It’s an innocuous Tuesday morning at eight thirty-six when I reach over to turn off my alarm and end up splitting the damn thing clean in half.

The alarm clock sits in its own broken plastic bones, the cartoonish smiley face emblazoned across the clock face split neatly in two.

I sit on my bed, toes curling in the carpet, and stare at it.

“Fuck,” I say.

I stare at the clock. It is a clock, so it does not return my gaze. I stare, and I don’t think about how I could have possibly severed the thing in two. Instead, I think about how much I want it to be whole again. Amelie gave it to me, she painted the smiley face on, and even though she dumped me, I like having the thing around. It’s useful, and it reminds me of happier times. I want it to be whole again.

And it just is. One moment it’s shattered on my shitty Ikea nightstand, and the next moment it’s whole again, no indication that it was ever broken.

“What the fuck,” I say. The alarm clock does not respond.

*

The rest of the morning continues in a similar fashion. I want to be in front of the line at Starbucks, and then I just am. I want a chai but they’ve run out–– oh wait! The barista finds another bottle hidden in the back of the fridge.

I’m ready to chalk it up to wicked good luck, but things grow stranger. I get to work, and the corner office I’ve been silently coveting for months is mine–– all my things are in it, even my orchid that’s been barely clinging on to life (it’s in perfect bloom now, of course).

I lock myself in the office bathroom and stare in the mirror. I wish to be a little taller, a little more in shape, and then I am. I try purple hair, a hooked nose–– stranger things, too: a duck bill, cat ears, an elephant’s trunk. All come and go at my whim.

It’s intoxicating. I can do whatever I can imagine–– flying, shapeshifting, breathing underwater, reading minds. I can mold reality to my will.

*

Months pass. Every morning I wake up terrified that my gift will be gone, that the life I’ve tailored for myself will crumble around me.

I’ve got my dream job. It’s high-paying, prestigious, I’m revered in my field and I don’t even have to do any work, I just think it and it’s done.

I’ve married Amelie. She left her fiancé for me. I can’t remember if I made her do that or not.

I have everything I’ve ever dared to dream of and more, and I have never felt lonelier.

*

I’m laying in bed with Amelie. It’s a Tuesday night. It has been three years since I split the alarm clock.

Amelie’s body curls toward me, her hair a curly cloud against the pillow.

“Do you think God is proud of us?” Amelie asks. She’s a devout Christian. I haven’t taken that from her yet. “Not like us specifically,” she continues. “But, like, the world He created.”

“No,” I respond. “ I think God is afraid of us. Of what he made.”

Amelie’s eyebrows pull together in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“It’s all so fragile,” I say. “So easy to remold, to unravel. I think God thought he was lucky at first, y’know? All this power to create, manipulate, imagine. Probably he had fun when he started–– thought up people, dinosaurs, giraffes, those really long, squiggly fuckers that hipsters keep as pets––”

“Ferrets,” supplies Amelie.

“Yeah, ferrets,” I say. “But then he got scared. What if the world he made isn’t good enough? What if it’s selfish to make it how he likes it? How much is he allowed to mess with?”

“It’s his world,” argues Amelie, “He can mess with all of it.”

“But it isn’t! It isn’t just his world! There’s people, and animals, and plants, and everything has lives and feelings and awareness–– even those fucking ferrets. It isn’t his world, it’s theirs. If he gets his grubby fingers on it now, he’s gonna get it sticky, y’know? He’s gonna taint it. Make it impure.”

Amelie is unconvinced. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m trying to tell you that God’s just some poor sap who thought he had a gift when he really had a curse,” I say. “If God’s smart, he’s dead by now. Or else he’s hoisted all that terrible omnipotence on some other unlucky bastard.”

I know that Amelie wants to argue about this, but I don’t want to right now, so I make her agree with me.

“That makes sense,” Amelie says. “I agree with you. That’s probably what happened. Poor God.”

Amelie did not agree with me until I wanted her to. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

I roll over in bed, and I close my eyes, and I wish for God to take back all this horrible power.

If he’s out there still, if he ever was, he does not answer.

My last meal is a mountain of asparagus.

Now, I don’t particularly like asparagus. I’m not fond of it, per se. But we’ll get to that.

Thing is, I’m innocent.

I didn’t kill anyone, especially not old Mrs. Gertrude May. She was nice, the kind of sugar-offering neighbor you dream about. Not that I seek out sugar, but I know she’d offer it. Whatever.

Point is, she was murdered. I’m on the anti-social side, I didn’t have an alibi. Napping is not an alibi, apparently. And the knife that was used was slid under my apartment door, all nice-like.

It was an easy arrest. Easier conviction. I can’t say I put up much of a fight–– figured I could nap more in prison. Wouldn’t have to work the early shift at Blockbuster. Wouldn’t have to attend Thanksgiving, where all my relatives would coo over the babies I’d shove into some poor fool once I found “the right girl.” Is it selfish that I decided it’d be easier not to fight it? Maybe.

It’s been years now. I’m not as fond of napping, though I do it more. Old age, I guess. Old-ish.

Prison made me bitter. It’s not all napping. Obviously. It was shit. Broken system, etc.

Last meal time. I’m pissed, don’t want to die. You know the drill.

What they don’t tell you about dying is that you piss when you go. Fly off the mortal coil, piss yourself as you fall. Dark shit.

You shit yourself too, actually.

I’m not peaches-and-gravy about the ordeal. I didn’t do it, did I? Now I’m paying the ultimate price.

So I’m eating a shit-load of asparagus. Because I know asparagus makes your piss stink.

And I’m pissed.

So I’m going to eat this whole bucket of asparagus. And when I fly the mortal coil, I’m gonna piss to the high heavens.

And that’s that.

You’re eighteen years old. College freshman. Volunteering at the old folks’ home that your grandpa died at, dead in his own sick, wearing mustard yellow socks.

You’re standing on the roof of a building downtown. It’s not the one you wanted to be on, but the staircase was unlocked and it’s tall enough. You can see the balcony of the mental hospital you stayed at in sophomore year of high school, where you rolled on the pebbled ground and ate ice cream that tasted like protein powder and played table tennis until you didn’t want to kill yourself anymore, until you figured you were already dead.

You stand on the lip of the roof. There’s a rock in your shoe. It doesn’t matter at all.

It’s windy on the roof. There’s rain on the wind, bitter and salty. You lick it off your lips.

It’s not hopelessness you feel. Just numbness. Maybe death will be different. And if it’s not, maybe it’ll be quick.

You jump. You brace for the shattering of your bones like so much broken china against the pavement.

And then.

You’re buoyant. You’re airborne. You’re flying, like some sort of Neverland. Like pixie dust, like magic, like something different.

You fly over the balcony of the hospital, with the glass walling off the railing and the table tennis. You spit on the table tennis table.

***

You tell Mr. McCreedy. His kids dropped him off at the old folks’ home two months ago. He reminds you of your grandpa, even though Mr. McCreedy wears blue socks.

“I can fly,” you say.

Mr. McCreedy considers this.

“This one,” Mr. McCreedy says, handing you a record. You put it on. The sleeve has a drawing of Frank Sinatra in a jaunty hat. You put on the first track, and Come Fly With Me crackles on.

“Very funny,” you say. You spoon-feed Mr. McCreedy pudding. He doesn’t need to be spoon-fed, he can do it himself, but you do it for him anyway.

“Show me, then,” he says. His voice is rough, like gravel against sandpaper, like it’s on the verge of rubbing down to nothing.

“Yeah?”

“Show me how you fly.”

***

You sleep that night, and dream of falling.

Clouds streak past you. Your stomach claws into your throat. You feel wind howl against your skin. Sinatra plays from somewhere, sings about the air being “rarefied.”

Rarefied doesn’t not mean rare, or unique. It means thin. Unbreathable.

It also means distant from the lives and concerns of ordinary people. The synonyms don’t catch on that same meaning: esoteric, exclusive, select, private, etc. They don’t really convey the same thing. Rarefied.

You feel your lungs fight you, and then you wake up.

***

You take Mr. McCreedy to the same roof you went to the last time. It is a process, you have to sign him out of the facility, you have to wheel him through downtown. He wears a knit wool sweater the color of mustard, and it reminds you of your grandfather. He feeds himself pudding as you push him through the streets.

You find an elevator in the building. Mr. McCreedy pushes the button for the highest floor with the back of his spoon.

You’re on the roof. You point out your old hospital, and Mr. McCreedy spits pudding on to the lip of the roof because he can’t spit on the table tennis table like you did.

“Do you believe me?” you ask. “About flying?”

“Why should it matter what one old man believes?” grunts Mr. McCreedy. He’s finished his pudding, but he’s still trying to scrape chocolate from the divots in the plastic.

You nod. You kiss Mr. McCreedy on the top of his bald head, and he swats you away with his spoon, grumbling.

“Get on with it,” he says. You see that he’s wearing mustard yellow socks.

You climb on to the lip of the roof. It feels like you are on the precipice of something, the mouth of it, like you’ll be swan-diving down God’s gullet.

You jump.

With the wind so loud around you, even you can’t tell if you’re flying or falling at first.

It was fall, when I first saw him.

He was beautiful. Eyes the color of caramelized peaches. Salty brown hair. He was drinking lemonade, even though the weather was turning sour.

My hands fumbled around the nickels I was counting, and they clattered onto the counter. The woman I was gathering change for, a little old lady holding a grumpy white dog, eyed me with distaste. I handed her the change as quickly as I could. It wasn’t accurate, I forgot a dime, but she didn’t count.

I locked eyes with him–– his honey on my earl grey. But then the ice-lady’s dog shit on the floor, and when I looked up after cleaning it up, he was gone.

There was something right about him. That little voice, the one that whispers things in the back of my head said, “him”.

And so it was him.

*

He started to come to the cafe after that. He paid in exact change, always got a lavender lemonade and a glazed donut. He’d begin munching it as soon as I handed it to him, and stare at me with his puppy-dog eyes.

The fourth time he came, he called me pretty. I blushed, played the game, fluttered my lashes and giggled like a school girl. The voice was more insistent, "Him. This boy. Right here. Him.".

His name was Simon, he told me. He called me Alice, because of my nametag, and I didn't correct him, even though that wasn't my name. He liked to skateboard, he told me. He liked Steven King, he liked the Killers. He didn't like brussel sprouts. He went to a community college in the area, biding his time until he had enough money to transfer. He was a normal boy.

He thought he knew me, collected kernels of knowledge every time we spoke. Is your hair naturally that white? (a nod) Do you like sherbet? (a nod) Are you in school near here? (a nod) Do you have a boyfriend? (a thin-lipped, brutal smile)

I never said yes. It isn't my fault he made assumptions.

The twelfth time he visited, he ordered a lemonade, a donut, and my number. Like this, "Can I get a lemonade, a donut, and your number?"

He was nervous, jittery. His palms left perspiration marks on the counter-top.

I blinked once, twice, just to make him sweat.

Then, "okay".

His smile was hot sun, like something shiny-new, like summertime in a breath. His eyes glowed with excitement. "Okay!"

I wrote my phone number down on a napkin for him. He texted me three times that night.

I responded. Witty, light, the right flavor of interested.

*

I'll admit to being nervous for our date. He was taking me to dinner, then a walk around the park. I wore a nice blouse, did my hair up, packed my purse like I'd practiced.

I let him order for me. He didn't know what to get me–– he ordered lobster at first, then spied the price and changed it to pasta.

He looked nice in his checkered shirt. His eyes sparkled when he saw me. He was new at this, at this dance. It was endearing. Lovely, even. I liked how green he was at everything.

He talked through dinner, told me about his childhood in Chicago, his dreams of art school. He asked me questions I dodged. I don't talk about myself.

He paid the bill in exact change. I saw his coin purse. It was embroidered, like an old woman's.

After dinner, we walked around the park and he took my hand. I had long since slipped on gloves, the night had a bite to it. Underfoot, leaves the color of wet earth crunched, dispelling the scent of mulch. On the crook of my arm, my purse hung, the contents clunking with displeasure at every step.

We reached an isolated grove of trees. They looked as if the sunset was growing from finger-bones. The trees cast nightmare shadows on the ground. Cicadas made up a choral in the background.

Simon turned to me, "May I kiss you?"

And I nodded.

So he kissed me, his hands on my waist, his eyes pressed shut in concentration. It was a nice kiss. Sweet.

I reached into my purse, wrapped my eager fingers around the hilt of a gun. Flicked off the safety, pressed the muzzle into his soft underbelly. He pulled back a little then, eyebrows drawn together in confusion. "What are you––"

I shot him in the stomach.

The silencer I'd purchased worked, no gunshot rang out. Only the soft sound of a bullet sinking through skin, tissue, organs, and whistling out the other side.

Simon stumbled back, hands pressed against the hole in his stomach. Blood burbled out of his mouth, slid down his chin and neck in rivulets. In the moonlight, it looked almost black.

I'd never killed someone before. I'd thought about it, but I had never gathered the nerve. Now, all the waiting, all that build-up, all the violence I'd had to release on myself was worth it. I watched Simon crumple to the ground, watch him turn from a person to a thing.

I watched him there, lying on the ground for as moment. Prodded him with the toe of my boot. He didn't move. Blood was pooling around his motionless figure. He was dead.

I peeled off my wool gloves, revealing the latex ones that were hiding underneath. I sealed the wool ones into a plastic baggie and slid that into my purse. With the latex gloves, I fished out the largest pieces of shell casings from his body and the surrounding floor and placed them into my purse as well. The latex gloves were taken off too, placed inside-out in a side pocket. I'd grind the gloves, both pairs, in my garbage disposal when I got home. The shell casings would go into a baggie that once held Scrabble tiles, and that would go under a floorboard in the left-hand corner of my closet.

I sent one last look toward the boy I killed.

A smile tugged across my lips. It felt real, more genuine than anything else had in a long time.

*

I went back to work the next day. The voice that whispered was quiet. My bones felt calm. My co-worker asked me where "that cute boy, the one with those eyes" was. Something brutal inside me fizzed, alight with ectasy. I shrugged and finished swirling whipped cream on the hot chocolate I was making.

The door chimed as it opened, admitting a girl with fire-engine hair in a messy braid.

"Her next."

That was the beginning.

I feel like it is safe to say that every human being past the age of two has at least one secret. Whether it be hiding from your children that Santa Claus is mommy Amazon-Priming gifts the night before or that you seem addicted to writing bad Criminal Minds smut (I forgive you–– Derek Morgan is hot), we all have secrets. And that's okay! It's normal and quite natural to have secrets. You know, skeletons in the closet. Stuff like that.

Unless you're like me, and you have an actual, literal skeleton in your closet.

Now, I did not put the skeleton there. I found it yesterday, hanging like a bony coat between my raincoat and my Hello-Kitty bathrobe. Yes, the bleached bones were together like a science-classroom skeleton.

But I know that it is real. Unfortunately. There were little bits of... ickiness still attached. And I found a maggot in one of my slippers. It was a horrifying moment.

Worse than all that, I know whose bones they are.

This past month, a serial killer has been frolicking about my neighborhood. Killing and then stripping all the squishy bits off of the bones. No one has been able to find said bones.

My mom has tried to keep me locked in my bedroom, she's so scared. She's having us eat our earthquake-nonperishables in case the murderer has decided to poison the grocery store.

But I am seventeen years old, and have a very hot boyfriend. Which means, since I cannot leave the house, he sneaks in through the window.

He's new in town, a dreamy bad boy, yada yada yada. No one cares about that (except for me and my hormones). He came as the murders started up. The night before the skeleton showed up in my closet, he asked me if he could stash a body in my room (I thought he meant his body and I bought condoms!).

And then I found the skeleton. I'm 95% sure that it is the class president.

She has suspension powers, given to her by the principal (she's very persuasive). She caught my boyfriend, Teddy, smoking under the bleachers and suspended him. He was not happy.

After I found the body, I started thinking about the people who died, and their recent interactions with Teddy. All of them were negative. The grocer (Teddy had shoplifted gum), the 7-11 cashier (Teddy had shoplifted cigarettes), the Target clerk (Teddy was a serial-shoplifter, among other serial-esc criminal activities, it seems), all dead.

Teddy has a knife collection. He has hunting experience. He interned at a morgue with his dad (that should have been it for me-- morgues are never a good sign). It seems like he is a pretty obvious suspect.

And now, there is a skeleton in my closet. An actual, literal, very smelly skeleton. I know I didn't kill her, and there's only one other viable suspect.

I'm not sure how to proceed. My mom warned my not to date him, said he was trouble. In my defense, I thought he was trouble in, like, a hot way. Not a murder-y one. Guess I was wrong.

Besides, my friends loved him. Probably because of, you know. His face. He has a really nice face. And abs. And other desirable physical features.

I wonder how morally tainted I would be if I just... ignored it. The skeleton, that is. The secret little skeleton in the closet.

Should I call the police? Turn him in? Does it make me an accomplice if the body (or at least part of it) was stashed with me and I didn't report it as soon as I could? I should ask my mom. She's a lawyer, she'd know.

On second thought, I shouldn't. That wouldn't be a particularly fun conversation.

Should I tell my friends? They're always sending those textposts, the you-know-you're-real-friends-if-you'd-bury-a-dead-body-together ones. I wonder how they'd respond if I asked them to help me bury a real one.

I don't think that'd go over well. They'd probably kick me out of the group chat.

Should I call Teddy then? Ask him why the fuck he stashed the class president in my closet? Would he kill me then? The conversation wouldn't go over pleasantly, and all the people he's disagreed with recently have wound up a bundle of bones. And I'm particularly attached to my skin, thank you very much. I take good care of it. Have special creams and stuff. I moisturize.

I'm conflicted. Normal teenagers don't have to debate over dead bodies. I should watch Heathers. Winona Ryder will understand me.

Update: I watched Heathers. It would be a little truamatizing to have a hot murderer blown up behind you. And I don't smoke. It seems Winona doesn't understand me.

That's a little depressing. I hoped she would.

I've kept my closet all locked up since I found the bones, but I need to change. These pajamas smell a little.

Door's now open. Bones still there. Now everything smells bad, and I found a couple of maggots in my new Adidas. Stupid dead body. I've decided to keep on these pajamas.

I'm flirting with the idea of calling the police. I don't know. I don't know what to do.

You know, I'm going to call Stella. She's my best friend. I've popped her back acne before, so she's kind of obligated to help me hide this body.

She's on her way now. She has skeletons in her closet too (figurative ones, of course).

She'll know how to dispose of them.

If not, I'll have to get Teddy to dispose of her.

I can't get my hands dirty. Scholarships on the line and all. And it isn't like I wanted the class president in my closet. Sometimes you have to recognize situations for what they are and then play your cards accordingly.

I just need to get rid of this damn thing before my mom starts to smell it.

"I am not a murderer.

A strange way to start this off, but I feel it is important to get that out of the way. I am not a serial killer, I do not relish in the feeling of blood on my hands, and, god forbid, I do not find sexual pleasure in death.

No, no, none of that describes me or my job.

I am a contract killer. After high school, the realization that I was not actually good at anything came. Unable to get a job, I ended up homeless for a while. I floated between shelters when I could, became a quasi-religious soup-kitchen enthusiast and raider of food banks.

Then, I had the misfortune of I finding out that I was rather skilled with a knife. And a gun. And various other weapons. Which was interesting.

And then I found out that assassin-for-hire was a rather lucrative job market. So, I did what any person with nothing to lose does: I jumped on the bandwagon.

Was it a good idea? No. Did I do it anyway? Yeah. I mean, I was desperate. I only had two pairs of socks. No one realizes how much they love socks until they only have two.

The first time I killed someone was before I stepped into this line of work. It was in self defense. A man tried to rape me, which is not uncommon for homeless folk such as I was. I had a knife which I had stolen from a food bank, and I stabbed him with it. How I felt when I saw the blood bloom from his stomach, when I saw him turn from a person into a thing had no parallel. Don’t get me wrong, it was horrifying. But at the same time, I had never felt as powerful as I did then. The death went unnoticed, which goes without saying. No one has a care for the homeless, especially not law enforcement.

I did a little research at the library (free internet!) and found out how much money killers-for-hire make. And it was a lot.

It should be understandable that I decided to try my hand at it.

I found a website one of the articles had said that the assassins found their work at. I haunted it for a couple of weeks until the library asked me to stop coming, so I moved my operation to an internet cafe (a dying breed). Finally, someone contacted me (@devilmaycare666, which was a little spot-on for my liking) and offered me a job.

It was low-profile, they said. An average Joe that owed some money. He had been warned but refused to pay the loan shark back, and now they wanted someone to take him out. I decided not to tell them that this was my first real time, because I needed the money. The shelters I frequented had barred their doors when they found out I had been stealing from them. I hadn’t slept in a real bed in two weeks, and cardboard mattresses aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

My first kill was pretty sloppy, but I got the job done. Broke in through a window, found the guy asleep in a tornado of chinese takeout boxes. I wanted to slit his throat all classy-like, like in the movies, but I found it doesn’t work that way. Had to hack through his windpipe, which is as messy as it sounds. I threw up in his bathtub after. Then I stole his cash and socks. It was necessity.

That hit paid for a stay in a cheap motel where I researched the real ways to kill a man. My next hit paid for a nicer hotel, and the next one an even nicer one.

I ended up a proper entrepreneur. I had a skill-set that certain people required, and I marketed that skill-set accordingly. I ended up with some job offers from some mafias (the most interesting way I was almost recruited was a letter in some matzo-ball soup. The Jewish mafia has an odd sense of humor), but I always stayed free-lance. Made more money that way, you see.

And money was all that mattered to me, because I had none for so long. When I fell asleep on my memory-foam mattress, I remembered the asphalt of the elementary school that I slept by. When I had shark-fin soup, I remembered the thin tomato that the soup kitchens offered. When I slid my cashmere socks on every morning, I laughed.

Everything fell apart three years ago. By then, I owned a brownstone in Brooklyn with my ex-model wife and our three Persian Greyhounds. My wife grew nationally-recognized orchids since retiring (we didn’t need the extra income). She knew nothing of my line of work and was happy with that. I am ashamed to say that she was a much of a symbol of wealth to me as my dogs were. I’d never met her parents. I didn’t know her favorite place or food or smell or anything. She had told me she wanted to adopt kids, like Angelina Jolie, and I had laughed. We slept in separate beds. She spent of her time relishing in my wealth, not caring where it came from, and I spent most of my time making more of it.

I was efficient in my killings now. No more windpipe-hacking. I aimed for the jugular, wore gloves, never left a print or a hair behind. Still, the police found me.

They took the prints off of my first hit, linked them to a DUI I had gotten (in my bullet-gray Ashton-Martin, gorgeous). I wasn’t that surprised when they came for me. My wife shed crocodile tears as I was cuffed. The dogs shit all over the hand-knotted kashmir carpet.

In prison, the guards brought me some of the tabloids. My wife, splashed across covers (I didn’t know he was a killer!, etc.). I tore the pages out and used them as toliet paper. She would have done the same. We were both opportunists.

I suppose it’s fitting, me sitting here, waiting for the fatal injection. A sort of poetic irony. After years of fighting it in court, the police linked my prints and methods to hundreds of murders around the country. They missed some, too. I was sentenced to death.

And here I am, waiting to die.

Still, I maintain that I am not a murderer. I did not kill for fun, or for sport. I killed because it was the only choice I had. The blood of those I killed lays not on my hands, but on those who paid me. I am not a murderer so much as a knife or a gun is. I am a tool that was put in the wrong hands.

I suppose it is not my choice to make. Though I believe that I am an innocent, the law disagrees. That’s fine. I guess those I killed felt they were innocent as well."

Noah Lablos, on his deathbed, 16/9/2018. He leaves all his money to his dogs, in hopes that they grow to be as fat and rich as he was.