call me baby.” A phrase which he repeated to me numerous times as a joke after I said it to him one night at a party. I don’t remember my reason, only the physical circumstances. We were sitting next to each other on a bed, in a bedroom at the farmhouse where his friend had a yearly party, and he had a tape recorder on his lap.

I do remember a sad situation at a restaurant in Philadelphia. He wanted to break up, and I did not want to, and I think I was trying to talk him out of it. I do not remember the timing.

I also remember making a terrible mistake, one that would probably prompt anyone to want to have nothing to do with me. But he persevered. The guy having the party, supposedly his very close friend—let’s call him the eel, as he was both slippery and shocking—lived in Philadelphia, and we started hanging around as friends, but I allowed it to go too far.

Whatever possessed me to risk losing a good guy, a guy who made me happy, to indulge in being with someone who did not care for me and obviously did not really care for his friend either?

Nearly 5 decades later, as I confront my mortality and look back over my life, I think I understand. When Key and I met, I was coming off my very first heartbreak from the kind of love that feels like the stakes are life and death. It took a full five years to recover. I think unconsciously during those years, I was always searching for the sort of devastating passion that would somehow make me feel worthy to exist. Despite my adventures and lust for life, I did not truly feel that worthiness.

I think it also rendered me unable to really see people for their true worth, and Key had more worth in his little finger than the eel had in his whole body.

The theory is true that you cannot love anyone more than you love yourself, and cannot accept more love than you feel for yourself.

Unfortunately, I became pregnant and did not believe in abortion. Considering circumstances, it could have been by the eel, yet Key, prince that he was, did not abandon me. Instead, he gave me love and support and forgiveness.

I had a stillborn at 6 months and could not, at the time, identify who the father was, but believed it was the wrong guy.

I know that Key and I continued seeing each other even after the birth because I remember him making comments about the changes in my body one day when we were having a bath together, but I know he began seeing someone else more often, as I did in Philadelphia.

One thing I always felt was that with my need for space, I could only be committed to or marry someone who traveled a lot or who would not mind if I had my own room to retire to when I needed to decompress. Seems like the one man who may have been willing and able to do that was the man whom I had betrayed and hurt.

Key and I ended as lovers but remained friends and would occasionally talk on the phone, and sometimes see each other. Eventually, the woman he was seeing moved in with him, and I moved to Key West with the man who would become my son’s father.

We continued to communicate, mostly by phone. I was unhappy and sometimes frightened in the relationship I was in, and said that I wanted to leave and fly home. In his last letter to me, he said, “I live with a woman now who won’t sew the buttons on my shirt but I will always love you.”

I saved each and every one of his letters. No matter who I was with or what I was going through, I always had his letters. Maybe they were an island of safety in a stormy life.

The partner I chose to move away with revealed himself to be very jealous, and sometimes mean-spirited, and violent. So, sensing I was slightly hurt by something Key had done, encouraged me to send a very unnecessary and unkind postcard to him. Foolishly, I did, and I feel that it was this note that broke the friendship with him. No more phone calls.

My question now is: what is fate?

If my choices would have been different, would his have been? Or on some level had he already chosen that woman who wouldn’t sew buttons on his shirt—because she could provide something he needed to move forward that I could not? He has stayed with her and created a family and what appears to be a beautiful, happy life.

Had we continued, I imagine I would not have met the people I have met or had the experiences I have had, and I would not have had the many happy years with the particular son I have: an artist, scientist, healer, and explorer.

Who knows what would have been different in the Key Man’s life.

Over the last 45 years, I’ve only reached out to him maybe five times. I very rarely reach out because I don’t want to intrude where I’m not invited. And he does not reach out to me, ever.

But he sometimes comes to me in dreams. Last night, for the first time, we spoke extensively and warmly in my dream. He’s offered an end to the recurring nightmare I’ve had where I’m lost and in danger and can’t find my way home; after our talk, he showed me the way. I think his presence was there to tell me that everything works out as it should.

I usually keep my close friends forever. I miss his voice. If I could, I would tell him I am sorry about the eel, and I’m sorry about the harsh postcard. I would also let him know that the time spent with him was some of the happiest in my life, and my heart can still sing it… and I thank him.

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Laura Turzo is a writer of poetry, non-fiction, fiction, and screenplays. She lives in the Berkshires.

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“Dr. Fromberg, could I ask you something?”

“What, Ralph?”

Ralph and Frodo, his Labrador retriever, were at the veterinarian’s office for another round of Frodo’s shots.

The veterinarian had a busy schedule.

“I’ve been hearing a lot about vaccine hesitancy.”

“Hesitancy, huh?”

“Yeah, you know how people talk…”

“People, huh?”

No wonder Mel Fromberg had chosen to be a veterinarian.

“So, is it really safe for Frodo to get the shots you’re giving him?”

Mel Fromberg inspected the syringe. He didn’t hesitate.

“Ralph, I can assure you that everything I’m giving Frodo has been safely tested on human beings first…”

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✍️ About the Authors

David Sydney is a physician. He has had pieces in Little Old Lady Comedy, 101 Words, Microfiction Monday, 50 Give or Take, Grey Sparrow Journal, Bright Flash Literary Review, Disturb the Universe, Pocket Fiction, Hotch Potch, Mad Swirl, Every Writer, Sip Cup, and R U Joking.

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In 1972, I was sixteen years old. The splendid, joyful renaissance that was the sixties continued to cast its spell. We were all in its thrall. “We” were my gaggle of droogies, gifted with comforts, opportunities, and advantages that our forebears could only dream of. Revolution was in the air. The moribund world of wars and wage slavery was coughing its death rattle. Our older brothers were resisting invitations to the slaughter in Vietnam. We knew a bright, brave new age was aborning. The music of the soundtrack of our young lives over the four years theretofore promised as much. We were exhorted to give peace a chance. The air was filled with songs of revolution and of return to the land where a new Eden was waiting. Eden looked like Middle Earth. We were young and lucky and bright and paying attention - trying to be good hippies. We talked of enchanted places, like Mendocino, Humboldt County, and Oregon’s Promised Land - gentle green landscapes, where we would live on the land together and be happy all of our days. We talked of getting forty Oregon woodland acres. Together. My dream was a cabin in those woods with a piano for playing music and a desk for writing poetry.

We fed our heads on chemicals that opened doors that we did not know even existed. LSD was the key to the kingdom. It was the prerogative of youth to be so reckless. But it was also, for some of us, sacramental. We drank our share of booze, to be sure, but it was the psychedelics that opened our hearts and minds to vistas undreamed of. They showed us that we had been trapped in a stultifying world view that was a lie. We went to infinity and beyond. Art and poetry, and music would fill our days.

Life intruded and time passed. My droogies and I scattered to live lives to which we reluctantly acceded or for which we simply settled. Thirty years from my sixteenth and after surviving all manner of self-inflicted thumpings and thrashings, I bought a cabin in the woods with a piano for playing music and a desk for writing poetry. It was set on five acres of Ponderosa forest in northern Arizona on the slopes of sacred San Francisco Mountain. Many dreams had died, but this one survived. A scaled-down dream, perhaps - my droogies were not with me, the land was not in Oregon, and my Xanadu was five acres, not the forty we talked of years ago. But I never stopped pinching myself in disbelief at my improbable good fortune. I shouted to the Mountain, God help me, I love it so.

I husbanded well my little woodland, thinning it for heat in the winter, cleaning up the windfalls. I learned the secrets that live in the woods. I learned the secrets of the wildflowers that lay hidden in time until they bloomed. I learned the grasses and the forbs and the trees. I was gifted with visits from foxes, deer, elk, coyotes, skunks, raccoons, owls, hawks, eagles, bears, and mountain lions that called my metes and bounds their home and felt their inscrutable “inscape” and sanctity. I ran the trails through the woods with my border collies, Beckett and Finnbar - my marathon training partners and trail bosses. I climbed the sacred mountain, from whose lofty prospects I could see all the way to yesterday and tomorrow. I shoveled snow in the winter. I stewarded the cabin with my hammer, my saw, my drill, screws, and nails. All labors of love.

I thought often of the notion of ownership and knew that I was just a passenger on time’s train, traversing briefly this landscape, and that I had no claim to any of it, but was privileged to be in it at all. Some of my trees were three hundred years old. They scraped the sky and drew fire from the summer storms. How could I sensibly lay any claim to them? I was a mere blurred shadow, passing unimportantly in an instant of their deep time. The land owned me, not I it.

I learned the music of Satie, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns on my piano. I studied the stars with my telescope in the clear, cold mountain air, discovering the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. I learned the constellations and their myths. I sat on my upstairs deck under brilliant spangled night skies, saw meteors that put the heart in me sideways, and swooned at the staggering immensity. The lessons I had learned from my days in psychedelia’s wildscapes came back to me as comforting, grounding truths. I knew that the spirits were hidden just there, cunningly, in plain sight, in all I saw, and if I could not see them, I felt their touch. The longing for communion was unendurable. The poetry of my sprung senses and open heart were my poor ways of bridging the unbridgeable divide, my best vain attempt to embrace what was just beyond my firelight. I was enraptured by the wonder.

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Thomas Phalen is a retired lawyer. He is an Irish/American and on April 15, 2025, obtained his Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin. His work has been published in several journals. He is an editor of The Muleskinner Journal. He lives in Phoenix, AZ.

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We were near Nanty-Glo when my wife got fidgety. She usually does, somewhere around here. This is when she starts thinking I have been lying about how much longer to Altoona because now the drive from Chicago is really wearing on her. She recognizes I’ve stretched the truth on the length of time to get to Altoona. Now I have to pay up.

“How much further did you say once we passed Pittsburgh?” she asks.

“An hour and a half.”

“We’ve driven that far, haven’t we?”

“We've driven an hour and a half from Pittsburgh.”

“It’s not much further.”

“What’s the name of that town?”

“Nanty Glo.”

“I remember it. I remember last time. You said we were almost there, and it was another hour. It’s twenty miles to Nanty Glo. How much after that?”

We were on Highway 22. The mountains were getting steep. The last time through here there was a big storm, thunder and lightning. I had to slow down then. She didn’t like it. I kept hoping she’d stop asking how far. “It’s about another half-hour.”

She sat, fuming.

“You know, this is mining country, Welsh miners. I think Nanty Glo is a Welsh saying. Not sure what. Probably has something to do with the mines.”

“We promised we’d be on time for dinner. Now we’re running late. I’ve got a headache, a splitting headache.’

“Less than a half-hour to go.”

We rode in silence. The road became a series of long uphill grades that offered views of valleys and more mountains beyond. I imagined valleys stretching out forever, full of things to mine – gold, molybdenum, titanium, who knows what else. I thought how nice it would be if there was a long straight plain ahead, where we could flat-out go. But there was no plain, just truck traffic, which annoyed her. I wanted to feel good about the trucks not being my fault, but I couldn’t. Everything that was my fault, and everything that wasn’t my fault still was my fault. If I passed these trucks by speeding up too fast or getting too close to them, she would be even more upset. I know she was antsy to see our son and his family. I never should have hedged. I should have told her straight out how long the trip was. But if I did that, she would have complained all the way from Chicago. This way, I would only have to put up with heavy griping from Nanty Glo to Altoona, about forty-five minutes in all. I suppose this was the way the world worked everywhere. Teachers didn’t go on strike until the school year began. That’s when they had the most leverage. Wait. That didn’t support my argument. Well, in a way it did. They postponed hostilities for some reason or other. Politicians sometimes held off tax increases until after the election. If they raised taxes before the election, they wouldn’t get re-elected. There! A solid example of practical, down-to-earth procrastination.

“It’s been a half-hour, and here’s Nanty Glo.”

“Not much farther.”

“How much farther?”

“Another half hour.”

“You did this last time. You always do this. You always lie!”

“The trucks.”

“No, it’s you. Why do you lie?”

I took my eyes off the road to look at her. “Because I’m afraid to disappoint you.”

“You’re afraid to tell me the truth.”

“No.”

“You’re afraid if you tell me straight up, when we leave Chicago, how long it will take, I’ll start bitching at you. Bitching at you, saying we should have flown, right?”

“There are no direct flights to Altoona. With stops and layovers, this is actually faster.”

“Actually cheaper. Ah, that’s it. You didn’t want to spend the extra money. Right?

Silence is sometimes the best answer. She would fume now from Nanty Glo to Altoona, about forty minutes, more or less. If there were no trucks. I had cut her gripe time down to about eight per cent of what it would have been. Nanty Glo was behind us. Altoona was in front. I wondered what Nanty Glo meant. I’d have to check on that sometime. Maybe when I’m checking out airline ticket prices next time on the Internet. I was hungry.

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Paul Smith writes poetry & fiction. He lives in Skokie, Illinois, with his wife, Flavia. Sometimes he performs poetry at an open mic in Chicago. He believes that brevity is the soul of something he read about once, and whatever that something is or was.

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So now I go for walks. I walk around our neighborhood like we used to. We had several routes – along Laramie Avenue up to Dempster, then to the Frontage Road to Lincoln, and then along Gross Point Road till it hit Wright Terrace and Laramie. One that I avoided for a long time started the same as the first one, only we turned south before getting to the Frontage Road. That led to the street between the two cemeteries, St. Paul’s Lutheran and St. Peter’s United Church of Christ. It was a shadowed, peaceful street, especially after dinner, but a bit lonely. She wasn’t buried there. She was interred at Memorial Park, north of here. That had been in winter, where a dozen of us stood around that empty hole as it got filled up and we said good-bye.

How depressing this must sound!

That’s not what I wanted. I was just reminiscing about our walks. I purposely bypassed our stroll between the two cemeteries on Harms Road because I knew I would miss her there more than anywhere else. I slowed down as I got to the cemeteries, just giving fate a chance if it wanted one, to warn me or threaten me or maybe just scare me a little bit for what I did. I was blameless, of course. I’d loved her completely and treated her right. The reason I avoided Harms Road was the lone house at the end of St. Paul’s cemetery. On the other side were empty lots, places where nobody wanted to build anything. The house stood out like a sore thumb. It begged for company - a narrow, wood-frame house with a gable in front, a steep roof with a dormer facing south.

If I were a ghost, this is the house I would occupy. This is where I would wait for people with cloudy consciences. They would be drawn here because this house is solitary, and this is how they have come to feel. The house gives them comfort too, its frame having an aspect of a nurturing past, a recollected childhood perhaps without the sting of adult duties, chores, and responsibilities. Here, they might pass by and think about all the happiness they once had because the house seemed so normal and unobtrusive, so thoroughly uncomplicated and practical that they might even create a false memory, believing they grew up here. Then they could forget whatever secrets their hearts held and how short a jaunt it is down Gross Point Road from Memorial Park to here, not even two miles. That is nothing for a ghost, nothing for a ghost without fingers anymore, or legs, or hands, only a soul that remembers how she was left there when the ambulance got ready to take her from Skokie Valley Hospital to Glenbrook, where victims of the contagion were treated, and she was left alone on a gurney. Not even a minute passed, and Superior Ambulance whisked her away. The next time she was seen was in Glenbrook Hospital around this time in the evening, stiff as a sheet hung out to dry in autumn. All it took was one minute, one minute while I urinated in the tiny lavatory beside the emergency room, sad because I could not follow her to Glenbrook due to the epidemic. If I were a ghost, I would scream at you, scream my lungs out at you, Judas, for the years I gave you, and you could not even stay there with me in that infernal trauma unit. My oxygen was below ninety. When you heard what a central line was, you bolted while I waited for a hospital bed in Glenbrook Hospital to free up so Superior Ambulance could take me there, alone, afraid, scared stiff as they tried to intubate me and I spat at them and cursed them and swore on our childrens’ souls that I would come back and torment them and you till judgment day.

But I am not a ghost. I am a humble man with many memories, some good, some bad. I think all of us are like that, not completely saint-like, not completely sinful. When I passed that house, though, I picked up speed so as not to hear anything unusual.

That wasn’t screaming I heard. It was the wind, that’s all. The wind can play tricks on you. This time, it imitated her voice right down to how she would belittle me the way she had for years and years, in front of my family and friends, making fun of my indecision, my hesitancy, my inertia till I was no bigger than a smudge. Then her voice got high-pitched like the ambulance that sped away one evening while I stood in the emergency room and sobbed.

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Paul Smith writes poetry & fiction. He lives in Skokie, Illinois with his wife Flavia. Sometimes he performs poetry at an open mic in Chicago. He believes that brevity is the soul of something he read about once, and whatever that something is or was, it should be

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Raggedy Ann adjusted her tangled red yarn hair in the mirror. She didn't know why she'd let him talk her into this harebrained idea to go to a dance club. She preferred to sit and read on a Saturday night, but Andy had pestered her for weeks. “Come on, Ann, you never do anything fun!” he'd whined, tugging at her apron.

“I do fun things,” she argued. “Remember last week? I made sugar cookies.”

Andy groaned, rubbing his temples as if in pain. “Cookies don’t count! Live a little, Ann!”

So, here they were, getting ready for a night out at the hottest dance club in Toytown. Andy fussed with his checkered shirt and oversized bowtie in the other room. Ann peeked in, shaking her head.

“Is that really what you're wearing?” she asked.

“Yes it is,” Andy said, spinning around. “I look amazing, don't ya think?”

“You look like you’re going to church.”

Andy ignored her. “Let’s go, big sis. We're not getting any younger!”

Ann muttered under her breath, “Yeah. I get it—I’ve been around since 1915.”

The club teemed with toys of all shapes and sizes. Action figures sipped drinks at the bar, stuffed animals spun wildly on the dance floor, while a group of LEGO figures argued over who should pay for the next round.

Ann felt out of place. She clung to Andy’s arm as they weaved through the crowded dance floor. “Why did I let you talk me into this?” she whispered.

“Because you trust me,” Andy replied with a smirk.

“I trust you to make bad decisions,” she shot back.

Andy didn't reply because he’d locked eyes with an enchanting vision across the room. There, under the strobe lights, stood Barbie, wearing a glittering pink dress and stiletto heels. Her blonde tresses shone like a flame. Andy’s heart skipped a stitch.

“Ann,” he said, “that’s her. She's the one.”

Ann squinted. “Barbie? Really? She’s a bit plastic, don’t you think?”

Andy straightened his posture. “Nonsense. A doll can dream.” He slicked back his one out-of-place red piece of yarn hair and strode over

Barbie chatted with a pair of Bratz dolls when Andy slid up beside her. “Hey there. I volunteer as your victim tonight since you're clearly dressed to kill,” he said, trying to sound suave.

Barbie turned, blinking. “Hello?”

“I’m Andy. Raggedy Andy. You might’ve heard of me?”

Barbie frowned. “Can’t say that I have.”

Andy’s confidence faltered for a moment, but he continued. “That’s okay. I’m kind of a big deal in the vintage doll community. Anyway, I just wanted to say that you look stunning tonight. Like, um, a limited-edition collector’s item.”

Barbie raised an eyebrow. “That’s...sweet, I guess.”

Encouraged, Andy kept going. “Maybe later you’d like to dance? Or, you know, grab a drink? On me, of course.”

Barbie tilted her head. “Are you made of fabric?”

“Uh, yeah,” Andy said. “Why?”

“Because you’re coming on a little strong, and I don’t want you unravelling if I say no.”

The Bratz dolls cackled as Barbie turned back to her conversation, leaving Andy standing there, deflated. He muttered, “Tough crowd,” and shuffled back to Ann.

“What happened to your confidence, Mr. Big Shot?” Ann asked, winking.

“She's not my type after all,” Andy mumbled.

Determined not to let one rejection ruin his night, Andy soon spotted another potential dance partner. Strawberry Shortcake stood by the DJ, smelling of berries and laughing with her friends.

“She’s adorable,” Andy said, nudging Ann.

“She’s also wearing a bonnet,” Ann replied.

“I think it’s charming!” Andy marched off before Ann could stop him.

“Hey there,” he said, flashing his best stitched grin, “Do you come here often?”

Strawberry turned, her cheeks as pink as her dress. “No. I don’t, actually. My friends dragged me out tonight.”

“Same here!” Andy said, smiling. “Well, except replace ‘friends’ with ‘sceptical sister.’”

Strawberry giggled. “You’re funny.”

Andy’s heart leapt. “Wanna dance?” he asked, holding out his hand.

Strawberry hesitated. “Well, I—”

“Excuse me,” came a voice.

Andy turned to see a burly G.I. Joe glaring down at him with a kung-fu grip on his beer.

“Is there a problem?” Andy asked.

“Yeah,” Joe growled. “You’re hitting on my girlfriend.”

Strawberry winced. “Sorry, I should’ve mentioned—”

Andy threw up his hands. “Nope! All good. My bad. Have a nice night!” He bolted back to Ann, who doubled over in laughter.

Andy slumped in his seat next to Ann. “I give up. This place is a disaster.”

Ann patted his arm. “Maybe you should stop trying so hard. Or, here’s an idea, maybe you don’t need to impress anyone tonight.”

Andy sighed. “You don’t get it, Ann. You’ve always been the sensible one. I’m just a raggedy guy trying to find someone who sees me for more than my loose stitches.”

Ann tilted her head. “You’re not as raggedy as you think, Andy.”

He blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re loyal, funny, and ridiculously optimistic,” she said. “You’re my best friend, that’s why I let you drag me to places like this.”

Andy stared at her for a minute. Then, he burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Ann asked, frowning.

“I’ve been chasing after Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake when the person I care about most has been right here the whole time,” he said, shaking his head.

Ann rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop being dramatic. We’re siblings.”

“I don’t mean it like that!” Andy said. “I just mean…you’re the one who gets me, Ann. Maybe I don’t need anyone else right now. Wanna dance?” Andy asked, standing up and offering his hand.

Ann looked sceptical. “You know I hate dancing.”

“Come on,” he said. “For me?”

With a sigh, Ann took his hand, and the two siblings made their way to the dance floor. As they twirled under the lights, Andy realised that maybe he didn't need to be scared of never finding love. It would find him one day.

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Barb DeMoney is a writer whose stories explore themes of grief, love, and hope. A Fresh Start is published at Flash Phantoms. Signs Are All Around will be published at Sudden Flash in August, and There’s Something About Gary will be published in Micromance Magazine in October.

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“Why are we down here?”

An old woman laughed, rocking back and forth in an old, decrepit chair, outfitted with various pieces of garbage to remain intact. The end of a ski, the back of a dining room chair, the nails taken from an old pallet, and the long metal barrel from a rifle had all been integrated into the shoddy chair, which stood as it was half slanted. Grandma’s body shifted the opposite way, and together, the chair and the woman perfectly fitted to each other, they formed a balanced whole.

A child sat on the floor, inherently filthy, no matter how many times it was cleaned. “Why? Where’s the sun and the clouds and the sky? Why are we down here?”

The old woman leaned forward in her rocking chair, and with some effort, she peeled herself from the back of wood and fiberglass skis. Her flesh was loose and soft, and her stomach fat hung around her waist, riding forward on her thighs when she leaned toward the little boy. She reached out with an old hand covered in age spots, decorated with a silver ring that had been grafted together from remnants of broken jewelry. She stroked the child’s thick black hair, messing with it.

“Stop!” The little boy retracted from her grasp, scooting himself backwards across the dusty floor. Grandma looked at him for a moment, her hand still outstretched, then laughed and leaned back, melting back into her chair.

“Why are you asking? Want to go up?”

“Yes!” The kid shouted. Grandma hushed him, her eyebrows coming together.

“Everyone’s sleeping,” She scolded, her kind face scrunched up into a scowl. The child looked up at her with a grimace, halfway between regret and frustration. She relaxed back into her chair again, and her face became calm. “Why do you want to go up?”

“Because,” the little boy said. His green eyes flashed as the warm lantern light flickered off them. “It stinks down here. And it’s dirty, and it’s dark. I hate it. It’s–” The kid paused, looking away for a moment. “Hell.”

“Hey now,” she said, but she could not refute anything he was saying. Despite having long accepted it herself, there was no way to disprove what her little grandson said, and at this dissonance a subtle, uncanny feeling came forth in her chest. “Don’t copy your daddy. He’s got a potty mouth.”

She rocked back and forth in the shoddy chair, thinking about what the little man said. “You shouldn’t say that about where we live,” she said. “Okay?” There was a hint of weakness, a dash of sadness to her voice.

“But it’s true.” She looked down at his pale face, never having been touched by the sun, at his eyes, never having seen white clouds and a blue sky. His body never having known freedom, and yet still his mind imagining what all these things would be like, absorbing himself in his fantasies, and then the grime, the smells, the filth, the slosh, the darkness dragging him back to reality, shredding his fantasies and sending him back down the sewers to rot into the earth.

She sighed, rocking back slowly. She closed her eyes. Her chest ached. Their reality burned fresh into her mind, fresh into her flesh as the little man reminded her of it. To be an adult in a place like this meant having the ability to ignore reality. To run away from it. To find ways to distract oneself, to separate oneself from it. It was really quite a simple thing; to master this single skill was to be happy. That was all there was to understand.

And yet it all came back to her. The darkness. The vileness. The decrepit depths, the filthy secrets, the pain, the dark, lonely suffering, all of it flooded back and filled her mind like the same kind of sewage that they picked through, that they found their food in, that they bathed in, drank, and were born from.

She looked down at the boy, darkness in her eyes. “Lurk, when we die, where do we put the dead people?”

He looked up at her for a moment, his Grandma’s gaze making him feel uneasy, unwell. He looked away, and he thought about her question.

“When food is rotten, or when it can’t be eaten, where does it go?”

He looked up at her again, looking at those dark eyes, which the light of the lantern could not reach. Folds of skin, the depths of her brow, the reaches of her age and bones and skin hid her eyes, which sank back into that mess of flesh and fat and skin like two black holes carved into her face.

“When we go to the toilet, where does the toilet let out? When we lose something, where do we say it goes? When we have trash, where do we put it?”

She looked down at him and waited for an answer. The little boy looked at her, his green eyes wide. His palms were filthy, covered in grime and dirt, and as he began to sweat, little puddles of mud formed around his fists. His little heart beat fast.

“When something is broken, and when it cannot be reused, when it is absolutely unneeded, where does it go, Lurk?”

His little body trembled slightly, scared of his kind grandma. The cold air felt frigid to his skin. The soft lantern light felt jarring to his eyes.

The rocking chair leaned forward, and then with great effort, his grandma pulled herself to her feet, heavily leaning on a gnarled wooden cane she clutched in her root-like hand. Her flesh sagged around her waist as she stood. Her shadow, curled forward and lopsided like she was, shone onto the concrete walls and low ceiling. She took a crippled step toward him, and he jumped back.

“Lurk, to them we were broken. We were absolutely unneeded, and so they threw us away here.”

Slowly, she made her way to the back of the room, where a tunnel had been chiseled through the concrete wall. “Come on. It’s time for bed.”

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Roman Jones is a twenty-three-year-old Minnesotan art student, but his main interest has always been writing. He has been writing for nearly nine years, since he was fourteen. In this time, he has written about 800,000 words of stories, including an entire novel.

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So, my object . . . My baby sister gave me this box for Christmas. It’s a box to put my jewelry in, so yes, it’s a jewelry box. Some backstory: I had complained about not having a central place to stick my earrings and things, so I put “jewelry box” on my Christmas list. The box is very heavy—it is made of metal, yet it has a brilliant gold coating. When I describe it to people, I say, “Well, imagine one of those giant tanker ships, but small enough to sit on your bedroom dresser.”

The thing is . . . the box is broken; it was broken when I opened the gift. I ripped through the Christmas paper and found the lid hanging, as if by a thread, as they say. One of the platelets, where the screws attach the lid to the box, was slightly mangled. I imagined a blacksmith hammering that small platelet into place, trying to force the flat metal into submission. On subsequent occasions, I have tried to do the same myself, to no avail.

Some of you may not appreciate my tone just yet, but let me reiterate that this was a Christmas gift—that my siblings and I draw names (now that we’re older and do not live in the same houses or, frankly, do not need to buy gifts for one another). In drawing names, you only get the one gift—from the one person who pulled your name. That jewelry box was it for me, in terms of getting a nice Christmas present. Did I mention that the box was broken when I got it?

Let me digress, again, and stop sounding bitchy and ungrateful. I should mention that my sister had been given some bad news just prior to the holidays. She is now diabetic, like me, and like our mother before us. And like me, she is overweight, she loves cake and ice cream as much as anyone ever did, and she simply cannot stop eating fried chicken. When I heard my sister’s news, I thought of our mother and all those fried chicken runs we used to go on when we were kids. I vividly remember a truckload of us kids, pulling up to the chicken place and waiting patiently for our mother to go in and get the biggest box of chicken she could afford—which wasn’t a lot. Each of us got one piece, but that was always the best piece of chicken we’d ever eaten.

After my mother learned of her diagnosis, she painstakingly gave up fried chicken. She wanted to live.

So, I said to my sister, “It’s a heavy burden, having to give up so many of the foods you love.” This was long after we had opened Christmas presents, as we all sat around eating gumbo and ham and banana pudding. This is a New Year’s meal for us, but we all would be back in our own homes, our own towns and cities across the country, when the new year came around.

“The box is broken,” I eventually said to my sister, bringing the attention back to the jewelry box.

“Yes,” she said, “But you can take it back to Crate and Barrel; they will fix it for you.”

She did not tell me how the box became damaged, whether or not she even bought it, or even stress that this was the store’s policy. This means I continued to wonder if she might have re-gifted something she had laying around the house. How much could she have paid for it, right? I knew she didn’t have a lot of money at the time (between jobs, etc.), and now that she was sick, she’d probably have even less. You would think my empathy would step into gear.

These days, I think about the things we do to survive. Like giving up fried chicken. Like understanding what a gift is truly worth. I often look at the jewelry box, sitting there on my dresser top. Its beauty and purpose is continually evolving—like me, like my sister. I imagine all the fine jewelry I will place in the box over the years.

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Juyanne James has authored Table Scraps and Other Essays (Resource Publishers, 2019). Her essays have been published in Bayou Magazine, Ponder Review, and Xavier Review. Her essay "Table Scraps" was a notable in Best American Essays 2014. Juyanne lives and teaches in New Orleans.

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Today we will be auctioning off various aspects of my government career as I flee into retirement. Tomorrow you will be blaming me for anything that goes wrong in the office. A year from now you won’t even remember my name.

Item #1: Early Mornings

Dear god, is it time to get up already? Didn’t I just do this yesterday? Why do people talk to me before I’ve had my coffee? Go away.

Item Cost: Bottomless Coffee

Item #2: Mind-numbingly Boring Meetings

So many meetings with no end in sight, yet they don’t seem to accomplish anything. Why is no one paying attention to the assignments being handed out? I do NOT want to repeat myself. This isn’t fun for me either. What do you mean you don’t know how to take notes?

Item Cost: Your Patience

Item #3: Government Health Insurance

Private health insurance costs how much? You’ve GOT to be kidding me. How badly do I need my anti-depressant medications and annual cardiac function tests?

Item Cost: Elon Musk’s Fortune

Item #4: Business Clothes

Nothing says that you work in an office like clothes that require ironing or drycleaning. And let’s not forget the shoes that pinch your toes or rub your heels raw by the end of a twelve-hour day. Don’t spill anything on your business shirt when eating lunch at your desk just before an important meeting.

Item Cost: Does green or red chile match this pattern on my shirt?

Item #5: Official Work Hours

The tasks and projects are never-ending. Before you finish one project, a dozen more have landed on your desk. Did you want to take an actual lunch, go home at a reasonable hour, or not work the weekend? Bless your heart. Oh, and you’re now a manager so you don’t get overtime pay.

Item Cost: Door Dash is your new best friend.

Item #6: Supervision

Every last one of your employees will at some time or another have health issues, disastrous personal lives, or extreme anxiety. But usually it’ll be all at once. And if your employees fuck up, it will be your fault. But if your employees are in the right, take a fucking bullet for them. Now leave me alone, people, so I can get some fucking work done.

Item Cost: Your Sanity

Item #7: Human Resources Issues

You will never be able to fill all your vacancies. You can’t pay enough to keep your good employees. Other departments will brazenly poach those employees, especially if you dare to take a vacation. You will always be mediating employee disputes. Oh, and at least one employee will file a complaint against you because you made him do his fucking job.

Item Cost: Can I get a little respect around here?

Item #8: Angry Customers

They will complain about everything. They will not follow any rules. They will blame you when they don’t get their way. You can never make anyone happy, ever.

Item Cost: Body Armor

Item #9: Funding Challenges

This is government, there’s never enough funding for all your projects. And someone hidden within the cogs will cut funding for a vital project or staffing. Also, once you jump through the numerous hoops of the contracting process, you will only get the best of the low three bids. Not the best. But the best of the low three.

Item Cost: I found 73 cents under the couch cushions. Will that cover the cost of the contractor?

Item #10: Politicians

They write the laws that you have to follow with zero empathy for how much work you already have and no extra funding for the additional tasks. And then they will throw you under the bus the first chance they get because they can’t tell the goddamn truth to their own constituents.

Item Cost: How much does the largest bottle of tequila cost?

Item #11: Stress (AKA, Your Boss)

Constant nagging, an email inbox that’s ready to implode, unrealistic expectations, impossible deadlines, the moving target of shifting requirements, and a boss who is more than willing to take their frustration out on you. Guess what, shit rolls downhill. Also, just because the boss can think up a great project, doesn’t mean the boss knows what it takes to implement that project. It’s always what can you do for the boss in the future rather than any appreciation shown for your numerous past accomplishments.

Item Cost: How high is too high for blood pressure?

Thank you for participating in today’s auction. To pay, please see the gentleman in the back holding a sickle and wearing a black robe. Payment will be taken in years of your life. Tears are optional.

Now, where’d that bottle of tequila go? I’ve got a plane to catch.

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✍️ About the Authors

Evonne Gantz is a creative writer living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, though originally from Iowa. After retiring from a government career, she attended Santa Fe Community College, where she recently completed a Certificate in Creative Writing

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That night was supposed to be the one to remember. Her wedding night, at eighteen. Marrying the first man she loved and the one who should have been the love of her life.

She wore the nightgown she bought with her mother from that convenience store in the nearby town.

Her neighbour did her makeup, so she looked a little older than her age, just enough to tease her husband.

He was ten years her senior. She met him while on a school trip; he was one of those teachers who supervised the students.

Her parents were initially reluctant, but when they met him, they agreed that their only daughter should date this man. He didn’t have exactly what they believed was a good profession – philosophy wasn’t something palpable – but they shouldn’t have told people about his field. It was enough to say he was a teacher.

The first time he kissed Anna was on the beach, when returning home from the last day of school.

He didn’t dare touch her before, fearing losing his job. But the very day she graduated, he took the leap and told her he was in love with her. And proposed to marry her. Why should they wait, after all?

She finished high school. She didn’t need to work. She could stay at home and raise their children. There were four kids on his list – two girls and two boys – the perfect little family.

Anna saw in her family that a woman should take care of the house and shouldn’t have any other ambitions besides that, although she was a good student and one of the best in literature class.

She loved to read, but hid it from her parents, who used to say that too much reading would ruin her eyes.

So, she said yes to Mark’s marriage proposal and planned her life to adjust to his plans.

But what if she couldn’t have children? Would he leave her? She was anxious thinking about that, but also had a strange feeling of freedom when those thoughts arrived.

Her mother used to say that a woman should be a woman and not try to do things a man does.

A woman must raise children, take care of the house, dust the entire house daily, and cook meals for the whole family. And, the mother whispered, satisfy her husband in bed, so that he wouldn’t need another one.

Anna couldn’t precisely understand what her mother told her, but she asked her older cousin, who explained a little, leaving her even more confused.

The wedding night came. She waited for it with a cocktail of fear, longing, and something that felt almost like hope. Mark was there holding her hand, and she closed her eyes. He began to kiss her and whisper sweet nothings. She felt nice after drinking a glass of sweet white wine.

Still, philosophy didn’t teach him much about women, so he didn’t know how to caress her. She tightened up. He felt rejected.

He tried to force himself into her. She began crying. That was her wedding night.

The first in a long line of exchanges — her purity traded to satisfy others. She looked at Mark’s frustrated face and felt numb. Her books had taught her it should have been different. Passion, desire, and climbing to the seventh heaven.

Then she pushed him away. He grabbed her nightgown and ripped it off as she tried to get farther from him.

She got out into the night, half-naked. Looked at the moon and prayed. Thought of what could have been. Made a wish at the falling star.

Then she returned to the house.

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Rebecca Forest is a Romanian writer whose work explores themes of emotional resilience, gender expectations, and inner transformation. Her debut novel, Lights and Shadows (Creator Publishing House, 2025), examines the silent toll of burnout and societal pressures on modern women.

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April 6th, 1996

The smoke began to appear thirteen days ago, if I were to guess. Twists of gray against black night, I could see it from my bedroom window. It was comforting, at first. Watching the spirals climb up, up, up. Like counting sheep. I’d never been much of a good sleeper, but there are pills for that now. Sarah used to complain that my tossing would keep her up all night. Well, that makes two of us.

After a few days, I got curious and tried to find the source. I figured it must’ve come from a makeshift campsite. Sometimes we get unwelcome guests, backpacking junkies mostly, who’d take up shop on our land. They’d light fires, leave broken bottles, needles, and bits of food for the coyotes. The first couple of times I found them, I called the cops. But I soon realized (the second time an officer laughed in my face) that there are things I needed to handle myself. And handle it I did— I burned a CD with audio from a shoot-out in some mob movie. Played strategically, it would sound like one or two warning shots coming from the depths of my speaker rather than the barrel of a gun. It was no Scarface, but it did the trick. Sarah said it was pathetic. I choose to use the word resourceful. No one likes a narc, anyway.

Usually, it’s mostly just rock and sand and brush around me. That was a draw when I bought this place. I’m not sure it still is.

My closest neighbor is an odd man, Greg. A real character, the type to repeat the last word of your own sentence back to you, a broken tape on rewind. He lives alone, graying and divorced.

The hair at his crown is starting to bald. I noticed it one day when he was at my kitchen table and I got up to get him a beer. He used to come around but stopped once I joked that he was mooching food off of us. Plus, he always liked Sarah better, and now that she’s not here, there’s no point in him coming around. But I’m getting off topic— what I found when I followed the “spirals” as I’d taken to calling them were the charred bits of a fire long dead.

At the site was a sleeping bag, too new to be abandoned. And then there were the comic books.

For kids, surely. The jokes were too juvenile, and I have more than a few notes on the art style.

And a teddy bear, with glassy eyes and cherub cheeks. The typical squatter’s nest this was not.

April 8th, 1996

Dana told me to start this journal as a way to track my process. He said all great artists have some sort of backstory, lore to get people invested in the work and in my legacy as an artist. The trouble is, I’m not a great artist. And I don’t think anyone will remember me in 20 years. Hell, my own kid only remembers me when she’s run out of cash. But, Dana has faith in this project and thinks its creation should be documented for posterity. He’s always been optimistic and complementary of my talents. These aren’t good traits in an agent but they’re great traits in a friend. The project is this—A mural, currently covering the entire width of my living room. Inspired by a medieval hunting tapestry, reinterpreted as a jungle scene in Ecuador, where my father hails. (Dana prefers I emphasize this part, but the less said about my father the better.)

I’ve been working on this thing in relative solitude for the last eight months and I’m ready to be done. Between us friends, it’s starting to drive me a bit mad.

April 9th, 1996

I was so desperate for company that, when an envelope with Greg’s name arrived at my doorstep, I decided to deliver it to him myself.

It’s not that I expected the bastard to invite me in for a drink or anything. Though I hoped I’d at least get a thank you. When I rang the doorbell no one answered. So I knocked, politely at first.

And still, that bastard wouldn’t come to the door. I could see the light on in his room upstairs. He was probably sitting cozy, putting his feet up while I’m hand-delivering his mail like an idiot.

So I rang the doorbell and knocked some more. Through the window upstairs I saw a hand drag the curtains shut. The message is clear: I am not welcome here.

April 12th, 1996

I see the spirals tonight, floating up like clockwork. I swear they’re getting bigger, like each night someone is building a campfire closer and closer to my back door. And there are voices, too. Of women, of children. But I only hear them when I’m sinking into sleep. Maybe it’s because I miss Sarah and our girl. The house is closing in on itself; doors slam with no one to push them. And the windows never really shut, letting a draft in. I called her today. What can I say, I am weak, and it was cold. All I got was dial tone.

The house is starting to spit me out, too. Rinse and repeat.

April 13th, 1996

All I see when I wake up is white, these days. It’s blinding. Day is night and night is day, they all bleed into each other, to the next and the next. Maybe Sarah was right and I need to cut it with these sleeping pills.

This morning I came downstairs to find my mural gone. It was covered in white. Painted over.

There’s a can of white paint and my old brushes from the basement on a tarp by the couch.

Months and months of work gone in a night, and the funny thing is I don’t even remember doing it. Like I said, all I see these days is white.

From a certain angle, when the light hits just right, I can still see the eyes of a tiger peek through the paint.

April 14th, 1996

There’s someone at the door. If I stay quiet, maybe they’ll leave.

I wait for night, when I can see the spirals. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I smell the smoke. On my pillow, on my shirt.

Whatever it is, it’s inside now.

April 15th, 1996

Someone has been inside my house. The pads of their feet hit the wood down the hall. The sounds of scratching on walls. Of turning doorknobs. I see someone turning the corner, a shadow from the corner of my eye.

I’ve never believed in ghosts. Now I think I was foolish not to.

I’m not sure why I’m writing. I guess for proof. Of what? I don’t know.

April 16th, 1996

Finally, a sign of life. I wake up to whispers and low laughs. Slowly, I tiptoe downstairs. I don’t want to scare them.

I see a circle of kids, three girls and a boy, sitting on the rug. They’re bent over a board, each holding a finger to its middle. They spell out letters, like rattling off a list in sync. Their laughs are too loud, they are too loud.

I shout at them to leave, but they just giggle. They laugh and laugh and laugh— at me, at a joke I can’t hear.

Furious, I pick up the dining chair and, I’m not proud of it, heave it across the room. That does it.

They stop laughing. They’re petrified. Then they scatter, like ants.

I try to shout after them, to tell them they left their game, their books, their shoes. But they’re gone.

And the house is mine again.

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Anisa Ahmed is a writer based in New York and Cambridge, UK. She graduated from Harvard University with a degree in English and is currently earning a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She loves writing and reading gothic literature and horror.

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I’m in Newport Beach, Orange County. I’m driving down this cute little shopping street, looking for my morning coffee because I’m in dire need of caffeine at 11am on a weekday, as one is when one has recently become an empty nester. I spot the most perfect space on the corner, right in front of the cafe I like. So I slow down and I realize pretty quickly that it’s not really a spot, it’s right behind a crosswalk but it’s ok, there’s enough space for me and I’m only running in for a minute, right? I pull in, start backing up so that I’m not blocking the crosswalk, checking my rear-view camera the whole time, and a HONK comes from behind me. I can see in my camera that I still have like two feet, so I ignore it and keep going for a sec to straighten out. HOOONK!!! Longer this time. I stop and pull up to make sure the crazy person behind me knows I’m not dinging their car. I’m driving a nice new car, so do they not realize new cars all have rear view cameras?? What the fuck. I open my door and start making my way to the sidewalk when I see the honker behind the wheel, a woman in a giant behemoth of a car. She rolls down the window and shouts out, “THAT’S NOT A PARKING SPOT! THAT. IS. NOT. A PARKING SPOT!!” Her grayish blonde hair is piled up on top of her head and is bobbing up and down violently as she shrieks and her tan face is all askew. The anger is hissing out of her. It’s all a bit much given the circumstances. So what do I do? Well, I should have ignored her and kept moving but I just don’t like being assaulted by an angry stranger for no good reason. So I engage, as one does, and I say in a smart-ass tone, “I’m only running in to grab coffee!” And then of course I have to add, for good measure, “By the way, I could see exactly how close I was to your car, I obviously have a rearview camera.” Duh. I’m stoking the fire now. She screams, I mean screams, “TOO CLOSE!!! YOU. WERE. TOO. CLOSE!!!!!!”.

Menopause is a bitch.

I realized later that I should have recognized her behavior, since it mirrored mine before I got help. I’d had similar instances of unhinged rage and other pesky symptoms, and eventually talked to my doctor about it.

My doctor referred me to a gynecologist who specializes in hormone replacement therapy, inserting pellets subcutaneously in a woman’s backside. I went to see her and she laid out her rote speech “It’s perfectly safe… the old school medical field, i.e., male doctors, said HRT caused cancer, blah blah blah… it was a flawed study. Now. Lower your undies, and let’s get to it.”

The first week after my procedure, I felt a big change in my mood. The gynecologist had told me that I’d feel the burst of testosterone in the pellet, but that it would protect my mind from developing dementia so I thought, great—let’s go. And the next few days I noticed my volatile mood–anger suddenly flaring up for no real reason. I was snapping at my husband for every annoying little thing he did. And there were many, many annoying little things he did.

At the same time, my libido was waking up—yawning and stretching, like after a long nap. More like a winter’s hibernation you could say. I was suddenly noticing the hot men in commercials. The fit men jogging by as I walked my dog. The handsome weatherman on the news. Heck, even my mailman wasn’t safe from my ogling. I had mom-porn fantasies—a gorgeous shirtless man vacuuming the house while cooking dinner for me.

The good news was, I had a perfectly good man at home. One who would love and appreciate this new me. But his annoying little habits were really getting under my skin. I was horny, but I was too annoyed to want to have sex with him.

The weirdest part of the whole situation was, it felt as though the emotional side of my brain, let’s call it the “feminine side” was shut off. Sometimes he would talk about his feelings, and I genuinely wouldn’t understand what he was saying. In my mind I was checking the score of the game. And I don’t even watch sports.

Yadda yadda yadda is what I heard. Whine, whine whine is what I heard. I started noticing that when I watched a movie, like say a romcom, I wasn’t paying attention to the dialogue or the story plot. I was looking at the beautiful people instead, and imagining them naked. Holy shit, I thought, I have become a dude!

It was such an enlightening perspective on being a man. These male “creatures” suddenly made much more sense to me. They want less talk and more action, I get it!

About two weeks into the treatment, I felt absolutely euphoric. My brain was zinging like never before. I actually remembered what a charged proton was when my son asked me one day for a school assignment. My body felt like perfection, my self-confidence soared. I thought, so this is why women do hormone replacement therapy! I feel amazing!

This happiness lasted for about two days. Then it started wearing off and my old self came slinking back. My brain was back to not remembering what I did last weekend, let alone what a charged proton was.

I called my primary doctor and described the whole episode to her. She was at a loss as was I. She said, “well, I guess it’s not for you.” Yeah, I agreed. Oh well.

So naturally, I went back and tried the pellet insertion one more time, as one does. I mean, those two days where I felt like I owned the world? I’d do anything to have that feeling back. I thought, “maybe it was just a bad batch?” You know how we women do that. We do the same with bad relationships. We tell ourselves, "he’ll change once we’re married!” We just can’t get enough of torturing ourselves.

Unfortunately, I felt the same the second time around. Oh, hello old friend I said to the mirror when its reflection couldn’t grasp what my husband was whining about… Something about me not being sensitive to his feelings or some other blah blah. I was already scanning the TV for a Gillette for men commercial.

After that, I learned my lesson. I gave up the pellets. I became my old sensitive self again. The world was back in its natural order. Yes I felt a little older, but also a little wiser, a little more compassionate, and a little less of a dick. I appreciate that my husband is still nice to me, watches sitcoms for the actual story and not just the beautiful people, and mostly listens to what I’m saying. And vice versa.

Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes act like a smart-ass when an unhinged woman honks at me before my morning coffee, but these days I’m more inclined just to let her blow off steam, and I refrain from yelling back, knowing how much menopause sucks.

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Laura Bergman is a nonprofit leader who has spent more than twenty-five years crafting stories to advance meaningful causes and raise millions of dollars. Since retiring from fundraising in 2018, she has devoted her time to teaching, mentoring future changemakers, and writing for the joy of it.

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Under a blue moon, Elira finds me half-dead—more bone than beast. "You are Thorne. Pricked by bramble and briar." She wraps me in her cloak and becomes my warden, raising me from a pup.

The last dire wolf. Immortal. Not because I chose to live—because I was never allowed to die.

A barefoot bard, Elira spins songs of love, sorrow, and starlight. For a dozen moon years, we drift between kingdoms, her voice opening castle gates and quieting battlefields. We enchant the proud and cradle the broken—before the curse of the Gorgon.

The sky weeps as Elira sings the song that dooms her. It is not a tempest but a quiet downpour soaking her golden curls. Lyrics rise through the forest, recollecting those condemned by the gods. Her song beckons the Medusa. Birds vanish, creatures flee, and even the rain forgets to fall, yet she hears.

“I mean no harm,” Elira says, shielding her eyes. “Only remembrance.”

Her voice coils like the snakes upon her head. “Athena painted me in terror and called it justice.”

“Then let me paint you in truth,” Elira offers.

I lunge forward, growling, fur bristling, ready to tear flesh from godskin. But the world slows, the way stars blink out before dawn. Medusa lifts the black veil, her eyes connecting with Elira's image. The transformation is not instant—that is the cruelty.

The scent of Elira’s fear hits first—salt and lavender crushed underfoot. I skid toward her, slowed by my paws slipping in the mud. Her eyelashes crystallize as she glances down at me, lips frozen mid-breath. Her soft curves harden—a sculpture of beauty and truth. Marble catches the dying light, and still, she is looking at me.

I howl, but no sound comes. Heartbeats thunder in my ribs as panting breaths become unbearable. I would gladly leap into a god’s throat to protect her, but I cannot stop it.

She is stone.

"Silence and immortality prick like briar, wrapping your name in a Vigil Of Thorne.” Medusa hisses this as a warning—or perhaps a bitter truth.

I remain at Elira's feet while moss climbs her shoulders and birds weave nests in her hair.

A hundred moon years have cycled since Elira’s voice turned silent. My charcoal coat has faded to weathered silver, its tips gone white. Wisdom came while time slipped away, crushed by bitterness and sorrow. The dragons are dust in the wind, the trees hollow—yet, I remain a fading song the world no longer remembers.

He falls in a whisper, floating from the heavens. Kael, the gods call him—their angel cherub. He lands softly on silver gossamer wings, eyes blazing with purpose. Elira is still frozen beneath the archaic curse, awaiting eternal salvation. Lifting his holy lute, he strikes the chords. Celestial fire ignites it, and the serpent song soars, awakening her lost soul.

Snow falls gently on my muzzle. Elira stirs, her song humming in the wind. The statue rumbles, stones fracturing like bones, and blue eyes flicker open as the setting sun warms ashen skin. Quartz crystals tumble from her lashes and features, revealing her beauty as she shudders a breath.

Her lips crack with a fragile whisper. “Thorne.”

Magic lingers in a violet haze, drifting low like a sorcerer's breath from the sky. The trees scream first. Leaves twist. Roots pull back. Then come the wraiths, the children of Medusa’s wrath. They are shadows with teeth, born from the stare that turned Elira to stone.

Kael steps between Elira and the storm, gripping the lute like a sword. He becomes her shield, her song, her savior. A wraith rips through his chest, and the lute hits the earth with a broken note. He collapses, angel feathers bleeding liquid light, burning into stardust.

I attack the shadows, fighting time—fighting loss until the last wraith evaporates. I stagger to Elira, where she kneels beside Kael, lying in the snow-covered grass. With her hand on his slackened face, she wails in agony that cuts deeper than my wounds.

“He woke me with the serpent’s song I once sang,” she murmurs, patting the earth. “And you, Thorne—you stayed. Ever loyal. Always near.”

My wounds steam in the frostiness as her warm hand caresses my neck. She leans weakly against me, and I close my eyes, wanting rest. Elira sings a lullaby as I whimper, exhausted, pawing through the darkness for a mother I barely remember.

She dies before sunrise with her hand on my muzzle and a whispered promise: “I will find you again.”

I believe her.

No fanfare. No magic. No gods to carry her. I claw wet earth and rocks until my paws hit the roots of the Nytheral Bloom—the tree that flowers only when fate chooses to remember. Beneath its boughs, where her song lingers, I lay them to eternal rest; first Elira, then Kael.

I howl at the moon until my heart shatters and the stars turn their faces away.

At sunrise, the wind shifts. I smell her at first, then hear the rake of scales against rocks. With piercing yellow eyes veiled in black, Medusa appears—untouched by time. The snakes upon her head lay quietly sleeping. She raises a hand in supplication.

“Elira was the only bard who ever sang of me with compassion, and I turned her to stone.” Medusa drops beside Elira’s cairn and runs her fingers across the stones.

“I believed binding you in the Vigil of Thorne was justice. Her eternal guardian. A beast to bear the burden that I could not.”

I lower my muzzle. “And now?”

“Regret, it was a cruelty like the one done to me. Your watch is over, Thorne.”

She pulls her veil away. Her stare melds with mine in mourning and repentance, the curse wrapped like serpents around her neck. I am immune to her petrifying gaze now. As the curse lifts, so does the weight I have carried for a hundred years.

Let the gods keep watch now.

Elira is waiting and I follow her song.

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Laurie B. Spellman writes romance, thrillers, and magical realism with heart and humor. Her work appears in KissMet, Micromance, NYCM & Writing Battle. She also leads Ultimate Face Cosmetics.

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“Look, Ingrid, the head is broken. Geez, who did that? Looks like it got knocked off and then tumbled onto the steps right there. See?”

Ingrid listened to her husband before looking to see what he had pointed at. A stone head of some kind, about the size of a bowling ball, lay near the edge of the step between them. Leave it to him, she thought, to find whatever was broken during this vacation. Why wasn’t he excited like that at home anymore when the water pipes burst, or electricity went out?

Well, maybe this was how it was, Ingrid sighed. Since Andrew’s death, things hadn’t been the same.

“Oh Ernie,” She decided this time not to snip at him. He, too, had been through hell in the last year. At 26, Andrew had been their only child.

“Must be an act of Providence, or maybe vandalism.” Ingrid pushed her attention to the present, forcing herself to think only of what now lay on the ancient staircase. Suspicious, she looked around for angry young men lurking somewhere in the shadows who may have knocked the head off the huge statue of Jupiter that ruled over the staircase. “Let’s get out of here before the rest of the body falls.” Ingrid tugged on her husband’s huge, sweaty arm.

The guide hadn’t mentioned anything about the statue being damaged. In fact, the guide hadn’t even led the group to that spot yet. Impatient with the shuffling feet of their fellow travelers, Ernie and Ingrid had taken off on their own. Now nervous, Ingrid wanted to get back to the tour bus before anything happened, before the fallen head became an omen of some kind.

It could happen. She’d heard of such things before. One of her bridge partners came across a severed toe lying alongside the stuffed monkey foot it belonged to at a natural history museum. Within days the woman had tripped and broken her a toe.

Imagine, Ingrid, thought as she lightly touched her head, shielding it momentarily from the hot Mediterranean sun, imagine what could come from finding something as important as a god’s body part out of place.

She shook her head to dispel the sudden train of memories. The ambulance, nurses rushing around, and a pale blue hospital gown that barely covered her son’s broken body.

A sensible woman, she assured herself nothing serious could occur now. It had already happened. This was just a vacation and finding such a fallen skull had been unexpected, that’s all.

Just like the travel brochure had said: expect the unexpected. At the time Ingrid thought the phrase was just a marketing tool meant to touch an unlived corner of someone’s life as it had done hers the day she read the magazine advertisement.

Ernie broke her reverie. “Ingrid, get closer to it. Let me get a shot of you standing next to that thing.” He checked the camera lens to be sure it was set to record the right amount of light. God knows he’d been out of focus on another vacation – years ago to Nova Scotia where all he captured on film was his thumb in below freezing temperatures. “C’mon,” he urged his thin wife, saying he had to get at least one good roll of shots to show the boys back home.

“No, Ernie,” Ingrid said after finding the tail of her voice somewhere near the bottom of her throat where it was trying to hide. “No.” This wasn’t right, and she knew it. The cranium of this Roman god of gods was supposed to be on broad strong shoulders where it would be admired by all, not there on the step just ahead of the one she was standing on, not the focus of color photographs her husband would pass around like poker chips to his friends.

“Ingrid, hurry up.” Ernie’s tight grasp on the camera was causing his hands to turn red. “I gotta get this shot. No one back home will believe it.”

Ingrid took a step back and tried to relocate the corner of her heart, the part that had come forward earlier, just in time to make the flight reservations for this mid-summer trip. That brief, unannounced bubble of hope that had surfaced back home in Nebraska had slid out of sight. This was not what she had told her bridge club she would be doing on her visit to ancient Roman sites.

Then, without knowing why, Ingrid leaned forward to get a closer look. Catching her breath, she squeezed her hands together to keep herself from reaching out for it. She worried that might cause it to roll down more steps, perhaps chip its finely-honed nose and nick both cheeks. She held her breath at the thought of this god’s future in her hands. One wrong move and she could be the one to cause its utter destruction.

“Ingrid, stand straight and look this way,” Ernie’s plump forefinger found its way to the camera’s shutter button, but before he could push it down, Ingrid spread her birdlike hands out like wings; they fluttered between the camera lens and the skull.

She imagined strands of her heart lightly brushing the deity’s boldly chiseled face and circling the eyeless sockets that now stared through the translucent walls of Ingrid’s face. In their empty reflection, Ingrid saw the mythic man no one could control, the one all mortal emperors tried to emulate but couldn’t. With one step up and a small flick of her sandaled foot, she could send the dome of this god to its death.

The care of this immortal being’s fate was now up to her. Never before had she been in such a spot. Not even when Ernie had told the doctor to take their son off life support after being in a coma, on a ventilator, for months. They’d talked about what might happen, but Ingrid was unable to speak when the doctor asked what they would like to do. She hadn’t wanted Ernie he’d need to decide for both of them. He was less able than she, the mother who spoon-fed Andrew through countless childhood illnesses, to bear their son’s condition. But she wasn’t able to choose between her son’s life and his death. Instead, she had disappeared into the steady up and down red and green lines of the monitor behind the hospital bed. Ernie had been the one to clear his throat and say it was time.

Ingrid, now again on the threshold of an important decision, felt a surge in her body. Her skin tingled.

With the end of this god, the rest of the thunderous, wine-loving gods could also come crashing down into small, sculpted pieces of stone that in time would turn to dust. She made an unexpected decision.

Sensing a delicate need to protect the hand-carved face, she walked away. Filled with an ease of being she would later describe to her friends as mercy, she headed back to the tour group, leaving her husband alone with the head that would not look his way no matter how many times he circled it, hoping to discover in its silence a perfect picture moment.

As she neared the others, Ingrid stopped to tuck back loose strands of hair. Beneath the hot Roman sun that had bleached the countryside around her, she resisted turning around for one last look. She filled her lungs with sunbaked air and, as she slowly exhaled, swore she could feel the grateful gaze of this once powerful face breathe its own sigh of relief.

✍️ About the Authors

After publishing several poetry chapbooks, Karen Pierce Gonzalez is returning to submitting fiction. Drawn to the eclectic mix of themes at Written Tales, she looks forward to sharing new work among a diverse range of voices.

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I am standing in this quiet place. Solemnity surrounds me, shaped by carefully placed floral arrangements and polished wood. I am here, but what defines me is a million miles away, lost in poignant memory and regret. My eyes are closed; I’ve already seen what I needed to. He’s gone. There is nothing left for me to fear. “I am an island,” I tell myself. “Nothing can reach me here.”

I sense a subtle shift in the space around me, and know that someone has joined my silent vigil. Reluctantly, I allow the comforting numbness to slip away, and open my eyes. She is not as I’d imagined. My sister, three years younger than me. I haven’t seen her in more than a decade. What I remember is a flushed and angry young face, tear stained, reddened and frantic. Dark blonde hair - what he referred to as “dishwater” with a distasteful smirk. We had been close, bonded through trauma. We’d shared our secret dreams, our deepest fears. She would sometimes creep into my warm, dry bed after she had wet her own. I didn’t mind, so long as she changed out of the wet clothes, although I could still smell the pungent odor of urine. I allowed her to snuggle against my warm back, and didn’t complain. I knew why she was seeking comfort. We shared a secret that we dared not speak, seldom to each other, and never to anyone else.

“You’re leaving me with him,” She’d hissed at me, cornflower blue eyes wide with incredulity. “You promised that we’d go together.” She was right. I had made that sacred promise. How could I explain to her - myself all of 17 years old - that the opportunity, when it arrived in a thick envelope, was something that I could not turn down?

My grades had been erratic, reflective of our chaotic home life. Still, I applied for admission to my school of choice - with very little hope. My guidance counselor had encouraged me to apply to other, less competitive schools. I had no interest in any of them. I would make other choices, once I received the inevitable rejection letter. I did not think about the broader meaning, should I be accepted. It felt improbable. I dreamed anyway: UCLA. Sun. Sand. Thousands of miles from him, from what he was doing to us in cover of night, whiskey breath, fumbling belt. Our mother fled from him shortly after giving birth to my sister. We no longer questioned why she left us behind. Tiny hostages.

I tried to explain. My SAT scores and a stellar referral from that counselor had swayed an admissions board. They offered a full scholarship. I could not bring her with me - 14, dependent. She could visit. I would get a job, find a way to bring her to me, when I could. She did not understand, and would not make it easy for me to leave. When I did go, slim suitcase in one hand and an apologetic letter extended to her in the other, she retreated to her room. She did not respond to my frequent calls and letters. She would not see me. Over time, I stopped trying. I graduated, married (sent her an ignored invitation to the wedding), had a child.

This woman standing beside me bore my sister’s keenly blue eyes, but little else from my last recollection of her. She’d donned a pixie cut, colored her hair to a startling deep auburn. She wore a simple black dress, a gold cross dangling from a delicate chain. Sensible black leather pumps. She appeared polished. Calm and self-possessed. When those cerulean eyes met mine, I sensed no judgment. No anger. The glance of a stranger, with perhaps a touch of curiosity. My heart leapt to my throat.

“I’m sorry for leaving you,” I ached to say. “I was wrong, I was selfish, I paid a price. Forgive me. Please - oh please, understand. I need you to forgive me.” He lay in front of us, skin waxy and cheeks artificially flushed. Arms tastefully crossed. Dark suit. He appeared exactly as he had in my nightmares. Scattered silver hairs contrasted with dark, cheeks forming jowls. Slight signs of aging. I wanted to open my mouth, to speak. Words would not come. There was instead a chasm between us, spanning more than a decade. All that I had felt - the trauma, the shame and guilt, the excitement muted by all of these things - rushed back, and with it, the unanticipated mix of something new. Or perhaps, what I had simply not allowed myself to feel: anger. Yes, I was angry, too. I had tried. I’d reached out to her, begged her to listen. In the end, I had made a phone call to authorities. Ultimately, she was removed from his care, and sent to live with a foster family. She would not allow her location to be disclosed to me. I knew that a 14-year-old girl would not understand my self-preserving decision, but why hadn’t she reached out to me, in all of those subsequent years?

Her gaze slid away. She said nothing. My husband approached, our young daughter enclosed in his arms. He smiled at her, inquisitive. Our resemblance was unmistakable. She turned to him, absorbing my baby’s tidewater gaze and dishwater blonde hair. She paused, but only for a moment. She did not look at me again; if she had, she would have seen the tears sliding down my face, lips locked, frozen. Instead, she walked deliberately away. I watched her stop right before the outside door, pick up a tow-headed boy perhaps a year older than my girl. She exchanged a few short words with a blue-suited young man, and they were gone as quickly as she appeared before me.

My words remain frozen, thoughts behind them fractured into a jumble of contradiction that will not untangle, not for this moment, and not for a long time after. I abandoned her first. It will be years before I realize that I can forgive myself, and be comfortable with that. Wherever she is, I pray, she has also found peace.

✍️ About the Authors

Traci Jo, a screamingly and unapologetically neurodivergent. Wife and mother. Retired from a career of government service.

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Ms. Waggoner. What a strange choice, I think, for a group counsel leader at the girl’s home—this prickly, middle-aged woman in a buttoned-up, long-sleeve blouse and black dress slacks. I mean, she does her job. For the past four months, she’d rounded us up from the hallway, led us to the group room, had us talk about our feelings, draw pictures, and journal and stuff. But where were the fuzzies? The sappy, I’m-here-to-help-you schmuck we girls had been so accustomed to from other leaders over the years. I mean, it doesn’t matter to me, I only have four weeks to go before I age out.

Aged out—there were two words that packed a punch. Simply put—you’re done. No one wants you. I’d asked, about a year ago, “So, where do I go when I age out?” The director had quirked an eyebrow and said, “Anywhere you want.”

Feeling surly today, I don’t participate in group—refuse to answer questions, refuse to journal, refuse to color. It’s all BS anyway. Not a single word or journal or colored picture will help me when I walk out the door. After group, Ms. Waggoner lays one hand on my arm and quietly says, “Wait,” while the others file out the door behind the technician to the lunch room.

I stand, looking her square in the face. She looks down at me from her six-foot height and smiles, though it doesn’t reach her hazel eyes. Slowly, she begins rolling up one of the sleeves on her blouse and holds out her arm. She has a long, clean-line scar across her wrist. I don’t ask the question aloud, but she knows and nods anyway. “There is always hope,” she whispers. “Don’t ever forget that.” And I don’t. Ever.

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Arvilla Fee, from Dayton, Ohio, has been published in numerous presses, and her poetry books, The Human Side, This is Life, and Mosaic: A Million Little Pieces are available on Amazon. Arvilla’s life advice: Never travel without snacks.

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Trish spotted that man again, out in the front yard this time. What was he up to now? she wondered. She peered closer. He was trimming the hedges with an electric gizmo. Was he the guy that David was going to hire to help around the house? He seemed awfully old for a handyman, and his red hair appeared to be dyed. He seemed to always be around; whenever she looked up, there he was, with his goofy smile and dark blue eyes. He had nice eyes, she thought, but the grin she could live without. She raised the window an inch and fresh air streamed through the aperture. It felt divine.
Trish put on a kettle to make tea. She turned it up high, then quite forgot about it. She sat down to read the newspaper, but none of the words made sense, like it was written in a foreign language. She sighed, closed her eyes and was soon asleep.

She awoke with a start. The sound of an urgent voice. "Trish," the voice said, "you left the burner on again. Babe, I told you, if you want tea, just tell me, I'll make it for you." It was that man, and he was inside her home now. David would never stand for that! The fellow was standing by the stove with the kettle, now destroyed from the high heat of the burner. He said she had she left it on again and the water all evaporated. Again? Had she done this before. She thought, maybe yes.

Slowly, she came to her feet, cautiously approached the interloper. "What are you doing inside my house?" she hissed. "David will..."

"David won't mind," said the man. "We're all friends. David had to be away and he asked me to look in on you, Trish."

Trish blinked in bewilderment. Did she really know this man? She thought hard, but couldn't recall his name.

As if reading her mind, he smiled and said, "I'm Eliot."

"How do I know you?" she asked uncertainly.

"We've met many times. We've known each other for many years," he assured her.

"Where...is David?" she asked.

"He had to go away; business."

"How long will he be away?" she asked next.

Eliot shook his head. Sadly, thought Trish. "We don't know. It could be for some time."

"Do you...stay here?" she asked fearfully. Certainly David wouldn't allow that.

"I bunk in the guest room," he replied.

"Why don't I remember any of this?" she asked despairingly. "Because I can't, any of it!" She felt as if she were losing her mind. There was an odd familiarity to that feeling, which set her on edge as well.

"You've been ill, Trish," responded Eliot, reaching out and rubbing her shoulder.

Um, she thought, that feels good!

A couple of hours later, Eliot approached Trish in the living room, where she was sitting on the sofa, staring into nothingness. "What do you want for dinner, Trish?" he asked.

She started out of her reverie. "Shouldn't I cook for you?" she asked. "You've been working all day, on the lawn and the laundry and all..."

"I like to cook," he replied. "It relaxes me." She nodded. "Would an omelet by alright?" he asked.

The idea appealed to her. "Breakfast for dinner," she said. "Perfect! David likes omelets for dinner too," she said.

Eliot smiled. "Yes, I know."

Over dinner, Trish asked Eliot, "How long have you known...how long have you been friends with David and me?"

"More than 30 years," said Eliot. "I knew you when you were first married," he went on. "In fact, I've known you since school."

"Really! I can't remember any of it. You said I've been ill. What's the matter with me?"

Eliot hesitated for just a moment before he said, "You were in a driving accident and you hit your head."

"Oh my!" said Trish. She tentatively felt her skull. "Was anyone badly injured?"

Eliot smiled and shook his head. "No. No one."

"What did the doctor say, Eliot?" using his name for the first time. "How long do they think my amnesia will last?"

"They don't know, dear," he said softly, reaching out and placing his hand atop Trish's on the table. Surprising herself, she didn't withdraw her fingers.

"Let me ask you this," she said, "how long has my husband been gone?"

"Been gone?" he repeated thoughtfully.

"On his business trip," said Trish. "When did he leave? And where did he go?"

"He left several weeks ago," said Eliot. "Where he went is a secret."

"A secret?" she said. "From his own wife?"

"David works for the government, Trish. What he does is confidential, hush-hush, need to know and all that. I'm sorry."

"Do you know where he is, Eliot?" she asked.

Eliot shook his head no. "I really don't."

Later that evening, after supper dishes had been done, Eliot and Trish sat on the sofa, watching TV. Trish once again attempted to read the newspaper, but without success. "Why can't I read, Eliot?" she asked unhappily. "Is that because of the accident too?"

"Yes." He stared closely at her. "You aren't in any pain, are you, dear?"

Trish shook her head.

"You'd tell me if you were, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Eliot," she said simply, and he believed her.

"I think I'll turn in," said Trish, turning to find Eliot asleep at his end of the sofa. She smiled. Poor man, she thought, he must be exhausted. She pushed to her feet and then just stood there. She didn't know which way to go. Suddenly, she began to whimper.

Eliot, coming awake, saw Trish standing there, nervously folding and unfolding her fists. "Trish?" he said.

"Eliot," she wailed, "I don't know where my bedroom is!" She began to sob.

Eliot came promptly to his feet and put an arm about Trish and steered her to her bedroom. Recognizing her surroundings, she breathed deeply and relaxed once more. "What kind of amnesia is this that I've got?" she wondered aloud.

"They have a name for it," said Eliot, "but I can't pronounce it." They both laughed.

After Eliot left and Trish got dressed in her pajamas, she walked back into the living room and said to Eliot in a sultry voice, "I'm ready, dear." Eliot looked up with a start and watched as Trish undressed him with her eyes. Nervously, he licked his lips. "I remember, Eliot," she murmured softly, approaching him.

"You remember?" he asked. "Really?" She nodded and led him back to the bedroom.

Next morning, Trish awoke and stretched luxuriously, then sat contemplating the evening before. She smiled. She hadn't felt this good in a month of Sundays.

She wrapped her robe around herself and walked through the house, recognizing things she couldn't see the day before. It was, she felt, as if a veil had been lifted from her eyes. Arriving in the kitchen, her attention was seized by the glorious aroma of fresh coffee and sizzling bacon, and eggs. Then she halted.

Who was that red-haired man standing by the stove? She wondered.

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Bill Tope is a fiction writer based in the American Midwest, where he lives with his mean little cat, Baby.

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“Did you see the old man?” Terri looks at me with a concerned expression.

“Yeah. I saw him. He looks terrible like he’s been up all night. I think he’s been traveling again.”

“Yeah.”

Terri and I are employed by Bartholomew Perry, an eccentric professor and billionaire. We’re combination security, executive assistant, and babysitter. I work the night shift; Terri works during the day. Occasionally, our shifts overlap. Like today.

“I’ll talk to him,” I say. “But you’ll probably get the truth out of him before I will—you are his favorite.”

“Don’t fool yourself, Sam,” Terri says. “He respects you like the son he never had—you’re the muscular, no-nonsense soldier boy. He thinks I’m just a pretty face.”

Terri had me accurately pegged. Ten years in the military. Army Ranger. After that, private security jobs for a number of years. And now, this sweet gig.

But Terri was selling herself short.

Dr. Theresa Mason, awarded a Ph.D. in experimental physics from Harvard University. Black belt in the martial arts. Ironman competitions. Extremely attractive. Terri was the whole package.

“Okay, Boss. Spill it. Where did you go this time?”

Perry sits at his desk in front of us, sporting long salt-and-pepper hair done in a ponytail and wearing a casual gray tracksuit. A thin smile appears on his lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replies.

“Sure you do,” I say. “You’ve got scratches on your left temple like you’ve been hiking through rough terrain. There are burrs stuck in your hair. Speaking of which, your hair is badly disheveled and in need of combing. I suspect it’s not from spending the night tossing and turning in bed.”

Terri tried. “Boss, we’ve talked about this. Sam and I can’t protect you if you’re not going to be honest with us. You can’t simply leave on a whim without telling us. At least, give us some heads-up.”

The old man sighs. “I’m sorry. You see, it’s all rather exciting! It seems that I no longer need assistance to travel. I made my first solo trip without using the machine!”

Terri and I exchange surprised looks.

“I was sitting at the desk writing my notes for the evening. Then, I glanced up for a moment at the bookcase. My eyes rested on one of my favorite books of poetry, Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake. I focused on one poem in particular. The next thing I knew, I felt the familiar feeling of disorientation and vertigo from the machine. Then, I was there! In Scotland! I suspect that it was the early 19th century. The natives were speaking Gaelic. I’m sure of it. They were using horse-drawn carriages. But there was something quite odd about the place: I saw a dragon flying across the sky!”

Perry reaches down into a desk drawer and pulls out a pipe and tobacco. He stuffs the pipe carefully with tobacco. He lights the match and runs the flame over the surface in a circular fashion before taking a series of shallow puffs. I know that Terri is irritated with the pipe smoke. The professor keeps promising her that he’ll quit. I’d like Perry to quit, too, but he’s an old man. I say, let him have his vices. I suppose that includes traveling through time and space without a valid permit.

Emeritus Professor Bartholonew Perry had invented a machine capable of transporting matter through interdimensional space and time. At first, Perry had no idea where the objects he sent traveled. Or even in what time period. Later, he attached devices to capture audio, video, and other telemetry. From that feedback, he was able to fine-tune the process. Perry was convinced the various quirks and anomalies he observed proved these were actually different dimensions than our own.

After the first year, Perry recklessly used the machine on himself. It worked. The machine transported him from the comfortable confines of his estate near the university to present-day London. An edition of the London Daily Telegraph confirmed the date. But he was shocked to see machines and buildings suspended in mid-air on the city skyline. Perry theorized that he had traveled to a parallel dimension in which the technology was far more advanced than ours.

In the years that followed, Perry traveled to various times and places, always returning to the safe confines of his estate. But now it appeared he no longer needed his apparatus in order to travel. He could control the process mentally.

“Boss, what are you going to do?”

“Ah! I’m glad you asked.”

Perry signals us to pull up a chair and sit closer. Then he hands each of us an envelope and instructs us to read the letters inside. I’m flabbergasted! I suspect Terri is, too. He’s left each of us one-half of his entire estate!

“I have no living heirs. You two are the closest thing I have to a family. Terri, with your scientific prowess, I suspect you may want to carry on with my research—perhaps even travel a little bit on your own.

“Sam, Terri—I have no idea how you might wish to spend your inheritance. Whatever you decide, I’m sure it will be the right decision. You’re both solid individuals with practical sense and big hearts. Perhaps you’ll want to start a business with the money. Or give it all to charity. Or have some fun. It’s your choice.

“You’re … leaving?”

“You’ll be happy to know that I’m off to be reunited with my beloved Clara, who, as you know, died of cancer thirty-two years ago. I’ve located a dimension in which she is alive and well in the present day. I can assure you, when we’re reunited I won’t be coming back.”

“When are you going?” Terri asks.

The professor smiles at us warmly. Then he gives us a mock salute. Seconds later, we hear a loud POP! as air molecules rush in to fill the void where Perry had previously been sitting.

We’re both stunned. After we recover from the shock, I turn to Terri and ask, “What do you say, Ter? Want to take the professor’s machine out for a quick spin? I’ve always wanted to visit Marrakesh.”

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Phil Temples resides in Watertown, Massachusetts. He's published six mystery-thriller novels, a novella, and seven story anthologies in addition to over 260 online short stories online. Phil also likes to dabble in mobile photography. He is a member of the Bagel Bards.

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One consequence for Cindy having recently broken up with her fiancé, James, was whether to keep the New Year’s Eve dinner reservation at her favorite restaurant. Except now the reservation would be a table for one.

Cindy knew the stigma about New Year’s Eve. That’s when society expected you to celebrate the occasion with either family members, a significant other, or friends. To sit by yourself at a fashionable restaurant on that special night: wouldn’t that make her feel too self-conscious? That people would pity her? Even as you told yourself to have the courage and self-confidence not to care what people thought that maybe she had no friends. A loser that nobody wanted to know.

She had been to this restaurant before with James and they both liked its food and appreciated the good service. The heck with it, she said. She wouldn’t cancel the reservation. What was the alternative? To sit at home and mope that things hadn’t worked out with the fiancé.

It was actually Cindy’s decision to call it quits with James. He was generally a kind and generous guy. But he and her apparently wanted different things out of life. For instance, she wanted to travel to places like the Greek Islands or Africa. Meanwhile, he was content to play golf with his buddies on weekends and holidays or go down to the garage at home and get his 1957 Ford Thunderbird in tip-top shape to enter a classic car sweepstakes.

When Cindy told him she was calling off the wedding, James said that broke his heart. He’d never get over it. Cindy had a conscience. She felt guilty. But she knew she was doing the right thing for herself. Even as she thought of an old Dean Martin song that went, “everybody loves somebody sometime.”

Before New Year’s Eve, Cindy had been a solo traveler for her job where she had to figure out her dinner plans in a different city. Eating alone during the trip didn’t carry the same weight as during the holidays. Rather than not going hungry since she had no one to eat with, she’d get carryout Chinese and bring it back to the hotel where she was staying. Or she’d eat in a fast-food restaurant where other customers also were eating alone.

She entered the restaurant and a hostess showed her to a table for one by the corner with a window view of the city’s office towers. She heard “Auld Lang Syne” playing softly overhead. That was supposedly to help you ring in the new year.

Then it happened: Another woman, probably Cindy’s age of about 30, was shown to her table for one across from Cindy’s table. After surveying the menu, the woman made eye contact and raised her champagne glass in a toast to Cindy. Cindy raised her glass back and mouthed the words “Happy Holidays.” It made Cindy feel she wasn’t alone on this New Year’s Eve.

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Eric Green is a former newspaper reporter, ESL teacher, and associate editor for a national magazine dealing with U.S. anti-poverty issues. His short stories have been published widely.

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