You might think that being invisible would be great for a private eye. And, yeah, there are some ways in which it does really come in handy. Sneaking around, collecting evidence, eavesdropping.

But, it must be said, clients find it pretty disconcerting.

"It's just a curse," I said, trying to make my face look reassuring before I remembered that the man sitting across the desk from me couldn't see my face and that was the reason he needed reassurance in the first place.

"Does this kind of thing happen...often?" he asked.

"Well, not this, specifically, no. But, you make enough enemies in a town like this, you get cursed from time to time."

My invisible hand moved to the invisible scar on my invisible cheek. A crime boss called Greenstreet had cut me with his enchanted knife about a year ago. Part of the curse was that the scar would never fully heal. This was just one of the little souvenirs I had picked up since I had set up shop as a private detective in the Royal City of Brecken.

"But, that's enough about me," I said to the old timer who, I could tell, was still uncomfortable talking to empty space. "What brings you to my luxurious premeses today?"

I was, of course, being ironic. My office was a dingy, leaky cottage as far from the Castle as it was possible to be and still be considered in Royal City. My loft bedroom was upstairs and I saw clients in the main room downstairs. Outside, my shingle hung on a rotten piece of wood. Nothing fancy, but it said what was important:

RAGON THE DETECTIVE

Walk-Ins and Cash Payments Welcome

I got the one way more often than I got the other. Which was why I liked the look of my latest client. Between the way he was dressed (and how uncomfortable he clearly was in my office) I could tell he was used to the finer things, which meant he might actually have gold. It had been a while since I'd had a paying customer.

"Well," said Sayer (that was the name he had given me), "I was hoping you could help me find my daughter." I might have guessed. There was always a girl involved.

As a matter of fact, that was how I'd come by the invisibility curse. I'd met a woman at the tavern last night. Good looking, could hold her ale, nice enough company. But she was looking for something a little more long-term than I was. By which I mean when we kissed she tried to suck out my soul and add it to her collection.

Normally, I can spot a witch a mile away. I must be getting old.

I saved my soul (for whatever that's worth) but she'd hit me with this parting shot. Nothing deadly, of course, but kind of an inconvenience. And I'd been cursed enough to know that it would wear off in about a day. So, here I was, invisible for twenty-four hours, but I still had to make a living.

When Sayer came in to see me, it had been about nine hours since I had been cursed. Fifteen to go.

Sayer told me that he lived in one of the big estates closer to the Castle. He took the opportunity to namedrop most of the Royal Family and their inner circle (including Hammett, the Captain Of The King's Own Guard, which rankled me a little; fortunatey Sayer couldn't see my reaction to the name). Then he told me about his daughter, Collette. Thirteen, pretty, long auburn hair, blue-green eyes...at the time, I thought it was odd that the girl's father was only describing her appearance and not her personality, but I didn't say anything, for fear of my payday getting up and leaving in a huff.

"I passed by her bedroom last night," Sayer continued, "and saw her arguing with her governess."

"What were they arguing about?" I said, disconcerting Sayer furhter by filling and lighting my pipe, which now appeared to float and smoke all by itself.

"I have no idea. I didn't linger. None of my business, you know. Anyway, the next morning, she didn't come down to breakfast. I sent the maid up to her rooom and she said Collette was gone. I had the staff search the grounds thoroughly and, by the time I had finished breakfast, they told me she was nowhere on the estate."

"But, thank Glory, your eggs didn't get cold."

"Beg pardon?"

"Skip it. Does Collette have any history of this sort of thing? Running away, I mean?"

"Running away? Mr. Ragon, my daughter did not run away. She was taken!"

"How can you be so sure?"

"How can I...sir, do you not know who I am?"

"Well, you told me your name was Sayer, but beyond that..."

"I told you, you impertinent oaf, that my name was Lord Sayer. I am the second wealthiest man in Brecken, after the King himself. When my daughter goes missing, it is clearly for ransom!"

"Was there a note?"

"Well...well, no. Not yet, anyway. But I'm sure there will be."

"Mr. Sayer..."

"Lord Sayer!"

"Right, sorry. Mr. Sayer, if you're so sure your daughter has been kidnapped, why not go to the King's Own Guard? Why not ask your buddy Hammett to look for her?"

Sayer was turning purple with rage. "Are you suggesting that I go to the Captain Of The King's Own Guard and tell him that my daughter was taken right out from under my nose? I would be the laughingstock of the court!"

I wanted to say something about his daughter's safety being more important than his reputation, but the more angry he got, the more he moved. And the more he moved, the more I could hear the coins jingling in his pocket. So, instead, I licked my lips then bit my tongue.

"Now," said my guest, calming down slightly, "are you or are you not going to help me?"

"For six silver a day, plus expenses, I'll help anyone...Your Lordship."

♦♦♦

Sayer Manor was just a stone's throw from the Castle, and I was mighty tempted to throw it. My cottage could have fit comfortably in their living room...twice. And part of me was glad no one could see me, since they had sofas that were better dressed than I was.

(Thank Glory the witch's curse had made my clothes invisible, too. Otherwise it would have been real uncomfortable. For everyone.)

Collette had been born before Sayer had inherited his title. He told me his wife had died giving birth to the girl, which may have been the last time she'd had physical contact with either of her parents. The place was lousy with servants. Butlers, maids, grooms, cooks, nannies, tutors, and one guy whose job it was just to go around changing candles. Like, that was literally his whole job. What's that about?

Based on my interviews, the staff had a great deal more affection for the girl than her father did. Lord Sayer was treating this whole thing like a burglary. Like someone had broken in and stolen a bronze bust from his study. But the nannies and tutors who actually saw Collette every day and spent time with her were damn near inconsolable.

And talking to an invisible detective was not putting them at their ease. I decided to keep the pipe in my mouth, just so they'd have something to focus on.

Last but not least, I spoke to Eularia. The governess who had argued with Collette the night she went missing. She was in charge of Sayer's daughter, in the same sense that the ostler was in charge of Sayer's horses.

"Collette is the most wonderful girl," said the governess, dabbing her eyes with my pocket handkerchief. "So full of life. Creative, curious, eager to see everything the world has to offer...if only she weren't trapped here all the time."

"Trapped?" I said.

"S--Lord Sayer won't let her off the grounds. She hasn't left this estate since the night she was born."

"His Lordship is convinced that this was a kidnapping. What do you think?"

"I...I don't know what to think." She handed me back the slightly damp handkerchief. "I just hope she's okay."

"Can you show me her room?"

There were no clear signs of a struggle, but that didn't necesssarily mean she hadn't been kidnapped. Maybe the person who took her was a friend or maybe she had been asleep.

"Nothing is missing, either," said Eularia. "If she had run away, wouldn't she have packed a bag or something?"

"Possibly, but not necessarily. Maybe she had an accomplice on the outside who had supplies all ready for her."

Now we come to the point where being invisible comes in handy to an investigation. Had she been able to see me, Eularia would doubtless have observed that I was watching her more closely than I was Collette's possessions. Another unexpected side effect of invisibility is that people, not being able to see another person in the room with them, tend to act, instinctively, like they're alone. The upshot was that Eularia was far less guarded than she would have been if that witch hadn't cursed me (twelve hours and counting). And I saw something in her eyes I hadn't expected.

Fear? Is that what I saw in those blue...or were they green eyes?

"Lord Sayer says you and Collette argued last night," I said. Something about her eyes had struck a chord, but I couldn't make out the tune just yet.

"Oh, he did? Well, I wouldn't say we argued as such. She, er, wanted to stay up and I told her no. She can be a very spirited child. Just like..."

"Just like what?"

"Nothing." But I knew it was not nothing. Something had upset her and she nervously ran her hand through her hair...her auburn hair...auburn hair, blue-green eyes...

"Excuse me a moment," I said, and stepped out of the room and into the hallway. I looked around to make sure that I was alone and took my handkerchief out of my pocket. It was damp in places where Eularia had dabbed her tears...except...

I smelled the handkerchief. I may not be the best detective in the world, but I pride myself on having the best nose in Brecken, and I could pick up lots of distinct scents on that square of fabric. But one thing I couldn't smell was salt. Which means Eularia hadn't been crying when she borrowed it.

I turned around to go back into Collette's bedroom, when Lord Sayer barged in. "Ragon?" he said, looking around the room.

"He's not here," said Eularia. "He's out in the hallway. Should I...?"

"No!" snarled Sayer, and he shut the bedroom door...thankfully not until after I had managed to slip inside. I quickly shoved the handkerchief and my pipe into my pocket. Now I was completely invisible. I tried hard not to make a sound.

"What did you tell him?"

"What you told me to, Sayer."

"Do you think he suspects anything?"

She paused before she answered. Then, defiantly, "How should I know?"

"Hey! I'm doing this for your benefit."

"Don't give me that! You're doing this for the same reason you do everything. Because it's what you want and the rest of the world be damned!"

"That's not fair. It's not...you...you mustn't think I don't care for the girl."

"Oh, come on! You never cared for Collette a day in your life."

"That's not true. I care for her...in my own way...but a man of my position can't be..."

"Yes, I know, Sayer. Oh! Sorry. I mean," here she made a big show of curtsying, "your worshipfulness!"

"You can't possibly understand the pressures my title puts me under."

"Oh, I'm sure all those banquets with the Royal Family are torture. You know, in the servant's quarters, we often have to fight the rats for our dinner."

"This was your idea!" Sayer bellowed. "All of it was your idea."

"No, Sayer. Not all of it."

"Okay," I said at last, "I think I've heard enough."

"Ragon?!" They both said at the same time.

"Yeah, it's me. And I hate to break up this cozy little scene, but I was just wondering if you could tell me where your daughter is. And, by the way, I'm looking at you, Eularia."

♦♦♦

It had been Eularia's eyes that had first made me suspicious. They were blue-green, just like Collette's. Her hair was also the auburn Sayer had described in my office. That made me think they were related in some way. On the other hand, the fact that the "tears" on my handkerchief had been fake--I figured Eularia just licked it a few times--didn't add up. If they were related, why wouldn't she be more upset about the girl being missing? Obviously, because she knew something about it. And then there was the way Eularia had said "since the night she was born." Most people would have said "the day she was born." Unless they knew for a fact that it had been nighttime when the child was born.

That sounded like a detail a mother might remember.

I had been on the point of saying as much to Eularia when Sayer had cut me off. After hearing the two of them bickering, I understood what had happened.

Sayer had...let's be nice and say "dallied" with Eularia, a humble servant, and Collette had been the result. Glory forbid a man like Sayer should be part of such a scandal, so he and Eularia created a fiction that would save his reputation. Collette would grow up beleiving her mother was dead while, in actual fact, her mother was raising her in the guise of a governess. Then, thirteen years later, something changed. Who knows what? Maybe Sayer wanted to get married and have a legitimate heir. Maybe a woman who could stand lying to her daughter for thirteen years just couldn't stand doing it for one second longer. But the arrangement was over.

Now I understood why Sayer didn't ask Hammett to find his daughter. Because she was never abducted.

Mother and father staged Collette's disappearance. Just hid her away and hired a detective to look for her so that, later, they coud claim they did all they could to find her. After some time had passed, Eularia would resign, too broken-hearted to keep serving in Lord Sayer's household. Then she would collect her daughter (and, I venture to suspect, a large cash settlement from his lordship) and disappear. Maybe even leave Brecken entirely.

"At first," Eularia said, "Sayer was going to just pay me off to take the girl and leave. Maybe it would have been better if I had. But I was young and angry and I said, 'No! You are responsible for this child. You have a duty to her...and to me.'"

"And I fulfilled that duty," said Sayer, as cold and distant as ever. "Collette grew up in my home, bore my name and wanted for nothing."

"Except a father," I said. "Or freedom."

Incidentally, Collette had been hidden in the basement. She'd been there the whole time, reading books and waiting for her mother to come see her. Of course, now I knew what she and Eularia had really argued about the previous night.

"So," said Eularia, her arms around her daugher, "what are you going to do now?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You know my secret," said Sayer. "You know I was never married. That my daughter was born out of wedlock."

I was about to say that "my daugher was born out of wedlock" was a funny way of saying "I forced myself on an employee and knocked her up," but now that the kid was actually in the room, I decided against it. I figured she had enough on her mind without me piling on. I looked at her, and gave her a friendly smile...before I remembered that she couldn't see it.

But then...you're gonna say I'm nuts or I just imagined it...I swear she looked right at me and smiled. Like she really could see me. Yeah, I know, she was just looking in my general direction. It would have been impossible for her to actually see me. Then again, I've read about invisibility spells and one thing they have in common is that you can be seen by other invisible people.

I figured if anyone knew what it was to be invisible, it was Collette Sayer.

"Fortunately for you, Mr. Sayer," I said, "I don't actually care enough about you to ruin your reputation. You hired me to find your daughter, and I did. She's right there, next to her mother. Now, just pay me my fee and you'll never have to see me again."

"Very well," said his lordship, taking out his coin purse. "What did you say? Six silver a day?"

"That's my fee for being a detective," I said with a smile I wished the old man could have seen. "My fee for keeping my mouth shut is significantly higher."

♦♦♦

Being Captain Of The King's Own Guard is a demanding job, and Hammett didn't get back to his room until after sundown. When he did, he was not alone.

"Hi, Big Brother," I said.

Hammett jumped about a foot in the air, lit a candle and searched the room for me. "Where are you?"

I took out my pipe and lit it.

"Ragon," he said, "why are you invisible?"

"Not important. It's gonna wear off in about four more hours. Which is lucky, because I knew the only way I could get in to see you was if the other guards couldn't see me."

"What do you want?"

"A guy can't invisibly drop in on his beloved older brother? He has to want something?"

"So, you don't want something?"

"No, I do. But it hurts that you would jump to that conclusion."

"What is it?"

"It's about Lord Sayer. I have reason to believe he raped one of his servants thirteen years ago." At which point I told him all about the case. When Sayer and Eularia had been arguing, not knowing I was still in the room, something Eularia had said had stuck in my teeth.

"This was your idea!" Sayer had said.

"No, Sayer," Eulria had replied. "Not all of it."

Did I feel guilty for breaking my promise to keep my mouth shut? A little. But then I remembered who I had made that promise to, and suddenly my guilt vanished into thin air.

"If what you're saying is true," said Hammett when I was finished, "he's going to spend the rest of his life in the dungeon."

"In that case, I'll talk to Greenstreet. See if he can't get some kind of life-prolonging potion for me to slip into the old guy's food."

Hammett smiled a little. He hardly ever did that anymore. Not now that he had such an important job. But it reminded me of the Hammett I used to know. The one I had grown up with. My big brother. My best friend.

"Go see Eularia in the morning," I said. "She'll tell you everything you need to lock up that pile of frenner slime once and for all."

"Thank you, Ragon. I know we don't always see eye to eye, but...you're a good detective. And I'm proud of you."

It must be pretty weird to be hugged by someone you can't see. But he got over it quick and hugged me back.

"Hey," I said, "as long as I'm still invisible, you want to go around the Castle and make people think their dogs can fly?"

"Yes," said Hammett, the Captain Of The King's Own Guard. "Yes, I do."

“Mommy, can I go show my new toys to Bobby?” It was Kelly’s birthday and she was excited to show off her gifts to her favorite playmate.

“All right, sweetie,” said Kelly’s mother. “But don’t be too long. Grandma and Grandpa will be here soon for your birthday dinner.”

“Why don’t you invite Bobby to join us?” said Kelly’s momma. She, like her wife, was slightly concerned that they had never met this boy before. Especially since Kelly spent so much time with him.

Kelly had never been very good at making friends. She didn’t like to do the things that other kids liked to do. She had no interest in dollies or dressing up and, for her birthday this year, she had asked for nothing but science toys. So, when she had come home from school one day and announced that she had made a new friend, her mothers had been overjoyed.

“His name is Bobby,” Kelly had told them. “Bobby Restin.”

“Oh? And is this a boy at your school?” her momma had asked.

“No. But I met him on the way home from school and I talked to him and I said I would talk to him again tomorrow.”

“And, how old is Bobby?” asked her mother, her parental instincts piqued.

“He’s eight, same as me.”

Both mothers breathed a sigh of relief.

From then on, asking after Bobby was a regular part of the after-school repertoire in Kelly’s house.

How was school? Did you have a good day? How is Bobby?

Most days, Kelly would go see Bobby on her way home. From this, her mothers gathered that he was homeschooled. Poor Bobby probably didn’t have many playmates, so they were tolerant when Kelly’s visits lasted a little longer. She was playing with a lonely child, after all.

“Bobby doesn’t really like to go places,” said Kelly, when her momma had suggested she invite Bobby to dinner.

“Well, we’d still love to meet him,” said Kelly’s mother. But Kelly barely heard her. She was gathering up her new rock tumbler, her microscope and her book of Fascinating Animal Facts to go show Bobby.

And, with a promise to be back before dinner, Kelly was gone.

“Maybe one of us should go with her next time,” suggested Kelly’s mother. “It would give us a chance to meet Bobby’s parents.”

“Good idea,” said Kelly’s momma. “What did she say the last name was? Robbins? Rollins?”

“Restin,” said Kelly’s mother. She had remembered the name because it struck her as sort of unusual. “I think I know someone called Restin. Isn’t the manager of the fruit market a Restin?”

“Maybe. Of course, if Bobby is homeschooled, it’s possible his parents don’t get out too often either.”

“That’s true.” The discussion was interrupted by the doorbell. “Oh boy! That’s my parents. Are you ready for this?”

For the most part, the kids at school were satisfied with ignoring Kelly and, now and then, saying something mean to her as they passed her in the halls. But on the day she had met Bobby, she had been victimized by a particularly cruel bully called Francis. Kelly had found a really cool rock and she was going to take it home to see if she could look up what kind it was in one of her books. Francis had taken it, called her a freak for thinking it was cool and even flung it at the poor girl’s head when she tried to run away.

She ran further than she ever had before, her eyes streaming with tears. She ended up much further away from her school than she had ever been before. It was a very old part of town, where hardly anybody lived anymore. But, Bobby was there. His whole family were there. And, after the worst bullying shed ever experienced, talking to Bobby had made Kelly feel better.

It hadn’t stopped the bullying, of course. But at least Kelly had someone to talk to about it. she couldn’t tell her mothers because they would just call the school and get Francis in trouble…which would just get Kelly in more trouble.

Besides which, sometimes grownups don’t have time for kid stuff. Sometimes, moms have big, important stuff to deal with and they just can’t make time for the little, important stuff of childhood. Of course, when you’re little, all the stuff seems like big stuff, which is why it can be so difficult for kids to understand when grownups say they’re too busy.

But Bobby was always there. Bobby always listened. Bobby was a real friend.

So, on the day of her ninth birthday, her arms full of all her wonderful birthday presents, Kelly climbed the hill on the far side of town and dropped to her knees at the familiar site which told her she had reached her favorite friend.

“Hi, Bobby!” said Kelly to the broken stone sticking up out of the ground. She reached out and touched the stone, wondering if Bobby could feel it, and read the words which had almost totally eroded away:

HERE LIES

BOBBY

REST IN

(1892-1900)

The rest of Bobby’s family were buried on this hill, too, but their stones had long since withered away. Only gray, moss-covered lumps remained to mark the spots where Bobby’s relatives were resting.

Kelly showed Bobby all of her cool new stuff and read to him a little from her book of Fascinating Animal Facts. Like the fact that elephants are one of the few species besides humans to formally mourn and bury their dead (she thought he would like that one).

But, she couldn’t stay long. Soon, she was gathering up her things and saying goodbye.

It was always the hardest part of Kelly’s day. Saying goodbye to Bobby.

THE END

This is not part of a larger work. It's just a short sample of the kind of writing I do. I have lots of stories in just about all genres and styles. Comic, tragic, science fiction, romantic, westerns, fairy tales, thrillers and poems. Sometimes they come out as kids stories, sometimes they don't. But I never know which they're going to be until I'm done.

For more information and links to some of my stories/poems, visit sixtysomethingtrees.com.

BIO: I was born in California, currently live in Louisville, but I consider Disneyland to be my hometown. I started writing because I watched Shakespeare In Love and I thought it would help me get girls. By the time I realized how wrong I was, I found I wasn't actually good at anything else, so I just kept at it. Since then, I have written plays, novels, short stories, poems, essays, kids books and angry Facebook rants. In addition to many self-published volumes, my work has appeared in magazines, anthologies and on various websites. My hobbies include pizza and naps and my turnoffs include manual labor and institutionalized racism.

High noon. The sun blazed in the sky above. Men, women and children lined the streets as the two unlikely combatants faced off against one another. On one side, Blake Taggert: the meanest, roughest, orneriest gunslinger in the territory. Even with one eye shot completely away, he had better aim than anyone these people had ever seen. He didn’t even wear an eye patch to cover it up. He just kept his right eye shut all the time, putting people off with the hideous scar over half his face. Sometimes, if he really wanted to scare people, he’d open it and let them stare into the empty socket.

His fingers were twitching, which could mean only one thing: someone was about to die. When Blake’s fingers started twitching that way, it was a sure sign that they hadn’t pulled a trigger in a while. And the longer he went without pulling that trigger, the more likely it was to happen real soon. Blake didn’t like to let a month go by without killing anyone. He preferred just to shoot people and get the whole thing over with, but he was willing to submit to the formalities of a showdown if it meant keeping the law off his back.

Not that the law was much of a problem for Blake Taggert as any lawman brave or tenacious enough to actually take him out found himself dead shortly thereafter. Blake never called marshals, sheriffs or deputies by their right names. He just called them “Coward.” Because any lawman who was still alive when Blake Taggert was in town was either a coward or dead and anyone who took exception to Blake calling him the former would typically become the latter within about twenty-four hours.

Today’s gunfight was virtually no different than the many others Blake Taggert had fought since he set up in the town of Tumbleweed Ridge two years ago. A day no one in the small, Arizona township would ever forget. His reputation had preceded him, of course, and most of the townsfolk already knew of his rather dubious record. He gunned down Bert Smith in front of his three small children, beat Gabby Wolversteen to death with a broken bottle, strangled Mayor Preston, and beat Sheriff Davis, Doctor Sweets and Pastor Stewart in gunfights, drawing so fast not a one of them had a chance to go for their guns.

Not surprisingly, most of the people of Tumbleweed Ridge were smart and/or cowardly enough to keep their distance, though even this wasn’t enough to save them from his wrath if they inadvertently bumped into him at the saloon and caused a fraction of a drop of whisky to spill on his sleeve or talked too loud in his presence or stepped on his shadow without permission or any of the other flimsy excuses he gave for hurting people.

No, as I say, today’s fight was almost entirely the same as the others. There was really only one major difference between today’s bout and the one from two days ago and that was Blake’s opponent.

The unfortunate person who Blake had in his sights on this day had come to town only a year and a half ago, but in that time had become somewhat beloved by the populace for being kind, gentle, clever, pretty, sweet, innocent and, incredibly for a girl her age, unmarried.

Her name was Becky Mills and no one could believe that this was really happening to her.

Shortly after coming to town, this poor, eighteen-year-old girl had won the hearts of the townspeople with a story of bandits taking her family farm and killing her father and brothers, leaving her completely alone. The owner of the local saloon, Abel Johnson, took pity on her and gave her a job as a waitress…and just a waitress! There were, of course, women working in the saloon in a different capacity, but if one man lay a hand on Becky, Abel himself would cut it off. He looked on her sort of as a daughter.

Indeed Becky had endeared herself to everyone. The fact that she was young and pretty didn’t hurt any but, there again, there was a feeling of her being part of the family like a niece or a baby sister, so she didn’t have many suitors and the ones she did have never lasted long. The blacksmith’s son, Alvin, had taken a shine to her and they’d gone to a few barn dances together, but nothing ever came of it. Then it looked like the rancher, Edward, might have a chance, but Becky still wasn’t interested. Many assumed that her failure to get a husband was because the men of Tumbleweed Ridge were too rough for such a frail desert flower. Maybe someday a school teacher or something like that would come to town and she’d finally find a man meek enough for her delicate sensibilities.

Blake Taggert, of course, was immune to her charms. Not being interested much in women, or, indeed, anything other than beans, whiskey and gun fighting, he had never paid her much heed. He grunted at her when she brought him drinks at the saloon, but that was about it. It seemed incredible to anyone that someone so sweet and innocent could even be capable of doing something to anger even someone as easy to annoy as Taggert.

And yet, here they were. Standing along the main thoroughfare of Tumbleweed Ridge as Blake Taggert stood, fingers twitching all-too-eagerly around the pearl handles of his favorite revolvers, glaring with his one good eye at the pretty little girl who had, just the night before, tripped over a rug in the saloon and upended an entire tray of beers over Taggert’s head.

For a few seconds, there had been complete silence and stillness in the saloon, apart from the beer dripping off Taggert. No one had any idea what was going to happen next. And none of them were prepared for Taggert’s next words:

“Tomorrow…high noon…don’t be late.” And he stomped off to change into some dryer clothes.

Of course, if it had been a man accidentally spilling beer on him, the people of Tumbleweed Ridge would have expected a challenge like this. But a girl? Surely, even a savage like Blake Taggert must have his limits. Who in their right mind would challenge a girl to a gunfight? Most women in Tumbleweed Ridge had never even touched a gun, much less knew how to fire one. And certainly not with the accuracy it would take to win a gunfight against Taggert. And even if you were low and heartless enough to challenge a girl to a gunfight, how could it possibly be someone as delicate and innocent as Becky Mills?

Some of the men got together and talked about whether they should go to Blake and ask him to call the whole thing off. Fear convinced them not to, so they focused their efforts on Becky instead. Get out of town, they had said. They offered her money, horses, anything to get her to not show up at noon the following day. They practically got down on their knees and begged the girl to ride away and never come back.

“No,” she said, to the surprise of everyone. “I don’t expect you all to understand, but I figure if I run away now, I’ll be running for the rest of my life. No, facing Blake Taggert is just something I’m gonna have to do, whatever the consequences might be.”

So, under the blazing hot noonday sun, with anxious spectators all around, Becky Mills, wearing her favorite dress and a pair of pistols she had borrowed from Abel Johnson for the occasion, stood her ground against the villain, Blake Taggert. She was trembling slightly, but only slightly. If nothing else, the people of Tumbleweed Ridge admired her guts.

“Surprised you showed up, girly,” said Taggert.

“You said not to be late,” said Becky, trying to sound casual. “What kind of lady would I be if I disappointed a gentleman?”

“Don’t matter. You’ll be dead in a few seconds either way. Ready?”

“Are you?”

Taggert laughed. “I’m always ready to kill, little missy.”

“I’m sure you are…I meant are you ready to die?”

Taggert didn’t laugh. No one did. For a while no one said anything. Finally, Taggert called out. “Marshall Coward! You count three…then we draw.”

“Y-y-y-yes sir, Taggert,” said the Marshall who was living up to his name. “One…two…three…”

“DRAW!” said Becky and she drew her guns so fast no one even saw it happen.

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

She fired ten shots at Taggert. The first at his right hand, causing him to drop his gun. The second at his left, he dropped the other. Then to his shoulders, arms, legs, hips and every part of him except his heart or his head or any other vital organ. In less time than it takes to tell, Blake Taggert was on his knees, riddled with bullets and oozing blood from ten different wounds…but still breathing. And laughing.

“You’re quick, girly,” he said, struggling with every word. “But you ain’t much of a shot. You ain’t killed me!”

“No, not yet,” said Becky. But she didn’t sound like Becky. The woman who was speaking now, walking confidently down the main street of Tumbleweed Ridge with both guns, each containing one bullet each, pointing at the most dangerous gunman anyone had ever seen, was not the frail, fragile girl the people had come to know over the past eighteen months. This was someone else entirely. “If I’d shot you in the head or heart you’d have died too quick and you’d never know who it was that finally killed you.

“In the first place, my name ain’t Mills. It’s Smith. My daddy was Bert Smith, the man you gunned down right in front of me and my big brothers. I was six years old when I watched my daddy die. He was just another notch on your gun handle, but he was my whole world. So I learned how to shoot. I learned to be fast and accurate and I ain’t missed in four years. When I was sure I was ready, I asked around, found out you had set up here in Tumbleweed Ridge so I followed you here.

“Pretending to be weak and fragile all this time wasn’t easy, but it worked. Nobody here had any idea what I was capable of. You never even saw me, even when I brought you your food and drink over at the saloon. It ain’t been easy waiting all this time, but one of the first rules of marksmanship is patience. Waiting for exactly the right time to strike. And when I knew that time had come, I dumped those beers over your head. Knew you’d challenge me and I knew you’d think I was an easy target so you wouldn’t be on your guard.

“So, here you are. Bleeding to death in front of all the people you terrorized all these years because someone was finally man enough to stand up to you. Just so happens it was a nineteen-year-old girl. Now, I couldn’t let you die without knowing that, could I? But, now that you know…”

BLAM!

BLAM!

The first shot went through Taggert’s heart, the second through his one good eye. And he was dead.

Nobody said anything or moved an inch. They simply couldn’t believe what they had seen. They also couldn’t believe it when Becky Smith started digging through Taggert’s pockets till she had a handful of money in her hand. Taking this, she strolled up to a Mr. Thackery and thrust about half the cash into his hand. “Like to buy your horse,” she said with a smile. “Time I was moving on.”

Thackery couldn’t speak, so he just nodded. Becky returned the guns to Abel Johnson saying she’d buy her own when she hit a new town, then mounted her new horse.

“So long, folks!” she said to the perplexed people of Tumbleweed Ridge. As she started to ride away, she passed Alvin and Edward, standing together outside the saloon. “Sorry things didn’t work out with us, boys…y’all weren’t quite rough enough for me.”

She spurred her horse and rode away from Tumbleweed Ridge, never to return.

(We are in the bedroom of SYLVIA CONNOR. She is here now, asleep in her bed. Also on the stage is a bedside table, on which she has her cell phone, a table or desk on the far side of the room, on which we see a laptop, and a window, covered by a Venetian blind. There also need to be some clothes for SYLVIA close to hand that she can pull on quickly at the end of the play.

(KYLE PATTERSON enters. He seems agitated, almost frantic. He is wearing the cheap suit he was wearing when he died and which is now torn and stained with dirt, motor oil and blood. His head is partially covered by a bloodied bandage.)

KYLE: Sylvia! Sylvia! Sylvia! (No response from her) Damn. I’m not getting through. Er…(Leans in close to her; spooky voice) Ooooooooh!!! Boo! (Nope) Yeah, I would’ve been pretty surprised if that had worked. Um…(Sees window) Oh!

(KYLE goes to the window and pulls the blind open. The light falls on SYLVIA’s face and she wakes up at once.)

SYLVIA: What the…? How did that get opened?

(She gets out of bed and closes the blind.)

KYLE: Sylvia? Can you hear me? Hello? Sylvia? Boo?

(It is clear at this point that SYLVIA has no awareness of KYLE whatsoever. She picks up her phone and looks at the time.)

SYLVIA: Dammit.

(She lies back down on the bed, in the vain hope of getting a little more sleep before her day is meant to start.)

KYLE: No! No, don’t go back to sleep! Sylvia! (Grunts) This always looks so much easier in the movies! (Looks around room; sees her laptop) Hey…I wonder…(Cautiously, KYLE opens SYLVIA’s laptop. It comes on and he starts playing some music. SYLVIA is forced to get up again.)

SYLVIA: What is going on today?

(She turns off the music on the laptop)

KYLE: Sylvia, please, I need you to hear—

(As he says this, he puts his hand on her shoulder. She shivers)

SYLVIA: Ooh! What was that?

KYLE: (Pause; he dares to hope) You felt that?

SYLVIA: (Long pause; Then louder, as if to the room in general) Is there somebody in here?

KYLE: Yes! Sylvia, I’m here! I’m right here! How can I…how am I…

SYLVIA: (Overlapping)Because if there is somebody in here, you should know that I’ve got my phone with me and I can have the police here in a few minutes.

(NOTE: A lot of SYLVIA’s lines overlap KYLE’s. Obviously, since she can’t hear him, she doesn’t know she’s interrupting him.)

KYLE: No, you don’t need to call the…wait!

(KYLE goes back to the computer, opens a blank file and starts typing. SYLVIA, still listening for an intruder, hears the keys tapping. She turns, slowly, back to the laptop, which, from her perspective, is doing this all by itself. Her eyes widen.)

SYLVIA: Wh…wh…whuh…what…how…who…?

KYLE: C’mon, Sylvia. You’re so close.

SYLVIA: (Reading the screen) “Sylvia, don’t freak out. It’s me, Kyle. I’m—” Wait, Kyle?

KYLE: Yes! It’s me, Sylvia! I’m right here!

SYLVIA: (Pause) Who the hell is Kyle?

KYLE: (Beat) Okay. That sucks. (Goes back to keyboard)

SYLVIA: (Reading) “Kyle Patterson. We’ve worked together for five years. I died last week in that car crash?” Oh! That Kyle! But, wait, he’s dead.

KYLE: (Another frustrated groan; more typing) Where the hell is Michael Keaton when I need him?

SYLVIA: (Reading) “Yes, I’m dead. I’m a ghost. I’ve been trying to haunt you all morning.” A ghost? Haunt me? Wait…(Looks back at window) So, when the blind opened by itself…and when my music started playing…Kyle? Are you really here?

KYLE: Yes! I’m really—oh, right. (Types)

SYLVIA: “Yes, I’m really here. And I need you to listen to everything I say because it’s extremely important.” Okay, Kyle, I’m listening. “I was murdered.” Murdered? The police said it was an accident. “The police are in on it. At least some of them are. They’re working for Gilroy.” Gilroy? You don’t mean Michael Gilroy? “Yes, I do. They found out I was getting too close to uncovering the truth and they staged the car crash to get rid of me.” Wow…this is a lot to take this early in the morning.

KYLE: Oh, is it? Is it a lot? I mean, I’m actually, physically dead right now, but if you need a cup of coffee to get going…

SYLVIA: Is that the story you were working on? Something to do with Gilroy?

KYLE: (Returns to typing) “Yes. My assignment was…”

(KYLE Suddenly staggers back. He is weak)

SYLVIA: “My assignment was…” What? Kyle, what?

KYLE: (Groans) What’s…happening…to…me…?

SYLVIA: Kyle? Are you still here? Hello? Kyle?

KYLE: (Very weak now) Syl…Sylvia…I’m…

SYLVIA: What do you want me to do, Kyle? I want to help, but I don’t know how. (Pause) Hang on, Kyle! I know who can help! (Dials her phone)

KYLE: No! Don’t call…police…if Gilroy finds…ugh!

SYLVIA: (Waits for an answer) Hey, Liam. Yes, I know it’s early, but this is an emergency.

KYLE: Liam? Who the hell…?

SYLVIA: (Covers the phone) Kyle, Liam is my younger brother. He’s into sci-fi and fantasy stuff. He might be able to help.

KYLE: Wait, really? This is your plan?

SYLVIA: (Back to phone) Yes, I’m here. Look, I need information. About ghosts. Yes, I said ghosts. Never mind why! It’s extremely important. Do you know about ghosts or not? Okay, then. How can they communicate with living people? (Listens) Uh-huh…uh-huh…wait, say that again. Really? I see. Okay, thanks Liam. Yes, you can go back to sleep now. This has all been a crazy dream. Love you. Bye. (Hangs up) Okay, Kyle? Liam says that it takes a lot of energy for ghosts to make their bodies solid enough to touch objects in the material plane. So, opening my blinds, turning on my computer and all that typing? You may as well have just run a marathon.

KYLE: (Panting slightly) Well, that explains a lot.

SYLVIA: So, take your time, and when you’re ready, tell me what you need me to do.(She steps aside and gestures to the computer)

(Slowly but surely, KYLE gets up and moves toward the computer. He types as few words as possible.)

SYLVIA: (Reading) “Gilroy…killed…mayor?” Are you serious? Gilroy had the mayor killed? Why? “City…contracts.” Oh, the mayor wouldn’t grant him the construction contracts he wanted, so he had the mayor killed? “Y?” What does that…oh, “Y,” short for “Yes.” Good idea. Save your energy. Okay, so, Gilroy killed the mayor, you got too close and his people had you killed. Is that right? “Yes.” Okay. But we need proof. Do you have it? “Yes?” Where? Where’s the proof, Kyle? “Hidden…flash…cookies.”

(Upon typing the last word, KYLE falls back again. He understands now that his time is almost up. He’s done what he came to do. But he’s fighting back. Keeping himself in this world a little longer because there’s still one more thing he needs to say. During SYLVIA’s next line, he rises back up to the keyboard and types five more letters before giving up the ghost [so to speak].)

SYLVIA: What? Hidden…flash…cookies? What does that…okay, it’s hidden…where is it hidden? Flash…flash drive! It’s hidden on a flash drive. Where? Where’s the drive? Cookies…the cookie jar! In the breakroom at work! That’s it, isn’t it? Kyle? What’s this?(She reads his last message) “T…H…X…G…B.” What does that…oh…I get it. Thanks. Goodbye. (A solemn pause) Goodbye, Kyle. (She grabs her phone and dials; She pulls on some clothes while she talks) Martin, I don’t care how early it is, you need to listen to me. I need you to meet me at the office right now. Yes, I said right now. I have proof that Michael Gilroy had the mayor murdered. You heard me. I need you to meet me at the office and I need you to bring your brother. Yes! He’s the only cop I know for certain isn’t working for Gilroy. What? My source? (Pause) Kyle Patterson. Yes, I know that, Martin, but…look, I can’t explain everything right now…I may never be able to explain it. But we’ve known each other for twelve years, I think we both know I’ve earned your trust. So, trust me when I tell you that the biggest story in our paper’s history is in the cookie jar in the breakroom as we speak. Now hurry up and…yes, I said cookie jar! Now shut up and get dressed! (Hangs up) God, what an idiot! (Grabbing the last of her stuff) A dead guy told me I could prove the mayor was murdered by looking in a cookie jar. How hard is that to understand? (Exits)

(At some point during the above speech, the audience will have noticed that KYLE is gone. This effect needs to be pulled off without the audience noticing. He should just disappear. Gone to a better place, God willing.)

Baxter’s Books is located on Henry Street, in the same shopping center as a pet supply store and a liquor store, and across the street from The Coffee Shop On The Corner, which would be an adorable name for a coffee shop were it not for the undeniable fact that it was, in no significant way, on any variety of corner. Still, I suppose The Coffee Shop Sandwiched In Between An Orthodontist And A Cell Phone Place doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Now, suppose you needed a book. Suppose further that you were determined to buy it from a brick-and-mortar establishment rather than going online. Where would you go to buy said book?

Not Baxter’s, that’s for sure.

Baxter’s is, without question, the single worst bookshop in the city. There are four such stores in town and three of them are conveniently located, have a wide selection and each boasts a courteous and informed staff. Baxter’s, on the other hand, is hard to get to, has a very poor selection and the staff seem openly disdainful of their customers. Not in the usual way that retail workers despise their customers. At Baxter’s it seems more personal.

The only reason to go to Baxter’s would be that you tried and failed to find a specific book at the other three stores. Baxter’s would, therefore, be your last ditch effort, your “Hail Mary” before you gave up and bought it on Amazon. That, at least, was the reason I was there on the warm, breezy Autumn afternoon when my story begins. And, while I predictably failed to find the book I was after, I did succeed in finding Sasha.

I hadn’t seen Sasha in four years. We used to work together, but then she got a better job, as did all the smartest, most talented people we worked with. We said we’d stay in touch, and we did, for a while. But you know how these things go. Eventually, it was just the occasional like or comment on Facebook. And I hadn’t heard anything from her, not even on social media, for over a year when I saw her that day at the Worst Bookshop In Town.

We went across the street to The Coffee Shop That’s Not Where It Says It Is to have a cup of coffee and catch up. I filled her in on the recent adventures of her former coworkers, she bragged about how much better her current job was, I stifled my frustration at not being able to get a better job myself after two solid years of trying, and, all in all, it was very pleasant.

The thing that I remembered most about Sasha was that she was a jogger. When I had known her, she had jogged every morning. Often, she came to work straight from her morning jog. She seemed to take the pastime pretty seriously. She had one of those electronic dealies that monitored her heartrate and told her how many calories she’d burned, she kept a log of her speed and distance and when I politely asked her how her jog was, she would say a bunch of numbers that made no sense to me.

“I did a two-twenty in under ten, but that’s up five from last week.”

Stuff like that.

But the real reason why Sasha’s jogging had stuck in my memory was the fact that she seemed to hate it. She did it every morning, even on her days off; she put a lot of work into it, but it made her miserable. She grumbled as she logged her heart rate, she moaned when she took note of her calorie expenditure, and more than once she referred to the electronic dealie she wore as “you little bastard.” Now, I’ve known many people in my day who have had hobbies. But, for the most part, these people enjoy their hobby. In fact, it’s my understanding that enjoyment is one of the main reasons one takes up a hobby.

All of us at the office knew that Sasha hated her hobby, but none of us ever said anything. We never really knew why. It just didn’t seem polite, somehow, to ask the question we were all desperate to ask: “If you hate jogging so much, why do you do it?”

“So,” I asked over that cup of coffee across the street from Baxter’s Really Terrible Bookshop, “how’s the jogging?”

“The what? Oh, that. I don’t jog anymore.”

“You don’t? Really? Why not?” I knew why not; it was for all the reasons I said just now. But I asked her anyway because I wanted to be polite. As it happened, it was a good thing I did ask, because her answer was not what I had been expecting.

“Well, I finally decided it was never going to happen so I just gave it up.”

“Never going to happen? What was never going to happen?”

“That I was never going to find a dead body.”

The phrase “dead silence” seems a little on the nose in this case, but it’s the best one I can think of to describe what followed this sentence.

“Er…I’m sorry?” I asked.

Sasha seemed not to notice my shock and confusion as she sipped her coffee. “I love detective stories,” she said, as if this were a satisfactory explanation for her recent declaration. “Always have. As a kid, I read the entire Sherlock Holmes collection in third grade. Then I read Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammet, Ellery Queen, and every book I could get my hands on. I watched all the old detective shows, like Kojak and Columbo. I’ve seen every adaptation of Holmes and Hercule Poirot. I even read those dumb books about that little girl who pretends to be Sherlock. Murder mysteries are my absolute favorite. That’s why I started jogging in the first place.”

I was at a loss. To me, at least, saying “I started jogging because of murder mysteries” was a bit like saying “I went to Prague because my uncle is very tall.”

“You started jogging because of detective stories?” I asked.

“My dream has always been to be part of a detective story. To be a character in a murder mystery. When I was a kid, I thought about being a detective or a cop or something, but that wasn’t going to happen. I love mysteries, but I’m bad at them. I hardly ever figure out ‘whodunnit’ before the detective in the story. Plus, if you’re a cop you have to work your way up through the ranks to be a detective, and I didn’t want to spend however many years writing tickets just on the off chance that I might, someday, get to see a murder up close. So, I knew if I wanted to be part of a real life murder mystery, I would have to find another way.

“That’s when I figured it out: You know on detective shows how the police arrive in a park or an alley or somewhere like that, and one of them always says, ‘joggers found the body early this morning?’”

“Yeah.”

“I thought, ‘that’s something I can do!’ I can take up jogging! Then, I might get to be one of those early morning joggers who finds a dead body and calls the police. I would give them my statement and they’d say ‘thank you, you’ve been very helpful.’ So, I started jogging in the mornings. But nothing was happening. Then I realized that there was a big difference between ‘jogging’ and ‘being a jogger.’ I mean, I could go to country club and play a round of golf, that wouldn’t be the same thing as being a golfer, would it?”

“I guess not.”

“So, I got all the stuff, I read websites about jogging, I even bought books about jogging. I became a jogger. The only problem was…”

“You hate jogging.”

“I really hate jogging! It’s the worst! Walking makes sense to me, running makes sense to me, but jogging? What is the point? And people do that for fun? What is wrong with them? So, after years of making myself miserable jogging and not getting any closer to seeing a dead body, I just gave it up. I’m much happier now.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But what about your ambition to be part of a murder mystery?”

“Oh, that? I came up with a better way.”

As if on cue, a car pulled up at that exact moment. The driver’s side window rolled down and a smiling face leaned out.

“Honey,” he said to Sasha, “we’re gonna miss our reservation.”

“Coming, sweetie,” said Sasha. She turned to me. “My fiancée, Roger.” She leaned in close to me and whispered, “he’s a homicide detective! He tells me everything about his cases! Everything! Plus, cops’ families are always being threatened by killers, so…” she held up her crossed fingers, then got into her fiancée’s car and they drove off.

This is a story I've written for which I cannot think of a title. I thought it might be a good idea to post it here and see if any of my fellow authors can help.

(Please limit comments to title suggestions. It's an early draft, so I already know it needs work.)

In a secondhand store somewhere in middle America, there is a shelf labeled “TOYS: PRICED AS MARKED.” On this shelf are old fast food kids meal toys, some die cast cars, action figures from movies no one remembers anymore and a myriad of other forgotten toys. But also on this shelf is Devon. Unlike the other cheaply made, mass produced toys on the shelf, Devon is a high quality plush bear, made as a special Valentines Day promotion by a major chain of greeting card stores. If you were visit this shop and walk past his shelf, you would probably be struck by how dapper and handsome he looks in his green tuxedo and pink bowtie.

That’s what first caught Mabel’s eye, when she was browsing the shelves, waiting for her father to come pick her up for their weekend together. But when she got a better look at him, the thing that struck her most wasn’t his adorable outfit, his fine stitching, or even his price tag ($5; the most expensive thing on the shelf by a wide margin). It was how sad he seemed. She didn’t know why he seemed so sad. He was cosmetically identical to dozens of other teddy bears. But when she looked at Devon, Mabel knew that he was sad about something.

She took him down off the shelf and looked him over. That’s when she saw the tag. Not the $5 price tag the secondhand store had put on him in the hopes that he would sell, but his original tag. The little white piece of paper stitched into his rear. It gave his name, Devon, and identified him as a limited edition “Kissy Bear.” She found a metal toy and held it up to Devon’s nose. It stuck. This confirmed her suspicion. Devon had a magnet sewn into his nose.

Now, Mabel knew why Devon was so sad.

The Kissy Bears had been created and marketed during the Valentines season many years ago. When customers spent more than $20 in the store, they could get the Bears for an additional $10 (half their normal retail price). The boy bear, Devon, wore a green tuxedo with a pink bowtie. The girl bear, Sandy, wore a pink gown with green ribbons. Each bear had a magnet sewn into their nose. When the bears were brought together, the magnets connected and the bears appeared to be kissing.

The Bears were top sellers and resulted in a very good quarter for the greeting card store. All over the country, happy girlfriends and wives received the gift of Kissy Bears from their significant others. And for many months to come, Devons and Sandys from Maine to California were blissfully kissing one another, to the delight of their new owners.

Everyone was happy.

The trouble, of course, was that these were toys marketed for adults, not children. And when adults buy toys for adults, they are novelties, gag gifts, tokens. Not the cherished playthings and companions that children’s toys are. Sooner or later, grown ups decide that, while receiving the gift was fun at the time, having the gift is…well, sort of silly.

While the greeting card company was working up a similar product launch for Easter (which was doomed to failure since kissing has nothing to do with Easter) Kissy Bears were thrown in boxes and shoved in the back of closets. Locked away in storage spaces and attics. And, in some cases, actually thrown away with last night’s Chinese takeout boxes.

There are exceptions to every rule, regardless of what your teachers told you at school. In this case, the exception was Sandy Turner. She had been given the Bears by her fiancée, Devon McMannus. When he saw them in the store window while frantically looking for a last-minute gift for his sweetheart, he knew they were just what he needed. What, he asked himself, were the chances of the Kissy Bears having the same names as me and Sandy? Upon receipt of the Bears, Sandy Turner also took the coincidence as a sign that they would be together forever.

And, in a way, they were.

It grieves me sorely to relate that the marriage of Devon McMannus and Sandy Turner lasted only five years, before the latter’s untimely passing. If it’s any consolation, she went without pain, holding the hand of the person she loved more than anything in the world. None of us has any right to ask for more when it’s our time to go.

Mr. McMannus was understandably devastated after losing his wife. But life goes on, even when pain refuses to let us be, and eventually he was faced with the unhappy task of deciding what to do with the material possessions she had left behind. Those too important to get rid of were placed in a box in the hall closet. Those too painful to look at were put in storage. Others were bequeathed to various friends and relations, sold online, donated or simply thrown away.

As for the Bears…

Well, Devon McMannus decided that he had no further use for them. They had been a symbol of his life with Sandy Turner, and that was over. He therefore set the Bear with the green tuxedo and pink bowtie in the box he intended to take to the local secondhand store. But, as he went to put the Bear with the pink gown and green ribbons in the box, he found he could not. His Sandy was gone, and all he had left was this Sandy. Maybe, he thought, I should keep this one. Then it will be like a part of her is still with me.

So it was that Devon, and only Devon, was donated to the secondhand store, while his other half, Sandy, was kept in a closet with a box of papers and photographs.

You may (or may not) take comfort in the fact that Devon McMannus did, eventually, move on. Sandy Turner would always live in a small part of his heart that he kept locked away, but he and his new wife, Susan, are very happy together, and the signs indicate that they will remain so for many years to come.

Devon the Bear, however, sat glumly on his shelf in the secondhand store. Over the years, many people picked him up and seemed interested in buying him, until they perceived that he was part of an incomplete set, and decided their money was best spent elsewhere.

That is, until Mabel found him. She understood how lonely he was. How sad. And she hugged him tight, and whispered into his cotton ear, “Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Devon didn’t see the other items that Mabel purchased that day, because they were kept in a small plastic bag whereas he was placed gingerly in the girl’s backpack. He remained there during the drive to Dad’s apartment, the depositing of the backpack on Mabel’s bed and the next hour or so, during which time Mabel and her father had dinner, watched a movie and talked about what was new in the girl’s life.

Finally, Mabel returned to the room where she slept on alternate weekends, unzipped her backpack and took Devon out. He was grateful for this, as the straight edge of the ruler she used in school had been stuck to his magnetic nose for quite some time and it had been most uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry you’re all alone,” said Mabel. “My mom and dad are alone now, too. They don’t live together anymore and I don’t really understand why not.” For just a moment—maybe even a fraction of a moment—Devon thought Mabel was about to cry. In spite of his own sorrow, he wanted to comfort the girl who had taken pity on him. But there was no need, as Mabel was soon smiling at her new toy. “But you don’t have to be alone anymore.”

Setting Devon down on her bed, Mabel went to the closet and took out another plush toy. This one was also a bear, rotund, mostly white with black ears, black arms and legs and black patches over its eyes.

“Devon, meet Panda Sue. My dad bought him for me when he and mom got divorced. I always thought she seemed kind of sad, too.”

Then, Mabel set Panda Sue down and picked up the plastic bag she had gotten from the secondhand store. She emptied t he contents onto her bed where Devon could see them. One was a sewing kit, consisting of needles, thread, and even a small pair of foldable scissors. The other was what looked to Devon, at least, like a tiny metal banana.

“This won’t hurt a bit,” said Mabel, and commenced the surgery…

It should be noted, in the interest of total fairness, that Mabel was only seven years old, and, for this reason, I think it’s only right to overlook her lack of skill as a seamstress. Especially when one considers that her heart was in the right place. Cutting into the fabric above the nose with the tiny scissors had been easy enough. So had inserting the banana-shaped refrigerator magnet. Sewing the incision together, however, had proved more difficult than Mabel had expected, and she had run out of white thread very early in the process, at which point she was forced to finish the job with black thread, red thread, green thread and, finally, a dab of her father’s superglue.

Panda Sue, however, didn’t mind. Indeed, being a monochromatic animal, the splash of color was quite welcome. And the important part was that she now had a magnet in her nose just like the one in Devon’s. He didn’t mind the scar, either. After all, when they kissed, all he could see were her button eyes, looking into his.

Devon would never forget Sandy, not really. After all, they were quite literally made for each other. But loving someone new doesn’t mean forgetting someone you’ve loved before. Love is far more interesting, complicated and amazing than that.

We lose people we love all the time. No one can do anything about that. But, if you were to ask me, I would say that the best way to honor those we’ve lost is to do the one thing they no longer can: Live. And that means moving forward, growing and, above all, loving.

And I think Devon and Panda Sue would agree.

High noon. The sun blazed in the sky above. Men, women and children lined the streets as the two unlikely combatants faced off against one another. On one side, Blake Taggert: the meanest, roughest, orneriest gunslinger in the territory. Even with one eye shot completely away, he had better aim than anyone these people had ever seen. He didn’t even wear an eye patch to cover it up. He just kept his right eye shut all the time, putting people off with the hideous scar over half his face. Sometimes, if he really wanted to scare people, he’d open it and let them stare into the empty socket.

His fingers were twitching, which could mean only one thing: someone was about to die. When Blake’s fingers started twitching that way, it was a sure sign that they hadn’t pulled a trigger in a while. And the longer he went without pulling that trigger, the more likely it was to happen real soon. Blake didn’t like to let a month go by without killing anyone. He preferred just to shoot people and get the whole thing over with, but he was willing to submit to the formalities of a showdown if it meant keeping the law off his back.

Not that the law was much of a problem for Blake Taggert as any lawman brave or tenacious enough to actually take him out found himself dead shortly thereafter. Blake never called marshals, sheriffs or deputies by their right names. He just called them “Coward.” Because any lawman who was still alive when Blake Taggert was in town was either a coward or dead and anyone who took exception to Blake calling him the former would typically become the latter within about twenty-four hours.

Today’s gunfight was virtually no different than the many others Blake Taggert had fought since he set up in the town of Tumbleweed Ridge two years ago. A day no one in the small, Arizona township would ever forget. His reputation had preceded him, of course, and most of the townsfolk already knew of his rather dubious record. He gunned down Bert Smith in front of his three small children, beat Gabby Wolversteen to death with a broken bottle, strangled Mayor Preston, and beat Sheriff Davis, Doctor Sweets and Pastor Stewart in gunfights by drawing so fast that none of them could even go for their guns.

Not surprisingly, most of the people of Tumbleweed Ridge were smart and/or cowardly enough to keep their distance, though even this wasn’t enough to save them from his wrath if they inadvertently bumped into him at the saloon and caused a fraction of a drop of whisky to spill on his sleeve or talked too loud in his presence or stepped on his shadow without permission or any of the other flimsy excuses he gave for hurting people.

No, as I say, today’s fight was almost entirely the same as the others. There was really only one major difference between today’s bout and the one from two days ago and that was Blake’s opponent.

The unfortunate person who Blake had in his sights on this day had come to town only a year and a half ago, but in that time had become somewhat beloved by the populace for being kind, gentle, clever, pretty, sweet, innocent and, incredibly for a girl her age, unmarried.

Her name was Becky Mills and no one could believe that this was really happening to her.

Shortly after coming to town, this poor, eighteen-year-old girl had won the hearts of the townspeople with a story of bandits taking her family farm and killing her father and brothers, leaving her completely alone. The owner of the local saloon, Abel Johnson, took pity on her and gave her a job as a waitress…and just a waitress! There were, of course, women working in the saloon in a different capacity, but if one man lay a hand on Becky, Abel himself would cut it off. He looked on her sort of as a daughter.

Indeed Becky had endeared herself to everyone. The fact that she was young and pretty didn’t hurt any but, there again, there was a feeling of her being part of the family like a niece or a baby sister, so she didn’t have many suitors and the ones she did have never lasted long. The blacksmith’s son, Alvin, had taken a shine to her and they’d gone to a few barn dances together, but nothing ever came of it. Then it looked like the rancher, Edward, might have a chance, but Becky still wasn’t interested. Many assumed that her failure to get a husband was because the men of Tumbleweed Ridge were too rough for such a frail desert flower. Maybe someday a school teacher or something like that would come to town and she’d finally find a man meek enough for her delicate sensibilities.

Blake Taggert, of course, was immune to her charms. Not being interested much in women, or, indeed, anything other than beans, whiskey and gun fighting, he had never paid her much heed. He grunted at her when she brought him drinks at the saloon, but that was about it. It seemed incredible to anyone that someone so sweet and innocent could even be capable of doing something to anger even someone as easy to annoy as Taggert.

And yet, here they were. Standing along the main thoroughfare of Tumbleweed Ridge as Blake Taggert stood, fingers twitching all-too-eagerly around the pearl handles of his favorite revolvers, glaring with his one good eye at the pretty little girl who had, just the night before, tripped over a rug in the saloon and upended an entire tray of beers over Taggert’s head.

For a few seconds, there had been complete silence and stillness in the saloon, apart from the beer dripping off Taggert. No one had any idea what was going to happen next. And none of them were prepared for Taggert’s next words:

“Tomorrow…high noon…don’t be late.” And he stomped off to change into some dryer clothes.

Of course, if it had been a man accidentally spilling beer on him, the people of Tumbleweed Ridge would have expected a challenge like this. But a girl? Surely, even a savage like Blake Taggert must have his limits. Who in their right mind would challenge a girl to a gunfight? Most women in Tumbleweed Ridge had never even touched a gun, much less knew how to fire one. And certainly not with the accuracy it would take to win a gunfight against Taggert. And even if you were low and heartless enough to challenge a girl to a gunfight, how could it possibly be someone as delicate and innocent as Becky Mills?

Some of the men got together and talked about whether they should go to Blake and ask him to call the whole thing off. Fear convinced them not to, so they focused their efforts on Becky instead. Get out of town, they had said. They offered her money, horses, anything to get her to not show up at noon the following day. They practically got down on their knees and begged the girl to ride away and never come back.

“No,” she said, to the surprise of everyone. “I don’t expect you all to understand, but I figure if I run away now, I’ll be running for the rest of my life. No, facing Blake Taggert is just something I’m gonna have to do, whatever the consequences might be.”

So, under the blazing hot noonday sun, with anxious spectators all around, Becky Mills, wearing her favorite dress and a pair of pistols she had borrowed from Abel Johnson for the occasion, stood her ground against the villain, Blake Taggert. She was trembling slightly, but only slightly. If nothing else, the people of Tumbleweed Ridge admired her guts.

“Surprised you showed up, girly,” said Taggert.

“You said not to be late,” said Becky, trying to sound casual. “What kind of lady would I be if I disappointed a gentleman?”

“Don’t matter. You’ll be dead in a few seconds either way. Ready?”

“Are you?”

Taggert laughed. “I’m always ready to kill, little missy.”

“I’m sure you are…I meant are you ready to die?”

Taggert didn’t laugh. No one did. For a while no one said anything. Finally, Taggert called out. “Marshall Coward! You count three…then we draw.”

“Y-y-y-yes sir, Taggert,” said the Marshall who was living up to his name. “One…two…three…”

“DRAW!” said Becky and she drew her guns so fast no one even saw it happen.

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

BLAM!

She fired ten shots at Taggert. The first at his right hand, causing him to drop his gun. The second at his left, he dropped the other. Then to his shoulders, arms, legs, hips and every part of him except his heart or his head or any other vital organ. In less time than it takes to tell, Blake Taggert was on his knees, riddled with bullets and oozing blood from ten different wounds…but still breathing. And laughing.

“You’re quick, girly,” he said, struggling with every word. “But you ain’t much of a shot. You ain’t killed me!”

“No, not yet,” said Becky. But she didn’t sound like Becky. The woman who was speaking now, walking confidently down the main street of Tumbleweed Ridge with both guns, each containing one bullet each, pointing at the most dangerous gunman anyone had ever seen, was not the frail, fragile girl the people had come to know over the past eighteen months. This was someone else entirely. “If I’d shot you in the head or heart you’d have died too quick and you’d never know who it was that finally killed you.

“In the first place, my name ain’t Mills. It’s Smith. My daddy was Bert Smith, the man you gunned down right in front of me and my big brothers. I was six years old when I watched my daddy die. He was just another notch on your gun handle, but he was my whole world. So I learned how to shoot. I learned to be fast and accurate and I ain’t missed in four years. When I was sure I was ready, I asked around, found out you had set up here in Tumbleweed Ridge so I followed you here.

“Pretending to be weak and fragile all this time wasn’t easy, but it worked. Nobody here had any idea what I was capable of. You never even saw me, even when I brought you your food and drink over at the saloon. It ain’t been easy waiting all this time, but one of the first rules of marksmanship is patience. Waiting for exactly the right time to strike. And when I knew that time had come, I dumped those beers over your head. Knew you’d challenge me and I knew you’d think I was an easy target so you wouldn’t be on your guard.

“So, here you are. Bleeding to death in front of all the people you terrorized all these years because someone was finally man enough to stand up to you. Just so happens it was a nineteen-year-old girl. Now, I couldn’t let you die without knowing that, could I? But, now that you know…”

BLAM!

BLAM!

The first shot went through Taggert’s heart, the second through his one good eye. And he was dead.

Nobody said anything or moved an inch. They simply couldn’t believe what they had seen. They also couldn’t believe it when Becky Smith started digging through Taggert’s pockets till she had a handful of money in her hand. Taking this, she strolled up to a Mr. Thackery and thrust about half the cash into his hand. “Like to buy your horse,” she said with a smile. “Time I was moving on.”

Thackery couldn’t speak, so he just nodded. Becky returned the guns to Abel Johnson saying she’d buy her own when she hit a new town, then mounted her new horse.

“So long, folks!” she said to the perplexed people of Tumbleweed Ridge. As she started to ride away, she passed Alvin and Edward, standing together outside the saloon. “Sorry things didn’t work out with us, boys…y’all weren’t quite rough enough for me.”

She spurred her horse and rode away from Tumbleweed Ridge, never to return again.

What did I do to deserve this? Nothing. I’m just doing my job. That’s all I’ve been doing for eons now. My job. You know how few Olympians actually do their jobs anymore? How would they find the time when they're so busy screwing with mortals? And, yes, I’m not on Olympus right now, but I’m still an Olympian, dammit! I fought against the Titans just as bravely as Poseidon or any of the others. Zeus got to be in charge cuz he's the oldest (I mean, he's really the youngest, but whatever, right?), and me and Poseidon drew lots for what was left. He got the Sea. I got the Underworld. That was the deal, and I, for one, intend to stick to it.

That doesn’t make me a bad guy.

It doesn’t exactly make me a good guy, either, granted. I’ve done some things I’m not exactly proud of, but who hasn’t? I mean, have you seen some of the crap Zeus has been doing? Turning into bulls and swans and sleeping with mortals? All those half-human kids he keeps leaving all over the place? But does anybody give him a hard time for it? Of course not! He’s Zeus! King of Olympus! He can do whatever he wants and people just love him more.

But, me? I’m the Lord of the Underworld. The God of Death. So, naturally, I have to be the bad guy. It’s not like I cause death. It’s not like I go around killing mortals for fun. They kill each other, or themselves, and I just pick up the pieces afterward. That’s my job. It would be the same job even if Poseidon had drawn the short straw instead of me. Then they’d be “the bad guy.” But it’s me. Go figure.

Who does this guy think he is? True, he’s bowing and calling me “my lord,” but if he were truly giving me the respect I deserved, he wouldn’t be here in the first place. He wouldn’t have the effrontery to come down here and challenge my authority. Asking me to give back his girl. What is he expecting me to say? "Oh, sure, you came all the way down here, and nobody else has ever asked politely for me to return someone who has died, so of course I’ll grant your wish, Orpheus." Just because this guy is a rich, handsome, famous king, he thinks the rules don’t apply to him.

And it’s not like I’m not sorry. I am. Nobody believes me when I say that, but it’s true. I know how she died and it’s sad. It’s tragic. It’s real unfortunate. But she’s still dead. And if the sadness of the death was a factor, half the souls down here would’ve gone back upstairs millennia ago.

Persephone is loving this. Or maybe she’s just trying to make me mad. She hates me. I don’t blame her. She was the most beautiful creature in creation and look what I did to her. I took a perfect, flawless work of art and I dragged my fingernail across it till it tore. And why? I don’t even know. I guess I’m angry. Bitter. Nobody can blame me for that. But that’s no excuse for how I’ve treated her.

I think I loved her once. If I’m even capable of that. Zeus claims to fall in love every other week with some mortal then forgets about her the minute he’s had his fun. Maybe gods just don’t know how to love. Maybe it’s better that way. Let’s face it, ninety percent of the problems in this world could be solved if we could stop screwing anything that moves for two seconds.

This character’s not gonna leave if I don’t give him something. But I can’t set a precedent for giving dead people back just because someone came down here and said pretty please. What do I do?

I go with the first idea I can think of. I have the girl sent for. I give Orpheus the layout. Even as I’m saying the words, I hate myself for saying them. I glance at Persephone. She hates me too, but what else is new?

Orpheus prostrates himself at my feet, praising me like he thinks I’m my brother, swearing to be eternally grateful for my kindness. Yeah, wait till you get back upstairs, kid. See how fast you go back on your word and go back to hating me like everybody else.

Like me.

I tell him he can walk back home with Eurydice walking right behind him. But he has to keep facing forward the whole way. If he turns around once, even just to check that she’s there, she’ll be lost to him forever. He seems to think that’ll be easy. He has no idea. The dead don’t breathe. They don’t make any sound when they walk. Sooner or later, he’ll get paranoid, think I’m tricking him (which, in a way, I guess I am) and he’ll turn around. Then she’ll be gone.

Mine forever.

I win.

Lucky me.

It sounds cruel, but it’s not. Not really. You know what would be cruel? Giving her back.

People don’t understand how death works. It’s not like Eurydice would go right back to being the way she was before. She’s no longer alive. She never will be again. Not even I can do anything about that. I can give Orpheus back her spirit, but that’s not the same thing as resurrecting her. And her spirit would be miserable, trapped in a world to which she no longer belongs.

It would be torture; worse than if she were still down here with me. I tried to explain that to him, but he was so stupid with grief that he didn’t listen.

I console myself that at least I’m giving him hope. False hope? Sure. But that’s the best I can do. Besides, you have to look at the big picture. Sooner or later, everyone ends up down here. No matter what you do, how good a life you live, how many sacrifices you make to the gods, in the end, everyone comes to Hades.

Big picture: All hope is false hope.

“So, do you understand?”

“No, not really.”

They never do, he thought. In all the countless centuries they’d been doing this, no one ever understood.

“Which part in particular is giving you a hard time?”

“Sort of…all of it.”

He sighed. “You will go down there,” he began, as patiently as possible.

“Yes.”

“You will learn all you can…”

“Right.”

“You will get into politics…”

“Okay.”

“And you will become a powerful and influential leader who will bring hope and peace to everyone.”

“Got it.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“You said I wouldn’t remember this briefing.”

“You won’t. No one ever does.”

“Then…and, sorry to harp on about this…how am I going to do any of that if I don’t remember you telling me to do it?”

“The vessel will not be able to retain the details of this briefing. It is too simple, too small to hold that much data. It would not be possible for you to remember.”

“And I get that. I do. Really, I do. What I don’t get is how you expect me to do these important things you want me to do if—”

“You cannot retain the details of this briefing,” he interrupted. “But the intent will still be there. Do you see?”

“Er…no, not really.”

“You will not remember talking to me, here, but you will remember that you want to help others. Deep inside, in ways you don’t quite comprehend, you will have an innate desire to help others, to treat them fairly, to seek justice and equality for everyone. This will color your decisions and, we hope, lead you on the correct path.”

“Hope? You hope it will?”

“Well, like I said, all you’ll have is the desire to help. Leading others takes more than that. Those are the parts you’ll have to figure out on your own.”

“But I won’t know what those parts are!”

“No, but you won’t be entirely alone. There are others.”

“Others?”

“That’s right. They have…more or less achieved the goals we set for them, and they did so with no more recollection of their briefings than you will have of yours. They’ll be…sort of your team. They’ll have to help you stay on the right path.”

“Do they know what that path is?”

“They do not.”

“This system seems sort of flawed, don’t you think?”

“You’re not the first person to make that point, but it is what it is. We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have at our disposal.”

“So, just to sum up, you’re going to drop me among other people who have no idea what they’re doing and expect them to help me figure out what I’m doing and all you can give me is the desire to help people?”

“That’s about it, yes.”

“Does this ever work?”

“More often than you might think. But, admittedly, we have had some failures. People who never figured out their purpose, or chose not to follow the path we laid out for them or found they were unable to fulfill their objectives. So, we try again with someone else.”

“Is that what I am? A replacement?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, you are. We had a case a while back. Could have been great. Could have saved the world. Decided to use her strength and skill to help herself first and others second. We’re hoping you’ll make better choices.”

“There’s that word again. Hope.”

“You have a problem with hope?”

“I think a real plan would be better.”

“What would you have us do? Dictate to each individual we send down there exactly what they are to do? Give detailed instructions at every step of the way? What would be the point of that? If we did that, we wouldn’t need someone like you to restore peace because there would already be peace. But you know what there wouldn’t be?”

“What?”

“Life. Choice. Possibilities. Free will. I’m not saying the system is perfect, but it’s better than the alternative.” He looked at his watch. “Look, it’s nearly time. Are you ready to go or not?”

“I…I think…yes. Yes, I’m ready.”

“Glad to hear it. Goodbye…and good luck.”

The next thing she knew was darkness, but just for an instant. It was broken by a blinding shaft of white light which she could see even through her closed eyes. She heard voices, screaming, groaning, a million tiny little sounds she would never remember being made by other people who had been given their briefing, come into the light and forgotten it forever, trying to make sense out of their mission in life just as she would soon have to make sense of hers.

Her eyes still shut, she didn’t see the woman on the bed who had always had a desire to rebuild the world which is what led her to study architecture…The man squeezing the woman’s hand who had always put taking care of others before anything else and was, at that moment, achieving his lifelong dream…Or the man in white holding her carefully who had, at his briefing, been imbued with the need to make people feel better when they were suffering.

And as the last vestiges of her briefing vanished from her tiny new mind there was the slap and the pain and she began to cry.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Smith,” said the doctor. “It’s a girl!”

Matthew and John met under the Fourth Street bridge as they often did. But this was no ordinary meeting. Tonight was a special occasion. Each man carried a cardboard box under their arm which had been wrapped up in great swaths of old newspaper. John had even folded some newspaper into a sort of a bowlike shape and stuck it on top of the box.

"Merry Christmas, John!”

“Merry Christmas, Matthew!”

“I trust you are having a merry holiday?”

“Indeed, my good man. Why this very evening I feasted on pheasant under glass with foie gras and truffles.” As he said this he scratched the heavy, unkempt beard under his chin and felt a small pigeon bone which he flicked away carelessly. “How fare you this day of days?”

“Tolerably well, John. My valet was somewhat careless in serving me my soup this evening, as you see by the lapel of my Brooks Brothers suit.” So saying, he pointed to the large blot of soup he had spilled on the outermost of his three coats at the soup kitchen he had just come from. “I would have discharged him of course, but this being the holiday season, I was inclined to be merciful.”

“An attitude that does you credit, my good man. And now, if you will permit me, I must admit to my curiosity being somewhat piqued by that large package you carry beneath your arm. Whatever might that be?”

“Well may you ask! It is, as a matter of absolute fact, a small token of my appreciation for your friendship and counsel this past year. Merry Christmas, John.” With a grand gesture he extended the parcel to John who accepted it with his free hand.

“You are too kind, sir. As it happens, the parcel I carry—which I fancy you were mere moments from asking about yourself—is a similar remembrance for you, friend Matthew.” So saying, he handed his own package to his friend who took it in both hands, not unlike an eager child who can't wait to see what Santa brought him.

The exchange complete, there was a brief debate as to who should go first. Ultimately, the honor fell to Matthew and he tore open the paper and peered inside the ratty, slightly moldy, shoebox which, as it did every Christmas without fail, contained absolutely nothing. But Matthew’s face broke in a wide grin and he reached into the box, closing his fingers around empty air as though he was holding an imaginary object in his hand. He held the invisible something to his ear, and smiled as he imagined the tick of the precision Swiss made gears echoing in his ears.

“It’s beautiful! I shall wear it always.”

“I took the liberty of having it engraved.”

Matthew looked at the back of the nonexistent watch and what he pretended to read seemed to get him all choked up. He wiped an equally invisible tear from his eye with the left index finger that poked through the torn tip of the wool glove he had found outside the convenience store three months ago.

“I will treasure this gift, and the kind words it bears, for the rest of my days. Now, I must insist that you open my gift to you. Though I am certain it will pale in comparison to this wonderful token.”

Just as Matthew had done, John opened the gift and smiled with delight as he beheld the box’s lack of visible contents. He reached in and seemed to remove the two small objects with his fingers. Then he began fiddling with the sleeves of the torn, ill-fitting, long-sleeved tee shirt he wore under his many outer layers of clothing. Afterward, though there was no visible change to them, he held his wrists up for Matthew to see. “How do they look?”

“They suit you perfectly, old man! And as you can see, they too are engraved, though only with your initials. I didn’t have the room for a personal message, as you did. Rest assured, if I had done, I would have expressed my gratitude at being able to count you among my closest friends.”

“Thank you, my friend. I shall wear them to the great New Year’s Eve Gala. Will I see you there?”

“Have you ever known me to miss a gala?”

“Of course not. Whatever was I thinking?”

“Well, this is a most satisfactory Christmas, is it not? And now,” he added, glancing at his bare wrist, “I see by my beautiful new watch that it is very nearly midnight. Just time enough I think for a spot of Christmas cheer.” He reached into the copious pockets of one of his coats and removed a bottle of very cheap gin and two paper cups he had found in the street and cleaned as best he could. “Join me for a brandy?”

“Matthew, it would be my absolute pleasure.”

As John and Matthew shared a midnight drink of brandy to celebrate another wonderful Christmas together, a nearby radio crackled and part of a late-night broadcast was born on the night air…

“...another clear night, but temperatures are falling and it is looking very good for those of you looking forward to a white Christmas next weeek. The time is now nine-fifteen and you're listening to...”

“Merry Christmas, Matthew.”

“Merry Christmas, John.”