quiver volume no. 8, issue no. 2 editorial If you’re reading this in the past, I can assure you that time you spent reading Twilight was not a waste, and had everything gone according to Editors-in-Chief Shae Salts Gabi Harris plan, would’ve been a great influence on this edition’s design. If you’re reading this in the present, then you’re aware that, in the twilight of our 2020 winter term (See what we did there?), Knox College staff announced that, in light of the COVID-19’s surgence in the United States, it would be closing its doors for the forseeable future--the spring Manuscript Editors 2020 term. As such, this edition is a little different, being released online Sebastiano Masi and all. Head Designer Sarah Lohmann Gabi Harris Jasmine Lamb It’s been a rough journey, what with the massive changes we’ve all ex- Molly Cyr perienced, the increases in stress and workload, and all of the hopes and Christa Vander Wyst dreams we’ve had to bury or set aside, but we here at Quiver are proud to still be able to publish students’ work in this time, and are even prouder of everyone who submitted to us this past term. We couldn’t have done it without you! So, once again, we would like to thank all of our submitters, readers, staff members, and our advisor, Barbara Tannert-Smith. Social Media Manager And if you’re reading this in the future, then I would like to ask, do the Molly Cyr murder hornets make a comeback? Stay Safe & Happy Reading, Editors Abroad Quiver Riley Jin Jaina Gliva en t tss on t t en contents c ccon s Mothman & Gays.............................85..............................Parker Stocksdale f p Rings.............................9..............................C.J. Johnson Strange Attention to Mouth(s).............................133..............................R. Midnight Diner.............................16..............................Zoe Pearce Jamil Means “Beautiful”.............................134..............................R. Freeze.............................22..............................John Muth How to Live a Life of Squirrel.............................136..............................R. Sunday.............................31..............................Sam Naftzger Cherry Swing.............................137..............................R. The Sea From the Other Side.............................38..............................Amber Lane-Bortell Doesn’t Fit.............................139..............................Iris Berto Resonant.............................52..............................Brooklyn Plogger s + In Transmission.............................62..............................Shae Salts t t Creator Biographies.............................142-143 a en Editor Biographies.............................144-145 tten Colophon.............................147 Swimming Buddies.............................79..............................Sam Esteep Clyde.............................81..............................Shae Salts fiction rings My grandmother gave me her ring when I was eleven. “Keep this safe,” she said, holding it so close to my face my eyes crossed. “Do not lose it. One day, you will have husband, and you will give him this when you are ready for him to ask you to marry him.” Then she took my hand, placed the interlocked bands in my palm, and curled my fingers. “You will be brilliant, my dear,” she whispered to me. When I came out to her at sixteen, she tried to take the ring back. I told her I didn’t have it with me and 9 never returned to her house. Like hell she would ever c.j. johnson get that thing back from me. I remember that she didn’t understand what I was saying at first. As soon as it clicked that I meant I liked girls romantically, she started pleading with me. “Victo- ria, it does not matter. You can change your mind. You can still have boyfriend and be good—be respectable.” But then I told her about my girlfriend, Charlie: that I wouldn’t be changing my mind. “Give my ring back!” she shouted, spit flying from her wrinkled mouth. Her accent was curled and sharp, like the tail of a scorpion paralyzing its prey. “No!” I remember crying, my hands clutched to my chest. when she was upset. “I wasn’t thinking!” I whisper-shouted to mom. “She didn’t understand me, Mom. She didn’t even She stood, holding herself up by the arms of her Her grip was tight on my hand. “What do you mean “Okay? I was angry and frustrated at her and kept try.” chair. She was so frail; I had to stop myself from going you don’t have it?” thinking about that stupid ring sitting in my jewelry It’s a strange thing to comfort a parent. Especially to help her. “I threw it in Saercrouse’s field,” I said, gently trying box.” when you don’t feel the same sadness they do. I could “You are not boy, Victoria,” she said with every to pull my hand away, avoiding her eyes. I’ve been three inches taller than my mother for sympathize, always. But, in that moment, the most I ounce of malice she had. “Stop trying to be one. “You did what?” she’d practically shrieked, pulling three years now, but I’ve never felt smaller than when could do was hold her and hope she didn’t get upset You will either respect me, or you will get out of my my arm down, forcing my eyes to her level. she looked at me then. She looked at me like I had when I didn’t cry with her. house!” Saercrouse’s field is five miles out of town at the end stepped on her dog. Like she was the dog. I wondered what would have happened if I’d never That was the last thing she said to me. And now of a dead-end dirt road with no tire tracks on it. It’s When she spoke, her voice shook. From anger or come out to Baba? If I’d held it in just two more years? Grandmother is dead. It’s been two years since that the type of road that teenagers in movies would drive grief, I couldn’t tell. It very well could have been both. I would still be standing here, holding Mom, but conversation—since we spoke to one another. She to go smoke weed and have sex. Except there are only Probably was. “Victoria. You will find that ring and maybe I would be crying, too. Maybe I would have 10 11 wrote in her will that she wanted to be buried with the thirty-three teenagers in Monroe, and they all believe you will give it to me by 9 o’clock tomorrow morning been the one needing comfort. I wouldn’t have to call ring. in the ghost stories people tell about Saercrouse’s field. or so help me God—” she stopped herself, holding a Charlie in twenty minutes to see if she could drive me The only problem is that I don’t have it anymore. Didn’t you hear that old man Saercrouse had a daughter that got knuckle to her lips, glaring daggers at me. “I need Ba- to Saercrouse’s field to find an heirloom that would just “Where’s the ring?” my mother asked me this possessed back in 1854? She killed her family and is still looking ba’s ring for the mortician by tomorrow at nine. I know be buried again 48 hours later. morning in a hushed whisper, her eyes frantic. for more victims is the most popular depiction. Faeries used that you and Mom didn’t get along towards… the end, I’d be wearing that ring on my wedding day. (Maybe She pulled me into the doorway between the to breed there. If you kick the dirt a bit, you can find their rings but she still loved you.” I’d be marrying Charlie, we’ve lasted over two years, kitchen and the hallway leading to our rooms. The will is another. My favorite would have to be the one that I rolled my eyes without thinking. Mom didn’t after all.) It wouldn’t be the wedding Baba would have attorney sat two rooms away on my mother’s plush insists the dirt is sentient. If you so much as step on it, that notice, she was looking at the ground then. Thank the wanted, but, at that point, it wouldn’t have mattered floral couch, sipping away at his tea. At least that’s how field will swallow you whole. Why do you think the thing hasn’t Lord for small mercies. because she would already be dead. I pictured him. Pristine, dressed in all black, immune been tilled in so long? They were all just ridiculous stories “What she did to you was unforgivable, Victoria, And as I held my mom and she sobbed into my to the emotions of his clients. that the people in this backwash town make up to pass but she never understood that. She didn’t… she didn’t sweater, I began to cry. Not for my grandmother, but “I don’t have it,” I whispered back. There was no the time. I heard all of these sitting on my dad’s lap understand.” Her eyes filled with tears. I reached for for this imagined life I could have had. I wouldn’t have reason to be whispering, but Mom did this sometimes down at Huffinton’s Bar. her. Wrapped her in my arms. been happy, but I might have had a bit more love. I wouldn’t have needed to feel the pain that came with whispering. “Is this around where you dropped it?” “Well, it’s what you said.” She reaches a hand out, and I take it. “Is it so bad if Baba’s rejection. I shine my phone’s flashlight at her, and her pupils “I know. I know, I just—ugh! I was angry! I was an- we don’t find your grandmother’s ring?” she asks me. In that moment, I hated her more than anyone. explode; I can’t see her irises. “I didn’t drop it—I threw gry when I said that and I was angry when I threw the I look at her, the light from the flashlight at my I wished she’d never existed. it as far as I could.” damn ring. I was sixteen! I did the first thing I thought side just illuminating her chin and nose, casting dark Charlie frowns. “Did you have to be so dramatic, to do. I’m sorry for what I said about your grandma, shadows over her eyes. She looks lovely: a natural eye- Charlie’s hand is soft as I tie myself to her. Vic?” Her breath puffs in front of her face like white but that doesn’t erase the fact that mine was a bitch.” shadow on her hooded eyelids and a soft light on her I wish we would have come earlier. cigarette smoke. She’s back to searching the dirt. The She scrunches her mouth to one side, and I know cheeks. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I told Charlie that grass never grew back after the Saercrouses skipped that she knows I’m right; she just doesn’t want to admit And then both our flashlights go out, and we’re we could go to the middle of this cornfield at six p.m. town. Neither did the corn. it. plunged into darkness. Every single fall, without fail, I forget that the time “Well, I don’t know, Char. Maybe when you get “You know you did dumb shit when you were six- I look at the sky; there’s no moon. falls back and the sun sets earlier. I don’t really know rejected by your grandmother, you can decide what the teen,” I tell her. Mushrooms need damp dirt in order to grow prop- 12 13 how—I suppose that I’ve never been involved in many right amount of drama is!” I snarl. And just like that Charlie makes a face at me, then erly…. activities so I never really had a reason to keep track of She looks at me again, hurt. I keep my flashlight on snorts, and I know that I’ve won. “Vic….” my time. But by the looks of it’s angle in the sky now, her, though I want to turn it away. “Yeah, I did do stupid stuff, Vic. But at least I didn’t, “It’s okay, Charlie,” I say. we only have about thirty minutes until we’re sur- “You know that I can’t do that,” she says. like, throw an entire expensive-ass ring away,” she says. I click the power button on my phone, but the rounded by nothing but stars. Guilt fills me, twisting my stomach and reaching “No…. You just shaved all your hair off and every- screen doesn’t light up. I ask Charlie to try hers—same We spend those thirty minutes scouring the ground, it’s fingers towards my heart. Both of Charlie’s grand- one thought you were a cancer kid for three months.” result. our phone flashlights on, even though it isn’t dark yet. mothers died when she was twelve. She told me once “I was going for lesbian! I over-shot, okay?” I reach down to touch the dirt; it’s dry as wood. We’re just hoping to catch a glint of some old gold that she was jealous that I got the chance to come out I laugh, unbridled. It rings through the empty field. “Where’d the stars go? Vic?” Charlie asks. She’s peeking out from the packed dirt. to mine and she didn’t. I think she was always secretly I step into a ring of mushrooms and try to remem- scratching at my arm, pulling me back up from the I look up to see the last of the sun’s rays disappear disappointed how royally I fucked up by not going ber sophomore year biology to figure out how they dirt. “I just saw them, but then it was like a dome was behind a field further in the distance. The sky turns back to Baba. For not finding a way to forgive her. managed to grow here when everything else withered put over us and now…. Now....” gray. “Look. Charlie. You know that’s not what I away. She’s right, there are no stars. I hold her hand tight “Babe,” Charlie whispers. I don’t know why she’s meant—” “I know, Char, I know.” as I stand back up. “Vic…. Do you think…?” Charlie tightens her grip on my hand. chest. Sometimes, on quiet evenings, ones that are so quiet She doesn’t need to finish her thought, I already “‘Sssorry.’ Not many of you have apologizzed before….” “What are you?!” I shout. I don’t want to give this the silence feels just a moment away from caving in, a know what she’s thinking about. The old stories…. “It was an accident,” Charlie whispers. fucker anything—I don’t have anything to give. second from collapsing my lungs, Charlie will ask me if There’s a hissing coming from my right. It tickles “Yet you still make excusessss.” The voice only laughs. High, piercing. Like crows I miss her. If I miss remembering her. We’ll be sitting my ear, brushes my hair to the side. Charlie’s other hand grips my bicep. cawing in the wind. Bats shrieking for their food. on her bed or in the school parking lot during lunch. “You ssshhouldn’t be heerre,” a voice gasps. It leaks into “Not excuses!” I intrude. I feel a puff of breath on “I have been here for millenia. I am olderr than the dirt. It is One time, we’d been standing at the stovetop in my my bones, scratches at the marrow. “No ressspect!” I feel my face. It smells rancid, like spoiled greens. Spilled not my fault that you’ve only just noticed me. Noww, what will kitchen. I was stirring chili that Mom had put on the its spit land on my cheek. “No reverencce!” vodka. The combination nearly makes me puke. “Sor- you givvve me for your ringgg?” stove for supper, her arms around my waist. I open my mouth, close it. There’s nothing I can ry. Just, explaining. We were just trying to explain.” My arms are shaking. I think everything inside of Mom doesn’t know—no one does. How would we say. The voice comes, harsh and grating. “Foolish girlssss! “Iss that right?” it asks. me is shaking. I think I’m shaking Charlie. Wait. No. explain? Nobody really believes in faeries, no matter Everyone knows not to trussst this land.” “Yes,” Charlie whispers again. I wrap my arm She’s shaking too. Jesus. how many folktales the town tells. No matter how 14 15 Charlie links our arms together; I’ve never been around her waist, scared she might faint. She presses It doesn’t feel like there’s space to argue. many storytellers at Huffinton’s try to convince the more grateful to have her. closer to me. What do you give to a ghost? Or a faerie? A fae? next batch in the new generation that magical crea- “What are you?” she asks, small, timid. We’re met “Alrighht. The rulesss are still in play, however.” What do you give a creature you can’t see? A creature tures are real. No one believes it—not even the story- with silence. “Please just let us leave,” Charlie says “Rules?” you can’t touch? What do you give when you have tellers. when she realizes she won’t get a response. Her voice “Yesss. You stepped into myyy ring. It is my turn to offer a nothing but the girl in your arms and the head on your I always tell Charlie that I don’t. is surprisingly steady, even if it’s nearly a whisper. “We traaade.” shoulders? You can’t miss someone you already wished to for- don’t want any trouble.” My grip on Charlie’s waist tightens. “What do you You don’t give them the girl, that’s for fucking sure. get, especially when the last thing left to remind you of I squeeze her palm, hoping to gain a bit of her want to trade?” I ask. So you give them your head. You give them the first her is buried with her body. bravery. “I miight know what you are looking forr. A ring? Smaalll. memory you can think of. Breathe. “We haven’t heard anything about this With three loops, yesss? I will trade you thisss and your freedom And sometimes that memory is a person. place,” I say. “We’re sorry.” if you give me somethinggg in returnnn.” It feels like the voice “Take my baba,” I say. It hums, long and deep; I feel the sound reverberate is all around us now. Like if I were to step an inch And I swear I feel the thing grin. through my veins. to the right, I would trip over it. I pull Charlie to my midnight diner I’m not gonna lie, I had been feeling real off since a place to sit, fill up on coffee. Midnight Stop was that back in the kitchen with Bill. We were laughing about I started my evening shift at the diner. When the sun place, with its green neon lights flashing outside, the the same old stupid shit we always laugh about while finally began its descent, the feeling started to swell smell of coffee inside, booths worn enough to be more he was finishing up an order. Burger with fries, hold in my stomach with the ever-encroaching darkness. comfortable than when they were newly installed, and the ketchup. I couldn’t eat a burger without ketchup. Around here, this time of year, the sun liked to take a counter for me to sit behind to watch as the traffic I think I said that to Bill as I carried the plate through its sweet time saying goodbye. Maybe it was the way outside passed across the purple sky, pausing occasion- the swinging doors. you could see for miles that made it seem slower than ally for a cup of coffee. There were only really a few people in the diner. sunsets you’d see in other places. When I was younger Most nights it was just Bill and me. Sometimes Sue One in a booth in the corner at the back. Two at the I couldn’t believe that every place shared the same sun, stayed. She didn’t own the place but she ran it. Ran it counter and one in the middle by the door. The guy but I grew up and realized what was different were the pretty damn well too, if you ask me and Bill. Bill’s the in the middle had ordered the burger without ketch- sunsets. Anyways, that night was an odd one. Odd in cook. He’s got this crazy, frizzy orange fro that looks up. He didn’t look at me when I set his plate in front 16 17 the sort of way you don’t know if something’s real or pretty funny under his hairnet. He’s really self-con- of him. Don’t blame him. I’m not much to look at, zoe pearce not. The sun seemed to be digging its fingers into the scious about it, doesn’t want anyone to see him in it, and his eyes seemed tired. He nudged his coffee mug dry, desert floor, stirring up dust, just to get a few more so he stays back in the kitchen mostly. Not that anyone towards me so I filled it with the pot that was never not hours with our town. he’d know would be stopping by the diner this late in my hand. Everyone else seemed satisfied so I poked From my place behind the counter, I could see anyway. my head back into the kitchen, but Bill must’ve been perfectly out the window above all the booths, watch- So, on this particular night, that feeling just kept on a smoke break. Nasty habit. It’s turned his teeth ing the colors spread across the sky. I had worked at growing with the fading light. That odd, creeping feel- gross, and I know he’s noticed because he doesn’t smile the diner for a while now. Midnight Stop it was called ing. I’d sometimes felt a little odd before, I mean, who as much as he did when I first met him about five years because we were the only place that stayed open past hasn’t? Tonight, it was beyond anything I felt before. ago. But it ain’t always pissing in a pot to quit that shit. midnight. Even though the people in our town weren’t But wouldn’t you know it, soon as the sun gave in and Anyways, the night continued pretty normally, much for a diner that stayed open past midnight the light completely disappeared, that feeling disap- people came and went in that nighttime slow-motion (everyone was usually in bed by then), we got a lot of peared with it. I continued my shift feeling alright. that they did. They ate their food so that the last bite truckers that passed through and they always needed It was about ten thirty, pushing eleven, and I was they took was room-cold. But the time flew by for me and soon it was close to midnight. There was only one Around this time Bill likes to take inventory for Sue, came in. “Great, thank you, that’ll be all for now.” I Older than old. They were covered in beautifully person still sitting. Same guy who’d been there in the so with nothing else to do, I was still up front when was too stunned to even reply, and I couldn’t tell you if painted figures and landscapes. Of the cards facing up, corner since ten thirty, pushing eleven. I didn’t think the girl walked in at midnight. Only an hour until we it was the armor or how much more talkative she was three of them stuck in my head long after. On one, the anything of it. Some people were just plain tired when closed. She was dressed from her feet to her shoulders than the man across from her. devil danced with a little girl, her orange hair burn- they came in here. And we never got enough people at in armor. I’m not even lying. Armor. The kind a Prince Back at the counter, I watched them from the ing around them. On another, there was a tall tower once to need to disturb those who had gotten comfort- Charming would have on in some fairy tale your mom corner of my eye for a while before I retreated to the covered in bright, glowing, neon vines. And on the last able in their booths. So I hadn’t bothered him at all would read you at night. The only visible skin, from kitchen. Bill was still nowhere to be found. I checked one, there was a figure in a dark blue cloak with the except to ask about his coffee, but he stopped taking her neck up, was covered in freckles. Her fluffy, pink, the walk-in freezer but still nothing. It wasn’t like face of a skull. refills around eleven thirty. bobbed hair bounced with the clanking of her armor him to take another smoke break until closing but he Before I could clear my throat and ask again, the He looked like a trucker, but I couldn’t tell if that as she maneuvered into the diner. I know my mouth might’ve since the place was so empty. He’d be upset man said, in a gruff voice, “No, I won’t be needing any was his truth or just his appearance. He never took hung open until she found who she was looking for; she later if he missed all this shit. more coffee. We’re almost done here.” I tore my eyes 18 19 off his hat once. An old, sun-washed thing that had a spotted the man in the corner at the back and clanked I grabbed the coffee pot from where it was heating away from the cards because the man had turned his patch of writing on it but I couldn’t make out what it on down to him. I barely caught it, but when she and headed back to their table. I’ll admit: I was god- face towards me for the first time the entire night. His said. And I didn’t want to stare. I spose I coulda asked passed me, she said, “I’ll take a Coke, thanks.” I didn’t damn curious. As I approached, this was the scene at eyes were open and his hat was no longer covering his but I didn’t want to make him talk if he didn’t want. move until she was sitting across from the hat guy. the table: the man in the hat had some cards laid out in face. I finally saw his white, pupil-less eyes clearly. I re- That’s why I’m perfect for this midnight job. People Bill wasn’t anywhere to be seen so I grabbed a bottle front of him. He had his eyes closed again, his hands member stumbling back, embarrassed, though I wasn’t don’t really want to talk to anybody past midnight. of Coke as fast as I could and headed back to their stretched out over the cards. His giant fingers moved sure what there was for me to be embarrassed about. They just want their coffee and to be left to it. Except table. I’m not one to be nosy, but it’s not every god- and pointed to the cards delicately and with ease as if The oddity of the sight in the booth followed me this guy hadn’t even wanted coffee in a good amount damn day that a girl with pink hair in full armor walks he had done it many times before. The girl across from silently back to the counter where I deposited the of time. into your diner. They were talking about something him was bent over her notebook, fervently writing. coffee pot. I was sure if I went back to the kitchen, I From the counter, I could see under his hat better. until I walked up, then they fell silent quicker than a “Can I get you more…” I started to say, but when would not find Bill. So I stood at the counter while the He was sitting there with his eyes closed. Seemed to be speeding ticket. The girl smiled up at me as I set the I was close enough to see those cards my words died minute hand on the clock moved swiftly towards the meditating. He’d already paid his tab so I didn’t have a bottle down. She slapped a quarter on the table next away. The cards weren’t like any that Sue kept in the next hour: closing time. A minute before one, both of problem just letting him sit there until we closed. to a notebook that I hadn’t noticed she’d had when she back for late night solitaire. These cards looked old. them stood. The girl in armor reached out and shook the man in the hat’s hand before turning and clanking “You keep your money.” last. out into the night. The man sat back down, started “Oh, thanks! So how’s this work?” “Closing time!” shuffling his cards together. “You keep it because I’m not for hire. I don’t read When I told Bill what had happened, what I’d seen, I must’ve lost my marbles for what I did next. But for just anyone.” he laughed. When I asked him where he had been for my curiosity was eating me from the inside out. Who “Oh…” that whole hour, he said he had been doing inventory doesn’t want to know their future? Now, I’m not a “There’s not enough time anyways.” and then took a smoke break. With nothing more to it, strong believer. In anything, really, except what I’ve “I can stay after closing. I don’t mind cleaning up we turned off the neon green lights outside that flashed seen with my own two eyes. However, the night was late.” “Midnight Stop” and locked up. strange enough that if you’d have told me trees could “No.” Later that night, I laid awake in my trailer, just walk and fish swam in air, I would’ve believed you. My “Are you sure I can’t—” thinking, until the sun started peeking through my heart was racing as I walked toward the booth in the “Almost to my stop now.” blinds. I wasn’t sure what I had expected him to tell me 20 21 back, already untying my apron. I set it in the seat next “Your stop?” about my future. At the time, I had just been hop- to me as I sat down. The man, still standing, stopped “Don’t worry about it.” The man smiled at me. ing for something, anything. When I finally dreamed, I his shuffling but didn’t speak. I knew I’d have to meet That’s right. He smiled. Wasn’t making any damn dreamt of the characters on those cards, those white, those cloudy eyes again to get what I wanted. So I sense and now he was smiling. “How about one last pupil-less eyes, and pink fluffy hair. In the following gathered my courage and glanced up. Looking him in cup of coffee?” He lifted his mug to me. I took it as I days, I tried to convince myself none of it had hap- the eyes felt like staring down Medusa. slid out of the booth, eyes squinted at him the whole pened. However, as strange as it was, that night wasn’t “I’d like you to read my future...sir.” time. Only time I turned my back on him was when I the strangest I would ever witness at the Midnight Stop. I He glanced at the door, at the watch on his wrist, was pouring the coffee at the machine. But somehow, it know now what he would’ve told me was in my future: and then back at me again, looking like he didn’t know was enough time for him to walk out the door without adventure. whether to make a bolt for it or bust a knee laughing. me noticing. I turned around at the sound of the bell “I can pay if that’s an issue.” I dug around in my as the door swung shut. And wouldn’t you know it, apron and produced my tips. Finally, he decided on an soon as it clicked closed, Bill burst through the swing- airy chuckle and sat down again. ing door from the kitchen, fiery hair free from its net at freeze Wallace Krinkler sat at his desk. He looked at his and deodorant created an invisible cloud around them. tions said. computer, but he wasn’t typing. He wasn’t doing any Wallace was in the eye of the storm. “We’re standing right here, and he still fell asleep,” work or looking at porn. He just sat there. He was Someone said, “I’ve seen this before. Don’t touch Reggie from the Mailroom said. at work, and he was bored. So bored, he suddenly him...” Others commented on their disbelief while Wallace thought he might be frozen. Wallace’s co-worker, Leon It seemed just because Wallace was bored, because slept. But then a path through the gathering crowd Anthony walked past and said, “Hey, Wallace. ‘Sup, he was frozen, didn’t mean he couldn’t entertain ev- was made as some object barreled its way toward the man?” But Wallace didn’t move. He was frozen. “Yo eryone else in the office. Francis poked him with a pen, disturbance. The object was the boss, Mister Pawalsky. man, you a’ight?” Leon Anthony asked. “You frozen? but Wallace didn’t move. Penelope shot a yellow rub- Mister Pawalsky got up to Wallace and didn’t under- Oh shit!” ber band at him, and it hit him in the cheek, leaving a stand what was going on. Wallace couldn’t move. His eyes could only look little pink welt. He still didn’t move. Wallace’s eyelids “What’s the purpose of this racket?” Mister Pawal- forward at the blinking cursor on his computer screen. were starting to droop, which was the only movement sky asked, looking around at the faces of the crowd. He 22 23 On another tab in his web browser, the number of he’d been able to make in fifteen minutes. was irritated, easily noticeable because he was tighten- john muth emails was steadily increasing. His emails were all ei- “Oh shit, Wallace is about to fall asleep,” Leon An- ing his tie around his neck. He was always tightening ther work-related or e-marketing or spam. But Wallace thony let out, narrating the scene that could be clearly his tie around his neck, which was the fourth reason realized, he wasn’t just, as the saying goes, bored stiff. seen by everyone. “I cannot believe this is happening.” most people at the company disliked Mister Pawalsky. “Hey, everyone, Wallace is frozen,” Leon yelled out Neither could everyone else. The other three varied between different people but to the office. Wallace’s eyes finally closed and after a moment, usually consisted of the following things: he yelled People started to gather around them. Penelope his breath was visibly deeper. A snore even escaped his all the time, he smelled like turnips and rutabaga, he from Acquisitions. Reggie from the Mailroom. Francis, lips. cheated on his wife, and he was definitely embezzling a also from Acquisitions. They all gathered around Wal- “This motha-fucka’s asleep!” screamed Leon lot of money from the company. lace. Their starched white shirts, the men’s ties which Anthony, his disbelief only outsized by his glee. “Oh “Mister Pawalsky, Wallace, here fell asleep,” Leon were the only possible way of showing individuality shit!” He clapped his hands together and everyone else Anthony said. Wallace was still asleep, his body was ac- created a zoetrope of sliding images around him. The started rumbling about the scene they were witnessing. tually leaning forward because of his muscles relaxing. hurricane of cologne and perfume and hair-product “I can’t believe he did that,” Penelope from Acquisi- “Well, wake him up,” Mister Pawalsky ordered, looking right at Leon Anthony. Pieces of turnip, or said. “But how are we gonna get out of here?” now Mister Pawalsky was frozen too. “Wow, what is this place?” Another voice asked. rutabaga, came flying out of his mouth. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how I got here.” “I think they’re all frozen,” Francis, but not the one “This is wicked,” said another. Leon Anthony shrugged his shoulders, looked at the “Well if you don’t know, and we’re both frozen. Oh, from Acquisitions said, backing away from the growing “I think we’re all sharing a single consciousness or boss and then everyone around, and then at Wallace. shit!” Leon Anthony said, his mind getting agitated group of frozen people. “I don’t think we should touch something,” came another. He raised his hand to shake Wallace’s shoulder, but again. any of them.” “Who’s there now? Name yourselves!” Pawalsky when he touched his co-worker he froze too. There “You said it, brother,” Wallace said. “I think you’re right,” Penelope said. Someone be- ordered. weren’t any histrionics or shrieks, Leon Anthony just “Uh uh, don’t start that ‘brotha’ shit just because hind her said they had said that a while ago. “Well, who are you?” asked the first unknown voice. stopped moving. He just stood there with his hand on we’re sharing minds. You still white.” “I’m Pawalsky, and I’m in charge here.” Wallace, unable to budge. “Sorry, Leon.” “—up!” Mister Pawalsky’s mind completed the sen- “Well, it could be argued that since this all started “It’s a’ight brotha.” Leon Anthony responded. tence he was screaming just a moment ago. with Wallace, he might be the one in charge.” “Hello? Where am I?” Leon Anthony’s voice “...” “...” “I’m not in charge. I don’t want to be in charge.” 24 25 echoed out into the void. “Who’s that?” Leon Anthony’s voice asked. Wallace’s voice called out. “Oh, thank god. I never thought I’d talk to anyone Everyone stood around looking at Leon Anthony “What do you mean, who is that?” Mister Pawalsky “Wallace is that you? It’s Penelope.” ever again,” a voice cried out, coming through Leon and Wallace in a frozen embrace. Wallace was falling screamed, sending his angry thought waves through “Oh hey, Penelope,” Wallace said. Anthony’s mind. forward in his unconscious stupor, and Leon’s eyes wherever their minds were meeting. “I’m Ignatius “Sorry I shot you in the face with a rubber band.” “What do you mean?” Leon Anthony said, and were starting to droop. He was also, now, falling asleep. Barnsworth Pawalsky. And I demand to know what the “Not a problem—” then realized he’s talking inside his own head. “How “What the hell is going on here?” Mister Pawalsky hell is going on here.” “Everyone shut up!” Pawalsky’s voice screamed. am I talking right now? And who am I talking to?” grunted. “Why is he not moving now? “Oh Mister Pawalsky, we’re glad you could join us.” “So who all is in here now? Besides me, Krinkler, and “It’s me, Leon. It’s Wallace.” “I think he’s falling asleep too,” said Penelope from “Who the hell is that?” Mister Pawalsky barked. Lenny.” “Oh shit, Wallace man. I was just about to touch Acquisitions. “It’s me, Wallace. Wallace Krinkler, from Acquisi- “My name is Leon Anthony,” Leon Anthony’s voice you to wake you up.” “He better damn-well not be,” Mister Pawalsky tions.” said. “You touched me? Maybe that’s how we’re connect- said, storming forward. “Hey you, wake—” But he “Krinkler! It’s your fault we’re in this damn mess,” “I don’t care... Now, sound off.” ed.” Wallace’s voice said in the darkness. couldn’t finish his sentence, because as he was saying Mister Pawalsky screamed. “Get us the hell back out “Penelope Fisher.” “Hey, that makes sense… I think,” Leon Anthony his last words he put his hand on Leon Anthony. And of here and get back to work.” “Francis Pangburn.” “Francis from Acquisitions?” Wallace asked. frozen against Mister Pawalsky’s, whose eyes were now “I won’t ask again, who the hell else is in here?” alsky hyped himself up again. “I’m telling you, if you “No, the other one,” Francis said, a little disappoint- beginning to close. Someone had tripped and sent Pawalsky called out. But now the other voice was don’t name yourself—” ment was audible in her voice. those two flying forward. And while everyone else had silent. “Maybe you should stop yelling at him.” Wallace “...” backed away from the bodies, there wasn’t anyone else “You scared him away.” piped up. “Is that everyone?” Pawalsky barked. visible who could have been the other voice. “How dare you?” Pawalsky cried. “You just want “Yeah, I mean we’re all in this same darkness. This “...” “Should we like, call an ambulance or something?” some stranger hanging around in here? Not knowing is Leon Anthony by the way.” “There’s definitely someone else here. Speak up Francis from Acquisitions asked. Others shrugged their who is who? Who are you?” Penelope and Francis also voiced their agreement. now.” shoulders, and others just went back to their cubicles “This is Wallace, sir.” “Thank you all, but I’m not worth getting worked “I’m afraid to,” said the unknown voice. like this was an everyday occurrence. “Well don’t think I forgot about you Krinkler. up about. To be honest, I’m not even sure who I am... “Why would you be afraid?” Wallace asked, with “Wait, you’re going back to your desks? How could You’re finished when we get out of here. I don’t know I got here when you all did, and well...” concern running through his voice. you do that?” asked Someone. “This is an incredi- where it is, but there’s got to be something in the em- “Yeah, yeah, yeah, play coy. I know exactly who you 26 27 “Well, there’s an awful lot of shouting happening ble moment. Something special is happening.” They ployee handbook about this.” are,” Pawalsky called out again. “I’ve known it from for being in such a peaceful place.” looked around, but now even more people were going “About bodies freezing and connecting in an the first time you spoke up.” “Peaceful? You think this place is peaceful?” back to their workstations. ephemeral void?” Francis called out. “I think this is “Oh shit, you knew... Who is it?” Leon Anthony “It’s not unpeaceful,” Leon Anthony’s voice said. “I mean they’re just falling asleep.” Francis from beyond a Human Resources issue.” asked, and the others also wanted to know. “Yeah, I don’t mind it too much. This is Penelope, Acquisitions said, turning away from the bundle of “Well, it’ll definitely be in there after today. I guar- “It’s Krinkler putting on a funny little fairy voice. by the way.” bodies. “They’re bound to wake up eventually.” And antee you that.” You’re not fooling anyone, fella.” “I kind of like it. Oh, Francis here...” then he walked back to his cubicle. “That all depends on us getting out of here,” Pe- “Sir, it’s definitely not me,” Wallace said, concern “I don’t care what you all think. I want to know who “If you think it’s so special, why don’t you touch nelope said. running through his voice. No one else spoke up, un- else is in here with us.” them?” said Jordan from I.T. “Oh, we’ll get out of here. I’m sure we’ve already sure who was telling the truth now. They thought about it for a second. “I could touch got the best people working on it.” Pawalsky assured, Leon Anthony’s body was starting to relax and he them, couldn’t I?” Then they reached their fingers out, mostly himself. Someone pulled their hand back. “I can’t do it,” was folding down on himself onto Wallace’s shoulder hesitantly. “It might not be that simple.” Said the voice again. they said, defeated. “But I’m so curious what’s going while falling asleep. Francis and Penelope’s bodies were “Who—? Is that you again, whoever you are?” Paw- on.” As Francis and Penelope’s eyes were shutting and Mister Pawalsky’s body was laying over Leon Antho- everyone frozen has died, that a person has come along even Ignatius. I don’t know who I am, but I know who “Shit man, it was me. Leon Anthony.” ny’s, Someone noticed a little speck on Wallace’s desk. and figured it out. This was all more complicated be- I am not,” said the voice. “Oh, right. Sorry, Leon. Anyway, I think that is a They got closer and saw a tiny bug by Wallace’s hand. cause once the people, and the bug, have died, they’re not “Well, isn’t this a bunch of fancy-schmancy touchy- very interesting concept. What other things can we do They knew what it was instantly. The incredibly rare, frozen any longer and won’t continue to freeze people.” feely mumbo-jumbo horse-pucky.” or not do here, I wonder.” and not native to this part of the world at all: Midas — “World’s Most Obscure Insects.” Entomology “That’s pretty rude, Mister Pawalsky,” came a voice Bug. Now Magazine, 21 December 1984. that then clarified. “This is Penelope.” Someone was carefully leaning over Wallace with “I don’t really give a crap who it is anymore. I just a ruler in their hand. They were trying to easily guide “The Midas Bug got this name, not because it turns Somehow, Someone knew about this article, and want to get out of here. What the hell is taking them so it down and separate the Midas Bug from Wallace’s anything to gold, but because anyone that touches it goes while getting as close as they could to look the whole long anyway? I have a meeting at noon. And I have to hand. They guided the ruler down to the desktop. into instant paralysis leading to sleep and possibly, death. situation over, they were very careful to not touch the meet my mistress after that...” Mister Pawalsky paused. Lined up the little copper edge with the insect and gave The condition can be passed on directly to anyone else bug or the people that were frozen. “I can’t believe “Why did I say that? I’ve never acknowledged that I it a swipe. The bug came away from Wallace’s hand 28 29 that touches a person who is touching the bug. There are I’m seeing this.” They looked around to see if anyone have a mistress. I mean... I have a mistress..” His voice and quickly scurried away—on its multitude of furry stories of entire villages found lying in bundles in the land might be interested, but everyone was back at work got more and more flustered. “I mean. I. Do. Not. legs—never to be seen again. where this bug is from. Paralyzed until they all died. The again. Tapping on their computers, or making phone Have. A...” he slowed to make sure the words would Wallace and the others who had been frozen imme- tricky thing is that the bug is also frozen when it freezes calls, or playing a game on their phone. come out, clear and correct. “...a mmm—” diately woke up and started moving. Mister Pawalsky others, so it can’t just naturally move on. It took people a Even though no one else spoke, the void was dense quickly shoved Penelope and Francis off him. Leon long time to figure out that it was actually an insect that “Just admit it Krinkler, you’re the voice. We all with tension. Anthony unfolded himself and stood back up. Francis was causing this phenomenon. But when they did, it was know it’s you,” Pawalsky’s voice was sarcastically sent “Mmmm—Monogamous relationship with my helped Penelope to an upright position. And Wallace a pretty simple solution on how to stop it. Use a stick and out through the void. wife. Oh, fer criminy’s sake.” frantically looked around. push the bug away from whoever is directly touching it, “I actually don’t think it’s Krinkler, er, I mean Wal- “Maybe we can’t lie in here. We’re in our minds, “Was it you?” he asked, looking at Someone. They without touching the bug yourself. Unfortunately, no one lace. This is Leon Anthony again.” or something, right. People can’t lie to themselves, can looked back at him. has ever actually gotten to try this because, well, people “I’m telling you it isn’t me,” Wallace stated. they?” “Yes. I saved you,” Someone said, looking quite just wind up continuing to touch whoever is afflicted, not “I can also tell you that I am definitely not Wallace, “That’s interesting. Who said that by the way?” pleased with themself. understanding what is happening. And it’s only later, after and I’m not Penelope or Francis or Leon Anthony or asked Wallace. “No, I mean were you the other voice?” The others, sunday who had been frozen, looked up and saw Someone Pawalsky umm-ed and uhh-ed, until he finally just Lance Corporal Ambrose Copeland believed it was standing there, ruler in hand and a shocked look on turned without another word and zipped down the Sunday. Whether or not it was actually the sabbath their face. aisle-way, disappearing through the door, tightening his was irrelevant, but it felt like a Sunday morning. He “I— I don’t know what you mean?” they said. tie as he went. was lying on his back, his peat encrusted service boots Mister Pawalsky quickly stood. “I don’t care who The group who had recently been frozen together and puttees pointed towards a vaporous and misting it was. None of you had better ever say a word about stood there looking at each other. There was a sense of pea soup sky. Droplets of dew had accumulated on what happened in there...” He looked around, waving relief, of freedom, about them. his filthy, dirt-smeared face, causing streaks of trailing his fingers at his newly-awakened compatriots. Nervous “How did you save us?” Wallace asked, looking at water to run down his jawline and plaster his leather and angry, he tightened his tie once again. “Or you’ll Someone. They smiled and told their story. chin strap to his neck. He sat up, his stiff spine cracking all be fired.” and his Tommy helmet falling forward as he did so. “You can’t fire us for talking about an experience Every inch of his weather-worn frame was wracked 30 31 like that,” Francis said. with aching pains and nearly constant tinnitus assault- sam naftzger “You’ve all signed non-disclosure agreements! Every ed his ruptured eardrums. No pain was greater, how- employee does when they’re brought on.” Pawalsky ever, than the one he now felt in the blown away digits beamed, thinking he had them. “So if you talk, I’ll on his right hand. Four fingers gone, his thumb being sue you, and you’ll be fired. And besides, no one will the only one remaining. How many days ago had he believe you anyway.” lost them? He assumed four. That would make sense if “I quit,” Wallace said, standing up and towering today was Sunday since it had been Wednesday when over Pawalsky. “Now what do you have to say?” the order to go over the trench had been given. “The rest of you—” he started. Copeland attempted to bring himself to his feet, “Oh shit. I quit, too, motha-fucka.” Leon Anthony though this proved to be a mistake, as his knees buck- said. Francis and Penelope quit too, and so did Some- led and he found himself sitting on his ass once more. one. Pawalsky looked around dumbfounded. Other Pain surged through his trembling torso. He felt his people in the office were paying attention again, as legs go limp as they lay splayed out in the mud. No man’s land—they called it that for a reason. Some fence posts that ensnared and entombed men. Nearly The injury had been the result of Wednesday’s as- decaying, and sinking into the mud like so many before thirty-odd yards ahead and to the east lay the Ger- seven yards from him existed such a soul. The man sault; he assumed it had been caused by shrapnel from him. Maybe it was for this reason he felt a connection man trench. It had been this foxhole his battalion had had, of course, been German, the enemy, the spiked a shell detonated nearby, though the true answer he to Ernst, someone who too had endured such a hard- attempted to take during the events of Wednesday’s pickelhaube adorning his rotting scalp and excessively couldn’t be certain of. It had happened all too quickly. ship. After two days away from his company and amid assault. The result had, of course, been yet another torn grey uniform had made this obvious. What flesh Tending to the wound was far from an elementary the continuous shelling by allied and central belliger- slaughter to add to the mounting toll across Belgium. remained, for there was very little, had turned a revolt- task, particularly without the aid of gauze in a field ents, Lance Corporal Copeland began talking to Ernst. Yes, it had been for four days now that Ambrose had ing amber color as adipose and tissue dribbled from full of stinking mud. It didn’t take long for infection Ambrose’s inability to hear his own voice as he lain in the cratered cesspool between allied and enemy the maggot-infested corpse. A singular drooping eye followed by gangrene to set in. The limb would need to spoke, let alone much sound at all for that matter, lines, the shelled remnants of a Belgian mission being in the skull’s right socket remained as well as a waxed be amputated, this he was certain of. Perhaps his feet took some getting used to. Whether he was entirely his only sanctuary. Hardly any of it remained, merely a mustache that hung over the man’s agape mandible. as well, for they had endured multiple agonizing days deaf or not, he did not know, for, amid his disorienta- crumbling limestone edge and a vacant window frame Copeland often found himself staring at the putrid of trench foot. When he had awakened on the third tion, the thought never crossed his mind. It was only 32 33 which clung tightly to vestigial shards of a once-vibrant corpse tangled amongst the mesh of thorns. Who day, a fever had set in which only compounded upon the baffling nature of endless ringing in his head that stained glass pane. The nearly constant shelling of was he? Who had he been? Had he a family? A wife? his existing delirium due to blood loss and shell shock. seemed to draw any attention from him. Despite this, this region by both British and German artillery had Children of his own? If so, was it possible they even Too many a night he had been roused from sleep to he spoke earnestly, attempting perhaps in good con- made retreat back to the safety of allied trenches all knew he was dead? Such thoughts often made a shiver discover a corpulent rat gnawing at the decaying, ooz- science to converse with the slouched-over man man- but impossible and practically suicide for anyone who’d run down Ambrose’s spine. To humanize the enemy ing flesh of his right hand. Its little claws and vampiric gled amongst the tangled mess of pronged wire. What dare attempt. made everything seem meaningless. Perhaps it was. fangs tore at his purpled, pustule nubs until blood the words actually came from the Lance Corporal’s mouth A one hundred and eighty degree view of the By the end of his first day stranded in no man’s land, color of tar would gush from the festering wound. were surely unintelligible, particularly amid the endless hellish landscape facing the Eastern German trench the Lance Corporal decided to nickname the rotting How he hated that rat. At night he would lay awake, barrage of bullets and shells, but to him, one would had been the sole perspective provided to Ambrose in corpse Ernst. his detached bayonet in his left hand, waiting to skewer imagine they sounded something like this: his nightmarish days and accursed nights spent ma- While grand portions of Copeland’s days in the the engorged fucker like the flea-covered parasite he “Food any better on your side, Ernst?” rooned in the mud. Across the destitute plane came mud would be spent regarding Ernst, much of his was. Ambrose wanted to eat him, crushing his tiny Whether this action undertaken by Lance Corpo- apparitions of scored and bare tree trunks and endless time during the preliminary hours of his stranding was rat skull with his chipped teeth and eating away at his ral Copeland was done as a form of playful, yet mor- spools of rusted barbed wire twisted around rugged spent tending to the issue of his blown-away fingers. flesh as the vermin had done to him. He was starving, bid, jest or as a pining plea for a sincere response is up for anyone’s interpretation. Perhaps a response, in the lurked along the horizon line as if waiting to strike. mustache held more brilliance in the drab morning surely be his basic training, just like boot camp back end, was what he had hoped for, but never had actually For once, the battlefield seemed lifeless, truly dead, the light than Ambrose could have ever imagined. Ernst’s home. He would make Ernst proud. He had to and he suspected. The mental state of the man known as Am- endless shelling finally satiated as the all too palpable singular glazed-over eye seemed to regard his. The knew with all sincerity that he would. brose Copeland is surely a matter of dissenting specu- aura of death and decay encroached along the arti- corpse bent down to touch the weathered face of the Ambrose dropped down into the mud, crawling lation. What is undeniably known, however, is that this ficial marshland. The Lance Corporal chewed at the Lance Corporal before whispering with the intonation on his belly as shit-colored sludge and stagnant cof- was far from the last time the marooned Lance Corpo- dirt from under his remaining fingernails, for though of a dead man these words into his now useless ears: fee-tinted water coated his trembling body. Strands ral would attempt to speak with the corpse. In a sense, he could not hear the all-too-abundant pocks of gun- “Eviscerate the rat, kill the enemy, join me.” of his oily brown hair spilled over onto his pallid and Ernst had taken on the persona of a friend, a comrade, fire from service rifles and machine guns, the unset- These words had been the only coherent sound feverish sweat-streaked face. With his left hand, he another one of those Tommy chums, or bunkmates in tling ambiance of the day dredged up feelings from Ambrose heard since his stranding. The timbre of white-knuckled the bayonet. At long last, he would the trenches. He was a presence, someone who ear- deep within him that one could experience only in a Ernst’s dry and gravelly voice lingered in his ear canal put it to use! He could smell him, the rat, the scent of nestly seemed to listen to the battle fatigued rambling nightmare. The world around him wheeled and spun long after he had opened his eyes to discover that Ernst death, and burned hairs hung in the air whenever he 34 35 of Lance Corporal Ambrose Copeland. He became like the carousels he had ridden in his youth as nausea had returned to his barbwire perch. Surely he had was around. How succulent and gamey the slain beast an ally in a moment where it truly seemed he had assaulted his body and the ringing in his ears reached come to speak with him, right? Right? Yes, he thought would taste! It had been greedy, eaten away from him. none. To refer to his British Brethren as allies anymore a fever pitch. Across the destitute plain, an apparition so. Ernst was his ally. He had advised and counseled Now he would be the one to eat it! It was only fair. Yet seemed foolhardy. The same could be said for his Ger- appeared before him, trudging slowly through the him, instructed him on what he must do. Scrambling somehow, the rat was nowhere to be seen. He lingered man enemies. Neither party was going to exhaust the mud as his arms swung low at his sides. The head was to find his bayonet, Copeland caught sight of what around somewhere, Ambrose knew this, but where? all too necessary manpower to retrieve or dispose of crooked, as if the neck had been shattered, and the remained of his right hand. Bone was now visible as Where? Copeland thrashed around, his arms and him. No, in no man’s land you have but three enemies: sound of bones clacking against one another somehow gelatinous chunks of blackened flesh fell away from legs flailing in a fit of despondency and grave distress. the mud, the shells, and the rat. Having an ally in resonated in his deaf ears. It was Ernst, walking over him with runny ease. He was far from appalled, rather Then, the most agonizing thought occurred to him, Ernst was an all too necessary means of survival. to greet him. How grateful he became at that moment. delighted and intrigued by his metamorphic state. He and tears came to his pale blue eyes. Ernst. The revolt- Day four broke overcast in a thick and damp fog A genuine beaming smile crossed Copeland’s face as felt relieved that at long last he had begun his journey ing engorged and pestilent fucker was feasting on him! that rolled across the moors and blanketed no man’s he watched his decaying comrade shamble towards in joining the ranks of his one and only ally. That was Ambrose grit his teeth, his respiration increasing to the land in an indefinite haze. Visibility became obscured him. The former German’s lower jaw was agape as it it! That was definitely fucking it! The rat! The damned point of hyperventilation as frosty breath escaped from while looming eldritch silhouettes from dead trees had been on the fence and the oily sheen of his black and accursed rat! He would have to slay it! That would his clenched jaw. He took to his feet, nearly falling yet again as he did the rat pounced, its needle-like incisors burrowed their It had been relegated to a rather simple task thanks to “You don’t actually think…” so, for what remained of his toes and heels was grave- way into Ambrose’s neck. In the mud, the two of them the endless barrage of shelling that had preceded it. “I’d rather not. Between the lines is a scary place. ly reminiscent of his skeletal gangrene hand. Even thrashed about as Copeland swung wildly with his On the eve of that following Sunday morning, Privates Lord knows I’d never want to be the fool stuck out so, Copeland was determined to deliver his ravaged detached bayonet, striking the rat’s flesh and tearing William Tremblay and Edwin Friesen had awoken there.” comrade from the rodent which tore at his stringy away at its patchy hair. The beast yelped and squealed early for a smoke break. They had chosen an isolated “Me neither.” flesh. Around him erupted geysers of soil which splat- as jets of blood spurted from its wounds. Wrenching region of the trench to smoke for the insistence that “Truth of the matter is, you get stuck out there, they tered and coated his already tattered and sullied wool the vile, squirming creature from his neck, the Lance they lend a smoke to their fellow Tommies. After both ain’t comin’ to get you.” uniform with muck. Entanglements of barbed wire Corporal placed its head between his jaw before men lit their cigarettes, they paused to regard the rath- “I’m done with my smoke, let’s get out here.” snagged his trousers and ensnared his legs, burrowing crushing it with his molars. The taste of iron erupted er drab morning. Across the way and over the top lay “You said it.” and scoring his flesh as he ambled desperately towards in his mouth as the pop of its skull coated his tongue the remnants of a church, Catholic most likely. The two men wound their way back up the trench, his compatriot’s carcass. Often times he fell, rolling his with blood. Dear lord, he had done it! With his teeth, “Damn shame.” not taking a second to look back at the two dead men 36 37 decaying ankles or tripping over mass groupings of he frantically tore away at what remained of the rat, “What is?” ensnared in the wire. There were more important barbed wire, yet each time he picked himself back up clumps of fur, organs, and bones filling his mouth as he “All of it. Imagine that church was quite pretty things to attend to and by midday, both men had for- despite the immeasurable pain. At last, he got close did so. From his mouth hung the legs, tail, and ass of before all this.” gotten what they had seen. enough to behold the beast with tear-filled eyes. It was the deceased rodent. He paused to regard the putre- “Sure it was.” perched on Ernst’s shoulder, its fur-crusted black by fying face of his ally, his agape maw seemingly com- They each took another drag of their cig before dried blood and its pronged teeth yellowed. Its revolt- mending him on a job well done. The Lance Corporal speaking again. A thin ray of sunlight had begun to ing, fleshy tail flicked back and forth like the forked smiled, the remains of the rat still hanging from his creep over the horizon. tongue of a serpent. The Lance Corporal ground his mouth as he laid himself amongst the barbed wire and “Get a load of that.” teeth and spoke: alongside his ally. At long last, he could join him, for “Get a load of what?” “Get off him, fucker!” the evil had been defeated. “The dead Tommy laying next to that Hun up Spittle ejected from his mouth as the rat turned there. Looks like he’s got a rat in his mouth.” its sadistic and sneering visage to face him with eyes Two weeks later, the German trench was taken by “Suppose it died there?” crimson and wicked. With a malicious cock of its head, an advancing charge enacted by a Canadian division. “Almost looks like the damn fool tried to eat it.” the sea from the other side The boy came from the sea. much thought to the stories. They were the kind of say the boy was about his age. Not young enough to be It was one of those moonless nights when the island tales best told in the firelight, with rain pattering on the a child, but not old enough to be a man. felt like it was holding its breath, and the only sound roof and distant thunder making you jump now and Aidan wondered if they would sit there in silence for was the waves lapping against the shore. In the middle then. The stories were a laugh at times, or a slight chill the rest of the night as the boy looked at the sea and of summer, the waves didn’t pound at the beach like down your spine as you walked home at night. But Aidan looked at the boy. And then maybe he would they did when winter turned them dangerous. They they weren’t real, of course. Even now, Aidan couldn’t wake up the next morning to find that he had spent were gentle, calm, though never warm. Aidan was quite reconcile those stories with the boy in front of the night in his bed, that he would not be in trouble sitting on the beach with his feet burrowed in the sand. him, seawater cascading down his pale skin as he for sneaking out, that the ache in his chest was just the He was thinking about a lot of things, but mostly he walked up the beach toward Aidan. lingering remnant of a strange and fantastical dream. was thinking about how when the summer was over he The boy wore nothing besides the blanket over his But then the boy spoke. would have to start school on the mainland. arm. Aidan knew he should avert his eyes. He could “Usually the beach is empty when I come.” His 38 39 amber lane-bortell His thoughts were interrupted when he saw a shape bobbing in the waves just off the shore. It was almost only imagine what his parents would say if they could see him then, their worst fears about him coming true. words pulled Aidan from his reverie. All at once the bite of the sea air, the roughness of the sand, and the too dark to see. Aidan thought it was a seal at first. But curiosity burned in Aidan’s chest and he found stillness of the night felt far too real for this to be a You could often spot them in the water just beyond the that he could not look away. dream. beach. But as it got closer it grew bigger, its limbs elon- The boy sat beside Aidan, gently laying the blanket “Do you come here often?” Aidan asked, half sur- gated, its snout receded, until it was just a boy walking between them. It was still wet, tiny droplets of water prised to hear his own voice. calmly out of the waves, a dark object, like a blanket, glistening in the light from the stars. Aidan wanted to The boy shrugged. “Once in a while, I like to look draped over his arm. touch it, to see if it was as soft as it looked. But instead, at the sea from the other side.” The old farmers on the island often gathered in the he stared at the strange boy who had emerged from the “I’ve only seen the sea from this side.” It seemed like pub late into the night telling stories of kelpies and sea. Aidan thought that maybe he should have been quite a stupid thing to say, as were most of the things faeries, of blue-skinned men who lurked off the coast afraid, but the boy just calmly stared out at the water, that came from Aidan’s mouth, but the boy smiled. and sank passing ships, of beautiful women who lured and he didn’t look dangerous at all. His face had a sort “That’s a shame.” sailors to their watery deaths. Aidan had never given of timeless look, but if Aidan had to guess, he would They didn’t talk much, that first night. They mostly just sat. It wasn’t until dawn began to creep its way a piece of toast in his hand, trudging down the road to in the hills with the sheep and coming home covered in fall, the rocks jutting from the earth, rough sand under over the horizon that Aidan knew he had to get home the village. mud. his bare feet, faint whispers on the wind that nothing before someone realized he was gone. As he turned to But as he came around a bend in the road, he Today Aidan was distracted, constantly checking was as it seemed, a boy who appeared out of the water. leave, the boy put a hand on his shoulder. His touch caught sight of the sea and stopped short for a mo- the water just beyond the jetty as he piled suitcases into It was all the parts of the island that belonged to him was so light, it might not have been there at all, but it ment, the memory of the previous night catching up the van. Every few hours a ferry would arrive and a and no one else. froze Aidan in place, a jolt passing through his body. with him all at once. He half-expected to see a dark boatload of tourists would stumble onto the dock, lad- He couldn’t imagine leaving it behind five days of “Maybe I will see you again.” head bobbing out there, beckoning him to follow, but en with backpacks and camera cases, dragging along the week to take the ferry to the mainland, loaded Aidan nodded. The boy walked back to the waves. the water was clear. He felt an odd mixture of relief suitcases and small children. The allure of the island down with books and papers. In the little school- When the water reached his calves, he wrapped the and disappointment. was not hard to understand. It was full of green hills, house on the island, there had been five other kids, blanket around himself, and it was only then that He was only five minutes late to the hotel, but the rolling and rising, dotted with herds of sheep and shag- and Aidan had gotten along with them well enough. Aidan realized it was not a blanket. It was skin. The manager gave him a familiar, frustrated look as Aidan gy highland cows. There were craggy rock outcrop- They’d grown up together and Aidan felt comfortable 40 41 boy slipped into it and then slipped into the waves, his dashed inside to punch his time card. His parents got pings jutting out in odd places, and the wizened old around them. But at school on the mainland, there body now sleek and round, there for a moment, and him the job because they thought it would be good farmers looked like they’d been carved from the rocks would be hundreds of students. The rest of the island then gone. Vanished beneath the water. Almost as if he for him to get away from the farm and interact with themselves. The tourists came mostly to see the old kids were excited, ready to get out into the world, but had never been there at all. people in the village. He’s such a quiet boy, he overheard abbey ruins, to hear the history of priests and Vikings, the thought terrified Aidan. All he could picture were Aidan tried to convince himself of just that. That his mum telling his dad one time. I worry about him to collect rocks on the beaches, or to climb the hills and movies where kids got thrown against lockers, called the boy was a figment of his imagination, the fantasy sometimes. But his dad’s response was always: He’ll man take pictures of their windswept hair at the top. names and humiliated for being different. What did of a lonely teenager tired of trying to be normal. He up eventually. Sometimes Aidan tried to see it from their eyes, but that mean for him? put the boy from his mind as he stumbled home, snuck They’d stuck him at the desk of the hotel at first, the island was too familiar to him to hold that kind Aidan pushed the thoughts from his mind as his through the backdoor of his family’s farmhouse, and answering phone calls and greeting visitors, but the of mystery. He knew every path, every pasture, every heart began to race with anxiety. He turned his atten- collapsed into bed, only to be woken abruptly by his manager had quickly decided a less public job suit- rocky beach, every cliff rising from the shoreline. He tion back to his work, but he was distracted by a group mum a couple of hours later, chastising him that he ed him better, so now he dealt with luggage and not knew the island better than he knew himself. It called of teenage girls–just arrived off the ferry–who were would be late to work. He almost forgot about the boy people. Aidan didn’t mind the job, though sometimes to him in a way he couldn’t explain. It wasn’t the eyeing him as he worked, whispering with their hands as he dressed hurriedly and dashed out the door with he missed working on the farm, spending the day out village or the tourists: it was the crisp sea breeze in the over their mouths as they glanced at him. He was unused to this kind of attention. For most of his life words that would make someone respond easily. He and quietly slipped out the window and crept back church in the village, or school on the mainland. He girls had paid him no notice, except maybe to laugh at knew Owen was just trying to connect with him, but over the darkening island to the beach. didn’t want to feel the familiar tension in his shoul- his awkward, gangly limbs that he didn’t know what to already Aidan was drawing inward on himself. All he This time the boy was waiting for him. ders, or the knot wringing itself in his stomach, or do with. But now he had grown into his body. It had a wanted to do was go back to the beach and see if the And this time he was dressed in simple trousers and the weight on his chest. He wanted to enjoy walking newness about it that he wasn’t quite comfortable with boy was there again. a shirt. It looked like something any of the farmers along the beach at sunset with a boy who listened like yet, but something about him had become alluring to “Well, I know it might seem a bit scary at first,” would wear, and Aidan wondered if the boy had taken he cared what Aidan had to say, who laughed and these girls. He was a mystery to them, the silent boy Owen said. “But you get used to it. There’s a lot more it off a clothesline somewhere. Wearing the clothes, he brushed Aidan’s hair back when the wind blew it into who looked as much a part of the island as the rocks to the world out there than just this island.” Aidan almost looked normal, except the skin was draped over his eyes, who didn’t know that boys weren’t supposed and the sand on the beach. Aidan avoided their eyes, nodded, eager to move on to a different subject, silence his shoulders like a cape. He was staring at the sea, but to hold hands with other boys. He didn’t say anything wishing he could tell them that he could not give them filling the van again. when Aidan trudged down the path to the sand, he about where he went when he disappeared under the what they wanted. He stared out the window as they passed the looked up and smiled. waves, and Aidan didn’t ask. He had a feeling that if 42 43 After he was done loading the van, he spared anoth- church, a knot of tension forming in the pit of his “I was hoping you would come back.” he did it might ruin things, that it might make the boy er glance out at the water, which was as clear as it had stomach at the sight of it. His parents were close with Aidan had secretly been hoping the same thing, realize he had to go back, and Aidan wasn’t ready for been all day. the priest and dragged Aidan along to church every but he didn’t say this. He glanced around the beach him to leave yet. “All loaded up?” asked Owen, the guy who drove Sunday. He thought about what would happen if he to check for other people, but they were alone. This Every so often, the boy’s head would turn toward the van. He was another island kid, though a few years told them he had spent the night with a naked boy on beach was far enough away from the village and the the sea, as if he had heard it call his name. The look of older. Aidan nodded and climbed into the passenger the beach. It might have been laughable if he couldn’t ferry dock that not many tourists ventured this far. longing on the boy’s face was so strong that Aidan was seat, sighing quietly as Own started up the engine. imagine how they would frown and shake their heads, The boy stood. “Fancy a walk?” he asked. “My legs sure in those moments that he would dive back into the “So, you ready to start school on the mainland?” their disappointment palpable, how they might send could use a good stretch.” sea forever. But then he would turn back to Aidan and Owen asked as they drove down the narrow cobble- him away from the island forever. So they walked down the beach and Aidan told him smile, take his hand, and pull him farther down the stone road back to the hotel. Aidan wiled away the rest of the hours at work, lost about life on the island: about the tourists, about the beach. “I guess so,” said Aidan. in his own thoughts and avoiding conversation with birds that nested in the cliffs, about the winter storms, When Aidan got home late that night, he collapsed Silence stretched between them. Aidan lacked the Owen until finally, his shift was over. He ate a hurried about the grass that turned bright green in the spring. into bed, and instead of tossing and turning, as usual, talent of carrying on a conversation, of finding the dinner at home, retreated to his room, then carefully He carefully avoided mention of his parents or the he was asleep instantly and soundly. The next day his parents did not notice the extra spring in his step, the beach with the boy made Aidan pause for a moment. his mouth quirked into a half-smile. and it was never enough to keep him from going back way his normally guarded expression turned into a He didn’t want to think about what would happen if They stayed there for a while without speaking, sit- to the beach. smile. someone saw them. Someone who might report back ting in the grass and looking out at the island. Usually, Sometimes Aidan would tell the boy about his work That night, Aidan went back, but the beach was to his parents. He could sense that they were already silence made Aidan feel like he needed to fill it some- at the hotel and the tourists he had seen that day, or empty when he got there. He looked around, wan- close to suspecting. They kept inviting the priest over how, to find the words that people wanted to hear. But sometimes they would walk in companionable silence, dering back and forth. The boy was nowhere to be for dinner and making pointed comments about how the boy didn’t seem to need words the way that other talking unnecessarily when the presence of another seen. Aidan had never expected it to last, but he wasn’t different from the other boys he was. He didn’t need to people did. The quietness between them was its own person enough to not feel alone. The boy loved climb- ready for it to be over so soon. His eyes stung as the give them a concrete reason to realize their worst fears kind of language. It connected them rather than dis- ing and he would scramble up the rocks, looking more loneliness rushed in all at once, the crushing weight were true. But the boy just looked at him questioningly, tancing them. When Aidan had to break the silence to and more human the farther from the beach they back on his chest. his smile playful and beckoning. There was something tell the boy it was time for him to go home, he felt like went. But the skin was always draped over his shoul- “Hey.” The boy spoke from directly behind Aidan. in that smile that made Aidan want to tempt fate, he was breaking the only tether that was holding him ders, a reminder that at the end of the night he would 44 45 He had snuck up so quietly that Aidan jumped a few made him want to stop hiding. So he pushed his fear afloat. But the boy put a hand to Aidan’s face, his lips always have to go back, always have to transform into feet into the air, his heart leaping into his throat. He aside and followed the boy up the trail. brushing against Aidan’s cheek. something that was not human at all. At the end of turned around to find the boy doubled over in laugh- They followed the path up the highest hill on the “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, and Aidan felt the each night, after the boy dove back beneath the waves ter. island, panting in the cool night air as they made their tether connect again, an invisible line that stretched and Aidan had finally collapsed into bed, he lay awake “How dare you?” said Aidan, but he was laughing way up the steep slope. At the top, they looked out at between them even when they were apart. for a few moments trying to convince himself that he too, laughing harder than he had laughed in a long the view spread out below them, the moon a small And so that night become one of many nights they had not just imagined it all. time. Warmth spread through Aidan’s chest. He lightly sliver in the sky. spent together wandering on the island over the next As the days wore on, the looming threat of school slapped the boy’s arm, and the boy slapped him back, “The island looks so small from up here,” said few weeks. Gradually, they ventured farther and farther on the mainland drew closer and closer. His fears but then quickly grabbed Aidan’s hand and held onto Aidan. from the beach. At first, Aidan was paranoid about about the mainland were compounded by the fact it. “It doesn’t look small at all,” the boy said. “It’s as being seen, even though he couldn’t quite picture other that his parents had been talking with the priest about “Come on,” said the boy, still laughing. He pulled wide as the world.” people being able to see the boy. But the night was qui- sending him to a church school instead of the second- Aidan toward the trail that led away from the beach “You can’t have seen much of the world, then.” et on the island, the tourists retreating to the pub or to ary school the other kids always went to. His attempts to the rest of the island, but the thought of leaving the “I’ve seen enough.” The boy was looking at Aidan, the hotel for drinks. Aidan’s fear ebbed with each day, to argue with them were futile. It will be good for you to be around like-minded people, his dad kept telling him. work. The fact that the priest had been able to see ago. You know that we won’t tolerate that kind of drag him back to the house to be punished. His par- One night he came home from the beach, creeping the boy surprised Aidan almost as much as the fact lifestyle in this house. On the mainland, they can have ents’ absence only confirmed his worst fear: that they in the back door, as usual, expecting the house to be that he’d allowed himself to be seen. He had never their parades and protests, but on this island, we stick didn’t care about him leaving, that they would rather dark and quiet. But the lights in the living room were quite believed that the boy was anything more than a to our values.” he be gone than live in the house as he was. on, and at the sound of the door creaking open his dad figment of his imagination. And he had tried to be so There were many things Aidan wanted to say, but He went back to the beach, knowing it would be called, “Aidan, come in here please.” His dad’s voice careful about where they went. But he’d gotten bolder he just stood there, letting the world come crashing empty, that the boy had gone back to the sea. When sounded polite, friendly, as if he were inviting Aidan as the nights went on, sure that the island went to sleep down around him. he got there, he collapsed into the sand, his face in in for a cup of tea. But Aidan could tell it was a forced long before he and the boy roamed at night. Obviously “We’d like you to speak with the priest,” his mum his arms. He looked up quickly though at a hand on calm, and that when he walked into the living room his he’d been wrong. They had wandered too close to the said quietly. “You can have weekly meetings for a his shoulder. The boy was there, staring at him with parents’ faces would be livid with anger. He thought village. while. He can help you figure things out, and he can concern. about turning around and going back to the beach and “Have you been sneaking out to see this boy? Who tell you about this new school we’d like you to go to.” Aidan didn’t want to let the tears fall, but they fell 46 47 putting this conversation off for his long as he could, is he?” The priest gave Aidan what was probably supposed to anyway, tiny rivulets trickling down his face. Silently, but he kept walking. “His family are tourists,” Aidan lied. “They’re be a kind look. the boy reached out a hand and brushed them away. When he entered the living room, he realized his staying here for a few days. I was just showing him the “If you want to stay in this house,” said his dad, “Tell me,” said the boy. “Tell me everything.” parents were not alone. The priest from the church in island.” “you will do as we say.” And so Aidan did. He told him about all the things the village was there, and Aidan realized with a sinking “In the middle of the night? Without telling us?” Aidan felt like he might be sick. He couldn’t take he had kept from him for the past few weeks, about feeling that this conversation was not just about sneak- His dad’s voice got louder as he spoke. His mum had it anymore, so he turned and ran to the door, flinging the feelings he was not supposed to have, about the ing out. He stood in the doorway, looking at them all yet to say anything; she just kept staring at him with it open. There were shouts behind him, the sound of suffocating weight on his chest that would not go away, as they stared back like they didn’t know him. His dad the same blank expression. heavy footsteps in the hallway, but Aidan was fast. He about the possibility that his parents would kick him spoke first. “Did you think we wouldn’t find those magazines sprinted through the night, going back the way he had out of the house. The boy did not say much, but Aidan “The father here says that he saw you walking in the you kept under your bed? Your mum told me to let just come, running as if his life depended on it. did not need him to. He just needed someone to hold hills behind the village late last night with some boy. it go, that it was just a phase, that if we sent you to a He did not hear the engine of his dad’s truck him as he cried, hold him hard enough to know that he Can you explain this?” church school on the mainland it would toughen you starting up, so he knew he was not being followed. He was not alone. For a moment, Aidan didn’t think his voice would up. I see now we should have done something long almost wished his dad would come after him, would But as safe as Aidan felt on the beach with the boy, he knew he could not stay there forever. He would taking him as well. then he put a hand on the side of Aidan’s face and go to school with me. We could give you a name, a have to face them eventually. There was only so far you He woke to a silent house. His parents did not speak pulled Aidan’s mouth to his. The kiss caught Aidan off story, you could be…” Aidan thought the word but could run on an island this small. a word to him as they ate breakfast. Aidan ate quickly, guard. He had never been kissed before and the sensa- couldn’t say it, though the boy seemed to understand “Come with me,” Aidan pleaded with him, know- then went back to the beach one more time. He found tion was strange and new. The boy’s lips tasted like salt, his meaning well enough. His eyes glazed over, his ing that it was useless, that it was time for the boy to the skin where the boy had left it. When he picked it like the sea. It made Aidan draw the boy closer as if by expression torn. go back to the sea. But to Aidan’s surprise, the boy up it was soft to the touch, still slightly damp. He hid holding on to him tighter he could keep him there as “Human,” the boy said like it was a question. And nodded and he held Aidan’s hand as they walked back it in the rocks on the edge of the sand where the tide long as he needed him. then in a flash, he was out the door, running along the down the road to Aidan’s house. It was not until they would not take it but no one would find it. He ignored The days fell into an uneasy rhythm. His parents road with Aidan following behind, barely keeping up. could see the top of the farmhouse poking over a hill the pangs of guilt as he headed back home. If the barely speaking to him, their disappointment overpow- The boy didn’t go far, he stopped abruptly when the that Aidan realized the boy had left the skin behind. boy didn’t have to go back to the sea, he could live on ering, the priest telling him his desires were something road turned and they could see the sea out in the dis- The dark landscape was beginning to lighten, so the island. They could invent an identity for him, he he could control, the boy waiting for him in the barn. tance. Aidan stopped beside him, studying the way the 48 49 Aidan led the boy to an old barn behind the house could go to school with Aidan, and maybe, just maybe, They still explored the island together, though boy’s expression was scrunched up in pain, an expres- that they never used anymore. The boy’s eyes drooped Aidan would be able to bear his parents and school Aidan made sure to stay far away from the village and sion he knew all too well. with tiredness as if the effort of leaving the sea behind and meetings with the priest. far away from the sea. So they climbed the hills, sat And at that moment, Aidan realized it would always was exhausting him. Aidan helped him lie down in the In the abandoned barn, the boy was still there, still on rock outcroppings watching the sheep grazing in be like this: the boy looking at the sea and Aidan straw, the boy’s eyes closing and sleep taking him. asleep. Aidan shook him gently awake. the fields below. But on an island, there was no way to looking at the boy. And though every teenager is a bit “I’ll be back,” Aidan whispered, kissing the boy’s “You can stay here,” Aidan said. “As long as you avoid the sea completely. And Aidan tried not to notice selfish, Aidan knew he had crossed a line. The boy forehead lightly. want.” how every time they caught a glimpse of it, the boy was not his to take, to hold onto. It didn’t matter how Inside the house, his parents were still sitting where The boy stared at him, his forehead slightly creased. would stand, frozen, for a moment, staring out at the much the boy loved Aidan; he would always love the he’d left them in the living room. “I want to stay,” he said. But his eyes were looking water with an expression so vulnerable Aidan had to sea more. “I’ll meet with the priest,” he said without looking over Aidan’s shoulder, out the open door, and Aidan look away. So Aidan took the boy’s hand, led him back to their at them. “If that’s what you want.” If that’s what it takes knew he was feeling the distant sea breeze on his face One night in the barn, Aidan voiced the thought beach, retrieved the skin from where he had hidden it to stay. He didn’t wait to hear their reply, just stomped and thinking about home. Aidan felt another pang of that had been on his mind for a while. in the rocks, and wordlessly held it out to him. up the stairs to his room and collapsed into bed, sleep guilt, but the boy looked back at him and smiled, and “You could stay here forever,” he said. “You could The boy opened his mouth to speak, but Aidan cut him off. waves were cold against his skin, water seeping through and then another and another. With each step, the either. I’m going to the same secondary school as the “It’s okay,” he said. “Go home.” the legs of his trousers. He kept walking until the water weight on his chest lessened slightly, as if the shame other island kids.” These were statements, not ques- The boy looked like he wanted to say something was at his knees, and then his thighs, and then his and the fear were being washed away with the tide, tions. He looked them directly in the eyes, silently more. Perhaps he wanted to explain that when you waist. He wanted to keep going until he found the boy dragged out and then replaced with something new. daring them to object. He tried to remember what it ignored a longing you only made it grow. But Aidan and could hold onto him just one more time. The ache Something that was just learning to shake out its wob- felt like to be afraid in their presence, but all he could didn’t need anyone to explain that to him, and the in his chest was almost too much to bear; tears dripped bly sea legs and walk on land. think was that they looked so small, standing there and words died in the boy’s throat as the sea called his down his face and mingled with the frigid water. He Back on the beach, he looked out as the sun began staring at him like they could only see the child they name again. For a moment, Aidan could almost hear looked around, waiting for the boy to appear like he to set over the water. For a brief moment, he thought wanted him to be and not the man he was growing it in the gentle lapping of the waves against the sand, always did when Aidan needed him. But the water was he saw a dark head bobbing in the waves, but then it into. They may have had the power to decide whether in the cry of the gulls overhead, in the soft murmur clear and Aidan was alone. So reluctantly he stopped was gone and he wondered if he had only imagined he stayed in that house, but they only had the power to of the wind. Aidan tried to memorize it, to remember swimming and turned around to look at the island. it. He sighed once, and then he turned around and make him feel ashamed if he gave it them. 50 51 it, but it was not the kind of name that Aidan could From the other side it looked distant and small, walked toward the path that led away from the beach. Aidan went to his room to change into dry clothes, know. The boy ran down the beach, wrapping the skin partly concealed in fog. It was unremarkable, really. He wandered slowly across the darkening island, his and when he got back they were still standing there. around himself. His arms and legs turned into flippers, Just a tiny little island in the middle of nowhere. But it clothes still dripping with seawater. He didn’t have to He picked up a stack of plates and began to set the his face into a long, whiskered snout, and then he was was familiar, it was comfortable, it was the only place think about what he would say to his parents because table, the clatter of china against wood ringing through just a seal, swimming against the current out to sea. he knew. Aidan couldn’t imagine leaving or calling he already knew. He had formed the words a long time the silent kitchen. Aidan knew deep down as the seal disappeared be- any other place home. But he thought about how the ago, but had not had the courage to say them until Maybe they could learn to love him as he was. Or neath the waves that he would not be back in the form boy had tried and failed to choose Aidan over the sea. now. maybe he would have to leave this house behind and of a boy, not for a long time. Maybe he too was fighting a losing battle trying to When he got home he walked into the kitchen find love somewhere else. It hurt still, to think about Aidan stayed there, frozen, for a while, until all of a choose the island over himself. Maybe home was wher- where they were getting ready for supper. He could feel leaving. But wherever he was, the island would be with sudden it hurt too much to be alone. He knew the boy ever he felt loved in the way that he had loved the boy. the space in his chest where the fear used to be, but it him. Wherever he was, he could look at the sea and was long gone by now, that there was no point going And maybe that was not here. was not there anymore. There was only resolve. know that somewhere among the waves the boy that after him, but he couldn’t stop himself. His legs carried Aidan stood there for what seemed like an eternity. “I’m not going to meet with the priest anymore,” was not a boy was out there, looking back at him from him toward the water as if by their own accord. The Finally, he took one slow step back toward the beach, he announced. “And I’m not going to church school the other side. resonant Chapter 1: Face Masks and the Living Dead rampage around campus. Sometimes I smile at her couldn’t be more thankful to have the woman in front from the large common space window and pretend of me. Serena’s long dark hair was spilling out in all Southern Illinois used to be filled with Honda Civ- we’re neighbors in a world that isn’t taken hold by the directions of her frazzled ponytail, the small baby hairs ics, college kids, Bernie bumper stickers, and the smell walking dead. clung to the sweat around her forehead. It seemed of weed hanging lowly in the air. Everyone seemed to Serena and I had successfully cleared all of the like just a week ago we were arguing with one another know one another around the block and even across rotten out our suite floor weeks ago with wire hangers, about which face mask to do for our weekly girl’s night. county lines. Now the stench of dead flesh has invaded duck tape booby traps, and a lot of luck. Since there Serena reached into our shared food drawer of the nostrils and the sickening sight of walking corpses was no one else left alive within our suite, we had been the old oak dresser and began to rummage through litter the once bustling streets. living off of the combined snacks and toilet paper it before selecting a chocolate chip granola bar. She “You know, we might be the only people alive on found from each small dorm room, but the supplies instantly opened it to split it in half and offered me the the entire planet,” Serena mumbled, her eyes nearly were starting to wear thin. larger piece. 52 53 rolled to the back of her head as I gave her a fright- Serena hopped down from her bed, the velocity Grateful, I accepted and popped it into my mouth brooklyn plogger ened look. We both arranged ourselves on opposite from her jump causing the wooden bed frame to slam before leaning my head against the cold concrete wall. lofted beds within our shared dorm room staring out against the concrete wall with a jolt. We both ducked “Eventually we’re going to have to leave this room to the single metal lined window. The trees whistled with and stilled our breathing to listen for any movement find supplies.” I looked at her, our eyes finally meeting glee as if the entire world wasn’t falling at their feet. from the outside in a programmed response. Our eyes with the full force of the horrible reality ahead of us. Walking rotten flesh stumbled up and down the side- met as the familiar noise of heavy footsteps sounded We had been surviving off of chance and everyone’s walk. from a distance, hands banging against the wooden leftovers until now. We hadn’t seen any sign of life in weeks. The last suite door down the hall at a heavy slow pace. We had The drawer only contained three more protein bars, person we had any kind of contact with was running barricaded it with the common furniture and a few a half-eaten bag of tomato and basil sun chips, a Twix irrationally outside in the quads, which earned her a organic chemistry textbooks. Those could withhold an bar, and only one more roll of toilet paper. Facing the front-row seat at the dead’s dining table. They ate her army on their own. outside would have to be soon unless we wanted to for days, until eventually, she, too, rose with only one We eventually relaxed onto the floor and quietly wipe our asses with scarves for the rest of our lives. leg and half of a neck and began her own groaning laughed to one another. In all this chaos around us, I Chapter 2: Field Hockey and Porn ries we both had created with them. Late nights spent to be in ecstasy as their photos were being taken of began to fasten the equipment onto ourselves, tighten- in the common room playing Monopoly and making them half-naked and rubbed with oil. I wonder how ing the straps and duct taping the edges to ensure they “Serena, honestly, this is hopeless,” I sighed on the fun of how useless our majors were for real-world they’re doing now in a world where hungry men lit- would stay onto our skin. Serena looked frailer than I floor, every inch of dorm room 4E picked and prodded experiences. Who would have known how right we tered the streets ready to eat any flesh regardless of its remember her, her long legs skinny with malnourish- through. “We’ve been at this for hours, there’s literally would be. beauty. ment from living off of granola bars and peanut butter nothing here.” We had painfully searched almost every With the lack of options available from the previ- Jasper had a small photo of his family with large for the last couple of months. dorm within our hall to find lingering supplies or any ously picked rooms, the field hockey sticks seemed to cheesy smiles pinned to his bulletin board next to his She proceeded to push her hair into a ponytail, kind of toilet paper. Unfortunately for us, college kids be the most enticing choice. desk. His little brother was missing both of his front pinning all of her stray hairs back with bobby pins. I only seemed to have good luck charms and bongs hid- “We are so incredibly dysfunctional,” I laughed as teeth but smiled widely in spite of it between his par- followed suit and pulled my braids into a bun on the den in their drawers. we exited room 4E, “How are we going to survive out ents. His mom and dad were looking at one another top of my head. If we were going to be running, a Serena padded across the littered floor to sit next to there?” with large smiles on their perfect faces as Jasper’s curly ponytail would be a liability for me. 54 55 me in the hoard of chaos, her head leaned against my Serena grasped my hand as we walked toward the hair pointed in every direction. Serena spotted a black hat from her bed and placed shoulder. She took a box braid between her two fin- opposite end of the hall and gave it a small squeeze. I plucked the photo from its hanging position and it onto her head, tying the rest of her hair back into a gers and rolled it as I leaned into her. Ever since I first “We cleared this entire hall with clothes hangers and held it in my hands, rubbing the corners with my bun. started wearing my hair in long braids, Serena found duct tape, hopefully, field hockey sticks give a bit more thumbs as I inspected it more before folding it into “We need a game plan before we head out,” I it comforting to roll them between her fingers anytime reach and we can find some supplies nearby,” She fours and placing it in my pocket. I wanted to remem- stated, pulling a notebook from my desk and the first we were close to one another. Admittedly, at first, it was stated, her confidence didn’t reach her eyes but she ber him like that. Smiling, whole, loved. writing utensil I could find, which just so happened to annoying, but now I too find peace in the small action. gave a tight-lipped smile before slipping into Jasper and Serena snapped me from my own thoughts as she be a bright yellow highlighter. “We need to find weapons,” I stated simply. Serena Daniel’s dorm. placed an aqua blue field hockey stick in my hands. I began to draw the perimeter of campus and the dropped my hair from her fingers and stood before Everything on their walls would have made me “They have some breast and arm guards that we small Casey gas station a half-block away from our offering me a hand to help me from the floor. sick before the end of the world, but now they kind of should take too.” She said, before I could even agree or dorm. “I think there were field hockey sticks in Daniel and make me smile. Pornographic posters were pinned on mutter a response she was shoving gear into my unoc- “I honestly can’t see anything you’re writing with Jasper’s old dorm,” Serena commented, as she helped each of their respective sides as well as littered football cupied arm. that marker,” Serena complained, handing me a sharp- lift me from the floor. She smiled fondly at the memo- teams across the top of the trim. The women seemed As we returned back to our own dorm room we ie before letting me retrace my rough sketch. “You’re so picky,” I complained back, my face scrunching up in gripped the field hockey stick until my knuckles turned and onto the street, taking cover by a few trees littering on one side of the street for keys. I checked the hunks distaste.” white as I descended the stairwell. The electricity had the sidewalk. Seeing the emptiness of the road took the of metal on the other side. I ensured to keep her in my “Just draw the damn plan Ashley,” Serena whisper been off for weeks now and every turn only made my breath away from my lungs. Everything was still, quiet, sight, constantly looking up at her small frame while yelled, her giant brown eyes filled with annoyance. I stomach dig further into itself. Even when the lights not even a plastic bag rustled in the distance. Cars were simultaneously trying cars. couldn’t help but let a small smile escape as I contin- worked, Serena and I would hold hands up the stairs parked in awkward positions, their doors ajar, some It almost made me queasy to think that real people, ued drawing the map and our expected route. because it smelled like mold and the walls seemed to even had windows smashed with dried blood from the like Serena and I, spent their last moments in these ve- get slimmer as you climb toward the top. glass shards still intact in the metal frame. hicles. I began to make stories in my head, playing out After watching from the common room window The musty air filled my nostrils as I paused every Serena seemed to be in charge as she pushed for- their roles and their eventual end. They all happened at the dead for two months I know a few things about few stairs in anticipation of sound. The only sound ward, her hockey stick in an upright defensive position, to be classics, romanticized stories, lovers ripped apart how they operate. Any sound regardless of pitch draws accompanying us was that of the empty backpack on her feet steady and calm as she advanced. “Maybe we from one another’s grasp or parents whose children them in hoards from all directions. Silence is a skill Serena’s back, the zippers clanked against the can- could find a car, traveling on foot is a risky game to wandered one step too far. 56 57 in the new world. Although Serena and I had never vas of the bag with each step down the stairs. Serena play,” Serena whispered so quietly I had to read her Idealizing them made seeing the blood-smeared wielded a weapon before in our lives and neither one made double turns behind us to ensure we were truly lips to understand her correctly. I nodded once before leather a little easier to handle. My fingers traced of us knows the first thing about surviving, we were alone in the stairwell. With the final floor coming we made our way across the street, rocks grinding into the inside of the automobile, trying to find keys or a quite good at being silent. Going unnoticed was a into sight we rounded the corner to exit through the the soles of our shoes with every step. The wind started remote start. With no such luck, I moved onto the next god-given gift, apparently. building door. I motioned to Serena to put a rock into to pick up, playing a soft tune to accompany us on our car, and the next, and the next. At this pace, we would Serena busied herself with moving the common the corner of the door just in case we couldn’t get our risky journey. I’d like to think that at least that giant have had better luck walking to the store rather than room furniture that barricaded the door with ease and keys out in time. She nodded once in understanding ball of fire was rooting for us because even my false trying to find a working vehicle. grace, careful not to make too much noise to avoid before we gradually opened the front door and into the sense of confidence faltered with each inch away from As I was about to scream in frustration at the wind disturbing our house guests. My heart made its way to stillness outside. the safety of the dorms. to stop whistling in my ear the sound of a few sparks my stomach as Serena carefully unlocked the common Not a single dead one around town seemed to be I could feel the hockey stick in my hands starting followed by a low purr of an engine snapped me from room door and slid it open just a crack. She placed up to playing hacky sack in the quads today. Serena to slip on the black tape due to the sweat in my palms, my failure to be of use to Serena. Serena smiled widely, her ear to the gap and listened for any sign of move- quickly placed a medium-sized rock into the door to even my shirt stuck firmly to my back from the perspi- showing every single one of her teeth from the other ment before opening it completely to let me through. I prop it open before we both jogged around the corner ration. Serena took the lead once again, inspecting cars side of the street, motioning for me to join her in the small Honda Accord. As soon as the door to the car palms into her hands as her fingers fiddled with my smell of must and sour milk hit me in the chest before I brim with whatever Serena had collected. A small closed with me inside, Serena started to erratically high school graduation ring. “You want to know how I could prepare for it and made me gag silently. I pulled clank sounded from the back hallway where the explain her success, “I remember learning how to know? Because when the entire world is crumbling to the collar of my shirt over my exposed nostrils to ease restrooms resided caused us both to freeze in aprehen- hotwire a car junior year because I lost my keys,” her its knees, we’re still here, we’re still standing. I have to my nausea before watching Serena for our next move- sion, our feet firmly planted into the dirty linoleum. cheeks still rosy from the singing breeze. A flat-headed believe that’s not a coincidence.” ments. We simultaneously stilled ourselves to listen for Serena flattened herself against the wall, snatching my screwdriver shoved into the place the keys should be My smile didn’t quite reach my eyes, but her words an inkling of sound or movement, our hockey sticks t-shirt away from my nose to push me behind her. in dangling. “My dad has a weird thing about making resonated deeply within me and settled into the pit pulled up in a defensive position. Moments passed a defensive position. Several more clanks followed suit copies or paying for them for that matter.” of my stomach. The world is far too complicated for before Serena finally slipped the empty backpack from in quick succession. Everything inside me wanted to “Congratulations, it only took you twenty minutes.” coincidences to be accidental. her slim shoulders and started to wander around the run, to ensure my own survival, but seeing Serena be I rolled my eyes at her as she proceeded to drive down Together we silently closed the car doors and made fallen shelves to search for food and supplies. so brave, calm and collected caused me to follow her the street at a crawling pace. Serena dodged stalled our way to the entrance. The front door, littered with I held my stick at the ready and marched around movements. 58 59 cars, weaving between the yellow painted lines and advertisements for a variety of beverages and ciga- the perimeter of the dirty store. I slipped behind the She inched herself into the hallway, listening atten- gently driving over different items. My heart seemed to rettes, luckily had a decent-sized hole in the front panel front counter to look at the large cigarette case before tively before stopping in front of the janitor’s closet return to its normal pace due to the safety of being en- of glass. Serena motioned for me to watch her back selecting a red pack of Menthols and shoving them where the clanking seemed to have been coming from, closed within four walls once again. I relaxed into the as she began to carefully squeeze herself through the in my jean jacket pocket. Smoking had never been of but was now silenced. Our eyes connected before Sere- seat trying to calm my breathing into a routine pattern brake, her boots crunched the glass shards into fine interest to me during my teenage years, but lung can- na’s hand slowly pulled the door open. The closet was and concentrate on my heartbeats. dust on the other side of the door as she maneuvered cer was the least of my worries now that people were filled with cleaners and buckets, but a young man laid Serena took a final right turn before turning into herself into the store. As soon as she was through I eating each other. Serena whistled lightly from across against the back wall, his hand shielding his eyes, at his the tiny Casey’s gas station. She parked parallel to the quickly shoved both hockey sticks her way and tried to the store drawing my attention to her excited face be- feet lay a corpse, its brains smeared into the grooves entrance and unlocked the car door. recreate her graceful entrance. fore she threw a roll of toilet paper in the air and shot of the porcelain tile and his face submerged within his “Operation toilet paper,” Serena whispered, “we Once my entire body was through the hole, Serena me a thumbs up. I quickly made my way towards her, own puddle of blood. His dark brown skin was caked can do this, I know we can.” She smiled kindly, her quickly equipped me with my field hockey stick. The stepping over several crushed bags of chips and mold- with grime and old blood, his black hair matted with dimples reaching into the depths of her cheeks. She entire store was trashed, shelves had been tipped over ed fruit cups. mud and twigs, and in his right hand, he clenched a reached across the center console to take my sweaty and nearly picked of any decent food or supplies. The The once empty backpack was now stuffed to the silver seven-inch knife. A small child stood in the corner, hovering beneath out there, alive and struggling against all odds just like I will not hesitate to feed you to our neighbors.” the shelf. She gave a small shriek as soon as the door us, their existence purely coincidence, a matter of right I chuckled to myself at the thought of “our neigh- opened, her feet kicking forward to tackle the sitting place right time. bors”, because even though it wasn’t said, we all knew man, her arms immediately holding his neck for pro- “We’ve been in the closet with that man for two they were dead, why else would she feed him to them? tection. She had small curly haired buns on both sides days before he turned into those things, I did what I The three of them looked at me curiously before of her head and her brown skin resembled the man had to do,” he explained. His sharp features suited him Serena marched to the small hole in the door, sliding resting on the floor. I concluded in my head that they nicely, but they seemed to cause an unsettling feeling herself carefully through. had to at least be related. in my stomach. Serena peered at him, her small frame The man stood shakily with the small girl held standing her ground firmly. “What’s your name?” She protectively in one arm, the knife still clutched within asked, sounding more as if she were interrogating him his fingers. Serena immediately backed away, her eyes than trying to get to know him personally. 60 61 shifting back and forth between the two men in the “Jeremiah and this is Maya,” he shifted his head to closet and the small child. The man’s eyes adjusted to the small child as if her were trying to introduce her the lighting before he lowered his knife and immedi- but she shoved her face into his neck to avoid being ately dropped it onto the ground with a loud clank. seen, “You can call me Jer though,” He began to dig Instinctively I grasped Serena’s forearm, pulling her into his back pocket, shifting the little girl into his other towards the broken entrance. Just because he was alive strong arm before removing his wallet and shoving and had a child, didn’t disqualify him as a threat. his state ID toward Serena. Serena hesitantly grasped The man followed, “Wait, please,” his voice sound- the small piece of plastic in her hands and gave me a ed throughout the small store, husky and broken, he glance indicating he had told the truth about his name. quickly shoved a small child’s backpack into his already That’s a good start, right? full hands as he also picked up a larger black bag to “Alright,” Serena interrupted, her eyes narrowing as swing over his available shoulder. We both turned she peered at him through her lashes, “You can come toward him in curiosity, awe even. There were others with us, but if you steal from us or try anything stupid, in transmission Grief commander to my lapel. It’s been seven rotations since , Hellix’s species reminded me of the small rodents I’ve only been back to Earth a handful of times I wore Ensign green, crawling my way through the Re- found on Earth. Ze sat on zir haunches, perched on since I left for the Academy in the Gamma System— silience and making a name for myself. Two years since Lesiir’s shoulder, as they entered the CAF. the last time was for Granddad’s funeral. I started on the Odyssey. It wasn’t long before they came to my table; Lesiir I smelled like grief for months afterwards. No mat- I grab two ration bars for later before heading to was carrying two plates of food for him and his trav- ter how many showers I took, it clung to me, like stale the CAF for the morning meal. I always get there eling companion. Using his tail for balance, Hellix sweat and other people’s tears. early, when the third-shift crew is just finishing their hopped onto the table to dig in. By the time they I don’t want to go back. Granddad was the one who meal and the first-shift crew hasn’t quite rolled in yet. normally get there, we only have an hour until call and told me to explore the stars, not let my feet stay stuck I use the time to read up on things that aren’t Alliance I’m on my third cup of coffee. on the same ground he died on. Back then, I was just related: the newest novel Mama recommended, Papi’s “I still can’t believe you drink that,” Hellix said, a Junior Grade Lieutenant and the Odyssey pieces of favorite poetry collection, or a journal about the latest scrunching zir nose up at the offending smell. I’ve nev- 62 63 metal being welded together. I know I should go back, bio-technology. I ignore my phone as it buzzes, lifting it er told zir that my Mami drinks it black. I didn’t inherit shae salts and part of me does want to. up just enough to see Imani’s name flash on the screen. her taste buds and drink my chosen vice with copious Some traitorous part of my brain that I refuse to I ignore it in favor of my first cup of coffee, and then amounts of sugar. “It’s literal poison.” listen to, if simply on principle alone. my second, and wait for Lesiir and Hellix to join me. I grin and take a long drink. I’ll finish my fourth cup Because I can’t go back. They’ve been roommates since their Academy days, before we head to the engineering room for our daily I think if I went back I’d never stop smelling like one never far from the other. At over seven feet tall, assignments. We only met when the Odyssey shipped fucking grief. you’d think Lesiir was the more boisterous of the two. off, but they’re some of my best friends. There’s noth- With his thick hide and sharp claws, he looks like a ing quite like trusting someone to have your back out komodo dragon who had learned to walk on two legs. here in the unknown. And they have had my back, Morning Routine Hellix, however, is the true powerhouse in that rela- through stupid stunts and hard times. Both of their Every cycle I wake up and pull on my Engineer- tionship. Where Lesiir is quiet, withdrawn inside his species had complicated rituals to initiate and symbol- ing red uniform. I fasten the two lieutenant stripes to large scales, Hellix is twenty-three centimeters of pure ize pack bonds, different ways to bind people to each my collar and the black pin thats signifies my rank of energy. From a desert moon in the Echo Quadrent other, but I’ve never needed that. They were marked as pack the first time I showed up to work in Lesiir’s assigned to the Resilience. Despite our different appear- at the other Beta Quadrant planets outside of Earth’s This is the cylinder head, Mama pointed out, moving oversized uniform, the first time Hellix snuggled into ances, the inexperience in our fresh-faces gave us away solar system, humanity was nowhere near as advanced my chubby hand from part to part. The combustion the crook of my neck. as recent Academy graduates on our first assignment. when we started exploring the cosmos. chamber, the spark plug, the crank shaft. My hand curled They weren’t my family, but they were as close to it “What do you mean?” I asked as he sat down in the around the compact metal as I catalogued everything as I had this far into wild space. chair next to me in the CAF, he was carrying a bottle Duct tape and safety pins get the job done. It was an old in my mind. It would take years for me to be able to We finish eating just in time for my watch to beep of something orange and bubbling while I steadily motto Mama taught me when we used to root around take an engine apart and put it back together again at us to make our way to work. We knocked shoulders sipped at my mug of tea. I didn’t back down, despite under the car hood together. Our truck was ancient, without Mama’s help, but I helped her build the new as we walked down the halls, Hellix was bouncing off how the words sounded like a challenge. I bared my but we couldn’t afford any of the newer models. hydro-powered engine for our beat up old truck that the walls as we waited to see what’s in store for us. We teeth and met his eyes. Instead, Mama and I went to the hardware store and would last us the next twenty years. moved across the alameda, seeing the expanse of space “Humans,” he said, and I felt myself swallow hard. bought a hydro-powered engine manual. We came in front of us as we passed the bay windows. I never There was a lot to unpack in human history, like the back later with a long list of items scribbled out on Duct tape and safety pins. 64 65 get tired of the thrill and they don’t either. Humans fact that our home planet could no longer hold its pop- paper. Mama shopped while I picked up anything that might be adrenaline junkies, but the rest of the uni- ulation without the planet dying. Our people became looked interesting until I realized she had moved to the “We’re an impatient species,” I said instead. “Too verse is just as bad. immigrants among the stars, not explorers or travel- next isle. We left with three bags hefted into the trunk curious for our own good, but hey, it got us here.” It’s a good feeling knowing that I wake up every ers, no matter how we liked to tell it. The fact that we and a box of Runts. “We’re glad for it too,” he said. “I had some hu- morning, staring at a new sky full of stars that no one forced extreme acts of war on our own people and mans in my med program. Things are never boring has ever seen before, and know I’m doing what I love. didn’t lend a hand. Nuclear bombs, resource hoarding, We munched on the hard candies while Mama with one of you around.” inequality, and the unequal distribution of just about explained to me why this went there and what engine “Well, don’t worry,” I say, before taking another sip everything. part she was holding in her hands. We always saved of my tea. I’ve been trying to cut out caffeine lately, but Duct Tape & Safety Pins He continued without stopping, “You guys went the banana flavored ones for last, picking away at the I’m not sure how long it will last. Probably not long, “You know, they warned us about you,” he said. into space wearing tincan suits and a roll of Ex- cherries and oranges until all that was left was a sea of but it’s worth a shot. “I’m not that interesting.” He was a hulking figure with red skin like molten rock tra-Stick.” yellow. By the time we finished the box, it was time to He raised his eyebrows—all four of them—and and four, shining eyes. He was wearing a dark green I couldn’t help but smile at the awe in his voice. In drive back to the hardware store. said, “Well, I don’t believe that for a moment.” Alliance uniform, just like me. Both ensigns and freshly the grand scheme of things, he was right. If you looked The Odyssey biggest. And no matter how many humans sat on the Better early than late, anyhow. ing days for the Resilience, I was more than ready for the You know the feeling of the first day at a new board of directors or in high command, I was going to My feet slow as I reach Port X-7 and I narrow down challenge the Odyssey was going to bring. school? The sheer enormity of what’s right in front of be the only one with my feet on the ground. to just that window, just that ship, just that set of stars. you? That’s how I felt stepping onto Waystation Nine. It was stiff competition to earn a spot, but at this Outside the view-window is my home for the next Human. I’d show them. I’d show them all. It was hardly my first time at the docking ports, and point I had spent more time crammed in between seven years. this one wasn’t even a major hub. After so many years the metal plates of starships than I had with my feet At first glance, all I saw was sleek metal expanding of galactic travel, the hustle and bustle of a waysta- on solid ground. I had logged more hours flying than out as far as the eye could see. 800 meters across and Phone Call tion was almost comforting. I was nobody here, just I had stayed planetside anywhere except Earth. A 350 meters in height, the ship was a beauty. Large “I’m sick,” Mami says. I’ve never been more glad another body milling around on their way to or from decade in space and it felt like I knew the stars better enough to hold a crew of about 1,500 and provided this is only a voice call, not a full holo-projection. I some other galaxy. I wasn’t the newest engineer for the than my own fingerprints. technology-advanced work-spaces for each division. don’t want her to see how my face has frozen. All of Odyssey—the only human recruit—with the weight of a That’s not to say I didn’t know what people thought Capable of going 1.5 billion kilometers per hour at its the sound has cut out, the whole 66 67 world on my shoulders. I was just Mara, a human on when they saw my name on their space manifests. slowest. She was already all lit up, her large bay win- world going to nothingness. If I didn’t know better, their way to somewhere else. dows showing the vast expanse of space that was right I’d think my aid shorted out, but I can still hear the I joined the small but steady stream of bodies mov- Mara Alverez — Human in front of them, the Odyssey. vague outline of words as Mami keeps talking. ing to-and-fro and shoved my doubts into the bottom I regripped my carry-on and found myself nervous- of my ribcage. I was a human on their way to the edge Humans are weak, they think. Reckless and emo- ly running my fingers through my thickly coiled hair. Sick. of known space, going to go farther than anyone else tional. And they’re right, or at least, they’re right The sides were shaved down, my natural light brown, Cancer. had been, see things no one else had seen. The Odys- about me. But that doesn’t stop me from being one of but the top was a mess of tight coils, currently dyed Okay. sey Project had been in the works for years now. New the best.Cocky, they think, and they’re right. It didn’t electric blue, a last gift from my old crew on the Resil- and improved technology to help us go further than change the fact that out of all the candidates the Acad- ience. Vixens had the best body-mods from moveable Okay? any of us had ever been. It was the brainchild of the emies put up for grabs, I was chosen. tattoos to hair-dye that wouldn’t fade until you applied Nothing about this was okay. already-known galaxies to research and explore togeth- The multi-colored bodies thin out as I journeyed the anti-treatment. er in order to find something new. It was hardly the farther into the compound. It’s still early, only 0600, I was going to miss Felin, but ze had my “What have the doctors said?” I finally ask. My first inter-species space project, but it was one of the but there weren’t many shuttles going out this way. comm-number. As much as I might ache in the follow- voice comes out almost normal and I don’t even recog- nize it. I’m hovering right above myself, looking down about the old Earth, not the one I knew now. Billions tion out of five different languages. Cal-i-for-ni-a. at this person who’s gone so stock-still and silent. I look of acres of land that was nothing but luscious green, a They sounded funny on his lips. I practiced the the same as I did a few minutes ago and that’s...wrong. haven for animals, a place for natural survival. She told (When I went to the Academy, it took me weeks signs for all the planets in our quadrant. Xavier was This is all wrong. us stories about waters that were so clear you could see to stop responding to people without slipping like Mami, content with the ground under his feet. But “They don’t know yet. I have a few more appoint- miles below, that you didn’t have to worry about the into my native Spanish, to remember I needed to I wanted to see the stars, all the planets in our solar ments, but it’s going to be okay, mi estrella. I’m going chemicals in the water burning your skin. speak up because even though I learned Galactic system and beyond. to be okay. Bien?” Mami told stories to me and my siblings about Standard Sign most people didn’t. Our world is so much bigger than this little conti- “Sí, Mami.” biomes, soil samples, and mass migration patterns until nent on this overgrown planet. I grew up in a world Mami doesn’t lie to me, but the sinking feeling in Mama cut her off to play showtunes and classic rock. It was probably the hardest adjustment. I missed that was burnt out and grown-back. In the car, I my gut tells me she’s wrong. Imani would sign the lyrics to me as we all sang along. home a lot back then and it’s so strange to me watched as the landscape grows and shrinks, sites of “Good. Now tell me about your day, hije. How is the She played old compact disks of Fleetwood Mac and how I don’t miss it now. past environmental decay with falling-apart structures 68 69 trip?” Aerosmith unless Mami or Papa was really annoying of metal taken over by coarse and sturdy vines. Sites I don’t know how long we talked for. Too long. Not her, then she’d pull out the showtunes. I miss how I missed it. I miss home.) where the grass was just starting to grow again. long enough. I’m sick, Mami said and for the rest of Mama homeschooled Xavier, Imani, and I until we I’m half-asleep when the trees finally start cropping the call, that’s all I could hear. I’m sick. knew all the words to Wicked and Phantom of the Opera. We were very well, if sporadically, educated chil- up. I almost didn’t notice the difference at first until the It was a very fulfilling education, especially since it was dren. Papi—who had been an Earth Studies teacher trees were getting taller and taller. When Mami did her one we could use to annoy our parents. The drive was on Mars before he came back to Earth with Mama— measurements, the tallest tree she observed was seven- From California’s Shores hours long and when the music stopped if we were still taught us about state lines and old governments that hundred-and-fifty-three feet tall,. I didn’t know that, When I was ten, my family drove to California to awake, Granddad would teach us words of Diné and we didn’t actually care about. I remember Xavier right then. I just knew I was ten years old, not even see the Redwood trees. Mami was a biologist who tell us how the world was created; mist and light rising sounding out those old, dead names though as we five feet tall, and deep in that forest was the first time returned to Earth in order to study its recovery. She through the darkness and creating the human spirit. In passed through what would have been each state. I couldn’t see the sky. Trees so big around, my entire raised me on stories of ozones knitting themselves back turn, I showed him different signs. Papi would throw in Il-i-nois. family: Mami, Grandad, Mama, Papi, Imani, Xavier, together, old creatures repopulating once they sensed the old Galeic he grew up speaking. I didn’t realize that Co-lo-ra-do. and me, couldn’t reach all the way around them. safety, a world evolving. Mami told us bedtime stories most people weren’t raised like that, crafting conversa- U-ta-h. The memory of the dark soil underneath my hands is so vivid that whenever I smell the scent of fresh are not a species meant to last alone. used to being this far from home and there was only so “...why?” It wasn’t a judgemental question, just a earth, my feet sink back into the ground and I’m there. Species like the Keilla—like Nevin—chose to live in much comfort a sky full of different stars could bring. confused one. Nevin was a biology student, naturally Mami is smiling, her dark skin even darker where she’s small units out of companionship, not necessity. You’ll It wasn’t until Dr. Garret mentioned it that I even curious about the physiology of the strange creatures sunk her hands into the dirt. Granddad is laughing, the never find more than two of them living together at thought it might be something more than that. that inhabit the universe. There weren’t enough of us sound reverberating through his chest. Mama’s voice once. They thrive on their own, becoming self-suf- I came home from my bi-weekly meeting and for our biology to be standard course curriculum out- is winding its way through the trees and Papi’s eyes ficient at only three standard cycles old. Living with flopped face first onto Nevin’s floor. ‘Home’ had very side of the Beta and maybe the Alpha Quadrant. are so bright they look like the stars. He has Xavier on other creatures became detrimental at points; it’s why quickly become my friend’s dorm room. Her epider- “We’re social animals,” I say. “It reminds us that his back, my little brother trying to pull himself onto Nevin had a single at the Academy. mis was even more sensitive than human skin cells there are other people there. That we’re not...that branches he won’t be able to reach. Imani holds my Humans don’t work like that. meaning everything in her room was soft. we’re not alone.” hand and we let ourselves get lost in the woods. Back I don’t even remember being three cycles old. “I need a hug,” I say, words muffled by the carpet. Nevin frowned, her luminescent eyes scrunched in when being lost was an adventure, not something to I remember flashes of being young. Mami’s hand Predictably, Nevin doesn’t pay much attention. In confusion and worry. 70 71 fear. on my cheek, the sensation of soft fabric in my small only a few rotations, she’s gotten used to my human “Do you feel... alone?” hands and holding on tightly. I remember it was dark, dramatics. “More like...far away,” I mused. Finally pushing (I took to the stars hoping to be big, I think. But for quite a while, but until I was older I was never sure “Hmmm?” she says, not looking up from her home- myself upright, I smile something serious. it’s just a different kind of small. why. But even in the dark, Mami never let go of me. work. I force myself to roll onto my back so she can “Like I don’t fit right in my skin.” Granddad was taller than me on the day he died, My life has been marked by soft touches. Mami’s hand hear me better. Nevin sat down next to me, two not-quite-kids on but I outgrew Mami when I was seventeen in mine, my fingers curled around twining vines, a dog “I need,” I said, enunciating every word, “a hug.” her bright pink rug. She reached her hands out, pull- cycles old. licking my face, Mama hugging me tight, hand stitched “A... hug?” ing me forward. I curled into her arms. She was taller stuffed animals in the palms of my small hands, Papi I levied myself up, unsure of how to explain what I than me, but before right now I’ve always felt bigger. I I’m still so fucking small.) tucking us in, sitting in Granddad’s lap and listening needed here. hadn’t realized until now that I felt like I was shrinking. to his stories, cuddling together with my siblings in a “It’s a human thing... pressure. We use our arms to In Nevin’s arms though, I wasn’t small. I was just here. puppy pile simply because we could. encircle each other and apply pressure. The contact “You’re not alone,” she said, so much like a fact I Touch Starved By the time I’d been at the Academy for a few releases a hormone called cortisol which allows our couldn’t argue and I was so glad. After all, alone is the Human physiology requires us to rely on others. We rotations I was starting to lose it just a bit. I wasn’t nervous system to slow down and reduce stress.” most dangerous thing for a human to be. (13) Missed Calls that day, they got off their bed and picked it up. We’re here for you. Ursa Major, Ursa Minor My sister keeps calling. There were so many stars-damned messages. Te amo hije. Our eyes shine almost as bright as the stars. Glisten- I don’t pick up the phone. Missed calls and texts. ing orbs staring into the sky and looking for something Imani we’ve never seen before. Our backs lay against a soft Star Stuff Imani She’s going to die blanket, but we can still feel the shape of the earth “Did you know that we’re made of the same stuff Missed Call (4) Pick up the fucking phone underneath us. Every bump, every pebble. It’s not as the stars?” I asked Nevin one night, drunk off shitty comfortable, not really, but I don’t care. Who needs Tellin wine while she was startlingly sober. Xavier Mami comfort when you can see the sky? Each one has its “Hmm,” she asked, looking up from her homework. Missed Call (1) Missed Call (1) own story Papi tells us. Every one has different stories Her blue eyes were glowing in the dim lighting and I known by different people. Every little burst of light is could see the stars in them, I swear. Xavier With shaky hands, Mara clicked on the message a part of something that will last until they blink out 72 73 “Atoms and carbon and all the little pieces no one They’re sending me to live with dad’s family from Mami and braced themself like they would for a of existence long after we’re gone. But right now, we’re knows how to name. Their excess and what’s left of I don’t want to go starship crashing, not for a few words from a woman children. Being gone isn’t even a thought in our little their bodies once they die. That’s what we’re made of, Mara they loved. brains. Nev. We’re just made of stars.” Mara I don’t want to go It’s not quite cold outside, but the darkness nips at out cheeks. Instead of going inside, I burrow closer to Xavier Papi Voicemail my siblings. Xavier is on one my left, eight years old Mara’s comm hasn’t stopped buzzing with messag- Missed Call (1) [Transcript] and wrapped up in his footy-pajamas. Imani is to my es for the past ten minutes. It’s so tempting to leave it Hey, hije. I know... I know you’re probably scared right, three years older than me at fifteen and pretend- right where it’s at, ignore whoever’s on the other end Mama right now. I know I am. These are scary times. I love ing that she’s too old for this. I know better though. completely, and allow themself to curl up and pretend, Missed Call (2) you so much, Mara. I need you to know that. The doc- You’re never too old and lay underneath the stars and for just a moment, that everything was going to be tors say I don’t have long, I know Imani’s been leaving watch. okay. But it wasn’t in Mara to ignore things. So when Papi you messages. Just, hije, if you can please come home. “What’s the one?” Xavier asked. His dark brown their comm buzzed for what felt like the 100th time Please call back when you get the chance. Please come home. finger jabbed towards the sky in some direction that neither Imani or me can really tell. I lean closer to him are still open, her arm around the back of my shoul- to cramp so hard it feels like I can’t breath but at least of something so foreign after days of isolation both to guide his hand as we make out way through the sky. der. Both of us lay there in the silence. Under that vast then it’ll be something I can fix and I can’t fix this. I grating on my nerves and such a welcome interruption “Which one?” I ask, leaning closer to Xav so I can sky. There’s nothing to say. can’t fix Mami. I can’t I can’t I can’t— that I want to lean into the sound and let it envelope guide his hand. From there we walk through the sky. me. Lesiir is against my other side. Everything we learned from Papi and the old books he I don’t call back. Later, they’ll make me get up. Shower, eat, brush gave us. The stories Granddad told us, that had been Shutdown I can’t. my teeth. Everything I haven’t had the energy to even told to him, that had been passed down to his father, “Please come home.” Mami’s voice broke over the think about. But for now, we pile on top of each other that was now passed down to us. last words, cracking bone under impact. It’s just the I don’t get out of bed. Curled up in my favorite like Imani, Xavier, and I would do as children, and All these different stories for all these different transmission quality making her sound like that, I tell sweater and locked away behind closed doors there’s I let myself get lost in their warmth for a moment stars. No matter how large the world was some things myself. Just static interference. Her voice isn’t no one to stop me from curling in on myself and instead of this endless pit of grief. remained similar. In almost all of the stories we knew, that staying there. For hours. For days. Is Mami stuck lying Fucking grief. 74 75 Ursa Major and Ursa Minor survived. The bears of weak. in a bed like this? Is she going to stay in a bed like this the sky. The big and little sibling. The brightest point in The line plays over and over until I can forever? Will she die in one will she— the sky. hear I clamp down on the thought and hold myself Imani is our north star, our Polaris, our oldest sibling. nothing tighter. I pretend my hands belong to Mami and she’s Xavier is our Zeta, our Ursa Minor, our baby brother. at holding me as we fall asleep. Back when it was just me And then there’s me. Alkaid is the star at the tail end all. and her on one mattress breathing in time. of the Ursa Major. A guiding point. A star pointing towards something new. I put in for leave and take four days off. Chief I don’t hear the door to my quarters slide open. I Our little family in the stars. Saskin doesn’t ask questions and that’s almost worse. took my aid out days ago, my hearing ear pressed into We stay there all night. Even Imani eventually pulls my bed, letting myself wallow in the silence. I flinch as the blanket around the three of us so we can snuggle in I don’t get out of bed. I don’t fucking want to. I soon as I feel something that isn’t my covers brush up together. Eyes blink sleepily and I can feel Xavier as a don’t want to go home and I don’t want to stay here against my skin. I don’t want to look up, but I can feel heavy rock on my chest, breathing evenly. Imani’s eyes and I don’t want to eat but I don’t want my stomach Hellix’s purr reverberate against my skin. The feeling art swimming buddies 79 sam esteep
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