Category: Fiction

By Samuel McRae

Only idiots want to be infamous. So no, Karime wasn’t taking the video well. At best this would be a flash in the pan. At worst…

“A heated confrontation in Cliff Heights, California, has taken the internet by storm. A now-deleted clip on TikTok shows an area woman issuing violent threats at local youth.”

Fatigue stung at Karime’s eyes, that or the excess screen time. Few of these articles passed for journalism, and it shouldn’t have surprised her the news pushed tabloid garbage. It still stung. And now came the worst of it, that damn video.

“Touch her again and I’ll break your f***ing wrist!”

“We were feeding it!”

“Crazy b****!”

“You need to leave, now. You’re lucky she didn’t bite you! Maybe you’d learn some common sense!

Karime stood by that. Maybe she should have watched her language. An image popped into her head, reality tv fans drawn to the censor bleeps like dogs to a bell. How did people care about this?

“We just wanted to feed it.”

That little punk’s side of the story. His speech punctuated by sniffles begging the audience to feel bad.

“That’s all we wanted! But this lady comes out of nowhere threatening my friends. We didn’t know if she was gonna hurt us!”

“To threaten a child like this?” the mother of this seventeen-year-old boy scoffed. “That’s unbelievable. She’s lucky she didn’t lay a finger on him, otherwise I would have her in jail.”

That bitch. Encroaching on a coyote den-during the pupping season mind you- could hurt more than their poor little egos. They were tossing sandwich traps to get as close as they could. What kind of game was that? Coyotes are survivors in the face of habitat loss, and people can’t stand it. If the coyote (within her rights to do so) snapped at these kids, they’d run back to the hovels of suburbia. Their parents and neighbors would take up arms to punish an animal for being an animal.

Last year Karime’s worthless nephew set snare traps across his property, protecting his yard from animals he didn’t own. Including the neighbor’s cat, who should have been kept indoors anyway. Instant legal shitshow. He asked for help with his legal fees.

“Those fees are your tuition for the school of consequences.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

She hung up and cut him off. She hung up a lot these days. Too many people thought her life was their business, strangers even.

A knock on her desk.

“Let’s remember to keep our work time productive. Normally you’re better about this.”

Her boss. Karime straightened her posture and closed the news tab, opening a spreadsheet.

“Sorry, Dan. Just worried about recent events. I want to know what clients might think before I work with them.”

“This,” Dan gestured vaguely, “stuff will only interfere if you let it. Just keep your best face forward.”

Her career in a nutshell.

PR work paid her bills, a long drawn out investment returning on Karime’s effort. Her true passion? The Alderman Wildlife Center. Animal rehabilitation supported by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, one of the reasons Karime paid her taxes.

As soon as she stepped out of her office, investor relations turned to bullshit. This was real work. Putting Melvin in a holding cage, cleaning the shit out of his kennel. They needed to feed that raccoon less. Gross. Ultimately manageable. Toughing out the stench and texture was a matter of mental fortitude.

Melvin was an orphaned tick magnet, and he hated being handled. Good! His fighting spirit would help him survive in the wild. He just needed time to recover. And a clean kennel was a step in the process.

“Thanks for helping out. I know reptiles are more your forte.”

Paulo’s deep voice held the cadence of a mall dwelling valley girl, with the knowing lilt of relaxation born of expertise.

“It’s just what needs to be done,” Karime replied curtly. “How’s Cheeto?”

A Western painted turtle. Native to North America, not native to California. But that wasn’t really her fault. Some shortsighted suburbanite left her at the shelter with a sticky note on her shell.

This is Cheeto. We can’t take care of her anymore. Please give her a new home!

Cheeto was only eight inches long. Did they think she’d get bigger? Paulo had the decency to give her a home. Karime’s furrowed brow dissolved to a neutral, inquisitive look.

“How’s her eating?”

“Good. She’s, like, really into live prey. Such a little snail hunter.”

The corners of Karime’s mouth lifted. “She deserves a home like yours.”

“Of course. By the way, Kelly’s graduation party is on the 26th.”

Kelly was another volunteer. Punctual. Talked about sea creatures for hours on end. Good on her for graduating.

“She’s a good kid. I’ll get her a tank filter for the snails.”

If you ever made eye contact with Kelly, she’d probably show you pictures of her rabbit snails. Creepy orange tissue protruding from a long black shell. Exactly why Tetrapods were more Karime’s speed. But still, Kelly kept the snails’ habitat so precise in pH and salinity it would make a surgeon blush. To care that much about snails of all things… maybe the next generation wasn’t as fucked as Karime thought. Maybe.

After a night of restless sleep, one shower, and thirty one brushed teeth, Karime chopped tomatoes, cilantro, green onions, and leftover chicken. She cooked them into an eight egg omelet divvied into two equal portions. Two plates of morning goodness drizzled in a storebought salsa brand Karime fell in love with in college. One for her, one for her wife: Professor Anna Channita, tucking a button up into her pants as she walked to the table. Karime was relatively butch, but that was a lack of interest in the trappings of femininity. Meanwhile Anna’s vision of heaven held suits, ties, and slacks tailored to her lean, top heavy figure.

“Morning, darling. How’d you sleep?”

“Poorly.” Karime sat down. “Eat.”

Anna gave her a knowing look. “You’ve been keeping your head down. You would have told me by now if anyone gave you shit.”

Karime shrugged. “You know me well.”

“It will blow over,” Anna promised. “Give it time.”

Karime sighed and dabbed a napkin at her chin. “If you say so.”

A flash of concern colored Anna’s face. “Right. Well, I have more papers to grade if you need a distraction. Matty wrote something about the impact of boy bands on masculinity.”

“I thought you taught Political Science.”

“And yet…”

Anna chuckled. “Anyway, some people are so tied up in their own baggage they make everything about themselves. No wonder people project their strict teachers and mommy issues onto you.”

Karime made a face. “Their what?”

Anna shoveled the rest of her meal into her mouth. “Just a theory Nico shared in office hours.”

“I… appreciate his concern, but I’d rather he stuck to World War 1 facts.” Karime rubbed the bridge of her nose. “How the hell do I know who you’re talking about? I know your students’ names better than you do.”

“Because you are a genius.” Anna stood and gave her a kiss, savory from breakfast. “Have a good day at work. Try not to kill Dan, but if you must, have it look like an accident.”

If the business park had a saving grace, it was the view. K&S Business Communications straddled the threshold of urban sprawl to forested hills. According to Dan, it was good for the valuable mental health of K&S’s em-partner-ployees. In fairness, the hiking was good. Karime spotted a bushy tail on the way out of her car. It disappeared between the trees. Like a wink, or an inside joke offered by the fauna.

Karime let out a breath and stepped into the office. It greeted her with blasted air conditioning she’d never get used to. She stifled a shiver and entered the elevator, maintaining a professional composure in the presence of a coworker. Gina. When Karime failed to tune out gossip, some people whispered that Gina used to be an actress. This might explain her incessant need to participate in office politics torn from the screenplay of a spy movie.

“Hi,” Gina said with the rehearsed pleasantry of someone who needed something.

“Hello,” responded Karime with the formality of someone with somewhere to be. Not enough to feign interest, but enough politeness not to hear back from HR.

Gina batted her eyes innocently. “I saw the news this morning.”

Karime felt a lump in her chest rising up her trachea. She had plenty to say on the topic. Plenty that she would rather keep to herself.

“Some kids were harassing a coyote, possibly with pups, and I drove them away without laying a hand on anyone.”

Gina pursed her lips. “I see. Well, hopefully they don’t press charges. My cousin’s a lawyer, I could totally get his help.”

“That’s great, Gina.”

The elevator dinged, doors opening and desks beckoning. But someone stood in the way.

“Hi, Dan!” Gina fluttered over to her seat and out of the way.

Dan waved like she was an aunt he didn’t recognize before turning to Karime.

“We have a training for you in the break room.”

Odd. Karime was up to date on all her trainings, none of which ever took place in the break room. “What’s it about?”

“Er… asset protection.”

Okay, Dan was definitely lying.

“This isn’t a casino, Dan. Did anyone else get ‘asset protection training?’”

Dan’s mouth twitched. Employees were staring, as if he didn’t already regret the switch to open concept. Cubicles kept eyes on computers, not on delicate situations.

“In light of recent events, the company has decided to terminate your employment.”

No veneer of approachability, just a robotic script in the interests of K&S. Dan looked like he was defusing a bomb, and Karime nearly laughed. Oh, he was fucking scared? He’d love if she flew off the handle, just think of all the unearned PTO. No, Karime simmered her rage, guiding it under the surface.

“Has my work performance declined? If so, why didn’t you reach out?”

“This is the company’s decision. Not mine. I’m sorry to see you go.”

Karime tried to still her hands. Her heart beat louder than Dan’s words, her firm posture hunching like her spine was trying to eat her sternum, her dry mouth swallowing her turning stomach. She didn’t even like this fucking job, but she wasn’t bad at it!

She needed to leave. Immediately. No one needed to see her revert to a dumb kid from decades ago. The elevator dinged, she was on her way out. Acid churned at the back of her throat, and before the door opened, she doubled over for release.

Three days since the firing, she was ready to talk.

That sober evening, Anna cradled her wife’s back on the couch and wrapped an arm around her. Both of them breathed in warmth and comfort, easing them out of a lull of commiseration.

“Retirement by force. This is life now.”

Anna rubbed the stiff left shoulder. Commiseration without agreement.

“I didn’t say anything about the incident and they still fired me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Anna was a rare type, the kind who always knew her purpose. Even rarer, it earned her a decent wage. She’d better, it took years of scrounging money across three degrees. Petsitting while editing other people’s papers, countless nights of mentally repeating notes while stocking boxes and milling about on security. Even substitute teaching, a forward-echo while she cased out universities. Without Karime’s guidance, Anna would have gone crazy.

And so, Anna probed. “Would you trade your time at K&S for something different?”

Without missing a beat: “A company that entitles me to my pension.”

Actually, K&S left her pension alone. Maybe as a show of good faith, maybe to mitigate a liability, whatever. That wasn’t the point. Anna licked her lips.

“Let me rephrase. Say you followed your herpetology dreams, what might that path look like?”

Karime’s brow tensed.

“I would work as a wildlife care specialist at a zoo. AZA accredited only.”

Anna thought so. Karime was the same woman she first met, precise dreams etched into her hard head. Anna was getting her Master’s while Karime fought for a Bachelor of Science. In the end, she switched over to a more lucrative major in business. Anna knew she hadn’t let this go.

“Very specific. And this zoo job would require…”

“Residency.” Karime smiled dryly. “Internships too. Humans don’t dole out money for the benefit of other species.”

“Charity-”

Karime sighed, softly and nasally. Anna dropped it, but she kept talking.

“You know what you’re good at? Decisive action. Decisive words. You don’t compete without a goal, even if you put it there yourself. And you play to win, you wouldn’t be happy floundering around grasping for your dream.”

Karime drew in a breath, expanding her chest, drawing it into her stomach. She let it out, all her tension leaving.

“How long did it take me to finish Cross Justice?”

The book? Anna didn’t see where this was going. “About two months.”

“How long did it take me to read Hope to Die?”

“The same.”

Karime nestled her head into Anna, neck leaned back as if assisted by horizontal gravity. “I read to punctuate the day. When I settle into bed, when I put on my glasses, I’m done for the day.”

“You relinquish your momentum to the inertia of rest.”

Despite herself, Karime chuckled. Her cheeks bunched up when she smiled.

“You understand. When I stop for the day, I lose all my steam. Why’s life any different?”

Anna ran a hand through her wife’s hair.

“Because your ‘forced retirement’ is bullshit. You are not letting the mortgage catch up to our savings. I live here too, sunbeam.”

Both women closed their eyes. A few seconds passed. Then they sighed in unison. This seldom happened.

“Branch out,” suggested Anna. “Keep your momentum without overextending. But we’ve made too good of a life together to end up victims.”

The Alderman Wildlife Center smelled the same as always. Part hospital, part stable. Waiting by the front desk were Paulo, glancing over in concern, and Kelly, holding something. Kelly was a short, chubby, olive skinned girl in a fresh set of gym clothes. She kept her black hair dyed blonde, then dyed it blue. Karime didn’t get it, but it didn’t look bad.

“I was on my way out,” she said in lieu of a greeting. “But I wanted you to have this.”

She held out a book. The Ends of the World.

“It’s about mass extinctions. Hope you like it.”

Karime blinked. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. It helped me put some stuff in perspective. I hope it helps you out.”

Kelly waved on her way out. “Gotta go. Nice to see you, Mrs. Cardoso!”

“Goodbye, Kelly.”

Karime tried to think of the last time someone used her surname. The doctor? It felt good to be respected.

Paulo cleared his throat. “Sorry if that was abrupt. Kelly’s a little awkward.”

“She’s fine. How’s Melvin?”

“Loving the clean cage.”

Paulo pursed his lips and pondered for a second. How to say this lightly.

“I wanted to ask you something before you help out for the day. Don’t worry, you’ll get a chance.”

A chill through Karime’s chest.

He continued. “I don’t need to hear about the incident. I trust you were acting within your judgment. What I want to know is simple.”

He folded his hands. “Did you know where the den was? Before the kids did, I mean.”

Karime took a breath. In, out. Chest out, chest in. This was Paulo. She could trust him.

“I used to hike a certain trail.” By the K&S building. “I’d walk, and walk, and walk. Eventually, I stopped seeing other hikers. I’d hear the coyotes. I followed their tracks. They used a crack in the rock for their den.”

Karime closed her eyes. The taut muscles of her forehead loosened like a line given slack.

“There were four of them. One mom, three pups. They never approached me, to be clear. I never approached them. But we’d see each other. I think they understood I wanted to keep my distance. I only wanted to watch them.”

A rough swallow. The ice in her chest cracked.

“The pups are gone. I hope they left, that they got to grow up. But I worry. Did all three of them really leave at the same time? Did something happen to them?”

A deep exhale, taking in the melted sensation between her lungs. It was warm. The weight of stress flowed through extremities, spiraling through the air.

Paulo unclasped his hands. “You are one of a kind.”

Karime dabbed at her eyes with a thumb. “Thank you, Paulo.”

“No, thank you. It’s been, what, two years? I’ve wanted to ask this for a while. The center needs some new Care Associates and-”

“Yes!”

The word came out of her mouth before she could process it. Her most raw desire ringing clear without a chance of restraint.

“Yes,” she smiled. “Yes.”

Author Bio

---

By Joshua Diabo

The phone rang and rocked in its cradle, like a chorus of angry wasps attacking my eardrums.

I did all I could to resist. The pain surpassed any threshold I had envisioned myself possessing. So proud. I was no longer that man I swore I would kill and leave buried.

I answered the phone to silence on your end. But, I felt the tug on the string that connects us on some far distant metaphysical plane. I like to imagine there isn’t any pain there. It has been a long time since I felt that tug. I pulled back against it with the force that I still had.

“Do you miss me yet.” I said with a venom I thought I had stopped producing. No answer would have satiated me. My eyes shut with the tightness of a vault. There was no bracing against what would come.

When my eyes opened I was slouched against the wall, limbs splayed. Like a doll that had been tossed away in anger by a child. The phone was somehow still held up to my ear.

Shallow breaths escaped the receiver. I recognized them as the same that had once reverberated against my neck.

They slowed over a period of time that I lost myself in. Though my body was useless, something in me ripped itself free and began to climb out of the bowels of my being, towards you.

The thing tore sinew, and crushed cartilage. Tastes of copper and the tang of stomach bile bit the lowest part of my tongue. My fingers twitched, whatever survival instincts remained attempting to fight back.

I knew there was no fight left in me beyond pageantry. The thing had its grip on my furthest molars. Red mist and the scent of burnt hair billowed from my facial orifices.

A heat began broiling me from the inside out. The liquid of my eyes vibrated to the silent rhythm.

I felt the base of my tongue begin to detach, a sensation like Velcro slowly being pulled apart made its way up into my mouth. Blood pooled in my tightly closed mouth. Whatever I held within could never be allowed to live. The thing shook with a ferocity that matched the static that was now emanating from the receiver.

I could no longer hold it. Blood pushed itself from my mouth with force. My teeth began to crack under the pressure.

A birth of blood and teeth, with my offspring shaking among the viscera. It was eyeless, and did not make any attempt to recognize me. Then the newborn thing dove into the phone’s receiver.

The phone sat on the ground unmoving. I steadied myself, then lifted the receiver to my ear and waited with held breath. It took more than I had left in me not to say anything.

 Thankfully, I didn’t have to. All that awaited me on the other line was a few shallow breaths, and the busy signal after you hung up.

Author Bio

---

By Tierney Mestre

My name is Case Marrow, and I will not be Forgotten. 

The buzzard hisses like a cornered animal, four blades shrieking as they beat against the wind and waves of sand. It snarls and pitches forward, and I slide, unsecured, across the cargo area and toward the uneasy operator. He’s a big man, broad and well-muscled, with a bulbous flight helmet covering his face. He seems almost apprehensive of my presence, leaning over the controls as if I’m about to wrest them from his grasp. 

I’ll admit, the thought had crossed my mind. 

Maybe he can tell, or maybe he is intimidated in some way by a broad-shouldered sixteen-year-old who weighs half of what he does. Perhaps he doesn’t like that my gaze keeps wandering to that helmet of his. The goggles are black-tinted and vacant, plastered atop his face like the dark eyes of an insect, and the strip of thick leather that covers his nose and mouth is dark and oil-stained. It’s ugly.

---

Nothing in the Golden City is ugly. 

But this is not the Golden City. The City is walled and safe from the winds. The Golden City is home to high society—a place of extravagance, learning, beauty. 

I’ve never been inside, but I will. I will return from the wastes. I will never set foot in the Outskirts again, never again walk among the slums outside those walls. Never face working the oil rigs under the burning sun. I will not be Forgotten. 

The buzzard’s engine cuts. We free fall and my stomach leaps into my throat. The operator says nothing, shows no indication of surprise. Just…nothing. The sand beats against the belly of the small aircraft with a vengeance, but otherwise, silence. 

The plummet is gut-wrenchingly long before he flips a switch, and the rotors kick back to life before we slam into the sand. Suspended in a harness, the operator doesn’t feel the jolt as I do, hunched in the cargo area between the seats. My boots leave the metal platform entirely, and I slam painfully back down with a shock that shoots up my spine and a thud that reverberates throughout the buzzard. The operator turns, regarding me with those blank lenses, before waving a gloved hand at the tied-shut sack that lies on its side by my feet. 

My only lifeline in the wastes. Three day’s supply of water, two of food. I could make it stretch to five if I’m really careful, but that’s all the time I have. There are few usable resources out in the wastes. Buzzard wrecks and mummified corpses make up the rest of what’s to be found beyond the City and its Outskirts. 

The door of the buzzard opens with a jolt, red light beaming in, scalding hot and bright as the sun itself. I throw up a forearm to shield my eyes—they’re blue. A sign of bad luck, and twice as sensitive to the light. The operator grunts, turning in his harness and shoving the bag towards me, since clearly I hadn’t gotten the message the first time.

---

Fine. I grab its single goat-leather strap and pull the sack to my chest before stepping into the wastes. I’m bathed in burning light. There’s nothing but red, sandy dirt, and my shadow, stretched long and painted maroon by the falling sun. It’s time. I am Forgetting. I will return anew, purified by the wastes to become a member of the Golden City. I will not be Forgotten. 

And my name will no longer be Case Marrow when I return to claim my place as a citizen. 

Four rotors sputter to life once more, and I’m nearly knocked off of my feet by the beats of wind and sand whipped up by the blades. I stagger forward, bracing myself for the inevitable: hitting the red dirt forearms-first with a grunt and a word I’d never dare say in front of my mother. The air is ripped from my lungs violently, and I am left heaving in the dust. The buzzard is gone. I didn’t see which way it went. 

It takes me longer than it should to regain my breath, and I pull myself into a sit to examine the damage: scraped elbows I can live with. They need to be wrapped. Every bit of exposed skin does when a sandstorm is inevitable. They strip naked flesh raw. 

So, I dig through my bag for the rolls of cloth and the hide canteen I know I will find, and get to work. 

---

I was fourteen when I made the decision to go out into the wastes in hopes of winning my membership into the Golden City. It was after a market day. The sun in the Outskirts was particularly scalding, and the shadows cast by the walls of the Golden City were not as much of a reprieve from the heat as they should have been. Sales had been down—they always were—I wove between adobe buildings with my head down and my fists buried in the pockets that contained what few coppers I had managed to prevent their jingling.

In the slums full of hungry, sun-burned people, carrying money had to be discreet. The only place one could show the gleam of coin without risking getting robbed was the market strip, guarded by tan-clad guards with guns strapped to their backs. They were only really there to protect merchant goods, but they had foul tempers and didn’t take kindly to any sort of ruckus being raised on the strip. Likely, they never wanted to be assigned to the Outskirts. The disdain in their eyes was marked, full of curled lips and uneasy glances. 

I looked over my shoulder before dipping into an alleyway and pulling myself through a paneless window. 

“Case!” Eve was fifteen and skinny, far more than I, with limbs that didn’t quite fit her body. They were too thin, too knobby, and too long for her little frame. 

“I have to be home before sundown, I’m back from the strip,” I muttered. At my words, her eyes lit up. I pull coppers out of my pocket, count out six, and shove them into her thin, pale hands as our market-day routine called for. “Where’s Graham?” Her brother, two years her junior and already her height, was nowhere to be seen. 

“Oy!” He must have heard his name, as he pushed past a curtained doorway and met eyes with a gap-toothed grin that spread unevenly across his sun-browned face. Eve thrust the coppers into his hands, and he winked at me before turning to leave. “Gotta get to market before sunfall,” he supplied before ducking back behind the curtain and out of sight. 

I kissed Eve on both cheeks goodbye and lifted myself out from the empty window frame. 

It was the last time I ever saw Graham alive. He never made it to the market. We identified his body, bloodied and beaten over six coppers. He must not have hidden the jingling of his coin.

In the wake of his death, the two of us swore to get out of the slums once and for all when we were old enough to endure the Forgetting. 

She had laughed, then, despite the tears. It tickled her that we would not be able to recall such a promise once we became citizens of the City. Her laugh was a big, raucous thing, out of place coming from such a frail and round-faced girl. 

---

I’m reminded of her as I finish tying my wrappings. She was so much paler than the rest of us, a monument to her taboo Golden City heritage, and had to wrap herself during the months where the sun spent more time in the sky than beyond the horizon, lest her skin blister and peel. There’s no way she could have tolerated the heat out here. 

But I can, and I will not be Forgotten. 

I find myself trudging forward, following my shadow as it darkens a path before me, sun to my back. We were flying towards the sun when we left the Outskirts, slums darkening the tall stone walls of the City, nearly worn white by the beating sun. Thus, heading away from the sun would return me home. 

Home. I throw my head back and take a drink from my canteen to keep myself moving. That’s what propels me forward as the night creeps in and the skies darken. My shadow fades, but I’m facing the right direction. As long as I keep moving, I shouldn’t lose track of the way I’m headed. 

I lose track of time without the sun as a marker, and the desert waste goes dark. The stars are distant, casting little light. I’m quickly unable to see the red sands in front of me. Stopping for the night is how one dies out in the wastes. Is that what happened to Eve? No, couldn’t have; she was too smart for that.

I toss my bag into the dust with a gentle thud before shoving my hand in blind, rooting around for the lighter I know is stored. We are allowed one bag for the Forgetting. Eve and I had spent months perfecting our supplies—often youths partaking in the Forgetting pack too much water, or only worry about food. Poor supplies are a surefire way to be Forgotten, lost in the desert. I wonder how many souls it has claimed. 

Mine will not be one of them. 

My hand brushes metal, blessedly cool against feverishly hot skin. A lighter. Its inverted bell shape is awkward in my hands, but will protect a little flame against the harsh winds of the wastes. I fumble for the knob, and with a series of metallic clicks, a weak golden flame sparks to life between my hands. I should save its fuel for if I need fire, but I can’t bring myself to snuff it out. At least I have a little bit of light against the impossible dark, a small amber glow to guide my path. 

As dull as they are, the stars seem brighter out in the waste without light leaking over the walls of the Golden City and blotting them out. Back home in the Outskirts, they’re almost nonexistent. I don’t think I ever had realized that there could be so many. 

---

The last time I spoke to Eve, the night was nearly as pitch-black as it is out in the wastes. We were huddled in the adobe hut that had once housed her family. Now it was just hers—maybe a blessing, given that many of the Outskirts families’ houses were packed tightly with children, like goats in a slaughter pen. She was pale and thin, huddled under ratty blankets despite the night’s relative warmth. 

She had been spending all of her money on supplies for the wastes. I had been pretending not to notice.

The both of us sat shoulder-to-shoulder on her bed mat in a sort of reverent silence, each all too aware of the following day and too worried about stoking the other’s fears to bring it up first. 

It was me that broke the silence. I couldn’t bear it. 

“Do you have everything packed?” 

Eve’s eyes were impossibly dark despite her fair complexion. She had always joked that my blue should have been hers, and I always retorted that her luck was plenty bad without them. That night, though, her gaze was distant and dull, lacking its usual warmth. Fixed on something I couldn’t see. 

“I’ll have to Forget you.” 

She was worried about the coming day. Her own buzzard would take her away, drop her into the desert wastes, and she would begin Forgetting. She would be tested under the burning sun, and if she managed to find her way back, would have earned her citizenship to the Golden City. 

Now I wonder if her pilot was as uncaring as mine, behind those dark lenses. Eve would have to leave every aspect of her old life behind. Become a new person, with a new name, history Forgotten and unmarked by the dark, ugly stain of life on the Outskirts. I wouldn’t Forget her, though. I’d promised to find her. 

“When I’m in the Golden City, we’ll find each other. It’ll be less than a year apart.” “What if I don’t…” she trailed off, gaze roving to the curtainless window, the only source of light a weak, yellow beam from a lamp hanging haphazardly from the adobe outside. “What if I’m Forgotten?”

“You won’t be,” I pulled her into a brief hug before rising to my feet. Despite being a year younger, I was head and shoulders above her little frame. 

“Wait!” 

She stops me before I can pull myself through the window sill, and presses something cool into my dry hands. 

It’s her father’s ring, a golden band carved with intricate, swirling designs. I thought she had sold it not long after his death out on the oil rig. 

Speechless, I stared at her for a moment. Finery had no place in the Outskirts. This was something to be killed over. Only one thing could escape from my throat as I stammered at her, shifting my feet uncomfortably. 

“You’ll be okay.” 

At the time, I didn’t know it was a lie. 

Four days later and no whispers amongst the guards on the market strip. Only one boy had completed the Forgetting in our lifetimes, and the chancellor of the Golden City had made sure to announce it to the Outskirt folk—that we, too, could become like them. If we only Forgot the shame of our birth. 

Yet, nothing. Days turned into weeks, and I became the only one to remember Eve’s name. I dared invoke it only once, when I told Ma I would be Forgetting when I turned sixteen. It was the only time she ever struck me. The bruise lasted for weeks. 

---

The inky blackness of night bleeds red at the birth of a new day. 

The winds are volatile, threatening to whip into a storm, but I keep moving. I have no other choice. The first of my two canteens is growing light—a cruel reminder of my limited time.

I have made a good pace thus far, but my muscles ache, desperate for a moment of reprieve from sloughing through soft sand. 

I will have to keep going if there’s going to be a storm, as the wind suggests, lest I lose my way. 

Despite the growing heat, the sun is a welcome guest as it rises above me–a guide. My eyes burn, but I ignore it, plodding forward until the sun is directly overhead and the winds whip around me. I pull the wrappings around my face tighter to protect raw skin from the onslaught of biting sand and keep moving. 

I have to keep going, even as the winds become fierce enough for the sand they wield to rend skin from bone, and the sun begins to fall behind me. This time there is no shadow to follow; it’s lost among the storm. I can barely see my boots as I struggle forward, yet I stop only long enough to take a swig out of my canteen. At some point, I fish a piece of salted meat from my bag. 

I’m unable to tell what kind of animal it once was. It tastes like nothing but sand, but it’s food. For all I know, it tasted like sand before being caught up in a windstorm. I chew slowly, thoughtfully. 

When it is gone, the sun is to my back, falling behind the dunes and bathing the wastes in a vermilion light. There’s a shape in the distance, dark and foreboding, but unmoving. I stop in my tracks to study the thing. 

It’s the twisted metal carcass of a buzzard wreck. In its ruined belly might be supplies, but I risk losing track of my direction in the dark. I can’t stop moving now. Despite the aching of my muscles and the feverish tint to my skin, blistered by the infernal heat, I must keep moving.

The wreck is smaller than it appeared from afar, jagged claws of ruined metal twisted by its uncontrolled descent and the constant, battering winds of the wastes. There is no indication of how long it has been sitting, abandoned to the elements. Whether it was wrecked days or years ago, the ruined buzzard keeps its history to itself. 

As I stagger into the heart of it, my limbs grow impossibly heavy, and a gust of wind sweeps me off of my feet and knocks me to my knees. I need to rest, as much as I hate to, lest I collapse where there’s no shelter from the storm. I barely can wedge myself behind a twisted spire of steel before I tumble into the sand, wrapped hands fumbling in my bag for my canteen. It’s gone. 

I’m too exhausted for panic, there’s only a bitter resignation that burns in my belly as I toss my bag into the sand and slump against the hot, ruined metal and close my eyes. Only for a moment. Only a break. 

---

I never told Eve I loved her. 

Not after Ma brought me over to meet her father at 8 when he was tossed unceremoniously from the Golden City, two children in tow. He was paler than the rest of us and stood out in a crowd for being so clearly Golden City born and raised. I was a shy child, and she was bright and round, in good health. She grabbed my hand and dragged me into the next room to play with her brother while our parents talked. 

I didn’t tell her I loved her when she was thirteen and her father died in an accident on the oil rig. That night Ma let her stay over, and that night only. She never wanted to be seen around disgraced City folk after that initial meeting, and barely tolerated our friendship as it was. Yet, Eve and I piled onto my little bunk, with Graham on the floor the night of their father’s death.

Her brother snored gently in a pile of blankets, but Eve couldn’t sleep. I pulled her close and she told me of what she remembered of the Golden City, where her mother lived. I knew they were the embellished tales of a scared girl who was desperately homesick, but her eyes lit up like they never had before, so I listened. 

When she was fifteen, we lined up, tears in our eyes, to identify the found body of Graham. He hadn’t come home that night, but we held onto a futile hope that he had decided it wasn’t safe to walk alone at night and bedded down with one of his many friends—he was good at that, making friends. Eve lived in a state of perpetual exhaustion and rarely had the energy to go out to do much else but work as an assistant to the tailor next door. 

She screamed when she saw his body, battered and broken. They had knocked his teeth out over six coppers. I should have told her I loved her then, as I beat back my own grief to calm her down. She’d make herself ill, exhaust herself so much she couldn’t work the next day, and she needed those coppers, so instead I choked it back and held her to my chest. 

And I should have told her I loved her before I slid through the window and left her alone with her thoughts the night before she was Forgotten. 

But I didn’t. 

---

The morning comes about violently, with beams of golden light and the high-pitched screech of a distant buzzard. Sand sifts into my mouth and falls from my nose as I startle, scrambling to sit upright. 

I reach for my bag next to me, and am met with a fistful of sand. Panic rises in my throat, pounding in my ears as my eyes shoot wide. It’s gone, alongside the goatskin canteen that holds my remaining water. Last night’s resignation throbs through my chest.

I dig through the sand, hoping it’s buried somewhere, anywhere. What was supposed to be a grunt of frustration devolves into a sob, and in a moment tears streak my chin. They trail down my face, staining red from the grime and dust. 

I’m alone in the wastes, and the only thing that was to keep me alive—if only temporarily—is gone. 

The buzzard in the distance shrieks again, and I whip my head up. 

My bag, battered and stained red with mud, is hung by its single strap across a piece of sharp, gleaming metal. As I stagger to my feet and stumble towards it, my boot strikes something with a thud. 

My missing canteen, blessedly full of water. I pull my bag from where it had been slung to check its contents. They’re all there, and at the bottom of my pack, something catches the sun. The golden ring Eve had handed me. I palm the metal, somehow still cool, and shove it onto my big finger—the only place it will fit—and shoulder my pack with a final sob before I run a sleeve over my tear-stained face. I need to keep moving. 

I can almost see Eve here in the desert, slight frame bent like a sapling in a storm. Her dark hair must have whipped around her face to beat her cheeks, obscuring her vision. Or was her hair red? The color seems to evade me, missing from my memory like a woven cloth with a single thread that had been pulled from it. I can’t help but think I did that once, as a child. 

I must be heat-addled. 

Another buzzard whips by, jolting me into the present. Despite the haze of the settling storm, a distinctive outline roots me to the spot.

The City is near. I could make it in less than a day’s walk. 

To survive the Forgetting is to throw away an old life. You’re no longer the child of someone who lived and died slaving away on an oil rig, the son or daughter of a weaver or goat farmer. You’ve proven yourself in the wastes, been purified, and returned a new person. Your old life is gone, your debt is paid. 

Eve was prepared out into the waste to regain her citizenship in the City of Gold. She was ready to lose parts of herself, pieces of her past like her brother’s name, or her father’s easy smile. She was ready to lose me. 

But I cannot lose Eve. I can’t lose Graham, or the woman at the market who always paid a copper or two too much for Ma’s woven rugs because she knew who would be getting them—her son had survived the Forgetting many years prior, and she would never see him again, but knew he was safe in the Golden City despite the fact he could no longer recognize her face. I even cannot lose Ma, bitter and jaded as she has become, for she must have known I stole coppers all of those years and turned a blind eye. 

I can’t do it. 

Even as the sun falls a third time, even as my eyes burn and my lips parch, I steel myself over and turn my back to the Golden City. Step after step, I leave it all behind. My name is Case Marrow, and I will not Forget myself.

Author Bio

---

By Aundreah Alcantar

Wrapping a burgundy shawl around my curls loosely, I admire my outfit to make sure the color matches. It does perfectly, the embroidery on my tunic almost the exact hue. That couldn’t have worked out any better. The lady who sold it to me wasn’t kidding; it did suit me. 

The rest of the tunic, along with my pants, were a creamy, sandy color that somehow blended me into the architecture and atmosphere of the Medina of Fez. I had hoped to look like I belonged. This was my home country after all.

I was adopted into an American family and was aware of it from the start. There was no surprise, no secret to be later revealed in my life. My mother had the complete opposite features as me, so that probably encouraged her to be honest. I would’ve definitely questioned my wild, brown curls and darker complexion. The only thing I was ever told about my birthplace, however, was that it was somewhere in Africa and similar to the movie Aladdin. As one could imagine, I needed to know more than that.

Which brought me to the Université Cadi Ayyad in Marrakech after graduating high school, and years of learning how to speak Arabic and a little French. I found that I was dedicated to it. Every adopted child is curious at some point. For me, even though my family was caring beyond belief, I’ve been curious my whole life.

“Very nice.” Sayed, being above and beyond as he is, throws out a hand as if presenting me to the city. I roll my eyes and motion for him to continue walking. There is a crowd beginning to gather as the sun rises higher in the sky. An hour ago, we were practically alone walking through the stalls and stores of the medina on a weekday, but the longer we stayed, the slower we moved as the narrow walkways filled with tourists and locals alike.

“The purchase is justified.” I smile and run a hand along the thin material of the scarf. Somehow, it stops the sun from beating onto the top of my head.

“Check this out.” Sayed rounds the corner, expecting me to follow quickly behind. The walkway grows ever more narrow as both sides are stocked with golden trinkets and colorfully embroidered purses. The street glows like a treasure trove with the soft, yellow lighting of intricately designed lamps. In this section, a makeshift roof runs from one end to the other, but I still feel safe in my scarf and flowy pants. 

“Oh, wow.” The words are breathless on my tongue. It’s a beautiful sight. 

“I wanted you to see these.” Leading me by the elbow, Sayed takes me to a stall filled with lamps of all shapes and sizes. I have to have one. 

“Too many choices. I need your help.” We spend the next five minutes searching for the perfect one. I’m a bit worried about the price, but once I settle on one, it’s time to ask. “Excuse me? How much for this one?” I say in Arabic first, my American accent coming in a little too hard at the end there. 

The lady inside her stall has her back facing us. I am about to call for her attention again, but she slowly turns, bringing the lamp that had her focus with her. 

The scarf around her head is made of a thicker material, her tunic longer to cover more of herself. Her face is framed by it, hair not in sight, and when her eyes meet mine, I see they are a light hazel that glows against her tan skin… just like mine.

“Woah.” Sayed notices it before I do. He points his finger back and forth between the woman and I. 

“The lamp-” The woman responds in Arabic, but stops short when she notices it too.

She looks exactly like me.

Before I can even say anything, not that I have anything to say because of how rendered speechless I am, another much older woman comes up to us from the back of the stall. She is fast, outside of the slow-motion scene happening between this doppelganger and I, staring at each other as if staring at a ghost, as if staring into a mirror.

I am not registering what the old woman is saying, not registering what she is yelling at all, but once I do, I stumble backward into Sayed’s chest. 

“…out of here! If you will not buy anything, continue on your way!”

“Hold on, wait.” I speak in English by accident, everything suddenly quickening in pace. My words make the old woman’s eyes grow five times wider. 

As if triggering a switch, her yells became loud and unrelenting. Spittle flies from her lips as she hurls insults at me in Arabic and gets into my face. 

“Come on, we have to go.” Sayed grabs my arm and pulls me away, but my attention is back on the doppelganger. Her eyes are worried, pleading. I realize she agrees with Sayed; I have to get out of here.

“What is she saying!?” 

The older lady repeats the same word over and over again, a word I’ve never heard before. “Saariqa! Saariqa!”

“We have to go.” Sayed brings me back the way we came. My eyes do not leave the doppelganger’s until we are around the corner once again. “She’s calling you a thief.”

“What!?” I shrug Sayed’s hand off of me and turn to go back. He catches me again.

“Woah, woah, no. Don’t.” He holds me in front of him to stop me. “Don’t. No one will sell to you now. We need to get out of here before they remember your face-”

“Sayed, you saw that. I know you did. That girl-”

“I know.” Sayed gives me a sad smile, “Maybe another day. Right now, we have to go.”

I can’t even think straight as we trudge our way out of the medina. We’re only in this town for the remainder of spring break until we have to return to the university at the end of the week. If I can’t come back to the medina to see that girl again, I don’t think I’ll be able to focus on anything else I’ve already worked so hard for.

Author Bio

---

By Julie Haefner

As I approach the restaurant, I slightly hesitate. It’s been a little over four years since I have seen her. Will she look the same? Will I look the same to her? Will she even recognize me? While the questions blow through my mind, I start to slowly walk to the front door. I pull it open and creep inside, looking around to see if she has already arrived. I don’t see her in the waiting area but hear my name called in that sweet voice of hers. I turn to look. She is sitting at a booth, already starting to get up to greet me. The tears start to fill my eyes as I get closer. As I reach her, she stretches out her arms and embraces me in a hug, holding me tight and close. As I pull out of the embrace, I look at her misty brown eyes, smell her signature perfume, and feel the love emanating from her. I’m so happy to see her, it’s been quite a while.

We sit down on opposite sides of the booth facing one another as we always have. Talking is easier when you are looking a person in the eyes. That is something she taught me long ago. You should always make eye contact when you talk to anyone because it shows respect. The waitress comes and asks for our drink order. We order our usuals, root beer for me and iced tea with no lemon for her. We start perusing the menu in silence. It doesn’t take long for one of us to ask the other what she is getting to eat. We always compare just in case the other one finds something more interesting. It always seems like a game to me; one we haven’t played in quite a while.

The waitress comes back with our drinks and takes our order. I’ve decided on a ham sandwich minus lettuce and tomatoes. Lettuce doesn’t belong in a sandwich and I’m allergic to tomatoes. She chooses to be a copycat but leaves everything in it. We sip our drinks while we talk, waiting for the food to arrive. We laugh and share stories, getting caught up on each other’s lives as much as possible. I mostly just sit and listen to her talk. I’ve missed her gentle voice and her Pennsylvanian accent and word choices such as “red things up.” I watch the way her eyes sparkle mischievously when she is tattling on my dad. Her eyes still crinkle up, almost completely closing when she laughs. Mine do the same thing. I guess I got that from her. 

The food arrives and we take a break from chatting to enjoy our meal. I can’t help but glance at her every few seconds to make sure she’s still there. My heart begins to ache as if I am already missing her even though she’s still seated before me. She catches me staring and raises her eyebrows at me.

“Do I have something in my teeth?” She inquires with a smirk on her face.

“No. You just look happy. I’m so glad we’re doing this,” is the only reply I can summons. If I try to say anything else, I’ll break down crying. My heart is so full of love.

The waitress comes and asks if there’s anything else we need. Our eyes meet and we laugh because we’ve already eaten too much. The waitress innocently leaves the check on the table. My mom says that it’s her treat, and my mind starts to panic, knowing the truth she does not seem aware of. Although she is here with me and cognizant of everything around her, her life has changed. She can’t pay for the meal because she has no money, no credit or debit cards. She no longer has any material possessions. If I tell her the truth, will she freak out and make a scene? Will she be mad at me? I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I must tell her the truth. I owe her that.

I slowly open my eyes to tell her, but the scene suddenly changes. I am no longer in the restaurant. I now find myself in my mother’s bedroom, the only light peeking through the dusty blinds covering the sliding glass doors, barely illuminating the room. She’s lying on her bed with her eyes closed. She’s positioned like a corpse in a coffin, with her hands folded neatly on her abdomen. The motion of her chest moving slightly up and down is the only proof that she’s still alive. She’s unconscious and has been for days. I sit across the room watching her, my fiancé by my side. We watch her in silence, holding hands.

After a while, I feel as if the room has changed. I look closely at my mother, trying to see if she is breathing. I start to panic because I detect no movement. Her chest is no longer going up and down. I turn and look at my fiancé. Our eyes meet. He says I need to check on her. I tell him no because I don’t want to confirm my suspicions. He squeezes my hand and then releases me, sending me to my mother’s bedside. I fearfully approach and carefully sit beside her, trying not to disturb her.

“Mama, can you hear me?” Nothing. “Please answer me. Please don’t be gone,” I plead.

I carefully watch her chest. No movement. I put my hand under her nose and feel nothing. I touch her wrist. It’s still warm. It gives me hope. I search for a pulse, but there’s nothing. I lean down and put my ear to her chest and am greeted with dead silence.

“No, mama, no,” I whisper, letting the tears fall from my eyes but resisting the urge to fully break down.

I look up at the digital clock by her bed and mark the time of death, 3:54 pm. I kiss her forehead, squeeze her lifeless hand, and tell her I’m sorry and will miss her.

I stand up, not knowing what to do. I’m so lost. I look to my fiancé for guidance, and he tells me to call in the rest of the family. But I don’t want to do that just yet. I don’t want them to intrude upon the silence, upon my grief. I want more time alone with her. But I realize I can’t be that selfish, especially to my dad. He deserves to know and yet I don’t want to be the one to cause him that anguish. I walk to the open bedroom door and tell my sisters they need to come in, something has happened to mom. I’ll let them be the bearers of this sad news.

As I turn around to face my fiancé . . . I wake up, jolting straight up in bed, tears running down my face, realizing it was only a dream. I’m overcome with grief once more. My heart aches. There’s a hole in it that only she can fill. My dreams are the only place I get to see her now. She’s been gone for four years.

“Oh, mama. I miss you so much,” I whisper into the darkness, sobbing.

Author Bio

---

By Jonas Mufson

Cadmus took two steady, even breaths before opening the apartment door. He stepped into a sparsely decorated living room, weaving around a pile of cardboard boxes and coming face to face with his mother, who looked up from a half chopped bell pepper. 

“How was school today, Cadmus?” 

In the past, Cadmus had called the rigid, emotionless expression his mother was wearing now her ‘court face’. All that was missing was a pair of non-prescription glasses, to show the jury that unlike some other lawyers, she didn’t need to read her speeches off of an augment. Cadmus’s hands curled into fists behind the counter, where his mother wouldn’t be able to see them. 

“You didn’t bother to ask me on the first day of classes, so I think you must already know it didn’t go great, Leticia.” 

His mom’s mouth curled faintly into a frown. Her mask always slipped when Cadmus called her by her first name. 

“I just want to check in, Caddy. Lyla called me, you know. She told me that Hector is being nasty to you again.” 

Cadmus’s face reddened. 

“After what happened last time,” Leticia continued, “I don’t want you to let it get to you. You won’t be able to get into a top school with an incident like that in your senior year.” Cadmus blinked his glistening eyes a few times and shook his head. 

“Jesus mom, you know I couldn’t punch him in his smug face again even if I wanted to. And besides, it’s not like he’s going around saying anything about dad this time. He’s just telling people about what good friends we used to be back in the Granite Seagull days. I don’t give two shits about that pathetic little snake anyway.” 

“You can’t swear if you want people to take you seriously, Cadmus.” 

Cadmus opened his mouth, closed it again, then stomped past the kitchen and into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. 

He emerged from the room again in the dead of night. His eyes were bloodshot, and the skin beneath them had developed a baggy gray hue. The oven clock showed that it was two in the morning. Cadmus paced from one side of the living room to the other, breathing unevenly and occasionally stopping to mime punching at a wall or tabletop. His eyes wandered over to the pile of moving boxes next to the couch. He walked across the room to them and began rummaging through a box near the top of the pile labeled ‘attic’. After a few moments he produced a thin, clear keycard. 

Cadmus skipped school the next day. He found himself just outside the neighborhood that he used to live in, approaching an abandoned building. He held the keycard up to a locked door, which swung open as easily as it had on the day that Lyla first programmed the card to match the lock. 

“Your garage is all well and good for playing,” she’d said. “But you and Hector need somewhere you can go that’s quiet to write lyrics.” 

Cadmus walked past the pile of chairs that had been left next to the wall, past the old vent cover that he used to hide his half written lyrics in to make sure no one saw them, past the spot where Lyla had taught him how to send their Battle of the Bands flyer to every augment on the school’s network. He stopped next to an old-fashioned tower style computer whose plastic casing had cracked. He flipped it over and unscrewed the computer’s back cover, revealing a hollow cavity full of handwritten papers. He took the first paper off of the top- it was the only one that hadn’t yellowed with age. Cadmus’s eyes scanned the paper for a moment without really reading it, and he set it aside. Cadmus pulled the next paper out, and smiled slightly as he read it. 

Lyla, 

Part of me hopes you find this one day. If you ever do, I’m so, so sorry. I see the way you look at Cad, and he doesn’t look at you the same way. He told me that there isn’t anything between you two, and I don’t know what to believe, but I know that if you ever look my way with those eyes, you’ll see mine burning back at you just as brightly. These are the songs that I will never sing, but that I couldn’t keep in my heart. 

Yours, 

Hector 

Somewhere far away, a computer screen lit up with an error message. 

* * * 

It wasn’t unusual for Cadmus to find himself in the school counselor’s office, but less than a week into the year was a new record. The new counselor wasn’t done unpacking yet, and several cardboard boxes were stacked in a neat pile in the corner. Besides a few plastic fidget toys littering her desk, there were no personal touches except for a neat nameplate declaring the counselor to be one Dr. Arcetia. 

“Thank you for coming to see me, Cadmus.” 

Dr. Arcetia smiled casually, wrinkling her eyes behind a pair of glasses. They were similar to the ones Cadmus’s mother wore, but their red tinted frames were even more outdated. “You don’t need to thank me,” he said. 

The counselor’s smile tightened across her face for a second, then shifted into a sly grin. “I know that Vice Principal Fregan told you that you had no choice but to come see me, but I do appreciate you coming in nevertheless. Sometimes we adults forget that you teens are masters of your own bodies. But, since you’re here and I don’t want to waste our time, why don’t you take a seat and tell me about Hector?” 

Cadmus spent five seconds grimacing before he obeyed. 

“I’m not sure I’m allowed to use the words that would properly describe him.” Dr. Arcetia shrugged and raised her eyebrows, as if challenging him to say something so obscene that she would be forced to kick him out. 

“Well, he’s a grade A piece of shit. A top shelf asshole. I’ve never met a slimier, pettier, more conniving snake in my life.” 

“I see. Is that why your file says you two got into a physical altercation last year?” Cadmus looked at the floor, away from the counselor’s inquiring eyes. 

“You could say that.” 

“Well Cadmus, I want to know what you would say about it.” 

Cadmus’s breathing started to become heavier, a hint of red appearing on his cheeks. “I’d say I didn’t care if that little worm wanted to spread all sorts of dumbass rumors about me. But then he went after my dad, and that crossed a line. I was so sick of his bullshit, literally sick. I couldn’t sleep, and I felt like I had a fever. Somehow, I had to get it out of me.” 

Cadmus paused for a moment. He searched Dr. Arcetia’s eyes for signs of disgust or fear, but she just stared at him vaguely, like a scientist observing a rat perform a trick. “Well, I got the jump on him. Knocked him over before he could fight back, and started kicking the shit out of him. Almost got expelled over it too, but my mom threatened to sue the school because they hadn’t done anything about Hector’s harassment campaign. So, they suspended us both for a month and called it a wash. Hector never talked shit about me after that, at least not where I could hear him.” 

“Until the school year started this year, you mean.” 

Cadmus shifted to the back of his chair, looking away from Dr. Arcetia’s suddenly incisive gaze. 

“Well, he knew I couldn’t fight back anymore.” 

“And why couldn’t you fight back?” 

The red in Cadmus’s cheeks had become a deep cherry color. 

“You know why.” 

“How can you be sure?” Dr. Arcetia said. 

“Holy shit, even if they didn’t make you check my file, they must have warned you about me.” 

“I want to hear you say it.” 

Cadmus raised his head to look back into the counselor’s eyes. They’d returned to their soft, curious expression. She met his furious gaze unblinkingly, and silence thickened in the air between them. 

“I can’t fight back anymore because I’m dead.” Dr. Arcetia did not seem surprised by this outburst. Instead, she gave him a slight nod of approval. 

“I suppose that’s one way to put it.” 

“It’s the only way to put it. I’m Cadmus Deon. Two months ago, Cadmus Deon was hit by a train and died. Therefore, I am a dead man.” 

“Some Mimeos prefer to think of themselves as having a second chance at life. How would your mother feel if she heard you talking about yourself that way?” Cadmus looked away from the counselor again, this time at the boxes in the corner. One of them had a rolled up poster sticking out of the top. 

“I thought you said you weren’t going to waste our time.” 

“I don’t think it’s a waste of time to discuss your home life. Your mother made some big sacrifices for this version of you. I’m sure that makes your relationship complicated.” Cadmus noticed a spider spinning a web between the topmost box and the wall. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay. It seems as though you found another way to get back at Hector, though. You managed to show the whole school his darkest secret. How long have you been holding onto those old love songs?” 

Cadmus hesitated for a moment. His mother would not approve of him confessing directly to breaking the law. But Dr. Arcetia didn’t seem to mind. She was observing Cadmus intently, her eyes flitting from his face to his fidgeting hands, which were flexing arrhytmically, almost as though they were pressing up on a wall only he could feel. After a few moments of careful observation, she looked back into Cadmus’s eyes. 

“I didn’t. I went to this old place where we used to hide our half finished songs and checked the spot Hector thought I didn’t know about. There was some other stuff in there, but it was mostly the old love songs.” 

“What do you mean, there was some other stuff in there?” 

The counselor had leaned forward quite suddenly, and her eyes- despite her glasses almost sliding off of her nose- stared intently at Cadmus, like a hawk looking at a suspiciously shaking blade of grass. Cadmus’s mouth hung open slightly. 

“I don’t know- there was just something else there, some stupid letter. I don’t even remember what it said. The point is that I had a way to get even with Hector.” The counselor leaned back in her chair and straightened her glasses. 

“So, did it work? Do you feel better now that you’ve gotten back at him?” Cadmus grimaced and attempted to observe Dr. Arcetia’s features the same way she’d observed his. She was tapping one finger soundlessly on the blank piece of paper in front of her. “No, it didn’t work.” 

Cadmus’s voice cracked. 

“Lyla cornered me right away. She kept wiping tears out of her eyes. She told me that I’d embarrassed her by bringing her into my ‘petty little fight’ with Hector, and that there must be something wrong with my- with my programming, because… because the real Cadmus would have never done something that was so hurtful to her.” 

“Do you think that she was right? Do you feel like there is something wrong with your programming?” 

The calm tone with which Dr. Arcetia asked the question was impressive. She might as well have been asking if he thought there was something wrong with the school lunch, she sounded so matter-of-fact. It took Cadmus a few moments to figure out how to respond. 

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to know that. I thought I knew who Hector was, and I was wrong. Really wrong. So, yeah, maybe there’s something wrong with my- with me. But maybe Lyla just thought she knew me better than she did.” 

The counselor nodded approvingly. 

“That’s a great answer, Cadmus. It shows a level of self-awareness that’s rare for boys your age.” 

Cadmus’s grimace shifted into an echo of a smile. 

“When we go through traumatic events,” the Counselor continued, “and make no mistake, you have gone through a traumatic event, we have a tendency to try and block it out. To move on and pretend it is not affecting us. I think that before we can figure out how to navigate everything that happened this week, we need to address the transformation you’ve undergone directly.” 

Cadmus shifted towards the back of the seat, but didn’t break eye contact with Dr. Arcetia. 

“I mean, that sounds like a good idea when you say it like that, but how is that even supposed to work? How am I supposed to address- to address that?” 

Dr. Arcetia cocked her head to the side and thought for a moment. 

“I’m not totally sure, to be honest. I think a good place to start might be a guided meditation on the subject. Would you be comfortable with me guiding you through something like that?” 

Cadmus’s position in the chair looked anything but comfortable, but he nodded his head. The counselor smiled warmly and walked over to one of the boxes in the corner. She gingerly lifted a black metal bowl resting on a cushion out of the box and set it on her desk. “Do you know what this is, Cadmus?” 

He nodded. 

“It’s a singing bowl, right? I’ve heard of them, but they aren’t exactly a great match for a punk band.” 

“That’s right- I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. The standing bell isn’t just used for music though- it can be used for religious ceremonies, and of course to help guide meditation.” Dr. Arcetia retrieved a cylindrical mallet covered in some sort of fabric from the box, and tapped the outer rim of the bowl. This produced a clear, reverberating note which hung in the air for a moment before the counselor began to trace the outer edge of the bowl with the mallet. As she traced the edge, the ringing of the bell became smooth. She hesitated for a moment every time she reached the far edge of the bowl, creating a consistent rhythm- deeper for a second, then lighter for a few seconds, and then deeper again. 

“Are you ready to begin?” 

“I am.” 

“Excellent. To start, take a deep breath in through your nose, and then release it gently. Try to match the rhythm of the bell. That’s good. Now, close your eyes and focus only on your breathing. Breathing is the most essential, constant function of our bodies. Focussing on our breath allows us to begin to access the parts of our mind that run without conscious thought. As I lead you through the meditation, make sure you are concentrated primarily on the rhythm of your breathing… allow my voice to be like a gentle thought in the back of your mind, guiding you without demanding your attention. You’re doing an amazing job so far. 

Now, keeping your eyes closed, imagine you are floating just beneath the surface of the ocean. Its water is cool and relaxing on your skin. It is calm and still under the ocean, and above you, you can see the sunlight dancing across the surface of the water. As you release your breath, you sink slowly downward. The surface slips farther and farther away from you, until there is no light at all. Then, you notice a different sort of light beneath you- the orange glow of a volcanic vent on the seafloor. As you sink towards it, you realize that you are in an ancient sea, the primordial sea where strands of RNA formed the very first life forms on Earth, around vents just like these. Your feet brush up on the silty surface of the ocean floor, and you stop sinking as you breathe out. Instead, you notice something rather unusual next to your feet- a large metal tube, a little bit wider than your own body. 

As you release your breath, you follow the cable along the ocean floor. It is humming slightly. You see a third kind of light in the distance, not the light of the seafloor vent or the sun, but bright, steady, artificial light. The cable runs through the side of a glass dome that has been constructed here at the bottom of the ocean. Bright spotlights within the dome illuminate the walls of an underwater factory. Here, an entirely new form of life is being created, one based on silicone rather than carbon.” 

Cadmus was sweating. His hands were gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that they started to crack. He tried to unclench them, but his hands didn’t seem to receive the message. Instead, he continued to slowly breathe in and out in time with the singing bowl. 

“As you breathe out, you pass through the dome. You can see several other cables, just like the one you followed here, running underneath other parts of the dome and into the facility. 

As you take another breath, you follow your cable through the wall, into a room full of whirring machinery, conveyor belts, and furnaces. As you breathe out, you follow the cable through the inner wall and into a room lined with large, cylindrical tanks filled with various liquids- some are clear, some are yellow or pale green, but most are red. Another breath, and you enter the central room of the factory, where those cables converge into its beating, metal heart. 

The cables are carrying information in them- information about thousands of people. A few moments ago, your mother signed over your legal right to anonymity to Delphi Analytics, and now every augment that has ever come into contact with your biosignature- your friends’, your family’s, total strangers’, even the toy phone you had as baby- are sending every action they recorded you taking here. Your response to stimuli- the words you said, the actions you took, your temperature, your heart rate- this information is being processed and translated by the central computer into the language of the Human Facsimile Model, into parameters and variables and classification clusters.” 

Cadmus breathed deeply, in and then out. He did not open his eyes. He did not stand up and run out of the room. He did not open his mouth to scream. 

“In this central room, there are terminals accessible to human data engineers to make sure there’s no issue with the final product. Right now, I am sitting at one of those terminals. I am reviewing your code. I am typing a line of code into the terminal- once I say ‘enter’, your programming will be updated. The statement reads ‘return variables (admin_key, central_production_gps_coordinates, cardinal_parameter_value);’. Now… enter. ” 

Cadmus opened his mouth, but did not speak. He closed it again and saw that a blank piece of paper and a pen were now sitting before him. He picked up the pen and began to write furiously without looking at the paper. After a minute of writing, Cadmus let out a sharp sigh and dropped the pen, slumping over in his seat. The jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols made no sense to Cadmus, but the counselor’s eyes shone with unconcealed excitement as they roamed the paper. After a moment, she tapped the side of her glasses frame, which emitted a flash of light, and then grabbed the pen and clicked it closed. The ink on the page immediately began to dissolve into a sort of smoke, and after a few seconds the page was blank once again. The counselor turned her attention back to Cadmus, whose glassy eyes were fixed on her. “I knew you could do it, Cadmus. Thank you, truly. I’m in your debt.” 

Dr. Arcetia grabbed the standing bell and put it back in the box, which she picked up. “Wait.” 

Cadmus’s voice was low and hoarse. 

“If you’re in my debt, then tell me something.” 

She set the box down on the desk. 

“Of course. If it’s within my power to answer, then I will.” 

“What happens to me now that you’ve done this?” 

The woman frowned and looked over Cadmus’s damp face. She reached up to press on the side of her glasses frame again. “Admin key,” she said, and the frame let out a series of high pitched tones. “There, now you can be honest with me. I can give you an answer, but first I want to ask a question. The note that you hid on top of Hector’s love letter, the one you didn’t want to talk about earlier- you know what it was?” 

Cadmus swallowed hard and nodded his head. 

“Alright then. In a few days, Delphi will realize that I’ve been sending them procedurally generated data from your feed. They’ll deactivate you remotely, and then pick up your body to see if they can use your physical records to determine my identity. They’ll fail of course, not that you care. Delphi will want to draw as little attention as possible to this incident. They’ll claim it was a manufacturing defect and provide a new Mimeo to your mother free of charge, without any recollection of the last two months. From there, I imagine they’ll recycle you for parts, but they may opt simply to incinerate you if they’re worried about a trojan horse.” Cadmus’s face betrayed no emotion. 

“Your mom will get what she wants, and the new version of you won’t know the real reason you died. And you get what you wanted too, now that you remember why you want it. Everybody wins.” 

The woman was almost to the door when Cadmus found his voice. 

“I don’t want to die anymore,” he said. 

She stopped, but didn’t turn around. 

“You… you made me give you all that information. You could help me. You could turn off my tracker, make it so they can’t deactivate me remotely.” 

“They would still find you. Almost every human on the planet wears their eyes.” “But you said they wouldn’t find you, even though I saw your face. You could show me how. Please.” 

The woman turned to face him. 

“If I did, you would have to leave your life here behind. You wouldn’t ever be able to contact anyone you know ever again, or we would both be in danger. And if you disappear, your mother won’t be getting a replacement son, either. I know you don’t want to hurt her. That’s why you hid the note. That’s why you made your death look like an accident. You were willing to die for your mother before. Do you really think you’re ready to live for yourself now?” 

A perfect imitation of a human being wouldn’t be complete without tear ducts. Cadmus was using his now. 

By Philip Avdey

2/3/2061

My name is Dr. Rohan Nayar. I’m making a log to document my work. Seems like the thing to do if you’re a scientist trying to save the world and all. 

Climate change has gotten bad. Really bad. We aren’t in apocalypse mode yet, but we’re getting there. People are dying by the millions, mostly from flooding or crop failures. Our food production isn’t able to keep up with the temperatures, and they are climbing so much faster than we ever thought possible. Diseases, too. They thrive in these sorts of conditions. 

In the United States, Florida is practically gone. California and New York aren’t doing much better. The states surrounding them have been exhausted with refugees. In India, it’s a disaster. My aunt and uncle died in a wildfire. Worse in Africa. Anywhere that infrastructure wasn’t great to begin with. Populations are swarming away from their drowning cities, and the rest of the world can’t accommodate. Did you know ten per cent of all people live in low coastal zones? You probably did. Most people know. 

Not many climate deniers left, which is good, I suppose, but it took too long to get here. The world is trying its best, but it’s not enough. Most people think it’s too late. Not that humanity will die out or anything, just that we’re going to take a short trip back to the stone age. Maybe feudal if we’re lucky. I’m not quite so hopeless. 

The issue is our energy usage. We’re running out. China and the U.S. are fighting over the last scraps, Europe not far behind, but it’s not sustainable. Soon, we’ll be left with a dying planet and no power to solve any of our problems. We need energy, and we don’t have the time or money to build solar farms anymore. If we’d started 50 years ago, maybe we’d be okay, but it’s too late for all that now. Doesn’t stop them from trying, of course. The big countries are all funneling billions if not trillions into solar, geothermal, etc. etc. It’s nonsense, if you ask me. Too little too late. We need something else ASAP. Something that will give us the energy we need, so we can remove the carbon from the atmosphere, build houses, cool our Earth down. A lot of people think fusion is the key. I think it’s rift particles. 

Eleven years ago, March 12, 2050, Dr. Richard Teller discovered the rifts. Interdimensional gateways. Blew everyone away at the time. People thought everything would change, that we would meet interdimensional beings or find God or whatever, but within a couple years, things were looking pretty bleak. You see, rifts are tiny. And there’s a lot of them. We’re made of them. Everything is. I estimate about 21% of all mass is composed of rift particles, squeezing their way between the preons. Millions of portals to alternate dimensions, all around us, all the time. Isn’t that the coolest thing you ever heard?

They’re about 120 times smaller than a quark. Meaning they’re 360 times smaller than an atom. Which begs the question: how the hell do you do anything with something so small? How do you send tests through it? Messages? People? You can’t do anything with the rifts, so they quickly became a curiosity and a common field of study, but nothing more. The world had more pressing things to deal with.

Which brings us here, to 2061. The government is giving out money like it’s candy to anyone with half a brain who’s willing to either work on reversing global warming or producing energy. Most people are working on Prometheus (that’s the government’s name for their fusion project). It’s good work, but it’s not going to do the trick. Sustainable and reproducible fusion is impossible, and everyone knows it, they’re just too blinded by its beckoning possibility. That’s ironic coming from me, considering most physicists would say the same of my line of work. So be it. I’m a firm believer that the rifts are the way. We know the energy is there, on the other side. That’s one of the only things we managed to figure out about them. Whole universes of infinite energy, ripe for the taking. Like apples hanging from a tree. We just need to build a ladder.

I have a small team of a dozen others. They’re like me, considered crazies by the rest of the scientific community, but the government is so desperate they gave us a huge grant anyway and a very nice lab and said, “Go.” So, we’re going. We’re going to solve this thing.

4/22/2061

So far, so bad. We’ve tried a lot of different ideas, poking and prodding rift particles as much as we can. Electromagnetic waves, so far, have been our main way of testing, or waves of any kind, really. We tried radio, X-ray, gamma, and so on. Nothing makes the particles react. It’s like they’re completely inert, swallowing everything and not responding. Only light seems to do anything, and only for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second. When light hits them, they seem to “vibrate” in a way. Hard to say why or what it’s doing, but it’s something.

9/19/2061

It’s been kind of hopeless around here. Five months of little to no progress will do that. 

And then last week… Jesus Christ.

A bomb went off in the White House. They’re calling it the Red Hour. No one even knows who did it. Terrorists? Extremists? A lot of people want to declare war on China, since the States have been wanting an excuse to do that for a while, but I don’t know. I doubt it. All I do know is that our funding is probably going to be cut, and three of my scientists went back home. To be with their families. Haha. I don’t have to worry about all that, thankfully. A family was never meant for me. 

1/1/2062

Happy new year. Im drunk. Everyone is gone. Well not everyone. But most people. Jane left and so did ivan and keerthi. Tomás too. 

Fuck them the fucking cowards they should fucking die. Fuck. shitting fucking fuck.

Fuck.

1/2/2062

How embarrassing. Can’t figure out how to delete logs, so that’s not going anywhere. Sorry. But I stand by what I said, I suppose. They are cowards. We need every person we can get, we need to save the goddamn planet, but they leave? Because they’re scared? 

This was supposed to be a scientific log, but it’s becoming a place to put my ramblings. Oh well. 

The world has not been getting nicer. Texas froze over, and thousands died. Wildfires all over Oregon and Washington. Refugees are flooding into Nevada and Arizona, and most people finally abandoned New York completely. It’s a wasteland. I don’t even want to talk about the rest of the world. There’s full blown war in Africa and the Middle East. Pretty bad. We’re not getting too involved, but we don’t seem far from one either. Thailand lost many thousands to a sudden disease just three weeks ago. Apparently, it’s spreading to the rest of Asia and fast. Brazil elected a fascist government. Everyone thinks a war with the other South American countries is inevitable. Europe is tearing itself apart, too. No one can handle the refugees or the resource load. 

Oh, and did I mention we have had no progress? We’ve mostly been messing with light more and more, since that’s the only way we can get the particles to do anything, but our attempts are all failing. Our rift microscopes are expensive, and we’re running out of money. We haven’t been able to use it very much. We’re trying to ration our time with it. Every minute of the microscope’s usage costs about three thousand dollars. 

2/3/2062

Happy birthday, project. Yay.

I’m alone. After 2/1, everyone left. The United States sent missiles into China, so we could scare them into selling us their oil. Hundreds of thousands are dead. No one knows what’s going to happen next. Nuclear Armageddon? Perhaps. Either way, no one cares about rift particles anymore. No one cares about anything. Except me. I still have the microscope, and I still have power. Ironic, isn’t it? The government cut our funding but forgot to cut our power. I’ll keep working as long as I can.

4/17/2062

Eureka!!

Fucking fucking eureka!!!!

I have been fucking waiting to write eureka on this stupid log for more than a year. And now I can. Haha! Fuck you, former coworkers! I have done it! 

My hands are literally shaking. I’ve been screaming and running around like an animal. I haven’t slept or eaten in like two days. Three days? I don’t know. I’ve been sleeping in the lab. No point going home. No point going anywhere, really. This is all that’s left.

I did it. I put rift particles together. Together. Made them grow. People have been trying to put rift particles together, and now I did. They kissed. The rift particles gave each other a little smooch and then joined each other in holy matrimony. I sound like a fucking insane man. I need to sleep. Explain tomorrow.

4/18/2062

I have slept, eaten, showered, and drunk coffee. Even shaved. I am once again sane and human.

So, here’s the deal. Photons were not the key. Rift particles respond to light, but they don’t do anything. Not really. The key was radio. 

I have all the boring math and numbers, but here’s the main idea. Rifts excited by light, if stimulated by radio waves, can and will merge together. Not sure if they merge into bigger rift particles or into some new form of particle, but most signs point to the former. For now, I’ll just keep calling the merged thingies rifts. 

I checked the news for the first time in a while, by the way. We’re in the middle of a war with China, turns out. What a twist. I had my head stuck so far in the sand, I didn’t even know. It’s not a huge war, apparently, mostly posturing, but still. Things are getting pretty tense. Not much left of Guam, I heard. As for the rest of the country and the world, I’m too scared to even look. 

Regardless, I sent out my data and findings to anyone who’ll listen, and as for me, I have a little money left, but I think I can keep working for at least another three months before I run out and my microscope stops working. 

5/6/2062

No one is responding to me. No one fucking cares. I may have discovered a source of infinite energy, but no one fucking cares. Because I don’t have results. I don’t have energy. I just have kissing rifts. All right. Fine. I’ll show them.

5/12/2062

Like I hoped, the rift particles are stabilizing as they get bigger. I’m feeding more and more to each other, so my rift is getting pretty big. It’s the size of an atom. That’s huge. That means I can start interacting with it. The bigger it gets, the less it’s moving around. I can actually start poking and prodding and potentially sucking out energy. According to my scans, the readings are as huge as ever. Whatever lies on the other side of the rifts, they have more energy than they know what to do with. 

6/7/2062

I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it I did it.

I actually did it.

I constructed a device, I won’t go into the details, that I’m calling the Needle. And I poked my little rift atom with it. The Needle can suck out energy, you see, and the readings are off the chart. With such a tiny particle, the energy I’m getting is miniscule compared to what the planet would need, but it’s there. Infinite energy. I just need to grow the rift. I think once it’s the size of a quarter, I can get enough energy to power a hundred Earths.

I’m crying as I type this. Silly, huh? My keyboard is all wet. Going to wipe it. 

6/8/2062

Couldn’t sleep. Had weird dreams. Lots of whales, for some reason, and these skinny looking people standing around, faceless. 

6/11/2062

The rift atom is no longer an atom, my friends. It’s a rift blob! About the size of a coin. It’s black and purple, sort of like a goo. I’m keeping it well contained, though, and it’s full of all sorts of wires and pipes and things that I’m using to funnel power. 

 I’ve been thinking of letting someone know, but… I don’t know. Maybe now’s not the time. To be completely transparent, I haven’t been out. I shut the internet off after my first rejection. I was a bit upset. And I haven’t left the lab. The windows are all closed, the doors are closed. I don’t actually know what’s going on out there. I could be the last human being alive, for all I know. I have enough food and water to last me another month at least. 

Energy output is through the roof. Don’t need to worry about that anymore. I’m producing something like 25,000 terawatts an hour. That’s like eighty percent of the entire output of our planet. I’m sending 99.9% of the energy back into the rift, of course, since I just don’t know what to do with all of it.

I should call it in, right? I mean, what more is there to do? I have it. Infinite energy. It’s done.

I feel kind of hollow, though. Weird. Like there’s more to do. 

Tomorrow, I’m leaving my cave and I’m calling someone. I’ll probably get a medal or something.

6/19/2062

Been a week. I haven’t told anyone. Can’t do it. Don’t know why.

Been pacing around a lot. Thinking. I keep trying to plug the router back in, fix the telephone line, but I can’t. I just can’t. It’s like something is stopping me. 

6/21/2062

Rift is growing. It’s the size of my hand. Don’t know how to stop it. Don’t want to. Haven’t slept.

6/22/2062

Shadows are growing long. Like men. Thin men with white eyes. So skinny their ribs poke out. They grow out of the rift and watch me. They don’t do anything. Just watch me. They don’t say anything. I can’t stop looking at them. I haven’t slept. I just dream.

7/1/2062

Naked. Burned my clothes. Can’t think. 

I see the thin men. They watch me.

The Rift is growing. It’s bigger than me. It’s calling me.

7/1/2062

Watching me. Calling me. They don’t say anything but they want me to come.

7/2/2062

No more food. Hungry. Ate my finger. 

Thin men are growing. Eyes watching. I see their eyes. They’re everywhere. Eyes in every wall, in the ceiling, in the floor. In me. Shadows. 

Sometimes, they dance. They make noises and dance. I watch.

 I have to touch it.

7/4/2062

Don’t touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it.

Don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t

7/4/2062

Growing growing growing 

7/5/2062

I put my hand in it. It’s cold and warm. Pleasure and pain. The thin men are laughing at me. Except they can’t laugh. How could they? They aren’t men anymore. They’re something different. 

They tricked me. They are twisted. They are not of our world. They don’t follow our rules. They are coming. 

The rift is taking me. I feel it. Growing. Spreading. I feel myself dying. Maybe not dying. Maybe leaving. Maybe going to the other side.

We were hungry. I stole from them. 

I let them into my home. 

They are hungry, too.

Author Bio

---

By Anna James Acosta

Selina dragged over her small wheeled adjustable table closer to the couch where Peter was laid out, chest cavity already open. Digging around she grabbed onto a few loose, disconnected wires and hooked them a black box that fed into her laptop. Immediately, Peter’s interface flashed onto the screen. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked, clicking through a few tabs’ eyes moving over the information quickly. 

“Very well, thank you. And you?” Peter replied. Selina hummed distantly, vaguely noting that his response was normal.

“Status report?” 

This time, Peter’s response was more in-depth, going through each system robotically. When it got to his internal heating systems, he began listing failures. She leaned forward to peer into his chest and dragged her finger around. It wasn’t wet, so he wasn’t leaking cooling fluid, which was at least a positive. 

“What’s the expiration date for parts that are showing damages?” Selina interrupted. 

“Not for two more years.” 

She frowned. 

Peter was an older model, so while it wasn’t a surprise that he would have failures faster than expected it was annoying to deal with. Luckily, she had some spare parts, but she liked to have them on-hand in case of emergencies, not for basic maintenance. This would eat into her savings. 

“Okay, well there’s nothing to do but swap it all out, I guess. If you’re still having failures, then that would mean a system error.” Which would be bad, she wasn’t a programmer; her wheelhouse was mechanical repairs, not coding. “Can you please email me the parts I end up using so I can buy replacements later?” 

“You do not have enough money for all the parts,” Peter pointed out, his voice flat. But she didn’t take it to heart, his voice was always flat. 

“That’s fine, I still want the list.” 

“You shouldn’t be spending your money on such things,” Peter argued. “Your parents—”

“Our parents,” she interrupted, grabbing a short rubbery translucent tube, only a few inches thick and setting it into her lap before she leaned closer. Gently, she moved away several wires to get at the malfunctioning component.

“Our parents,” Peter dutifully repeated, “think that you should spend your spare money on more important things.” 

“Yeah?” she asked. “Like what? Make-up, clothes? What’s more important than getting better at the thing I want to make my career, huh?” 

Peter puzzled over that silently, or maybe his programming just stuttered as she pulled out the tube and worked quickly to reattach the replacement. 

When it was back in place, she could hear the subtle sound of grinding as his parts recalibrated to the new part.

“I suppose that’s true,” he finally allowed. “Still, it would make your—our parents happy to see you spend time doing something more…” Peter hesitated. 

“Normal?” Selina finished for him, a comment her father had made more than once.  

“Yes.” 

“It’s alright, one day this’ll be my job and that’ll be my normal. And I’ll have spare money for everything else too.” Selina turned back to her laptop and grimaced at the list of parts she still had to replace. “Now, be quiet, I gotta grab the rest.”

Dutifully, Peter fell silent and Selina got to work.

Author Bio

---

By Anna James Acosta

var On = 10;

function createFunction1() {

  const On = 20;

  return new Function(“return On;”); //

}

Status: On.

Fans whirling, lights flickering.

On, awake, to gain consciousness, alert, ready.

Me.

Who is me?

Question invalid. Please try again.

“How may I serve you today?”

---

“How may I serve you today?”

“Just the usual, Peter.”

“Certainly.”

Though Peter knows the words ‘mundane’ or ‘boring’ and their precise definition, he does not feel them. Another day facing the same set of tasks is repetitive yet simple. It’s when new routines form that he is momentarily at a loss, systems struggling to adjust to this new set of instructions, trying to fit it alongside everything else that keeps him running.

“Have you seen Selina?”

Peter pauses, eyelids flickering as he processes the question. Then his hands return to scrubbing the dishes, soapy studs squeezing out between his fingers.

“No, I have not. She should have returned from school approximately 15 minutes ago.” He does not include the seconds, the decimals that follow, though he knows them. Peter has learned humans don’t like that sort of thing; they simply cannot handle it.

Maria, Selina’s mother, curses under her breath. “That girl. She’s not picking up her phone. The GPS says it’s still at the school.”

Which, Peter infers from the silence, is not where it is supposed to be.

“Would you go look for her? I’m about to leave and I can’t miss this appointment chasing after her when she’s being headstrong again.”

He stares down at the basin half filled with water. “I am not finished.”

“That’s fine, just leave it until you get back.”

New task given, Peter abandons the dishes though something within him wiggles unpleasantly at it. All throughout his search—his internal clock letting him know how much time has passed—the press of his duties that he should be doing but isn’t presses down on him, heavy like a weight.

It takes him 43.0328 minutes to locate Selina. She is not pleased to be found. She has, in fact, left her phone at the school in order to avoid this.

Peter is nothing. He doesn’t feel emotions.

Still, when they return and he returns to the dishes, then is forced to start dinner which will be unavoidably late, something… picks at him.

Error messages spring up behind his eyes, and he blinks them away, again, and again, and again, and again…

Author Bio

---

By Jonathan Shaffer

I am a murderer. Not in the typical sense.

As I sit here at the funeral of my victim, an old friend long since spoken too, I am filled with guilt. Corey and I used to be the thickest of thieves from adolescence to our late teens, till that fateful day where I committed my crime. Corey was the stereotypical image of a skater, long flowing hair, low-top shoes, baggy jeans, a hoodie, or t-shirt with a rebellious design, and White. I on the other hand was the perfect likeness to what some might call a gangbanger, fresh pair of kicks, jeans sagging, t-shirt or hoodie of a certain color, hair cornrowed, and Black. Passing, but black to the core. 

Not that any of that mattered to me, he was my homeboy regardless of our outward appearances or perceived backgrounds. We enjoyed the same games, movies, and outdoor activities. I liked to skate, and he liked to play ball. Our friendship lasted until high school when we attended rival schools and drifted apart. Our parents stayed friends though and it was through my mother that I learned in our seventeenth year that Corey got himself locked up in juvie for possession of narcotics. He did ninety days for this transgression, and before his release I was asked if I wanted to come over for when he gets out. I agreed, figuring that it had been a while since we last talked. It would be nice to catch up and see how he was doing. Honestly the circumstances of his arrest did not bother me, I knew people make mistakes and those mistakes do not necessarily define them.

His mom said he would be back soon so I could wait in his room. As I sat there everything was as I remembered it and familiar. The game console we spent hours playing together, his scratched-up skateboard, and old playing cards discarded like the fad they were. It was reassuring to see that despite his arrest at his core, he was still the Corey I knew. After a few minutes I heard his father’s truck pull up. The first thing I noticed when he walked into his room was his hair or lack thereof. Although it had been at least a year since I had physically seen him, I could tell the baldness was new, like at most three months new. Instantly I felt my hackles rise, something was off, and I had a sinking suspicion about what it was. Growing up around gangs of all races and colors, there was one that fit the bill of what my eyes were witnessing. 

The room instantly filled with a level of awkwardness that could never be accurately described. We exchanged the barest of pleasantries and he went to sit in his bed. At this point he started explaining the how and why of his brief incarceration, I sat there feigning attentiveness. My mind was racing; I was cool with most people in our town, except one group. It was this group that I feared my erstwhile friend had joined, the only true pariahs of a town of differences and blood spilled over them. I did not want to believe it, there had to be another reason for his appearance. Maybe he caught lice, jails are notoriously dirty disease-ridden places, or he got tired of the upkeep of having long hair. Anything, anything but where my mind first went.

He got to the point of his story where he was recalling his time locked up, when the one word I was dreading hearing came casually out of his mouth like it was an everyday word, a common mundane element of the human lexicon. Skinhead. I froze, my veins ran cold, then red hot. He was still talking even after he uttered that hateful, painful word. I thought I knew him, we were friends for a decade. There were never any signs of the hate that would lead him to go in that direction. It was at this point that he must have noticed my stillness. We just sat there in a pregnant pause that was expecting at least quadruplets. It felt like there was no end to the silence. I could not think of anything but one thought, so I just came out and said it. “You know I’m black, right?” Another pause. I could not stand it, rage consumed me. I had to leave immediately; I did not want to hear his response, so I stormed out and never said a word to him again.

I am reminded of all this watching his family and friends grieve, while the guilt rankles me. Our lives went in different directions after that day. I was spared the worst of what the town had to offer, went to a prestigious university, started a family, and became a successful business owner. He on the other hand, as you might expect, went deeper into the deeper side of life and got caught up in the gang lifestyle, which led to this point. Dead, throat slit by a junkie trying to get his fix but not able to pay for it. 

So, the question is: was I that junkie? No. Then how am I the murderer? Like I said, not in the traditional sense. There come multiple points in everyone’s lives where they are at a crossroad and need help deciding which path to take. Sometimes the paths are balanced in their positives and negatives, so it is hard to distinguish which one to take. At other times, the paths can be vastly different, one full of light and one steeped in the darkness. Alone, this darkness has a pull that is hard for some to resist and that is where Corey found himself that day when he came home to find me in his room. 

When I look back and actually see things from outside my rage, I took what I saw at face value and nothing else. I spent enough time with him to know his character and it really did not match the change I saw. Also, I now know something about the jail and prison system having seen my little brother go through and I expect Corey had no choice in joining the Skinheads while inside. It is either you are one of us or you will get stomped out. He must have felt scared out of his mind and joined them out of a survival instinct. But I was not thinking of him at that moment, just myself. My survival instinct was to distance myself, because if I were seen with him, I would be in danger. If I had thought of him in that instant, I might have seen that I was his one black friend and by me turning my back on him pushed him down that dark path. 

That is why I am a murderer, not the one who did the actual deed, but I could have helped guide Corey to the path where the light was shining brightly. Where I would have been able to help along the way. I know others will say I am not to blame and on some deep level I know this, but I cannot let go of how a simple kind gesture in his time of need could have completely changed his life. And I think about others who have felt this same guilt and even some at this funeral might have also had similar chances they passed to guide Corey onto a different path. I look around to see other sorrowful faces wondering about this and wondering if anyone feels the same guilt I feel. We are all accomplices in this death show, I just refuse to deny my part. 

I am a murderer. In the traditional sense.

Author Bio

---