"Don't worry, Meda. We'll rest soon. Lets just make it to that rock, yeah?"

Layam panted heavily, her feet catching on every surface as she struggled to keep moving. Her legs burned, and the weight of the sack filled with essentials didn't help. But they couldn't stop. Not yet.

Layam glanced at her little sister trailing behind her. "How confused she must be, being stripped from the only home she ever knew. Hell, maybe she still didn't realize that they never would be going back. Maybe this was all an adventure to her."

"My feet hurt."

"I know, little lichen. Just- we just need to make it to the rock." Layam stopped to point it out, catching herself as the heaviness on her back threatened to send her tumbling down the mountain. "See it?"

Meda eyed the pillar of stone, still too many paces ahead of them. It was of red clay, with indented hand prints colored in with some kind of pigment. Something about it was too much. Meda threw herself down into the dust with a loud cry that threatened to turn into a scream.

Layam's heart threatened to burst out of her chest. It took her a second to leap into action, dropping the sack and planting her palm over the sobbing child's mouth. She caressed her hair frantically, whispered calming things in sheer desperation to stop her sisters cries. They were in danger now, and it was Layam's fault for letting this happen. Maybe they should have taken more breaks. Maybe they should have eaten more food, or drank more water. Maybe-

A branch snapped out of sight.

Meda stopped crying, eyes fearful.

Layam slowly stood up and reached for her knife. "Here's what we're going to do,"she murmured, not taking her eyes off of the dense forest. "I'm going to put you on my back, ok? And we are going to walk to that rock that I showed you. I'll put you down when we get there."

Meda didn't seem to hear. she was too busy clinging on to Layam's pants with her thumb in her mouth- something she rarely did.

Layam crouched down. "Hey, look at me. I need you to get on my back, and I promise you can have some maple sugar when we get to town. But we need to go now. "

She finally nodded, and clambered onto her back with some difficulty. still, Layam was grateful for the fact that she was lighter then the pack she had been carrying for so many miles.

The pack.

I forgot the pack.

Layam spun around to grab it, even though she knew that there would be no way to carry both her sister and it at the same time. It held their food, water, medicine, and whatever money they were able to scavenge, and everything else that was necessary to start a new life.

But there was only dirt where it should have been, with a perfect imprint of where it was-- as if it had been lifted straight into the heavens themselves.

There was no more time. Despite her burning muscles, Layam forced herself into motion. With Meda jolting with every step and her arms straining to hold her up, every little movement nearly sent her to her knees. Every branch that crackled behind them, real or imagined, was a warning. They had to make it. They had to. If they didn't, they would die.

#fantasy #fiction

Don't forgive me when I'm gone

Keep your grudges as gold

Though eventually life will move on,

do unto my memory hold.

As much as I wish I could stay

It's not a realistic request

For life's debt is more than I can pay

And my bones ache for rest.

My eyes to become the flowers

My feet to become the thorns

My hands to still by the hour's

Rush to become the morn.

Do not weep for me instead

Stand at my grave with spite

Hate me for the life I had led

For I won't meet you in dawns light.

-Poem I heard in a dream

Callings

It was a tumultuous year, and Kate was in full command of the storm she was brewing. Demonstrators demanding that the university divest from South Africa had taken over the administration building, and she was arrested along with several of her allies. Shortly after her release, she was calling for an end to the Reagan administration’s support for the counterinsurgency in El Salvador through a megaphone to a large rally that had gathered in front of the town clock. The police watched warily as the crowd spilled into the streets, and she was reminding the protesters of their constitutional right to congregate. On Church Street feminists and local artists were throwing raw meat and spilling blood on the steps of the civic auditorium during the annual Miss California Pageant, and she was taking photographs for City on a Hill, the university paper. Around the corner from the small apartment that she shared with Joanne, anti-abortion activists flooded the sidewalk outside Planned Parenthood with signs that read, Jesus is pro-life, and Thou Shall Not Kill. Now there were counter-protestors across the street with their own placards, and Kate held one up that read, “If you can’t trust me with the choice, how can you trust me with a baby?”

As committed as she was to these movements, it was the nuclear nightmare that interfered with her sleep and threatened to obliterate her post-graduation plans. In the spring of 1985 Kate was telling anyone who would listen that the world was thirty minutes away from total annihilation, and now, peace activists were organizing a protest march that would be bigger than anything the world had ever seen. More than anyone, she wanted Joanne to go with her, and that was going to take some effort.

Kate and Joanne sat across from each other in the Saturn Café on car seats that once belonged to a ’64 Chevy Impala. Joanne was not as political as Kate, but she was closer to her than to anyone, and for that reason they were roommates. Despite her distractibility, Joanne was also more literate than anyone she had ever met, and that included her professors. Now, Kate had important news, and she needed to present it in just the right way.

From the street The Saturn Café looked like a spaceship that crash-landed a small storefront. It was frequented by university students and locals who were drawn to its cosmic, kitschy decor and vegetarian menu. Kate, who worked the front counter several nights a week, was taking a 10-minute break. Between sips of steamed chai, she was telling Joanne about a film she saw in her environmental studies class called The Atomic Café, and how the U.S. government had downplayed the dangers of nuclear weapons since the 1940’s.

As Kate talked, Joanne watched the shadows from the planets that hung from the ceiling and flickered across her roommate’s forehead. They were more than just roommates, and in the flickering light Joanne could see flashes of her own face. They were sisters, and though they were not identical, they shared a birthday. As she studied the interplay between the rise and fall of Kate’s voice and the music that was wafting from the wall speakers, Joanne was quietly playing a game of Name That Tune. The Grateful Dead. They were always playing them here. Scarlet Begonias?

“All of these things that are happening right now,” Kate began, “the racist regimes that we’re supporting all over the world, our aid to the Contras, and the cold war with the Soviet Union, they’re all linked.” She paused for a few beats. “But none of it will matter in a nuclear war.”

Someone from the back room turned up the stereo just enough for Joanne to notice, and she could hear the scale moving to a different key. Is it Scarlet Begonias, or Eyes of the World? She couldn’t be sure.

Kate allowed the information to filter through the porous layers of Joanne’s imagination, and she could see her eyes blazing with questions. She rested her thin elbows on the bamboo table that separated them, leaned gravely toward her sister, and lowered her voice. “And if they drop the bomb,” she continued slowly, “the survivors will envy the dead.”

Joanne knew she was quoting Khrushchev, but she was also trying to figure out the song. Yup. Eyes of the world. The dialogue inside Joanne’s head continued. Must be a live version.

Kate raised the ceramic cup with both hands and took a slow sip before continuing. “Have you heard about the cross-country peace march that’s being planned for next year,” she finally asked, before setting her cup down. “Next March we’re leaving L.A., and we’ll arrive in Washington D.C. in November.”

Joanne leaned against the back of the car seat. “We?”

“There’ll be thousands of marchers, Joanne, and this is a way to raise global awareness of the insanity of nuclear proliferation. We’ll have almost a year to prepare, and by then, we’ll both be college graduates.”

Joanne added more sugar to her dark roast and sunk the spoon to the bottom of the cup. “You’re seriously thinking about this?” She stirred slowly.

“Yeah, I’m seriously thinking about this,” Kate countered, leaning closer to the center of the table. “This is a chance to do something that people all over the world will see—and to tell the world that Americans don’t support what their president is doing.”

Joanne took a quick sip before folding her arms across her chest.

“We can see America. You and me. We’ll travel to cities and towns all across the country and talk to people about something that affects everyone on the planet. The movement is growing, and we could both be part of history.”

“Have you told Mom?”

Kate glanced at the ceiling. “I wanted to talk to you first. I think she’ll freak out less if we went together.”

Joanne squinted as the shadows from the swinging planets retreated from her sister’s face.

“When enough people raise their voices in solidarity,” Kate continued, her face brightening, “world leaders will have no choice but to listen.”

Joanne shifted in her seat. She was counting the months.

“It’s also a chance for us to be together,” Kate pressed.

“Joanne exhaled. “That’s nine months.”

“Right. It’s not even a year out of our lives.”

“I just don’t-”

“I’ll bring my camera and I’ll teach you how to use it,” Kate added. She would take her Minolta-X 700 that she used to photograph the protests outside the civic auditorium that led to the departure of the Miss California pageant from the town of Santa Cruz. She was a Journalism major, and this was a gold mine.

“I don’t know. It’s a lot to take in.”

She was her twin, and Kate knew her in ways that couldn’t be explained. She just needed time to process the information.

Her break had ended 5 minutes ago. She glanced at her watch and stood up from the table. “I need to get back to my shift, but we can talk about this later.” If Joanne agreed, and she was sure she would, the earth would align with all the heavenly bodies, and the road would stretch before them like a welcoming hand.

***

While Kate held court with her co-workers in the tiny kitchen that she and her sister shared, Joanne sat cross-legged in the beanbag chair and studied the inserts in the vinyl record album that she bought at Bookshop Santa Cruz earlier that day. Side B was playing, and she was listening intently to the banjo and the stand-up bass on Gun Street Girl.

“Hey Joanne,” Kate’s friend, Annika, called out to her from the kitchen. “What’re you reading there?” Why was she always trying to start a conversation?

“Rain Dogs.”

“What’s that?”

“Tom Waits.”

Annika left the kitchen and walked the narrow gauntlet to the beanbag chair, where Joanne was hunched over the sheet notes. “Is he the one who’s always playing Vegas?”

Really? Are you kidding me? She sucked the words back as a gesture of respect to Kate, who had asked her to try to be polite when her friends were around. “No.”

“Right,” Annika said. “Am I thinking of Tom Jones?” She looked embarrassed.

“I don’t know,” she said flatly, and resumed her reading.

For Kate’s sake, Joanne had tried to assimilate into the group she was friends with. The hippies, the protest kids, the Deadheads and the vegetarians, the Marxists, they all seemed to converge around her sister. This was Kate’s scene, not hers. Joanne had her own scene, which was quite a bit less populated. She was too cerebral, too tethered to her own ideas to be swallowed up by a tribal society that she didn’t belong to in the first place. Whatever Kate had

that she didn’t, Joanne found the little subcultures that converged at the Saturn Cafe to be no different from the high school cliques that made her want to escape to the forest. She had survived Catholic school with Kate at her side, they were both accepted into U.C. Santa Cruz, and besides their DNA they shared a one-room apartment downtown. Joining her on the march made a kind of superficial sense, but something else was calling to her in ways that hiking up mountain passes in the snow while singing protest songs did not.

***

Joanne left Santa Cruz for L.A. a few months before Kate. She had squeezed the last box of books into the back of her Ford Escort outside the one-room apartment that they had shared on River Street. It was a little before noon, but the drive to Southern California would take at least six hours. She would stay with their mother in the San Fernando Valley, who took the news better than they expected her to, and she would sign the contract at the district offices on

Tuesday. Then she would wait for Human Resources to call her when a position opened. They exchanged a long embrace in the street as the Saturday morning traffic whooshed past them toward Highway 1.

“You know, Joanne,” Kate reminded her, “you can always teach after the march.”

“Look,” Joanne countered. “If you don’t trust me with the choice, how can you trust me to be your walking partner?”

It was clever but cruel, and she regretted it even before the words tumbled out. She had explained to Kate that she would never be able to teach public school without a credential, and credential programs were expensive. When she learned that LA Unified was recruiting college graduates with the promise of a full-time teaching position and an opportunity to earn a credential in the evenings, she didn’t have to think about it. She had seen the full-page ad in City on a Hill when she was waiting for her sister to finish one of her shifts, just weeks after they had both bought matching footwear for the march. She held the paper under the table, removed the ad from the paper and put it in her back pocket.

“All God’s children need travelling shoes,” Kate had gleefully announced as she sported her new pair of Nike Dashers.

The bit about what all God’s children needed was the title of a book Maya Angelou had published earlier that year, and Joanne read it on the beanbag chair in one sitting while Kate showed her study group how to make spicy-pepper tofu in the kitchen. Kate liked to quote people without citing her sources, no one ever called her on it, and Joanne couldn’t decide which was more infuriating.

When Kate first told Joanne about the peace march, there was no way to tell her that it terrified her more than the bomb. The high desert with its punishing heat and deadly-cold nights, the torrential rains, and the unforgiving winds that would turn their little, polyester tents into low-flying aircraft were all she could imagine. All the trouble that awaited them—the venomous counter-protesters calling them Communists and hurling rocks, the blisters, the hypothermia, the altitude sickness, the sunburn, the unrelenting exhaustion, and worst of all, having to pee at night in the middle of the desert—these were not experiences that called to her.

The whole escapade seemed mad, and the most maddening of all was Kate’s unrelenting certainty. She also had a gift for finding people who thought and felt and viewed the world as she did, and though Joanne had convictions too, most of them came from books. As far as Joanne could tell, people rarely told the truth. Shakespeare did, and so did the poets and philosophers and novelists who helped her to see the wider range of possibilities for herself.

Joanne was never a joiner, and here was a chance for her to walk her own path. Teaching in the inner city was an opportunity to be in a place where she wouldn’t have to try to fit in, or to pretend to for Kate’s sake. Here was a chance for her to be an outlier for reasons that had nothing to do with her introversion. It suited her. No one would know her, and that suited her, too.

***

The Jordan-Downs Housing Projects never saw much of the federal funding that came in after the 1965 Watts Uprisings. By 1986 they were home to a street gang that ran a robust drug trade, and with more than a hundred 2-story apartments that were marked according to the building number, they looked like massive cement barracks that stood on dirt and grass. Across the street from the public housing complex, Joanne’s eighth grade class was sheltering in place from the late-morning heat. The room stayed a few degrees cooler with the windows closed, and when she opened them after lunch, she could position an electric fan in the open window. If she

stood in front of it, it would circulate the air just enough to dry the sweat from her face.

She was finally hired in February after her predecessor took a leave of absence for unknown reasons. In those first few weeks, as Kate and Annika were attending non-violent civil disobedience workshops in L.A., Joanne imagined that her 4th period class was taking bets on how long she would last. They didn’t know that she was not the type to face facts or admit to being an imposter even when it was obvious to the casual observer.

It was Spring now, almost three months since she introduced herself to her classes, and there was just enough time left in the semester to try a novel with them. The Catcher in the Rye was the first book she had ever read that spoke to her, and Holden Caulfield was her favorite protagonist when she was the age of her students.

But this was 1986, not the mid-20th century when Salinger published the book, and Washington Junior High was not a private school in a fictitious town in Pennsylvania. This was the heart of South-Central Los Angeles. In recent years the streets that bordered the chain link fences that encircled the campus had seen a steady rise in semiautomatic weapons, now preferred among the Grape Street Crips, and her students were more interested in their immediate survival than the artful musings of a prep school misfit. It didn’t matter. Catcher was the only novel in the textbook room that had enough class sets, so she distributed the books to her classes and gave each student a book of post-it notes that she purchased at the teacher supply store.

“When you have a question or a comment, write it on a post-it,” she instructed her classes. “Put the post-it on the page that made you ask the question.”

She circulated the classroom as she read from a copy of Salinger’s novel that she held in her hand. There were close to 40 teenagers, the rows of desks were narrow, and the fan was no match against the late-April heat. She traversed the room, one eye on the page and the other on the furtive movements of her eighth graders. Everything happened in real time, and she could not allow herself, or them, to get distracted. Janelle Bates called out to her as she stepped over a backpack. “Your shoelaces are untied, Ms. Hardy.”

She reached down to tie the laces of her Nike Dashers, and her eighth graders stirred restlessly. It was fascinating how quickly you could lose the attention of a group of 40 teenagers just by tying your shoes.

“Are you guys reading along with me,” Joanne asked the class, looking up from her novel. Several of her students had their books open, but she could see that the rest of the class was engaged in activities that did not include her. Terrell Jones was miming something incomprehensible. She could see hand signals in her peripheral vision, and the girls were passing folded post-it notes underneath their desks.

“You need to read this part carefully,” she said to the class. “This is where Holden realizes that he can’t protect his sister.”

She leaned over to confiscate the post-it that Janelle Bates had just handed to Shanika Williams. She held out her hand, and Shanika placed the small, yellow origami in her hand. She unfolded it carefully, trying not to allow the adhesive to tear the paper. She read it silently:

“Ms. Hardy think she be matchin but she aint.”

She looked down at the lime green sneakers, the burnt-orange socks and the red pants, and it was an indication that dressing in the dark was probably not a best practice. A wide smile spread across her face, and she grinned down at Janelle, who had taken a sudden interest in her own shoes. Then she pinned the note to the Student Writing Board with a thumbtack.

“It’s a good one,” she said to the class, “but I think our next lesson will need to be about apostrophes.”

They were kids, that was all, and she needed to find a way to see the classroom through their eyes.

A car backfired. She heard a second one, and a third, and then a barrage of pops that sounded like fireworks that were too close. This was not a car. Her vision narrowed as shots were firing from down the street. Terrell was the first to dive under his desk. Phoebe Caulfield was reaching for the brass ring at the center of the carrousel, Holden was crying in the rain, and several rounds of ammunition were pummeling the project yard several buildings down the street from her classroom windows. The students sitting closest to the glass dropped to the floor and slid to the side wall. Everyone else scrambled to take cover, and Simone Gaines was shouting at her teacher to crawl underneath her desk. From below the fiberglass Joanne heard the screeching of tires followed by shouting from the public housing units where the big-name dope dealers comingled with mothers and grandmothers and toddlers. From the dust balls that covered the floor below her desk she lifted one of the overhead markers that she thought she’d misplaced, and she felt the grimy residue of the mustard that had fallen from her sandwich and worked its way into the cracks of the linoleum. Then she heard doors slamming and the rapidly

accelerating engine of a fast car taking off in the direction of Alameda Street. She tried to make out what the voices were saying from underneath her desk, but the grime on her fingertips was all she could focus on when she gave her statement to campus police at lunch.

“Stay down,” Terrell shouted to the class, and before the second hand had a chance to budge, another barrage of gun fire pierced the air.

Jesus Christ, how did he know?

In the deathly stillness of the classroom a bullet pierced the window and ricocheted off the fire extinguisher. From the puncture wound the steel device was now spewing dry chemicals into the air as it shot out of its brackets and flew past the bookshelf in erratic vectors before crashing against the wall. A dense cloud of fine, corrosive powder filled the air and hovered over the heads of the occupants. Through the smoke, Joanne could see a small hand turning the doorknob, and she could see her kids pouring out into the open space below the awning on the sheltered side of the bungalow. They didn’t run. They didn’t cry. They stayed small to avoid the shots that were raining down on the other side of the bungalow, and they huddled together to form a tight knot of flesh and bone.

She followed the last of her eighth graders to the bottom of the bungalow steps, and they watched the squad cars peel out of the school parking lot and up 103rd Street. The shooting had stopped, they were putting up police tape now, and there was a crowd of what looked like 50 residents, none of whom were talking to the police.

“It happened so fast,” she told the officers at lunch, “and I was under my desk most of the time.”

They glanced at each other without turning their heads, and she was not sure they believed her.

***

The postcard was small, and the handwriting was so tiny that Joanne needed a magnifying glass to read it. It said something about being trapped in a sandstorm somewhere outside Barstow. The organization that was sponsoring the march had gone bankrupt. Many of the marchers had gone home. The ones who remained made it all the way to Nevada, then Utah, where state troopers had tried unsuccessfully to prevent them from crossing the state line. They were less than 20 miles from the Colorado border now, and Kate and Annika were working with a documentary filmmaker who joined the march in L.A. Nothing would stop them, she wrote, and Joanne believed her.

She could only imagine the experiences that awaited her and her students, and she couldn’t guess what awaited the marchers as they headed toward Loveland Pass. Still, she was sure they would make it all the way to D.C. because Kate was one of them. She admired her with a deep, biological knowing, and she could even forgive that friend of hers for thinking that Tom Waits was a lounge lizard. And in those moments when she allowed herself to feel the full weight of her own ambivalence, she knew that if uncertainty was the only constant, then everything was possible.

This year, the winter was freezing for the inhabitants of Bleecker Street. The severe snowfall dumped the white sheets everywhere; rooftops, on and by the streets, vehicles, everything was engulfed by the thick snow. But as hard as the circumstances were, a smile did not fade in their features, because, snow, she was always a beauty. A beauty that made their childhoods remarkable, their memories sweeter, but at times, she also left sorrowful memories.

Jamie drew her jacket closer to escape the howling winds and the freezing snow. She embraced herself tighter like she always did; not just in winter, not only in the coldness but the way she did it, from the day her family left her all alone in this novel world. Her father, her mother, they were all she ever had; A single child, raised with all the love, all the care, only to lose it all to an accident. And it was her, the snow, that took them away from her. But Jamie continued to love the snow; the snowmen they built, the Christmases they spent together, those were all the memories she had left with her. And she was afraid of losing those memories too; they were all she had.

It had been four years; everyone says that’s enough to move on. It might be enough to move on, but for someone who had felt nothing else in their entire life, it was losing the world they cherished. They had to rebuild a new one; one that might be happier, or, but Jamie had never thought of it. She stuck to her daily routine; office, home, and striving to sleep. The stillness of the nights always brought the memories back, and to find herself alone when she opened her eyes, it haunted her. Today was just another one of those sleepless nights, that was when Jamie decided to go on a stroll late that night.

The snow froze the entire town; there was not a single soul in the streets. It was what Jamie loved now, being alone. She walked through the pavement, observing the gorgeous decorations families have done together. She also loved Christmas; when she could decorate everything and her mother would help her arrange, but not anymore. Her house now had no decoration, no fancy lights, no happiness.

Jamie was feeling better now; the void in her heart filled with the coldness of the snow. It was better than the sadness; fighting the cold helped her fight the memories. When she approached the corner of the street under the lamppost, she paused. She gazed up at the sky. She could see the picture of a beautiful woman carved by Athena into the stars; Andromeda.

“And Athena carved her image among the stars so that the world would remember her.” The mother looked Jamie in her gorgeous green eyes, her arms enveloping the little child in her warmth. But, the girl was frightened by the story she told her. “What is it, my little angel?” her fingers stroked through Jamie’s brown hair. “Will you ever let me go?” the little child asked, her voice cracking as she spoke. The mother sighed, “I will never leave your side. Even when I am gone, I will always, always be right here for you.” she laid her palm on Jamie’s little chest. She kissed her on the forehead and held her tighter, “Always.”

Jamie returned to the present on the sight of something unusual. When she helped herself focus, Jamie discovered who intervened her thoughts; a shooting star. Never in her life had Jamie contracted with a shooting star. Soon enough, the popular myth took possession of her mind; tell your hidden desires to the shooting star, and she will help you achieve them. The notion was childish enough, but no superstition has ever managed to survive a curious mind; no matter whether it belonged to an atheist or a religious preacher, they always prevailed. And Jamie herself fell prey to this juvenile joke, but her desire was nothing more than what she yearned for every moment of her life; if only I could get them back.

It was the howling winds that brought her back to reality, from a longing so implausible. Jamie bent down her head at the thought; I will never get them back, how many times do I have to convince myself that? She pulled down her purple winter cap, blanketing her ears, and walked back to her house; no, it wasn’t her home. She locked herself inside, and drew the thick blanket over her head, shrunk in, her thighs close to her chest, to escape the cold. Jamie revived their faces for one last time and settled into the shade of the sleep.

The next morning, Jamie woke up to a strange set of noises. She pulled the blanket off and strolled downstairs, neglecting the need for more sleep to recover. The noises grew clearer as Jamie was getting closer; someone was inside her home. But the noises did not terrify her; it drew her closer and closer until finally, she reached the living room to collide into someone. The lady turned around letting out a short scream, not born of fear, surprise or pain, but rather a pleasant one.

Jamie nearly collapsed backwards in shock. She did lose her balance, but two arms clasped her tighter than any fall could pull her; the strength of a mother. Jamie could not help but stare into the blue eyes of this blonde woman; she had craved to see those eyes so long. Jamie embraced her with all her strength, squishing her inside her arms. The mother, with tears in her eyes, said something very faint for the world to hear, ”My little angel.”

*****

A few blocks away, Chris Jordan, a young man in his late twenties, sped through the streets. He was in search of his associate, who was supposed to meet him by then. Chris was in a light brown hoodie to be more secretive while in the streets; they always maintained their distance from the regular world. When Chris turned into the nearest alley, he spotted the person he was seeking. A tall, lean man was leaning on the wall, facing the opposite side, stationary as if pondering something. When Chris approached the tall gentleman; he found what the blue eyes were watching; the sight of a joyous reunion.

“Does she know about the contract yet?” Jordan enquired in his hoarse voice, pulling his friend off his delusion. Oscar lowered his head, not knowing what to say, “No, she doesn’t. Not yet.” Chris now stared away from him; Setting his eyes somewhere distant, Jordan continued concealing his sentiments, “We might want to tell her soon.” Oscar just nodded; he could not even perceive the pain of giving someone hope, only to take it away. “Well, we cannot stay here. At least, not in these streets.” Jordan continued. They held their hands together, Oscar’s head still drooped, and all of a sudden, the alley was empty.

#####

Well, I would like to start by thanking @TheDreamer for helping me notice this challenge. I was brainstorming for ideas for quite some time. And now, somehow, everything came together. Thank you so much for this prompt, buddy. I truly enjoyed working on this. Thank you so very much. I hope everyone likes this. Thank you so much for the support, guys! You guys mean a lot to me ^-^

#fiction

A snapshot of misery from a world of wretched fairytales.

There once was a forest, full of looming pines with tattered bark. If you crossed the eastern river and climbed the steep slope behind it you could see a small villa, not much more than a dozen houses and a trading post. It was fraught with icy weather year-round, just northern enough to get the chill of the poles.

One pitch-black December night, two young siblings lay awake in bed. They were twins, matching in mind and mischievous nature, and they were bored with the stuffy shelter. Their father, the villa’s blacksmith, had told them never to leave the house past sunset. Mother Winter roamed around in the later months, he had said in a low whisper. She would wreak pain and misery on their meager little town if they challenged her.

Theo, the elder by a scant few minutes, told her brother that this wasn’t true. Papa wasn’t afraid of anything. He must have been trying to scare them. She pulled off the thread worn covers and peeked out the window, breath fogging the frost-bitten glass. Prying open the latch with a soft creak, she slipped out and landed safely on the ground. Noah, more hesitant but loyal to his twin, waited a moment before following.

“Come on, to the forest!” Theo urged with a quiet hush of words, running off into the distance, her boots leaving clear imprints in the ankle-high snow. The two were the same age, but Noah was smaller than his sister, thin and wide-eyed in a way that made him look younger. He struggled to keep up, stumbling over his own feet until he could barely see her beyond the trees.

It was dark. And cold, for that matter, even though the two of them had donned their usual winter gear in a show of oddly-mature awareness. But the sun’s fall had brought about a shadow unlike that of the frosty evenings, seeping into Noah’s bones as he called out for Theo to wait. She gave no response. Frustrated, he continued running, sure that she would stop when she realized he wasn’t able to match her pace. Her footprints were the only guidance he had, the lack of light limiting his vision drastically.

He had paused for breath, leaning against a large pine, when he heard Theo cry out. The town had disappeared behind him long ago, and a glance upwards proved that it was snowing once again. Their footprints would be covered in no time. But Theo hadn’t sounded like she wanted him to catch up. She sounded like she was in pain.

He ran further into the woods, his heart pounding in his chest. Minutes passed and eventually, he reached a clearing, the towering trees giving way to cold, starry skies. Theo was lying in the snow; face-down and still as death. He dared not approach. There was a woman behind her with sallow skin and ragged hair, her sharp gaze trained on Noah. Her tattered dress trailed behind her despite the lack of wind, an ancient garment that he remembered only from the stories Nana told before she passed.

Noah was a quiet boy, but he wasn’t oblivious. He met the woman’s gaze. “Mother Winter?” She said nothing, but extended a gnarled hand and beckoned him to come closer. He did, clenching fists by his sides so he wouldn’t have the urge to check on Theo. Mother Winter seemed mad enough already.

“I must destroy this town,” She said simply, her voice little more than a wisp of air. “But you are the first one who has recognized me in centuries.” Her dead eyes were sad, somehow, and he dipped his head in acknowledgment. “Who do you want? I can save one, bring them to the Northern city.” She let him think, his wide eyes darting to the sky above, then to his sister lying in the snow.

His face was calm, accepting. “My sister, please.” The choice echoed into the clearing, and before he could continue, the wind began to pick up around the three of them. Some life had returned to Theo’s pale cheeks already.

Mother Winter stared at him for a long moment, her eyes an eerily pale shade of blue under the light of the stars. Howls of movement through the air brought snowflakes tumbling past him, but for once the cold brought no misery. “Take my hand, child. I will teach you what to do with this kindness of yours once the blizzard has passed.” He shuffled closer and did so, pressing an apologetic kiss to his twin’s cheek. She would be happier in the city.

The dark ring of trees faded to white as the snow and wind intensified, and Noah closed his eyes. The last thing he saw before falling to unconsciousness was Mother Winter before him, her eyes icicles gleaming like stars, a small smile tugging at the corners of her weary face.

Genre: Fantasy/Folklore

Age Range: 12+

Word Count: 820

Author: Kingsley

Hook: A book of wretched fairytales, fraught with struggles and half-happy endings.

Why This Project? It gives the publisher the ability to work with the currently written stories and give guidance for future additions, and the twist on the well-known fable genre is sure to grab the audience's attention.

Synopsis: A collection of short stories written from a darker perspective of fairy tales, both reconstructs of old classics and completely new originals.

Target Audience: Teens/adults

Your Bio: Heya! I'm Pheobe, just your average city-dweller typing away on my trusty computer most hours of the day. The pandemic has given me a bit more free time to work with, so I've decided to see what I can do writing-wise. I hope my ideas are to your liking! Thanks for sending out this opportunity.

We have been dating for three weeks now. I did not want to rush things, but three weeks without even the mention of sex seemed like a long time. 

So, I brought up the topic, and she agreed.

We went out to her swimming pool, and she dived in.

She squirted eggs on the water, then got out of the pool, and told me to jack off on them while she fixed herself a tuna sandwich.

Never date a mermaid.

There once was an orc named Furbog

He sat and ate a yule log

Bandits came forth

He put down his fork

And bashed their skulls in

With his fellow kin

He returned to his meal 

But boy did he keel 

When he choked on his own spit like a loser