First Point Of Aries Sprung This Capricorn To Pisces

PROLOGUE: Earth represents the only planet (within this solar system) known to support life, or a very poor facsimile thereof. Such a manifestation, proposition and supposition, asper more intelligent entities rocketed into the stratosphere, more so NOW (on cusp decade number deux plex), viz this twenty first century than ever before, no longer guffawed, disputed, challenged, et cetera as sophisticated telescopes peer ever farther and deeper into the outer reaches of the cosmos bitta bing bitta bang starburst activity, nonetheless far out and groovy possibilities amaze this bipedal hominid.

Additionally, that conjecture proving Homo sapiens shares the bajillion planetary populated cosmos (by the way currently undergoing tabulation, securitization, renovation) courtesy of my utterly confusing gibberish to encrypt. This recently painstakingly undertaking somewhat compromised. Now heavily traversed Internet nodes also undergoing major information superhighway rip pair must compete to transmit data, but that cannot forestall the leaping, kickstarting, jarring, et cetera celebrated jumping frog (former Prince) of Calaveras County.Hence, an Impetus (to draft a thesis, at the yeast, albeit one that barley hops with water key ingredients), nonetheless underwent hundredfold increase. Greater futuristic established dogma might consider exploratory space travel less impossible missions. That said (presently unscheduled endeavor), visa vis yet tubby discovered inhabited worlds, undoubtedly strongly hypothesizes many another oblate spheroid enveloped with constituent essential matter near in composition to Earth. Most likely cosmological processes, sans other planets in our (Jolly Roger Fred lee) neighboring Milky Way Galaxy coalesced approximately simultaneously during space/ time continuumas Gaia. Alternate universes could be awash with twisted sister and doo bee (us) brother entities manifested through comparable ethereal processes as every other planet, and also received energy (in a greater or lesser proportion) extant per those most distant or closest cosmic bodies from their prodigal sun.

To a universal traveler, Earth may seem to be a harmless little planet in the far reaches of one of billions of spiral galaxies in the universe. Gaia describes an elliptical trajectory across an average size star of middling brightness and joined by seven other planets (ah...poor Pluto left out in the cold), which support no known recognizable life forms constituting the solar system. While this may be fitting for a passage from numerous prequels and sequel Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (among other entertaining out of this world page turners for estranged mortals feeling like outliers in this alien nation), by the late Douglas Adams, in the grand scheme of the universe, it would be a fairly accurate description. However, Earth is a planet teeming with vitality and is home to billions of plants and animals that share a common evolutionary track. Eve ver since time immemorial innumerable (a dam number questions) furrowed brow of man/woman kind such as the following evidence may have been lost. Scientists have made significant progress in understanding what chemical processes that may have led to the origins of life. There are many theories, but most have the same general perspective of how things came to be the way random quirky phenomena overtook numbers (millions) linkedin kinetic jinxed illustrious happenings. An account of life’s beginnings based on some of the leading research and theories related to the subject, and of course, fossil records dating back as far as 3.5 billion years ago designating the scientifically acceptable denouement viz Earth’s Beginnings would be an infinite tome.

Never in my cow well LIX anniversaries of birth did I ever experience such an unseasonably warm February, March, April...September 2018 (i.e. the date this anonymous mortal jotted down the musings peppering his inquisitive mind). Now my bio hazmat poise zen gruff feed dee doth Buzz with an apropos diversion, whence a short written interjection will proffer broad leafed brushstrokes qua lee fie ying yours truly to draw inquisitive onlookers. Matthew Scott Harris (the second offspring and only son of Boyce and the late Harriet Harris) made his unheralded debut on a brutally cold January thirteenth, when Earth completed one thousand nine hundred and fifty ninth orbitz round the sun.

Once awareness blossomed within thee Iris of each eye, Mother Nature with his proclivity to become most grounded when basking in the seasonal pastel of sounds and smells.This predilection a rose and stemmed from (rooted) self-propelled exposure to fauna and flora. All creatures great and small he found bedazzled, delighted, fixated, harmonized, kindled, moored, ogled, quelled, seduced, tantalized, vaunted from biodiversity. His father - employed as a mechanical engineer with general electric - heard the powerful lungs of this gangly newborn prior to being permitted to cradle said infant nada so terrible.

Though born (agh gin in Cincinnati, Ohio – The Buckeye State), this sole son spent the majority of his existence at two rural areas fifty plus four years ago. Audubon and Collegeville the geographic names of said locales. He attended first at half of second grade at an elementary school in the former place name. His ability to adjust from one than another grade school evinced early signs of difficulty. Extreme shyness in tandem with a congenital speech defect (submucous cleft palate) seemed to alienate him from other classmates. As an outside neutral observer, I (thine older - boot not necessarily wiser self ) watched with gut wrenching agony how he seemed socially detached and rarely invited to join in any reindeer games.Yes, a gross degree of taunting left him without friends. Lack of confidence and ultra reticence offered manna to bullies. Matter of fact, this vulnerability and susceptibility per being on the receiving end of verbal slings continued all thru public education. He graduated without any vocational idea (despite an ignoble attempt to fail - and yet got promoted nonetheless), and then endured parental wrath equal ultimatums with scathing expletive filled lectures. The absence of clear-cut goals found him enrolling and withdrawing from countless colleges and/or universities. Delay with interpersonal success accompanied like a dark shadow creeping closer like the edge of night. Uncomfortableness, and hesitation didst arise apprising mine threadbare existence hence, you might reassess a possibility for fellowship, friendship or.... whatever with me. A disappointment sets in place the in utero event based on some facet of my being (inexplicable flaws within this corporeal human male), forecast that an about face (booked on charges inherent in this googly eyed, earth-linked, kool hotmail of a yahoo), would be un liked.

Juno what I mean?

In retrospect, no matter that this average boyish Earthlink chap desires enjoyment, he admits that ordinary punctuating various stages of development difficulty coping found him msn (miss sin, missin, missing, et cetera) on ordinary interpersonal experiences. No matter yours truly usually finds me each morning, noon or night conjuring up maximizing temporary residence on this planet earth versus bemoaning those futile and essentially counterproductive mind games sans could a, might a, should a, would a... Height elle (I tell) mice elf (Stuart Little reincarnate automatically) today equals the moment to cherish, enjoy, help others, ponders remaining years, since fruitless to expend tears for suppressed emotional, financial, grammatical, hormonal, physical, and spiritual angst that roiled mine inner sanctum - mainly from decades in the past, which unseen scars with humor this fellow wears whatever attire to help him feel Prada himself.

Unsure if you took notice, sans buttery delivery, foray honestly, jocularly loosely, (nary play really try vanity) how this doodling Yankee oozes with zest affinity, desirability, rhapsody for lingua franca, although just but a mere inkling prevails butta hi yam newt close to completing this quasi true ought tow biographical comedic sketch, and hoop attentiveness prevails asper wading thru thicket of verbiage, which reality check (believe me) sum times restrains proclivity and predilection to let thoughts run wild and free. Immense and immeasurable mounts in das little noggin (at heaven's gate) ribbed rocked rudimentary rye ming missive inducing an electric arc for myself to kin neck the dots. The feeble challenge entails sifting any salient pieces of information embedded in all this schlock. An unbiased sixth sense arises that this holme body strongly suspects yar self to generate sunny watts as an s spy she lee Sherlock but, reticence to gush with ebullience reins in a cascade of utter delight washing o'er this moist lee satisfactory mwm, though as a boy and youth happened tubby a frayed of his own shadow - while walking along the boulevard of broken dreams listening to the sounds of silence on a green-day. Thus inviting entrance into my private spiritual sanctuary, where at this cerebral being regales being healthy in the am and pm. This ordinary human finds himself a mystery within the terrestrial firmament and frequently feels in a feverish pitch at his existence, that seers the temple mounted upon this slender wishful thinking, er...rather medium built frame. Wrought by the combination of genetics in tandem with (pen ultimate) exercise which latter helps to sublimate the coiled tension wound tightly like an indestructible spring without a healthy medium at large to channel emotions fraught within me might find demise that would rent asunder literate fellow, and thus annihilate without a trace one true valued father of two lovely lasses, well nigh enroute to embark on their promising quests for life, liberty, and the pursuit oh happiness.

Though this body electric immediately acclimates to balmy, dreamy and fantastically heavenly ray dee eighteen degrees Fahrenheit 451 or Celsius 232.78 , an inherent unease percolates thru thy head, shoulder, knees and toes (in addition to other various and sundry anatomy of this mortal), when the weather extant upon this terra firmae with radiant spring temptation more lichen April or May.

Methinks Mother Nature (Gaia to this bivouacked bipedal hominid), strongly suspects the small, medium and large meteorological forces affecting this planet – Earth – deploying an invisible armada of retaliatory defense mechanisms.

Constant comet bombardment attributed to the activity and proliferation of mankind surpassed the tipping point of environmental degradation. Animal and plant species now resembles bare numb circus, where gallimaufry of befuddled, dazed and filleted habitats aimlessly wander amidst prematurely blossoming greenery. Each animal and plant synchronized to their own circadian rhythm became hi-jacked, shoehorned, and wrenched from respective niches. Microorganisms react viz springing to L’Chaim prematurely early, or such ecosystems abide by the coda within their genetic blueprint and express their rebirth when disparate carbon hated life forms long since flowered and went to seed.

Already the crocuses poked thru the ground, (asper in thee occasion of this mister dashing of this miss sieve) , while whizzing antics of healthy looking house flies emerged. Lo, an irrevocable unsteady state seems to prevail. The dire prediction oft spoke by prognosticators sans greenhouse effect community aghast at this uncontrollable unseen Trolling Ogre will get her/his day, week, month…. til the end of time. Fretful bipedal hominids will care naught for nobody but protecting their own ass once tectonic forces triggered by pompous primates succumb to the harbinger of massive dislocation sans the living skein of life. Humans who feel frightened at an unstoppable trend sally forth, and righteously quicken proclamations ordaining noble measures must be enacted without further delay. Industrialization might accurately spell the extinction vis a vis global warming vast swaths of biological diversity forced habituation jolted long in the tooth from belching demonic fiends heaping jinxed limned noxious poisons reaping terrestrial violation.

Without applying a brake upon the crass fuel-driven paradigm, this absolute zero tolerance cannot be reversed spelling a total eclipse of the sol are majority based organic entities. Each individual who subscribes to the western i.e. capitalist credo (whether by choice or force) contributes to the casus belli re: natural council declaring war against chief garbage loaders cumulative degradation. Perhaps to a lesser degree than mega-death machinations of manufacturers, whose invasion of every square inch of land and sea in the name of progress searching amidst diminishing non-renewable resources leave a far greater environmental footprint. The inherent tenets of nature disallow human’s kickstarting plenti of spewing raw tumbling unctuous vile waste. The horrible, fiendishly devilish bilious billions of people (within the so called developing countries) collectively aim to carve a likeness of so-called American dream modality. The governments of said countless nations adopt shift from agrarian to pollution noisome madcap lash jettisoning any impact statements, but bulldozing nonetheless full speed ahead. This equivalent damn the torpedo mentality traced back hundreds of years when Europeans “discovered” vis a visa indigenous and vast virgin world wide web. The joker wild within the house of cards presents a precarious deck stacked against both master and slave compromising cardinal rules.

The latter, (who generally comprised eminent grise inhabitants) subject to being kraaled, deadlocked, and maliciously punished primitive cultures on questionably spurious unfounded wrongs. First and fatal impact of those purported and celebrated seamen unwittingly unleashed indomitable chain reaction now bestriding the globe as a vicious, vociferous and vu i.e. self-destructive infinite jesting feedback loop. Total ignorance undergirds violent insults inflicted upon Garden of Eden. Each subsequent generation of Homo sapiens bestowed upon themselves the lush paradise with the wrath of Kong. A veritable grab bag per catchers catch whatever one can issued born credo re: wielded might versus alt right. Those with manifest destiny as their polestar desecrated, hoarded and lorded over powerless tribes of Israel. Nothing could stave feeding frenzy at the trough of what seemed an infinite zone of plentiful riches galore. Aside from the abundant lily of the fields, the hinterlands proffered what spelled profits to false prophets. The shrine and sanctuary of materialism lured knaves one and all. Brute force dictated the warpath to wreaking vengeance on pristine opalescent jewel. Addictive narcotics menaced LivingSocial so called noble savages. Sense, sensibility mixed with pill grim pure written pride and prejudice drove denizens like death eaters. Neither sense nor sensibility practiced in regard to rubric of respect for living things. No excuse ought to be made for those scamps routing quiescent peoples oblivious nee misled, lured, killed…. jubilantly in the name of indecency, heretical gimmickry fostering a long lasting diatribe against native populations. This now serves as a backdrop to the current debacle cultivated, browbeaten, and assiduously practiced with little or no reflection upon temporal plain. One could inscrutably, fecklessly, and conveniently accuse distant settlers and subsequent generations sans current plight, but such blame and shame accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Many contemporary futurists inveigh predacious predilection of previous potent Philistines lacerating onslaughts reducing uber third rock from the sun. Akin to altering the course of a humongous ship of state within a cosmic sea, the effort to reorient the modus operandi viz stoking power hungry gremlins i.e. faux espousers digging Jimmy John craters asper business as usual, yes do predominate. This mindset of scraping hotspots for maintaining the bottom line will be a moot point in the near to present doomsday.

Collective soul asylum bargaining against further desecration binds all mortals. No one will escape implications (especially the indigent, whose existence always compromised first and foremost since time immemorial). Wars will be fought since everyone will be equally plagued as with a cancerous carbuncle. The (furies) fates do not play favorites, nor practice indiscriminate selective exceptions to the rule. As a general generic guide in incognito dis guy’s getup amidst the legion of money grubbers (whose glistening eyes water with tears of delight and register dollar signs), the savior qua proponents drowned out in a febrile evil, diabolical, clangorous Babel which will be brought to a screeching halt lest more than incremental transformations adapted as soon as possible. Pleasant as summery air feels during what ought to be bitterly cold doldrums finds gravitation hugging incredulous jacked up degrees. How soothing the sun feels upon the countenance seducing one (myself included) into a hypnotic illusion. Logarithmic and/or exponential activated butterfly effect perturbation will increasing induce severe shifts within means to survive, when days, weeks and months presage unrelenting torturously searing reductionist absurdum flailing simians will rank as best comedy of errors for script writer accountable for primates like us. A charade, façade, and mockery paraded bromides with one hand will be counteracted via feasting within horn of good and plenty on the other hand. Payment will be imposed upon future progeny saddled with the albatross of a burnt offering, when Mother Nature looses the full force of “her” vengeance. An early warning thunderstorm rocked this quadrant of Montgomery county Pennsylvania on two months into winter, when ole man winter barely made a cameo appearance. The precipitation scant for this Tri-county/ Tri-statearea, which within just the recent past witnessed blizzards, will into the vernal equinox – include totally eclipsed of the sun. Delicate fabric rent asunder at the speed of greased lightning. The leveraged buyout (based on base corrupted damn earthlings fucked up beyond all recognition. Once Madre Nature, an August exalted issued outstanding unparalleled yawping threnody. Millenniums mankind meddled moving muck, and raked, plundered and numbed landscapes (jabbering hoarsely findings) dereliction became assiduous. Now finely calibrated dynamic encroached globalization intertwining keepers lockstep marauding nattering nabobs of nativity pocketing ruthlessly treasures violating x yin yang, ping pong orthodox Mithraism.

Duality usurped in the name of progress. Onward Christian soldier so goes the maxim. Thus the rubric (walled stone by barbed wire) legitimizes the rampant spoilage threatening not only the survival of one measly mountebank (chuckling how easy filching goodies from the less well armed) will unwittingly become the playful toy of mighty natural outsize vectors. These cosmic forces will not care less for the reddit ding, skittering, and twittering madding crowds. A wallop (more like a Flickr of the wrist sans the grand pooh bah overruling like some Olympian god) upside the collective talking heads, whose spinning triggers webbed worldly wunderkinds to whirl, twirl, pirouette alakickstarter gig for the benefit of the Furies asper a hard day’s journey into night rewound, revised, requisitioned, and recounted for modernity, posterity from Aeschylus. Blithe Dan er, and significant other elicited demeanor fueling habitual je nais sais quois lackadaisical nominal pinterest re: torts vilified. Though typical of the capitalistic consumer current (and yet averse to contribute additional flotsam and jetsam within the streaming putrid, offal, nauseating effluent), they felt their figurative horns of plenti to be linkedin intractably with the Armageddon debacle grievously jabbing Mother persecuting species variety yanking blimey Earth, horrific kickstarter, offensive riffraff, usurers xing arrested, deftly gaming jury. Tribalism from the formative days when primates who eventually predominated the whirled wide web ineffably reigning supreme barely left any criminal evidence glomming irreparably killing manifold opportunistic quintessential species until the most recent generation. Within the span of a mere couple/few generations, the terrestrial firmament gutted, flouted, and exploited beyond the tipping point of reclamation, pollination, and magnification whereby the ability for this, that or the other life form can acquire a toe hold and eventual fruitful glide heralding immaculately (conceiving) joyous kindled leased market niche ousting pestilential quotidian rabid spoilers thru usurping vanity wantonly xing yearning zeal from divers other biological inhabitants sans this oblate spheroid.The burgeoning human population (which doubling, tripling, quadrupling, et cetera of this most invasive, corrosive, abrasive beasts) with no indication of slowing down in the future will ineluctably find that the limitation of resources will trigger internecine warfare (these battles fought mainly for the basic needs as highlighted by Abraham Maslow and other prescient prognosticators spelling out the man-made maelstrom massacring hordes of innocent people in addition to those other innocently oblivious animals, who will pay the price for the folly fashioned from the imperceptible incremental creep evidenced by quantum leaps of said bipedal hominids, whereby such barely discernible promulgation. Hindsight (versus donned trumpeting ex pence sieve blinders viz camera obscura) replays boondoggles to allowing, enabling and providing insight asper those vectors when thee vulnerable, susceptible, and pitiable caveman lurched ahead of other coexisting geico noble savages.Tis quite plain as day where within universal, chronological, anthropological...edge foster a long shot at the ancestors of modern man acquired the literal and figurative upon hand (courtesy of the opposable thumb) maiden of fickle finger of fate ability to become more bombastic, deterministic, and fatalistic, outflanking other simians whose disadvantages increased in direct proportion to the skill sets promoting survival of the fittest.

Deleterious affects tens of thousands of eons into the offing when a hapless motley crue possessed cognitive features endowing each subsequent generation with an increased realm of tricks of the trade to outfox less quick to learn forerunners to Homo sapiens near relations.The pace to perfect deliberate, conscious basic instincts multiplied exponentially once cerebral fortitude imprinted lobes of rational reasoning ushering xyz aptitude couched from inception in utero. Synthesized genetically modified products earn kudos to scientists (i.e. biologists, chemists, ecologists, et cetera), luminaries, engineers, et cetera for evincing ever more ingenuity to extract sought after raw materials to keep the vast swarms of LivingSocial creatures (namely Homo sapiens) to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of the latest electronic gizmo. Despite the decreased environment impact Vis a vis utter ad complete ruination to tracts of arable land; the ability to ratchet up an endless logarithmic breakout technology must eventually attain an impediment to production.The rubric viz Judeo-Christian ethos places significance on the importance of each life no matter the quality of air and/or water becomes increasingly polluted.

A cross roads hints at catastrophic declarations giving horrendous knockabout liquidating oodles (perhaps seventy five percent) reduction within thee most aggressive, demanding, and grotesquely jabbering malignant node odiously poisoning quota of every carbon derived epistemological furrowed browed avowedly most deadly entity to occupy this oblate spheroid.

EPILOGUE: Cue the wonderful world wide webbed wizard sans solving the plethora of malicious, pernicious, and salacious spate of avariciousness, indecorousness and ugliness perpetrated on the planet, which tipping point per rectifying shameless thorough going spree of desertification, humiliation, laceration….no breathing cosmic domicile exhibiting fabulous grandeur hones IdentityGuard to ward off.

Though terrestrial spheroid ransacked quite obviously per naked manhandling; living, kickstarting, joyus incriminatory humiliating greed, flora, fauna, eventually drive craven, bamboozling action.

MOTHER NATURE’S SUPREME DISPLAY

A strand of pearls clung to slender tree limbs

bejeweled woody flora prismatic orbs

tell tale sign recent cloudburst

cleft darkened heavens

rained watery life source liquid

downpour laced branched canopy

awash with molecular droplets

requisite to feed burlesque Vaudeville bluster

exquisite gala performance unrehearsed

unscripted ubiquitous theatrical performance

received limitless encores

toward Gaia screenwriter

whose infinite scope

(wrought upon the natural landscape palette)

exceeds the finite abilities of those bipedal dominatrix

human organisms imbued

whose dilettante debut

(dawned these last seconds on the clock face of geologic history)

might witness the curtain call on their final act.

Thus, this buttered, battered, and bartered bride (from Brooklyn sole air system), i.e. the oblate spheroid known as planet Earth forcibly rendered into an entrepot for the hubbub of humanity, whose insatiable hunger and unquenchable thirst demanding execrable violations to flora and fauna extant upon the global theater.

The sound of the beast’s gentle steady neighing echoed in the foggy air. Sahara slowly opened her eyes and gazed at the small creature. It snorted, and then stuck out its tongue at her.

This made Sahara burst out laughing. She preferred to spend her time outdoors, basking underneath the golden sunbeams, while listening to the sounds of nature, or green noise as her beast taming instructor liked to call it.

*SWISH*

‘What was that?’ Her eyes landed on something glistening near the side of the beast’s wooden stall.

Sahara bent down on one knee. She reached for the shiny object, and gasped.

There had been stories passed down through oral tradition. Sahara wondered if these old folks’ stories had not just been made up for the young ones to be at least gentle to those around them— the villagers, including the forest critters, even knowing how to take care of everything surrounding the village- all the natural and precious resources.

Sahara felt a wave of shock pass through her body. Whatever this thing was it definitely was worth holding onto for a while.

Later, after she had sung a lullaby to all the beasts she was asked to take care of during the day, Sahara decided to lightly walk toward the Nile. Once there she sat down by the riverbank, and whistled a soft, steady tune.

As she did so, the amulet in her grass weaved bag began to glow a bright rainbow color. Sahara quickly rose to her feet, and pulled out the amulet from her bag.

To her dismay, the amulet shattered in her palms. But then a female being clothed in Royal garb smiled, and grinned.

 Sahara stared in awe at the being. ‘Hey, surely you must know who I am? Right?’ The being spoke in a booming tone.

Sahara blinked, and shook her head. ‘Nope. Your face looks ancient. Are you a Mummy?’

The being gasped. ‘How dare you? I’m Mench… you silly child!’

Sahara raised her left eyebrow, and sighed. ‘Alright. I must be daydreaming, or sleepwalking?’

Mench snapped her fingers, and whisked Sahara right into a moving chariot. Sahara screamed. ‘Hey….take me back home…right now!’

Sahara closed her eyes, and when she opened them she was back at her favorite chill zone, by the Nile. Mench asked, ‘What in the name of Ra are you kids learning about these days?’

‘How to tame beasts.’

’Ah— okay- but you really should be learning about the ones who created the beasts that you are trying to tame. I might need to have a word with your Minister of Instruction.

‘Back in my day, and time, we made sure to give you humans powerful gifts. From the moment you were born, you had been granted something you could use to make this world a better place.’

Mench continued to lecture on, and on, about how as a goddess she would try to remind the folks of the powerful gifts that they were missing out on. They had not been providing any more sacrifices, and so, these gifts had not been passed down to the ones born during Sahara’s timeline.

Sahara was about to drift off to the realm of dreams when she felt a sharp pinch on both of her cheeks. ‘Ow! What was that for?’

‘Wake up. C’mon. Stick with me kid, and you shall receive powerful gifts!’

Sahara took off running in the direction of the palace. She was ready to call it a day.

Mench yelled out, ‘You can’t escape fate, kid. You were meant to find the amulet, or rather the amulet was meant to find you!’

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0OJrjUm0Fb8

#Abandoned #gods ©️ 04.06.2023

You end up there because you’re a fuck-up. Sitting in a plastic party chair at the 4x16 foot plastic table I stared intently at the resin-yellow disco ball hanging from the ceiling and imagined it had seen more tears, cigarette smoke and bullshit than a three-hundred-year-old social worker. My road to recovery had begun and the regret I felt wasn’t for all the people I had hurt, lied to, ripped off and fucked over – it was for what I should have done to avoid being in that chair.

I scanned the room and forced myself to read the heart-touching platitudes and the moronic acronyms – anything to avoid the empathetic eyes of the caring or loud-mouthed bullshit whirling around me. The whole room seemed a toilet bowl that would either spill over or stop just at the very top. I drifted in and out of the mandatory readings, court cards, money in the basket, principles before personalities, and non-religious higher-powered spirituality until a member was chosen to recite a prayer and get the ball rolling.

“Our father we come to you as a friend, where ever two or more are gathered you will be in their midst…”

The walls. Read what’s on the walls.

“Keep coming back”

“One day at a time”

“Easy does it”

A triangle in a circle: is that the universal symbol of homosexuality?

I had heard all of this before, a court ordered bumper sticker. With the formalities in place and giddy chatter subsiding, the recovery dumper backed its ass up to the edge of the abyss ready to plop out its load.

Today’s topic: Spirituality and your higher power. I guess standard A.A. protocol is to single out the newest, saddest, self-conscious fuck in the room and ask them if they would like to be the first to “share.”

A well-intentioned skank bathed in expired perfume with crayon orange lipstick smudged across her top denture asked me if I would like to share.

“No.” I had seen it coming and had said the word in my mind a thousand times preparing for her. “Well, what about you June? I see you over there smiling and talking to Carl.”

“My name is June, and I am a very grateful alcoholic.”

I would be more grateful to be mentally retarded, I thought. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a retard cry. We were only ten minutes into the meeting. My thoughts startled me. Don’t judge. This woman’s an idiot. People are you. Don’t judge.

Spiraling thoughts were broken when I became acutely aware of the odor assaulting my nostrils: an admixture of boiled hot dogs, unwashed snatch, and Dennison’s Chili.

I felt a stare, heard the “telephone pervert breather” breath, and turned to face the inevitable. Our eyes locked as I sat in pussyfied politeness while the burned-out speed freak from the 70’s cracked a smile of baked bean teeth and began tapping his dirty index finger on the side of his grimy coffee cup. Veils of lacquered-on brown slobber drips, it had been a long time since the scumbag had bothered to wash his own mug. Fossilized flecks of mouth flotsam covered two children huddled beneath an umbrella, the caption read, “If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.” Sheepishly nodding my head, I looked up to see his stare had remained locked on me. His face was fixed in a self-satisfied recovering asshole expression that I immediately loathed and vowed to never emulate. The way the idiot was smiling you would have thought that he had just turned me on to Jesus.

I broke eye contact with a feeling of shame and pushed my feet on the ground to relieve as much of my body weight from the chair as possible trying to not make a sound and draw attention to myself as I made a break for the exit. With just enough space to slip away from the table, I walked the bubble wrap mile to the door as a murky voice droned on about how wonderful their new life was. Grasping the doorknob that had the hoodoo of a billion soggy Kleenex firm and welcoming handshakes on it, I shimmied out of the meeting into the lobby. Referred to as the “half measures room,” the lobby had earned its nickname from chapter five of the alky bible, “The Big Book.” I paused for a moment to regulate my breathing and lessen the fear but immediately my brain began the violent mind fuck: “Yours is a punishing system.” To counter it I vocalized in my mind “calm the fuck down, it doesn’t have to be like this,” but my self-administered pep talk was too late. It was on.

I felt like an idiot. What kind of moron gives up his own apartment, pisses away everything, and ends up in a place like this expecting magic from a few minutes of one meeting of this cult. I hated myself, hated letting my life get so pathetically out of control, hated all of it. I couldn’t help but think about every piece of shit who had blatantly disrespected me, saw my kindness as weakness and preyed upon me when I was sick and broken. Scenario after scenario ran through my mind: who I should have beat down, who I would have loved, and how I could have avoided crapping all over my fucked-up useless life. Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda. I chose and once again I made the wrong decision; I was doomed to be an idiot.

“When are you gonna quit puttin’ quarters in the ass-kickin’ machine” said the urban cowboy with the solid white mutton chops to the basket case with the shaved head.

“What?” I blurted out in habitual meek manner.

He repeated himself with more gusto and seemed to be getting off on my inability to process his regurgitated witticism.

“What’s that?”

“You keep feedin’ that thing quarters and it keeps kickin’ your ass.” He wouldn’t go away, and I couldn’t disappear.

“You got yourself a sponsor?”

“Uh-hu”

“What about a big book?”

“Yes”

“Well, you might want to read it and do your fourth and fifth step so that you can get on with this program, get a life worth living and start acting the way god wants.”

The fourth and fifth steps: an inventory and admission of every personal secret shame that keeps you an active alcoholic, an inoculation against an imaginary disease. Talking to God and admitting to one other trustworthy soul of every time you had a homosexual experience, stolen from your parents, fucked somebody for cash or made a beer run: guaranteed release. Evangelical pardon from the invisible chains that hold you earthbound and cock blocked from your highly anticipated way to religious ecstasy.

I had heard many alkys talk of these steps and the fantastical feelings they earned from spilling their guts. The aftermath was commonly reported to be followed by being on a pink cloud. How could I lose? “I don’t know what happened or how it works but I now have a higher power in my life that I can rely on for sustained sobriety, car payments, unrequited love, getting my family back, and so much more”. What a crock; non-mystery it all was: an imaginary friend with superpowers, a cosmic babysitter with a vested interest in the banal superficialities of your new life.

“Who’s your sponsor?” it was the cowboy again.

“Oh, uh, my sponsor?” He’s not from around here.”

“You need to find one here.”

“Oh-okay.”

He sat in his chair eyeballing me. I felt like a five-year-old who had been busted for something that was completely beyond my comprehension.

He turned to re-engage the other crusty old buzzard sitting across from him. I was free to go.

Stepping outside to leave I was horrified. There were more of them congregating in the parking lot and the only way past them was to acknowledge their presence and hope they weren’t interested in who I was. All shaved heads and gloating goatees they stopped their yakking, turned their attention to me and introduced themselves, hands out all around. After I reciprocated, they glanced me over, blew me off and resumed yakking. I stood there like a fucking idiot. Paralyzed. No clue of how to simply walk away.

Like a beat to shit dog waiting to be patted on the head, I finally clenched every muscle in my body and moved away. Out of everyone’s immediate space my head resumed war on itself. Sheets of glass dropped from the sky and exploded all around me, everything, and everyone I had ever loved disintegrated. I was lost inside my skull as a thousand televisions tuned to a thousand different channels blared at full volume. I was in hell and there wasn’t a person, a thing, a god, a love or the smile of a child that could fix it. FUCK! FUCK!! FUCK!!!

It was broad daylight and drive time as the tears began to seep. People everywhere. Goddamned people in their cars, on the sidewalks, in office buildings, in uniforms, in love, in airplanes; people with people growing inside of them, pushing little people in strollers. I began to sob and choke. The snot slickened my hands and my eyes swelled shut from the bitterness of a failed existence. I hated the fucking world and begged for forgiveness.

~ - ~

I made it to my apartment without throwing myself into traffic or stopping at the liquor store and felt no better for it. Across the former fruit picker barracks courtyard Bill and Annie stood together. Bill was a good guy who was constantly drunk and perpetually barbequing. He would get wasted and bore the shit out of me with talk of atmospheric pressure, scientific data on asteroids, tips on camping, and the divorce he was going through. Annie was white trash. Lead paint and power lines. Trailer parks, gang rapes, a mother dead from alcoholism, and lots of uncles. She was as good a reason as any to not believe in god or universal fair play or evolution as anything I had seen. She had zero tact, an ugly pain-formed scrunched face and an ass that reminded me of a cardboard box that had been kicked in then reshaped.

“Hey Dave!” they sang in drunken unison, “Are you coming from your meeting?” I had made the mistake of telling them that I was part of “Team-AA” and didn’t drink.

“Yeah.”

“How was it?” Annie giggled as Bill stood there with his standard issue Budweiser grin.

“It sucked dick. What are you cooking?”

“Steak and chicken,” he looked down at the can he was holding. “You’re welcome to join us. If the beer bothers you, I can put it in a cup.”

“If the beer bothers me that’s my problem.” I’ll be back in a minute.”

I crossed the courtyard, pushed my way into the roach poison stench and ninety-degree heat of my apartment, went straight for my meds, chewed four Klonopin dry and grabbed an ice cold can of malt liquor that I had had stashed in the back of the fridge to wash down the paste. “Fuck everybody,” I muttered as I looked around the cracker box living compartment. I grabbed my wallet and hit it out the door.

“Takin’ off?” Bill asked.

“Goin’ to the store.”

“Are you sure you wanna do that?” chimed Annie.

“Let me check,” I glanced up at the sky not breaking stride toward the liquor. “Yeah.”

A cowboy in a brothel, a drooling of the soul. I hadn’t had a drink in eleven months and had one hundred and thirty-two dollars and every reason in the world to get anesthetized. Sobriety was torture. It hurt to breathe and all I had managed to do over those past sacred months was sit in meetings, masturbate compulsively, and fall asleep night after night to the light of the television with my head in a vise. I dropped anchor and stood in front of the refrigerators as the caps of the bottles flipped up and down, greeting me by name and singing gleefully at our reunification. It felt good to be back home. Twelve pack imported, a sixer of malt and one pint domestic. When I returned Bill had disappeared next door to shovel his barbeque at a girl he was trying to fuck. Annie sat on the concrete square outside her front door,

“Hey.”

“Hey. You want a beer?”

“Sure!” she lit up with a smile.

“Well come on over, I’m gonna get this stuff in the fridge.”

She stood behind me in the kitchen watching me stuff beer into the glove box compartment freezer, already hammered. I took a butter knife and framing hammer, busted loose a couple of chunks of frost from its sidewall, tossed them into two coffee cups and poured the whiskey high.

“Here you go,” I handed her a mug and grabbed mine.

“So, you’re not going to AA anymore?” she asked.

“Not tonight. Tonight, I’m going to get fucked-up. Screw AA.”

“What are those meetings for anyway?”

“Mental masturbation. For those who love the sound of their own voice. For people too stupid to find their way to an actual church. It’s nice cozy place you can go and commiserate with a bunch of other fuck-ups about your ‘Disease’ and how ‘Normal People,’ whatever planet they reside on, don’t understand you because even though you don’t drink anymore or are trying not to drink you will never be like them because, previously unbeknownst to you, you’re a hedonistic, self-absorbed, self-appointed defective human being using a disastrous denial system which has been glaringly obvious to anyone with two marbles to scratch together, but completely eluded you your entire life. You should go sometime; it’s a fuckin’ hoot and a half.”

I caught my breath and smiled, recalling the first time I heard some geriatric macho guru spouting off that his worse day sober was better than his best day drunk. “What a dick” I thought at the time; “what a complete fuckhead” I thought again as I drained my mug, held it upside down over my mouth, and tried to touch the bottom of it with my tongue. She smiled and laughed. Not a thing I said had even registered with her, but it didn’t matter. I just wanted somebody to drink with who would periodically laugh, feign some interest in who I was, and let me stick it in their ear for a few hours. An emotional Kotex. Somebody to wipe the shit of my soul onto. I was happy she was there.

“Want another?”

“You just handed me this one.”

I took the mug from her and smiled. “Well, how about I freshen it up for you.”

I sucked hers down, refilled both mugs, and with a series of flourishing hand gestures I spoke with an auctioneer’s rapidity and laid down the rules of the house.

“There you are – bottoms up. If you need to puke, front door, trash can, sink, or hold your shirt out like a basket and aim south. Other then that, go to town!”

“Huh?” she looked confused. I slowed my speech to that of a guidance counselor on Quaaludes and repeated these instructions in a monotone and then burst into laughter.

“Nothing, enjoy.”

We sat opposite each other. She on the couch and myself at a collapsible table that held a homemade six-x-five-foot-tall rectangular bookshelf. Twenty pounds of stereo piecework was perched there and at the zenith was a fifteen-pound Buddha the size of a cantaloupe. My command center. Music, literature, porno rags, lotion, paper towels, dozens of writing utensils, a multitude of legal pads and grade school composition books filled with repetitious crybaby rants: loneliness, fear, my hopelessness on being a state-certified depressive retarded morbid asshole drowning in my life on a brutal stupid planet – the hand I’d been dealt. Pages of chaff interspersed with rudimentary sketches of tear-spattered suicide poses. I had constructed this heap with an unobstructed view of the ka-ka-colored bunkers, dozens of feral cats, and the hot dead asphalt of the courtyard that sopped up the sun and always smelled of piss and ordained it my writing table. I felt bad every time I sat here but aside from the toilet it was the best seat in the house.

“What is that thing?” she pointed to the Buddha and breathed quietly out of her mouth.

“It’s a trophy, I won it playing croquette, placed third. Pretty cool huh?”

Her stare met my eyes briefly then bobbled up and down between my face and crotch. She squirmed in her seat.

I knew what was coming so I got myself another cup of whiskey and popped open a beer. If I was going to have sex with this girl, I was going to be delirious and she was going to be pretty.

“What about me?” she cracked a perturbed canary-yellow cutie smile.

“Oh, sorry. Help yourself.”

She stood and hiked her pants up high and tight.

“Grab me another beer, huh?”

Damn. Don’t fuck her. You are drunk and if you were not drunk you would not fuck her.

She handed me my beer; she asked if we were gonna fuck.

“What?”

Her lemon-stained smile widened. I felt like a cartoon character who was about to be pushed over a cliff for the umpteenth time. She lingered there.

“You look like you could fuck me really good.” she said.

The balance of power had shifted. My good time Charlie lampshade hat had been swiped for something I knew was going to end up biting me in the ass down the road.

I could tell she knew that I was repulsed by her. She was standing there eye- balling me, challenging me. It was now my duty to at least fuck her and not deny, confirm, or justify my actions to anyone, including myself.

We cautiously approached each other and as we began kissing our movements became jumbled and dyslexic. My hands went up in a halting position as I grabbed at her tits like they were something intrusive and separate to the matter. We were two very anxious drunken people who had just skipped into traffic together and had to keep going for our own clouded interior reasons.

I pulled myself out of my t-shirt and felt flabby and spent. For a millisecond I fantasized that we would both start laughing simultaneously, agree to a postponement and spend the rest of the evening drinking and enjoying each other’s company. As I stepped out of my shorts I looked down and saw my form in the mirror and stared at my dick, my size 15 foot, my six-foot five-inch 235-pound frame and wished my shoe size were two or three smaller. I wasn’t asking God for a kickstand, just a little consideration.

"You okay?" she seemed worried.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm cool."

She peeled off her dirty leotards and tee-shirt. We stood in that awkward space where I had been too many times before. Naked in front of a total stranger and the only thing I could think to say was “Wellp, here we are.” I forced a charming chuckle to ease the weirdness of the situation but all it did was confuse her. The expression on my face shifted when I noticed the scars that covered her shoulders. Her eyes immediately dropped to the floor. She had been slashed and carved. The wounds had healed hideously. Their colors were indications of the age and severity of the attacks. I touched the side of her face and brought her eyes from the floor back to mine.

“Who did this to you?”

Her face tightened as the tears dropped.

“My ex-boyfriend.”

Her stare dropped back to the floor. I gently brought it back to mine.

“He’d be gone for days then come home all spun and say that I was fucking other guys”.

“Jesus.” I whispered.

“He’d always cry after and say he was sorry.”

“Where’s he at now?” I asked more out of concern for my own safety than anything.

“He moved to Vegas to live with his brother and try to get clean.”

I quit asking questions and told her I was sorry for what had happened to her. She muttered thanks. The word sorry had lost its power for her a long time ago. It meant zilch. It was a faceless way of saying ‘This conversation is over.’

“I still love him.” The tears streamed right on queue.

I stepped forward and hugged her. I was all too aware that I was transmitting nothing through my embrace. The complete absence of warmth was felt by us both. She broke away and stared at me like I had tricked her. I was one more guy who didn’t care about anything except fucking her.

“You know- we don’t have to do this. I’m fine just hanging out.” I said.

“No- I want to. Do you?”

“Yeah-of course.” I lied.

I looked into her eyes; they were tunnels of pain. I lied some more and told her she was beautiful and that nobody deserved that kinda shit and that there was a special place in hell for guys like him.

“What comes around goes around.” she said.

She must have believed it. Had she not she would have been dead along time ago.

In a flash she was on the floor gripping both sides of the blubber casing that framed her pussy, exposing her clit. What little hard-on I had wilted as I looked down at what seemed a baboon’s ass and scanned the room for my drinks. It was a bad decision but I tried anyway. I hadn’t fucked in over a year. I knelt in front of her and began squeezing the shaft of my cock thinking, “If I can get it up even the slightest, biology will take over, I’ll get hard, fuck her and be done in fifteen minutes.” I rubbed my dick from clit, to lips to hairy asshole. It wasn’t going to happen.

“What’s the matter, don’t you like my pussy?”

“No, it’s fine, I just… the beer, the pills ya know?”

She was hurt by my lie and hurriedly slipped into the bathroom with her tights in one hand while pulling her tattered t-shirt over her ass with the other. I sat naked and cross-legged in the center of the bedroom floor listening to the hum of the air conditioner, the sounds of her sniffling and the water running in the sink. She came out and was startled I wasn’t dressed.

“Why aren’t you dressed? Most guys won’t sit around naked in front of a girl unless they have a nice body and a big dick.” She looked at the ceiling and brushed her hair.

“Well, I’m not like other guys on both counts."

“I’m going to the living room to get my drink.” she said.

I dressed and did the same.

We sat opposite sides of the room and drank. I saw it coming and tried to divert it.

“What kind of music do you like? I’ve got just about everything except country.”

“What kind of women do you like?” she asked.

“I don’t know, that’s a big question.”

“You don’t know?”

There was no way of giving an honest answer without insulting or hurting her.

“I like all kinds of women.”

“Have you ever fucked a nigger?”

“Yeah, I’ve had sex with black chicks.”

“Oh god, if I woulda known that I wouldn’t wanna have fucked you.”

“What do you have against blacks?

“They’re fucking monkeys!”

“I got news for you, we’re all monkeys.”

There was a welcome silence. We stared off into separate spaces when I thought of something she could do for me before I got rid of her. My pattern has been once drunk to get my hands on some dope so I could keep drinking and keep myself sexually entertained. It didn’t require anyone else and I was hell bent on having a good time.

“Do you know where to get any shit?”

“What kind of shit?”

“Speed, Meth?”

“How much do you want?”

“A 20 or 40, whichever we can get with the least amount of bullshit.”

“Give me 40 dollars and I’ll go across the street to the motel. My friend Sandy owes me a favor and she’s always holding.”

“Does she shoot?”

“What!?”

“Does she use a fucking needle?” I slapped my arm and bugged my eyes out.

“Why!”

“Because if she does, offer her ten for a sealed one.”

“You’re a fucking hype now too?”

“No, I’m a recreational intravenous drug user.”

She stared incredulously. “Here’s ten more. Get yourself another pint and a six pack of Cobra for me. How long is this gonna take?”

“Fifteen minutes” she answered.

“I’ll see you in an hour.”

I felt better with her gone. I sauntered to the fridge and pulled another tall can from the freezer. At just over four dollars a six-pack, they never failed: simple, honest, and they fucked niggers too.

~ - ~

I sat at my table and watched – the dirt field and the giant malformed pepper tree across the courtyard became beautiful with the quiet setting of the sun and emptying of tall cans. I was at peace when she reappeared in the doorway wired and shitfaced.

“Did you get it?”

“Yeah,” she dug the baggie out of her bra and handed it over.

“What the fuck is this shit? Did she sell you a point?

“A what?” her eyeballs were bouncing, darting, spinning.

“A carousel? a rig? a hypodermic needle? not that I would stick this chalky cut up garbage into my arm.”

“She’s supposed to have more in an hour.”

“You know what, fuck it. Do you want your half, or did you already do it?”

“She smoked some of her personal with me while we waited on her connect.”

I emptied the tiny baggy onto the desk. She had burned me and we both knew it.

“If you want, we can smoke it from my pipe?” she squeaked and produced a glass stem that was charred black from smoking low grade crank.

“This stuff won’t smoke its crap. I’m gonna snort mine.”

She hurriedly scooped up her pile, poured it down the neck of the pipe, put fire to it and began sucking as if it were the last dick on earth.

That is some fucked up shit I thought and rolled a bill, jammed half the length up my nose and snorted. The dope was just good enough to sober me up.

“Let’s go to the store.”

“What for?”

“Moon pies and penny whistles.”

“What?”

“To get more alcohol.”

“Can I have some vodka and Hawaiian punch?”

“Might as well.”

Any self-respecting shallow asshole wouldn’t be caught dead in public with this fucked-up bitch but my guilt over the failed sex and my inability to provide her with even a sliver of warmth for the life she had endured left me feeling obligated to do something and if all I could do was buy her another bottle and see her through the rest of the evening then so be it. I knew what it was like to pull away my own armor only to be utilized for another person's gain and entertainment. I knew that hurt and I had told myself that I would never demean myself or another person by pulling that kind of shit on them. Maybe she would recall my kindness in the morning. Hopefully she would slip into a black out and remember none of it.

“Hey Dave” came the slurred jab from the smoldering barbeque. “What are you two crazy kids up to? I knocked on your about an hour ago.”

“I know- that’s why I didn’t answer.”

We exchanged phony laughter. I wanted to push his face down onto his barbeque. I saw a nice spot next to the chicken.

“You guys want me to fix you a plate when you get back?”

“Nah. That’s alright but thanks anyway. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

The stupid disgusting grin remained. We kept moving.

“Hold my hand,” she gleefully suggested as we crossed the intersection.

“Why? You fuckin’ lost?”

The Palestinians that ran the mart were scumbags but as long as you didn’t ask for credit they were easy enough. I often imagined they taught these foreigners in some liquor store etiquette school to address every man as Boss or Chief and all the women with stale marital nicknames like Beautiful,

Honey, Sexy, Sweetheart.

“So Boss, you do like the pussy?” he asked. “She give me head for vodka. Five-dollar head.”

“Yeah, how much for a fifth of rum?” I cut him down with a lick of my lips and a “I’ll suck you off for a candy bar” grin. He quickly checked our items, faked a cell phone call, and didn’t call me Boss as we left.

“See ya next time Chief!” I announced.

“I hate that piece of shit.”

“I know.”

Back at my apartment she sat on the love seat and cleared a place for me, I sat opposite of her at my writing table. I could not think of a single thing to say.

“So, have you had a fucked-up life?” she asked.

She wanted me to care. She wanted someone to listen.

“Compared to some people yeah, compared to a lot of others, no.”

She wanted me to ask her about her life. She wanted me to listen to her drunken pain, her monologue, her reasons. Her trying to figure her way out of a fucked-up existence through two pints of vodka with the empathetic ear of someone who was in no mood to expend the energy to listen to the screams of one more broken human being. I wasn’t having it, there was nothing I could do about it.

Every shit slinging monkey fuck retarded derelict who has helped this sad ball of poison that we live on devolve into the free floating heartless, godless, dickless, cosmic turd that it is. You could take nine out of every ten motherfuckers and utilize them for dog chow or glue! Give most people a play station, a twelve pack, a hand job, and a bottomless sack of “happy” and they could give two shits about anything or anyone else. I was snapped back into the present when my cigarette slipped from my fingers and landed in my lap. She thought it was hysterical. She giggled and sucked on her fruit punch vodka. She was laughing at me. Everything was laughing at me. Fear and rage cleaved through my mind as I struggled not to be hurt by someone so ugly and so dumb, yet I wanted to put her head through the wall. I wanted her vaporized. She was just one more person walking around breathing my air and making life hurt.

She kept giggling as my mind began to devour itself and become lost in its own adrenaline and confusion. I was shaking as she walked out the door and crossed the courtyard to her apartment. I quietly shut the door, raised my beer to my cheek and spilled a mouthful down the front of my shirt. Fear settled on me. That fear of everything. The fear that no matter what, I was cursed to play this role and even suicide would not stop what my life was. I peered through a pinhole in the shade, across the courtyard the aluminum light of a television switched on her window. There was nothing left to do.

I took the last beer, turned off the lights, sat down with the monsters to wait for the sun.

The End

David Burdett

8/28/2009

In the heart of a small village lived a majestic weeping willow tree. It had been rooted in that spot for centuries. It was a well-known sight for the villagers. It had grown so large, its branches extended over a nearby brook, creating a natural canopy for anyone who sought refuge from the sun.

The tree had been there so long that it had become a living legend, a part of the village's history. And for the villagers, it was like an elder who had been there to watch over them for generations.

One day, a young girl named Ana stumbled upon the weeping willow. She had never seen such a beautiful tree before. It stood tall, with sweeping branches that touched the ground like a veil. As Ana approached the tree, she heard soft murmurs that seemed to be coming from within the tree. It was said that the weeping willow tree could talk.

Ana was curious, so she listened more intently, and to her surprise, she heard a soft voice coming from the tree. "Child, what brings you to me?" the tree said.

"I was walking by and saw how beautiful you are," Ana replied.

"That is kind of you to say so, little one. Many come here to find solace and comfort," replied the tree, happy to have a new visitor.

As time passed, Ana visited the tree often, bringing small gifts like flowers and trinkets as a sign of friendship. The tree, in return, would tell her stories of the village and the people who had come to rest under its boughs. Ana would listen, entranced by the stories and the tree’s calming presence.

Then, one day, Ana came to visit, and the tree began to weep. Its tears fell like rain on Ana's face. Ana was taken aback by the tree’s emotions, so she asked, "Why are you crying? What troubles you?"

The tree replied, "I have grown old, and my time in this world is coming to an end. I have seen many years of happiness and sadness. I have seen children grow up, loved ones depart, and families move away. Now, I am alone and weeping for my loss."

Ana was saddened by the tree's pain. She knew how hard it was to let go of things that had been a part of her life for so long. She spent more time keeping the tree company, sitting under its branches and singing songs of friendship and hope.

As the seasons passed, the weeping willow’s leaves began to turn brown, and the branches that had once reached the ground began to look thin and frail. Ana could see the tree was fading away, so she decided to gather the villagers to visit the tree one last time.

The villagers came in small crowds, each one paying their respects to the tree, placing flowers and candles to honor its memory. They told stories of the tree, of their childhood memories, and how it had kept them company in their darkest times.

Finally, as the sun set for the last time, the tree wilted and lay down, returning to the earth to nourish the soil for a new cycle of life. The villagers stood in solemn silence, paying their last respects to the majestic weeping willow tree, who had watched over them for so long.

And so, as Ana looked up at the sky, she saw a new sapling poking its way through the earth. It was a new beginning, a testament to the weeping willow tree’s life and legacy, and it sprouted at the exact spot where the weeping willow tree had been. Ana knew that it would continue on, offering shelter, shade, and comfort to those in need, just like its predecessor had done for centuries.

In a faraway land, there lived a King named Aric who ruled over a kingdom called Althea. Althea was a peaceful kingdom where everyone was happy and contented. The people of Althea were known for their kindness and hospitality and their love for art and music.

The kingdom of Althea was surrounded by a dense forest that was said to be enchanted. The forest was home to many mystical creatures and mythical beings. The people of Althea were always cautious not to anger the creatures of the forest, for they believed that the forest was protected by powerful magic.

One day, the King was informed about a strange occurrence in the forest. It seemed that the trees had started to wither, the animals were leaving the forest, and even the plants were dying. The people of Althea were worried that some dark force was at work, and they feared for the safety of their kingdom.

King Aric summoned his most trusted advisors and asked for their opinion about what could be causing the decline of the forest. They suggested that someone might have angered the forest spirits, or maybe some dark magic was at work in the forest.

The King decided to send his brave and daring knights to investigate the source of the problem. The knights set out on their quest with a map that led them deeper into the heart of the forest. They had to face many perils on their journey – giant spiders, venomous snakes, and treacherous swamps.

As they moved deeper into the forest, they encountered a group of mystical beings who were known as the Keepers of the Forest. The Keepers were the guardians of the forest, and they were known to be very wise and powerful. The knights told them about their mission, and the Keepers agreed to help them.

The knights followed the Keepers to a clearing in the forest, where they saw a powerful dark sorcerer performing a magic ritual. The sorcerer was trying to harness the power of the forest spirits to gain ultimate power and control over the kingdom of Althea.

The knights and the Keepers of the Forest joined forces to fight against the dark sorcerer. They fought a fierce battle, but at last, they managed to defeat the wicked sorcerer. The spell that had been cast on the forest was broken, and the forest was restored to its former glory.

The knights returned triumphant to the kingdom of Althea, where they were greeted as heroes. King Aric thanked them for their bravery and bestowed on them the highest honors and rewards.

The people of Althea learned that the kingdom was protected not only by their fearless knights but also by the magic of the enchanted forest and the power of the Keepers of the Forest. They continued to live in peace and harmony, never forgetting the bravery that saved their land from the darkness that threatened it.

The bed in the guest room was comfortable, but wasn’t the same as home. Lying on her back, she willed herself to sleep.

A cat jumped onto the bed near her feet.

Oh, she thought, hello bedmate...

She felt the cat walk over her legs, felt its feline weight as it draped its body over her abdomen.

Friendly...

She soon drifted off to sleep hoping it wouldn’t begin that kneading thing cats sometimes do and wake her.

In the morning, she poured herself coffee and commented, “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

Her host’s face grew pale, “I don’t.”

Snomenia was a sky goddess. Her mother was Raimenia and her father Thundimae, the sky king. Her brother, the sky prince, Lightnymis, was always stealing her shampoo. That was a problem, because Snomenia had a big dandruff problem. Her scalp was as dry as the Sahara Desert, and the only thing that helped was her special dandruff shampoo that her brother always stole!

During ball season, when Snomenia and her mother would go to many balls together, Snomenia would need to shake her head upside down, letting all of the dandruff fall out of her luscious hair. The Earth below would get showered with Snomenia's dandruff.

Now, I'm sure if the inhabitants of Earth knew that what they call 'snow' was actually Snomenia's dandruff, they wouldn't be so fond of it. But we won't tell them... right?

There is a little known, not so much talked about Archangel, named Fred "Icicles" Jackson.

Born, raised, and died, almost 6,000 years ago in the frozen Tundra, but 6,000 years ago, the Tundra wasn't frozen. That came about only because Fred has a special power after he reached the pearly gates and with a simple touch, he could freeze anything.

Needless to say, he doesn't come into close contact with the other Archangels. Last thing that needs to happen is if he touched their wings where they couldn't flap. The same thing applied to all the other souls that walked a wide berth of him. It wouldn't do to have millions of souls frozen in their tracks.

But God saw a plan for him as he had decided to create seasons, four of them to let those on earth know when the changes would come. For the longest time, God had planned to call the seasons, Spruce, Sunny, Later and Cold, but after some conversation with "Icicles" (God loved that nickname), he changed his mind and came up with instead, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.

However, God had "Icicles" promise not to send tons of ice on the people.

"Icicles" came up with an idea and after testing it for several months in the frozen Tundra, he was ready. Instead of huge chunks of ice, he managed to granulate them into small droplets that were light to the touch, and still have that icy feel. "Icicles" even managed to have it set that when they fell from Heaven, the droplets would form and join together creating a blanket effect that pleased him very much. What pleased him even more is when night would fall, the snow would become colder and freeze somewhat.

That's the story but in case you didn't know, here is a little-known fact for you. The long jagged frozen spikes that hang from trees or gutters on a home were named after Fred. How this happened is easy. On a darkened night when people slept, he would fly into their homes and whisper the name in multiple languages. In three days', time (nights), Fred traveled to over a thousand places and left his mark upon the world.

God was so pleased that he made Fred the caretaker of winter.

The promised food stores arrived on schedule, though they were somewhat lacking in the variety often incorporated in Nikolai’s provisions. All of us grew to miss him terribly, especially Aemelia. I think ever since he provided the first round of food which fed her family, she obtained a soft spot for him. When he returned after a week and a half, I was so filled with joy that I ran up to him and smacked him upside the head with a towel I was holding.

“What took you so long?” I asked, laughing, “Phoenix isn’t terribly far away, and I’ll bet anything the Blakes didn’t ask you to spend the week with them.”

“I got it taken care of,” he said slyly, and it was then that I noticed the expression on his face: Cool, smug, eyebrows raised in cruel satisfaction, and a slight smirk he couldn’t seem to rub off. I crossed my arms and put on my pouty face. “What did you do?” I asked.

He smiled big, shaking his head, “Trust me, Kyrie. Barbara Blake can and will help us.”

[Scene fades to distressed Barbara anxiously sipping tea and frequently alternating glances at her dozing husband and the sheet of paper stuck on the wall bearing Nikolai’s phone number. Many shots showing similar thing at different times. Background music is ticking clock, indicating passage of time. Alight on a dark night with no moon. She sighs, bows her head, then sits erect, face full of her original composure, no sign of faltering in her countenance of stone.]

The day seemed no different than any other, but the atmosphere was strangely tense. Of course, last night had been the worst night since I arrived, for even inside the house it was nearly impossible to lie still in our beds, much less sleep. There had been no moon, so our vision was as keen as ever—therefore so was our surge of night energy which prompted the Night Runs, even in the house. We covered all the windows with double layers of curtain and had Nikolai physically bar all the doors. Thankfully, no one new decided to come and venture. Mitch said darkly that he and Jessica had arrived on the night of a new moon and it had been even more terrifying than it was for me, as the children already in the house were frequently scurrying along the dark halls and letting loose those ethereal yips and caterwauls. No matter how hard we tried to remain still in bed, our muscles kept twitching, our lungs nearly burst with trying (in vain) to hold in the sounds, and once someone started, it was impossible for us to continue resistance.

That day we all went about our work like normal, but there were whisperings among the others. Ironically, no one felt the lack of sleep from the night before. On the contrary, excitement buzzed silently among us, filling me with anxious anticipation for…something, but what?

Just before sunset, Nikolai showed up. He too was strangely elevated in spirits, though trying his utmost to diffuse its showing. His weirdness I attributed to some newfangled idea he had for trying to get us out of this mess. But I was wrong. After distributing his normal food haul (which came later than usual), he waited for everyone else to gather round in the room before pulling a twelve-inch square box from the bottom of his wagon, neatly wrapped in shimmering black paper flecked with gold. It was beautiful, glorious, like night itself. To my surprise and extreme delight, he handed it to me. The sun was just setting.

I undid the wrapping with trembling fingers, fighting hard to keep myself from bouncing off the walls. The box was white underneath, like shimmering crystal cream. I gasped. The moon shone: not in the sky, but in my lap, for Nikolai had given it to me, taken from its throne in the heavens and nestled in a crinkled bed of night. I was speechless.

“Open it,” Nikolai urged.

I numbly opened the box, disclosing a phenomenon very much like the one I had envisioned just before. Only, this moon in the night sky was piped in frosting, with the words “Happy Birthday Kyrie” written in neat cursive on one quadrant. I stared, still putting the pieces together in my mind.

“Happy birthday to you,” began Nikolai. Then the others joined in slowly, one at a time, until the whole mass echoed with one haunting resounding chorus, “Happy birthday dear Kyrie, happy birthday to you.”

I had forgotten. Today was my sixteenth birthday. I was sixteen, sweet sixteen….

My thoughts whirled. I grew dizzy. I saw the cake in a new light, with a new song, new spirit. I reached tenderly into the box and tore off a chunk. It was black inside, chocolate: my favorite. I suddenly jerked my face upwards, seeing through everything to nothing, and uttered a guttural warble, sounding hoarse and lovely against the darkening silence in the halls. I dropped my face, nodded unseeing, and threw the hunk of frosted cake in my hand at Nikolai’s face.

[Everyone loses it, relenting to the temptations of indulgence in their newly founded desires, their insatiable night hunger which drives them to insanity. Cake is flung, they run about the house, howling and smashing and dancing. Beginning at the slow-motion hunk of cake flying through the air and splatting on Nikolai’s face, the audio is slowly replaced by an adapted version of Miley Cyrus’s “We Can’t Stop” with the following lyrics. For the duration of the song, there are disjointed shots of joyful mayhem:

It’s our party, we can do what we want

It’s our party, we can say what we want

It’s our party, we can dance all we want

We can shout what we want

We can scream what we want

It’s our party, we can do what we want

It’s our party, we can say what we want

It’s our party, we can dance all we want

We can shout what we want

We can scream what we want…

{Nikolai, recovering from the initial shock, bolts to the doors and windows to make sure they’re securely fastened, then desperately heaps odds and ends up to physically barricade them}

…Darkness and cursed bodies everywhere

Hands in the air ’cause we can’t care

We came to have so much fun now (hey, hey, hey)

Bet somebody here might get some now {cake hits someone square in the mouth, making them choke}

You’re not ready to go home

Can I get a hey no (hey no!)

Cause we gonna go all night

Til we see the sunlight, alright (hey, hey, hey)

So la-da-di-da-di, we like to party

Dancing with Kyrie {someone swings Kyrie around in a dance-like fashion}

Doing whatever we want

This is our house

This is our rules

And we can’t stop (whoa)

And we won’t stop (whoa)

Can’t you see it’s we who own the night?

Can’t you see it’s we who rock this life?

And we can’t stop (whoa)

And we won’t stop (whoa)

We run and this curse runs we

Can’t do nothing else to nobody, yeah, yeah

It’s our party, we can do what we want

It’s our party, we can say what we want

It’s our party, we can dance all we want

We can shout all we want

We can scream all we want…

{Nikolai looks extremely uncomfortable. He shouts several times but cannot be heard}

…Sweet Sixteen—celebrate your birthday

Excuse to go all night on a heyday

Remember no one can save us

Forget the outside cause we’re on the inside

And everyone in line behind two-steps

Right, follow my footsteps

We all so wound up here

Getting turned up, yeah, yeah, yeah

So la-da-di-da-di, we like to party

Dancing with Kyrie

Doing whatever we want

This is our house

This is our rules

And we can’t stop (whoa)

And we won’t stop (whoa)

Can’t you see it’s we who own the night?

Can’t you see it’s we who rock this life?

And we can’t stop (whoa)

And we won’t stop (whoa)

We run things, things don’t run we

Don't take nothing from nobody, yeah, yeah

Just this party, we can do what we want

Just this party, we can say what we want

Just this party, we can dance all we want

We can shout all we want

We can scream all we want

It’s my party, I can do what I want to

It’s my house, I can do what I want to

It’s my song, I can sing what I want to

It’s my life, I can live how I want to

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, eh

And we can’t stop (whoa)

And we won’t stop (whoa)

Can’t you see it’s we who own the night?

Can’t you see it’s we who rock this life?

And we can’t stop (whoa)

And we won’t stop (whoa)

We run things, things don’t run we

Don't take nothing from nobody, {instant black} yeah, yeah]

[Front shot of house at dawn. Shot of inside, showing the collapsed bodies and a wrecked interior. All is silent and motionless. Shot of outside. Nikolai is walking past the fountain out to the street, looking battered and exhausted.]

That was chaos, he thought, But strangely satisfying. He smiled, hands in his pockets, dreaming of those hours that he had unknowingly caused with a simple birthday surprise. They had surprised him right back, and then he totally went and surprised himself. That first piece of cake had started a riot, the best kind of riot ever to occur in all of history. He didn’t know why he hadn’t been afraid. He had felt a deeply ingrained whisper that he was in total control, but how on earth could that have been true? Maybe it was a trick of the book, making him think he could handle 27 mad kids. Never mind that though, he thought, That was awesome.

But then he frowned. There was a downside to all that fun: They had been extraordinarily loud. No wonder no one was out right now—they were probably still lying in bed, scared stiff. His Aunt Theresa and sister were most likely worried sick that he’d been gone all of that night. As he thought about it more, heavy waves of dread washed over him and his palms pooled with a nervous sweat. Thankfully, he had barred all the doors and fastened all the windows before they moved to break out of the confines of the house…. He shuddered to think of what that could’ve turned into.

As it was, they had banged, rushed, screamed, howled, and somehow remained entirely unscathed themselves. It hadn’t been too scary, but he couldn’t figure out why. Ironically, he felt more fulfilled that night than he ever had before in his life, like he had finally unlocked the potential he never knew he had. But he didn’t want to spend energy thinking about it now. He was wiped and very much looking forward to a long nap when he returned home.

After what seemed like no time at all, he had arrived. He set his hand on the door handle, turning it gently. When the door swung open, Salmata nearly ran him over.. “Oh my gosh! I’m so glad you’re okay!” she wailed, falling into his arms and sobbing.

Nikolai stared, too tired to speak or move.

Salmata stood up, tears pouring her red eyes, puffy from lack of sleep. “We were so scared,” she whispered, “Last night was the worst spell of screams in months, and you weren’t in your room—or anywhere else in the house—” her voice broke often and she heaved as she went on, “And I called all your friends—and you weren’t there—and—and— OH!” she wailed, “I thought—you had disappeared too—just like—the others.” And she buried her face into the crook between chest and shoulder, and wept uncontrollably.

Nikolai raised his weary arm and patted her gently, respectfully. “I’m alright, Sal,” he croaked, “Just tired. Is Aunt Theresa here?”

Sal shook her head, gulping and gasping to recover her breath, “She went to the police station to report you as a potential missing child.”

Nikolai’s pale face turned even paler as this information registered. He pushed his sister away, groaning. “I have to go,” he said anxiously.

“What! Why?” Sal cried out in anguish.

He summoned his most convincing smile, “I have to go tell her she’s wrong, and that I’m okay.”

Sal’s face relaxed and the corners of her mouth even turned up a bit. She watched as her brother opened the door again and stepped out.

“Nik!” she called after him.

Nikolai paused, turned around to face her, his own countenance displaying the deadened look people sport when their mind is full of too many new thoughts and questions, too few connections, and no amount of concentration to make sense of it all.

Sal bit her lip, hesitated before bursting out, “I’m scared for you. Ever since that last girl went missing you’ve neglected much of your life here. Is there anything you want to tell me?” She paused. Then, “You know you can tell me,” she finished softly.

Nikolai stared for a few seconds, as if he hadn’t heard a word she said, but then he slowly shook his head. “Not yet,” he said.

Then he turned back and ran as fast as he could to the police station. In a new burst of energy, he took off like a shot, dust kicking out behind him and vision obscured in a blur. He knew that Mr Craw got off night shift at five, and it was just after that now. He could only hope that his unofficial partner hadn’t stayed past his time and blabbed the whole thing to his aunt when she reported him as missing. Aemelia had scared him pretty good with her grotesque threats, but Nikolai couldn’t be sure. He could only hope.

He burst through the door panting, clutching a stitch in his side, only to see his worst thoughts confirmed. Mr Craw was there, looking awkwardly at a tall woman from across the desk, biting his lip anxiously and frantically searching the room with his eyes. Two other officers in uniform stood on the periphery.

Nikolai hastened inside. “I’m here, Aunt Theresa!” he gasped, “I’m alright.” He looked daggers at Mr Craw, who shook his head ever so slightly as the woman turned and sighed in exasperated relief.

“Oh Nik!” she wept, “You’re alright!” And she ran towards him, dropping her handbag, and wrapped him tightly in her thin strong arms. Under other circumstances, he might have thrown her off from suffocation, but he was too relieved to care. Mr Craw had kept his word and remained silent. Nikolai wasn’t sure why, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that the fewer people who knew of the curse, the better. When his aunt finally released him, he saw that Mr Craw was looking around him in frightened anticipation.

“It’s just me,” he said in reassurance, and Mr Craw breathed a sigh of relief and fell back in his chair.

Aunt Theresa was fussing over Nikolai’s appearance, but he ignored her. Everything before him and round him was fading into an intangible, weightless blur. The adrenaline rush which had carried him here was quickly evaporating, leaving him considerably more fatigued than before. His eyelids dropped, his legs wobbled from beneath him, and he reached a hand behind him to find the arm of a waiting chair as he sank down in exhaustion. His head leaned back, and all his muscles gave in to nothingness. He was asleep instantly.

When he woke, he was in his bed, in his room, in his house. It was dark. Everywhere ached. He groaned and sat up, then his vision blacked out and he fell back on his pillow again. He breathed hard. He tried to remember his dream. It had been very disjointed, as dreams often were, but parts of it had been oddly familiar.

His parents had been there, but they died swathed in a creamy white light…Great Aunt Nash had been there, telling him the stories she had always told…then Sal was there, young and pretty as always…Nash had died, her last words being breathed in direct instruction to him, but he couldn’t hear her…then it wasn’t Nash who had died, but Barbara Blake…Bhagyavanti…then he lived with his father’s sister Theresa…Theresa who cared for him might and main, more than she did her own children…she never had children…bouncing young Kathleen, together with a girl who looked strangely familiar…reverberating laughter…malicious laughter…then Nash’s voice cut in cold and clear, echoing the story which had always been his favorite: “The sacred spells protected our people, our temple, where our glory was stored. But it was stolen…”…Nash died…it was Barbara Blake…Bhagyavanti…Nash…she clasped his hand firmly in hers…her lips barely moved….

Nikolai sat up once again, panting. He remembered. He made the motions with his own mouth, but it didn’t quite match. He tried again, slowly, hand on his lips to feel, remember…. At last he stopped. He had found it. And it terrified him.

He knew what he had to do now. Barbara Blake wouldn’t listen at first, but she’d have to now. By golly, he’d make her listen! All his physical pain paled into nothing as he hoisted himself awkwardly from bed. He looked at his watch. It was half-past three in the morning. He’d have to hurry if he was going to get them out in time.

He couldn’t tell Sal, or Aunt Theresa—and he couldn’t think of a convincing story in case they caught him in his condition trying to leave the house. So he jimmied the lock on his window and slunk out. He skirted the town to the old Blake’s place and entered softly. There was no noise. He saw no guard. Maybe the rampage last night had worn them all through. He began scanning the boys bedrooms for anyone sane enough to join him, the more the better.

To his dismay, only five were awake, and of these, only two were fit for the journey: Tony and Rob. They sat huddled together in the middle of their room, whispering anxiously. Bly was lying flat in his bed, staring blankly upwards. None of them had not noticed Nikolai’s entrance. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said to himself. Of all the kids in the house to come, one of them had to be Tony—the jerk who pretended to be his friend and always trod on his toes.“Really?” he murmured. Then louder, after a deep inhalation, “Tony, Rob, I need you.”

They jumped where they sat, turned away. Tony clapped his hands over his ears and quivered.

“What for?” Rob asked gruffly, not looking up.

“Barbara Blake needs more convincing,” said Nikolai.

They continued to avoid looking at him.

“You scared us last night,” said Rob.

Tony said nothing, not even giving a nod of assent. This was strange for him, as he usually always had a stabbing retort on his lips for anything said in his presence.

“I didn’t mean for it to get out of hand,” said Nikolai, “That wasn’t my fault.”

“Really?” shot back Rob, “You know, I had an oddly vivid dream last night where I was running around crazy, and your voice was screaming in the back of my head, telling me what to do and controlling my every move.”

“You’re afraid of me because of a dream?”

“We all had it—the same dream. Your voice, loud and ringing.”

“I think that was the curse.”

“Well, we think it’s both.”

There was silence. Nikolai gawked, swallowed. “Are you saying…” he began, voice rising in disbelief and anger, “You’re—you—do you really think I’m a part of this whole thing!?” he exclaimed, “I have spent the past month neglecting my life to help you get back to yours!”

“Only after Kyrie came.”

“When my friends first disappeared, I chickened out,” Nikolai seethed, “I was scared. I had no idea what had happened. When Kyrie joined you, she at least came back and told me what was going on so I had some idea of—”

“So she consented to be your guinea pig?”

“Of course not! I—”

“You forced her then?”

“That’s enough!” Nikolai thundered.

They cowered, heads bowed and…was that whimpering?

“I have to go back to see Barbara,” he continued lowly, “Come with me.”

“We’re not going,” mumbled Rob stiffly.

“Count me out,” agreed Tony weakly, speaking up for the first time, “We’re very much done, thanks to you.”

This was absurd, out of the question. They had to come. Nikolai set his jaw, lowered his chin ever so slightly. His voice as he spoke surprised him and would have scared him out of his wits if he had spectated on the scene in which he was currently a leading character. It rang like the pendulum of a clock in little more than a throaty gurgle, carrying a fierce command. “I said,” he reiterated slowly, “Come with me.”

The words echoed through the empty halls, sending a shiver down the backs of the two listeners. They looked up at him, a haunting expression of submissive placidity etched on their faces. They stood to their feet and walked towards him, saying nothing. That was tremendously more effective than he thought it would be. “Let’s go,” he said. He turned on his heel and strode out of the house, the others following close behind him.

It was still night, but Tony and Rob remained silent and calm, breathing slowly and in unison. This was strange for them given their usual Night Run behavior, but Nikolai wouldn’t argue. Maybe all they needed was one night of full-scale frenzy to calm them down for at least a few nights. He led them to his car and they climbed in the back seat. He swung into the drivers seat, set his hands to the steering wheel, and began the journey again.

After about an hour, the quiet ceased. A loud banging issued from behind, and Nikolai turned back to see what was the matter. The scene was heartbreaking: Tony was hammering his hands frantically on the window, his face pale and frightened, tears building in his eyes bulging wide with horror. Rob’s face was still tranquil, but the mist slowly lifted from his eyes and he too became afraid, gazing from left to right in shock, breathing heavily, and then he began to scream.

Nikolai had been wrong. Whatever had happened, he had no idea, but they were definitely back to their typical nightly state of insanity. What baffled him even more was when Tony spoke—howled actually, but in definite words: “What are you doing!? Let us out! LET US OUT!!” Rob soon followed suit. Nikolai’s mind was in a blur, thoughts racing across his consciousness, but the pieces were slowly sliding into place. His eyes widened. Maybe it hadn’t been just a dream. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and gritted his teeth. This job was much more involved than he had initially thought.

The passengers’ fearful utterances didn’t stop when the sun rose, but continued longer until their voices had become cracked and hoarse, their throats internally torn and bloody, the latter of which made itself clear by spilling out the corners of their mouths. Everything slowly settled into quiet and stillness until the only parts of them left awake and active were their eyes, which carried a pitiable expression full of fear, pain, shock and disbelief, made all the more heart-rending by their increasing translucency. Nikolai stared back at them, aghast. They slowly faded into nothingness, disappeared before his eyes, and he had to turn away quickly.

“I’m very much still figuring this out, and I’m doing it to help you,” he said in a low voice, “That’s it. I promise.”

When he pulled into the lot of Rose Court, he pressed his treated glasses to his face and looked behind him. They lay there still. He breathed deep, exhaling slowly. Then he removed his glasses and bent down to grab two umbrellas and toss them behind him. “Come on,” he said.

It was early, the facility having not yet opened to visitors for the day, but Nikolai advanced confidently through the front door, his gaze firm and determined. He rang the bell at the desk and asked to see Mrs Blake. The same kindly nurse asked for documents verifying the reason for his visit, but he merely said that he had been before. She hesitated for a moment, then saw the look in his eyes and stifled her refusal. Instead she assented and led him cautiously back to the old room.

Mrs Blake was in the same position as she had been last time, teacup and saucer in hand, lips pursed together, glancing ever so often at her sleeping husband. With the exceptions of her outfit and the light level, the whole place was unchanged. The very dust on the trim yellow curtains had remained motionless for those many days which seemed a lifetime ago. He knew so much more now.

She turned pale at his entry, and cringed slightly as she struggled to meet his gaze. She was only slightly put at ease when he asked kindly, “Good morning, Mrs Blake.” He knew she could tell he was changed. He caught sight of his reflection in an ornate mirror and saw for himself how ghastly he had become. Eyes hollowed and darkened, glinting with a terrible cold fire; ashen complexion; a dangerous frown permanently drawn across his face—yes, he was to be feared. For his current purposes, however, this wouldn’t do.

She stared at him scrutinizingly, and he turned to meet her gaze with a commendable attempt at a pleasant smile.

“Do you mind if I close the door?” he asked kindly.

She shook her head. He walked over and the door creaked shut. Now he and Mrs Blake we’re alone in the room, with the exception of her husband Dick snoozing in bed.

Nikolai turned and eyed the security camera installed in the back corner of the room, lens trained on him and red light glowing insidiously. He nodded towards it. After a few seconds, the light went out.

Then he walked over to one of the windows and opened it, sticking his head out to breathe in the fresh morning air. He turned to face his companion.

“Lovely day,” he began. Then, closing the window and walking back towards where she sat, “I think you know why I’m here.”

She nodded stiffly and took a sip from her teacup.

“You hesitate to help me,” continued Nikolai, “But I have something that might change your mind.”

“I can’t help you.”

“You can, but you don’t want to.”

She pursed her lips tighter and took more tea.

“Barbara,” he said slowly, rolling each syllable across his tongue as if taking in the flavor of the name in his mouth, “Interesting choice. Rolls cleanly enough off the tongue but wouldn’t you think it’s a bit obvious?”

Mrs Blake jumped in her seat, attempting to mask her fear with puzzlement.

“You look just like her,” Nikolai continued slowly, “Your sister, I mean.”

Silence.

Then he leaned forward and said softly, “Bhagyavanti.”

Mrs Blake dropped her teacup, which shattered to the floor and spilled its contents everywhere. Neither of them made a move to clean it up. She stared at him wide-eyed, lips pale and trembling.

“What do you want?” she whispered hoarsely.

“I want your help.”

“I cannot!”

“You can, and you must,” Nikolai advanced closer, keeping his voice low and smooth, with a commanding air more frightful than shouting, “They’re children with a life that they can’t live right now because of your selfish choices. One of them is only seven!”

“I can’t help you!”

“You got yourself into this mess in the first place.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” she sobbed.

“You were supposed to protect it.”

“I tried!” she wailed, wringing her hands in agony, “But Dick refused to be deterred!”

“You failed your purpose, failed your people.”

“I tried so very hard!”

“You ran away.”

“They banished me.”

“You begged them for mercy.”

She stopped, then nodded weakly, whimpering.

“You know the conditions on which it can be reversed….”

She slowly turned her face towards Dick, who still lay snoozing in his bed. Her lips tightened and she sat up straighter. She remained firm in her resolve to refuse help.

Nikolai knew that it was hopeless. He didn’t want to venture down that path, but deep down in the depths of his innermost being, he knew it would come to this. She was, as seen by her choices, a stubborn soul. He removed his mask of kindness and his eyes flashed in anger, glowed like black embers.

She shrank back in her seat, filled with dread at the oncoming storm which was sure to come.

“I have tried everything reasonable to get you to be agreeable,” Nikolai said solemnly, “But it seems you leave me no choice….”

Her eyes widened. “They’re not here, are they?” she whispered anxiously.

“No,” he said, “But they can be.”

Silence. Then Nikolai moved to where his nose was inches of hers. He began in what he had long ago forgotten, loosening his tongue in cool desperation, “Nanage sahāya māḍi, Bhagyavanti. Nānu īga adannu rakṣisabēku.”

She gasped, rendered speechless by this controlled outburst. In the several minutes that followed, all was still, unmoving, as if the very earth was holding its breath with anticipation. When she at last regained her tongue after multiple attempts at speaking, she finally managed to get something out.

“You?” she breathed in surprise, “But—how—?”

“My Great Aunt Nash, your sister, commanded it,” Nikolai said, “But I can’t do it unless you fix your selfish mess.”

“I can’t! I can’t!” she screamed, “Help! Help me!”

Her hoarse shrieks filled the room and the alarm was raised throughout the building. Armed officers barged through the closed door and yanked Nikolai away from Mrs Blake. He maintained his haunting stare into her petrified eyes, which seemed locked to his, as he was pushed roughly into the opposite wall and a firm hairy arm pinned him to it, suspended. But he wasn’t frightened. On the contrary, he grinned and his eyes sparkled with madness.

He glowered at Mrs Blake, who was now sobbing in frightened anguish, and then raised his head to the sky. His Adam’s apple rose and fell as a repeating progression of gurgling rasping shrieks emanated from the depths of his throat and out through his parted lips. A few seconds later, the glass on all the windows shattered and a united series of howls and caterwauls pierced the air. Though nothing was to be seen, the effects of these hosts of screams was instantaneous and deadly. Chaos reigned supreme. The officers fled the room in terror, each of them fighting to disentangle themselves from encumbering nets that weren’t there.

Nikolai had dropped cleanly to the ground, landing on all fours like a cat, and then stood up smoothly. He watched the scene before him with grim satisfaction, his eyes gleaming radiance and face set like stone. He brushed off his shirt and walked calmly over back to where he had been before conversing with Mrs Blake. She had stopped crying, frightened beyond emotion unto utter shock. She finally recovered enough to speak, and it flowed in the same beautiful language before used by her interrogator.

“Nīvu avugaḷannu karagata māḍikoṇḍiddīrā,” she breathed.

“I guess so,” answered Nikolai in the same tongue, “It scares me but I have no choice, do I?”

“But you’re not purely of our people,” she went on, eyes still glazed over in unseeing mysticism and voice gaining a strange beauty, strength, “It is dangerous for you for be there in that house. No matter what happens, you must not touch the book—ever. There’s no telling what it might do to you. I designed the magic to curse intruders and protect our people, and your blood mix makes the effects of contact unpredictable and dangerous. For you, there may be no remedy but—” She stopped short, then bowed her head submissively, before concluding, “But for them, I can help.”

Nikolai smiled. “Call me,” he said. He turned, “Come.” Then, as he vaulted out the window, he turned back to her and said, “I knew you’d come around.”

We followed Nik unconsciously back to the house. Did we run? Walk the whole way? Drive piled in the back of his car like herded sheep? We’ll never know. From the entrance hall, we walked solemnly to our rooms, hardly thinking about anything. The only thing I knew was “come,” so I came. But after lying in bed for a few minutes, staring blankly into the ceiling, my mind began to clear and a cold dread gripped my heart.

I slipped out of the room and slowly, weakly made my way to where I knew I’d find him: in the first half of the living room, staring out into nothing. I collapsed beside him.

“Were you going to tell us?” I asked hollowly.

“I’m still figuring it out myself,” he responded in a voice equally empty.

“How long…?”

“Felt weird two nights ago, oddly energized at random periods last night and this morning, and slowly learning more as today gets on.”

I sat quiet for a moment. Then I shook my head and pleaded, “Why Nik, why?” I pleaded.

“I didn’t choose it,” he responded dully.

“You could’ve told someone.”

“I didn’t think I needed to.”

“But we trusted you,” I returned.

“Yeah, and I thought you could.”

“It’s just—the very idea of it—”

“Well how do you think I feel about it?” he exploded. A pause, then a sigh.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. Then after a long period of silence, “I got Barbara on board to help.”.

“Can we trust her?”

“Yes. She’s my great aunt.”

“Let me rephrase that to: can we in the house trust either of you?”

He turned and looked at me with an expression of utmost pain. He whispered, “You really think I’d turn against you?”

I didn’t want to answer. The truth was I didn’t think he’d do so consciously, but I wasn’t sure he could stomach that. After all, I knew how it felt to go mad on cursed magic and that was bad enough. To hurt my friends while doing so, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. I didn’t know what to say or do, and nothing wasn’t the answer, as this would certainly give him the wrong impression. Luckily I was saved from this dilemma by an even greater one, for we were interrupted just then.

“We don’t need his help,” Aemelia snarled, entering the room in which we sat. The others followed close behind her. She strode right up to him and looked him square in the face. “You have a choice my friend,” she whispered menacingly, “Either we tear you to pieces tonight ourselves or we keep you here in a state of continual unconsciousness until we—on our own—figure out how to break this dratted curse.”

“Fine,” he said flatly, “But you’re not going to get very far on your own.”

This touched me. He could have easily turned her aside, but he instead submitted to her absurd terms. Of course, Aemelia was too infuriated to recognize this, and I was too weak to pacify her. In the blink of an eye, they were upon him.

It was night. I was guard. The three nights of new-moon mayhem were past and all was still once more. But the anxious knot in my stomach was making me sick. I thought of Nik: hanging limply in the back closet, tied to the rafters by a long length of rope which bound his wrists. His feet were allowed to rest on a box beneath him, so thankfully he wasn’t dangling. But even so, the thought was nauseating.

I was alerted by a soft noise, though it didn’t come from the front door. I hoped it wasn’t Nik waking up from his blissful state of unconsciousness into the inevitable pain. I didn’t want to have to handle that. That would mean I had to wake someone up so they could go over and beat him senseless again. Either that or I had to do it myself, which I was firmly resolved to avoid at all costs.

While I was thinking these thoughts with increasing apprehension and listening for a telltale moan, I was surprised to see Jessica creeping along the hall over towards me. The pieces clicked and I relaxed. Nik wasn’t part of this. That noise was only her.

“Hi,” she whispered meekly. She was twelve and incredibly shy—afraid of her own shadow when she had one, before she was cursed. She tiptoed across the dusty floors and slipped next to me.

“I know you’re worried about him,” she murmured.

“I am,” I said, “But it’s no use trying to convince the others to free him. In all honesty, I don’t know how much of it is under his control. So the only thing that’ll help him is us figuring out how to lift the curse.”

“We could start tonight,” she said, toying with a lock of her dirty blond hair, “By looking at the book.”

“I’ve tried before,” I said, “But all the pages are blank.”

“Have you tried looking in absolute darkness?” she asked.

I thought, then shook my head. “No,” I said, defeated, “Only by flashlight and moonlight.”

“The book cursed us with night magic,” she said, “It makes sense that the secrets it holds can only be disclosed by the deepest night.”

I pondered this, and it did make sense. Of course darkness was the key; how did I not see it before?

“I’ve seen it,” Jessica breathed, “And it’s not blank.”

“Well then,” I said emphatically, “What do you say we go and look right now?”

She smiled and nodded.

We wound our way through the rubble and hid our tracks. We had left the front door unwatched, but I doubted anyone would try and enter given that the last three nights had been screams and madness. Plus, anything that took me out of earshot of Nik’s waking utterances was welcoming.

The book was lying there on the desk, just as it had been when I had first grabbed it that night. I caught my breath. It seemed like I was reliving ages ago, but in a whole new light. I felt Jessica beside me also bristle with ethereal recognition. We approached it cautiously, almost in reverent fear. The mantra glowed eerily: “Live in Shadow, Breathe the Night.” It took on a whole new meaning mere weeks after I first saw it. I tenderly opened the cover and then drew back, waiting. Nothing happened.

“It’s weird….” Jessica began, but then she stopped and didn’t finish. I knew what she meant. I advanced once more towards it and peered onto the first page. It was blank. I flipped it to see the next one, and caught my breath. There the writing began:

ಜನರನ್ನು ಮತ್ತು ಜನರ ವೈಭವವನ್ನು ರಕ್ಷಿಸುವ ಉದ್ದೇಶಗಳಿಗಾಗಿ ವಿನ್ಯಾಸಗೊಳಿಸಲಾದ ಶಾಡೋಲೈಟ್ ಪುಸ್ತಕ. ಜನರಲ್ಲದವರು ಅದನ್ನು ಮುಟ್ಟುವವರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಎಚ್ಚರದಿಂದಿರಿ. ನಮ್ಮ ವೈಭವವನ್ನು ಒಳಗೊಂಡಿರುವ ದೇವಾಲಯದ ಮೇಲೆ ಕಳ್ಳತನದ ಪರಿಣಾಮಗಳನ್ನು ಬಫರ್ ಮಾಡಲು ಶಾಡೋಲೈಟ್ ಪುಸ್ತಕವನ್ನು ವಿನ್ಯಾಸಗೊಳಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ಅಲ್ಲಿ ನಾವು ದೊಡ್ಡ ರಹಸ್ಯಗಳನ್ನು ಆಲೋಚಿಸುತ್ತೇವೆ ಮತ್ತು ಶೋಷಣೆಯ ಅಪಾಯವಿಲ್ಲದೆ ಅಸಾಧ್ಯಗಳನ್ನು ಪ್ರಚೋದಿಸುತ್ತೇವೆ. ಈ ಪುಸ್ತಕವು ಶಾಪ, ದೊಡ್ಡ ಶಾಪ, ರಾತ್ರಿ ಶಾಪವನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿದೆ. ಈ ಪುಸ್ತಕವನ್ನು ಮುಟ್ಟಿ ಬದುಕುವ ಹೊರಗಿನವರು ಮತ್ತು ಕಳ್ಳರ ರಕ್ತ ಹೊಂದಿರುವವರಿಗೆ ಅಯ್ಯೋ, ಏಕೆಂದರೆ ಅವರ ಜೀವನವು ವಾಸ್ತವವನ್ನು ಸ್ಪರ್ಶಿಸುವ ಭಯಾನಕ ದುಃಸ್ವಪ್ನವಾಗಿರುತ್ತದೆ….

I could understand none of it. I turned back to Jessica and she shook her head mournfully. “I don’t know,” she said, “I was hoping you might, since you’re older and smarter.”

I pitied her. She was so sweet, so tender, and doomed to be stuck like this. It angered me. I turned back resolutely to the page, facing it square, determined to know for her sake, to understand—at least know the language in which the words were written…. I would have given anything to be given a small hope on which to cling or a small step that could be counted as progress. I must know. I closed my eyes and then opened them again, feeling the spellbinding power of the book close in around me, entrancing. Then a powerful sensation gripped the back of my neck and the ink swirled before my eyes, which could no longer see but for the fog. I inhaled, exhaled.

New information flooded my brain in a torrent of whispers. It came in a foreign tongue, rippling with beauty, translated through my mind into a sentiment which I seemed to have already known before but left long forgotten. They were voices, murmuring songs which were not English, that I understood not in words… No, there were no words anywhere in my comprehension, just a conveyed image which made perfect sense. It was all new, but familiar. I understood.

My fingers rapidly, carefully turned the many pages of the book before me and my eyes blankly scanned them until they found what I was looking for. There it was, spilt out before me like blood on a canvas. I stopped, waited, soaking it in. There the whispers culminated into a chorus of haunting flow which could not be staunched. I was dying. Here was life. The key was found. I was made whole. The voices sang to me. They sang for me. They sang with me. I sang with them. Death meant nothing. Life meant nothing. The secrets beyond such trifles were of much more value. They were found…here…the beauty intangible…the glory unbounded…the fear transcendent….

I gasped, raising my head and falling backwards. My head swam. The fog before my eyes melted away and my consciousness returned, along with a piercing wicked ache in my skull. Everything fell slowly back into place. I was panting heavily, beads of sweat soaking my palms, trickling down my neck, forehead. There was one question seared on my mind: What was that?

Someone was saying something but I couldn’t hear. Then I remembered I had to listen in order to hear. I listened. It was blurry, but slowly cleared somewhat into comprehensible words. Jessica was shaking me by the shoulder and anxiously whispering, “Kyrie! Kyrie! What happened? Are you okay? Kyrie!”

I took a deep exhalation and nodded. “I’m fine,” I said weakly, “That was…” What was it exactly? Everything and Nothing. Beginning and End. Imperceptible and Obvious. Instantaneous and Timeless. There was no word for it, so I shook my head and concluded, “That was quite literally indescribable.”

Then I remembered. “I know how to fix it,” I said.

Jessica gasped, “How?”

I opened my mouth to say, but the words stuck in my throat. Just like the experience, the remedy had no words. I shook my head, “I can’t say.”

Jessica pouted. “So you’re not sure,” she said shortly.

“Oh I’m very sure,” I began.

But she cut me off, “No! If you were sure, you would tell me.”

“Jess please—”

“Just use your words—”

“But it’s not words—”

“—and tell me—”

“—just odd voices—”

“—what you saw—”

“—and feelings—”

“—in that book!”

“—and…I just know, but I can’t say. Know what I mean?”

“Not one bit,” Jessica said icily, “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But remember the longer you keep it to yourself, the longer Nik hangs from the ceiling, probably dying.”

“Oh my gosh!” I jumped in alarm, running my fingers through my hair, “Nik! That was how—ohhhh….” And I turned pale. “He’s awake,” I murmured, “At least, awake enough to…. Come on Jess. He’s got some explaining to do right now.”

“But,” she sputtered as I ran past her, pulling her along, “How would he know anything? And how would you know he knew? And how did you do that with the book? And why won’t you tell me anything?”

“Because I can’t!” I panted.

I found the closet and strained to open the door and bust the lock. It wouldn’t budge, so I banged on it until the fog came again, which I somehow knew it would. Then I effortlessly wrenched the door off its hinges and started in the large half-empty closet. I knew without thinking that Nik was hanging there just as we had left him, breathing slowly and quivering. I strode boldly up where I knew him to be and grasped his cold bloody hands in my own.

I broke him free of the rope and lowered him carefully to the ground. Then my full consciousness returned and I saw him there for the first time, massaging his wrists and squeezing his eyes shut in pain. Jessica was propping him up to a seated position, disconnected from her frantic thoughts of moments before. Nik muttered something under his breath, but I couldn’t make it out. I was about to ask him to repeat it when he did so of his own accord.

“It’s getting easier and so much more complicated at the same time,” he said.

“What was that?” I asked determinedly, disregarding his puzzling introduction.

“So many things just happened that you’re going to have to clarify,” he said with a weak attempt at a grin.

“The book, you, the voices, the feelings…I had never…what on earth…what?”

“That was me,” he said, “Discovering yet another new thing about myself and helping you in the process.”

“But how come I can’t put into words the way out? I know it! You know it! And we can’t tell anyone else!”

“Because there are no English words for it,” he said, “I’m still trying to figure most of this out, but I’m learning more and more every hour. This is way bigger than us.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

I sighed. “What’s your current status?”

“Well,” he mused, “Not only can I speak through your heads collectively, but I can also do so individually, since I can determine slight differences in the energy you emanate and then project to the level of my choosing. I’m just learning now that I can be both myself and speaking so at the same time. Notice,” he nodded to Jessica, who was standing expressionless at his side, “She’s still out of it.

“Also, I know and feel where you are at a certain time. It’s like a blotch of shadow on my consciousness. I know that no one else is out of bed, though I couldn’t tell that Jessica was with you when you were looking at the book. And when you touched it, I felt…all the things you felt yourself.”

“How do you know I felt them?”

“You ought to know by now,” he chided gently, “Some things just can’t be explained. I know, irrefutably.”

“So what are we going to do about it? We need one more.”

“I know,” he said, an empty look in his eyes.

The realization snapped. “Don’t you dare!” I flashed, “That could be disastrous for all of us!”

He smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” he said.

That’s when we heard a thump from the other room. I shot a look at Nik. After a second, he shook his head.

“Nope,” he said, “Someone who’s already been cursed. My guess is Eumeas. His energy level is practically dead.”

I let out a sigh. So our final victim had not yet entered the house, walked through those doors of doom. But then I tensed. Eumeas was about in the halls, likely looking for me. He wasn’t the kind of person who’d get mad at anyone or tattle to Aemelia, but nevertheless, I felt it was better that I returned to my post for the rest of the night.

Nik seemed to read my mind. In all seriousness, he in all likelihood actually did—I wouldn’t have put it past him. He stood to his feet and said, “Well you should probably tie me back up.”

My heart stuck in my throat. I didn’t want to. “I’ll tie it looser,” I said shakily.

After several weak attempts, I accepted that my fingers refused to tie that rope. “Here,” Nik said gently, “Let me.”

“Fine…” I breathed as I felt the power in the nape of my neck and watched the fog descend once more. My fingers flew in a complicated dance across the rope, and when they dropped and I returned to myself, a perfect intricate knot was formed right at the joint between Nik’s hands.

“Just one more thing,” he teased, “I thought I told you explicitly to never call me anything besides ‘Nikolai’. When did that change?”

I blushed, looked down. “You know the answer,” I murmured, “You’re just trying to get me to say it out loud.”

A mischievous sparkle flashed across his haggard, pitiful face. “Maybe I am,” he purred.

My voice was inaudible to all but those trained in listening as Nik was. I answered, “When I started caring about you.” Then I flew back out and to my bed, trapped in my own blur, forcing myself to not start crying and blubbering in front of him. It was hard enough for him as it was.

Mr Craw was working through another dreary night shift, but was slightly more piqued than usual. Images from the blurred footage were newly pasted on the wall of his desk, along with hastily scribbled notes.

The clock ticked monotonously and his heavy, anxious breathing droned as he pondered the new issue, when he was suddenly startled by the slow creak of the door. He looked up in anticipation but saw nothing. Confused, he thought it was a trick of his mind. Then he broke out in a cold sweat—this was one of those creepy missing kids come to renew their threats. He jumped to turn the lights off so he could at least see his adversary—maybe adversaries. He had no way of knowing in his current circumstances. They clicked off, he turned, and saw…nothing. Even after the light spots blearing his vision cleared away, there was nothing.

But then he stopped. There was something—something small. It was sitting on his desk, right where his hand had been a few seconds ago. Upon approaching it, he saw it was a single pair of tinted sports sunglasses. Underneath it was a scrap of paper. He squinted to read it in the darkness but couldn’t. Then the lights switched on of their own accord and he could see it clearly. It read: “Whatever you see or hear, none of it’s true.”

Then he looked up again as the door opened and shut once more.

I knew I was in for it next morning when I opened my eyes the next morning. I was supposed to be guard all night, and here I was lying in bed. The force of what I had done, however, didn’t hit me until Aemelia spelled it out for me in a violent tantrum.

“He’s gone!” she hissed, following this outburst with a most unwelcome pillow beating. Then, after her instantaneous rage subsided for a few blissful seconds, it came on again, worse than before. Every word preceded another painful smack from her pillow: “You—were—guard—and—you—let—him—get—away!”

I had never seen her so angry. The emotion lighting up her dead, emaciated face was a sight to make my heart cry under other circumstances. As it was, she was livid. Tears streamed down her cheeks, eyes inflamed and flashing—the very image of despair. Anguish, fury, pain, all melted down and filling this one poor soul overflowing to the point where she couldn’t bear it anymore. For one bizarre second, I was standing in her shoes. My life was hers. I knew what she knew, felt what she felt, and dreamed what she dreamed. It was all hopeless, my future funneled into a black hole, sucked down the drain, into blank nothingness. It was agony.

“I can’t believe you just—left your post!” she screamed.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“You can’t just be sorry!!” she sobbed, “Now there’s no hope for us at all!”

I looked into her eyes glowing with dead anger, and she spoke again, “You didn’t really think I believed we could fix this curse without his help, did you? That was threat of the moment to get him to stay!”

I tried to speak up then but she continued, “I always knew you were on some special level with him but this is atrocious. Are you even affected by the curse!?”

“Of course I am! But—”

“You disgust me!” she spat, “You make believe you don’t know things and you’re so optimistic and friendly, but you’re just as bad as he is!”

“I don’t know why he chose to leave last night!” I shouted, all my pent-up anger of the day before breaking free of its chains, “He could have easily resisted you yesterday when you threw your ludicrous threats at him. Heck, he could have made us kill each other!! Think, Aemelia, think! He wants to show us he can be trusted! He wants to help us!”

“Why did he leave?”

“I don’t know!”

“Why did you let him leave?”

“I didn’t! He made me come here to bed and sleep! Thank goodness too—I needed it, what with this exhausting life you’re making us live!”

“How are we going to get him to come back?”

“I don’t know but it doesn’t matter because—”

“It DOES matter!” she shrieked, “Without him, we’re stuck like this!”

“But we’re not,” I said significantly.

The tone brought her back to attention. She was actually listening now.

“I know how to fix it,” I said, “But it’s not pretty.”

Silence. By now nearly everyone had entered, and they all stared at me with baited breath, in utter shock and disbelief.

Then, contrary to what I expected, Aemelia exploded. “WHAT!?” she stormed, “How long have you known….”

“Five hours,” I said coolly.

“He told you, didn’t he!?” she whispered in hysterics, “He knew all the time and bribed you with that knowledge in exchange for letting him go. Likely as not, he duped you and made it all up!”

This crossed the line from unreasonable to outrageous. I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off by an outburst from, to my complete surprise, Jessica.

“You shut your trap, Aemelia!” she thundered. She had just entered the room, pushing past the throng in the doorway and forcing her way to the front, face hot and deadly from wrath. This was very unlike her.

“Kyrie has been nothing but helpful to you and this is how you repay her?” she continued, eyes ablaze in fury, “Insults? Accusations? What more do you expect from her? She found your way out and you blame her for letting—Nikolai go!?”

As she fumed, it dawned on me. I knew what this was. That expression behind her fury, the soft limpness in her muscles, the lack of trembling characteristic of choking anger: it all made sense. I suppressed a grin.

“Why do you always assume the worst?” Jessica continued, “Why do you always look past the good things and overestimate the bad? Selfish, that’s what you are—selfish! You’re stubborn, proud, and selfish!!”

“Too much,” I said softly, too softly for anyone to hear.

Jessica closed her eyes, breathed deeply as Aemelia watched in fright. I don’t think she knew the truth, but she did see that this wasn’t normal, even taking the curse into account.

“I just want to go home,” she whimpered, “And I want to trust people.”

Jessica opened her eyes again and replied calmly, “Then trust Kyrie, trust your friends, trust me.”

“Did I ever tell you how I ended up here?” Aemelia whispered, a glint of flashing anger lighting up her eyes, “It was my birthday, and my best friend Kathleen said she organized a treasure hunt for me in this house to celebrate it. I trusted her. We were besties! But while I was searching, she snuck up behind me and—and threw that wretched book….” she broke down into sobs, “…and—and—then she…she ran off! Laughing!! I didn’t—realize—what— what happened till—till I—tried to—run after her…. I almost died!!!” she hiccuped, “I swore—I’d—never trust —anyone—ever again.”

As she finished, her sobs burst afresh, and everyone stood staring at the floor in shame. I think everyone there harbored a small grudge against Aemelia for her demanding and mistrustful nature, and never considered that it came from somewhere other than her inborn nature. I moved to say words of comfort, reassurance, but Jessica’s expression arrested me. It was stony, shocked. “Kathleen Brownings?” she asked in little more than a whisper.

Aemelia looked up and nodded. “Do you know her?” she asked in a trembling voice.

Jessica didn’t answer, but instead asked, “How old are you?”

“Nineteen in December.”

“And Kathleen?”

Aemelia shrugged, “Maybe twenty-six by now. Though she always looked younger than she really was.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Three and a half years. I search every day but I haven’t seen Kathleen since. Oh! I hope she rots in—”

I hastened to put my hands over Erice’s ears. She was much too young to hear this.

Jessica ran her fingers through her hair, making the front part stick up funny. “Ohhhh adellavū īga arthavāgide….”

I jerked my head up and looked straight into her eyes. “What is it?” I asked, “What’s wrong?”

She groaned, shaking her head slowly from side to side. Then I experienced the weirdest déjà vu ever, for she looked the very picture of Nik those long weeks ago on that night we first discovered I was cursed. The scene swirled in my mind: he lying on his bed exhausted, shaking his head back and forth, side to side in fretful agony. If there had been the least doubt in my mind, it vanished in that moment.

Jessica looked at me, a soul portal opening for an instant in her gaze. I knew what she meant. I nodded ever so slightly. She turned and looked back at Aemelia. “Trust us,” she concluded. Then she fled from the room.

I knew something was wrong, and I had to get out now. Without a word, I started for the doorway, then darted down the hall and towards the side door of the house. Eileen called after me, “Kyrie, stop! Where are you going?”

I ignored her. This was an emergency and I couldn’t stop to explain it to anybody. They wouldn’t understand, anyway. I was just reaching for an umbrella when a hand arrested me.

“Kyrie,” said a soft, determined voice. I looked up the arm to which the hand belonged and discovered the face of the speaker: Vanya, a tall girl of fourteen with hair like shadow, pertaining to both its color and elusiveness. Her eyes were misty gray and complacent. Now they burned with ardent fire.

“Kyrie, I know what’s going on,” she said. “That wasn’t Jess, not really, and you need to go and meet him because something’s up, and he didn’t tell you how to fix it; you found out yourself last night and told him—but you have to tell me now: how do we do it?”

I tried to shake her hand off but it was no use. She only gripped me tighter.

“Please Kyrie,” she entreated, “You said it wasn’t pretty, but if we’re going to do it then we need to know. I’ll find a way to tell the others.”

My hand didn’t hurt, but Vanya’s hold was one of iron, and the only way to loosen her manacle was to give her the key. I had to leave as soon as I could but I wasn’t going anywhere until I conceded to her demand and told her.

“Fine,” I said, relaxing my wriggling, “I can’t tell the whole of it nor give it justice, simply because I don’t know how to. But here’s the gist: On the night of the next new moon—the full new moon, prime of dark—twenty-eight of us need to run from sunset to sunrise in absolute darkness and absolute freedom. Which means—”

“Full-scale Night Run coinciding with a town-wide power outage,” she interrupted sharply, “But you said twenty-eight of us….”

“I know,” I said solemnly, “Don’t tell them that part.”

“We need one more….” she breathed.

I nodded, then pulled at my hand, still held firmly by Vanya’s. She stood motionless, immovable, lost in thought.

“Vanya!” I called, “I have to go!”

“Right,” she said dimly, releasing her grasp, “Sorry.”

Without another word, I snatched the umbrella and slipped out into the illusive morning sunshine, enticing with warm rays that threaten to kill, like a pleasant cool shower of acid rain. Vanya remained transfixed behind me.

My breathing sounded heavily as I traipsed up and down the streets, searching frantically. “Come on,” I murmured to myself, “Where are you?”

As I searched, I dimly heard people muttering around me, stiff and anxious. The atmosphere was tense. Did another kid go missing? If so, then they were out here probably dying in the sunlight. I took a rushed break from my own search and scanned the ground all about for signs of a weakening child, but saw nobody. I only felt slightly relieved, but all it meant was that I’d have a second thorough search after I completed my own.

I didn’t see Mango until he had galloped between my legs and flung his forepaws up towards me, claws sinking into my lean stringy thighs. “Ow!” I yelled in pain, looking down at the angry red punctures made through my skin. “Mango! What are you doing out here, boy?”

I knelt carefully under my umbrella and gave him a quick pet to satisfy his desire to play, then stood up again to keep looking. But no sooner had I done so than he resumed his attack upon my legs, physically barring me from continuing any further. After several renditions of me pulling him off and him renewing his assault, the result of which included the sad state of my legs, now covered in little red polka dots, I was exasperated.

“Mango!” I groaned in anguish, “Stop!”

He backed away, then sat down stiffly, looking me straight in the eye. He did not turn away. It was then that I noticed he was sitting in the middle of the blazing sun, casting no shadow, with no pain or hesitation. How odd, since he usually stuck to the shadows for his midday frolics around town. He gave one short bark and went back to staring, boring into my eyes. After a half second of thought, it hit me. But…was he really that powerful? To withstand the strength of the immediate energy drain come from intense sunlight? Apparently he was.

I stifled a smirk. “Alright,” I said significantly, “Lead on.”

Mango lowered his head slightly and began walking towards me, through my legs and out the other side, starting off in the direction from which I had just come. I turned and followed. When Mango looked back and saw this, he took off like a shot. I started running, careful to remain in the shade of my umbrella and the buildings around me.

I was out of breath by the time he pulled up short at the fringe of the last bit of shade, pointing his nose down the yellow grassy field towards the same tree where I had first met Nik. I couldn’t see him, but pressed on towards it anyway, following the gut feeling I had that he was there, and needed to be hidden. Judging from his performance at home, something was definitely wrong.

I was at the tree, peering all around in vain. Suddenly he was there, standing right in front of me with a grave expression. Somewhere behind me, I heard Mango’s excited yipping as he scurried back to his favorite scrounging spot by the Lovinger’s trash cans.

“Thank you,” I said, “That means a lot, more than I can say.”

“Thought you might appreciate it,” he muttered.

What’s wrong?” I asked, “What happened?”

Nik huffed, then said simply, “Kathleen Brownings is my aunt.”

I was stunned, but didn’t see how this was cause to worry. I opened my mouth to say so, but he cut me off.

“You don’t get it,” he said, “My parents died when I was very young, leaving me an only child. I had several aunts and uncles, but all of them died prematurely. So my Aunt Theresa was my closest living relative, and therefore my legal guardian. However, my Great Aunt Nash emerged and fought tooth and nail to get me under her own care. She won.

“While I lived with her, she adopted Sal to be my sister, and told us both the most exciting stories about an ancient race of people who dedicated their lives to soul-searching questions, glory, philosophy so deep that it pains the normal mind to even comprehend. She gave the tales vivid portrayals: telling them with shadow puppets, dramatizing with sound effects and voices; when we were old enough, the three of us acted them out together. I thought then that she was so intent on us learning them because she knew I loved them and needed something to cling to, but I know now that the reason she went through pains to impress them on my mind was because she wanted me to remember them for the rest of my life. They aren’t just stories. They’re important.

“Nash died when I was eight. Sal and I passed into Aunt Theresa’s care, and have lived here with her ever since. She watched me like a hawk, never letting me out of her sight for more than a few minutes. As the years passed, she relaxed her vigilance, but never let me spend the night away from the house. Every night at ten, she would lock my door and bedroom window. She said it was to make sure thieves wouldn’t break into my room, but I know better now.

“Another of her ‘eccentric habits,’ as Sal and I called them, was transforming herself into a young girl with the use of makeup. It was always the same girl, whom we named Kathleen. She liked the name, and we laughed over how convincing she was: Everyone in the neighborhood believed that Kathleen was our cousin who came to visit every so often.

“We never questioned why she sometimes went out in this guise, assuming that it was a family joke, or she had a childish side of her that she satisfied in that way. Anyway, she made a really good friend—Kathleen I mean—and Sal and I often saw them hanging out together. We were really happy for them, since Kathleen looked so…young and beautiful and happy herself, something that she sadly lacked before then.

“Then one day, we came to the realization that Kathleen hadn’t appeared for a while, and Aunt Theresa seemed proud and smug. We asked her why she didn’t put her ‘Kathleen face’ on anymore, and she said it was because she didn’t need to. We asked about her friend, and she said that she had sadly gone missing. Sure enough, we saw pictures of her face the next day on the news and police office posters with the caption: MISSING. No one asked about Kathleen, since everyone believed she was our cousin who had stayed her welcome and left.”

He paused, collecting his thoughts.

“I thought I recognized Aemelia when I first saw her in the house a few weeks ago,” he said, “But it was hard to tell in the dark. When I saw her clearly for the first time today, I knew her to be the very same girl who was Kathleen’s recent friend. Everything clicked into place in that instant, and Aemelia’s testimony only furthered my understanding.”

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said maliciously, “I think Aunt Theresa knew everything, and staged the deaths of all my family members so she could keep me for herself, for what purpose I’m still not sure. I think Great Aunt Nash knew she was after me and protected me as long as she could. I think Aunt Theresa holds a grudge against Aemelia’s mother or something and exacted her revenge by tricking her daughter into touching the book. I think she’ll see that I’m wanted and—”

“Wait what?” I asked, astonished, “You’re wanted!? What for?”

He turned red in the face and said guiltily, “Yeah, remember when I called you guys to help me out at Rose Court?”

I pursed my lips and narrowed my eyes angrily in answer.

“They don’t know that’s what really happened so now I’m wanted for assaulting an old woman and single-handedly wreaked havoc on all the employed security units. Wonderful, huh?”

“Nik,” I moaned, “That’s…that’s awful.”

He wasn’t listening. “Once she realizes I’m gone,” he brooded, “I’m not sure how long it’ll be before she figures it out, but I can judge two days at best. How long until the next new moon?”

“Nik…” I said quietly, “You didn’t touch it, did you?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and he ran out into the sunny field and danced in circles, calling out, “Just dandy!”

I laughed, relief flooding my every pore. Nik was safe from the curse—for now. Then a shadow of suspicion crossed my mind. “Nik,” I asked tentatively as he returned to my side and looked out towards his house, brow clouded in thought, “You’re not planning on using her, are you?”

“How do you mean?” he snapped.

“For the twenty-eighth victim?”

“Maybe I am and maybe I’m not,” he said cooly, a glazed and venomous expression coming across his face, “That’s none of your concern.”

That was the first time I was ever truly afraid of him—what he knew, what power he had, what he could do with it—and I was helpless against it.

“Stop it!” I cried.

Nik jerked around to face me. “Why should I bother?” he asked in the same, steady, nonchalant tone. It was cruel. “What right have you to know what I plan?”

“Nik, please, snap out of it!” I pleaded, dropping to my knees and reaching for his hands.

He pulled away in disgust. “Get away from me, you nauseating thing,” he commanded, “I didn’t tell you to come closer.”

My hands fell limply to the earth. The moment they touched, an instant paralysis gripped my every muscle. I could neither move nor breathe, but my consciousness remained sharp and alert. A sharp pain suddenly hit my insides with such force that I would have fallen to my side and screamed from the deepest part of my gut if I had only been physically able to do so. Being denied this instinctual response made the pain redouble in intensity, pain like millions of tiny sharp needles simultaneously scraping my skin from the inside out. The agony would have blinded me, would have brought forth tears, would have made me sob aloud like a frightened child, if I was only able to. I could feel, but not respond. I was perfectly aware, but forced to behave most unnaturally passive. This was cruelty at its worst: feeling the deepest suffering but not being allowed the bodily avenues of relief that we take for granted. This was torture.

My neck muscles automatically contracted and raised my head to where my eyes were inches from Nik’s. He glowered, pure evil and hatred concentrated in that deadly gaze piercing deep through my unblinking eyes and shocking the marrow of my bones. “You’re merely a tool in my hands,” he sneered, “Be thankful I’m a considerate master.”

With that, my body threw itself away to the side, out of the shade of the tree, into the apex of the blazing afternoon sun. The needles stopped, but the pain lingered, and I felt every ounce of energy in my body being sapped away, evaporated, leeched from every pore. Every molecule of adenosine triphosphate was being individually stripped from my cells and drained, leaving me all but dead…inert…powerless….[black]

[Strong, emotional music in voiceover. Slow motion distorted shots: Nikolai bending weeping in disbelief over Kyrie’s pale withered body in the sun…cradling her and sobbing…despair…heaving her to the tree shade…carrying her back through the streets…laying her carefully on the side doorstep of the house…arranging her hands…brushing flyaways out of her face…kissing her cheeks delicately…running away weeping…fades to black, music culminates and goes silent]

She loved the feeling of walking away. Everyone exited the train, masses herd to the left, following the siren sound of success. She turned right. To her street. To her home. She still works. But it doesn’t look like it used to. No pantyhose and heels. No bumping elbows or bruised egos that punch harder than a heavyweight boxer. She was so happy about this new world, answering to herself on her own timeline, she never noticed the shadow figure in her periphery. He masked the malice of his intent. Method over mania, he repeated to himself. Method over mania.