"Fuck sake, you're contaminating the scene."

The old man doesn't turn his head towards the uniform who chided him. He calmly puffs his Winston, squints into the rising sun, and silently counts to ten.

"Hey. Detective," the cop continues, "If you're gonna smoke, do it on the other side of the yellow tape."

He made it to five before his temper flared along with the cherry on the end of his Winston. Without moving anything other than his arm, he flicks the half-smoked cigarette at the mouthy sergeant's chest.

"Hey! FUCK!"

"It's my scene, shitstain. Go play in traffic."

A younger detective arrives carrying two to-go cups of coffee. He swiftly steps between the two men. "Hey, hey, easy, sarge. Here. Brought you a fivebucks. Hops you like cream and sugar."

Brushing ash off his uniform shirt, the sergeant grudgingly takes the offered cup. Grumbling, he walks to his cruiser parked at the end of the alley and climbs in.

"Chrissakes, kid. That was my coffee."

"Yeah, well. You shoulda thought of that before you tried to pick a fight with the night shift lead. He's been on since midnight and this was a shit detail."

"Fucker had the stones to tell me I'm contaminating the scene."

The handsome younger, larger man raises an eyebrow.

"Fuck. Not you, too."

"I mean, cmon man. Can't you stop smoking for an hour?"

"Why? I already know what happened and who did it."

"How the hell can you say that? You just got here."

"I've been here about ten minutes."

White jumpsuited technicians walk past the two detectives, carrying large kits that look like extremely oversized tackleboxes.

"So you've solved it, have you?"

The old man winks, sniffs, and reaches into his pocket for a new smoke.

"Not another one. Just wait until we get back to the car, wouldya?"

Grizzled, grumpy, and missing his coffee, the lead detective sniffs the white paper like it's a handrolled Cuban.

"I can't believe you gave that dick my coffee. I gave you a twenty, and don't think I aint noticed you kept the change."

"Yeah, I did, because fuck you. You're an old prick this morning."

"I'm an old dick every morning, kid."

"You don't lie."

"Shit. I lie like a dog, buddy." He laughs at the joke that only he gets, and his teeth seem just a little too sharp in the dawn's light.

"So you don't know whodunnit?" The new detective glances over at the uncovered body of a twenty-something woman in the alley. Non-valuable insides of her purse lie strewn on the blacktop along parts and pieces of her that never should have been outside. He shudders in the heat that has slowly risen along with the sun.

Black flies swarm in contrast with white Tyvek-clad techs. They photograph, catalog, scrape, and collect. "Oh, guys, ignore the butt still smoldering there where Sergeant Fucknuts was standing."

The junior partner waits patiently, sipping his latte.

"You're fuckin with me, aren't you, kid? I can smell that brew. Goddamn."

"Yep. You should apologize to the sarge when we leave."

"You know I'm gonna make you take me to a Starbie's drive through, right?"

"It's your money, boss."

Sighing, a man too old to fight but too stubborn to be beaten turns to leave.

"Whoa, boss, where you goin?"

"We're done here, kid. Let's go get the bastard who did this."

"How do you know who it is?"

"Because I've arrested the motherfucker before." The old detective reaches for his lighter, inhales sweet relief from questions he doesn't want to answer, and heads back to the car.

Some things are possible to explain, but impossible to believe.

"You cry in your sleep."

"Bullshit, no way."

She stops looking at her phone and turns her face towards his. He has a disbelieving half-smile on his face, his own phone drooping towards his lap.

"Not every time, but earlier today, when you napped? Yeah. And Friday night. No shit." She goes back to scrolling. "You want to talk about it?"

"How can I talk about something that I've no idea I'm doing?"

She shrugs, the topic closed for her. "I thought you should know, in case, you know, anyone ever notices."

He's reminded of the dream he had when he dozed off mid-afternoon. He's stricken with an urge to call his mother's sister.

Scrolling through his phone again, he shifts over to his contact list.

His family occupies about a third of the people saved.

Of those, there are only two left who can ever answer a phone call again.

She isn't one of them.

The rain has blackened all the tree trunks, but a white face is painted on a young oak.

I almost missed it staring back at me from the wood line. Two eyes, an exaggerated nose, an idiot's toothy grin, they all follow me as I turn against the wind. I cup the Winston, and calm sanity warms my throat as I squint against wisps of rolled North Carolina gold.

It isn't really a face, I reckon. It's lichen, or moss, or some other forest growth that's had its way with the bark of some wild tree.

I lean against the wet railing of my deck. The air is thick, but cool. Soon, the sun will turn wet grass into the floor of a sauna, but for now, everything is perfectly comfortable, maybe even a little chilled.

Maybe it's just the face dropping my temperature a little.

I refuse to make eye contact. It's silly, I know, because it isn't really a face and there are no eyes. I can't shake my odd feeling about it, though. It reminds me of one of those moths that intentionally draws the eye away from important bits.

So where should I be looking, if the face is a decoy?

I chuckle, shaking my head. This place is playing tricks on me.

I drape one leg over the banister and straddle it. I don't have any patio furniture yet. It's pretty low on the priority list, since I'm still living out of cardboard boxes in the new house.

I'll go poke around the tree line when I finish this Winston.

What's the worst that could happen?

"Don't."

"I just--" She reaches toward him, trying to rest a hand on his shoulder. He flinches, shrinking into himself.

"Don't." He repeats the word in a defeated whisper, staring up into a corner of the room. The ceiling fan slowly cuts through the air above, and a mesmerizing shadow flows behind the blades.

The silence stretches until he makes an idle observation. "It's been years since that thing worked. I had a replacement new in the box, but it sat in the garage for the last near decade. I never got around to installing it."

She tries on a smile, seeing if it fits. It's a squeeze, but she manages to shimmy into one. He hears the strain in her voice as she attempts to broadcast calm. "Looks like it's fine."

He turns his gaze her way. "The day it started working was the first day you did this."

She knows what he means by this. He shivers, but the room is comfortable.

Words stop flowing and the quiet is a drought.

A minute, an hour, a year seem to pass. There's a slight jingle as one of the brass pull chains does a dance, sometimes hitting one of the lightbulbs on the bottom of the ceiling fan.

Finally, he reaches out and takes one of her hands in both of his. His palms are clammy and cold, but a bead of sweat runs from his temple down to the neatly trimmed beard at his jawline. It almost looks like a tear, but his voice is steady and not thickened by heightened emotion. He sounds eerily calm when he speaks.

"You saw her." It's a statement, not a question.

Unsure if it's rhetorical, since they've discussed this at length, she answers with a yes.

He nods. His gaze returns to the fan blades chasing one another in an endless loop.

"Do you think it's coincidence?"

"What's that?" She asks, not quite following. This is a new conversation, not more retelling or rehashing of what she saw, heard, and communicated.

"The fan. Years it's sat, unused, because only the light worked. Everything was fine, then, poof, it was broken. I figured maybe a wire had wiggled loose or something, since I practically always left the thing running. Years, it sat there, and then the very day you..." his voice dwindles off, and he makes a vague gesture with one of the hands holding hers.

"The day I what? Say it. It's nothing to be afraid of."

"The day you spoke with the dead."

"Yes. The day I spoke to your grandmother."

He shivers, and more sweat beads on his forehead.

"Let's pretend for a minute that what you're saying is true."

"It is."

"Yes, you're sure of it, but I'm still skeptical it was her."

She scoffs. He sees her lean back a little, taking in the sight of him. She removes her hand from his, and wipes several droplets of sweat from his forehead. She shows him the moisture on her fingers before flicking it away. "It's 71 degrees in here but you're sweating like it's 95. I've watched you shiver at the same time."

"Maybe I'm getting sick."

"Maybe you're terrified."

His answer is a gunshot, harsh, sudden, almost echoing in the room he uses as an office. "You're goddamned right I'm scared." It's nearly a shout, but not quite. She hears the new thinness of his voice in the outburst, but not nearly as much as he feels it. The hollowness in his chest lends a shallowness to his voice that speaks truly of the abject terror within him.

"There's no need to be afraid. I was the one communing, I was the one open, not you."

"So you've said."

"Yes, so what's wrong?"

"Did you ever stop to think that if we're both standing on your porch, and you turn on the light at night, everyone is caught in the glow? The bugs don't care who owns the property, they just fly towards the light. We both get bitten, because we're both there. We were both here."

She pauses, furrows her brow. "I'm not sure that's how this works."

"I'm now sure how this works at all."

"Fear of the unknown is normal, I get it."

"Did you get other voices? Did you get cold? Did you get weighed down?"

She turns to look at him, seriousness washing across her features. He continues.

"Yeah. So, while you're telepathically chatting it up with grammie or whatever, I'm feeling something all over me. Pressing down on my shoulders. On my chest. It's heavy, it's cold, it's suffocating."

Seriousness becomes worry, but she tries not to show it.

She fails.

"Yeah. Exactly. I see that look. Now imagine there I am, trying to put on a happy face for you while you're divining or whatever. But I'm having an entire fucking conversation in my head."

"What was said?"

"Let me in. Over and over and over and over and over."

"What did you say?"

"I said fuck off, fuck you, no."

She laughs. It's involuntary, sudden, and entirely heartfelt. "Really?"

He isn't offended, and even manages to crack a smile. "Yeah. That was a quote."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah, I said you're not welcome here and not to bother me again. I told it I was protected and that I walked in the light."

"I didn't know you were a religious man."

"I guess we never really know how we feel about things until we are certain about some other things. I mean, I'm not headed to church anytime soon, but yeah. I guess I got a little religion in me."

"So what happened next?"

"Lightness. Brightness. Weightless. My shoulders perked up, my chest loosened, I felt like I could practically float away."

"I think that was your guardian spirit reassuring you."

"So you think this shit was real? It wasn't some sort of irrational response to a set of implausible things? It wasn't all in my head?"

"Well, technically it was all in your head, but I think it's more accurate to say it was all in your spirit." It's her turn to take one of his hands into both of hers. She tries to be reassuring, confident, a rock.

He smiles as much as his anxiety will allow.

Silence returns, but it's comfortable.

Finally, he speaks again. "If it's all the same to you, I think I'll not be on your porch when the light is on. Let's not try to talk to any more of my people, if you don't mind. I think it's best if we let those who have gone stay on their way. Leave them gone, not forgotten, but most definitely not here."

She nods, and they enjoy each other's quiet company until it's time for bed. While he doesn't want to be a part of her metaphysical porch light being on, he leaves all the lights in the house on this particular night.

Neither of them notice that the still-turning ceiling fan's dancing shadows stopped moving when they left the room.

"It's not a uniquely human condition."

Two men sit on the same side of a booth in a busy pub. If anyone cared, some would wonder if they were lovers.

The man who speaks wears no parka, despite freezing weather. He's in an immaculate bespoke suit. It almost swallows light, so dark is the black on black. He is regally pale in contrast, as if the warmth of the sun is a tale whispered by fairies.

His companion, leaning as far onto the wall as he can, is ruddy with drink. Even so, he is aware, sharp, focused.

Afraid.

"Come again?" he stammers.

The elegant man smiles like a rattlesnake.

"Hope. Hope is not a uniquely human condition."

"How so?"

"Take dogs, for example. You think it's love in their eyes when they stare at the dinner table? No. It's optimism. Begging for whatever scraps master will throw them."

"I see."

"Do you see you're the dog?"

"Who is the master?"

"Whom do you serve?"

"...I work at Sainsbury's, mate."

The man in the suit laughs, and the temperature in the pub drops. Winter's chill settles into the warm public house.

"Did you study Latin in school?"

"I remember a class, but nothing stuck."

The pale man calls for another round.

"Dum spiro spero." Two pints of Kronenbourg land on the table and the server quickly disappears. He's careful not to touch the man on the outside of the booth's seat, but he can't say why. "While I breathe, I hope."

"I like that."

"Breathing, or hoping?"

"Both."

"Abandon one, and you'll abandon the other."

The fearful man doesn't know what to say, so he drinks.

"Do you know why I order ale when I take these little walks topside?"

"Topside?"

"Among you mud-fucking monkeys. His favorite pets. His dogs. Only, your dogs are actually dogs, so I think you have the better of it."

"Mate, I'm just trying to have a pint. Never owned a dog, nor fucked a monkey."

The pale man laughs again; mugs on the table frost over.

"I like you, Oliver."

"Ollie. Dad was Oliver."

"Oh, I know him."

"Knew him?"

"Know."

"He was a right cunt."

"Is."

"What're you on about, anyway?"

The suited man swirls a delicate index finger in his pint. "I order ale because He made wine." Bright yellow lager turns into black stout.

The drunk doesn't believe his eyes, so he shuts them.

"Spirans erit cupidum memoria, Ollie."

"Cupid's memory?"

"What would you give to keep breathing? To prevent breath from being a fond memory?"

For the first time, Ollie looks into his guest's eyes. He sees a beautiful creature who looks like a man, but doesn't know beauty. True fear is lead inside him; even beatings taken as a child from Oliver the elder didn't weigh like this moment.

"Mate," he whispers, voice tight and chest hollow, "not much. To you? Nothing."

"Do you know who I am?"

"I can guess your name."

The devil laughs and everyone shivers.

My first kiss had an identical twin sister. In a weird little twisted triangle, I actually started with a crush on the one who didn't kiss me, but ended pretty tangled up in the other one.

It ended with me settling in with her best friend.

Twisted little triangle, indeed.

From somewhere inside the fiery wreckage of that fiasco with the twins, I plucked some wisdom. My own little souvenirs from my visit to what certainly must have been adjacent to a circle of hell. Firstly, I learned that a dude named George was an asshole. He was pretty keyed up to throw down, but I laughed at him and turned my back. Turns out he had a thing for the girl who kissed me. Sorry, George. I never forced her to hands-free transfer to me her Mystery Mix Now & Later in the backseat.

Second, I learned that braces aren't awesome. Later, I learned that braces really suck for a different kind of kissing, if you catch what I'm throwin.

Third, I found that love finds us, we don't find it.

Love has found me a few other times throughout my life, and sometimes it was good. Other times, it was good for a while. On occasion, it was bad, but even before it went ugly, it was beautiful.

Those twins remind me that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Two girls, identical in every physical way, but so very different. Two girls is probably one too many; life aint everything Penthouse Forum promised it would be.

One sister was kind and gentle, the other was all edges and angles.

When the edgy one kissed me, it cut.

Decades later, when I see her picture from time to time, I smile.

I hardly even notice the taste of a little blood.

I sold the books I used to take on our Saturday breakfast trips.

Do you remember them?

"How can you do that instead of see where we're going?" You'd ask that sometimes, when you were driving. Sometimes I'd answer with, "I know how to get home."

It isn't like we talked, anyway.

But if I was lucky, you'd even chuckle at my answer. Smiling was rare enough.

We'd go to a little diner, and I'd always pick a wooden-backed booth instead of one of the green vinyl mid-century modern ones. I remembered them as having higher backs, but I found a picture online of the place. 1951, it was dated. Hard to believe so many decades later we were being served by the same staff.

Every Saturday.

Unless we went to Hardee's. There, it was Moose cups and sausage biscuits.

I never really liked it when you chose Hardee's, because the little tiny town I used to live in only had that restaurant in it. Maybe two other local spots, but just the fast food was available for a Sunday meal. The rest of the city was rolled up tight when Jesus walked in across the lake for his weekly tithe.

I don't miss you like I thought I would, but I miss our breakfasts.

I miss the you that you used to be, goddammit.

I miss the us that we were, before age and anger and bitterness crept in around your edges. I miss the days before I got old enough to see the rust in the frame, the cracks in the leather. I miss the days when you cared enough to pretend to be happy, and maybe you were.

To a grandson, you were what a man was supposed to be.

I wish we'd been able to speak as men.

In the end, I wish we'd been able to speak at all.

I sold the books I used to take on our Saturday morning trips, not because they reminded me of you. Nothing so sentimental. I sold them because they were just decoration on a shelf, and I have new memories to put on display.

I don't need those mementos of our time together, because I see you every time I look in the mirror.

I've never cared much for chocolate cake.

It isn't that I have anything against it, not really. It's just not been one of those things I've ever loved. I'm probably turned off even more by the prospect of chocolate cake with chocolate icing. The combination is too much of a good thing for me.

A chocoholic I am not.

My mom used to take pride in hers, though. She made it all from scratch. No box mixes or tubs of icing were ever found in my house growing up. She could make anything with a little time and a cup of scratch, as the adage goes. At least, I think I heard that somewhere. It applied to mom's kitchen, anyway.

She used to have this sheetcake pan with a blue translucent lid. The pan itself was aluminum, but the lid struck me as super cool because of the particular shade of blue it was. When I was a kid, I'd look through it and the world took on a sci-fi hue. Once when I was probably six or seven, I stepped away from a partially eaten piece of that chocolate on chocolate cake, leaving my paper plate on the coffee table. I forget why I walked away, but when I got back, I found my dog with crumbs on his chin and a perfectly cleaned plate.

I laughed then, and I'm laughing now. He was a good boy, even if sometimes he'd steal from inattentive children. That dog was with me until well after I turned 16. He's the reason my mom never wanted another puppy; in her mind, there'd never be a boy as good as he.

She's probably right. I have a boy dog now and he's not as good as that first one. I've had some girl dogs, though, and one of them was better.

She died a couple of months ago, and recovery has been hard.

It seems silly, mourning like this. Mourning for a dog who was with me for 12 years, and now at the same time mourning for a mother who was with me my whole life.

I started saying goodbye to my last parent a long time ago, but I only had hours to say goodbye to my good girl. Her end was swift, hidden, sudden, and I can only hope for the same. My mother lived long enough to wither, and her passing was not kind.

Today sees me with intermittent sobs and a constant headache behind my eyes. Grief is like that, I suppose. Always waiting for idle hands.

My work is caught up and my hobbies are lackluster. Nothing on television holds my interest and I don't feel up to reading a new book.

So I sit here, thinking about desserts from yesteryear.

I never cared much for chocolate cake, but part of me wishes there was one waiting on me in an aluminum sheet pan with a blue lid.

My world could definitely use a different hue right now.

"Is it lonely?"

"Sometimes," he whispers through a toothy smile.

She studies him. He has the touch of gray and tip-toeing crow’s feet of a man in his early forties, but his energy spoke both of vibrant youth and ancient gravitas.

"Why not use your gaze?" Pointedly, she locks eyes with him.

"The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it."

"How very poetic. What's it mean in this instance?"

"I learned a century ago that asking has better long term potential than taking."

Eventually, she forgets what dawn looked like.

The last present I ever gave her was blue Roseville pottery. I purchased a lot of it at auction years ago. I knew it would make good gifts for her at the right times.

Eventually, she required a display cabinet.

At Christmas, I gave her the last pieces of pottery.

I heard from family at the funeral that she was proud of me. She often spoke of where I was working, what I was doing.

I thought I disappointed her.

I hope she genuinely enjoyed all those Roseville vases and bowls.

Next week I have to start boxing it up.