I have a challenge

Describe a feeling like love

In only 3 lines

I’ll start

I will think of you

And immediately smile

Because you’re perfect

Too cheesy.

I can’t stop thinking

I don’t deserve to be with

An angel like you

One sided.

I see these pastures

I’m reminded of your eyes

Deep and delicate

Too broad.

My head is busy

With thoughts of the two of us

I can’t stop smiling

Not enough.

All of these lines fail

To express my true feelings

Because they are words

I tried.

Words cannot describe

These feelings I have right now

Because they are words

Words can’t tell of love.

There is a boy who steals sleep from the gods and sells it for a dollar fifty,

filthy fragments of damaged dreams that taste of rainwater and immortality,

and later, when you wake, you will feel clean again,

but cold,

and you know that to be mortal is to be warm in the wrong ways,

all hot tears and ugly laughter and something that feels uncomfortably close to love,

but we are not gods,

and life is too short to spend asleep.

The Zombie apocalypse, something that’s been joked about numerus times in timeless

movies, games and television shows. While slow, that still doesn’t stop the mindless beasts from ripping you apart and eating your insides. So, time to learn a little street smarts when dealing with Zombies while you’re stuck in school.

Step 1: Know your school. Whether you’re a freshman, senior or teacher you’ve been in

this school long enough to know your way around. Don’t take a wrong turn and get stuck at the bottom of the stair well because that’s one of the quickest ways to die scared, cornered and alone.

Step 2: Team up. Now this may seem like a great idea at first to have friends to help you, but really their just sacrifices for when you’re in tough situations and need to get out, the more vulnerable they look the better.

Step 3: Always check your surroundings. Especially if you’re in a bathroom or classroom be sure to check every stall and closet before you let out a breath of relief, because that very well could be your last.

Step 4: Be quiet. This may be common sense but you don’t want the zombies to know where you are so don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself.

Step 5: Find a weapon, don’t try and be a peace maker with the zombie students because you’re just lunch to them. Step 6: Do. Not. Hesitate. Listen I know Mrs. and Mr. so and so are your favorite teachers and that’s been your best friend since middle school but right now they are not the people you grew to admire. Aim for the head or run, simple enough right?

Step 7: Always have a contingency plan. These are important in case one of the people you “teamed up” with had the same idea as you.

Lastly step 8: If you get bitten don’t be that person who hides it and infects the rest of the group. Do yourself a favor before you turn and leave. Unless it’s a group of narcissistic jerks who go around pillaging other groups you should just go ahead and end them all. Well, that’s all I can tell you good luck and try not to die.

I started drinking wine when I was seven years old.

My mom took me to a store in Portland to pick out a very specific dress for the occasion. That Sunday I stood side by side with my peers in our itchy new clothes lined up to marry Jesus.

Lots of things were said by the grownups and we repeated the words just as we were taught. We had a cracker and a sip of wine. And we were told we would be saved. For now- as long as we didn’t sin before next week.

And in the inevitable case that we did sin- well, we were given the opportunity to sit alone in a small dark box with a chubby old man that you could smell but not see. We tell him the naughty things we had done and ask for his forgiveness. We recite more words. As long as we did that, we were allowed to have wine again that Sunday. It always made me cringe and feel not good enough, but hey, I should feel lucky that I have a chance to confess.

I confessed in the dark, I drank my wine in the light, and hoped I was good enough to be saved.

As I got older and refused confession I would sit in the pew as people shuffled past my knees to get in line for communion. With each hushed “excuse me” all I heard was “shame, shame”.

I always noticed my aunties took gulps of their saving grace, not sips, with slightly shaky hands. I would try to take a bigger gulp each week to seem more grown-up like them. I would anxiously glance around the church for a nod of approval that never came.

Now I am an auntie and I gulp my wine in the shower on a week day afternoon, no longer as a child under the blessing of a sweaty man in a robe looming over me.

I don’t look for approval in my wine any more, but perhaps sometimes I do still look for it to save me.

And Lord knows it does.

My name is Harper and in six months I am going to die.

I know this because I paid for the privilege. You can do testing for anything nowadays, and apparently your expiration date is one of them.

I had money to spare, I was bored, and yes, I foolishly thought the test would tell me some distant faraway age like eighty-two or maybe even one hundred and two. When I found out my expiry date was in six months, I began to have a really, really bad case of buyer’s remorse.

I went through quite a lengthy denial period, where I thought I could go through the rest of my life pretending that if I just do things exactly the same way and not change anything I would conveniently forget and everything would be fine and dandy. (This was by far my favorite coping mechanism. But it didn’t last. Eventually my anxiety bubbled up and exploded like a shaken champagne bottle.)

Next came an obsessive, defiant, planning phase. Everyday I would think of elaborate plans to avoid death like I could somehow scheme my way out of it. I mean, theoretically, it seems doable. Plane crash? Don’t go on a plane. Car accident? Just stay home all week. Heck, heart attack? Pop three baby aspirins and hang out in the hospital lobby, right next to the crash cart ready to wave a big sign that says “I’m having a heart attack.” Unfortunately the test didn’t provide the cause of death, just the exact time, so I couldn’t really plan in specifics.

Eventually all the planning became incredibly exhausting and I settled into a kind of defeated acceptance. My plan was still not to actively put myself in a situation where I could die, I was not quite ready to submit to my annihilation, but if I somehow still find myself in that situation anyway, I figured I should really work on trying to be okay with that.

So then I commenced on a hedonistic three months where I blew half of my life savings and did literally anything I could think of. I ziplined through the forests of Peru, skydived over the French countryside, drank the best wines and indulged in rich Italian food, snorkeled off the shores of Bali, shopped with abandon while perusing the streets of Tokyo, London, Dubai…

You get the idea.

The most pathetic part of this whole thing was that I didn’t have a family to spend my last few days with. Or close friends, really. My impending death would not be filled with earnest mourning and last minute tearful proclamations of love and reminiscing. Oh sure, my funeral would be packed, but nobody would miss me, not really. As an orphaned twenty-two year old who inherited too much money at an early age, not only was I kind of an entitled asshole, I also haven’t really lived yet. I haven’t fallen in love or had kids, wrote that great American novel, won a Pulitzer, or experienced any of that syrupy sweet stuff life is supposedly made of.

Anyway, that’s why I’m hanging out in the hospice ward.

My friend here is Lucas. He is twenty-nine and has end stage heart failure from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. He described it as his heart being too big - literally but I suspect it's also an accurate description of him figuratively. I befriended him five months ago when I found out I was going to die. And no, surprisingly, he does not have any wisdom to impart about acceptance and healing and the meaning of life. He is very not okay with his young, awesome life being cut short, thank you very much.

He did have some useful information for me though.

“It’s quite experimental.” Lucas warned in an ominous tone.

“Obviously.”

“They usually only accept terminal patients… you know, because of the ethical issues.” He eyed me warily. “But in your case, they made an exception.”

He was adorable. He said that last line like a late night infomercial. Or maybe a used car salesman.

“This is not some elaborate black market scam to harvest my organs, is it?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “I mean, no offense, but you look like you could use a new heart.”

Lucas had to grab his oxygen mask after laughing so hard at that one. The nurse at the station gave me a dirty look.

After Lucas recovered he looked me in the eye. “How much do you have left?”

“Time? Or money?” I joked. The look on his face was not amused. I cleared my throat. “One month. And as you know, money is not an object.”

“Well, one month can give you… at least eighty years in virtual time. So pretty much a whole lifetime, if you decide on it.” Lucas shrugged. “Once you jack in though, there’s no going back. Your clock will end as scheduled and that’s the only way out. Also, it’s totally immersive, so you won’t even know you’re in virtual. It will be like… you’re in a dream but you don’t know you’re in a dream.”

“So I would really believe everything was real? Like I would grow up to be ninety years old and I would actually think I lived all those years even though really it will only be one month?”

“Mostly, yes.”

“How many of the other people will be real?”

“Most will be computer generated. You might meet some real ones, if they are in the same time dilation settings as you. There are very few people with the resources for a whole month, you know. Most people can only afford one day.”

“So there’s a chance that I will marry a program?” I furrowed my brows. “And then if we have kids, they will also be programs?”

Lucas cocked an eyebrow. “There’s a high chance, statistically. Like I said, there’s only a few real participants at any given time. Not that it would matter to you, you won’t know the difference.”

I thought about this. Would it really bother me if I didn’t know? I bet my computer generated kids would be adorable.

His expression suddenly turned serious. “There’s something else. It’s rare, but there are a few cases of people noticing little things not quite right and they become increasingly convinced they’re in a simulation. Which of course is true, but when you’re jacked in and you’re not completely sure if you’re crazy or just being paranoid, it can be terrifying. They call it Simulation Induced Paranoia, or SIP.” He paused. “Participants become really…. distressed.”

I chewed on this for a second. “I still want to do it.”

He looked surprised. “Really?”

“I really don’t have anything to lose.” I replied nonchalantly, like I just decided on a dinner entree. I should probably be alarmed that I was acting so cavalier. Lucas wasn’t exactly giving a stellar sales pitch. Then again, it was true, I really had nothing left to lose. I’ve done what I could with my twenty-two years. Might as well have another lifetime to try again.

Lucas stared at me for a moment then sighed. “That’s the thing. The longer you’re in virtual, the higher the chance you might experience SIP. Remember, Harper, a month is a lifetime. The chances are very low of course - less than 1%, the virtual worlds are very meticulously programmed after all. But if you experience SIP, there’s no cure, no safe word, you’re stuck until your clock runs out.”

“I already decided.” I said resolutely. Once I’ve made up my mind on something I was usually unshakable. It was one of my many flaws. “In fact, let’s do it tonight. I want to get my whole lifetime, not a year less.”

—

Everything was too bright, the sounds too loud. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. Jacking in was a very jarring process, it felt as if all my neurons were firing up all at once. Somehow I felt tremendous pain and the heights of delirious ecstasy simultaneously. Like I was feeling every possible thing all at the same time. There was a terrifying moment when everything went black, and for what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds, I truly wholeheartedly believed I was actively dying.

Maybe I was supposed to die on the table during the procedure. Or maybe I really did unwittingly offer to have my organs harvested for the black market. Damn it, I probably caused my own death in my extreme efforts to avoid it...

I blinked twice. The room slowly came into focus.

“Hey, sleeping beauty.” A familiar voice.

It was Lucas. But also, it was not Lucas. He did not have his portable oxygen tank close by. His lips did not have their usual bluish tint. He looked… healthy.

Everything came back to me at once.

“Oh shit, Lucas. That was nuts.” I shook my head, clearing the cobwebs. “That felt too real. I really felt like I was in there for twenty-two years.” I checked my watch. I’ve only been in Virtual for twenty-two minutes.

He chuckled, swiveling back and forth on the expensive office chair I bought him for Christmas last year. My boyfriend never could sit still. “You’re a champ, Harper, you were the one who wanted to push the time dilation to a year per minute. I was worried pushing it that far would compromise the world building, but your mind was amazing at meeting the program halfway to fill in the gaps. You made yourself a rich orphan, really? Money is no object? Hah!”

I disconnected my neurojack from the surgically implanted access port behind my right ear. That rich orphan stuff was my subconscious free at the wheel. I didn’t intentionally decide on it. I turned back to Lucas. “Why did you add all that stuff about Virtual in there, and SIP? Don’t you think that was a little too… meta?”

Lucas suddenly broke into that grin that melted my heart so many years ago when we met during undergrad at MIT. “Well, since you wanted to put the expiry dates into the program so people would know how much time they had left, I thought, what the heck, why not make it interesting? Why not make a virtual game in Virtual?”

I was not amused. Lucas had a penchant for bloated code and unnecessary side doors. Also, for not telling me about an adjustment until after he has done it. “That’s messed up. You should have run that by me. The expiry date was a suggestion from the beta testers and we all agreed on it. We didn’t agree on putting the game into the Virtual Universe as a side door..” I paused. “Also, what if I didn’t jack in? I would have died in a car accident or something?”

Lucas turned back to his computer and typed a few lines of code. “I had carbon monoxide poisoning ready to go, but I was prepared to improvise. And anyway, I didn’t actually think you would gravitate towards the game during the beta test, I just put it in there as an Easter egg of sorts. I figured most clients would only think about jacking in when they were close to their expiry dates, if they do at all. But on second thought, maybe I should take it out of the programming, it’s too much work to keep up.”

I jumped off the table and stretched my legs. My entire body felt stiff like I haven’t used it for months. “Yea, take it out. You’ll have enough work as it is when we start accepting our first commercial clients next week. We have four people scheduled on our first day which I already think is too much.”

“We’ll be fine.” Lucas was now typing more purposefully. “That reminds me, I need to finish debugging this before Monday. Do you mind picking up dinner?”

“Sure.. from that new Thai place again?”

“Sounds good.”

I smiled as I gave Lucas a quick peck on the cheek before I grabbed my purse to pick up the take out. Everything was going well for our start up. It was hard to believe that only two years ago Lucas and I were broke PhD dropouts who took a leap of faith building Virtual from our one bedroom Boston apartment. And now… well, let’s just say our first official month in business is projected to generate six figures in profits even after subtracting overhead. Mid six figures. And as soon as we open up our second and third facilities the growth would be exponential.

To top it all off, I was pretty sure Lucas was planning on proposing to me next week on my birthday. I saw a charge from some jewelry company on his credit card statement while I was doing some filing last month. Judging from the amount, it could only be an engagement ring. Lucas never would have spent that much on a piece of jewelry otherwise.

I sauntered out of the elevator from our high rise office with a pep in my step. The weather outside was just the right amount of sunny. Even the Boston air didn’t feel as suffocatingly polluted. Yes, everything was going well. Perfect, even. I eyed a meticulously trimmed bush suspiciously as I walked by. Maybe too perfect.

I felt a sudden stab of panic. The smile dissipated from my face.

Oh no.

I used to

bathe us

in moonlight

when

I told the story

of before

but

the bitterness

of after

taught me that

it was just

the suns reflection

off a cold rock

a thousand miles

away

that made you look

so damn lovely

Drowning in silence,

A few words bubbling from you

Will delay our death.

I think the rhythm of the first line is awkward, which is perhaps apt. The language is perhaps too metaphorical and the air bubble not clear enough in the Haiku. In otherwise, perfect!

Recently I have recieved a post dedicated towards me in a "romantic" way. But nothing about this is romantic.

Some older men think it's okay for them to prey on younger girls over the internet, because it's how they feel towards them. But never ONCE have I ever been asked if I wanted it. This isn't the first time this has happened, but I still get so sick and afraid every time it does.

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

I'm (almost) 17, and I have a boyfriend.

NOTHING about being hit on, in a gross way, when you don't want it, is okay.

And then after blocking said person they have decided to change the post into a "hate" post.

I would say good, but this doesn't help. Reading something that is hurtful and hateful towards you, still makes you feel like shit.

SENDING HATEFUL MESSAGES TO PEOPLE IS NOT OKAY!

So please, consider the person on the other side of the screen.

For the time being I will be absent from Prose; for this is too much for me to handle and I don't feel comfortable anymore.