First, you should know that it was not your fault. If you are reading this, then you cared enough to look. I could wait and explain everything in person, but I would not convince you. So, I will settle for this. It was not your fault.

Second, well, everything else, I guess. Everything dies eventually. Yes, I know; that is a terrible reason to choose now instead of eventually. But listen – no one ever did when I was alive, but maybe you will now. It’s been fun. But I’m done pretending now. All we can do – all we can ever do – is prolong the inevitable. We can choose to have fun along the way, or, like most of the world seems to have chosen, we can choose to suffer the whole time. And maybe make others suffer while we’re at it. Yes, there were fun times, but what was the point? Are the fun times worth the pain and suffering when it all disintegrates into nothing in the end, no matter what we do? What’s the point of struggling through this world when we all know that nothing we do will ultimately make any difference?

Before you ask, no, this has nothing to do with my father. I know you saw the bruises. I know you ignored them like everyone else. Or rather, you ignored them in a different way than everyone else. But you definitely ignored them. Where the rest of the world looked at anything else so they didn’t have to see, you let yourself notice and pursed your lips in that way that said you care, but not enough to do anything. I know you cared. I know you just didn’t know how to really care in this society that stilts all emotion, that has condemned emotion to the realm of weakness that must never be shown in public. If you care, you are weak. If you don’t care, you are callous. The weak are preyed upon. I know you preferred the world to think you callous. Don’t worry – I never thought that.

You might be asking yourself why now? You want to ask only why, not why now, but it is easier if you can blame something. So instead you ask why now so you can find the one trigger that caused everything, so that you can hate it and crusade against it for the rest of time. Not that it really matters. I’m sorry I don’t have something for you to blame. I’m sorry I don’t have a good answer to your question. My answers were never good enough, anyway.

I didn’t do it earlier because I ran out of time, or I forgot, or I didn’t feel like it, or some other lame excuse. Why didn’t you do your history homework, yet? My answer is the same as yours. I read a lot because I knew I would have to plan carefully. If I was reading, I wasn’t planning. I was lost in someone else’s story, someone whose life was much harder than mine, but somehow made it out the other side whole and optimistic. I admire those characters, I really do. But that’s not me. I played videogames because I had to concentrate on the controls, and if I was concentrating on the game, then I wasn’t thinking about other things. What other things? You know exactly what other things. I was always lost in another story. Sometimes you asked where I was when I was standing next to you. I would just shrug. I spent as much time in someone else’s story as possible. 

Because I knew exactly how mine ended. And being lost was way more fun.

Do you remember the time we went to the beach for my birthday? The party was your idea. When you asked what I thought, I shrugged and said “Sure.” When I asked why the beach, you talked about how I was always staring at the water, so you thought I would enjoy a beach party. I wasn’t staring at the water, though. I was staring at the horizon. I don’t know if that makes any difference. I wanted to know what lay beyond it. I wanted to know what it was like to get lost on the other side. I knew what teachers had told us, of course, but what did they know? What did anyone know about anything in a world where people suffer every day, but showing compassion makes us weak? In a world where suffering and dying were facts of life, and everyone just accepted that? Sometimes you complained that I was too impatient. I just don’t see the point of waiting.

Sometimes you asked if I was okay. I would always shrug and say “Sure.” Then you would shrug, and we would continue walking, pretending that everything really was okay, but knowing that nothing was and never would be. People ask if you’re okay your entire life. Or they ask how you are. Or they forsake the asking altogether and simply command you to have a good day. They don’t care about you or your day – as long as nothing happens to make an impact on their own personal little world. But that will end eventually, too.

Maybe you can barely even read this because of the tears in your eyes. Maybe the words are too blurry to make out, but you know what it says anyway because you knew me – well, you thought you knew me, anyway. Maybe no one else will be able to read this after you. Maybe it’s because you’ll burn this note in a fit of grief and anger. Or maybe it’ll just be because the fallen tears will have blurred the words beyond comprehension – to you or to anyone else. All that will be left of me will be puddles of black ink on soggy paper. The black will separate into all the colors that make it up, the way we are never allowed to. Rainbow coronas will form around the letters. The rainbows will be mostly dark, blues and purples.

We live in a society where black has to be black. And that black has to be whatever society has decided for it for that decade. We can be every color hiding in that black ink, but we’re not allowed to show it. That would make us different. It would make us weak. And when society decides that black isn’t black enough anymore, then we just have to adjust and pretend that this is always who we were and we are nothing but black and we are none of the colors that make black what it is. All of this just to fit in with a world where nothing matters, anyway. All I ever wanted was something real. I couldn’t find it in a world with all the color hidden. If you were here with me in person you might tell me that sounds angsty and dramatic. I would probably shrug and say “Sure.”

I suppose this makes me weak. Fine. At the end of this note, it won’t matter anyway. And eventually, nothing will matter, anyway. Maybe if someone had pried beyond “Sure” when they asked about me, none of this would have happened. Or maybe it would have. And in the end, we all would have died, anyway. So this was not your fault.

     The other fish in the sea anemone avoided Oscar. Whenever one made eye contact, it would quickly look away. Even James avoided him.

     Oscar swam slowly, not noticing the anxiety in the other fish’s faces. He turned suddenly, slashing the water violently with his tail as a wave of anger flashed through him.

     Night came, and Oscar slept. His life seemed to him to be an endless cycle of sleeping and waking. He ate little, just enough to keep himself alive.

     It was all so unfair! he mused again. So unfair that his parents should be taken away from him after so short a reunion.

     He slept fitfully that night. He rarely slept through the night anymore.

     There were seahorses in the sea anemone.

     Strange, Oscar thought. There aren’t usually seahorses around here.

     Then he saw the red eyes and the white horn glinting evilly in the pale moonlight.

     Seaunicorns!

     One of them turned toward him. Their eyes met for one brief, horrible moment, then it charged, its head down, horn aimed for Oscar’s throat.

     Oscar pulled out his sword, holding it defensively in front of him. A crack appeared in the hilt and traveled the length of the blade. The hilt shattered in Oscar’s fins. The blade followed. Oscar turned his head away from the shards that flew at his face. The seaunicorn was still charging when he turned toward it again.

     Oscar reached for his bow and pulled a scale from his body to fire. The pain blinded him. Blood streamed from the missing scale. The seaunicorn seemed frozen in place. Oscar watched the blood flow from the wound. It flowed into nothing. The seaunicorn was gone. The sea anemone was gone. Everything was gone. Around him was only black marred only by the red river of blood.

     The river widened. Oscar hurtled down it. He fought to draw a breath from the thick blood.

     The river narrowed. Oscar floated in the black. The river flowed into his wound.

     The seaunicorn resumed its charge. Oscar frantically reached for his sword, but he couldn’t find it. Then he remembered that it had shattered. No, not shattered. It was gone. He reached for his bow and a scale. His fin found a hole where a scale was missing. There was no sword. His scales were not weapons. He had never been dropped in the pudding factory that had armed him in his first life.

     Oscar turned away and prepared for the inevitable as best he could. Instead of being speared through the throat, like he expected, he heard a sickening clanging noise. When he turned back, the seaunicorn was engaged in a desperate duel. At first, Oscar could not see what had just saved his life. He just saw its horn flashing in the moonlight, desperately blocking and thrusting.

     A good unicorn? Oscar thought. It can’t be.

     With a final lunge, the thing’s horn drove through the seaunicorn’s chest. It pulled out with a violent, bloody thrust of the thing’s head.

     A narwhal!

     The narwhal turned to leave. Dead seaunicorns floated all about the anemones, their blood staining the waters red. The surviving seaunicorns fled.

     “Wait!” Oscar cried.

     The narwhal turned to face him.

     “Who are you?” he asked.

     “Rachel Quentin Levine.” She swam out of sight.

     “Oscar.”

     Oscar floated away from the voice.

     “Oscar, wake up.”

     “Leave me alone,” Oscar muttered.

     “You have to get up, Oscar.”

     “No.”

     “Oscar, come on.”

     Oscar focused one eye and saw James floating just above him. His face looked haggard, like he hadn’t slept in a while.

     Oscar grudgingly focused the other eye and said, “You look tired.”

     “Well, yeah,” James said. “Some of us didn’t sleep through the last few days. Well, you know, not sleep, but that thing that we do.”

     “Days?” Oscar asked. “I was only asleep, well you know, kinda asleep, for a few hours.”

     “Nope. You slept, well kinda slept –”

     “Yeah, we don’t really sleep. I get it. I think the reader gets it, too,” Oscar interrupted.

     “Right. Well anyway, you kinda slept through all,” James gestured with his fin to the seaunicorn and fish corpses strewn around them, “this.”

     “I thought my vision was a little redder than usual. What happened?”

     James and Oscar were both silent as they watched a tendril of blood float past them.

     “Seaunicorns invaded the anemone,” James answered quietly. “We were defenseless against them. Then a narwhal came and drove them away, but not before the damage had been done.”

     “What did the seaunicorns want? Why did the narwhal come?”

     James shook his head. “Nobody knows. They both just appeared out of nowhere.”

     “Where’d the narwhal go?”

     “It left. It never said a word.”

     Oscar’s mind raced as he connected his dream with the reality. “She,” he said, as he began to piece it all together.

     “What?”

     “The narwhal – she, not it. Her name is Rachel.”

     “How do you know?”

     “I was there.”

     “You were asleep!”

     “I saw it, though. And we’ve been over this. Extensively. I wasn’t really asleep. I saw the whole battle. I dreamed about it or I was still aware on some level or – or I don’t know. But I was there. Somehow.”

     “How did you find out her name? As far as any of us could tell, you were out.”

     “She told me. I asked and she told me. Her name is Rachel Quentin Levine.”

     “Yeah, you just said that.”

     “No, James, don’t you understand? Rachel Quentin Levine. RQL.”

     James sighed and looked away. “Oscar, look around,” he said without looking back.

     Oscar did. He saw the water and anemone tentacles stained red. He saw the tentacles beginning to recede and droop. He saw the holes in the tentacles and entire sections of the anemone missing. He saw torn sections of sea anemone floating around him. He saw the clownfish and the rare Banggai cardinalfish or two that had been generous enough to offer him and James refuge in their home lying dead for their trouble. He saw the fish still alive nursing their wounds and huddling together, turned protectively away from Oscar. He saw parents futilely trying to calm crying children. He saw relatives and friends trying to explain where the children’s parents had gone, or why they wouldn’t get up when the child cried for them. He saw one or two turning long enough to glare at Oscar. He saw the previously friendly fish not daring to approach the center of the anemone where Oscar lay, as if he himself were responsible for all their troubles. Which, he supposed, he was.

     “Why do you trust the Spaghetti Octopus? What good has come of listening to it?” James asked. “It’s just brought danger and destruction.”

     “But I didn’t want this. I just wanted us to be safe.”

     “Well, we’re clearly not.”

     “But if we can find RQL, then we can –”

     “Come on, Oscar, seriously? Think about it. The Spaghetti Octopus caused your parents to be captured. It caused-” James cut himself off and looked away.

     “But maybe we can fix this. If we just find RQL . . .”

     “You go find your precious RQL, then. I’m staying here.”

     “But-”

     “You’ve caused me enough problems, Oscar. I’m staying.”

     Oscar opened his mouth, but shut it without saying anything. He turned and swam slowly to gather his potato and bow and arrows. He stared at the potato without moving for several minutes. He felt a presence beside him, but did not turn.

     “You should go now,” James said. Oscar was glad that he didn’t sound angry anymore; now he just sounded sad.

     And why shouldn’t he be? Oscar thought. It’s my fault he’s here. It’s my fault he’s not just living a simple life where he was born. It’s my fault all these fish died.

     James continued, “If whatever’s out there doesn’t kill you, these fish might.”

     “Yeah,” Oscar sighed. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”

     Oscar gathered his things and swam toward the bloodied anemone tentacles.

     “I hope so,” James whispered. “I hope so.”

The world is broken. I cannot fix it. Not by myself. But I can start the process.

“Charlie Brown?” The secretary looked up from his clipboard.

“That’s me.” I rose from the uncomfortable red upholstered chair, using the black plastic armrests to push myself up. It was one of seven identical chairs in the waiting room.

“Your name’s Charlie Brown?” the secretary asked, raising his fuzzy gray eyebrows. The gesture made his brow crinkle in such a way that revealed his true age.

“Yeah. That’s me.”

“Is that your real name?”

I blew out breath in a half chuckle, half snort. “Of course not.”

“Then, what is your real name?”

“I’m looking for a job as a bus driver. Why the hell should you care about my name?”

The secretary looked at me for a long moment, then said, “Whatever. Follow me, Mr. Brown.” The last word was a sneer.

He led me down a long hallway, turning left and right seemingly at random. The secretary was my opposite in appearance – short and portly where I was tall and lanky. His receding hairline showed strands of gray, though the main body of his hair shone a youthful chestnut color. It was probably dyed. Such vanity. I snorted in derision. The secretary cocked his head to the left and glanced sideways at me, but said nothing.

He turned a corner and I found myself outside a solid wooden door with a handwritten sign taped to it. Maria Smith, it read. I just live in a world of generic last names, it seems.

“Here we are,” said the secretary. “Go in there. She’ll ask you a few questions, tell you to sign a few forms, and then you’re done.”

The secretary turned and walked away. When he rounded the corner, I knocked on the door three times. I always knock three times, and never when anyone is looking if it can be helped.

“Come in,” a voice called from beyond the door.

I pushed the door open and surveyed the room.

In front of me was a wooden desk. Behind the desk, a wall sized window revealed the urban landscape. In the distance I thought I saw the rare green of a tree. I fought back my anger at how humans had destroyed the world. A woman perhaps in her early to mid-30s sat behind the desk. Another chair was placed in front of it.

I crossed the room in three long strides and sat down without waiting for an invitation. I wanted to be a bus driver, after all. Sitting down was going to be my job.

The woman typed something on the computer to her right, then regarded me. “Mr. Brown, is it?”

“Yes.” The corners of my lips twitched upward in a slight smile.

“Excellent. I’m just going to ask you a few questions.”

She looked at me as if expecting a response. I looked back. She hadn’t asked a question yet, had she?

“Have you ever been charged with a felony, misdemeanor, or other crime?” she asked, glancing at a piece of paper on the desk in front of her.

“No.”

“Traffic violations?”

“No.”

“No parking tickets, nothing like that?”

“No.”

“May I see your driver’s license?”

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my wallet, and handed her my license. She glanced at it, then at me, back at it, wrote something down, then gave it back. I slipped it back into my wallet.

“And your CDL?”

We repeated the procedure, each of us admirably performing our part of the routine. I dropped the wallet back into my jacket pocket.

“Well, everything seems to be in order. Sign here, please.”

She slid a paper and pen across the desk to me. I picked up the pen and scanned the document. It was the typical terms and services contract kind of thing. I assumed. I signed the paper and handed it and the pen back to her.

“Alright, that’s it. Remember, no pets no weapons, and no drugs on the buses. Be at your station Monday at 6 am for training. Have a nice day, Mr. Brown.”

I pushed the chair back, unfolded my long legs from beneath the desk, and walked away. I did not return her wishes for a good day. Her day would be as it was, regardless of my, or anyone else’s, wishes.

The next Monday, I endured the endless torment of training and the ceaseless monotonous chatter of my trainer. He droned on about rules and routes and probably other things I already knew. I stopped listening. I was deemed ready to be on my own that Wednesday. I was assigned 6 am.

***

On Wednesday, I leaned my head against the headrest of my assigned bus. My eyelids tried to drift shut, but I fought them open. It was 5:55 – a good time. It was almost time to start my exhilarating new life as a bus driver. I yawned with excitement.

I glanced at my watch. 5:59. I watched the seconds march towards 6:00. Fourteen more seconds. 47, 48, 49. When 59 faded to 00 and my watch read 6:00, I pulled out of the station and began my rounds.

I drove to my first station and opened the doors. The businesspeople filed on – the women in their revealing skirts, their painted nails and faces, their ankle-breaking high heels; the men with their perfectly styled and dyed hair, their perfectly sculpted muscles or suits to hide the lack thereof, their overly expensive fancy leather briefcases. All of this, I was sure, to impress someone else. To keep a job they probably hated. Despicable. All of it.

I kept my eyes straight ahead as the sheep in suits clambered up the steps, catching only glimpses out of the corner of my eye. I did not want to look at the dreary state that humanity had come to. At least wolves eat sheep, controlling their population, but who controls the ones in suits?

A scanner read their bus passes. A machine counted their bus fare. There was no reason to watch. Besides, electronics do everything these days.

When the footsteps stopped shuffling past, I glanced to the right to ensure no one else was coming, my expression stoic. I closed the door and drove to my next stop.

When the day was done, I drove to the station, dropped off my bus, got in my own car, and drove to my house. Maintenance took care of cleanup.

***

I just described the last ten years of my life in four paragraphs.

It took that long to get to where I needed to be. Finally, I find myself standing where I had to get the job in the first place.

“So, Peter, your record has been flawless,” Maria tells me. I see the secretary smirk across the room, behind the desk. In ten years, I had managed not to reveal my true name to him. Oh well.

We walk down the hall to her office, where she reviews some records. “No traffic violations. Never missing a stop. Arriving at each stop almost to the minute.” I lower my eyes in shame here. Almost is never good enough. “Perhaps a bit impersonal,” she recites.

“I didn’t know it was part of my job to be personal. I’ll work on it,” I reply in a monotone.

Maria laughs. “Peter Brown, you always were quite the jokester. Tell me, when are you gonna drop this whole Vulcan act?”

“What act?”

She laughs again. “Well, let’s not stall any further. I know how important it is to you to be prompt.” She hands me a piece of paper. “You have a longer route and bigger bus now. Your pay will be almost doubled from when you started.”

I examine the map she shows me. My new route takes me along the highway. Perfect. The bigger bus and the highway route are all I need to accomplish my goal that I started all those years ago. “I start this route on Monday?”

Maria nods. “6 am.”

Maria and I stand at the same time. She holds the door open for me. I walk out and down the hall.

“Peter Brown. Your name’s Peter Brown,” the secretary sneers as I walk by. I continue past without a glance.

I sit in my new bus. This is the part where I’m supposed to say that it has some magical aura around it. That everything about it just seems better in every way. But the truth is that it is just a bus. A bus that is marginally bigger than the one I used to drive. A bus that can more effectively accomplish my goal.

At 6:00 – exactly 6:00 – I pull out of the station to begin my rounds. I stop. I let people on. I let people off. They are all just as vain and delusional as ever. I drive on. Surely, this promotion has been the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.

At 12:00 my new route brings me along the highway. It is under construction. Everything is always under construction. The world is broken.

My bus is full. Several people stand in the aisle. Some talk about the weather or sports or some other meaningless thing. Most are silent. Their chatter is useless. Their silence is useless. These people are useless.

12:12. The time is right.

I check to make sure my seat belt is buckled. Then I jerk the steering wheel to the right. For a moment, the wheels catch on the concrete blocks and the sun reflects blindingly off the side view mirror. Then, the bus rolls over the barrier and tumbles to the busy street below.

Cars honk. People scream. I’m sure some of those screams are people swearing at me. I do not care. I am doing this broken world a service. I consciously relax my body as the bus falls. If I want to see the results of my work and continue my mission, I need to give myself every chance I can to survive. I take my hands off the steering wheel; there is nothing more for me to do. Now it is all up to nature. Nature, and the monstrosities that humankind has created.

The bus completes its descent with a crunch of metal and a symphony of shattered glass. Some of it is the bus’s own structure. Most of it is the cars underneath. The bodies on the bus fly against the windows, the windshield, the chairs. One flies straight through the windshield and sails into the sun. I wonder if he feels like Superman before he falls in a jumbled heap of broken bones and torn flesh.

Cars crash into the bus. The flames they create paint a beautiful backdrop. The screeches that sound mingle with screams in a succulent serenade. The sirens that now blare add just the right harmony. I close my eyes in satisfaction.

When I open them again, I lie in a hospital bed. When I try to sit up, the soft clinking of chains make my head feel like it’s going to implode. It feels like my brain’s fighting to escape its bony confines. I let my body fall back to the bed. The handcuff that chains one hand to the bedpost embraces my arm in chilly iciness. A knock at the door makes my head pound in rhythm with each tap. A nurse – at least, I assume she’s a nurse – enters.

“Oh! You’re awake. How do you feel?”

“Fine.” My vision blurs with the effort of speaking.

She may have continued to try to speak with me. I don’t know. My eyes feel like lead weights. I let them fall as I reflect on how I got here.

At first, the memories won’t come. My mind is like an old television, covered in static. I mentally adjust the antenna. Flames replace the static. Screams. Sirens.

Oh, god. What have I done?

Over the next few days, I drift in and out of consciousness. I don’t remember much from that time. Once, I wake up to a nurse shaking me gently.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “You were thrashing around a lot in your sleep. I was afraid you might hit something.”

I can feel sweat running down my face. I want to respond, but, before I can, my eyes close, and I am swimming in the black again.

I dream of fire. I dream of bodies lying broken, bleeding. I dream of cars honking and crashing and sirens blaring and people screaming. I wake with clammy hands and drenched in sweat. When I dream, I want nothing more than to wake up. But the numbness of the deep, dreamless black is the best analgesic.

I don’t know how long it is before I fully awaken. It must have been a long time, because I can barely feel any injuries. Or maybe that’s just how much they’ve drugged me. I am still plagued by nightmarish visions of what I’ve done. A demon in the back of my brain whispers that it was all for a good cause. That I performed my service to the world. The demon scares me. I try not to listen to it. Instead, I listen to the voices I hear outside my door.

“How’s he doing?” The female voice sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.

“Physically, he’s recovering remarkably well. Mentally . . .” A male voice. It sounds authoritative. A doctor, maybe?

“Not so well?”

“Well, it’s still hard to tell. The few times he’s been awake, he hasn’t been lucid.”

“Can I see him?”

There’s a silence, as if they’re waiting for a third person to answer. A female voice, deeper than the first one, says, “I can’t let you do that. He’s dangerous.”

The first female voice says, “What do you mean, ‘he’s dangerous?’ He’s chained to the bed. He probably doesn’t even remember anything. The MRIs showed some pretty serious brain damage.”

There’s another silence, then I hear footsteps leading away. The guard at my door must have stood resolute. Memories begin to trickle in. The demon voice fights to be heard. I try to silence the voice, but the trickle turns into a waterfall; the voice gets louder with each memory.

The female voice I heard was Maria Smith, my former boss.

I betrayed her. She trusted me.

You did your service. You have begun a great journey.

The voices, my own and – well, I guess they’re both my own, knocked loose from each other in the crash – feel like they’ll rip my head in half, leaving a jagged, bloody seam down the middle. I settle deeper into the bed and close my eyes, praying for the analgesia that dreamless sleep brings me. As soon as my eyes are closed, though, flames play across the backs of my eyelids. I snap my eyes open.

Embrace it, the demon tells me. You did the right thing.

I turn as far over onto my side as the handcuff and medical equipment sticking out of my arms will let me, as if I can turn my back on the demon and, thus, banish it forever. I think I hear it laughing.

After three days of being semi-conscious most of the time, I am allowed out of my room. I quickly learn that the guard outside my door, a young woman about a head shorter than me with blonde hair that curls down to her shoulders and a gun at her hip, will become my shadow. One of the nurses takes me for a walk.

“How are you feeling, today?” the nurse asks as we walk down the white hall. It smells of sanitation.

“Oh, fantastic.”

He frowns, noting my sarcasm, and possibly, the wince of pain as each foot hits the ground. Who knew walking could be so difficult?

“You’re walking well,” he tells me.

I don’t say anything. I just look at him. Maybe I lost more of my memory than I realize, but the last I remember, I was a lot better at this whole walking thing than I am now. I look down at the ground to keep my balance.

The nurse sighs. “Cut yourself some slack. You’ve been confined to bed for months. You’re picking it back up at a remarkable pace.”

I shrug. “Whatever.”

Over the next few weeks, the walks get longer. Soon, whomever it is that gets to decide how I live my life now decides I should add weights into the routine. It’s torture, but it must be torture for the demon voice, too, because it finally shuts it up. I decide I prefer the torture of lifting weights to the demon.

Lying in my bed, room illuminated by starlight, bored and in agony after a hard workout of lifting as much as three pounds, the demon is at its most talkative.

You could escape, you know. Silence for a while, then, Just break your thumb, get out of the handcuff. Ask a nurse for a sedative. Use it on the nurse. Then on the guard, if necessary. Break the window. They make it too easy, really.

I try to ignore the voice. I don’t want to listen to it. But I do want to listen. Its way offers escape. Its way offers freedom. I may have lasted as long as five minutes before I grit my teeth, bash my thumb against the bedpost, and, just to make sure, jerk it up and out as hard as I can with my free hand. There’s an audible snap. The demon reminds me to check that my hand is actually free. I slip it out of the handcuff; with the thumb out of place, my other four fingers glide through. I slip my hand back through, so it looks like I’m still confined, before I press the red button to call the nurse.

A few moments later, there’s a knock on my door and the nurse enters. “What is it?” he asks.

“I can’t sleep. I’m in too much pain. Can you give me a sedative or something?” The demon coaches me on what to say, how to look, how to act.

“Sure.” The nurse leaves, then returns with a syringe of what I assume must be the sedative.

The moment he leans down to inject the drug into my arm, I slip my hand completely free of the handcuff and grab the sedative, while I use my other palm to hit him in the jaw. The demon tells me to spring near the door, and now I listen without hesitation. The moment the guard hears the thump of the nurse’s unconscious body, she bursts through the door, gun ready. I inject the sedative into her exposed carotid artery before she sees me. I confiscate her gun and use it to smash a hole in the window. I jump out of the second story window and land in a half-roll, half-flop. If I live to see the sunrise, I am sure I will feel all the cuts that my blood flows from, not to mention whatever it is I must have broken, but for now, the adrenaline masks all pain. As I sprint away, I hear the hospital’s alarms blaring.

Teaming up with the demon voice is the Elmer’s glue that seals the two sides of my head back together. It feels good to be working together with someone, even if that someone is myself. Of course, Elmer’s glue never lasts long.

When I get to the highway, I stop running. I walk along the shoulder, kicking at a rock. I look down at the rock, then up at the moon. It’s full tonight. I imagine the moon and stars would be breathtakingly bright, if not for the pollution that hides them from the world. The demon is quiet. It’s proud of me. It tells me I’ve done well.

When I get to the point where the bus fell, I stop. I contemplate the skid marks on the concrete blocks. One is still askew. I look at the moon. I look at the road below. Despite the late hour, traffic is still plentiful.

I jump.

I relish my brief freedom as the wind rushes around me. I think of the man flying through my windshield. Yes, I answer the demon voice that asked that question so long ago: I do feel like Superman. I hear the shattering of bones marking the end of my descent. The honk of a car cuts off as my senses fail.

It’s just. It’s right.

Someone once told me that we all bleed the same. Some biology professor or something. Or maybe it was that sociology class I took. I don’t remember. I just remember that they lied.

I hate liars. Can’t stand them. Once a girl told me that she would love me until the day she died. Well, I kinda liked the girl and couldn’t stand to see her turned into a liar. So I killed her. It was the only way to make sure she was telling the truth. Her blood was delicious. Maybe the best I’ve ever tasted. Salty, but not so salty that it burns your tongue, you know? Some nights, when I’m feeling lonely, I’ll lick my lips, and I think I can still taste it.

Some other blood, though, it’s salty, too, but it’s also got that sweet metallic taste. You know the one. I never could get into the sweet and salty trend. Disgusting, if you ask me. Like, all that salted caramel stuff that exists now? Who in their right mind would want to taste any of it?

Anyway, so this professor said that we all bleed the same. I’ve never been one to take anything at face value, so I wanted to see if maybe he was right on some level. You could say I’m a scientist. I’m just trying to find what part of the human blood makes it the same as everyone else’s.

You may wonder why I’m telling you all of this. Well, it’s so you understand that what I’m about to do, I have to. Nothing personal. Just gotta find out if that professor was right, after all. Your blood is a valuable part of my project.

1. Pants that make you thin.

2. Shirt that makes you hot.

3. Duct tape fixes the smile.

4. New face in mirror.

5. Wonder who you were.

6. Repeat.

       Mommy says the walls have ears. She says that’s how she’ll know if I don’t go to bed on time. She’ll know if I’ve been bad. The walls will tell her. Daddy says the walls will tell him if I’ve been crying. He says I have to be strong. He says strong people don’t cry. I learned a long time ago not to cry in front of Daddy. It makes him angry.

       I don’t go inside much anymore. My only friend is out here, anyway. Mommy never told me if my cardboard walls have ears. It would be okay if they do. We’re friends.

My friend doesn’t talk much. Or at all. But that’s okay. She’s a great listener. It’s nice to be able to talk. I listen a lot.

       I listen to screaming and shouting inside. I listen to glass shattering. I listen to the thud of a hand on a face. I listen to the dog yelp. I listen to her claws clattering on the wood floor. I listen to her frenzied breathing. I listen to the thud of a large body on solid ground. I listen to her breathing, slower now. I listen to a human voice, quieter now. The walls may have ears, but they are cold. My ears are warm against the dog’s chest. Her chest grows cold against my ear. I have never listened to a heart beating. If the walls have ears, then they are useless. I wish I could give them mine. I don’t want to hear the fighting anymore.

       That’s my only memory of Mommy and Daddy doing something together. I remember all of us getting in the car to take the dog to the vet. But it’s already too late. I remember driving home in silence, minus one family member. I think I prefer the screaming to the silence.

       I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, cardboard surrounds me again, caressing, comforting, a warm embrace I never knew.

      Sometimes I wish the walls had eyes instead of their useless ears. Then the walls could see me doubled over, arms around my knees. Then they could see my head buried in my body, hiding from the world, searching for desperate escape. Then they could see my body racked by silent sobs. Then they could see the bruises, the scrapes, the scars. Then they could see my smile, plastered on, and tearing at the corners.

       Sometimes I wish the walls had mouths. If the walls know what happens inside of them, then surely they would say something. If the walls had mouths, maybe I could get help.

       I look up through a hole at the sky and watch the clouds. I watch dragons romp and play. I watch aliens battle each other. I watch soldiers disappear into a new cloud when they are slain, forever transformed, forever transforming. I watch wizards spin fire. I watch a childhood I never knew. I watch, and I wonder. I wonder if Mommy and Daddy see stories in the clouds. I don’t think they do. Maybe that’s why they’re so angry all the time.

       My cardboard sanctuary cannot drown out the yelling inside. I try to concentrate on the clouds, but I cannot ignore the noise. If the walls really have ears, they must have gone deaf by now.

         You watch as the aliens slowly crawl over your land. They are as one, a slime mold made of individual entities, but a single mind. You press the red button on your desk (because what else is one to do at a probable apocalypse?), and venture outside to meet your fate.

         “You may call me Fqaxjte,” said the alien, extending a slimy flipper-tentacle thing toward you.

         You gingerly grasp the appendage in one hand. “You may call me – well I guess you could call me whatever you want, but my name is Jesse. I came to ask – are you sprinkling salt on me?” You let go of the slimy appendage and shake the salt from your hand onto the ground.

         The alien appeared deep in contemplation. “I suppose humans are already pretty salty. My doctor says I should watch my sodium intake.”

         “You have doctors?”

         “Well, I have one inside me.”

         “You can’t just eat us!”

         “Why not?”

         “Because we’re salty. Your doctor just told you to stop eating so much salt.”

         “If I do not eat you, then I am no longer part of Fqaxjte.”

         “It’s great not being part of a quasi-hive mind. You get to go where you want, do what you want, be what you want. You can do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it.”

         Another alien approached. “What you speak of is called Independence, is it not?”

         “Yes!” you respond. “Independence is great! It is the freedom to read a book while eating chocolate in the privacy of a room that is entirely your own. It is having your own bathroom. It is the time to play as many video games as you want with no one to judge you. It is being able to eat what you want, when you want it, with no one else to tell you what and when it’s right to eat. It is the freedom to choose if you will walk or drive or just not go anywhere at all. It is ability to listen to whatever music you want, or not listen to anything. It is the ability to speak your mind and only fear a little retribution. It is a word that begins with the letter I. It is a noun in the English language!”

        The second alien says, “Why would any of that be a reason for us not to eat you?”

        “Oh, it’s not. It was just to stall long enough that the other humans could escape,” you explain, jabbing a thumb over your shoulder at the last of the humans scurrying onto the escape shuttle. “We hear there’s a lovely inhabitable planet nearby called Fate.”