This letter needs no specification of a sender or receiver. It is not from me or from you. It could be from anyone. It is not to any one person, but rather to many people. It is to and from every one of our hearts.

Dear human being,

                        I want to write to you so I can let you know that you have let me down. I could write the words over and over again, but I realize it changes nothing. I could scream it at the top of my lungs and let the world know how you have hurt me, but the past will not hear me or pay me any mind. I could hate you. I could keep that hatred for you deep inside of me and let it hide there safely as a reminder of the pain you brought me. But I am the only one who knows that it exists and let's it eat away at my heart, So why create it? I was your friend. I was your family. I was your lover. You are a person that could have been any number of things to me. Heartbreak plays no favorites when it chooses people in life to let you down. I really always had faith in you. I trusted you and the promises that you made to me. I believed in your aspirations and disregarded your ambiguity. I let you in, against my best wishes. I relentlessly defended you. I saw the Beautiful parts of who you were. I made plans with you and kept them in my head like a guaranteed magnificent destination. I Love You. I gave you all that I had and now I'm left feeling empty and cheated. But do you know what the strangest and most unbelievably frustrating part of all this is?

I FORGIVE YOU!!!!

You and I are different people, but in the end we are the same. We are only human. As humans, We let each other down. We promise Love before we know what it really means. We abuse Trust. We break hearts. We make mistakes. I have made my fair share of mistakes as well. I'm sure I have Hurt you too. I know there are parts of you that I will never truly understand and therefore cannot fit into the small boxes of reasoning that I have tried to place around a complex situations. I know that there was a reason why I believed in you, and therefore there is a reason why I still want the Absolute Best For You. Friendship, family, and relationships seem so well defined with their expectations, but very rarely are all of those expectations going to be met. That is the chance you take in believing in people. In the end, loving each other teaches us about Love, as a separate and beautiful entity that is unparalleled to anything else in this world. You could be a lover, friend, parent, child, or borderline strangers. Whoever you are, I want you to know that you have hurt me, but

I FORGIVE YOU!!!!

I don't just forgive you because it makes me feel like a good person. I don't forgive you because I don't want to deal with recognition of your actions. I don't forgive you because I have forgotten. On the contrary, I Forgive you because I remember. I remember that you are a Human and Humans teach each other in both positive and negative ways. I remember that you brought me memories and emotions that made me feel alive. I remember that if you were worth my trust and love, you are worth my FORGIVENESS and I am worth the Relief of being able to let go. I know I am strong and alive, and free to experience all depths of Love and Loss. I am blessed for the moments that I have lost. You are a Piece of me, and that piece will not eat away at my Soul like Hatred would. It will live inside of me in a place that is preserved by Forgiveness and Humility. And for that I will be a better person going Forward.

P.S.  Forgiveness will make the future kinder to the both of us.

Sincerely,

Another Human Being

I do not take Credit for this Share.

- Lexi Herrick©

It would be space. But not the moon as that has been done and re-done. I’m talking about setting foot on a planet no one has yet to do. Mars, Venus, Saturn, any of those three. Take photographs, bring back artifacts such as bits of rocks, dust, or dirt, perhaps find some form of vegetation growth. That would be amazing to find a plant life. It could lead to an alternate source of food, or energy, or who knows, a second home?

Have your ever felt your name was…wrong? Not that you had the wrong name chosen for you but the letters in your name were inverted or worse, the wrong letters? It might still be pronounced correctly and you still recognize yourself in the word but if you squint your eyes, it looks Latin—the correct root meaning but in the wrong vernacular.

And if you follow the vein of this premise and your name was written wrong this whole time, then have you been nurtured and changed by all the wrong catalysts in your life? Did your second-grade teacher always pick your name because she understood you to be a different person than you were? Did your best friend actually find you by your quintessence or are they still deceived? Did your parents ever really recognize you as you or were you a good-enough changeling to satisfy their intuition?

Were you ever really understood?

And if we go further down the rabbit hole, were you the egg fertilized in the wrong month or the wrong year?

Or were you perhaps, born too late? Or did you miss your timing altogether?

And if so, who did you replace? Or did you replace, nothing?

Have you gone through your whole life wearing a caul of ignorance—that everything significant related to you, to who you were supposed to be—you hid from yourself because you deemed them dangerous but in the process you fucked up your whole life because you strayed so far off your path that you’ve made it to the path you were supposed to be on but it’s actually in the wrong dimension and you don’t know how to shift back to your own.

No?

Well, I guess it’s just me then…

Every day there’s news of acts of hate and greed. People of different cultures, religions, sexual orientation, races & political ideologies are being brutalized and murdered, Why?

Is it because they are different? Or is it because we’ve been conditioned to think that this is the way it’s always been, and that it’s ok, it’s just more out in the open.

No it’s not ok! It doesn’t matter what color you skin is, or your culture, religion, sexual orientation, race or political ideologies are.

We are all HUMAN BEINGS no greater or less than any other.

Have we become so infected with the sickness of hate and greed that we would let it rend our souls, and divide us from humanity. If we as a society of HUMAN BEINGS don’t change, wake up from the nightmare, and do what we know is right, then we deserve the consequences of our inaction.

D. Casabonne 05.11.20 (C) All Rights Reserved

I don't know when it started. Maybe when he touched me at two, or when my grandmother caught me playing with myself sexually at six. Or maybe when I read a letter my mom wrote to Ophra, needing help with her seven different personalities. Who knows. I continue to search, if I ever find answers I'll let you know. Not that you want to know, but, I do. My mom was a whore brought home to my Dad on his seventeen birthday and I became the present. If that is what some call it. I was eight when I met her for the first time, my mom. She looked just like my auntie cherie, but, I knew she died of cancer and my uncle fell apart. I wasn't allowed up to the casket, it was open and I was only three, everyone was crying. Now I know death. It's sad, breathtakingly morbid. The casket was open everyone crying. I can't remember when it happened. Maybe when she brought me and my sister to the crack houses, roaches, dirty laundry, crack and whiskey. Rotting veins. We named the roaches, they crawled everywhere so we started giving them names. I think we were getting contact high from the crack of fiens. She was a fein, selling ass, paper food stamps. I don't know when it started, maybe when we ate out of dumpsters, my father was always missing. The thought of him having kids disgusted him back then, disgusting me now, the blame. My mom was still a whore, diapers and formula don't come free. Maybe it happened when I was left on a doorstep at six months, while she hit pcp. Crazy stories people tell you as a baby. I think of it now, fuck, they could of made some pretty shit up, they didn't, this shit is fucking reality, mine anyway. Maybe that's when. I can't remember. I'm trying to get there. Fourty three comes fast. My story is long. It's too long. I wished I was adopted. My dad broke my heart first and then I lost count of the heartache. There were too many to keep up with and two of me on any given day. Maybe it started in grade school. Kids were mean. My best friend Michelle. She would pee her pants. Kids made fun. She was fat. I was skinny. I hated being skinny. I just can't remember. I pull my hair out. It's always a mess. I am a mess. "What was the question again", I ask. Oh yeah, "when did this all begin", that fucking question, like I'm a professional therapist with some magic answer. I wouldn't even be writing this if it's that easy to answer. I just can't remember, it's too long to tell, too much to take in. Fucking labels and questions, I forget when it began. Maybe when I was conceived, maybe when I was two, he touched me, fuck, maybe when I was six years old and horny, wondering why everyone is yelling at me. Remembering hurts too much and all my therapists, keep asking, "When do you think this all began?" I always leave the office more confused then them. Fuck it, I schedule my next appointment, I'm lonely and after all that shit, what do I have to lose, so, I finally remembered where it began. I forgot to schedule two appointments this week and take my meds. It's a fucking circus, a comedy show, if you don't laugh at it, you'll just cry over it all. A broken record that keeps spinning to the question in tune, "Do you remember when it all began?"

My vision blurred yesterday. A bright light and a creeping fog from the edges. Now I see our strings. Does anyone else see them; the lighted tendrils coming out of our hearts? Does anyone see the spiderwebs we create and complicate?

The tips of my fingers glowed yesterday. They tingled and went numb. They congealed to black-red clots—stubs of dying light. Because destiny met free will. Because my head is scattered in the winds but my hands can’t seem to stop channeling lost souls and broken stories.

When did my scribblings become my still waters? When did I start writing down to be seen? I feel like Orpheus, wandering around the maze of the Underworld, calling out to his Eurydice. Except my Eurydice is the universe, winking in and out of the unconscious. What’s up with that? Stay the fuck still, universe!

Maybe it’s because I’m the good sinner; the one with the flimsy red dress and a white chemise to hide. Maybe I like the breaking and the bloody mess to ruminate. Maybe I like the honor of straddling the edges of insanity. Maybe I’m not complaining because how can one be ungrateful for the unfolding of the cosmos and the shadows?

Why should I cower before everything?

There are seventeen colours in the rainbow. Modern science tells us only seven combine to make white light, but modern science is lacking in so many things.

At one time, it was believed the thundergods cleaved the heavens in their struggle for dominance of the higher realms. This was proven wrong when mankind took to the skies and, in reaching the heights only gods had previously trod, committed mass deicide.

That cruel, albeit unintentional, nature has littered our past with

The thoughts were jolted from Deke’s mind as he collided heavily with solid ground. With a head aching as though he were hungover, he opened his eyes – his own eyes, not those of the octopus he had recently inhabited – and was relieved to be back in his office. Beside him lay Roman Zorić, his research assistant, and Vaughn Lynton, a man suspected of murder, each groaning in pain.

Deke tried to recapture the train of thought, wondering if it could shed any light on the predicament they were facing. A seventeen-coloured rainbow, the death of gods and… it was no use. The ideas were fading as quickly as a dream upon waking.

Looking up, he saw the white ring which had transported the three men to the seabed of an alien world hanging motionless in the middle of the room. Through its centre, he made out the figures of Chō, Esme and Rosemary, his until-recently late wife. The worry on Rosemary’s face melted away when she spotted him. Running around the interstellar object, she rushed to his side and helped disentangle him from the other men.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ Deke said.

‘Considering everything else you’ve told us today,’ Chō said while still intently peering at the space-ring, ‘I doubt there is anything we would dismiss.’

‘Alien octopi,’ Vaughn said in a doubtful voice.

Chō raised an inquisitive eyebrow, reminding Deke of William Bradshaw. One difference between the two of them – aside from gender, nationality and, since a short while ago, existence – was that Bradshaw would not have missed the opportunity to inform Vaughn that, as the word octopus is derived from the Greek, it is incorrect to use a Latin suffix for the plural.

Once the three intergalactic travellers had lifted themselves from the floor and ensured none had suffered any damage in their graceless return to Earth, Deke informed the others of their encounter with Queen, the leader of the alien octopus race.

‘Their scientists confirmed time is disappearing,’ Roman concluded.

‘Which explains why last Tuesday didn’t happen,’ Rosemary said, referring to the day she had died, ‘and why we don’t remember Marika.’

‘But it doesn’t answer how Roman and I remember Marika,’ Deke said, ‘or why the three of us can see her ghost.’

‘So our idea of one or more dimensions intruding on one another is wrong, then?’ Esme said, dejectedly.

‘Not necessarily,’ Chō stated. ‘All we have against it is the word of an alien creature.’

Deke felt his anger rise as the Japanese woman spoke so dismissively of Queen.

‘It was you who said the crossing-dimension theory was unlikely,’ Rosemary countered.

‘Yes, “unlikely”,’ Chō concurred. ‘But that does not mean we should categorically rule it out, not until it has been disproved. What interests me more is that these anomalies which have affected us today were felt all the way across the galaxy. Not just that, but this alien race had the time to locate the source of the anomaly and send this…’ she indicated the floating ring, ‘device across countless astronomical units, all in a matter of hours.’

Deke fought the urge to grab Chō by the lapels and shake some respect into her.

‘Are you suggesting that Queen caused this anomaly and lied to us about it?’ Roman’s voice was dripping with the same vitriol Deke felt. Eyes wide in shock, Esme glared at the man she and Deke had once called the most mild-mannered person on the planet.

Chō looked him levelly in the eye.

‘I am suggesting nothing at the moment,’ she answered calmly. ‘I am simply keeping an open mind to any and all possibilities. The only thing I am certain of in this puzzle is that, of the six of us in this room, three of us remember a different past to two of you. I’m not sure where this gentleman fits in,’ she added looking at Vaughn.

‘He remembers the same things we do,’ Deke snapped. Her words had abated his anger somewhat, but he still felt a strong animosity toward her.

‘Then three remember a Gareth-world and three a Marika-world,’ Chō said, referencing the receptionists to succinctly sum up the situation.

‘Three and six,’ Vaughn said. When they all looked at him in confusion, he elaborated. ‘I might not know what the hell is going on, but I do know that we came back with the minds of the octopi with us.’

Deke recalled Queen’s message: My subjects do not fare well on alien land. I will permit their consciousness to join you.

Of course, he thought. The feeling in my head is not a hangover, it’s the presence of another being.

That would explain his surge of rage. When Chō had seemed to speak ill of Queen, it had been her subject that had grown angry, not him.

He tried to mentally reach out to his internal companion but received no reply. It wasn’t surprising given that they were different species from different worlds. The only reason he had been able to communicate with Queen was because the body he had been inhabiting could read her body language. He doubted the passenger in his head understood verbal communication well enough for them to read each other’s thoughts, but they appeared to sense one another’s emotions.

‘Even if Queen was right,’ Roman said, ‘and the locus of the anomaly is here on Earth, we still have no idea where it is or what caused it.’

‘Or why you are the only ones to remember the altered past,’ Rosemary added.

‘What if this is not an anomaly?’ Esme asked. ‘What if this is how the universe ends, slivers of time disappearing from the past unt’

‘Not another one,’ Vaughn shouted, much to the shock of Rosemary and Chō.

As the two women looked to Deke for an explanation to Vaughn’s outburst, Deke could only stare at the pale image of Esme which stood in the place her solid figure had been. Her mouth continued moving – Deke thought he saw the words ‘until there is no more history?’ form on her lips – but her voice was gone. Esme had become a ghost in the same manner Bradshaw had.

‘No, no, not Esme,’ Roman sobbed.

Deke noticed the changes in the office. Esme’s desk had vanished, the stain on the windowsill where she had spilled coffee was gone.

‘Should we know who this Esme is?’ Chō asked. There was a fearful light in her eyes which Deke found perversely satisfying.

No, he reminded himself, not me; my cephalopod companion.

‘Esme has worked in this office with me for seven years,’ he said flatly. ‘We’ve known each other since university.’ Looking at Rosemary, he said, ‘She was one of our bridesmaids.’

Deke guessed that neither she nor Chō could remember Esme, but he knew they would be aware that someone had just been claimed by yet another anomaly in time. And if a person could disappear from memory, from existence, so quickly and arbitrarily either of them could be next.

*

The spirit of Esme opened her eyes wide. She seemed to realise what had happened to her. The look of dread on her ghostly face was more terrifying than anything Deke had seen before.

Earlier that morning, at the front desk when Marika had realised he could see her, she had looked lost and confused. Her spirit had no idea what was happening whereas Esme had been party to the discussions around the anomalies and their repercussions.

Deke could not comprehend the fear that comes with knowing she could no longer interact with the world or the realisation that her existence had been erased, that her life had meant nothing. Her parents would no longer remember her, her husband not graced with her love, her children… her children could no longer exist either, he reasoned with a cold shudder.

‘We’ve got to stop this,’ he muttered.

‘But how?’ Roman said. ‘How do we even begin to look for the cause?’

Before Deke could answer, the motionless space-ring began to turn. Deke felt – no, his octopus passenger felt – a swelling pride and just a touch of apprehension.

‘I think they’ve found it for us,’ Deke said, reading the emotions.

‘Who?’ Rosemary asked.

‘Queen’s octopi scientists,’ Vaughn answered. He glanced at Deke, trepidation on his face. ‘Standing around here isn’t helping. Let’s see what she found.’

With a deep breath, Vaughn jumped through the centre of the ring and vanished.

Deke looked at his wife.

‘I love you,’ he said as he followed Vaughn into the unknown.

So here I am, faithful timer at my side, delving into yet another writing challenge on the internet. Why am I doing this? There are the easy to spot answers, rising from the water like islands. It improves my writing skills, it entertains me, it could create a connection. For many that is enough, you set up a beach chair on the island that you like the most and go on about your day. However, if you wade into the water you start to see things, sunken things, things twisted from neglect, things meant to be forgotten.

Perhaps writing is not so innocent as it sounds. Perhaps it comes from a deeper place, a place of the forgotten and ignored. Writing to seek validation, tentacles reaching out from the hidden place of deep personal humility and shame. Writing to express our deeper selves, absolving us of our troubled actions and pasts. Writing from a worry that we will be forgotten, showing the world a portrait of ourselves that we hope won't be called out for the fake that it is...and my time is up.

Let's face a fact. Science isn't political. Science is science. Science goes to the heart of facts, based on hard evidence, not hearsay. I hear all this talk about how the vaccine is a plot. Conservative media, certain politicians, downplay the need and there are people who buy into that notion. Shame on them.

The vaccine gives you a chance to live. Metal won't stick to your face. It's not Russia, China or India, our own government, or whatever; what this is, is a failure to trust in what works. For you, your family, your friends.

Over 612,000 died from Covid had no say because there was no vaccine. I am willing to bet if they hadn't died, they would be the first ones at a clinic begging for the vaccine in order to live.

To all the naysayers, I wish you well and hope you don't get ill, especially with Delta on the rise. But dammit ... have trust, have faith, and stop listening to false news that says you will be just fine without it.

Truth is: you won't be. Just ask the parents who have lost a total of 300 kids to the Delta variant. 300 kids that will never have the chance to grow up.

I want to sit by the lakeside and stare into the future. Who knows what's there. I'm not sure I'm ready to visit the future just yet. It'll be here soon enough.

I don't want to go into the past either. There are too many scary things I've seen, too many thoughts I'd rather let die in history.

So maybe I'll just explore the present. The lake's edge. The dark trees. The fading stars. Because soon enough, this will be the past. And I'll be in the future.