October 15th

You talk in your sleep. Did you know that? Last night it was about the fire again. You never told anyone what really happened in that basement. Don't worry - your secret is safe with me. For now.

I like watching you make coffee in the morning. Two sugars, splash of cream. Always waiting exactly four minutes - watching that timer tick down on your phone like it's some kind of ritual. Like it will keep the memories away. It won't.

You should really fix that bedroom window. The one that sticks when it rains. Sometimes it opens on its own at night. Sometimes I have to close it for you.

October 18th

Your mother called again. You always turn your phone face-down when she calls, like you can make her disappear. But we both know the real reason you won't talk to her. Does she still ask about that summer? About what happened to Claire?

The bruise on your shoulder - the one you think you got from bumping into the door frame? That wasn't the door. You thrash a lot in your sleep now. I have to be more careful when I get close.

I left you a gift today. You haven't found it yet. It's in that shoe box you never open, the one shoved under your bed. The one with the photos you pretend don't exist. I put it right next to them.

October 23rd

I dug up your old diary today. The real one. Six feet deep, right next to Whiskers. Remember how you told everyone he ran away? Such a convincing little liar you were.

Still are.

You wrote about the shadows you used to see in your closet. The ones that moved when you were alone. Smart girl - you knew they were real. You just stopped looking.

We've met before, you know. Many times. You were too young to remember the first time. I made sure of that.

October 24th - 3:17 AM

You're sleeping now. Peaceful, finally. The pills help, don't they? But they can't keep me out.

I'm sitting in that chair in the corner of your room. The one that belonged to your grandmother. Did you know she died in it? The nursing home lied about that too.

I should leave. The sun will be up soon. But first, I need you to understand something: I'm not writing these words to scare you. I'm writing them because soon you'll become exactly like me. It's already starting. Haven't you noticed the gaps in your memory? The hours you can't account for?

Look at your hands when you wake up. Really look at them. That's not dirt under your fingernails.

Soon you won't need to sleep at all.

I was invited to a get-together at a five-star restaurant, which I attended with great anticipation. I took my time selecting the perfect outfit for the occasion and felt stunning when I arrived.

Upon reaching the venue, I started to feel shy and wondered if I had overdressed. Nervousness crept in just as a fine gentleman approached me, offering to walk me to the table. It seemed like he sensed my discomfort—such an angel.

It felt like something out of a novel. My imagination was standing right in front of me, and for a moment, it seemed like I had stepped into a dream, teleported into a book. There he stood, his eyes as captivating as the ocean. As I walked closer, my heartbeat quickened. He smiled warmly, and those eyes—oh, those eyes! My face betrayed me, and I felt the unmistakable heat of a blush creeping up my cheeks. Why do I always blush so easily? I thought.

There we were, face to face. A nervous "Hi" escaped my lips. He extended his hand toward me, and I took it, allowing him to lead me to my seat. After a while, we found ourselves deep in conversation, forgetting we were at a get-together . He was everything I imagined in a man, knowing exactly what to say—just like my imaginary boyfriend. Can he read my mind? I wondered. Every word he spoke made my stomach flutter and my heart race. Mind (My inner self), where are you?

I told him how much I love the ocean and how I’ve always dreamed of running along the cold sand at the beach, with different scenarios playing out in my head. To my surprise, he responded, "Okay, let's do it."

"Do what?" I asked, confused.

"Run on the beach," he replied.

Still unsure of what was happening, I agreed. He then led me outside the restaurant, which happened to have a beach and a hotel nearby. We walked toward the beach, and he helped me take off my heels—a gesture I found so manly. Next, he pulled a camera from his bag, having mentioned earlier that he had a passion for photography.

He handed me an AirPod and played Lana Del Rey’s "Red Dress." Then, with a twinkle in his eye, he said, "Bring your imagination to life." Normally, I wouldn’t have fallen for such words, but I guess the alcohol had kicked in. Before I knew it, I was running along the beach, freeing myself from all my thoughts, bringing my imagination to life. He was there, recording me with his camera.

I must say, it was the best night of my life. I couldn’t have asked for more. Afterward, he escorted me to my hotel room, where we said our goodnights. We never exchanged numbers, and by the next morning, he was gone. I never saw him again.

Though I never got to know his name, I had always remembered his as Jay.

I got him. I finally got him. And now I have to make sure I don’t take the fall for cleaning up his mess. The number of people his horrible standards and instance on long hours put in the grave. The safety codes he ignored. All of it. Foreman, as he insisted upon us using the title instead of his name, was no more.

The foundry is dangerous enough, and casting bronze is a tricky business. Artists trust us with meticulously crafted molds, and his asinine disregard for the basics, like two men on every pour, and using the crane for the long ones put fatal flaws in statues and in all the miniature copies that came after them.

Sand casting and polishing versus lost wax method for the original, made work for more than a dozen craftspeople who brought the rough textured castings to the exacting standards the sculptors demanded. Details had to be attended to, and now I’ll attend to his funeral. Or should I say cremation? He wasn’t the first to trip and end up in the old fashioned melting pit.

He was about to disappear and become part of the floating scum we skim so carefully when we make alloys. No trace of a body. They might find prints from his shoes in front of the pit, and evidence of him tripping to his knees, because I’ll stage it that way. All I have to do is open the grate, and he’ll be gone.

The creaking groan of the grid sliding out from under him barely registered over the roar of flames and industrial fans. It was late, and he was the last one out as usual. His habits a rut not one of those who work here wanted to fall into. Rotating into different positions kept eyes fresh, but he said staying in the same position made it easier. Right, lazy ass. He just didn’t want to take the time to properly train anyone. Well, who’s laughing now?

My silicon soled steel-toed boots left no prints. The only thing I had to make sure of? Don’t brag. Ever. For James, Elliot and Cameron, I said a quiet prayer. Finally my co-workers will rest in peace.

Silent, surpassing stench of carcass

Rising from the garden, midst ever watchful weeds

Lingers lasciviously, baring the most foul deeds

Embracing the meticulous manifestation of madness' sway

Whilst manipulating Machiavellian, macabre, and mortal fray

In a calculation of decimation found in the depths of hell

Wrapped securely beneath a veil woven from evil's spell

Cynthia Calder, 09.28.24

Kristof left the therapist’s office at a reasoned pace. He didn’t want it to look like he was running away from his session. And, for himself, he didn’t want to feel like he was running away from his past, on Beatrix. He tried putting his mind to work. A dozen different repair requests had come his way whilst he was wasting time sat around talking about his feelings. He pressed his thumb and finger into his eyes and groaned. Despite having so much to get through, the work had failed to keep him distracted.

The Boadicea wasn’t empty, exactly. It was neat. The guts, the heart of the ship, were just tidied and hidden behind expensive wall panelling. It wasn’t so different from Beatrix under the surface. Sure, the ships always start out standardised. The longer they are out in space, the more upgrades, engineering innovations, and jury-rigged solutions, the closer the two concepts converge. These recent repairs would contribute to that.

The intrusive memories of filthy moss-walled high-rises persisted. Kristof fought them off, directing his attention toward Hearn. The colony ship’s destination planet was so rich in anthocyanins that the clay-like soil was a deep orange, not brown. Hearn grew trees with bark that was striated in pinks and reds so that forests of deep magenta covered the planet.

Kristof felt inventive as an engineer, but he was not broadly creative. He had a hard time picturing Hearn. So, once again, he was back home on Beatrix. By the time he had retired to his new bunk, secreted away in a workroom, surrounded by the exposed inner workings of the ship’s engines, wrapped up in the low rhythmic rumble, and occasional ghostly clanks from the cooling pipes; Kristof found himself transported back to Beatrix.

Michael’s Gate, the largest of the three grimy domes, covered his sector. Here the high-rises reached out their tallest. Stitched atop were rickety shacks whose ramshackle additions were made mostly from rusted, reused metal and salvaged ship parts. They leaned into each other, joined in a patchwork of accidental culture. Scaffolding and walkways, called ‘runs’ by the locals, weaved around the outer edges, intertwining with the ducts. Spewing from the metal pipes was a dirty fog surrounding the tops, obscuring the view into space.

Closer to the ground, the founders had built the original colony buildings with moss-concrete, designed to provide cheap insulation and low oxygen production, augmenting the colony’s supply. The deep greens gave off a musky scent that always put off newcomers, but smelled of home to the colonists.

Kristof sat in his bunk, thinking of how they had ripped him from his job and home. Objectively, he knew they were right to do it. No ten-year-old, or anyone really, should work in the conditions that Beatrix factories provided. Yet he still resented the men and women who, for a political stunt, took him away from his work, his home, and his captors.

His supervisors were not kind people, but they had the power. When the suits had taken that power away from them, Kristof had felt aimless. He was afraid, and in denial of that fear. He denied it, playing it off as foolishness, even to himself. Yet here he was, just as Doctor Zaharani had predicted: isolated, alone, and mimicking the conditions of his old home.

“Tch, I hate doctors,” he said to the bulkhead.

she lied

took my heart

for a fucked-up ride

so...

i...

hit her with a bat

an' i pried out her eyes

hung her hide up high

for the sun to dry

threw her 32 teeth

at the moon in the sky

tossed her ice-cold bones

to the pigs in a sty

clappin' an' a-singin'

with my knees to my pits

all the rest i pitched

in a mountain of lye

yee-haw!

i'm really goin' now

oh yeah

now...

i'm...

layin' on her hide

by my new girl's side

n'by golly i hope

she don't ever lie

or do nothin' else

might make me mad

oh yeah

gimme a kiss there sweetie

oh yeah

right there

you know i like it right there

no

NOT THERE GOD DAMMIT

It is an ongoing joke between my husband and son that I am probably in the CIA, living undercover in the suburbs of New Jersey with my Russian immigrant husband and son as cover. I’ve never understood what they imagine my assignment to be; nor what about me encourages their thinking. I am an African-American educator with a PhD in Hispanic literature. I am a devoted wife. An adoring mother. Indeed, it is so unlikely as to be far-fetched albeit quite amusing.

Until it wasn’t. I mean, if I tell you, I have to kill you is not merely a line of fiction.

It’s my life.

And so, the day they made the joke in front of my husband’s worthless half brother, Aleksandr, (“former” KGB, ha, unbeknownst to his family), and his gaze sharpened on me, and I knew he knew that I knew that he knew. And he had to die.

And it had to be quick, fatal and undetectable.

My specialty.

“I’ll be right back, guys,” I said, getting up from the dining room table. The cookies should be done.”

“Chocolate chip?” my son asked. I nodded. “I hope you made at least three dozen. I could eat them all. Although Anna’s cookies are great, too,” he added about his girlfriend of the moment.

“I can always bake more, sweetheart,” I replied over my shoulder as I went to the kitchen.

After removing the cookie sheets from the oven, I placed several cookies on three dessert plates: one for my husband, one for my son, and one for Aleksandr. Grabbing a small brown jar from the back of the spice cabinet, I added a drop of the contents to the top cookie on Aleksandr’s plate. I replaced the jar before I picked up the plates and re-entered the dining room.

“Here you go guys! Let me know if you want more” I said, placing an identical plate in front of each of them. “Milk?”

Mouths full, I got a nod of yes from my son, no from Aleksandr and my husband. I could feel Aleksandr’s eyes following me as I left the room.

Back in the kitchen, I took a glass from the cabinet and milk from the refrigerator. As I poured, I heard a chair scrape the wood floor and fall in the dining room.

“What are you three doing now?”

“It’s Aleksandr!” my husband said. “Something’s wrong!”

I ran in the room. Aleksandr was on the floor, clutching his chest. He looked at me in pain and bewilderment. “Oh my God,” I screamed, kneeling next to my husband. “Call 911!” I said to my son.

The EMTs arrived within five minutes.

He was dead within three.

The medical examiner’s report ruled it a heart attack.

My secret is safe.

In my opinion, if you want to be a hero, you should (as a general rule of thumb) have a power that you can use.

My power isn't anything cool or flashy. It's quite boring, actually.

I have the power of total self-sustenance.

Yay me. I don't have to sleep. I'm living a toddler's dream. I do't need to excrete, eat or even drink.

Wow. Really strikes fear into the heart of a villain, doesn't it?

I've been practicing Martial Arts since I could walk, so I guess that's a plus. Most popped think that my power is super-reflexes, but its really not.

Against a super-villain with long-distance powers I'm helpless.

But who are we if not risk-takers.

People's whole lives are wrought with challenges and they don't quit. It's been my dream since I knew what a super-hero was and I can't just quit because I don't have the most flashy power, and I'm not the handsomest hero, and I'm not really the smartest either. I have perseverance, and I know I can do this.

Plus I can work the night shift.

A “bye” by and by

Too long and too short

You once caught my eye

Now vision distorts

I tried to comply

But this was just sport

Now time to defy

These demons I’ll thwart

From a hit by The Bangles, to the bloody and '80s adulating reach of American Psycho, episode number 38 starts and ends with more bangs than a West Texas brothel in the 1800s. Seven writers from the site complete the landscape here, with a lead by area_man, and wrapped nicely with thePearl and Mariah, so you know the new blood between them holds its mud.

Here's the link to the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLsEjqj8g6s

And here are the pieces featured on Prose. Radio.

https://www.theprose.com/post/816235/when-the-zoloft-hits https://www.theprose.com/post/816024/searching https://www.theprose.com/post/816017/they-call-her-fickle

https://www.theprose.com/post/816230/the-day-i-decided-to-live https://www.theprose.com/post/816225/if https://www.theprose.com/post/816122/i-redact-my-forgiveness

https://www.theprose.com/post/816108/perceived

And.

As always.

Thank you for being here.

-The Prose. team