The sand feels different today. I run it through my fingers, counting each grain as it falls, though I know that's impossible. One, two, three—the rest blur together like static. The morning fog hasn't burned off yet, and the pier stretches into nothing, its endpoint lost in gray.

I've been here six hours. Or maybe twenty minutes. Time moves differently when you're counting sand.

"Ma'am?" A voice breaks through. Police, probably. They always come eventually. "Are you alright?"

I don't look up. Can't look up. There's work to be done. "I'm organizing," I tell him, my voice raw from the salt air. "Each pile needs exactly one thousand grains. It's important to be precise."

His shadow falls across my workspace, disrupting the careful patterns I've drawn in the sand. Concentric circles, each smaller than the last, spiraling inward toward some truth I can't quite grasp. Yesterday there were seventeen circles. Today I count twenty-three. Tomorrow there might be none.

"Dr. Garcia called us," he says gently. "She's worried about you. You missed your last three appointments."

A laugh bubbles up, salty-bitter as seaweed. "Dr. Garcia doesn't understand. I'm conducting an experiment." My fingers tremble as I separate another small pile. "If you remove one memory at a time, at what point do you stop being yourself?"

The tide is coming in. I feel it in my bones, that slow creep of water. Soon it will wash away my work, like it does every day. Like it has every day since Mason—

No. Don't think about Mason. Don't think about the pier, or the fog, or why you know exactly how long it takes a body to—

"Five hundred ninety-eight, five hundred ninety-nine..." My voice cracks. "I lost count. I have to start over."

The officer crouches beside me. Through my peripheral vision, I catch a glimpse of his nameplate: Officer Collins. He was here yesterday too, though he's pretending this is our first meeting. They all pretend.

"How about we get you somewhere warm?" he suggests. "The fog's getting thicker."

"You don't understand," I whisper, my fingers cramping as I scrape together another pile. "If I can just figure out the exact number—if I can find the precise point where a heap becomes not a heap, where a person becomes not a person—then maybe I can work backwards. Maybe I can find the grain of sand that changed everything. The moment before it all went wrong."

A wave crashes closer, sending spray across my carefully ordered piles. The salt mingles with something warm on my cheeks. When did I start crying?

"One grain at a time," I murmur, more to myself than Officer Collins. "That's all it takes. One grain, and then another, and another, until suddenly your heap is gone. Until suddenly you're gone. But if you can count them—if you can keep track—maybe you can put them back in the right order. Maybe you can rebuild..."

The fog swallows the rest of my words. In the distance, a siren wails, or maybe it's just the foghorn. These days, I can't always tell the difference between warning sounds.

-----

Dr. Garcia's office smells like lavender and lies. She thinks she's clever, using aromatherapy to mark the passage of time—lavender on Mondays, sage on Wednesdays, eucalyptus on Fridays. As if temporal anchors could stop the slipping.

"You're agitated today," she observes, pen hovering above her notepad. Three months ago, she used blue ink. Two months ago, black. Today it's red, like warning signs, like blood in water.

"I made progress," I tell her, watching dust motes drift in the afternoon light. Each speck a tiny universe, falling. "I reached six hundred grains yesterday before Officer Collins interrupted. That's eighteen more than my previous record."

She doesn't look up from her notepad. "And how many times have you met Officer Collins?"

"Once," I say automatically. Then: "No, three times. Or—" The certainty crumbles like wet sand between my fingers. "He pretends it's always the first time. They all pretend."

"Who pretends?"

"Everyone. The officers. The lifeguards. The man who sells ice cream by the pier." My hands twist in my lap. "Even Mason pretends, when I see him in the fog."

The scratching of her pen stops. In the silence, I hear the clock on her wall ticking. One second, two seconds, three—how many seconds before a lifetime becomes a life sentence?

"We've talked about Mason," she says carefully, each word measured, weighed, precise. "About what happened on the pier."

"Nothing happened on the pier." The words taste like salt. "Nothing happens. Nothing is happening. Nothing will happen. Time is just grammar."

She sets down her pen. Red ink bleeds into white paper. "You were there when they found him."

"I found a shell that morning," I say, the memory suddenly sharp as broken glass. "Perfect spiral. Mathematical precision. The Fibonacci sequence made manifest in calcium carbonate. I was going to show him, explain how nature builds itself in predictable patterns, how even chaos has underlying order, but—"

My fingers trace spirals on the arm of the chair. One rotation, two, three...

"But?"

"The shell disappeared. Like the sand castles. Like Mason. Like everything, eventually. Entropy in action." I look up at her window, where fog is creeping in despite the afternoon sun. "Did you know that beach sand moves? Littoral drift. Constant motion. What you touch in one moment is gone the next. The beach you stand on today isn't the same beach as yesterday."

"Is that why you count the grains? To hold onto something constant?"

A laugh escapes, hollow as a seashell. "I count to find the edge. The boundary. If you remove one grain of sanity, are you still sane? Two grains? Three? Where's the line, Doctor? When does a person become a patient? A mother become a mourner? A witness become a—"

I stop. The fog is pressing against the windows now, impossible for this time of day, this time of year. Through its gray veil, I see a familiar silhouette on the pier.

"He's out there," I whisper, reaching toward the window, fingers grabbing empty air. "On the pier right now. All I have to do is count backwards, find the right number, the exact moment—"

"There is no pier outside my window," Dr. Garcia says softly. "We're three miles inland."

I blink. She's right. The window shows only a parking lot, sun-baked and solid. No fog. No pier. No Mason.

"I need to go," I say, standing. My legs shake like sand castles in rising tide. "The beach changes with every wave. If I don't get back soon, I'll lose count. Have to start over. Have to—"

"Please sit." Her voice has an edge now, sharp as shells, as broken promises. "We're not done."

But I'm already at the door, fingers reaching for the handle. I step into the hallway. The cold lights flicker—one, two, three…

-----

The sun is setting now, or rising. The fog makes it hard to tell, turning everything the color of old memories. I've arranged three hundred and forty-seven piles of sand, each containing exactly one thousand grains. Or maybe it's seven hundred and twelve piles of three hundred and forty-seven grains. The numbers swim like fish beneath the surface.

Officer Collins sits beside me now, no longer pretending this is our first meeting. His radio crackles with static that sounds like waves breaking.

"Tell me about the shell," he says.

My hands keep moving, sorting, counting. "Fibonacci. Perfect spiral. Mathematical certainty in an uncertain universe." A grain slips through my fingers. "Mason would have understood. He was brilliant at math, did I tell you? Sixth grade, but already taking pre-algebra. He could see patterns everywhere. Even in chaos. Especially in chaos."

"Wiser than his years." His voice is gentle. Like the fog. Like Mason's was, before. "What happened after you found it?"

"He was angry about the phone." The words come easier now, worn smooth like sea glass. "Such a small thing. A stupid thing. One week without it, that's all. His grades were slipping. He needed to focus. I thought the beach would help him find his peace, like it always had before. If I had just... if I had waited one more day, let him keep it one more day..."

My fingers stop moving. A thousand grains of sand cascade into nothing.

"You couldn't have known," Officer Collins says.

"There was a pattern," I insist. "In his behavior. In his moods. In the way he stormed out, slammed the door. The way he ran—" My voice cracks like a shell under pressure. "I counted the seconds before I followed. One, two, three... sixty-seven. Sixty-seven seconds between his door and mine. Between his footsteps and mine. Between mother and—"

"That wasn't your fault."

"But where's the line?" The words tumble out like tide rushing in. "How many seconds of anger before discipline becomes cruelty? How many moments of rebellion before attention-seeking becomes... If you remove one word of the argument, then another, then another, at what point does a mother's caution become a child's last—"

"Stop." His hand hovers near my shoulder but doesn't touch. "The investigators were clear. The railing was wet from the fog. When he turned around to come back—"

"No." I pull away, start a new pile. "That's not—I need to count. Need to find the right number. If I can just figure out how many grains make a heap, how many moments make a childhood, how many breaths between defiance and regret, between standing and falling, between his laugh and his—"

The fog shifts, and suddenly Mason is there, at the end of the pier. Twelve years old forever, balancing on the upper rail, turning back with that look—half-anger, half-fear, whole child. "Mom," he says, or maybe it's just the wind. "Mom, I didn't mean—"

"Do you see him?" I whisper.

Officer Collins follows my gaze. "I see fog," he says softly.

"He's trying to tell me something. He's always trying to tell me something." My voice sounds far away, like shouting underwater. "But I can't... the numbers keep changing. The grains keep shifting. Yesterday I was sure it was one thousand grains. Today it might be three. Tomorrow..."

A wave crashes against the pier's pylons. When the spray clears, Mason is gone. Like always. Like everything.

"Come on," Officer Collins says, standing. He offers his hand. "The tide's coming in."

I look down at my piles. The neat circles I've spent hours creating are already disappearing, erased by wind and water. Tomorrow I'll make new ones. Tomorrow I'll count again. Tomorrow I'll find the right number, the perfect equation, the exact point where everything changed. Where a mother's discipline became a child's rebellion became an empty bedroom with a phone still charging on the nightstand.

Or maybe I won't. Maybe that's the real paradox—not how many grains make a heap, but how many times you can watch it disappear before you accept that some questions don't have answers. Some patterns exist only in the spaces between "I love you" and "I'm sorry."

I take his hand. Let him pull me up. My feet leave perfect prints in the wet sand as we walk away from the pier.

Behind us, the fog swallows everything—the piles, the patterns, the possibilities. One grain at a time, until nothing remains but the sound of waves counting seconds into infinity, each one the exact length of a child's last breath.

Being dead isn't nearly as boring as you might think.

I discovered this on my third day of non-existence, when I finally stopped trying to open doors and learned to simply pass through them instead. The trick, I found, is to forget you were ever solid to begin with. Forget the weight of bones and blood, the constant pull of gravity, the way air once caught in your lungs. Remember instead that you are now made of the same stuff as moonlight and memory.

My name was – is? – Thomas Webb, and I've been dead for approximately eight months, two weeks, and five days. Not that time means much anymore. When you're dead, moments can stretch like taffy or snap past like rubber bands. Sometimes I watch the sun rise and set so quickly it looks like someone's flicking a light switch. Other times, I spend what feels like hours watching a single dewdrop slide down a blade of grass.

I haunt (though I prefer the term "reside in") a small town in New England called Millbrook. Not because I'm bound here by unfinished business or ancient curses – at least, I don't think so. I simply never felt the pull to go elsewhere. Even when I was alive, I rarely left town. Why start traveling now?

Besides, there's more than enough to keep me occupied here. Take Mrs. Henderson at number forty-two, for instance. She's been stealing her neighbor's newspapers for three years, but only on Wednesdays, and only if it's raining. I spent two months following her around before I figured out why: she lines her parakeet's cage with newspaper, and she's convinced that newspaper stolen in the rain brings good luck to pets. I can't argue with her results – that parakeet is seventeen years old and still singing.

Then there's the teenage boy who sits in the park every Tuesday afternoon, writing poetry in a battered notebook. He thinks no one can see him behind the big oak tree, but I float by sometimes and read over his shoulder. His metaphors need work, but his heart's in the right place. Last week he wrote a sonnet comparing his crush's eyes to "pools of Mountain Dew," which was both terrible and oddly touching.

The living can be endlessly entertaining when they don't know they're being watched. It's not creepy if you're dead – it's anthropology.

But I'm not always a passive observer. Sometimes, when I'm feeling particularly solid, I can manage small interactions with the physical world. Nothing dramatic like moving furniture or writing messages in blood on the walls (though I'll admit I tried once, out of curiosity – turns out being dead doesn't automatically make you good at horror movie effects).

Instead, I specialize in tiny interventions: nudging dropped keys into view, generating the perfect cool breeze on a sweltering day, ensuring that the last cookie in the box is chocolate chip instead of oatmeal raisin. Small kindnesses, barely noticeable but precisely timed.

My finest work happens at The Dusty Tome, the bookstore where I used to work when I was alive. My former colleague, Sarah, still runs the place. She never knew that I harbored a decade-long crush on her, and now she never will. But I can still help her in my own way.

I've become quite good at guiding customers to exactly the book they need, even if they don't know they need it. A gentle cold spot near the self-help section, a subtle illumination of a particular spine, a barely perceptible whisper that draws their attention to just the right page. Last week, I helped a grieving widower find a cookbook that contained his late wife's secret cookie recipe. He cried right there in the aisle, clutching the book like a life preserver. Sarah gave him a free bookmark and a cup of tea.

The other ghosts (yes, there are others) think I'm too involved with the living. "You need to learn to let go," says Eleanor, who's been dead since 1847 and spends most of her time rearranging flowers in the cemetery. "The living have their world, and we have ours."

But I've never been good at letting go. Even when I was alive, I held onto things too long – old tickets stubs, expired coupons, unrequited feelings. Death hasn't changed that aspect of my personality. If anything, it's given me more time to cultivate my attachments.

Take my cat, for instance. Mr. Whiskers (I didn't name him – he came with that regrettable moniker from the shelter) is still alive and living with my sister. He can see me, as most animals can, but he's remarkably unfazed by my transparent state. Sometimes I lie on the floor next to him while he sleeps, pretending I can feel his warmth. He purrs anyway, the sound vibrating through whatever passes for my soul these days.

The hardest part about being dead isn't the lack of physical sensation or the inability to enjoy coffee (though I do miss that). It's watching the people you love cope with your absence. My sister still sets an extra place at Christmas dinner. My mother keeps "forgetting" to delete my number from her phone. My father pretends he's okay but visits my grave every Sunday with fresh flowers and updates about the Patriots' latest games, as if I might be keeping score in the afterlife.

I want to tell them I'm still here, that death isn't an ending but a change in perspective. I want to tell my sister that I saw her ace her dissertation defense, that I was there in the back of the room, cheering silently as she fielded every question with brilliant precision. I want to tell my mother that yes, I did get her messages, all of them, and that the cardinal that visits her bird feeder every morning is not me, but I appreciate the thought.

But the rules of death are strict about direct communication. The best I can do is send signs they probably don't recognize: a favorite song on the radio at just the right moment, a unexpected whiff of my cologne in an empty room, the feeling of being hugged when they're alone at night.

Sometimes I wonder if this is hell – not fire and brimstone, but the eternal frustration of being able to observe but never truly connect. Other times, usually when I'm watching Sarah shelve books or listening to my father's one-sided conversations at my grave, I think this might be heaven. The ability to witness life without the messy complications of living it, to love without the fear of loss, to exist in the spaces between moments.

I've developed hobbies, as one does when faced with eternal existence. I collect overheard conversations, storing them like precious gems in whatever serves as my memory now. I've become an expert in the secret lives of squirrels (far more dramatic than you'd expect). I've learned to read upside-down books over people's shoulders on park benches, and I've mastered the art of predicting rain by watching the way cats clean their whiskers.

But my favorite pastime is what I call "emotion painting." I've discovered that strong feelings leave traces in the air, visible only to the dead – streaks of color and light that linger like aurora borealis. Love is usually gold or deep rose, anger burns red with black edges, and sadness flows in shades of blue and silver. I spend hours watching these colors swirl and blend, especially in places where emotions run high: the hospital waiting room, the high school during prom, the small chapel where weddings and funerals alike are held.

Today, I'm following a new pattern of colors I've never seen before – a strange mixture of green and purple that sparkles like static electricity. It's emanating from a young woman sitting alone in The Dusty Tome, reading a worn copy of "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." She has dark circles under her eyes and a hospital bracelet on her wrist. The colors around her pulse and swirl with an intensity that draws me closer.

As I hover near her table, I realize she's not actually reading. She's crying silently, tears falling onto the open pages. But there's something else – she keeps looking up, scanning the bookstore as if searching for something. Or someone.

Then she speaks, so softly even I almost miss it: "Thomas? Are you here?"

I freeze (metaphorically speaking – I'm always technically frozen now). It's Lisa Chen, a regular customer from my living days. We used to chat about books, particularly ghost stories. She once told me she could sense spirits, but I had dismissed it as whimsy. Now, as I watch the colors dance around her, I wonder if perhaps she was telling the truth.

"I know you're probably here somewhere," she continues, still speaking barely above a whisper. "Sarah told me you used to help people find the right books. I could use some help now."

I drift closer, fascinated by the way the green and purple lights seem to reach out toward me.

"I'm dying," she says matter-of-factly. "Cancer. Stage four. The doctors say I have maybe three months." She laughs softly. "I'm not afraid of being dead, exactly. I just want to know... is it lonely?"

For the first time since my death, I wish desperately that I could speak. I want to tell her about the beauty of emotion paintings, about the secret lives of cats and squirrels, about the way love looks like golden light and how sadness can be as beautiful as stained glass.

Instead, I do what I do best. I create a gentle breeze that ruffles through the nearby shelves until a small, leather-bound book falls onto her table. It's a collection of Mary Oliver poems, opened to "When Death Comes."

Lisa picks up the book with trembling hands and reads aloud: "When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn... when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut... I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?"

The colors around her shift, the purple fading as the green grows brighter, more peaceful. She smiles, touching the page gently.

"Thank you, Thomas," she whispers.

I stay with her until she leaves, watching the colors trail behind her like a comet's tail. Then I do something I've never done before – I follow her. Not to her home or to the hospital, but to all the places in town that still hold beauty: the park where the teenage poet writes his awful, wonderful verses, the bench where the widower sits feeding pigeons, the small garden behind the library where Sarah takes her lunch breaks.

At each stop, I paint the air with every beautiful thing I've seen since dying, every moment of joy and wonder and connection I've witnessed. I don't know if she can see the colors, but I paint them anyway – gold for love, silver for hope, and a new color I've never used before, one that looks like sunlight through leaves, that means "you are not alone."

Being dead isn't what I expected. It's not an ending or a beginning, but a different way of being. A way of loving the world without being able to hold it. A way of touching lives without leaving fingerprints. A way of existing in the spaces between heartbeats, in the pause between words, in the moment before tears become laughter.

And sometimes, if you're very lucky, it's a way of showing someone else that the cottage of darkness isn't dark at all. It's full of colors only the dead can see, but the living can feel.

I think I'll stay in Millbrook a while longer. After all, there are still books to be found, cats to be comforted, and stories to be witnessed. Besides, I've heard there's a new ghost in town – a teacher who's been rearranging the letters on the high school announcement board to spell out poetry at midnight. I should probably introduce myself.

Being dead, I've learned, is just another way of being alive.

The night sky over Silicon Valley buzzed with drones, a constant, artificial starlight cast down from Damian Sinclair’s floating fleet. Like his mind, they were ever watchful, scanning, analyzing, bending the shadows to reveal every hidden movement. Below, in his quiet glass tower, Damian watched the city pulse to his rhythm—a symphony of algorithms and innovations, all in his image. His reflection in the window seemed ageless, unchanging, a mere echo of his own genetic perfection. Somewhere, in cryogenic storage far beneath his feet, lay millions of embryos, each one a small monument to his genius. For Damian, this was no mere experiment. It was his greatest work—his legacy—crafted cell by cell to outlive them all.

A red button flashed on Damian’s desk. Damian strolled over and leaned into the microphone. “Yes, Tara?”

“Mr. Sinclair,” a cool voice breathed, “They’re ready for you.”

He cracked his neck and marched over to his office’s elevator. A grin slowly crept onto his face on the way down to the Keynote Arena. The doors opened to the sound of thunderous applause coming from behind the thick, silver curtain. Damian grabbed a microphone from a meek assistant, stepped through the curtain, and took in the sight of thousands of his admirers, from industry figures to reporters to the lucky few fans that had coughed up the ten grand it took to secure a seat there.

“My friends, today we are gathered to witness history in the making.” He could see a wave of spectators leaning in on the edge of their seats.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you today not as a mere innovator or CEO, but as a steward of our collective future. We live in an age of incredible achievement and unparalleled fragility. Our world is more connected, more technologically advanced than ever before—and yet, we’re more vulnerable to global threats: climate catastrophes, pandemics, political instability, rampant infertility. One unfortunate crisis, one moment of oversight, and the diverse tapestry of human achievement could unravel.” He paused, letting the silence stretch as he scanned their faces, leaning in, hungry to know his next words. “And only we—yes, we here—can prevent that.”

Behind him, a giant screen showed a cell failing to undergo meiosis, shriveling in a petri dish. It was replaced by a plump infant smiling down at the audience with icy blue eyes.

“That’s why I created Project Genesis, a comprehensive repository of the human gene pool, a vault designed to secure the full spectrum of humanity’s diversity. In this vault, we will store the DNA of individuals from every background, every corner of the globe. It’s a legacy library, preserving the finest details of who we are for generations to come.

“Imagine a future—a hundred, even a thousand years from now—when unforeseen events have altered the face of the Earth, and there’s a need to restore humanity’s genetic essence. Future generations will look to Project Genesis as the beacon of their heritage, able to rebuild a diverse, vibrant human population with all of our strengths and talents intact.

“This isn’t about me. It isn’t about you. It’s about the survival of humanity’s best qualities. Every artist, every scientist, every teacher, every visionary—we are collecting the DNA of pioneers and everyday heroes alike so that humanity will always have a path forward, no matter what happens.” Images of Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albert Einstein flashed on the screen. The images faded away to reveal a video feed that panned across the audience.

“Project Genesis isn’t a replacement for human life; it’s a safety net. A precaution. And as your steward, I believe it’s my duty to take this step now. Because if we don’t preserve ourselves, who will?” The crowd roared with excitement.

“You may recall providing a DNA sample with your entry here today. My gift to you all is that each one of you will be part of the first generation of this monumental archive. You will be the mothers and fathers of the future, regardless of the limitations biology may have placed on you.”

A collective gasp escaped from the audience and made way for another round of applause. Damian’s grin grew wider. The crowd didn’t know the first phase was already complete.

Damian walked back behind the curtain and took the elevator back to his office. He pressed a button on his desk and a large monitor lowered down from the ceiling. The news was already buzzing about his announcement. Headlines scrolled across the screen. “Eccentric CEO pledges to save the world.” “Sinclair Enterprises, the nexus between humanity and progress.” “Damian Sinclair champions biodiversity.”

Damian leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together. “Savior of the world” sure had a nice ring to it. It was true, too. At least, it would feel true to the citizens of the world. They would get to feel important and useful, which is as close to a sense of purpose as any mere human could hope for in the modern age.

Damian believed in the power of predictability and perfection. He felt that entropy was an unavoidable eventuality in a chaotic world, but it was his own purpose to harness that random disorder and turn it into a force for good—his own definition of the common good, that is. Human beings were messy, flawed, dangers to themselves and others. Replacing humanity with clones was a necessary evil—and “evil” itself? Such a subjective word.

- - - - - - - - - -

That night, Damian could hardly sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about the millions of new beginnings resting safely in cryogenic freezers in the sub-basement. The first trials had been massively successful. All key performance metrics had been easily met, and not a whisper of it had escaped the top-secret lab. He felt the urge to check on his little ones.

Damian had a dozen children scattered across the world, each born via a carefully chosen surrogate. Each surrogate had been handsomely paid to bring progeny into the world, though a couple had turned down the money, as they felt it was a sufficient honor to give Mr. Sinclair the gift of life. He didn’t have relationships with these children. When they came of age, they would receive access to a hefty trust set up in their names. Until then, they were of little use to him. He would bring them out for photo ops to maintain his carefully constructed image of Damian Sinclair, benefactor and father to the modern world.

But these embryos—these were all his. When the time was right to release the rest into the world, he would release his tight grasp on their cryogenic chambers and unleash them throughout the planet—and beyond. Space was the final frontier, and he had already begun populating it with various satellites and probes in anticipation of a global catastrophic event. It was only a matter of time until humans finished wrecking the great planet they had been undeservedly gifted.

Damian pulled back the black silk sheets and stepped into his gilded slippers. He stopped at the wall of windows and took in the sight of his empire. Below, skyscrapers reached up toward his tower up above, obscuring the colonies of humans marching on the drab pavement underneath. Their lives were so… inconsequential. So meaningless until the moment Damian had deigned to give them something to hope for.

He pulled a white lab coat over himself. He hadn’t checked on the babies since the big announcement. Damian padded over to the elevator and clicked the button that led him down to the sub-basement. He felt the air grow colder and his breath crystallize into the air as he descended.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. He stepped into the gleaming white corridor and the doors closed behind him. He made his way down the long hall and past the row of heavy metal doors. He stopped with his right foot still hovering over a miniscule speck of dust on the white marble floor. He cursed the cleaning crew under his breath and vowed to relieve someone of their duties the next morning. Damian stepped over the impurity and toward the gold door at the end of the hall, the imperfection still fixed firmly in his mind.

He scanned his lanyard at the door and it slid open to reveal a massive laboratory. Rows of giant freezers stretched through the lab and lined every wall. He turned to a screen next to the door reading -272.5º C and frowned. This would not do. The embryos had to sit at exactly Absolute Zero to be preserved until their deployment. He angrily tapped at the screen to set it to -273.15º C.

Damian strolled through the rows of freezers and held a hand up to the frosty glass. Here laid the next step for humanity. The culmination of his decades of hard work. As he strolled past each cryogenic chamber, his gaze softened to a faint smile. Here lay the next step for humanity, his meticulously designed children, preserved at the very edge of absolute zero. And it was all his. His legacy.

During the day, few people had the privilege of access to this secret unit—only the top scientists and trusted engineers he had hand-picked. During the night, the place was empty. This was his sanctuary, where he could shout his dreams and lofty ambitions out to no one but his army of embryos.

Reaching out, he pressed a palm to the frosty glass, whispering to the embryos, “One day, little ones. One day, you’ll have the world. And when you do… it will be my world.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Damian Sinclair leaned back in his leather chair, the faint hum of the supercomputers below vibrating through his feet. The applause from the keynote still echoed faintly in his mind, a distant roar of validation that never quite filled the void. Validation was fleeting; progress was eternal. He opened a holographic interface on his desk, scrolling through the latest updates on Project Genesis. Every metric exceeded expectations, and yet, the numbers brought him no comfort. They never did.

Sinclair’s gaze drifted to the skyline, the city below sparkling like stars on a clear night. Each light represented a piece of his empire: the research labs, the data centers, the production facilities. To the world, they were monuments to innovation. To him, they were merely tools.

His mind wandered to his early years, back when humanity’s chaos still held sway over his life. He thought of the polluted skies of his childhood, the food shortages that wracked his small town, the global leaders paralyzed by inaction. He had watched his neighbors struggle, their lives consumed by forces beyond their control. They had been good people, but goodness had not saved them. Progress would have.

Damian’s ancestors believed in hard work and fairness, values he came to see as quaint and obsolete. By the time he was 20, he’d abandoned their ideals entirely and joined his father’s empire. His father was an unkind man, a man who shared his beliefs about how humanity had to be reined in and controlled for its own good. The future wasn’t for the weak, the fair, or the sentimental. It was for those willing to bend the world to their will.

Damian came from a long line of entrepreneurs, all starting with a stake in various diamond mines throughout the world. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. They were the ones responsible for the advertising campaign that led billions of women to expect their partners to get down on one knee and present them with a sparkling diamond as proof of their never-ending love. It was pure manipulation of the masses, forcing hordes of young men into debt to prop up the Sinclair Mining Company. Today, the mines were still in operation and kept running with the blood of the poor who had no other choice but to risk their lives and limbs to dig shiny rocks out of the ground.

But the Sinclairs today were more often known for their tech empire, which had been in the making since the dawn of the first computer. They were known for bringing the digital era to the public, from the personal computer to the smartphone and then artificial intelligence engines. Now, it was nearly impossible to find a corner of the world that the Sinclairs had not helped mold. They built hospitals operated by artificial intelligence, lobbied hard with governments around the world to get favorable national contracts, and gradually built the modern skyline.

Damian’s hands rested on the smooth arms of the chair as the hologram shifted to a live feed from the Genesis Vault. Rows upon rows of cryogenic chambers stood in perfect formation, bathed in the sterile glow of LED lights. Inside each chamber was an embryo, genetically optimized and meticulously crafted. His legacy, cell by cell.

A sharp pang of satisfaction coursed through him. These embryos weren’t just his children; they were his ideals incarnate. Their genes carried the essence of his intellect, his resilience, his vision. They were humanity’s next step, freed from the bonds of randomness, entropy, and inefficiency.

“Entropy,” he muttered under his breath, the word bitter on his tongue. He tapped a control, zooming in on a specific chamber. “The enemy of order. The enemy of progress.”

If the trials succeeded, this technology would accelerate humanity’s evolution exponentially. They would be freed from the shackles of natural human error and propelled into a brighter future, a future that was shaped by Sinclair’s hand. Widespread trials had been in progress for decades now, but full execution of the Sinclair Protocol was still in the works. There were still some kinks to work out to ensure that the subjects’ behavior was programmed as intended.

Sinclair opened another interface, this one displaying global headlines. Economic instability in Europe. Protests in South America. Rising infertility rates worldwide. Each headline was another reason why humanity needed him. The chaos outside reinforced the necessity of his work. Without him, the world would burn itself out in a matter of decades.

His public narrative was carefully crafted to position him as humanity’s steward. “Damian Sinclair, the savior of the species,” the headlines proclaimed. The public didn’t need to know the details, the uncomfortable truths about the calculated elimination of diversity. They couldn’t understand.

He skimmed a report on fertility clinics run by his subsidiary, LifeBridge Labs. Their recruitment program was running ahead of schedule. Thousands of couples, desperate for children, had unknowingly contributed their participation to Project Genesis. Sinclair smirked. “A simple trade: their hope for my future.”

For all his confidence in the project, Sinclair wasn’t blind to the risks. Human beings, even in their perfected forms, carried the seeds of rebellion. He’d read the reports of minor irregularities among the early clones—flashes of independence, moments of unpredictability. It was a weakness he couldn’t tolerate.

He glanced at the data on DS-A015, a clone stationed in the cognitive testing division. The logs showed subtle deviations from expected behavior. Nothing dramatic, but enough to trigger his concern. He made a note to have the subject’s parameters adjusted. “Perfection requires vigilance,” he reminded himself.

The door to his office slid open, and Tara, his chief strategist, stepped inside. She carried a sleek tablet, her professional demeanor failing to mask the underlying adoration. At this point, Sinclair practically expected to see it on his underlings’ faces. After all, why wouldn’t they revere their fearless leader? They should be thanking him for all he did for the planet.

“The Vault expansion is ahead of schedule,” she reported. “And the AI deployment in South Asia is complete. We’ve seen a 22% reduction in energy consumption since the rollout.”

“Good,” Sinclair replied, his voice measured. “And the behavioral imprint trials?”

Tara hesitated. “We’re seeing… some anomalies. Minor deviations in cognitive patterns. Nothing to suggest instability, but enough to warrant further observation.”

Sinclair leaned forward. “Define ‘anomalies.’”

“Certain subjects are exhibiting faint traces of independent decision-making. It’s likely just noise in the data, but we’re running diagnostics to be sure.”

“Run them again,” he ordered. “There’s no margin for error.”

Tara lowered her eyes and nodded at the floor. After she left, Sinclair activated the wall screen, filling his office with projections of the future. The simulations depicted sprawling cities powered by clean energy, genetically engineered crops thriving in barren soils, and a society free from war and poverty. Many of the human figures in these images shared his cold blue gaze, like staring into a glacier.

He watched the simulations with a mixture of pride and melancholy. The final stage of the world he was building would never be his to inhabit. It wasn’t about him, not really. At least that’s what he told himself. It was about the legacy he would leave behind—a humanity perfected, freed from the chaos of its origins.

Sinclair poured himself a glass of whiskey, staring at the glowing city below. He thought of the sacrifices he’d made, the lies he’d told, the lives he’d manipulated. “History will judge me,” he said aloud, raising the glass. “But history doesn’t build itself. Progress demands a price.”

His android assistant stepped stiffly forward from its position against the wall. “Right you are, sir. And we thank you for your courage.”

As midnight approached, Sinclair received a notification on his wrist terminal. The Vault expansion team required his approval to proceed to Phase Two. He descended into the sub-basement, where the cold air nipped at his face. The sight of the Vault always filled him with quiet awe—a tangible representation of his life’s work.

He stopped in front of one of the Vault’s chambers, placing a hand on the glass. “You’ll finish what I started,” he whispered. “When the world is ready, you’ll show them the way.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Damian Sinclair entered the executive elevator at precisely 7:00 a.m., as he did every morning. The elevator, a custom-built capsule of glass and steel, provided an uninterrupted view of the city below. For most, the sight would have been a moment of inspiration or serenity. For Sinclair, it was a daily reminder of his dominion.

He tapped his wrist terminal, bringing up the morning’s agenda in a holographic display. Every second of his day had been meticulously planned by his assistant, Tara, under his explicit instructions. Nothing was left to chance. Efficiency wasn’t just a goal—it was the foundation of his empire.

The boardroom at Sinclair Enterprises was a cathedral of innovation. Its walls were embedded with dynamic displays showcasing real-time data from every department: production metrics, R&D updates, and global market trends. Sinclair strode into the room, his tailored, deep blue suit a sharp contrast to the muted tones of the room.

“Good morning,” he began, his tone curt. The team of department heads nodded in unison, their laptops glowing in front of them. Tara stood at his side, tablet in hand, ready to support his every command.

“Let’s begin with the Vault expansion,” he said, eyes scanning the room.

A man with thinning hair and nervous hands stood to present. “The expansion is progressing as scheduled. However, we encountered a minor delay in—”

“Stop,” Sinclair interrupted, his voice slicing through the air. “Delays are unacceptable. Define ‘minor.’”

The man fumbled with his words. “A… shipment of cryogenic units was delayed due to a logistics error. We’ve already—”

“An error,” Sinclair repeated, his gaze narrowing. “Do you understand what this project represents? What’s at stake? Logistics errors are not ‘minor.’ They’re cracks in the foundation.”

The man paled. “I’ll ensure it doesn’t happen again, Mr. Sinclair.”

“You’ll ensure it’s fixed,” Sinclair said coldly. “Today.”

“Today? Y-yes, of course, sir,” the man stuttered.

After the meeting, Sinclair returned to his office, a sprawling glass enclosure at the top of the tower. He stood by the window, watching the city pulse with life. The faint sound of drones patrolling the skies provided a constant reminder of the control he’d imposed on this world—his world. His desk lit up with a notification: a coding anomaly detected in one of the AI systems overseeing the Vault. Sinclair’s jaw tightened. He pressed a button on his desk, summoning the engineer responsible to his office.

Within minutes, a young man in his early twenties arrived, his face flushed with anxiety. He carried a tablet, clutching it like a shield. “Mr. Sinclair,” the engineer stammered, “you wanted to see me?”

Sinclair didn’t look up from the holographic display in front of him. “Your name.”

“Adrian Stevens, sir.”

“Adrian,” Sinclair said, testing the name as if deciding its worth. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“I—I believe it’s about the anomaly in the AI system, sir.” Of course, Adrian didn’t know what exactly the AI system was meant to govern. He was fed a story about it controlling general company operations.

Sinclair finally looked at him, his piercing gaze enough to make Adrian shift uncomfortably. “Not ‘anomaly.’ Say the word.”

“Error, sir.”

“Correct.” Sinclair leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Errors are unacceptable. Do you know why?”

Adrian swallowed hard. “Because they disrupt progress.”

“Disrupt?” Sinclair’s voice was a low growl. “They sabotage it. They undermine the vision, the future. This ‘error’—this lapse in your oversight—could jeopardize the integrity of the entire company.”

Adrian’s face turned crimson. “I—I understand, sir. I’ve already started debugging the system and—”

“Stop,” Sinclair snapped. He stood, towering over Adrian. “I don’t want excuses. I want results. You have two hours to fix this. If you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.”

“Yes, sir.” Adrian nodded rapidly, clutching his tablet as if it were a lifeline.

“Dismissed.”

As Adrian hurried out of the office, Sinclair sat down, his jaw tightening. He despised inefficiency, but what he hated even more was incompetence. He made a mental note to monitor Adrian’s progress closely.

Later that morning, Sinclair descended to the primary laboratory floor. The lab buzzed with activity, a symphony of whirring machines and hushed conversations. Engineers in white coats moved like clockwork, their movements precise and synchronized. As Sinclair entered, the room fell silent. Conversations stopped and heads turned. His presence was a force field of authority, demanding attention without words.

“Dr. Mendez,” Sinclair called.

A middle-aged scientist with graying hair approached, his expression laced with caution. “Mr. Sinclair, welcome.”

“Walk me through the imprint trials,” Sinclair ordered.

Dr. Mendez led him to a workstation where rows of data scrolled across a holographic display. “The latest batch of memory-echo testing shows promising results. The imprints are integrating seamlessly into the subjects’ neural pathways, with a 94% retention rate of targeted experiences.”

“Six percent failure,” Sinclair muttered as he turned up his nose. “Unacceptable.”

“It’s a vast improvement over previous iterations,” Mendez offered, his voice hinting at fear.

“‘Improvement’ is not perfection,” Sinclair said. “Every failure is a liability. Identify the outliers and eliminate the variables.”

“Yes, Mr. Sinclair.”

Sinclair continued his tour of the lab, inspecting every detail. He paused at a station where a junior engineer was calibrating a device. The engineer’s hands trembled slightly under Sinclair’s watchful eye.

“Steady hands,” Sinclair said sharply. “Precision is everything.”

“Yes, sir,” the engineer murmured, focusing intently on her task.

Back in his office, Sinclair reviewed the day’s reports. Every department was a cog in the vast machine he had built, and he monitored each one relentlessly. His assistants knew better than to bring him anything less than complete transparency. A notification appeared on his desk interface: Adrian Stevens had resolved the coding error in the Vault’s AI. Sinclair reluctantly allowed himself a brief nod of approval before noting the next task. Adrian would not receive praise—results were expected, not celebrated.

As the day wound down, Sinclair poured himself a glass of scotch. The skyline was painted in shades of gold and crimson, the city below bathed in the glow of the setting sun. He thought of the embryos in the Vault, suspended in a state of perfect preservation. They were his legacy, his solution to the chaos of humanity. And yet, a small voice in the back of his mind whispered doubts. Was perfection truly attainable? Could he ever trust the system he had created to function without him? Sinclair dismissed the thoughts, taking a long sip of his drink. Doubt was a weakness he could not afford.

---------------------

Note—This is a full novel I've written that I'm working on getting a literary agent for. Please message me if you're interested.

Mari had been painting her mother's face for twenty-seven years, but she still couldn't get the eyes right. Her latest attempt sat on an easel in her studio—oils still wet, brushstrokes visible like scars—the forty-third in a series she'd never shown anyone. In each painting, Lei Chen appeared as she had in 1996: thirty-six years old, wearing the blue dress she'd bought at Bloomingdale's for Mari's kindergarten graduation, standing in front of the window of their Queens apartment with Manhattan's skyline bleeding into the background.

The gallery show opened in six hours. Mari's other work—abstracts, cityscapes, the pieces people actually paid for—hung ready in the white-walled space downtown. But here she was, still trying to capture something she'd lost before she was old enough to understand what losing meant.

Her phone buzzed. Jonathan, her gallery manager: "Final walkthrough in 30. Where are you?"

Mari texted back that she was on her way, though she hadn't showered yet and the October rain was turning the city's morning commute into a special kind of chaos. She studied the painting one last time. The proportions were perfect, the color palette exactly as she remembered, but her mother's eyes remained stubbornly wrong—too knowing or not knowing enough, seeing too much or too little, holding secrets Mari couldn't quite decode.

The doorbell rang, its echo filling her Bushwick loft. Nobody buzzed anymore—everything was coordinated through texts and apps. She checked the security camera feed on her phone and felt her throat tighten.

Her father stood in the rain, umbrella-less, water darkening his gray hair. She hadn't seen him in three years, not since their argument at the Phoenix retrospective where he'd accused her of exploiting their family's tragedy for art. Now here he was, on the morning of her biggest show yet, looking older than she remembered and somehow smaller.

Mari pressed the intercom. "Ba?"

"Let me up, daughter. We need to talk."

His voice still carried traces of the Beijing accent he'd never quite lost, despite forty years in New York. Mari buzzed him in before she could think better of it. While his footsteps climbed the stairs, she threw a sheet over the portrait of her mother and quickly wiped paint from her hands.

David Chen had once been an artist too—a promising sculptor whose work had caught the attention of New York's contemporary art scene in the early '90s. But he hadn't touched clay since Lei's death, choosing instead to teach high school math in New Jersey, measuring his days in equations that always balanced, problems that always had solutions.

He stood in her doorway now, rain dripping from his coat onto the paint-stained concrete floor. His eyes went immediately to the covered easel.

"Still painting her?" he asked.

"Why are you here, Ba?"

He reached into his messenger bag—the same one he'd carried when Mari was young, now fraying at the edges—and pulled out a manila envelope, heavy with what looked like photographs.

"Your aunt in Beijing sent these. Found them while cleaning out your grandmother's apartment." He held out the envelope. "Pictures of your mother. From before."

Before. The word hung between them like smoke. Before New York. Before Mari. Before the slow unraveling that had ended with Lei Chen stepping off the Queensboro Bridge one spring morning while her husband was teaching trigonometry and their daughter was learning cursive in second grade.

Mari took the envelope but didn't open it. "The show opens at seven."

"I know. I saw the Times preview." He paused, looking around the studio. "They called you 'an emerging voice in contemporary Asian-American art.' Your mother would have been proud."

"Would she?" Mari's voice was sharper than she intended. "We'll never know, will we?"

Her father flinched but didn't retreat. "You were too young to remember her before. Who she was in China, what she gave up to come here. I thought... I thought you should have these, before tonight. Before you show the world your version of her."

"I'm not showing any paintings of Mom."

"No?" He gestured at the covered easel. "Then what's under there?"

Mari's phone buzzed again—Jonathan, growing impatient. "I have to go. The walkthrough—"

"I'll drive you," her father said. "It's raining too hard for the subway."

She wanted to refuse, to preserve the careful distance she'd maintained since the Phoenix show. But the rain was getting worse, and something in the weight of that envelope made her nod.

In her father's ancient Volvo, stuck in traffic on the BQE, Mari finally opened the envelope. The photographs spilled out like secrets: Lei Chen at eighteen, playing violin in a Beijing conservatory; at twenty, teaching music to children; at twenty-five, newly married, standing in front of the apartment building where she'd grown up. In every image, she was smiling—not the careful smile Mari remembered from their New York years, but something wider, unguarded.

"She was concert level," her father said, eyes on the gridlocked traffic. "Could have played professionally. But the conservatory wanted her to stick to traditional Chinese music, and she loved Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart. So she taught instead, played Western classics for children whose parents wanted them to be modern."

Mari studied a photo of her mother with a group of students, all holding violins. "Why didn't she play in New York?"

"She tried. But here, no one wanted a Chinese violinist playing European music. They wanted her to be exotic, traditional. The only jobs she could get were teaching basic piano to beginners." He changed lanes abruptly, earning angry honks. "Do you remember the violin she kept in the closet?"

"The one you sold after she died?"

"The one she sold six months before. Said we needed the money for your art classes." He glanced at her. "She saw it in you, you know. The same hunger she'd had, the need to make something beautiful in your own way, not the way others expected."

Mari looked at another photograph: Lei at their wedding in New York City Hall, wearing a simple white dress, holding a bouquet of daisies. Her smile was smaller here, more contained, but her eyes still held that brightness Mari had never quite captured in her paintings.

"Why didn't you tell me any of this before?"

"Would you have listened?" He turned onto Canal Street, where the rain was creating rivers between lanes. "After she died, you stopped asking about her. Started painting instead. I thought... I thought maybe that was better. To create something new instead of trying to hold onto what was gone."

They were nearing the gallery now. Through the rain-streaked windows, Mari could see the banners announcing her show: "Mari Chen: Distances," featuring one of her cityscapes—a view of New York at twilight, buildings dissolving into abstract patterns of light and shadow.

"I have to ask," her father said as he pulled up to the curb. "The piece they featured in the Times preview. The one they called 'Mother's City'—it's not really about the skyline, is it?"

Mari gathered the photographs, careful not to let them get wet. "You should come tonight, Ba. See for yourself."

He nodded, though they both knew he probably wouldn't. The gallery world had stopped being his world the day Lei died. But as Mari stepped out into the rain, he called after her.

"She kept journals, you know. In Chinese. I have them in my attic, if you want them."

Mari turned back. "I can't read Chinese."

"I could teach you. Like she was going to, before."

The rain fell between them, turning the city into watercolors. Mari thought of all the paintings in her studio, all the attempts to capture a face she was too young to fully remember, eyes she could never quite get right.

"Maybe," she said. "After the show."

Inside the gallery, Jonathan was pacing, phone to his ear, orchestrating the controlled chaos of a major opening. He looked up when Mari entered, dripping onto the polished concrete floor.

"Thank god. The Times photographer will be here in twenty minutes, and the lighting on 'Mother's City' isn't quite—" He stopped, noticing her expression. "Are you okay?"

Mari looked at the painting in question, hanging on the gallery's main wall. She'd painted it six months ago, after a dream about her mother. At first glance, it appeared to be a straightforward cityscape—Manhattan at night, lights reflecting off water. But looking closer, the buildings resolved into musical notes, the windows into measures of a violin concerto she'd found in her mother's things years ago but had never heard played.

"Can we move it?" she asked. "To the south wall, where the natural light hits in the evening?"

Jonathan blinked. "But we planned the whole flow around it being here."

"Trust me."

While the gallery assistants carefully relocated the painting, Mari walked through the space, seeing her work with new eyes. The abstract pieces she'd thought were about urban geometry now seemed to echo the patterns of her mother's blue dress. The cityscapes held fragments of Beijing streets she'd never seen but somehow knew. Even her earliest works—the ones she'd painted in high school, angry and grieving—contained shapes that might have been violin strings, might have been bridge cables, might have been the lines connecting one generation's dreams to another's.

The Times photographer arrived, followed by the first preview guests—critics, collectors, other artists. Mari answered questions on autopilot, watching the light change as evening approached. At six-thirty, with thirty minutes until the official opening, she grabbed her keys.

"I forgot something in my studio," she told Jonathan. "Stall for me?"

She took a taxi back to Bushwick, rain still falling. The portrait of her mother waited under its sheet, eyes still wrong, still searching. Mari uncovered it and, working quickly, began to paint over those eyes—not trying to fix them this time, but letting them be what they were: windows into a story she was only beginning to understand.

At seven-fifteen, she walked back into the gallery carrying the wet canvas. The space was packed, glasses of wine circulating, conversations flowing. She found the spot she wanted—a small alcove near "Mother's City"—and hung the portrait herself, ignoring Jonathan's startled protests.

Her father stood in front of the painting when she finished, though she hadn't seen him arrive. They watched together as viewers noticed it, conversations stuttering then resuming in lower tones. In the portrait, Lei Chen still wore her blue Bloomingdale's dress, still stood before the Queens apartment window. But now her eyes held music—notes flowing out into the Manhattan skyline, carrying stories from Beijing to New York, from mother to daughter, from one kind of art to another.

"The journals," Mari said quietly. "Could we start next week?"

David Chen nodded, not taking his eyes from his wife's painted face. "I'll bring them Tuesday."

Around them, the gallery hummed with voices, with rain against windows, with all the small distances between what we remember and what we create, what we lose and what we find, what we keep and what we transform. Mari thought she could hear music too—faint but clear, like her mother's violin playing somewhere just out of sight, building bridges across time, across languages, across the spaces between one heart and another.

Later that night, after the crowds had gone and the critics had filed their reviews, Mari sat alone in the gallery with the envelope of photographs. She spread them out on the floor beneath her mother's portrait, mapping the geography of a life she was only now beginning to know. Tomorrow, there would be sales to track, interviews to give, success or failure to navigate. But tonight, she simply sat with these fragments of her mother's story, learning to see with new eyes, learning to paint with colors she hadn't known existed, learning that some distances can only be measured in the space between one generation's dreams and another's understanding.

Outside, the rain finally stopped. Manhattan's lights sparkled through the gallery windows, musical notes written in electricity and glass, playing a concerto of memory and possibility that echoed through the halls of time, carrying the sound of a violin that had been sold but never silenced, telling stories that had been lost but never truly forgotten, painting portraits that were never quite finished but always, always reaching toward truth.

Hours later, as a new day began, Mari packed up the photographs and took one last look at her mother's portrait. The eyes still weren't quite right—they never would be. But now they held something she recognized: the same hunger that had driven Lei Chen to cross oceans for the music she loved, the same need that kept Mari painting canvas after canvas, searching for a truth that could only be found in the space between what was and what might have been.

She turned off the gallery lights and stepped out into the pre-dawn quiet of lower Manhattan. Somewhere in New Jersey, her father was probably grading math tests, finding comfort in problems that had solutions. Somewhere in Beijing, her aunt was maybe looking through more old photographs, uncovering more pieces of a story that had no end. And somewhere between memory and imagination, between loss and creation, between one generation and the next, art was still being made, bridges were still being built, distances were still being measured in brushstrokes and violin strings and the endless effort to understand what it means to carry another person's dreams into the future.

Mari began walking home through the sleeping city, already thinking about her next painting. This time, she thought, she would start with the eyes—not trying to get them right, but trying to get them true. Sometimes that was more important than accuracy. Sometimes the only way to see clearly was to look through the lens of love and loss and the long journey between what we inherit and what we create.

The sun rose over Brooklyn as she reached her studio, painting the city in colors her mother might have loved, might have played on her violin, might have seen in her daughter's art. Mari set up a fresh canvas and began to work, adding her own notes to a composition that had started long before her, would continue long after, a song of small distances and great loves, played on strings that stretched across time, painted in colors that only the heart could see.

The following Tuesday, David Chen arrived at Mari's studio carrying a cardboard box of journals. They sat at her paint-splattered table, autumn light slanting through the industrial windows, and he began teaching her to read her mother's language. Each character was a small painting, he explained, showing her how to break down complex forms into simpler strokes.

"Your mother tried to teach you when you were small," he said, watching Mari copy the character for 'remember.' "But you were stubborn. Said you only wanted to speak English."

"What did she say to that?"

"She said you had an artist's heart—too busy seeing the world your own way to follow someone else's rules." He smiled faintly. "She wasn't wrong."

The first journal entry they translated together was dated April 1989, shortly after Lei had arrived in New York:

"The city plays its own kind of music. Not like Beijing—no bicycle bells, no street vendors calling their wares. Here, the symphony is in the subway rumble, the taxi horns, the dozens of languages mixing on every corner. I watch people hurrying past my window and imagine what instrument each one would be. The businessman in his sharp suit: a trumpet, bright and insistent. The old woman with her shopping cart: a cello, deep and continuous. The children skipping to school: a flute section, light and unpredictable.

"David says I should practice my English by speaking to shopkeepers, to neighbors. But I'm afraid my words will come out wrong, will reveal me as an imposter in this concrete forest. Better to listen for now, to learn the city's rhythms before adding my own voice to its song."

Mari thought of her own first attempts at art—tentative sketches hidden in school notebooks, afraid they would reveal too much, say the wrong things. "Did she ever find her voice here?"

"She was starting to," her father said. "That last year, she was composing again. Modern pieces that mixed Chinese and Western styles. She never let me hear them, said they weren't ready." He paused. "The manuscripts are probably still in storage somewhere."

They spent the afternoon moving between characters and memories, between one woman's written words and another's painted interpretations. Mari learned that her mother had loved thunderstorms, jazz music, and the way pigeons gathered in Washington Square Park. She discovered that Lei had spent three months writing a concerto inspired by the sounds of their Queens neighborhood, only to tear it up because it "caught the notes but missed the soul."

As the light faded, David packed up the journals, leaving one behind. "Start with this one," he said. "From 1996. The year she was teaching you to paint."

After he left, Mari sat alone with her mother's words, sounding out characters slowly, checking her father's hastily written notes. One entry made her pause:

"Watched Mari painting today. She sees colors I never noticed—the purple shadows under park benches, the gold hidden in brick walls. She doesn't know the rules yet, doesn't care that trees 'should' be green or that faces 'should' look a certain way. I envy her freedom. When did I lose mine? When did music become about pleasing others instead of expressing truth?

"Perhaps that's why I can't finish my compositions anymore. I've forgotten how to see the world as it really is, learned instead to see it as others expect it to be. But Mari—she paints the heart of things, not their surface. Today she painted me, and though the proportions were all wrong, somehow she captured something I thought I'd hidden. Am I as transparent to her as the watercolors she loves? Or does she see through me because she hasn't yet learned to look away from truth?"

Mari got up and uncovered her latest painting of Lei. In the gallery lighting, her mother's eyes had seemed almost alive, holding music and memory in their imperfect depths. Here in the studio, they looked different again—questioning, maybe, or questioning her. She thought about what it meant to see truly, to create honestly, to translate one form of art into another.

Over the next weeks, as reviews of her show rolled in and sales exceeded expectations, Mari continued learning her mother's language. Each character became a small window into Lei's world, each journal entry a piece of a puzzle she hadn't known she was solving. She learned that her mother had played violin at subway stations sometimes, late at night when she couldn't sleep. That she'd been composing a piece for Mari's eighth birthday—a piece that would never be finished.

The journals from the last year were harder to read, filled with darker thoughts, with doubts and fears and a growing sense of displacement. But even there, Lei's love of music shone through. Her final entry, written the day before she died, was about a street musician playing Bach on the subway platform:

"He had the notes all wrong, the tempo too fast, none of the proper dynamics. But he played with such joy, such freedom! For a moment, listening to him massacre Bach with such happiness, I remembered why I fell in love with music in the first place. Not for perfection, but for expression. Not for others' approval, but for the pure pleasure of creating something true.

"Mari asked me yesterday why I don't play violin anymore. I told her I was too busy. The truth is, I'm afraid. Afraid I've lost the ability to play with joy, to create without fear. But watching her paint, seeing how she throws her whole heart onto the canvas without worrying about rules or expectations, I wonder: Is it too late to learn freedom from my own child?"

It was too late, of course. The next morning, Lei Chen had walked to the Queensboro Bridge in the early spring dawn. But something of her lived on—in her journals, in her daughter's paintings, in the space between what was lost and what was found.

Mari began a new series of paintings, different from anything she'd done before. These weren't portraits of her mother, weren't cityscapes or abstracts. They were translations—visual interpretations of Lei's journal entries, paintings that tried to capture the sound of bicycle bells in Beijing, the rhythm of New York subway cars, the color of hope and fear and love and loss.

She worked through winter into spring, as her father continued teaching her Chinese characters and her mother's journals continued revealing their secrets. The new paintings grew into something unexpected—not a memorial to what was lost, but a conversation across time, a duet between one woman's words and another's images, a bridge built of art and memory and understanding.

When the series was complete, Mari hung them in her studio—thirteen paintings, one for each year of her life with Lei. She invited her father to see them first, watching as he moved from piece to piece, reading the journal entries she'd incorporated into each composition, seeing his wife's words transformed into color and light.

"The eyes," he said finally, stopping at the last painting. "You've finally got them right."

Mari looked at the painting—not a portrait this time, but an abstract piece based on Lei's final journal entry. In the center, barely visible unless you knew to look for them, were a pair of eyes. Not perfectly rendered, not photographically accurate, but true in a way she'd never managed before. They held both sadness and joy, both fear and freedom, both loss and possibility.

"Not right," Mari said. "True."

David nodded, understanding. Then, surprising them both, he asked, "Do you still have that spare room? The one you were going to turn into a darkroom?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I've been thinking... maybe it's time to start sculpting again."

Mari looked at her father—really looked at him, the way she'd learned to look at her mother's words, the way Lei had looked at the world and translated it into music. She saw the artist he'd been, the teacher he'd become, the father who had carried his own grief in silence for twenty-seven years.

"We could share the studio," she said. "You could teach me Chinese in the mornings, work on your sculptures in the afternoons."

"And what would your mother say to that?"

Mari smiled, thinking of Lei's words about freedom and truth, about learning to see with new eyes. "I think she'd say it's never too late to create something honest."

That night, after her father left, Mari sat in her studio surrounded by paintings that were no longer just hers. They belonged to Lei too, and to David, and to the long chain of artists in their family who had tried to capture truth in different forms—music, sculpture, paint, words.

She opened her mother's journal one last time, not to read but to run her fingers over the characters that had become another kind of art to her. Tomorrow, she would start a new painting. Tomorrow, her father would bring clay into her studio. Tomorrow, they would begin translating grief into creation, silence into expression, distance into connection.

But tonight, she simply sat with the quiet, listening for the music her mother had heard in the city's voices, looking for the colors hidden in shadows, feeling the weight and the lightness of all the small distances that make up a life, a loss, a love, a truth finally seen clear.

Fin

Everyone takes things for granted

You and me have abandoned

the seeds that we planted

So many years ago

But not many years more

And the Earth will be at war

because we seem to continue to ignore

All the damage that we to do to her

Oh how mother nature cries

because no matter how wise we are

Will will be her demise

And so she cries and cries

Look up at the big blue sky

Really look with your eyes

It's very high

One day we will all die

Without appreciating the big blue sky

“I didn’t know someone lived here…My apologies.”

“You're drenched. You should come in and dry yourself and maybe rest a bit.”

“N-No…I'd better excuse myself.”

“You can stay the night. That's why you came here in the first place, didn’t you? I live alone, you see…I can totally use some company.”

Hesitatingly, he stepped in. An ice-cold hand grabbed his hand drenched with rainwater.

“It’s dark, so let me lead the way.”

“Why is it so dark?”

“You see, I'm blind. I don’t need light.”

“Does that mean…there is no light in this house at all?”

“No.”

“That's…scary…Maybe I should just go…”

“Stay the night. I'll keep you company so you won't get scared.”

But you are kinda scary yourself, he swallowed those words, not wanting to offend his host.

“Would you like a change of clothes? I wish I could make you a cup of tea to warm you up, but I am incapable of it.”

“Thanks, but I'll only stay until the rain stops. I don’t want to trouble you.”

“Why do you keep insist on leaving? Am I that scary?”

“You might be comfortable living in darkness, but I am not…”

“Are you sure this darkness and my presence is scarier than the world you live in?”

He was stunned.

“H-how do you know?”

“Just a wild guess. Why else would you run to a desolate house in the middle of nowhere in this pouring rain?”

“I-I could've got lost and taken shelter here temporarily! Why are you jumping into conclusion by yourself?”

“Is that the case…My apologies for overthinking, then…”

“But you know what, you're right. Actually…I ran away from home.”

“So I was right.” I actually saw your memories while we were holding hands.

“I have a proposal for you. It’s entirely up to you whether you accept it or not…It's just that I want to help you.”

“What is it?”

“Would you like to stay here with me?”

“W-What?”

“I mean it. Would you like to?”

“We don’t even know each other…”

“Like I told you before…I’d love some company in this darkness. It’s been so many years of being alone, I’ve lost count…”

“Years…?” But why do you sound like someone of my age?

“If you haven’t realized yet…I’m…a…what you call…ghost.”

“EHHHH?!”

He screamed and jumped away from the stranger.

“My apologies if I have startled you.”

“I-I'm leaving…”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I…can’t possibly live in this house with an unknown-years-old ghost in pitch darkness…”

“So…you're going to leave me too,” the stranger mumbled.

“On top of my blindness, I have another condition that doesn’t allow my skin to withstand sunshine.”

“Is that because you're a ghost? Are you…a bloodsucking vampire? Is that why you invited me in, so that you can suck my blood?”

“No,” the stranger chuckled, “I have had that condition since birth. You see, that condition is why I was made to live in this desolate place, away from other humans…”

“That's sad.”

“They called me moonchild because of my condition. They feared me. Like you, many of them thought that I was a vampire. So my family built this house out of nowhere and left me here…”

“Left you?”

“Originally, they took turns staying with me here. That continued until I was eighteen. They were growing tired of it, I guess. So one day they came to this mutual agreement to abandon me.”

“Abandon…?”

“Yes. I couldn’t go outside since I didn’t know the roads and I could've been in an accident…I stayed here and waited…waited…waited…I called but no one answered, I was starving and there was nothing to eat at home…At one point I was desperate enough to attempt to go out but the door was locked from outside…I got so weak that I couldn’t break the door, so I lay there on the floor…in and out of my consciousness…until one day I fell into a long, deep sleep. When I came to, I felt better but my heart wasn’t beating anymore…”

“Stop…I can't listen to it anymore…”

“Sorry. It wasn’t a pleasant story…I knew it but I still rambled on…”

“You…really went through a lot…”

“This is my first time telling this story to anyone. I never had anyone to share this story with….”

“Poor you.”

He had given up on life long ago. The family who adopted him didn’t care enough worry about his disappearance. He had no dream or goal to live for. Being with this unnatural presence in darkness seemed much better to face the shitty world outside. Darkness was scary, but outside world was scarier.

If he could make this stranger happy by keeping him company, why not?

“It'll hurt a bit. I'm really sorry about that,” he felt a cold arm wrapping around his neck in that pitch-black darkness. He closed his eyes and surrendered, but his body wouldn’t. It struggled and fought to keep him alive, to pull him back to the world of living until the very end. Until he became one with the darkness.

“Are you there?”

“I'm here.”

“Welcome to my world. From now on, we'll never be alone, we'll never be in pain. We'll be together, always.”

I have to be the best

Yes I must be the best

It is always a test

I am top of the class

and looking through the glass

It's like a nauseating gas

If I'm not the best then I must be the worst

It's my curse

And its a thirst that can never be quenched

Whenever I'm the worst

my inside is an outburst

Because I can never stoop down to the worst

I'm in a starting position for my sport

I am always on the court

And I am glad to report

That I never reach short

Whenever I am out

All I feel is doubt

Because I cannot be proud

when I am out

It is not a good habit

But I can never admit it

Because I really don't want to be spotlit

I don't do it to be mean

I don't want to be seen

But when I am not the best

I feel that I don't deserve rest

I was there almost your whole life

We even grew up together

You first thought me into existence as a child,

no older than two

Being an only child, you needed someone to play with

We played hide and seek, sardines, and everything in between

Then you started to grow up

When you were five, you had your first day of kindergarten

It was also mine too, but I was mostly there for you

I stayed near to you, and you near to me

It was a scary day, but we stayed with each other

You only cried once

Slowly as the days went on, you started to make friends

real ones

But you never forgot me

You always left me a seat at the table, even if you're friends couldn't see me

By the time you were seven, you had gotten friend making down

You could make friends with anyone

Unfortunately, your grade is where drama started

You didn't know what it really was at first

So you would talk to me about it and everything going on

I tried to provide advice,

sometimes it worked

But I didn't know much myself

In third grade, a girl in your class called you ugly

At home that day to cried to me

You asked me, "Am I ugly?"

I spent that afternoon assuring you that you are beautiful

because you are

We borrowed your mom's make-up and I talked you through a make over

It may not have been great, you but you were still stunning

When you started middle school you realized that not everyone had an imaginary friend

So some days you left me behind

I didn't mind

I just wanted to make sure you were happy

You would still tell me all about your day when you came home

Middle school was also when the bullying started

They would call you names and pull your hair

You didn't tell your parents, just me

Sometimes it made you cry

But I tried my best to cheer you up

Usually it worked

Some people also made fun of you when they found out about me

You would talk about it, and then assure me you would never forget me

But eventually, it got to you

There were days you came home and cried, and ignored me

By high school, there were days I completely faded away

I'm not sure if you started to forget me, or got rid of me

I was lucky if you talked to me once a month

But I didn't mind

It was part of life

I was there when you moved to college

It was a big change

But you seemed to enjoy it

For me though, I was only there for a day every now and then

You really had started to forget me

Now here we are, a few weeks from your graduation

I can feel myself fading away, my arms and legs are disappearing

But I don't mind

I know you'll do fine

Good-bye

**You treat me like a piece of shit, just a tool for your convenience.

I keep asking if I wasn't enough, if our friendship was merely a facade.

I even lost myself trying to be there for you, pouring out my heart,

Only to discover that I meant nothing to you.

I tried to reach out, to make you listen, but my words were just background noise to you.

Every effort I made felt like an echo in an empty room,

My sincerity drowned out by your indifference.

I gave you my trust and affection,

Only to watch it crumble, like sand slipping through my fingers.

Now, I'm left with the bitter truth—my worth was never acknowledged,

And the silence between us speaks louder than any words ever could.**

It has been two months since his death. My sweet Thomas's death. This grief is overwhelming. Everything reminds me of him. The color green was his favorite on anything. He loved stargazing in the middle of the night. Even seeing his favorite candy in the store can bring me to tears. I miss him. Oh, I miss him it's unbearable. He was so veracious. Anytime we had an argument, he would always tell me his honest truth. He would also make sure that neither of us went to bed angry, even if our conflict wasn't resolved yet. He was never indolent. He put his whole heart into everything he did, especially his passions. In its incipience, our relationship seemed like it wouldn't last long, but the more we fell for each other, the more comprehensible it became that we were meant for each other. One high school and college graduation later we were married. For only a short three years would we be married though. It befogs me why it couldn't have lasted longer. After all, when two people are meant for each other they live happily ever after. So, where's my happy ending? My alarm distracts my thoughts away. My room is lonely, boring, and emotionless. It's all I have. If only Thomas were here. There's an upbeat tune playing. Where is that coming from? Oh, it's the phone in my room. Not a cellular phone, but rather one that just sits on my desk plugged into the wall. It's sitting on the table with the rounded corners. I click answer. "Marilyn?" I stay silent. It's my sister. "Marilyn are you there?" Yes, I'm here. "Yes." I reply. "I'm so glad! I've missed you! They wouldn't let me call you for your first two months there." "Oh." I say. Who is she talking about? Who would not let her call me? "How is it there?" There? Does she mean home? She is speaking strangely. "Fine." "Do you remember what happened yet?" she asks me. There is a hesitation in her voice. "Remember what?" I ask. Something must be wrong. "His death Marilyn." Of course I remember my husbands death. "Of course." She sighs a sigh of relief, but it might also be pain. "Do you feel bad about it?" "Of course I do, he's my husband and he died a sad, accidental death.""That's not what I mean Marilyn." she sighs again. What does she mean? "What made you go so far?" What did I do? I didn't do anything. "I didn't do anything." "You don't remember?" she pauses, "It's okay Mar, they say you should remember eventually." Remember what? "Okay." "I've got to go for now Marilyn. I'll talk to you later, okay?" "Okay." "I love you!" I don't respond. The phone clicks and the dial tone starts playing. As I put down the phone, someone enters my room. Who would be in my home? 'Marilyn?" a man's voice asks. I turn to him. He has a long, white coat on. "Do you feel like joining the others today?" I don't respond. "That's alright. You'll get there." He turns to leave but I stop him, "Did I do something?" He hesitates, "Yes Marilyn, you did something." I stare blankly at hime for a few moments. "What did I do?" He considers the question and takes a seat on my table. "You remember your husband, correct?" I nod. "You also know that he has passed away?" I nod. "Do you remember how he died?" I think about it. Thomas died from a drunk driver. "A drunk driver." He shakes his head. "That's okay. You may not have memories from the event." What? "You killed him, Marilyn. You felt like you had no way out. You brain is blocking out the memories of it." No way out of what? I didn't want to get out of anything. "He abused you. He hit you and controlled you." What? No. He would never. "Marilyn, we think your brain is creating new memories to cope. From what we can gather, you believe you've been imagining a new life." He doesn't know what he's talking about. Thomas loved me and I loved him. He would never hurt me and I never him. "Breakfast will be here in 10 minutes." He gets up and leaves. I don't believe him. Why was he in my house anyway? So, as I was thinking, my dear Thomas was lovely...