If I were to drown,

Would you throw me a life raft?

If I were to drown,

Would you even notice?

If I were to drown,

Would you believe it was serious?

I were to drown,

Would you dismiss me and say I could swim?

If I were to drown,

Would you face the reality?

If I were to drown?

Would you save me?

I feel I am drowning,

And I believe you don't care.

I feel I am drowning,

And I believe that you are denying it.

I feel I am drowning,

And I believe that you are dismissing it.

I feel I am drowning,

And I believe you are minimizing my descent.

I feel I am drowning,

And I believe that you are tired of hearing about it.

I feel I am drowning,

And I believe that you doubt its validity.

If I were to drown,

Would you throw me a life raft?

Been there, done that as seven years ago, I attempted a fictionalized memoir about the first time I fell hard for someone. It was an epic failure and I can write a whole memoir about the fallout I experienced. We're talking friendships lost, strain on a marriage, personal attacks, and a direct threat. This memoir is probably more interesting than the now unpublished one.

It was an accident. I never meant to hurt anybody. However, people took my words personally as a vicious attack against them. When I started out writing this story, it’s purpose was simply to gain closure on an intense romantic relationship for my past so that I could move on. The story took on an unintended spin as I kept writing. Part of the reason I was drawn to this attraction had to do with the actions and reactions of those around me at the time. I ended up portraying in side plots things that were going on with my friends and family. I realize now that I should have disguised the characters better than I did, altered events from their reality. What I had was actually a good first draft that should have been reworked several times. My editor thought what I had was good, however, and she encouraged me to publish. When I did, I did not count on all Hell braking loose. One person, never a friend, attacked me right away with a viscious one star review that was more of an attack on me than my writing. Another person simply unfriended me, cut of all contact without reaching out at all. Still another sent me an email about how hurt she was by my selfishness. It was never my intention to evoke these reactions. After a few more attacks from the one star reviewer and a threatening message from the sister of one of the “characters,” I decided it was in everyone’s best interest that I unpublish. It was never my intention to cause the hurt that I did. I’m sorry and if I could turn back time, I would think twice before hitting that publish button.

This whole decade sucked but there were a few highlights. 2016 was pretty bad because my husband was forced into early retirement and my mother-in-law passed away. However, it was also the year of my daughter's Bat Mitzvah. I was so proud of her accomplishment and we threw a big party where I got to see a lot of friends and relatives that I hadn't seen for a long time.

2014 was good because I just accepted a contract for a job that I loved and missed (was previously employed there from 2006-2013) and was happy to be back. My daughter was thriving in her first year of middle school and got one of the leads in the school musical. I loved watching her discover her passion for theater.

2017 I was converted from contract to direct hire. This change meant salary, paid vacation days, and healthcare. We desperately needed this to happen because in the years since his buyout, my husband has not found reliable employment and the jobs he has held do not have benefits.

This decade was not a good one but it helps to remember the good that happened.

I have been married to a great guy for over 20 years but before that, I kissed many “frogs” in my search for the elusive prince.

My dating experiences took place in the 1990s, so Googling someone was not an option. The local Jewish newspaper had a personal ad section which was where a lot of my dates came from.

1. The speed date before speed dating: I answer his personal ad and we agree to meet at a coffee shop inside a book store. We make small talk for less than 5 minutes, tells me, “I don’t think it’s going to work out” and leaves.

2. The semi stalker: Also a personal ad find. We meet for a first date, he seems nice, but I’m not sure if we click. He calls me for a second date, I agree, and on this date he starts planning the future. I tell him I want to go slowly and he still calls me every day. He shows up at my house with a dozen roses, I shut him down and tell him I just want to be friends. He still calls, even drops by randomly to visit my parents who see all of this as romantic and wonder why I’m not giving him more of a chance. They don’t see that what he’s doing is creepy and obsessive, not romantic.

3. “You pay the tip.” I was crushing on this guy who was a friend of a friend around the same time I met my now husband. Obviously, I enjoyed my husband’s company but still felt I needed closure on the other guy before committing. This other guy and I had this weird flirtation going on for a few months where he’d always say to me “We should go out sometime” and never call me. Finally, he called after a friend talked to his brother and his brother gave him a push. He proposed rather than picking me up, we meet for lunch at a Chinese restaurant nearby. The small talk was pleasant but not earth shattering and then the bill came. He looked at it and proposed, you guessed it, “You pay the tip.” That night I had dinner that my now husband cooked for me and he went all out with candlelight and lobster. When the other guy called months later, I was happy to tell him I had a serious boyfriend.

4. The road trip from Hell: The term “Friends With Benefits” did not exist in the 1990s but I realize now, that what it was. I was a naive 21 year old who had fallen hard for this worldly, experienced, 34 year old divorced man. The sexual chemistry between us was amazing and I, a reader of romance novels, thought of him as one of those heroes. I flew down to visit him on my spring break and our first night together was everything that I hoped. The next morning he was inexpelicably cold to me. It eventually came out that he had met somebody else and whatever was between us was over. To make matters worse, I made some comment about watching my weight and he told me that when I was wearing my bikini earlier that I looked like I had gained weight. My heart was broken.

I’m glad that all of this is behind me!

They say you go crazy out here, but he hadn't thought it was true. Sure, the moon sucked, but at least there was a way off of it. And if there was a way out then you weren’t locked in.

Fuck this place, he thought. There was a time that he could come and go as he pleased. Back when he had a real job and a spaceship. But now he was stuck mining moon dust. What a madhouse, this place. They call it an opportunity when they invite you in, but it turns into a prison when you’re forced to stay. Fuck Mars, too, he spat.

It was the hundredth run of the day. The Lunarcrete-making machines had needed new blades so many times today that he had lost count. Hundredth time was an exaggeration, he knew that, but he didn’t actually know how many times he been out between sunrises. When the sun doesn’t set like it does on Earth, one day runs into another. One day is thirty days, give or take. And you lose track of time. Did people even have birthdays on the moon? He wondered. Holy shit, have I been here longer than I think I have? Had it been a month, or was it more like a year?

As his vehicle drove between the grey dust of buildings to the grey dust of the mine, Mac felt even more disoriented. The humps of the Lunarcrete buildings without windows looked just like the hills in the distance. Was he going the right way? He wasn’t even driving, of course it was the right way. The grey of the ground blended into the black sky, and for a mining repair guy like him, everything was grey. They say you go crazy out here, he thought. I might be going colorblind, but I’m not crazy.

Mac made it to the mine and the equipment that was stalled, cutting shapes out of the pressed Lunar dust that could be moved and used for constructing new buildings. He carefully used his tools to remove and replace the blade before switching on the robot again. Job done, he got back in the vehicle, back through the grey emptiness, and back to the grey inside, and back to the grey of his sad life.

"I gotta get off this rock," he said. "Before I really go crazy, I swear. I gotta get off this damned moon before it kills me." He looked at his head-up display for what was in his bank account. It was still not even half the amount needed for a ticket off. He had to find another way to escape this greyness.

Mac usually turned to Mary Jane for solace, but after his shift now he needed something stronger. He went to his regular spot where he went to get into trouble, the Irish pub. The standing bar tops were full tonight, each person zoned out on their personal head-up display. People weren’t here to socialize, just drink until they passed out enough to go to sleep. The sounds of people snorting and burping filled the air and matched the smell of BO and flat beer. No one paid him any attention as Mac discretely asked the bartender for something “with a little more umph”. The bartender obliged, but not without making a mental note to add Mac’s face to the list of those that might not make their shift tomorrow. If he didn’t, there’d be hell to pay.

“Don’t worry about me, man,” he responded to the bartender’s gaze of don’t fuck up and blame me.

Mac placed the fragile piece of paper laced with his escape on his tongue, closed his eyes, and inhaled through his nose deeply. The crazy swept right out of him, and the grey jumpsuits that stood around him started to turn purple and red. Color sprang into his eyes, swirling and blending the lines of faces and objects together. Yes, he thought, this is pretty.

"Is it supposed to look like that?"

"I'm not that sure. The glowing seems a little odd, though."

"Well, what were you trying to make?"

"Something called an occult circle. I wasn't paying much attention."

"Why on earth would you do that?"

"It sounded cool."

"That's it, I'm moving out."

"You can't do that, you're my mom!"

"Watch me."

The child stared at the creature standing by the bedside. It raised its hands and whispered something under its breath.

Then before the kid could even let out a scream~ the creature’s eyes started to glow like sunlight. Soon the kid’s eyes were the same colour.

The creature smiled. It snapped its fingers, and led the child through a portal to the netherworld. It’s work was done— for now.

#BOGY

“Will you hand me the bag of marshmallows? Please? Before you eat the rest of the remaining four ?!,” Jasmine said to her sister Evelyn as she reached over her chair trying desperately to not knock over the bottle of Boone’s Farm tucked in between her legs. Evelyn tossed her the crinkled up bag she had been hogging by the fire for the last hour.

“ Dang! You and that pitchers arm! You know I’m right here!”

“ Jasmine, calm down. You get upset over the littlest crap lately. You know I was just playing!

“ Yeah. Well guess what? I’m not in the mood to play.” She turned her head and looked off into the distance. Wondering when she would get to talk to her boyfriend again. She was a senior this year and this was supposed to be the beginning of an amazing and unforgettable decade. But nothing was going as planned so far.

It was New Years Eve and both her and her younger sister were bundled up from head to toe in cozy matching gingham thermals & puffy insulated ski coats to match. But they weren’t at their usual destination, a ski resort they had been going to every year since they were babies. This year their parents had opted to surprise them with a weekend get away to a secluded cabin in the mountains much to their disappointment. And here they were, decked out in top of the line ski apparel with no sign of life or usable technological devices anywhere in site. So they were trying to make the best of their less than desirable situation, as their parents remained inside getting lit by the minute, leaving them to the fire by the wayside. The smoke kept drifting towards Jasmines face, smothering her words as she coughed violently with each syllable out of her ruby red lips.

“Holy crap this blows!” She said, lifting the sticky burnt concoction into her mouth. Trying not to jab herself with the pointy stick holding it effortlessly.

Her sister nodded her head in agreement. “Yeah, the only thing nice right now is this fire.” She enjoyed the soothing sounds of the crackling, popping and sizzle of each flame that ignited itself out the little pit in front of them.

“ Think they would notice if we hitchhiked out of here!?”she said exposing a horrible imitation of someone hutch hiking.

“ Why would we do that when we could take the Family Tahoe?” She said flicking her long blonde hair out of her face.

“I don’t know how to drive but you do! I say let’s go! Let’s get out of here!! She started to jump around in circles around her.

“ Omg! Sit down Evelyn!! We aren’t doing something like that so shush it!” She said.

Sometimes her sister got on her nerves. She found herself to be quite reluctant in giving into yet another one of her sister’s crazy air brained schemes. The last time she did that they were both grounded for 2 months.

“ I just got my license and my cell phone back from the last time I was grounded. So that would be a big fat no!! She said to her sister with frustration.

The both sat their staring into the crimson and gold fire, flames shooting in all directions. They were in trance and were down to half a bottle of Boone’s, zero smokes, no source of communication and lastly they had eaten all of their marshmallows. All four to be exact.

They sat their in silence for what seemed like half and hour when suddenly they both saw in the near distance that the entire sky was lit up with a fierce fiery glow.

“ Omg! The woods!! They are on fire! And that’s not that far from where we are at Jasmine!! Go get dad!”

Jasmine ran to the cabin, pounding heavily on the oak door as hard as her little fist could pound and yelling at the top of her asthmatic lungs. She could feel the heat from the fire coming down from the mountain top at this point. She couldn’t get her parents to answer and the door was locked shut.

She ran back to her sister, grabbing her. Come on! We’ve got to get them to wake up! I bet their drunk asses are passed out.

They both pounded on the door with relentless effort. The fire wasn’t backing off anytime soon. They could see it creeping it’s way to their cabin and they both knew it would only be a matter of a few minutes before they too were engulfed in its inferno.

They grabbed a large boulder adjacent to the cabin and threw it into the kitchen window. Pieces of glass were now tangled within their hair and stuck in the crevices of their flannels but they didn’t care. They had to save their parents.

Evelyn being the smaller one climbed through the little cabin window, being careful to not let any of the broken pieces cut her as she made her way inside. In a matter of a few minutes she managed to unlocked the door to let her sister in where they shook their parents awake and out of their drunker stupor. Their eyes were in a glaze & heavily blood shot. They paid absolute zero attention to the problem at hand and could care less.

“ Check this out sis!” She picked up two empty bottles of expensive vodka, holding them up in the air as if they were trophies.

. “This explains their hesitation. They are toast.”Their parents didn’t care and laid back down and told them to go away.

“I will drag mom and you get dad!” She said to Jasmine.

“Got it! I will do whatever it takes.” But before they could even get out the door with them they noticed the fire was only a few feet away from their cabin.

They looked at one another and prayed in unison. “ Dear God please help us out of here!” “ And as if God heart them right then and there, a fireman had showed up outside, yelling for them to open the door. He was their to save their lives from the FIRE.