Alina Dunn was a very special child. Her mother always told her so, so there was no reason for her not to believe it. Even the teachers at school said she was special, but they didn’t tell her like her mother did. They whispered it to each other behind clipboards with pity in their eyes and sympathies spilling from their lips. They’d keep her back after all the kids had gone to lunch and bend down to be level with her eyes. Alina supposed they did it to make her feel bigger. She didn’t like that much. It didn’t make her feel bigger at all. If there’s anything I can do to help, they simpered, but Alina always smiled and said, “no thank you!” And it was true. Alina didn’t need help. She was special.

    When Alina got home, she did the same thing she did every day - ran to the kitchen cupboard beneath the stove and sat inside. She was always careful to close the door without even the slightest gap (Mother liked it better when it was perfectly shut) and sat in the cupboard until her mother called her to come out. It was a sort of game they played, a highly-staked routine. Alina’s mother explained it like a game of hide-and-seek, only every day, there’d be a new seeker, and Alina wouldn’t know what he looked like. It was always a he. Alina’s mother didn’t have female friends.

    Alina’s prize for staying hidden was Chinese take-out. They had Chinese take-out every night. Mrs Yee gave them extra soup - “My special treat, free of charge,” she smiled with a warmth practiced from seeing her own children grow up years ago - and patted Alina on the head and Mother on the arm before they went back home for supper. Sometimes Mother liked to eat dinner at Mrs Yee’s shop. She said she felt safer. Alina supposed smaller spaces made people feel safer. Like how Mother liked it when Alina was hidden in the kitchen cupboard.

    It was starting to be a tight fit under the stove; the pressure cooker might have to move. She decided she would tell Mother, once she called. Alina’s legs were growing longer, and she couldn’t sit as long in the cupboard before they started to cramp up. The house was quiet today. Maybe her mother wasn’t working.

    But she’d stay hidden. The man would leave, Mother would call, and they’d go to Mrs Yee’s like always.

    Maybe then she’d ask her mother what a prostitute was.

The last time I ate gluten free chocolate cake was my seventeenth birthday. I laughed as I baked and snapchatted a picture of the crumbly, wheat-less, rather flat looking product to my best friend.

Her name was Sam.

She couldn’t eat gluten and so became the target of the easiest inside joke of our friends. Every box of gluten free cookies, every labeled menu option, instantly found itself the subject of a blurry phone pic showcased in our group chat. She would laugh, roll her eyes, and reply with almond milk directed toward the lactose intolerant unfortunate few.

We had fun that year. Senior year, which despite college applications and AP classes, was also golden and bright and overflowing with love. It was a race against the clock, against graduation, against going off to new lives and inevitably chalking this up to a few old facebook posts and a fond remembrance of laughter.

Far too quickly, it was over. And then we were preparing to split, and she was the first to go, the most permanent as well, moving back to Michigan. And then there were only tearful goodbyes and desperate last hugs and trying to remember her eyes, her smile, her voice, and fingers clasping but slipping away, away, away, gone.

It wasn’t so bad, after the first few days. There was social media, after all, and FaceTime. And soon, we’d all scattered, found ourselves impossibly busy once again, and it wasn’t so bad, but I took it for granted, only wished over and over to talk to her in person.

That winter was cold. Colder for her, though, all the way up north. The ice must have been brutal on the roads, and blacker than the night they were driving in, practically invisible. It was a disaster waiting to happen. And no one’s fault. That’s what they said at least. No one’s fault, no drunk driver, just a cruel trick of fate and no one to blame but the gods. They just kept saying it; no one could have known, could have done much of anything, but that made it worse, not better. I wanted someone to scream at, to hurt, to punish for taking her away from me.

How do you punish a god?

There is no longer a reason for me to get gluten free cake, no reason for me to consider it as an option each year on my birthday, but I’m drawn to it as I walk by, a sharp pain in my chest intensifying with too many painful memories and a longing to be reminded that Sam couldn’t eat gluten at my party, a longing to have that reason to pick up that box with the image of a crumbly, wheat-less, rather flat looking, gluten free chocolate cake.

"One wish?" asked Kyle.

The genie folded his arms and said, "That's correct."

"Anything I want?" asked Kyle.

"Yes." The genie was starting to get annoyed. "One wish, to solve any problem you want." The kid had been asking him the same question for about a minute straight.

"One wish..." Kyle repeated. "I have an idea,"

'Finally', the genie thought. "Well, what is it?"

"School lunch is crap. Make them serve us better food."

"Your wish is my command."

I've heard the tales, the monkey's paw, the blowback; I am well versed in unintended consequences, Mr. Genie. You can solve problems but will you also create more? If you solve climate change, will starvation and poverty result? I ask for peace on Earth so you ship all the humans and animals inclined to conflict to another planet? Most careful shall I be in my request of you but you'll be cleverer than I. You've had a millenia to practice this, haven't you? Perhaps it's learned helplessness that causes me to quake at the thought. Maybe I'm just overthinking a generous offer. The problem I most wish to solve is being able to make effective change myself. I want to help the world with so many troubles but I don't even know where to start. A small wish like that might be the best choice.

Hello? Anyone there?...

It's Mario Lexi talking here. If everything goes as planed, you're going to receive this message in 2018.

I want to set a warning! If you don't do something, your future can turn from heaven to hell!

But why am I telling you this threat? Let's start from the beginning....

In 2018 scientists all said that the Sun will only die in approximately 5 billion years. They held that this will be our last problem on the list that can clear humanity from history forever. They considered economic problems and asteroids musch bigger threats than the sun's apocalyptical death.

Now we can all say: they were wrong! Or at least they didn't count every possible options.

You're pretty confused...I guess. So let me tell you what happened:

An unexpected special fusion had gone through the Sun's inner core, which caused the Sun to start it's death period 5 billion years before it was supposed to happen!

You must get people to another planet before the end of May 2030, and start a new civilization there before it's too late!

In 2019, nuclear war will start between the USA and China, so scientists won't even have a chance to encounter the Sun's constantly growing problem(but you must have some time or otherwised we are doomed). The war will end in 2030: the world's original population's 80% is gone. The next 50 years humanity will try to recover from the war. During that 50 years the Sun will almost 'eat' Mercury. Earth's average temperature will reach 26 degrees Celsius. The ice near the poles will melt, and cities like New York or Los Angeles will be flooded with the sea. On the other hand deserts like Sahara will spread. The water becomes sparse.

Today, there is desert on every inch of the planet. There aren't seasons any more: There is only the 50 degrees Celsius summer. The few thousand survivors are all living under the desert in little city-states. Water is gained from the sea by evaporating the salt. There aren't any telecommunications.

I sent this time-capsule in 2119 July 17th. If you read this, please change the world!

Scientists in 2024(in a secret lab) have found an exoplanet in a solar-system XXX54-B7 located 5 light years from here. It has got water on its surface! Go there, make a new civilization, and live in better conditions than we do!

The Sun started growing a hundred years ago. Another hundred years and humanity with all its wonders will be gone forever!

Please change your and everyone's future,

Mario Lexi, leader of North City beneath the city you call Moscow

This is silly, but I used to see this guy. And I was pretty sure I didn’t like him that much. He was just a distraction. I liked the attention. When I used to go to his house to see him, he always smelled like soap. Freshly showered man became my new favorite scent. Finally I decided to find out once and for all what the scent was. The soap was green. I looked under the cabinet in the bathroom. It was Irish Spring. I bought some for my house. I didn’t like the way it looked (green didn’t really match in my bathroom). But every time I washed my hands, the strong manly scent of the soap intoxicated me in thoughts of him. Unfortunately this also meant I was I hooked. I knew it. Damn.

Let me tell you something.

The person you love can never be the perfect person you envisioned.

There are times you are going to love them and unfortunately, there are going to be times you hate them. And depending on the frequencies of those times, it might very well decide whether it will end in ashes or not.

You’re going to get hurt. You’re going to be most likely shut yourself in room crying because they don’t understand you. They probably don’t. They aren’t you. The books lie that people can instantly understand you. There is always a part that others can’t.

And then you are going to feel like it’s hell. It’s hell to live with them. They are also stubborn, stubborn in their ways of doing things and thinking. They aren’t going to be the sweetheart always. They will turn to demons in arguments.

But I will tell you that despite all of these, they love you. If they truly love you, no matter how twisted and wrong their thoughts, you will know it.

It’s in their lips, their words and most importantly, their actions. It’s hard to tell but let me tell you, you will know it. You will know it one day, in your most difficult situation, it’s only them who stay by your side.