Sounds of a garbage disposal sink system being pushed to its absolute mechanical limits can be heard from every room in the apartment; the floors above and below it wake up to the grinding metal shards bumper car'ing into one another.

Something about letting them all swarm and fight over the fridges molded leftovers over night,

then getting the privilege of waking up to the garbage disposal being so flooded with those little cockroach mother fuckers that I can't even elbow grease another single solitary wing down into the magic hole until death rattling the load that's in there with the warm water running for a bit loosens things up.

Me and these coacsuckers have been at war ever since they moved in rent free (trying to state squatters rights or some shit like we live in a vacationing state where winter only comes after a nuke fails to kill their shelly asses)

Guess what?

"It ain't gonna take me a nuke to get rid of every last one of yous!"

The slumlord did one good thing when piling up this shit shack, concrete walls. No need for a gym just gonna bob n cleave these micro-bastards til my knuckles swell enough to have a mind of their own and tell me what to do next.

This place has become a super-highway and I don't intend on opening any more rest stops.

I flush em. The long wait afterword angers the survivors and the flying ones bounce around the closed lid

like some coked up genies with a dwindling supply.

I had a tub. I left a rather ripe post workout marinade film on the bottom that I added a full bear of honey to.

Once the white'ish porcelain turned to a blackout layers deep, my imperfectly measured homemade pool cover got placed over the top and I use this flesh n bone concoction God gave me to press the pool cover down and juice these coacs until the crunching stops.

I leave the last shovels worth in there to preserve in the clear dog shit bags to have fresh ready for Slumlord when he decides to show up Monday, or Tuesday. His door knob is shaped like half a heart and is perfect for tying bags of presents to especially if you just use the bottom to stab things through so their just barley not ripping apart while dripping through little by little on these hot humid heat waves.

The son of a bitch has no heart on the other side of that door! A genocide happening on his own species under his very roof & all he does is toss the bags out the window that soon enough will be too full of all us resident's gifts and will obstruct his perfect Emperial view of the Alleys many Bum Fights that we've fixed and pay me and a few neighbor's rent from a very mild Vig.

"Sir?" asked the head elf, Pippy Punkrocking.

"Yes, Pippy?" answered Santa.

"Sir, it’s about our NICE list. Last month someone from the NAUGHTY list was transferred over to it. I don’t remember authorizing that." Pippy held a tightly rolled-up scroll. Santa waved his fingers, indicating Pippy should let it roll open, spilling out onto the floor, which it did.

"Who?" Santa asked.

"Here, sir," the elf pointed out.

"Donald...J...Trump," Santa read slowly and deliberately. "Oh, that was me. I made the transfer.”

Pippy frowned, which if it were to continue for too long, could be life-threatening to him, as an elf.

“So what?” Santa argued. “What's the problem? I made the switch. I put him on. Don’t I get to vote?"

"Sir, you rigged it. He's naughty, not nice."

"That’s a matter of opinion, don’t you think? The people thought otherwise. And consider, Pippy, what it takes to be a leader. Some see naughtiness as leadership. You can't lead nations without being stern—even mean sometimes. You've gotta make tough choices. It’s hard. The free world is too important to leave it to someone nice."

"Well, sir, then, leave him on the NAUGHTY list, where belongs.”

“Oh, Pippy, you tricked me with our sharp-tongued little elven doubletalk. No, he’s naughty but, by our standards, he’s nice and stays on the NICE list.”

“But it's his choices that put him on the NAUGHTY list. Where do I even start?"

"You don't, you little Democrat runt!" Pippy's mouth dropped open in disbelief. The frown had only been the beginning; he felt pressure in his chest and began to feel faint. He had never seen Santa like that. He began to cry.

"There, there," Santa cooed, attempting to assuage him. "You have to be a little naughty to send out Seal Team 6, right? Or change regimes, right? Everyone thought Obama was nice, but he did some very naughty things, it turned out. Y'know, Pippy, I've never been elected anything. I'm Santa, because...well...just because."

"Because you're St. Nick! And Jolly. Jolly St. Nick. You're a saint, for goodness’ sake! You don't need to be elected.” Pippy clutched his chest and rubbed his left arm. “But Santa, what you just did wasn’t jolly or saintly. Not at all. It was naughty!"

Santa's assuaging countenance stiffened, becoming severe, even angry. He had a very dark moment.

"What did you just say?" he seethed.

"Oh! Oh! I didn't say you were naughty. Just what you did."

"You want I should put myself on that NAUGHTY list, do you?" Pippy was beside himself. He coughed on his sleeve and saw specks of blood. The animus in the room began to melt the snow outside the door, and some water began slipping over the threshold.

"Of course not, Santa. You? On the NAUGHTY list? Hahahahahahahaha! Never! But him? It's a mistake putting him on the NICE list. A big mistake."

"Not really. I’ve gotten a lot of letters from children asking for their very own Chia®Donald Trumps. And they’re asking me to bring their Dads Trump coins and watches and their Moms a Crystal Trump 2024 Memorabilia Lapel Brooch. I can’t break the hearts of over half the parents’ children out there."

"But," the elf said, "I think it is a mistake. I mean, there's a whole list of things that he's—"

"Pippy, Pippy," Santa cajoled him. "Do you think anyone's above forgiveness? Republicans? Democrats? Pyromaniacs? Remember little Jimmy Nubbins? Set his sister on fire but was really sorry after. Remember?"

“Yes…I remember.”

"Remember the uproar at the list-assignment conclave when half you little guys thought he should stay on the NAUGHTY list? And what did you say? Remember?"

"Yes, Santa..." Pippy answered, swinging a loose foot back and forth.

"You said, 'Don't judge someone by their past…but by the promise of their future.' Your eyes even teared up when you said that."

"I guess so..."

“And you said, ‘Give the little misunderstood tyke another chance. Was it really his fault? Is anything really anyone’s fault anymore?’”

“I suppose…”

“So moving, Pippy. And remember you said, ‘Aren’t we better than this? The NAUGHTY list is written in pencil for a reason. Have we forgotten what erasers are for? Things change. People change. And even if they don’t, who are we to judge? We’re not walking in their official Donald Trump footwear! We don’t know what can make someone choose anything on the spur of the moment. Inclusion means everybody.’ And, ‘Who are we to judge? Give ‘im another chance’—well said! You were such a persuasive and woke little elf—so persuasive that little Jimmy ended up on the NICE list again. He got that PlayStation 5 Pro last Christmas morning, along with his sister getting those finger extension splints. So, waddaya say now about Mr. Trump?"

"Pardon him?"

"Oh, no-no-no-Ho-Ho-Ho! He doesn't need me for that.”

“A nice fruit cake, then? Or better yet—the annual subscription—a new fruit cake arriving every month!"

“That’s the elf I know! Now, off wit’ ya, Pippy. Those Chia pets aren’t gonna grow green hair by themselves!”

I was born in the video game world. Both my parents (as well as their parents) were behind the scenes NPCs. But they never felt they weren’t important. They took pride in the roles they were designed for and instilled this sense of self-worth in me.

By the tender age of 10, I was helping my mom with her real estate business. I did odds and ends around the office, tidying up and reading the occasional telegram. She sold homesteads along the Oregon Trail. From my 16-bit perspective, it was an exciting field filled with intrigue and adventure. Trying to make a difference for hard-working people looking for a better life out West, she considered herself the facilitator of dreams.

As an independent contractor, my mom never let on the struggles she, and of course, her clients, faced. She’d invest hours analyzing the ever-changing maps and charts to find the perfect location that hadn’t already had a claim staked against it. She accurately filled out the cross-state paperwork in triplicate, making sure all pertinent documentation was ready before the afternoon’s Pony Express departed. She was meticulous when it came to synchronizing the time, date and location the parties involved in the closing were to meet.

Unfortunately, after all the details were finalized, a potential homeowner would more often than not die from dysentery before even crossing Wyoming. Heartbreaking on all fronts. Usually, the remaining members of the grieving family would give up hope, divert to the south and settle in Salt Lake City or Boulder. My mom was not licensed in either location. So, all that work and energy she put in was for nothing. If your income is solely derived from commission, deals that fall through make for anemic paychecks. But my mom persevered with a programmed smile on her face.

So, I was destined to follow in my parents’ footsteps. When old enough, I set out on my own with the intent of being part of something big. It’s scary in the world of graphics. But life was good in 1981. Optimism was giving the country a big, warm embrace. America was prospering under President Reagan’s “Trickle-Down Economics” policies.

I understand that for others to advance, a consistent supply of inventory is necessary for the true players to triumph in their respective quests. I recognized this broad niche and decided to fill some portion of it so I could take a big terabyte of the profit pie topped with a heaping scoop of capitalist ice cream. My question was, “What void can I fill?” Deep down I knew when I got this answer, I’d be on the way.

While waiting in line at craft services one afternoon, I listened as a spunky Italian in front of me commiserated with other players. Seems he’s currently in a protracted battle with a gorilla named Donkey Kong, or DK as he was known in the gaming community. Apparently, DK is a thorn in the side of this plumber, Mario, and his girl, Pauline, by trying to keep Mario at bay and having Pauline all to himself.

Mario, in passing, mentioned he wished he had better wooden mallets to smash the barrels constantly being tossed at him. The ones he wields now are too heavy. Hearing this, a serendipitous lightbulb flicks on in my head. Without hesitation, I interrupt, “Wooden mallets you say. I can get you wooden mallets. My mother knows where the clear cutting of vast tracks of land out west is being done. She can get lumber. My father’s the foreman at the bat manufacturing company for Intellivision’s Major League Baseball game. Together, we can make you mallets.”

“Thatza great. Howza big can yous maka them?” “As big as you.” “Whatta kinda wood ya gonna uza?” “Ash, of course,” I state with confidence. “Oy, mamma mia, Imma in,” Mario replies. I was now on the way.

Selling wooden mallets that haven’t been produced yet to a stranger in blue overalls that’s being harassed by a barrel-tossing monkey was not the path I thought I’d ever take. But sometimes the path you’re on is really an exit ramp to bigger things. I jumped at the opportunity knowing things will work out in the end. So that’s the start of my relationship with Mario and the inception of my company: Mallets, Mallets, Mallets.

I didn’t realize how huge a client Mario would become and how many mallets were needed for all his games. After a quick learning curve, my small company managed to keep up with the demand and we forged a solid working partnership.

“Yup,” was the curt response he gave when I asked my brother if he would like to make a lot of money. I noticed that DK would go through a 100 times more barrels during a game than Mario did with mallets. This was an untapped market. But my moral compass points North. I didn’t feel it was right to sell DK barrels that would be destroyed by mallets I sold to Mario. It came off as a conflict of interest. But with my brother’s experience repairing wagon wheels for my mom’s players, it was an easy transition for him to lead the newly formed business: Barrels, Barrels, Barrels. And my compass only deviated a couple of degrees.

Our cousin came on board to supply the oil and fire for the burning drum. She was a borderline arson who ultimately worked on the pyrotechnics involved with the Adamant Flame from Street Fighter. She was also a wiz regarding regulations and overcame the minor speedbump when the embargo kicked in and oil prices shot through the roof. Being resourceful while stretching the law regarding imports, she formed a shell corporation in the Bahamas to avoid the tariffs. This kept production costs from ballooning and the money poured into our coffers. All was well in the world. But a healthy stream of revenue means the inevitable unhealthy flood of drama.

First, Mario’s brother, Luigi, got into some legal trouble with the Feds after overstaying his work visa. The bilingual, human rights attorney who took the case and was smart enough to get the charges dismissed while securing a green card for Luigi came with a hefty price. Those billable hours depleted a large chunk of the brother’s retirement savings.

Pauline wanted to start a family, but Mario got into professional go cart racing. He met Princess Peach in late 1984 at the Monaco Grand Prix and that was the beginning of the end for his relationship with Pauline. As someone who was always the “damsel in distress,” I was surprised when she got a cutthroat attorney. Although they were never married, her barrister convinced the jury that she was Mario’s common-law wife. Without a prenup, Mario was on the hook for half his net worth. That’s a whole lot of quarters. Last I heard she was married to a programmer and residing in Los Gatos.

PETA got involved by filing a cease-and-desist letter citing that DK was subjected to animal abuse and inhumane conditions. When PETA disregarded DK’s multiple restraining orders, their letter was withdrawn.

The International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers, Local 605 started raising a stink over the use of non-union labor for rebuilding the trusses Mario destroyed while climbing to save Pauline. Greasing the teamsters’ palms wasn’t cheap.

Then Mario got into an extended contractional dispute over licensing residuals with Nintendo. He was looking to parlay his joy of driving carts into a full-time gig with his brother and thought he should be properly compensated. Nintendo countered that Mario’s licensing fee covered all future endeavors. In the end, Mario got a physician to deem his knees arthritic and climbing ladders was counterintuitive to Mario’s long-term health. Both sides agreed to a court-sealed settlement. Personally, I think climbing ladders reminded Mario of Pauline and brought up painful memories of what was and what could have been.

By then, there was scuttlebutt circulating that my job was one of many in consideration for being outsourced to a third-party vendor in Mumbai. I saw the writing on the wall and went my own way. It was a good run. But as with any successful venture, there’s popularity. And popularity leads to incrementally higher levels of fame. Fame always begets money, which ultimately ushers in stress-headaches. I was too young to have stress-headaches. After spending some time as the exclusive pizza caterer to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I left the video game world for good. We all outgrow our comfort zones. I stayed in technology though. Now I service bitcoin vending machines.

Since I was never a marquee name, I don’t get invited to any Comic Cons or asked to join gamer podcasts. That’s okay, I welcome the freedom anonymity brings. I can reminisce about the good old days, painting memories with broad brushstrokes of biased nostalgia. And can do it without being worried that I’m going to get hit with a barrel. Or unplugged.

Her name was Rachel. She worked for an e-commerce company & had the most important job of all(at least that's how it seemed to her.) She wrapped the items intended as gifts.

Her hands lovingly folded and taped each corner, expertly tied each bow. She gave it her best no matter how bizarre the item or how mundane.

Slowly the company became more and more automated. Robots did most of the work now and flesh & blood employees disappeared. "Not me," Rachel thought. "They can't take my job it needs a human touch. It requires a caring soul and these machines don't have that!"

That proved to be true at least for a while. Ultimately though one day she was called into to talk with the boss. He was a firm man but not unkind. It was with no trace of enthusiasm that he informed her that the soulless, mechanical, bipedal things with bland, prerecorded phrases would be taking her place now.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Rachel. I held off as long as I could but this is from the top down. Honestly I'm surprised they haven't automated me yet."

So two days before Christmas, her favorite time to wrap gifts Rachel left work as the latest casualty of futuristic innovation.

It began to snow fiercely as she walked dejected past the honey yellow shop windows with their yuletide displays. The streets were practically deserted and she felt alone. One of those new fangled police cars that looked like a oversized tent peg stopped beside her. The door raised like a dolphin waving good bye with its fine. "Ma'am," said the husky voice beneath the tactical helmet,"There’s a major winter storm coming. I must advise you to go home and stay indoors until the all clear is given."

"Yes home. That's what I shall do, go home."

The storm was as ferocious as twenty-three starving lions. The winds howled like lost souls & blotted out the scenery with snow. The next day a body was found in the park. It was a woman and in her frost bitten fist she clutched something. "That's peculiar, mused the rescue worker. It's a scrap of wrapping paper."

The sand feels different today. I run it through my fingers, counting each grain as it falls, though I know that's impossible. One, two, three—the rest blur together like static. The morning fog hasn't burned off yet, and the pier stretches into nothing, its endpoint lost in gray.

I've been here six hours. Or maybe twenty minutes. Time moves differently when you're counting sand.

"Ma'am?" A voice breaks through. Police, probably. They always come eventually. "Are you alright?"

I don't look up. Can't look up. There's work to be done. "I'm organizing," I tell him, my voice raw from the salt air. "Each pile needs exactly one thousand grains. It's important to be precise."

His shadow falls across my workspace, disrupting the careful patterns I've drawn in the sand. Concentric circles, each smaller than the last, spiraling inward toward some truth I can't quite grasp. Yesterday there were seventeen circles. Today I count twenty-three. Tomorrow there might be none.

"Dr. Garcia called us," he says gently. "She's worried about you. You missed your last three appointments."

A laugh bubbles up, salty-bitter as seaweed. "Dr. Garcia doesn't understand. I'm conducting an experiment." My fingers tremble as I separate another small pile. "If you remove one memory at a time, at what point do you stop being yourself?"

The tide is coming in. I feel it in my bones, that slow creep of water. Soon it will wash away my work, like it does every day. Like it has every day since Mason—

No. Don't think about Mason. Don't think about the pier, or the fog, or why you know exactly how long it takes a body to—

"Five hundred ninety-eight, five hundred ninety-nine..." My voice cracks. "I lost count. I have to start over."

The officer crouches beside me. Through my peripheral vision, I catch a glimpse of his nameplate: Officer Collins. He was here yesterday too, though he's pretending this is our first meeting. They all pretend.

"How about we get you somewhere warm?" he suggests. "The fog's getting thicker."

"You don't understand," I whisper, my fingers cramping as I scrape together another pile. "If I can just figure out the exact number—if I can find the precise point where a heap becomes not a heap, where a person becomes not a person—then maybe I can work backwards. Maybe I can find the grain of sand that changed everything. The moment before it all went wrong."

A wave crashes closer, sending spray across my carefully ordered piles. The salt mingles with something warm on my cheeks. When did I start crying?

"One grain at a time," I murmur, more to myself than Officer Collins. "That's all it takes. One grain, and then another, and another, until suddenly your heap is gone. Until suddenly you're gone. But if you can count them—if you can keep track—maybe you can put them back in the right order. Maybe you can rebuild..."

The fog swallows the rest of my words. In the distance, a siren wails, or maybe it's just the foghorn. These days, I can't always tell the difference between warning sounds.

-----

Dr. Garcia's office smells like lavender and lies. She thinks she's clever, using aromatherapy to mark the passage of time—lavender on Mondays, sage on Wednesdays, eucalyptus on Fridays. As if temporal anchors could stop the slipping.

"You're agitated today," she observes, pen hovering above her notepad. Three months ago, she used blue ink. Two months ago, black. Today it's red, like warning signs, like blood in water.

"I made progress," I tell her, watching dust motes drift in the afternoon light. Each speck a tiny universe, falling. "I reached six hundred grains yesterday before Officer Collins interrupted. That's eighteen more than my previous record."

She doesn't look up from her notepad. "And how many times have you met Officer Collins?"

"Once," I say automatically. Then: "No, three times. Or—" The certainty crumbles like wet sand between my fingers. "He pretends it's always the first time. They all pretend."

"Who pretends?"

"Everyone. The officers. The lifeguards. The man who sells ice cream by the pier." My hands twist in my lap. "Even Mason pretends, when I see him in the fog."

The scratching of her pen stops. In the silence, I hear the clock on her wall ticking. One second, two seconds, three—how many seconds before a lifetime becomes a life sentence?

"We've talked about Mason," she says carefully, each word measured, weighed, precise. "About what happened on the pier."

"Nothing happened on the pier." The words taste like salt. "Nothing happens. Nothing is happening. Nothing will happen. Time is just grammar."

She sets down her pen. Red ink bleeds into white paper. "You were there when they found him."

"I found a shell that morning," I say, the memory suddenly sharp as broken glass. "Perfect spiral. Mathematical precision. The Fibonacci sequence made manifest in calcium carbonate. I was going to show him, explain how nature builds itself in predictable patterns, how even chaos has underlying order, but—"

My fingers trace spirals on the arm of the chair. One rotation, two, three...

"But?"

"The shell disappeared. Like the sand castles. Like Mason. Like everything, eventually. Entropy in action." I look up at her window, where fog is creeping in despite the afternoon sun. "Did you know that beach sand moves? Littoral drift. Constant motion. What you touch in one moment is gone the next. The beach you stand on today isn't the same beach as yesterday."

"Is that why you count the grains? To hold onto something constant?"

A laugh escapes, hollow as a seashell. "I count to find the edge. The boundary. If you remove one grain of sanity, are you still sane? Two grains? Three? Where's the line, Doctor? When does a person become a patient? A mother become a mourner? A witness become a—"

I stop. The fog is pressing against the windows now, impossible for this time of day, this time of year. Through its gray veil, I see a familiar silhouette on the pier.

"He's out there," I whisper, reaching toward the window, fingers grabbing empty air. "On the pier right now. All I have to do is count backwards, find the right number, the exact moment—"

"There is no pier outside my window," Dr. Garcia says softly. "We're three miles inland."

I blink. She's right. The window shows only a parking lot, sun-baked and solid. No fog. No pier. No Mason.

"I need to go," I say, standing. My legs shake like sand castles in rising tide. "The beach changes with every wave. If I don't get back soon, I'll lose count. Have to start over. Have to—"

"Please sit." Her voice has an edge now, sharp as shells, as broken promises. "We're not done."

But I'm already at the door, fingers reaching for the handle. I step into the hallway. The cold lights flicker—one, two, three…

-----

The sun is setting now, or rising. The fog makes it hard to tell, turning everything the color of old memories. I've arranged three hundred and forty-seven piles of sand, each containing exactly one thousand grains. Or maybe it's seven hundred and twelve piles of three hundred and forty-seven grains. The numbers swim like fish beneath the surface.

Officer Collins sits beside me now, no longer pretending this is our first meeting. His radio crackles with static that sounds like waves breaking.

"Tell me about the shell," he says.

My hands keep moving, sorting, counting. "Fibonacci. Perfect spiral. Mathematical certainty in an uncertain universe." A grain slips through my fingers. "Mason would have understood. He was brilliant at math, did I tell you? Sixth grade, but already taking pre-algebra. He could see patterns everywhere. Even in chaos. Especially in chaos."

"Wiser than his years." His voice is gentle. Like the fog. Like Mason's was, before. "What happened after you found it?"

"He was angry about the phone." The words come easier now, worn smooth like sea glass. "Such a small thing. A stupid thing. One week without it, that's all. His grades were slipping. He needed to focus. I thought the beach would help him find his peace, like it always had before. If I had just... if I had waited one more day, let him keep it one more day..."

My fingers stop moving. A thousand grains of sand cascade into nothing.

"You couldn't have known," Officer Collins says.

"There was a pattern," I insist. "In his behavior. In his moods. In the way he stormed out, slammed the door. The way he ran—" My voice cracks like a shell under pressure. "I counted the seconds before I followed. One, two, three... sixty-seven. Sixty-seven seconds between his door and mine. Between his footsteps and mine. Between mother and—"

"That wasn't your fault."

"But where's the line?" The words tumble out like tide rushing in. "How many seconds of anger before discipline becomes cruelty? How many moments of rebellion before attention-seeking becomes... If you remove one word of the argument, then another, then another, at what point does a mother's caution become a child's last—"

"Stop." His hand hovers near my shoulder but doesn't touch. "The investigators were clear. The railing was wet from the fog. When he turned around to come back—"

"No." I pull away, start a new pile. "That's not—I need to count. Need to find the right number. If I can just figure out how many grains make a heap, how many moments make a childhood, how many breaths between defiance and regret, between standing and falling, between his laugh and his—"

The fog shifts, and suddenly Mason is there, at the end of the pier. Twelve years old forever, balancing on the upper rail, turning back with that look—half-anger, half-fear, whole child. "Mom," he says, or maybe it's just the wind. "Mom, I didn't mean—"

"Do you see him?" I whisper.

Officer Collins follows my gaze. "I see fog," he says softly.

"He's trying to tell me something. He's always trying to tell me something." My voice sounds far away, like shouting underwater. "But I can't... the numbers keep changing. The grains keep shifting. Yesterday I was sure it was one thousand grains. Today it might be three. Tomorrow..."

A wave crashes against the pier's pylons. When the spray clears, Mason is gone. Like always. Like everything.

"Come on," Officer Collins says, standing. He offers his hand. "The tide's coming in."

I look down at my piles. The neat circles I've spent hours creating are already disappearing, erased by wind and water. Tomorrow I'll make new ones. Tomorrow I'll count again. Tomorrow I'll find the right number, the perfect equation, the exact point where everything changed. Where a mother's discipline became a child's rebellion became an empty bedroom with a phone still charging on the nightstand.

Or maybe I won't. Maybe that's the real paradox—not how many grains make a heap, but how many times you can watch it disappear before you accept that some questions don't have answers. Some patterns exist only in the spaces between "I love you" and "I'm sorry."

I take his hand. Let him pull me up. My feet leave perfect prints in the wet sand as we walk away from the pier.

Behind us, the fog swallows everything—the piles, the patterns, the possibilities. One grain at a time, until nothing remains but the sound of waves counting seconds into infinity, each one the exact length of a child's last breath.

19 Yrs. Old.

Raid Walker

Power: Four Clover, a weak little power for a weak spindly armed gofer.

Or so said the only doctor Mama could take him to, whom had no reason for pretense or "bedside manner." Given that the man served criminals and any person too poor to pay the fees, blackmailing the second sort until they were just as dirty as the border patrol men who commandeered the bars and the women at night, their uniforms caked in sandstorm dirt and body odor, committing all kinds of acts from thievery to bootlegging to dealing. To killing and to demeaning, to threatening and to burning.

What Mama burned on Friday nights in a long silk gown and her own Mama's old wedding veil in the almost satanic ritual fashion, was absolutely none of his business. No matter how it stank.

With a shuddering breath, tears running down her face, Patricia prayed.

She silently asked that whatever God existed here-- if he or she or it had not abandoned this place altogether-- that white haired, pale red eyed [___] Walker forgave her.

With quick and now very accustomed hands did she strike a match and set it to a tiny candle wick.

And with her hand let the flame caress the corners of the page, of all the loose papers until they burned into ash on the writing desk he'd fished out for her so many months ago.

When he had finally smiled at her with the corners of his eyes crinkled.

___________________________________________

Raid knew this 'New West' fad the Others called it. Those rich folks outside the country.

While Raid knew it the way all the young people knew it. Not that he'd exactly be welcome among the "little maggots" anymore.

Anyone who survived to age out knew to run whenever you felt the slightest brush of an adult's shadow.

Because to actually live you had to be evil.

This country which was Baron's Coffer. What the mob man who had first struck bloody, iron colored order into the roasting sands and the screaming corpses fancied himself.

The Baron. Rich and opulent. Greedy and obnoxious in voice and of the size of his flintlock.

And no, no man knew the size of that. And besides, it was more of a glock. Very different guns.

Adults in Coffer were evil. A hideous, rotted bushel of fruit. Fruit.

Never seen what they actually looked like.

It was a rare photo that wasn't penciled over or written with crude sex-talking or threats of a mind that's snapped.

At the moment, Raid kept a stool on the bar counter warm. For an adult, Mama's coworker Hick Saw Hort was a steady presence who glanced past Raid as if he were an oddly large speck of dust but nothing more.

And let him nurse-- never drink-- an amber swig of the foul water from the faucet while he waited for Mama on her shift.

She had the tough job of actually manning the distillery and making repairs where necessary at a given moment.

Raid put his head down, eyes roving lazy toward a bushel of overweight, overindulging men in their blue work shirts acid washed and faded in filth.

His face contorted into a disgusted growl, the corners of his vision from his slanted view-- they steadily darkened.

Sly little wafts of vaguely violet shadows... pulsing.

And he let them.

One of the men had warts on his face, shocking white blond hair that didn't match his head's prune color on the backs of his hands and laughed like a pig.

Another had a complexion like wax and as he held his hand, his palms slowly, muddily began to drip.

A couple he could recognize by their freckles and jutting rabbit's teeth respectively.

Palomonio who lived on the loft below himself and Mama, who for every odd blue moon a month dragged bags of pilfered guard clothes and confiscated rifles and drugs, from the time Raid had been just seven years old. And Palomonio had always favored a finger gun to blow his little brains out than a bribe to keep him quiet.

He had once found a note in the eggs.

About Mama's big, curly hair.

How he'd run his hands through it, savor the feeling, almost sorry-- that he'd have to kill her.

And the rabbit teeth, once one of the "maggots," not too long ago. But turned just as brusque and cold as any pair of hands once he turned sixteen and began working with a "backdoor," charity doctor. The one who was so kind as to see clients without coin or collateral besides their own kids.

And the doctor didn't accept that.

Pig's stool broke, three out of three weak legs snapped clean in two making him land in a porking heap.

His "friends" rushed-- probably to see which sleaze could ingratiate himself by taking him to the hospital.

White hair moaned as his back quite suddenly gave out. And at the same time a small frame fell upon that same spot.

A waitress had passed by, only to jostle Raid's stool as she blundered and ultimately crashed.

Half a dozen glasses of mead and beer with a cockroach in one glass soaked into her uniform and the tile.

Ripping Raid out of his reverie and snapping reality back to what it should be.

Save... eight separate incidents and at least five injuries that could lead to demanding a free this or that or stoning the building.

There was fire in Hort's eyes as he helped the girl whose pearly tears shone in her eyes. Even against the truly grimy dins of light in the bar.

Raid simply tried not to gaze at her too long.

Until the cockroach in the glass turned out to be alive and crawled across her face.

Prompting a scream to cut down the ugly laughter at all sides of the building. The waitress running in a panic out the door. The slam making Raid flinch.

**************************************

Raid was kicked out. Quite literally kicked out once Hack Saw put him down, kicking him and shouting expletives as he rained and extra one or two thwacks with his oddly polished shoe.

Well, that was probably a concern wasn't it?

Raid would be likely to be finding more little notes within his shoes or with his Mama on her way back.

Should the new proprietors be so merciful to allow her back to him safely. Not-- without recompense and restitution for the newly respectful establishment worthy of The Baron and his other fellows.

Raid continued down the winding paths and down, down a hellish looking chasm by a rickety stairwell.

Into a commune of just eight disparate little cottages and a relatively-- desolate-- almost gated neighborhood. At least, it's what the Baron's closest boasted and is what patrol guards would often throw in their faces during shifts.

Getting back to their blond and chubby cheeked little kids and their little wives who made snickerdoodles or something.

Raid watched as Ms. Hodden's little toddler-- toddled-- into the corner of the boulevard by its butt.

Whether that was sweet or something sexual, Raid had to admit he was vaguely curious.

Hands smacking on the hard ground and slight protruding stones on the ground. Raid called it-- he called it Toddy-- better than just "you" or thing-- even if it smelled like a swamp ooze on most days.

Around here that sort of thing was 'pleasant heat.' Dirty and sweaty as heat still is but at least the throbbing wasn't just from sun.

Or maybe, per usual, the adults were lying again. The 'teachers' or "priests," who deigned to impart wisdom on the maggots often had this...

<Look>

Some greedy, voracious, and hungry bug-out of their eyes when casing their powers, their freakish features--

Which Raid knew now was the cruel, blade's edged wonderment of what they could produce when paired off and the like. What manner of powers and hybrids could they weaponize and how to violate them to doing so.

Some little girls dared prance about and make noise.

The one most behind with cheetah spots-- stretched skin and jaundiced eyes too large and too-- too round like marbles, pushed her friends forward. And so did her friend in third place.

He wished them well.

So much like they snared kids in to listen in the first place.

Sometimes there are polls.

Needed to have something to do after all--

And in one, of all the adults and-- all the older adults who get a vote half do agree: the ones who snap and do themselves in might have the right idea. Surely anything, even the supposed condemnation for "weakness," had to be better than being some blowhard with compensation issues' bitch.

Coming to the hostel where his Mama did also have a paying job allowing them to live in the place, Raid peered in-- the little old lady was out.

And he didn't feel like having a sharply carved cane sharply smack him to the floor and pointed to his vulnerable throat.

Even as the door lazed open under his weak touch-- another little bit of "luck."

Raid booked it and went the side way.

Where high boxes were stacked in an adjacent building.

In his pouch he always had a scrap of fabric to serve as a blindfold.

Having tried so many times Raid could safely say there was a degree of-- trust, involved.

Just the notion made him cringe.

Then again, Raid wasn't sure yet-- whether he wanted to live out and eventually shrivel up into a son baked raisin and be ashed.

Unless he possibly had a chance to find out just in what building in this minute country they did that in. When every singular building here was ramshackle, uneven, and even cute for their small size.

Hiking laboriously over he could feel out when the air got that certain degree of sting at his face to make the jump, fingers <luckily> clinging onto the flat roof.

Of which he ripped the blindfold off and carefully lowered a foot first to unhook his window latch and then climbed in once he had gotten it open.

The old lady, for all her threats to kill either dead weight (him) or the girls who pocket extra currency for themselves treated them good, having given Mama with a newly born baby the only room with a window and therefore ventilation.

Raid slowly closed the window, but uneasy pins and needles rand across his shoulders and back when he heard a clatter.

He paused his breath-- waiting--

CAWW CAW CAWW.

Raid winced at the choked out sound.

And then--

SSCRITCH SSCRAATCH

Moji's complaining pitter patter on the door.

Raid made for the added bathroom which was just a broken ceramic toilet with rusted pipes and what was either neon green tequilas thrown up or some type of chemical across its surface and a bathtub equally inoperable. But at least inhabitable for a dog, a cat, and occasionally an oppossum.

Swinging open the door all of fifteen animals scampered out, nearly bringing him to the floor and made ownership of the rest of the little house.

He wondered how much of a tease he'd have to give the old woman to make her forget why she was mad.

I have always been fascinated by F. Scott Fitzgerald - and with his clearly detailed preoccupation of love, clearly demonstrated in his works. Herein lies a fictionalized account of Fitzgerald's possible musings on just such a topic.

*“I'm not sentimental--I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know,

is that the sentimental person thinks things will last--the romantic

person has a desperate confidence that they won't.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise*

Mariposa was seated at a small, round table in the Café Secretos in Tarragona, Spain, patiently awaiting the arrival of her date. Tarragona, though somewhat small, was a busy city nonetheless due to the bullfights. It was entirely possible Santiago had been delayed by unforeseen events since he was employed by El Arena Tarraco where the bullring was housed. Looking toward the door but not seeing Santiago, Mariposa reassured herself he would arrive very soon. He had promised, after all, tonight would be a new beginning and a very special night. Even though the two had known each other for a year now, previously having met through mutual friends, this evening would be their first date.

Mariposa drank from her glass of Sangria, enjoying its blend of rich, fragrant wines embodied with hints of fruit and aromatic spices. Despite steadily sipping of the wine's essence as she waited, she was unable to quell the butterflies floating about in her stomach. The anticipation to see Santiago only seemed to grow by the minute. She looked forward to whatever an evening spent with him might bring. Love....or el amor....was a splendid feeling.

A bit nervously, Mariposa glanced about the dimly lit room, her attention focusing on the wall to the right. On it hung a beautiful painting of a brave torero or bullfighter. A vibrant, red cape draped the torero’s arm, seeming to sway with motion despite the stillness of the artwork. The artist had accurately captured the bull’s furious eyes as he poised on the precipice of an attack, his horns thrust forward. The painting was so lifelike, a shiver ran down the length of Mariposa’s spine. Quickly, she diverted her eyes, finding refuge in an uninteresting map of Tarragona covering the left wall. She had never much cared for the bullfights despite their popularity and found even such renditions of their brutality revolting.

Drinking from the Sangria, her attention was drawn to two men who sat conversing at another table in the corner. They drank from beautifully etched crystal glasses filled with the Green Fairy or Absinthe. While no law had been passed outlawing the liquor like in Paris, the milky green alcohol was still considered by many to be taboo, its effects strong and unpredictable. One gentleman was handsome, tall, and blonde-haired, while the other was shorter, stockier, had dark hair, and wore a mustache. Whatever the two men discussed, it was obvious to any who observed their conversation was heated. Eventually, the stockier gentleman rose in haste, clearly agitated. His chair thudded as it fell to the floor as he abruptly vacated the café.

A bit surprised by their public disagreement, Mariposa quickly looked away, again hoping to see Santiago coming through the doors. Such was not the case. Curious, she glanced back at the lone remaining gentleman. The man locked eyes with her, gave a charming smile, and shrugged his shoulders. When she somewhat timidly returned his smile, he rose, straightened the overturned chair, and then picked up his drink before leisurely heading her way.

“May I sit for a bit, señorita? I fear my friend has unexpectedly left me all alone, and I find myself in need of companionship,” he flashed a charming smile and not waiting for her answer, he took a seat at her table.

Mariposa was surprised yet again by the man’s boldness but did not wish to rouse a scene. “Sí,” she reluctantly agreed but then quickly added, “Please know, however, my date will arrive very soon, señor.”

“He’s a lucky man - your date, my dear,” the tall, slender man said as he settled himself more comfortably. “By the way, the name's Scott,” he said with a brilliant smile. Mariposa was sure such a handsome face and charming smile had impressed many a woman wherever this man traveled.

“Buenas noches, Scott. My name is Mariposa,” she said, introducing herself.

“So, Mariposa, are you waiting for your sweetheart - tu novio?” he asked. It was obvious from the man’s voice he was American.

“Oh, no – I mean sí!” Mariposa blushed as she answered him with a shy smile. “But this will be our first date, señor.”

Silence reigned for a long moment as the man seated before her returned her gaze, as though studying every nuance or look in her dark eyes. In the background, lovely strains of a Spanish guitar filled the air, enhancing the silence of the moment and the next words the man spoke.

With exerted concentration, the handsome gentleman began, “Ah, but el amor is so very splendid and beautiful when it’s young, is it not, Mariposa? Even still, as time passes, it so often becomes such a damning element that leads our lives.” His glorious smile dimmed. “I should know, you see,” he added as he held, holding up his left hand so she could see the ring, which indicated he was married. He shook his head and pushed loose strands of falling blonde hair back. “At best, you can’t live with love, and you can’t bear to live without it either.” His handsome smile returned, albeit a bit ruefully, with the last declaration.

Mariposa was uncertain how to respond. Who was this American and why did he have such a dismal view of love? El amor or love was a wonderfully captivating emotion. More so, why was this man inclined to share his personal, sad reflection of love with her? It was obvious he’d drunk far too much. Mariposa surmised such was most likely the reason he and his friend had argued. Mayhap it was a subject of love about which they had argued.

“Señor,” she began, but the man immediately held up his hand, interrupting.

“Please, I insist you call me Scott, my dear,” he said, his blue eyes entreating in his supplication.

“Scott,” she said hesitantly. “Perhaps you’ve had a bit too much to drink.” Mariposa looked around the room nervously, as though she were doing something illegal. “Isn’t this drink… this absinthe…era muy mala, sí, Señor” Mariposa whispered as she pointed at the milky, green drink on the table in front of him, indicating the drink was very bad for any who drank of it. She would never dare to drink of the dangerous, green drink.

Scott rose his glass, staring in wonder at the green drink it held. “But my sweet, young señorita, did you not know such intense and glorious pleasures are derived from the depths of the dangerous and the forbidden?”

Mariposa blushed at his words and quickly changed the subject. “Where is your wife tonight, señor…Scott?” she corrected herself.

The man gave another rueful smile. “I fear she finds her glorious pleasures in the forbidden as well, but unfortunately, just not with me,” he sighed. Mariposa felt it embodied an immeasurable depth of regret and unrequited love. Scott continued, “Alas, my wife has scampered off in an unknown direction with her friends in hopes of more exciting times. She grows weary of intense, heated discussions betwixt my friend and I - as you have just witnessed.”

“I see,” Mariposa said, genuinely feeling compassion for this man and his misfortunes in friendship and love.

“But do you, Mariposa? Do you really, really see?” Scott asked, watching her and awaiting an answer.

Not sure how to respond, Mariposa once again steered the conversation in a new direction. “Why are you in Tarragona, Scott? You’re not from here, but do you work here?” she asked.

“Si, Tarragona is a lovely city, its sea so inspiring and relaxing. I am visiting my dearest friend while attempting to write my novel, my dear – at least on good days. On bad days, like today, I drink more than I should and also argue more than I should with my friend." He laughed before taking a drink of absinthe again before continuing. "I suppose one could say that I tend to drink - and argue – all too frequently.”

“Oh! You are a writer! ¡Que interesante! It must be so interesting to be a writer. Por favor…..please tell me what your novel is about.” Mariposa was genuinely interested.

Scott smiled his beautiful smile and nonchalantly leaned back, obviously pleased by her keen interest. “Well, should I tell you, my sweet? It’s a topic we’ve discussed this very night and about which I’ve argued with my best friend. You see, I love writing about love. Do you not find it ironic, considering the poor view of el amor I’ve been painting?”

Mariposa nodded. Indeed, she did find it ironic. How strange such a man – with such a disparaging view of love - would choose to write books about it. Then again, el amor was a wonderful topic, discussed by many scholars and artists throughout the years.

“Please allow me to explain a bit, my pretty Spanish butterfly,” Scott said, his elbow casually propped on the table as he stared intently at Mariposa. “I write about el amor, my dear, because I cannot help but do so. I fear I am a hopeless romantic who refuses to give up on achieving love’s wondrous bounties in my life.” He relaxed in the chair as he drank from his drink again before continuing. “I have a prevailing need to know and understand love, to have it fill me to the depths of my being. I crave love with a passion, with an intense need extending beyond food.” He picked up his nearly empty glass and waved it in the air. “And believe it or not, sweet Mariposa, I crave el amor more than I crave even this foolish poison.”

Scott emptied his remaining drink before adding, “Hope for such things springs eternal, does it not?”

Before Mariposa could respond, however, he rose, declaring it was time for yet another drink before making his way to the bar. She watched as he ordered another glass of absinthe, wondering how much he could actually drink before he succumbed to the heavy drink’s effect. While Scott lingered at the bar, Santiago entered the café, immediately finding and joining Mariposa at her table.

Mariposa rose, sweetly kissing Santiago’s cheek. The smile she gave assured him she was pleased beyond measure to see him.

“I am so sorry I’m late, querida. I was detained at work,” Santiago said.

Mariposa smiled. “No es una problema. It is not a problem - you are here now, and I am so happy to see you, Santiago.”

The two were so focused on each other they failed to see Scott approach the table. Pausing, he interrupted the two, taking a moment to introduce himself to Mariposa’s newly arrived date. In his hand, he held a fresh drink of absinthe.

“I see tu novio – or rather, your amigo or your friend - has arrived,” Scott said, giving Santiago a smile and extending his hand in greeting.

“I fear my companion left unexpectedly, and since I was a bit lonely, señor, I insisted Mariposa keep me company until you arrived. We enjoyed a very interesting conversation on the question of love. I may very well have bored her with my recitations and earnest opinions.” Scott laughed with his words.

Santiago’s brow rose in surprise, but nonplussed, Scott continued. “I shared my secrets with your lovely Mariposa for you see, I am a hopeless romantic. I truly believe el amor will win the day for all. Do you not agree, señor?" But Scott didn't await Santiago's response. "Ah, I can see from the way you look at this delicate and beautiful Spanish butterfly, this may well be true.” Suddenly, Scott gave a gracious bow and with the utmost sincerity, he added, “I pray el amor will triumph in your lives for it is most easy to discern it’s already an eager bud on the precipice of a full and beautiful blossom.”

Just like that, as suddenly as he had appeared at their table, Scott was gone, heading back to his own table. The friend with whom he’d argued earlier had returned and waited for Scott to rejoin him. As Scott neared the table, his friend rose. The two men hugged and laughed as they patted each other's back. Resuming their seats, they began another intense conversation.

Mariposa nervously turned to Santiago. The look on his face was not what she had expected. Instead of anger or even irritation, Santiago watched in her in wide-eyed amazement.

“Santiago, por favor,” she began. “Please. I did not know how to tell him to leave after he sat at my table. He began to talk about such serious things like love, and I found him to be such a sad man, always hoping and searching for love.”

Santiago continued to stare in disbelief. “Mariposa, do you not know who that señor is?” he asked, clearly amazed Mariposa appeared none the wiser.

“No,” she shrugged. “He said his name is Scott, and I know he’s an American, but…...”

“Querida, he is none other than the famous American writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald – and, he’s now sitting with Ernest Hemingway, another famous American writer. The two are well known throughout Tarragona for their carousing ways and heated conversations. They drink nothing but absinthe and champagne all day and night – or so the story goes,” Santiago said as he eyed the two men with open curiosity.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway? No, I do not know who they are, but Scott did say he is a writer.” Mariposa watched the two men seated across the room, a new view of Scott taking root. She needed to buy one of his books just to see how he wrote about el amor. She may be wrong, but she was sure his writing would prove to be encantador - or ever so lovely.

Mariposa glanced at Santiago and with conviction, she said, “Famous American writer or no, I’d much rather be sitting here with you, Santiago. Together we will enjoy beautiful night.”

Santiago picked up Mariposa's hand and kissed it sweetly. “And I would rather be with you, querida. Still,” his brows rose as he added, “not just anyone can say that they met F. Scott Fitzgerald and discussed love on their very first date! Maybe you should write about this famous encounter, Mariposa.”

“No, I don’t think so. I will leave the writing to the two experts,” she said. The couple laughed as they began their first night of many shared nights ahead.

As though borne from a moment of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most profoundly prophetic words, a lifetime of deep, abiding love and long years together was in the stars for Mariposa and Santiago. And who can really say for sure? Perhaps it was all because of one hopeless romantic’s words, spoken on a fateful night so long ago, this couple’s love triumphed to such beautiful heights precisely as predicted. Regardless, there is little to no doubt F. Scott Fitzgerald would have been immensely pleased, even though a wee bit envious, too, of the love discovered by these two over the course of long lives spent as one.

*“They slipped briskly into an intimacy from which they never recovered.”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise*

Cynthia Calder, 11.22.24

He walks away from the coffee shop, boots scraping against concrete that sparkles like it's embedded with a million tiny diamonds. The LA sun does that—makes everything glitter, even when it shouldn’t.

The taste of his americano sparks like a live wire. Her laugh still echoes in his ears, the way she threw her head back when he fumbled with his wallet, dropped it, coins scattering across the floor like startled mice. She helped him pick them up. Their fingers brushed three times. He counted.

Fuck.

The weight of possibility settles on his shoulders like a lead vest. An X-ray blanket of future potential crushing his spine. He hasn’t even asked for her number, and he’s already imagining how he’ll have to tell her about the anxiety meds. About the time he got fired for having a panic attack during a client meeting. About his mother.

A palm tree towers overhead, its brown fronds dropping onto a Tesla. Some guy in yoga pants gives him a dirty look as he stands frozen in the middle of the sidewalk like a tourist. But he can’t move. Not yet. His body is still processing the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, revealing a small crescent moon tattoo.

He starts walking again. Past juice bars, Botox clinics, and dogs in sweaters, even though it’s 75 degrees. The weight gets heavier with each step.

What if she likes hiking? He hates hiking. Everyone in LA loves hiking, and he’s the one asshole who’d rather stay inside and read. She had a Patagonia sticker on her laptop. Fuck. She definitely likes hiking.

The ring his grandmother left him is in a safety deposit box downtown. He’s never even seen it in person, just in a photo his mom texted before she died. Vintage art deco, small diamonds flanking a sapphire. He’s already wondering if the blue would match her eyes.

Jesus Christ. Get it together.

On the corner, a homeless man has an animated conversation with a palm tree. At least someone’s talking to somebody. He should have asked for her number. But then he’d have to text her. Then call her. Then disappoint her.

The Santa Ana winds kick up, hot and dusty, carrying the scent of jasmine from someone’s yard. His throat tightens. In the coffee shop, she’d been reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. He’d noticed it upside down while picking up his scattered quarters. He has the same copy at home, dog-eared and coffee-stained. The universe doesn’t just hand you coincidences like that without expecting something in return.

He turns down a side street to avoid the crowds on Main. The responsibility of serendipity. The weight of stars aligning. His therapist would tell him he’s catastrophizing again. Jumping ten steps ahead. Planning the divorce before the first date.

A group of teenagers spills out of a boba shop, laughing at something on someone’s phone. He remembers being that young. No, he doesn’t. He was never that young. Even at sixteen, he carried the weight of things that hadn’t happened yet.

Her name is Jane. A basic name for a not-so-basic person. She had dirt under her fingernails. Real dirt, not artifice. She’d mentioned a community garden, and he’d already seen flashes of future Sundays—him holding tools he doesn’t know how to use, pretending to know the difference between herbs. The weight of small lies told to keep someone happy.

The sun is directly overhead now, shadows nowhere to be found. His apartment is four blocks away, but he turns in the opposite direction. Keeps walking. Past boutiques selling hundred-dollar plain white T-shirts. Past a line of people waiting for gourmet ice cream. Past a guy installing a security camera on a coffee shop that used to be a bookstore, that used to be a head shop, that used to be someone’s dream.

His phone buzzes. Unknown number. His heart stops, starts, then stops again. It’s just spam about his car’s extended warranty. He doesn’t own a car. Can’t deal with the 405, the parking lot they call a freeway. Two hours to go fifteen miles while Tesla drivers pretend their autopilot means they can watch Netflix. The bus sucks, but at least he can read while someone else navigates the hellscape of LA traffic.

The wind picks up, scattering loose newspaper pages and discarded cold brew cups. Apocalypse wind. He thinks about her fingers—short nails, silver rings—the way they looked as she picked up his scattered change. The way she’d stacked the coins neatly before handing them back. Order imposed on chaos.

He’s never getting married. He’s already planning their wedding. Small ceremony. No, big ceremony. No, they’ll elope. Vegas? No, Joshua Tree. She seems like a Joshua Tree person. The weight of assumptions.

A movie poster shows a couple kissing in the rain. LA hasn’t seen rain in six months. He checks his weather app. No rain forecasted for the next ten days. The pressure of waiting for perfect conditions that never come.

He should go back. Ask for her number. No, too desperate. Yes, confident. No, creepy. The wind blows an empty potato chip bag into his face. Even the trash is trying to tell him something.

He pulls out his phone again. Opens Instagram. Closes it. Opens Twitter. Closes it. Opens his contacts and stares at the space where her number should be. The weight of empty spaces waiting to be filled.

The sun keeps shining. The palm trees keep shedding. The teenagers keep laughing. And he keeps walking, carrying the weight of a future that exists only in his head but feels more real than the concrete beneath his feet.

Tara watches the steam rise from her coffee in precise helical patterns, the way heat always dissipates in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. She thinks about entropy, how all systems tend toward disorder, how even the careful structures built of love and shared mornings begin to dissolve. James is saying something about needing to talk, his voice carrying that familiar frequency she has learned to recognize, the one that signals emotional turbulence barely concealed by forced calm. The afternoon light through the kitchen window catches the dancing dust between them, suspended in Brownian motion, random and purposeless like the words forming between his pauses.

He says he’s been thinking, and she already feels the framework of their life together starting to fracture. She notices the micro-expressions she once memorized: the subtle twitch in his left eye, the unconscious movements of his hands that betray the effort behind his measured tone. She wants to tell him about quantum entanglement, how two particles remain connected across any distance once they’ve interacted, how they affect each other in ways that defy logic and laws. Maybe if she could explain this, he would understand what it means to try to untangle two lives so deeply intertwined. Instead, she says she knows, because she does. She has known in the quiet, cellular way that bodies know when to change, to divide, to surrender.

The silence between them grows like a living thing, filling the space with its presence. She observes how their breathing no longer syncs, how the rhythm of shared sleep and shared life has fractured into jagged, mismatched patterns. He is explaining about growing apart, about wanting different things, about how love sometimes isn’t enough. The words feel both too simple and too heavy, like trying to map a fractal with straight lines, and she begins to catalog the physicality of pain. Elevated heart rate. Constricted throat. Cortisol and adrenaline spilling into her bloodstream as if preparing her for a battle that isn’t there.

She thinks about binding energy, about how even the strongest atomic bonds can be broken with sufficient force, about how matter cannot be destroyed but only transformed. She wonders what they will become, these two people who have shared a bed and a bathroom, the easy intimacy of familiar routines. She says maybe he’s right, because the scientific method demands she follow the evidence, even when it leads to failure, even when it breaks apart hypotheses that once felt unshakable.

The space between them stretches, expands, an invisible force pulling them apart like galaxies adrift in an accelerating universe. She watches him collect his keys and wallet, small acts of departure rendered monumental in their finality. She thinks about conservation, how nothing is truly lost but only changes form, but the thought feels hollow. When he pauses at the door, she sees him suspended in a moment of wave-particle duality, leaving and not leaving, until the act of observation collapses the uncertainty into fact. He leaves.

She sits alone in the kitchen—her kitchen now—and watches the steam rise from her coffee in precise helical patterns, dissipating into the air as heat always does. She thinks about entropy, about how all systems tend toward disorder, about the inevitable unraveling of even the most careful designs.

Impossible mission to concoct sense and sensibility after awaking from torturous feverish dream, hence please pardon errant discombobulation as a courtesy to comprehend mishmash of words that attempt feeble (minded) effort to coax some tattered understanding countless precious moments after shaking loose from agonizing cerebral experience,which initial piecemeal account jotted down years ago and upon refreshing faint images, I sought at best to construct resurrection of pounding migraine, thus the resultant analogous abstract jumble .

Ostracized boy with big longing Ostrich eyes never seen again after he experienced the augmented reality illusion more despicable and horrible then boring his head down into the sand as a nitty gritty default coping mechanism freaking him out while in somnambulant state thinking 'e got gypped while himself coursing adrift down banks of the Nile. No book learning known while this lil scribe longing for Fay M. Lee. She iz hot! The only pseudo education I acquired (about female anatomy and physiology...?) flowed naturally being schooled analogous by a fishy merman whileyours truly buoyed and bobbed along courtesy longest river in the world. Earliest recollections before awaking found yours truly comfortably nestled within artfully made arc cake looking craft, i.e. balled rocky bulrush – off sturdy limb wicker basket meandering entire length of the Nile River. Fingers slipped and slid thru her fluid gender. Answers to obvious questions pertaining to her specific berth? Ah know nuttin 'bout no me ah shaw mint: A hunch I meant the word measurement after re-reading this journal many years after initial entry got made. Lemme reply with circumlocution before describing circumnavigating by water fertile crescent before aye 'aft tug go down into me fo'c'sle talking to the Cap'n (essentially my alter ego doppelganger) giving him piece of my mind convincing, detailing, and explaining how I salvaged surviving stranded at sea at best providing the following ambiguous reply never task questions a boat formative years, which hapt tubby fey re: sketchy. This atypical re:meme burr rinse of something odd, which occurred to me while in deep sleep, nevertheless stuck tight within noggin. Thee following singular resultant iota comes to mind, which paltry happenstance indelibly etched within gray matter. When repeatedly jogged time and again the only vague recollection invariably constitutes garden variety, generic kid emerging from egg shell. Earliest memories yield this full size, healthy, and average developed boy currently jotting down ample words to qualify for Reedsy writing contest and meet Fame Milly alias Fay M. Lee. The closest approximation belonging to pedigree? Hmm... methinks maybe possibly a remote hunch Smokey and the bandit culpable stealing “FAKE” dinosaur egg housing me before I hatched. Anyway, no intent to cut abrupt inquiries..., but nary handy dandy blues clues, who and/or what processes wrought mine existence on par with metaphorical tabula rasa. Nonetheless, natural prowess with bolstered aptitude found me a rapt (rapid shooting) student under excellent private education and auspices Mother Earth i.e. Gaia, who begat terrestrial family. Linkedin with world wide web, I rarely brood being castaway. Every now and again thoughts will race thru my mind, albeit concerning kindred folks, but pleasantly distracted by daily nontraditional lessons courtesy renown teacher. She taught this avid learner many fascinating characteristics about said majestic waterway. Case in point. An average of 2,830 cubic meters per second of rich silt forms an alluvial plain. Dem indigo girlz get really impressed with esoteric tidbits. This spreads outward in a fan shape from sedimentary deposit whereby ancient Egyptian civilizations got built. Significance towards maintaining flourishing hot pockets (somewhat cheesy) of innovative peoples made possible by a grant from Fay M. Lee to aid construction of complex edifices, and additional endowment courtesy Rockefeller foundation. These elaborate geometrically pluperfect structures entombed, guaranteed, harvested... necessary dry ingredients to buzzfeed burgeoning population adorning arid topography and irrigated by riparian modus operandi. Aforementioned expansive delta invaluable as facsimile thereof (alphabet lettered) to soup up life source to sustain body electric preindustrial society intrinsically, analogous to Aorta pumping blood at the nape of neck. Such profuse natural irrigation allowed, enabled, and provided laborers (most likely pressed into bondage since birth until nasty, short and brutish death) colossal engendered engineering feats. Artisans, craftsmen, early geographers can still be seen illustrated in frieze (freezing cold as individual popsicles) and drapery. Frozen timeless statuary exhibits recounting phenomenal abilities to the hilt all this without computer aided drafting. Offshoot tributaries linkedin and associated from mainspring within fertile crescent guaranteed fruitful harvests swollen like overripe plump grapes. Aforementioned longest river often overflowed banks whereby coveted materiel got spilt (and split) feeding the Rift Valley. Rich sedimentation availed grateful dead cultured clubs to dominate. Elaborate complex edifices flooded the history of mankind with accomplishments that visitors, (and occasional wandering outlier from alien nation) marvel even today. General (milling) examples epitomized by innovations include alphabets, wheelwrights, pyramids, etc livelihoods created. Twenty first century historians still baffled how each mortise and tenon snug as a bug in a rug affixed similar to block and tackle, hand fits glove, lock and key... Awesome construed monuments persons did intricately lay perfect with near geometric exactitude, which behemoths of stone still rank as wonders of webbed wide world. Absent human cost regarding sweat equity, yet storied blood, sweat and tears probably drenched each humongous block. If one peered closely enough faint traced hints of desperate scrabbling (involving daily trials and tribulations) perceptible. Less prominent, but equally outstanding relics harkening back indicate how once bustling metropolis throve. Here recorded for posterity preserved in clay can be seen tell tale artifacts of beastie boy cultured foo fighters. Herewith case in point. Shards of broken pottery pieces, knitted, (thermally) coupled... together reveal mosaic plate which functional artifacts provided dietary staples blessed courtesy deities, whom populace did pray. I too often times clasp hands tight, especially when keenly espying throngs of happy go lucky, fancy free and footloose young persons from afar. Acute vision (in tandem with 20/20 hindsight), when scanning the horizon spurs recurring wistful fantasies. Quasi sentimental thoughts effectually, momentarily, and temporarily sideline ordinary calm composure. No matter by Captain hook or head crook, I steered free and clear of madding crowds. Suspicion bred since birth prowled within mine proud animal spirit highly attuned to danger. Much as hungry longing prevailed (then and now) to invite camaraderie, never did I venture onland daring to brave strangers slowly approaching (unseen by this invisible kid rock) from distant horizon. Thus, I only ideally imagined (dragons) puffed (daddy's) with pilgrim's/puritan's pride heartily welcoming return of this native son, particularly among every now and again caravanserai heading, lumbering, plodding... toward the Levant. Such beguiling, entrancing, hypnotizing teased out far fetched notions spurred what brought boat my magical mystery tour. Thus joust arose yours truly tricked out as a swashbuckling fee fie foe fuehrer 'pon discerning Homo sapiens friends, whereby a quaking uptick arose. Henceforth speculation ran wild akin to quiet riot regarding my family of origin and birth. Nary an iota existed, not even my name, what series of unfortunate events brought me to current circumstances. An overactive imagination conjured a tsunami. Gigantic tidal wave catapulted cruising skiff purportedly (predicated on rickety premise) housing kith and barbed ken. Incoherent words (perhaps prematurely) ejaculated, punctuated thus disseminated thru the air or took place within this talking head of mine. Broken phrases got bruited. Something involving banded "brothers." Alone in the wilderness of watery expanse condemnation, damnation, excoriation, fulmination hurled at cosmic creator thwarted doomed seafarers intercession. Skyward craft foisted until landing with quiet thud amidst crashing waves. Nary a trace of survivors (save badly bruised feeble narrator) seen across undulating infinite granular amber waves. No doubt raw elements of style (strunk and white) nature wrought worse fate than death among cabin "mates." Immediate family members vanished without a trace lost among expanse of mottled, rattled, and whittled quartz colored sea. Absolute zero chance prevailed being reunited with former motley crue after sturdy, Troy built solid state vessel dashed upon jagged rocks and splintered into bajillion indistinguishable mineral size fragments. Despite such gloomy tricked out nightmarish scenario optimism vibrant upon initial unforeseen pell mell smoking gun destruction, asper intangible unreal violent video game simulation test for dummies got played out within rocky horror picture show dreamscape. After many hours elapsed, unbridled faith no more foundered as undertow nearly swept yours truly out to sea fostering diminishing recovery, and eventually extinguishing hope altogether. Thus initial faith for onboard survivors (minus me) quickly ebbed nsync with retreating tidal wave. Pessimism awoke another disparate dreamt fantastical holograms farther from beached berth immediately transformed thru prestidigitation dissolving optical illusion into quicksand. Wait...! Off in the distance a glimmering chimera, (the first of many) appeared amidst the formerly mentioned desert sands. One mirage after another falsely lifted than broke uber promise, whereby buoyed salvation drained. Within this surreal hallucinogenic blend of pinpoint size nomadic wayfarers mixed within "FAKE" daydream, I observed helter skelter blurred activity. All of a sudden quick decisions decreed. Each man, woman and child left to fight for him/herself. Marauders sprung out of nowhere felled the doomed dromedaries, plus various and sundry drivers. Raw elements besieged wandering sojourners, no matter thee (all man) beastie boys (men in dark hooded cloaks and each wielding a scythe). Dehydration, exhaustion, frustration... foretold merciless portentous demise, whereby withering desiccation bleached lovely bones of future martyrs. One measly mortal i.e. me witnessed (or conjured out of thin air) cruelly unforgiving, unrelenting, unwelcoming pelting (so petty) heartbreak. Coat of arms flew ferociously fisted cuffs confirming brouhaha as signature family brawl despite trumpeting injunction to cease. Mine ordinarily pastoral life indiscriminately marred by ill fated clamped, harried styled swiftly tailored rogues gallery sporting NON-GMO, USDA required dosage of devilishness evaporated in thin gentle airstream upon tentatively opening myopic brown eyes where horror beheld formerly (namely when in utero) merrily life twas boot a dream. Ova sudden itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini clad gal appeared to grant me three wishes. “Please take me” this lad (in) denial, wonders as far out speculation, that he harkens from extra terrestrial family species back to outer limits of twilight zone. Yes those accursed androids who dream of electric sheep! They drone on with saucer shaped eyes galvanized, hoovered, and identified flying object at long last came to take me home Alabama.