As it eventually will with every young man, he sees her and is struck. He is struck by her beauty, struck by his own youthful incapacities, and struck by the giddy paralysis of a fear so deep it can only be known by one whose own status is deemed by themselves to lie below that of their infatuation’s. “I cannot,” he reasons as he gazes upon her, “be worthy of her. Yet who else would ever love her as I would? Who could?”

“But, how to make her notice me?” He wonders, until presently it occurs to him to display for her that one thing that he can do well, as that one thing might somehow reveal to her the feasibility of other, hidden potentials within him which she, and only she, might manifest within him given time… if only she would look at him now.

And so the boy shows himself off to her. He is young. His skillsets are few and mostly outlandish, but he is completely unmindful of what the rest of the watching world may think. The urge is strongly upon him to somehow impress her in ways which he has not yet had time enough in this world to formulate, but he will try. He must try. And if the lad has wit he will manage it in a convincing and winsome enough manner that he will gain some however-so small affection from her... a smile, a touch, a peckish kiss. Any of those would be enough for now, as he would have been seen.

It began two Thursday’s ago, and has not let up since. Out of the blue the boy began showing up nearly every day, some days two or three times a day, dribbling his basketball on the sidewalk out front of Trisha’s house. He could only bounce it, as there is no basket out there to shoot at, so sometimes he bounces it up high, or sometimes he dribbles it down low, wrapping it effortlessly behind his back and then scissoring it between his legs, spinning the ball on his finger, and then on his forehead, and then dribbling it some more and more and more as he spins and jukes and out-fakes invisible sidewalk defenders.

Oh, she sees him all right. Trisha watches him through the window slats, her face a torpid mask meant to hide her curiousity away from sniggering parents. The boy was actually quite good at bouncing his ball, so she waited to see what tricks he might do with it next.

He made dribbling the ball look so easy that once, when the bouncing boy had finally gone, Trisha went out to the garage, where she picked up her brother’s ball and tried dribbling it herself, but her hands moved awkwardly, and the ball was too heavy. It always bounced too high, so that she couldn’t even begin to do the boy’s tricks. In fact, it was all she could do to keep the stupid ball bouncing near enough to her that she could bounce it again. She quickly discovered that what the boy made to look so easy was really not so easy at all.

Of course, at least initially, it wasn’t just her parents, but even Trisha who found the bouncing ball annoying. The infernal thump, thump, thumping of the ball drug her to the window from her daytime bed where she laid listening to music, or from the couch when she was watching television. The thumping was out there during supper, and when she was dressing, and all the time it seemed. When she could do so without it being obvious Trisha would sneak over to peek between the blinds at him dribbling the ball, and spinning it, but the boy never, ever looked over at her window, or even towards her house, but only dribbled his ball as though neither she, nor even her house, were even there.

But our girl Trisha was no one’s dummy.

Who was he, she wondered? And why was he doing this? It seemed to be a very strange thing to do, but then it also didn’t. At first it had appeared to be a random act, as though her house just happened to sit on his route home from the basketball court or something like that, but it quickly became obvious that there was a greater purpose to his dribbling here, that it was for someone’s benefit, and her vanity allowed her to suspect that the someone he was doing it for might be her, not that she really cared about the boy one way or another. She didn’t even know him. But why else other than to impress her? Why did he always stop right here in front of her house every day? And why bouncing a ball? If he was truly coming to impress her, or any other girl for that matter, why bring a basketball? Why not sing, or dance, or anything more romantic than bouncing a ball? It was a curious mystery, but then… she did enjoy a curious mystery.

Regardless of their intent Trisha came to look forward to his visits, her heart leaping at the first thump. She no longer felt the need to go peek every single time, though she did it quite often anyways. It was enough just to know he was there. After all, she knew very well by now what he looked like, and what he was doing, and she suspected that she was the reason, so there was really no need to peek, was there? If he truly was coming here to dribble in front of her house in an attempt to impress her then not peeking was almost a form of playing hard to get, wasn’t it? A way of showing him that she had more important things to do than to watch him play with his ball? So she shouldn’t make herself available to him every time, should she? The boy might get the impression she was easy, or uninteresting. No. She could not allow that.

Still, most times she peeked. She couldn’t help it. And when she did so she wondered if he noticed the break in the blinds, and if that break gave her peeking away? Sometimes she even hoped that he did see it. Trisha was alone a lot, which did not make for a particularly happy girl, and during those times when she was not peeking she took on an unconscious habit of brushing her hair until the thumping echoes of the ball faded away into the twilight, and of smiling as she brushed.

Oddly, Trisha began to wish the boy was out there even when he wasn’t, and she found herself discouraged when he was not. Depressed even. She began to wonder where he was, and what he had found that was more interesting to do? And then she would hear ghost balls thumping on the sidewalk. She would run to the window but the boy wouldn’t be out there; this seemed always to happen while lying in her bed at night for instance, or when she was naked in the bathroom. And even more strangely, she found herself peeking out when there was clearly no ball out there thumping, hoping that the boy might be just down the street, bouncing it up the sidewalk towards her house.

”Is that boy a friend of yours?” Her father finally asked her. “Why don’t you go out there and make him stop?”

Go out there? Was her father a fool? She couldn’t go out there! Going out there would break the magic. The boy would see that she was not so special, that she was just a girl and not so pretty, and was infinitely awkward at that.

”What’s the matter? Scared?” Her father taunted, making fun when there was nothing funny about it. But was she scared? Scared of what? Of a boy bouncing a stupid ball? Of course she was not scared. She would show her father. She would go out there! But first she would go see how she looked. Once in front of the mirror she touched her hair a few times to little effect, but it wasn’t really her appearance that she wanted to see, was it? What she needed to see lay deeper than that, so rather than primping she gazed into her own eyes, gauging their strength, asking them if this was truly what she wanted, to meet this boy whose attention she had somehow attracted, and to take a chance on driving him away? Wasn’t it better to leave things alone, and to keep this little thing between them as it was? The eyes in the mirror told her no. Trisha saw in them a readiness, almost a hunger to meet the boy, to find out who he was. Taking a deep breath, she hesitated no longer.

It was actually a relief to find herself on the tiny front porch, and to hear the door click shut behind her, and to see that he had not noticed her there yet, but there was no turning back from here. She was committed.

“Hi!”

The ball got away from him for just a second. It was a little thing, but it was the first time in all her peeking that she’d seen a fumble from him, which meant nothing really, while also meaning very much when she considered her own continuous fumbling in the garage when she had attempted to dribble her brother’s ball. Trisha’s initial thought had been that he was a boy, so dribbling the ball was easier for him, but that was not right. He was obviously athletic, but where did that come from? Was it genetics, hand-eye coordination handed down from mother or father, or both? And how did speed play into that, and balance, and dexterity, and strength? No, he could only reach the level of skill he had achieved through diligence. She wondered where he found such a thing as diligence, and why?

He was really not very big, seen from a closer perspective, not much taller than her actually, yet he looked strong, if lithe. He caught up with the fumbled ball and tucked it under his arm as he turned to face her, his weight balanced evenly on both feet, his chin held high in an exaggerated, almost comically masculine posture.

“Hi.” He did not smile, though his expression was soft, his eyes kind. His voice was surprisingly deep for such a youthful looking face.

“What are you doing out here? Why do you keep bouncing your ball in front of my house.“

The boy shrugged.

“You are driving my parents crazy.”

”And you?”

There was a pause as she considered her answer. Her eyes refused to look at him as she gave it, though she longed to see his response. She had never suffered rejection and didn’t know if she could take it, but she had a feeling that she needn’t worry. He instilled in her that feeling. “Yea, I guess you could say that you’re driving me crazy, too.”

With that said she did look up. He wore a brilliant smile now, which she could not help returning. “Good, then I’ll be back tomorrow.” He said it as he turned to go.

”Hey!“ His still smiling face glanced back at her call. “Why don’t you try ringing the bell?”

The boy nodded and took off running down the street, the ball thumping expertly at his side.

Warning: the following account contains mentions of suicide. There, there's your trigger warning; if you're still with me after that I will put down the facts not as I see them but as they occurred. First of all, I'm a private dick. I mean that in the old fashioned sense that I'm a detective. Now that your mind has been hurled from the gutter and back on to the pavement. Here's how it went down.

I was in my office in some back alley in the squalor of the city. Having tired of pitching playing cards into my hat I was hard at work reading a newspaper article. Yes, that's right; I still read a newspaper. Trust me when I say it's more fulfilling than scrolling on a device. I digress.

The article that had my attention was a report on a suicide. The subject was a prominent businessman. In fact I had worked a case for him about three years prior. Good man. He'll go unnamed out of respect. But he was a family man . His business was flourishing. And so far as I knew he was a happy man. I guess you don't really know folks though. Three years ago I solved the case he brought to me and now he'd done the high dive of a roof.

His was only one a recent string suicides. Males and females. They'd all been in their late twenties and well into their fifties. Every instinct told me something wasn't right but I couldn't put my finger on it's pulse. Suicide while tragic isn't unusual in and of itself. This however was a scale of self destruction I'd only seen in lemmings.

I tried to lose myself in the funny pages but I could only see the cynicism. The strips had been written with. Tossing aside the paper I opened up my file cabinet and rummaged through the records. Finding the deceased man's address I closed up shop for the day and drove to his home in the suburbs.

The family's wealth was not reflected in their house. It was a single story home with a small backyard surrounded by a picket fence whose pristine white coat of paint would make Tom Sawyer proud. The roof consisted of aging shingles and the garage was large enough for two cars that I knew from a previous visit here were both late models and far from BMW and Cadillac.

I knocked on the door and after a few seconds the widow answered the door. She was lovely but the mental image I had retained no longer matched what was in front of me. Her hair had been cut short at some point and her countenance bore all the signs of grief and sleepless nights. “Yes,can I help you?” She asked in a voice that told me she thought I was about to offer a visit to my cult.

Suddenly the light of recognition flashed inside the sad eyes. “Detective Johnson? What are you doing here? Come in.”

Once I sat down on the Laz E Boy sofa she went to the kitchen and returned with two glasses of water. She sat across from me in her husband's recliner. Last time I had been here it was in celebration of a case cracked. Now I was paying respects to a life shattered. “I'm honestly surprised to see you,” she commented, “I didn't think you even remembered us.”

“I remember all my cases ma'am. It was only a matter of finding your address in my records. “

“What brought you here anyway?”

“read about your husband's death in the paper. I wanted to offer you my condolences.”

I'm quite sure what processes fired off in the auburn framed head of hers put she blurted out details. He'd become withdrawn and depressed. He kept going on and on about how he missed the old days. And he talked about his childhood more than usual. Then two days ago. He brought it all to an end.

I dipped my head, let her cry, and then I took my leave. I don't do emotions very well. To keep this account moving right along. I had a chance to talk with a friend I had in the police department. I had many friends among the cops(I had many enemies too). My pal was telling me about a new kind of drug they were trying to get off the street.

“It's the most confounded thing,” he gripped in between bites of cheese danish, “We can't find the dealers, the users all end up dead somehow and the drug barely leaves a trace in their system and what is there is nothing we've ever seen before.”

I listened while he rattled on. Then he said to me: “I know you have some shall we say less than upstanding citizens in your network. You can get places we can't. I was hoping you could help in that capacity. “

“I'd need a starting point, “ I answered with my characteristic bluntness.

He sketched something down in a notebook. Once he finished he handed me the paper. I saw a symbol. It was a loop made of three arrows almost like the symbol for recycling. In the center was a series of words.

“ This was on the packets that we assume contained the drug.” Whoever is putting this stuff out this their insignia.”

“Like ecstasy dealers.”

“That's right.”

I studied the symbol latching onto the words in the center of the loop. “Once and Future.”

“What?” exclaimed my friend. Puzzled.

“The phrase is Latin for Once and Future.”

“How do you know?”

“I read a lot. It's from King Arthur stories. You know, the once and future king. “

So that's how I got involved in police business. That would soon become my business.

A young woman of college age came to see me. She was lean, her hair was the color of a raven, and she was clad in a white t-shirt, cut of jeans, and flip flops. The times I got any clients her age were unicorn rare. So I took immediate interest. “What can I do for you?” I inquired.

“My name is Tiffany. My brother's missing. Has been since last night.”

Well this was odd. “Tiffany, we do have a police department here. Why didn't you tell them?”

Her voice was raised now to a slightly higher level. It was obvious I'd miffed her. “I did Mr. Johnson, but they wouldn't do anything because it hasn't been a full 24 hours yet.”

“Ok. Still, why come to me? You'd better tell me everything.”

She sat down and launched into her story. Her brother attended the university here in the city. He was supposed to have met up with friends out in the country last night when she hadn't heard from him she had texted them and called them and learned he never showed up. She decided to come to me out of concern, impatience and a desire to preserve her sibling's sterling reputation. She didn't want people getting the wrong idea about him if they saw cops crawling everywhere. Made sense.

“Tiffany I don't normally take skip trace type work but for you I'll do it.”

I drove out to the campus. It took some coaxing from Res Life and the campus 5-0 but I got into her brother's dorm. All I had to dowas flash my credentials and assure it was a simple matter of indulging a concerned sister nothing more. That is honestly what I thought I was doing. Then came the investigation of the dorm room. I was small with a closet one bed and a desk. The TV sat on top of a mini-fridge. And a busty vivacious blonde with perfect breasts protruding through a yellow bikini stared at me from the wall above the bed. So it would seem the good little boy scout has his vices like anybody else.

Any illusions I may have had about the simplicity of this job vanished when I discovered a plastic wrapper with a loop of three arrows and Latin words sitting beside a slip of paper. Half naked females weren't this kid’s only vice after all. Using some tweezers from the bathroom and a sandwich bag I pocketed my clues.

Once I left the college I phoned Tiffany. It was the weekend so she was prompt in answering. “I need to know where your brother was headed and how to get there. A description of his vehicle would also be helpful.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Honestly I found a clue. I can't get into details but I found something the cops would need to know about.” I can't sit on it for too long. I may have to call in my friends from the Force.”

“Do what you have to, Detective.” she said, barely masking the disappointment in her voice.

A few minutes later I received complete directions to the friends’ weekend getaway and a photo of her brother's car where the plate was in view. He was a handsome young man and it would have been a shame if something happened to him.

Now comes the part of the story I have no desire to drag out. Neither do I enjoy having to retell it. I found the car. Up in the woods between the city and the local where Jake was supposed to meet up with his friends. He never made it. The car was hidden from the view of all but a well trained observer. Its driver was skewered on a tree branch. The investigation was out of my hands now. I turned over the wrapper to the detectives I knew.

The investigation of the crash concluded it was another suicide. Tiffany would never contact me again except to pay my fee which I had discounted for her. I really hate my job sometimes.

I scrolled through my phone one day and found the picture I'd taken of the paper I'd found in Jake's dorm. On it was written the following: That which has been is now;and that which is to be has already been; and God requires that which is past. The sprawling seemed biblical in nature. I drove to a place I hadn't been in a long time to talk with someone I hadn't seen in a while.

The Reverend and I sat on a pew looking at the painting of the Holy Mother. “What do you make of it Padre?”

“It's from Ecclesiasties.”

“That book King Solomon wrote when he figured out 700 hundred wives was to depressing to handle?”

“Something like that. Perhaps it has something to do with that symbol on the drugs.”

“You know about that?”

“Johnson, you're not the only person with a badge that comes here seeking guidance. “

I got up and made to leave. “Thanks, Padre. You've been a huge help.”

“An answer to prayer, right?”

“I don't recall praying. “

“Perhaps not verbally but the silent prayers are often. The loudest.”

It was time to shake bushes and bust balls. My contacts were going to find me some answers whether they wanted to or not.

It was Friday night at Joe B's a bar so seedy you could grow plants in. You had your normal colorful cast of characters. The fifty year old lesbian waitress passed out some of the stoutest drinks on Earth. Behind the counter stood the bartender. His name was not Joe B; it was Franklin. His mood shifted from jovial to crabby depending on the day of the week, the weather patterns, and other arbitrary factors. Tonight he was positively grouchy.

None of those people were my concern though. I sat at a table under a blue neon sign advertised some sort of beer. On the other side of the table was Finnigan, one of my contacts. In the grand scheme of the universe he was a gnat. He was a junkie and he was currently displaying several withdrawal symptoms. “You're back on the stuff, Finney. That disappoints me. We had a deal.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Bull crap. Finney you look like you ain't had a fix in at least two days.”

“Did you come down here bust my chops?”

I took a deep breath. Finnigan had gotten hooked again. He knew the bargain we'd reached. I kept him out of the slammer and he stayed clean. “No, Finnigan. I need information and you can help I believe. I don't give a frick what drug you're on. I probably know already. “What I do care about is a new one circulating around. It's become a problem for me and the cops.”

“What is it?”

I showed him the sketch. His beady eyes grew large and he made a move to leave. “I gotta go I just remembered someth– “

I drew my pistol on him beneath the table. “It's gonna be hard to walk out of here with your legs blown out from under you. That’ll bring the popo and then they'll find out you're doing drugs and you'll tell them what you know anyway. “

“You're bluffing, Johnson. You wouldn't risk losing your private detective license. “

“Go ahead and test that theory. It'd be worth it. This job's lousy anyway because I have to rub elbows with the likes of you.”

Finnigan saw reason and plopped his rump back in his seat. “Good,” I responded, “Now you tell me what you know about this symbol and I'll forget that you're on the stuff again.”

“It's called Reminisce; it's a new super drug. It comes looking like a gumball but can be crushe and snorted or chugged down with your choice beverage.”

“How does it work? Why are no traces left in the user's system?”

“I can't tell you that. All I can tell you is that it has something to do with memories.”

“Who's pushing the stuff?”

“No clue, buuut I maaay know someone who knows the guy who knows the guy. I could set up a meeting. “

“You do that Finney and I'll leave you alone.”

“Fine, but I'm putting my neck out here you know.

“Buster, you did that the day you started buying crud to pump through your system from two bit mooks.”

Ol’ Finney would have shut up tighter than a clam if he knew I was working with the police. I didn't like being neck deep in their work but I was cozy with some of the detectives especially the two working this drug racket. It was worth it if I could bring Tiffany some closure and, if my growing suspicions were true, a certain widow as well.

I went to the department with everything I'd learned. The next a message from Finney was shoved through the mail slot of the empty room next to my office. This was a measure I had copied from The Shadow, a fictional crime fighting detective after I received a package that made a ticking sound. That was ten years ago. Funny the stuff that sticks with you. Memories. It has something to do with memories. That echoed in my brain. The looping arrows, the Latin phrasing, answers married to more questions.

It was late afternoon two days later when I met with a man who looked like a beatnik clad in a leather jacket that was past its prime. Sunglasses hid his eyes but still he looked like he could talk the wool off a sheep. He greeted me with an outstretched hand and a smile that any crooked preacher would envy. “Say you must be the friend that Finnigan wanted me to meet.”

“Yeah, that's me.”

So we walked into the viper’s den which reeked of stale cigarettes, old booze and other aromas I'd rather not trace the origins of. “You don't mind the pat down do you?”

“No,” I replied confidently, “I have nothing to hide.”

The frisking was done by two muscular dudes named Tom and Jerry. Right like I'd believe that. One of the two found my credentials. “HEY, he's a frigging badge!”

Lester the beat nik scowled behind his shades. Say, what is this? You a freaking narc?”

“Calm down, boys. Look at my credentials. I'm strictly in the private sector. “

They combed them over. “It's true boss. He's one of those private gumshoes.”

Lester was still on edge and grilled me like a steak. “What brings someone like you here, Johnson?”

“My job's crappy. I was told yall had something that could make all those bad feelings go away!”

“Yeah, I know just the stuff you mean.”

With that I was escorted to a wooden table in the center of the restaurant. At this point I should clarify that it was deserted except for the goons and myself. I took a seat. One the six goons retreated into a back room leaving the rest of us in an awkward silence.

Moments later the lackey returned and deposited a blue object in a plastic wrapper upon which was the logo now all too familiar to me. With not a word spoken he opened the plastic & let the drug roll toward me a little. Then without warning WHACK. Another thug smashed the thing into a powder with a hammer. The one who brought it to the table blew it in my face. I blinked. I found this all to be extremely bemusing. Then it happened.

My mind began to wander. Happy thoughts from my past and memories previously stashed away. So I had a sense of not sitting at the table but walking through each memory as it came in rapid succession. I forgot all else. I had a vague sense of something strange at the back of my skull and then falling. I did not care. It did not matter because I suddenly fell into a warm, delicious sleep filled with reflection of the past and the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia.

When I regained consciousness I was in the back of a car. These hoods clearly hadn't gone for the cliche approach and stuffed me in the trunk. They probably thought I'd still be under the influence of Reminisce and I feigned stupor while the goons up front talk. “How are we going to do him, lester?” Asked one with a gravelly voice.

Lester, the beatnik wannabe, was the driver. He answered, I told you one to the brain pan through the temple. Make it look like he offed his own self like the others.``

They'd damned themselves and didn't even know it. While still pretending to be in the Twilight Zone I attempted to work loose the bonds around my wrists. Once that was done. Undid the ones around my ankles by the time the other occupants of the car realized I had regained my senses I was on them like a tiger. A firm elbow to the front of the neck rendered the slab of muscle in the passenger seat out cold.

Lester pulled out a gun. The scumbags had the sense enough to relieve me of mine. I grabbed his gun hand, flung it up! The fracturing of the wrist and the profanity was drowned by the bullets puncturing the roof. His hand now useless I wrestled with the steering wheel and was bedlam as the car went wild and flipped over just as I dove out the driver side window.

Once that nightmare ended. A very lacerated Lester pulled himself from the mangled wreck that was his car. He took two steps and collapsed onto the asphalt of the lobby stretch of road heading to who knows where. A car passed and the rest is history.

The sirens blared and the lights flashed and soon I was telling this very portion of the story to the police detectives. They were happy to have a link in the chain. “I'll be darn!” Exclaimed James Munday. “A drug that traps people in their memories. What was that like?”

“In truth it was wonderful even when the memories were painful. It was weaponized nostalgia. A drug made into an even more potent one. You could escape into the past and totally blot out the present. It leaves you wanting more. And even I'm left with a feeling I don't much like.”

“That would explain the suicides I guess. Are you going to be OK, Johnson?”

“No, but that's just life.”

Lester pulled through his injuries and gave up his cronies including the two men above him. The feds even got involved and came down hard. I learned two important things from this. One: visit the past but don't stay too long. Two: stay the heck out of police work next time.

To @DanPhantom123 challenge post: https://www.theprose.com/post/764252/the-alternate-truth

I never lied.

Woman: "He's behind the curtain."

She shook her head. It wasn't time. There had to be that part where they go on and cut you open, check for probable cause or unnatural motives. What's the word? ...autopsies.

But they never see the inner drive.

I could see both sides now, disparate. Me prostrate. Jimmy perpendicular. The blue curtain rippling like parting waters in a reverse birth. The fourth floor holding us both, and all of Meadow Shade as shadow. It's well past morning. I expect it happened many times before. For namesake, because in following our footpath we come into our own. And I was a wizard. The big brother.

"Rebecca Braum?" and she answers promptly to the intercom, walking expediently on command. A pawn, she'll take her check on Friday, and another case on Monday.

It's just us now.

I mean Jimmy.

Would he throw something at me? I still felt I deserved it no less than since our nearing the end of days when he'd hurled metal. Yeah, in what do they call that, that backwards curiosity-- "Re tro spect?" It wasn't at me then. But I still felt it should have been.

It was my primal memory in tick-tallying my calendar. After the nightmare, the undertaker's dream I'd had, I had morphed the image of the candies and the seat into one blackened opening. Hate's last breath vomiting out the toxins of us. Me. Peddling arms and legs through nothing. The self hate had to go. Through Jimmy's innocent and silent gaping. It was shit.

Maybe he at least could be purged now. That was my thinking in carrying on with this new forever, in a closure. For all of us. I had weighed the injustice. When I think of scales now, and the blindfold, it came down to this possibility.

At your doorstep, of life, there's a basket. It isn't exactly empty. You're carrying it up that winding path passed flying monkeys, and little people and big oafs as Dad used to say. Before he cut the ties. Jimmy would listen captivated. Growing into his own understanding. You think you know the non-contents. I mean it's like there's this hole in your heart, or your head, or in your pride or something.

And you're asking for it back. Groveling from behind the curtain, to the unknown.

Something tells you it's a potty not a basket. That whatever is missing has to go through you. Be processed. I want Jimmy to walk from that drape. Look if he has to, see it's just a body, decrepit matter.

But walk away, and leave the basket.

Alternate truth.

My parents divorced when I was five, and as an only child, my childhood was almost always entire days with just my mom and me. These days included movies followed by lunch or ice-cream at Rompelmeyer; birthday dinners at Benihanas or Il Boschetto; trips to Disney World, Bermuda, Trinidad, Europe, Canada; Broadway plays; ballet at Lincoln Center or City Center; rainy days, snow days or Saturdays of Monopoly, 221B Baker Street, chess, 500 rummy; Sunday church then Sunday afternoon tv movies... It was a very full childhood for which I am forever grateful. Despite being the only child of a single parent in a neighborhood where that was distinctly frowned upon, I was beyond fortunate.

I have a single memory of one whole day spent with my dad. I was fourteen. I spent the night at his apartment and we were up at 4 am to catch a boat. We had a cooler full of Colt 45 for him. I had a ham sandwich and a ginger ale in my backpack. Near the dock we bought some minnows for bait then boarded a fishing boat. We were on the water for hours. My dad made friends immediately and introduced me around with more than a little pride. This is my baby girl, Danny. Watch out for her. He fished a little, drank a lot, and spent some time playing cards below deck. I learned to put the hook through the eye of the minnow and almost won the pot by catching the biggest fish. It ended up being the second biggest. I remember how happy he was, bragging about the fish his baby girl caught. Or maybe he was just happy I was there doing something he loved with him. It was a good day. I wish we'd managed more of them before memories and pictures were all I had left of him.

When I met her, I had no opinion of Eira. She seemed polite, kind, but not the type to stand out in a crowd. She had friends, but not too many. She was in two of my classes, Art II and Sociology. I barely noted her existence until I found her outside of class one day.

I was at the park because I didn't want to be at home. It was a cold December day so I didn't expect anyone else to be there, and was shocked to see Eira sat on a swing. When she saw me in the dark she smiled and invited me to the swing next to her.

Ignoring my hesitance, I cleared snow off the swing and smoothed out my dress and sat next to her. She complimented my dress, saying the way dark blue blended well with the colors of the next. I expressed a similar sediment in the rings she was wearing, the way the silver reflected off the snow made it appear to be glowing.

She smiled and asked what I was doing there. It was the first time she ever said my name, and it was lovely how the vowels in 'Ada' sounded.

I explained my woes of being at home. Although my parents were given a daughter, I was more inclined to the romantic pursuits of a son.

Eira laughed at my phrasing, saying she always found my dramatic nature to be charming. I blamed my flush on the cold. She explained she preferred to be in cold, and how she wasn't fond of the summertime.

We talked about dull things for hours, although being next to her made them seem like the most interesting things in the world. It wasn't too long before the cold got to me and I began to shiver.

She noticed and told me I should head home. It wasn't until then I noticed she had no winter clothes, just a long sweater and leggings. I forced her to take my scarf, fearing her getting frostbite. She said she would only take it if I took her ring.

After I allowed her to slide it onto my finger, she kissed my cheek and told me she would be there the next night too.

Evening after evening, we would meet up. She would be wearing normal clothes besides my scarf I refused to take back, while the only stable thing about my outfit was the silver ring. Eira would observe it on my finger with a look of happiness I rarely saw in her any other time.

It changed on the first day of spring officially, when it was obvious there would be no snow. I went to the muddy park, dressed in a light coat along with the ring, and she was not there. I waited for her, and she did not show.

I went to the park and waited for a week, before something bright red caught my eye in the darkness, right underneath Eira's swing. It was the red scarf I gave her all that time ago.

That was what filled me with dread as I realized I would not see my love again. I slipped the silver ring off of my hand and wrapped the scarf around it, before sticking it back in the mud.

The only thing I can I do is wait for winter.

To a seven-year-old kid from the Bay Area, Hayfork California was the kind of place where a kid’s hope went to die. Watching the miles pass by, Jacob cringed inwardly knowing this they weren’t just passing through this middle of nowhere place on their way to a more civilized destination where stop lights and McDonald’s were plentiful. No, somewhere within this mountainous nightmare was the town of Hayfork which was to be his and his little half-sister and half-brother’s new, “Home.” This was Jacob’s third move in as many years. Each new “Home” being worse than the last. Though Jacob had never seen this new place, not even in a postcard picture, he already knew that if the pattern continued, he would hate Hayfork, California.

Not wanting to draw the attention of his despised, “Step-grandma” in the driver’s seat, Jacob sank further into the backseat and silently cursed his current circumstances. He had already accepted the sad reality that seven-year-olds were left with no choice but to weather the consequences of their parent’s decisions, no matter how stupid those decisions were. To his way of thinking, his mom’s decisions over the last couple of years were Three Stooges level stupid. Still, Jacob had somehow learned to endure each miserable moment brought on by his mom’s increasingly questionable decisions over the last three years. These bad decisions met their pinnacle with her mind bogglingly horrible choice in romantic partner and now new husband.

Though not even gone for a full eight hours, Jacob was already suffering the dull ache of homesickness. Against his will, the scrawny, buck-toothed boy was taken from the comfort and familiarity of his grandma’s house in Santa Clara to be dropped in (from what he could tell) was the middle of freaking nowhere. Jacob was too emotionally exhausted and miserable to even contemplate the full magnitude of just how screwed he was. All he knew was he felt a sense of dread that grew stronger with each passing mile. As they followed Highway 3’s winding course through the ass crack of the Cascade Mountains Jacob could only feel that misery was at the end of this windy, nausea inducing, mountain road.

Now thanks to Brian, his new, “Step-dad,” Hayfork was to be Jacob’s new home. The whole idea of having a step-dad was almost as nauseating as the motion sickness induced by the road they traveled because Jacob considered, Brian Davis to be one of the worst people he’d ever met. From Jacob’s first repugnant encounter, Brian’s dislike for Jacob could be sensed as it oozed from his nicotine-stained pores. A mutual dislike was the only thing Jacob shared with the man. In just the two short years he’d known the man, Jacob had witnessed Brian avoid any kind of work or responsibility. The rarely bathed, pot smoking, leech on his family was happy to let Jacob’s mom work through the end of her last pregnancy while he slept until the late afternoon.

Oh, but Brian had the most divine excuse for his slothfulness. According to his mom Shelly, Brian had a huge heart for the Lord and spent his waking hours, “Witnessing” to those who were trapped in the ways of sin. Jacob couldn’t help but as his grandma would say, “Call bullshit” to Brian doing anything of the sort. After all, a pig who is neck deep in its own shit has no right to tell the other pigs who’re only knee deep they need to get clean. It just didn’t seem likely that a man who did nothing but smoke pot, drink beer, and make children he couldn’t afford could convince anyone of anything let alone turn them from the same sin he himself wallowed in.

If one were to count how many words in total there were containing each individual letter of the word change, c-h-a-n-g-e, there would be about 68,300 words in total. Thus, showing without doubt that the opportunity for flexibility and transformation are attainable. If this is the case why is the idea of change so undisputedly dreadful for the masses? The word change is undoubtedly more frightful than the dark, spiders, or clowns because change is unavoidable. Knowing that it will come at the worst times and the fact that there is no real way to stop it ingrains the idea in one's head that nothing good lasts forever.

If you were to ask me, in all seriousness, what I wanted to be when I was 8, I would have said a professional ballerina. Devoting myself to dance for 8 years, every day, without hesitation, because I loved it. Shortly after, everything changed and I was doing the same with volleyball. My newfound love for a sport had never ignited such a flame as this one. For years I was convinced that playing division one volleyball once I reached college was written in stars for me. Until yet again, change crept along as it always does and everything seemed to change before my eyes.

Change has a mind of its own, a funny way of introducing itself. Change is often conveyed as a grotesque, monstrous being whose only ability is to do harm to those it holds captive. It seems as though change strangles those vulnerable and will at any given opportunity. However, what changes's victims are short on, is the fact that they will make it out. Make it out alive, that is. When change examines its phone book, it chooses those who need it the most. Instead of victims, change's recipients soon turn into an heir. An heir of new beginnings, a revival from their past, or rather in simpler terms, a fresh start, or a clean slate.

Change is a terrifyingly real concept that will never disappear. Individuals must learn to live with it, or learn how to not live at all. Consequently, instead of thinking of change as brutish, think of change as benign.

Jenny has always been rebellious. Her passion and habit of breaking rules and pushing boundaries led her into a precarious situation one afternoon.

She stood outside the local bakery and gazed hungrily at the cupcakes. She knew she shouldn’t step in- she was on a strict diet, but the temptation was too strong. She took a deep breath and marched into the bakery, determined she would have her cake and eat it too. She grabbed a box of cupcakes and was just about to sprint when she heard a voice behind her.

The baker came over, looking stern with flour all over her apron.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?" she asked angrily.

Jenny’s heart sank. She knew she was caught red handed.

“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean- “

“Save it little one! Snapped the baker. “I’ve seen your type before. You think you can simply waltz in here and take whatever you want?" said the baker.

Jenny’s cheeks turned red with shame.

“I swear I’ll pay for them. Let me- “

The baker cut her off again. “No way. You think money can solve all problems? Today, young lady, you’re going to learn a lesson."

After that, she took Maggie by the arm and led her to the back of the bakery, where she gave her a mop and broom.

"You're responsible for cleaning up the place and don’t even think about leaving until it's spotless,” said the baker.

Jenny sighed and got to work, wiping down the counters and sweeping up the flour. No matter how many times she was cleaning the counters and sweeping the flour, the air felt thick and heavy every time, making it difficult to breathe. But as she worked, she realized something strange was happening.

The cupcakes in the box were multiplying, growing biggerand more colorful by the minute. Jenny was amazed when she saw the cupcakes dancing and singing in the bakery. She soon became involved in the fun and was having a blast time until she was caught up in the cupcake caper.

In the end, the baker couldn't help but laugh as she watched Jenny twirl around with her newfound friends.

"You know what, kid? Maybe you're not so terrible after all?"

Jenny grinned from ear to ear as she finished her dance. "I knew cupcakes would make us feel things!"

I cannot even begin to describe the many reasons why you should not follow me. But I will do so anyway. You see, I am full of ideas, and I'm always coming up with new ways to convey them! Do you really want to follow someone who has ideas? Didn't think so. Secondly, I'm constantly learning! I know what you're thinking. Learning? What is this, school? What kind of total loser wants to learn? Exactly. This is why you definitely shouldn't (wink wink) follow me! You'd totally hate it.