Dare

July 12, 2025

My friends already knew too much about me. I chose dare instead. My friends are devious to the core. Today could be a very good day if they live up to expectations.

Their dare for me: dress the part, go on the train, and see if someone would grope me.

I had heard about men with wandering hands and the dangers a young woman could encounter if left alone among a densely packed crowd of such men. It sounded dangerous. It also sounded exciting. I was up for the challenge.

I took thirty minutes to change into a business suit with a short skirt and high heels. I left the top two buttons of my shirt open. I applied too much eyeliner and too much perfume. My friends said I looked like a tart. I felt much more than a tart.

To see who won, all three of them would enter the train from the previous stop and video all that would occur. I told them that I was not afraid. They all instructed me to be careful, “just in case.”

“Just in case” came within 40 minutes. By that time, I was wedged between three men using a coordinated effort to touch everything they could. The youngest one was cute, so I permitted him the most leeway. My friends stood in three different areas to video his work and my reaction.

He was slow, at first, reaching for my skirt hem and then pulling away. Soon, he rested his hand on my rear. The other two pushed against me so I had to push against the cute one. When I did, he began to move his hand across my rear. I did not turn to him, instead adopting an innocent look of someone trying to avoid the embarrassment of being publicly humiliated on the train. I took a few deep breaths. I gave into his intentions, as slowly as he was forcing them upon me.

Within a minute, he had gone too far. Here, with his hand under my skirt, I should have cried out. I should have called for help. But I didn’t. I held onto the pole and pushed my rear back upon his hand, giving him free reign to proceed.

I gave an approving smile to my friends so they wouldn’t intercede with what transpired. One of the men in front reached up to begin feeling my breasts. The third one took my hand and lowered it to his groin. I was all in when I unzipped his fly. The cute guy behind me slid two fingers inside of me. My breast man had unbuttoned my blazer. I was almost ready to scream from Mr. Fingers, when Mr. Fly wanted to push me down to my knees.

That is when my friends decided I had gone far enough. Their prudent interference saved me from becoming an infamous video star. At first, I protested. On the way home, I acquiesced to their reason.

Later that night, while I was alone with my thoughts, I changed my mind yet again. I began thinking of alternative endings for that train ride. I began thinking about how far I was willing to go with three strangers.

Perhaps it was for the best, I did not.

But that conclusion never appears in my subsequent dreams. Not once.

The truth about darkness is it dissipates once exposed to light. Which means, when you remove the lid on a box of darkness, the darkness is banished. This immediately eases your burden. So, the gift is not what’s filling the box. The gift is the opportunity to lift the top, proving you can let in light.

Finding the courage to neutralize any darkness you’re holding onto is empowering, not only for you but to everybody who sees you take control and is inspired to expose their own personal, concealed darkness.

You may never know why a loved one gave you a box of darkness. It may have been by accident. It may have been intentional. And you may not even realize the box you’re in possession of contains darkness. But discovering you can rid yourself of this negativity reveals an important ability you will use throughout your life.

As I got home from another maddening day as an untrained, underpaid, sleep-deprived zookeeper (a.k.a, a ninth grade English teacher), I stopped to look at the itty-bitty mirror near my front door. Of course, being that it’s essentially a mirror fit for a Polly Pocket, I have to look super close to see more than just my poorly plucked eyebrow, close enough to see every single one of my cavernous pores. I decided to count them (I got tired after 37), and eventually, I let my mind wander to the question of how I found myself right here, in this moment, as a fully-grown adulty-adult counting her pores in a mirror that could pass as a frisbee for a rat. I thought of all my past selves and what I would tell them to let them know I eventually made it out of childhood discomfiture and teenage obscurity. After (finally) going to the bathroom for the first time since seven AM, I decided I would spend my afternoon doing something productive--negating my bathroom break by guzzling wine and drafting letters full of advice to my past selves to save them from (themselves? Myself? Self-adjacent? The--self of selfness past?).

Dear Kindergarten me,

When the nice boy sees that you're a friendless loser and asks if you want to play a game with him and his friends, do yourself a favor and say "yes" with your words, not "no" by kicking him in the shin. ​

If you can do that, but not man up when the teacher calls you out in front of the whole class, and instead blubber like a baby, then you are a woefully inconsistent six-year-old.

Also, please note that you're going to move school districts at least three more times, and across the state. I hate to be the one to tell you, but that means you and Brayden are never going to work out. Sorry, kid. Walk it off.​

And yes, I know that you're proud to be one of "Ms. Schneider's Spiders” (at least until you got on her shit list for assaulting a classmate); However, you will develop a crippling fear of spiders that spans well into adulthood. You become the drama when mega-spidey drops out of thin air onto your bathroom floor.​

AND YOU WILL BE ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED IN YOUR PHOBIA.

Dear middle-school me,

STOP. USING. THE WORD. “RENEGADE”. TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF. You’re on the honor roll and have never snuck out once. You know what renegade means. You’re not that.

Also, it’s super cool that you voted yourself out of your emo friend group “most likely to be the lead singer in a screamo band”. You’re now a bespeckled book loving English teacher with a collection of cardigans. Rock n’ roll!

Dear high-school-fishy me,

I know, I KNOW, you’re tired of brushing your hair. But I implore you, I beg of you- DO NOT GET THAT PIXIE CUT. I know it looks cute on female comic book characters, but please bear in mind they are cartoons intentionally drawn to be attractive, busty, powerful women--and you’re 14 and still only halfway through puberty. You will not look like a bad-ass superhero. You will just look like you’re “confused”.

Also, stay away from Jesse. I know he’s a hot Italian dude with a Spanish last name. I know he’s got pretty, shiny, swooshy hair and an inexplicable ability to grow a five o’clock shadow at the mere age of 15. I know you quite literally want to be “Jesse’s girl”. But, years later, he’ll date this really sweet girl (long after you’ve mostly accepted that he’s just not that into you) and he’ll turn into a total bum with no place or money of his own and mooch off of his girlfriend until she finally decides to dump him like the grubby little trash panda that he is. Do not try to date a moochy Italian trash-panda.

Finally--pay attention to the bathroom signs before you walk in. You’ll thank me later.

Dear junior me,

Yes, I know Veronica is annoying as hell. I know she reminds you of the pretty popular girl from every Netflix movie ever who actually doesn’t have a single thought in her head (I mean, Veronica definitely doesn’t). I know she’s a pick-me with a propensity to hog all of Cameron’s time and yet somehow still find the time to cheat on him anyway. However, it’s not worth it to be angry at him. You’ll regret it in May when he dies in a car accident in Rio Vista. You’ll go from wanting to strangle Veronica until she stops twitching to hugging her often, because she’s broken too.

Dear senior me,

No, Jesse is still not into you. On the bright side, your hair finally grew back out! Then you dyed it fire-truck red, but you looked great. Your parents had no trouble spotting you on the field at graduation. They just looked for the little mermaid after the bippity-boppity-boo and voila: your mom got a blurry, pixelated portrait of you waving at no one in particular like the princesses during the parade at Disney! Also, note that at 22 years old, you’ve still never seen those parades... because you’ve still never been to Disney.

*sigh*

Please, for the love of God- retake your SAT (and maybe crack open a book beforehand this time) so you can apply to A&M right away. Otherwise, you’re going to spend your semester off working 80-hour weeks slinging sandwiches at Chick Fil A just to go to a tiny university six months later in butt-fuck Egypt where the population is so small you’ll finish your first semester swearing you had a moderately attractive stalker. Then, you’ll transfer three times to finally get into A&M and have to pay again and again for official transcripts (which you didn’t save enough chicken slinging money to do). At the height of that absurdly complex process, you’ll have a--mostly respectful--bitch fight with the office lady at Tarleton because their SPEEDY e-transcript system as they call it is less like Speedy Gonzalez and more like Slow-Poke Paco.

Dear college me,

Stop working so damn much and enjoy the ride. Go to parties, make friends, join an organization (just not a cult), and be a real Aggie (even though it’s a cult). You’re gonna miss it one day when you’re that weird random old person at Northgate chasing every *single* vodka red bull with a *double* glass of water, or standing outside the Dixie Chicken hogging the Oxygen because your claustrophobia is *never* prepared for butt-to-back proximity.

Dear 21-year-old me,

Man up and stop worrying about throwing up. When you went to the lake for your birthday, your roommate got hammered, and you were still buzz-less and sunburnt. Pathetic.

When I finished drafting what seemed to be a sufficient number of wine-stained, amateur advice columns for an amateur(er) human being, I decided to call my high school best friend, who was still living in College Station because he was finishing his major in engineering. After informing me that time machines weren’t “actual science", he asked me how much wine I had. I lied.

I got up to look in the mirror again after tripping over an imaginary shoe. Everything that led me here kept running through my head. I may have been a shin-kicking, spider-fearing, pixie-cut wearing, chicken slinging, lightweight former Aggie- but I was proud of myself.

If you’re not familiar with the philosophical point of the “butterfly effect”, it’s the theory that the world is interconnected, so much so that one small occurrence can influence a much larger complex system. All of those little dorky (and sometimes cool) things I did when I was younger got me my career and the opportunity to shape other young lives. I may want to save them from the same goofy mistakes I made, but the truth? They’re going to make their own goofy mistakes. They’re gonna have their own Jesse’s. They’re going to get their own stupid impulse haircuts, put off school, accidentally walk into the wrong bathroom (we all have), and drunkenly call their friends asking about scientifically unsound machines. And it’s okay. They’ll end up exactly where they’re supposed to be. Just like I did.

I crumbled up the letters and threw them all away. Not because they were wine stained or because time travel is impossible. But because younger me didn’t need help.

Moonbeams stream through the window, and a gentle breeze rustles the palm tree outside.

It’s been three weeks now since you left this world, and I still cannot believe it.

The same palm tree in the front yard that we saw every night still stands.

The moon we watched together shines, and one of your surfboards casts a shadow across the floor.

Big wave season took you away

I am still breathing.

Everything looks the same

Except you are not here.

I stay awake into the late hours, hoping that somehow the threshold between life and the afterlife will diminish.

All I need is a sign or a message.

I look over and notice the shadow from your surfboard has reached your side of the bed.

I drift into sleep.

For five days, Rory and the others followed the royal road as it coursed through the southern edge of the Dil'Farans. For the most part, every day had been the same, rising at dawn to ride through the seemingly endless sprawl of trees, each one taller than the next, and their stumps thickened with age. At night, the group continued to camp on the forest floor, the chill of the nearing winter cast out by the strange magic of Bianca's fire.

At the conclusion of the fourth day, the telltale thinning of the ancient forest was a welcome sight to the entire group. In the past, Rory had enjoyed the shrouded serenity of traveling alone through the trees, but now she found herself grateful for the newfound company. Despite herself, the incident with the Harkscalen had unnerved her, and to travel with the others gave her a small sense of comfort. Not to mention that the act of quiet rebellion against her Arcodyte teachings lit a small fire within her. A feeling that she hadn't yet decided how to handle.

During their time together, Rory had learned a great deal about her companions. In just a few days, she learned how Bianca and Albert had navigated their way out of a plague-ridden village and joined a band of traveling merchants. How they'd refined their hunting skills and met Nicolas on one of their many adventures throughout Calydon.

As for Nicolas, Rory now understood that solemnity that she occasionally caught darkening his stark features. As a boy, he had never known his father, and was raised by his mother in Genog. Rory had never heard of the village before but according to Nicolas it was small; hardly more than a shanty town on the western coast of Calydon. When Nicolas was nine years old, an Arcodyte raid had burnt his village to the ground and many perished, including his own mother. Form there, Rory had learned, Nicolas swore to one day face King Hedryk himself and avenge his mother.

"Look at this", Albert exclaimed as he rode ahead of the others. His voice carried a lilt of excitement and dragged Rory from her thoughts.

"A day's ride to Agres", Bianca had observed, joining her brother's excitement.

Rory didn't have to ride closer to see what the others were talking about. In fact, when she caught up with the others, she wasn't surprised at all to see the wooden sign that signified that Agres was nearby. In truth, Rory had used the cover of the Dil'Farans to navigate northern Calydon many times.

"Looks like we'll survive the great forest another time", Bianca said, winking at Nicolas. In their short time together, Rory had already noticed a pull between Nicolas and Bianca. However, it was still unclear whether the others had noticed it between themselves.

Nicolas only fingered the bottom of the necklace that he wore, a subconscious motion that seemed to accompany his seemingly constant pondering. The necklace was his mother's, Nicolas had quietly explained beside the blaze of Bianca's fire one night. From the golden chain, a single charm hung, the outline of a violet etched into a piece of flattened gold, with a small moonstone at the center. According to Nicolas, it was the final trace that he had left of her.

"I wager that if we ride hard, we'll reach Agres just past nightfall", Albert said.

"Race you there?" Bianca asked, the excitement at the challenge rising in her eyes.

With dawn still softening the edges of the sky and dew clinging to the trees around them, the day was young and Rory supposed that such a goal was possible. But after several days on the road with a stiff body and belly rumbling from a waning supply of food, she rarely chose to ride so hard.

"We've been pushing ourselves and the horses hard the past few days. Perhaps we should be more careful", Nicolas said, voicing Rory's silent concern.

"True", Albert said, "but we know the route. I'm assuming that she does too", he said, nodding at Rory. "Besides, we must travel with haste. For all we know, the job has been taken already."

The mysterious summons that had united the group on this odd adventure had been a frequent subject of conversation. Still, the answers eluded them and their only choice was to forge on, ever enticed by the exorbitant pay that was being advertised.

Eventually, Albert had won the debate and it was decided that the group would ride hard into Agres, only planning to stop once during the day.

But as Rory rode past the sign for Agres, she noticed a strange mark on the sign for Agres that she hadn't seen before. In one of the corners, an upside down crown had been etched into the weathered wood and she quickly recalled the Earl of Kennet's warning.

Young Skepmadyr, beware of a place that bears this symbol. I've received word that it can be found on the royal road, and danger lurks there.

At the time, she had thought nothing of it but now the sight unnerved her and she decided to voice her concern.

"The symbol etched into the sign", she called out to the others as they rode ahead. "I've been warned to avoid it."

Shadowed by his dark hair, Nicolas' brows knitted, mirroring Rory's own apprehension.

Albert circled around to examine the strange mark himself, but only shrugged his shoulders.

"You two are too cautious", he laughed as he dug his heels into his horse's sides. "Last one to Agres pays for the ale", he said as his horse leapt into a gallop.

Bianca needed no further encouragement and bounded off after her brother, her red hair bouncing at her back in a long, thick braid.

"His lack of caution will be his demise one day", Nicolas sighed, the words hardly audible. But he, too, galloped off after Albert and Bianca.

Beneath her Jewel struck the ground with a front foot, expressing her eagerness to catch up to the others but still Rory restrained her, unsure what to do. In the past, she would have heeded her instincts and approached the outpost town with caution. But, she supposed, freeing herself from the Arcodytes would come with risks no matter what. Not to mention that traversing Agres was the only southbound route she knew. Slowly, she softened her grip on the reins, unsurprised when Jewel responded by speeding off after the others.

***

As the afternoon sun fell lower in the sky, the group still rode at a brisk pace. They had only stopped once at a small brook that Nicolas spotted along the way, taking the time to allow themselves and the horses a few small sips of water, but nothing more. Still, after several hours, Bianca and Albert continued to race around each other as they coursed through the winding road, which was little more than a walking trail in some spots. For Rory's part, she had to admire the tenacity of the redheaded siblings as they shouted and giggled, even as she grew weary.

With the days getting ever shorter in the final days of autumn, Albert was correct in his assumption that it wouldn't be until after dusk that the group rode into Agres. But still, the group forged on, guided by the final shadows of daylight as it waned beyond the horizon.

When the illuminated torchlight of Agres came into view at last, Rory felt her shoulders sag in relief. Every part of her ached from keeping up with the ardor of Albert and Bianca; her knees, thighs and back all radiating dull pain and her eyes bleary with exhaustion. Dried sweat from earlier in the day flaked her skin, and she shivered, drawing up the patched hood of her cloak.

Beneath her, Jewel's hide steamed with exertion and as she finally slowed the mare to a walk, she could feel every breath that the mare took, and the rapid beating of her heart. Running a gloved finger along the mare's neck, she stroked her in gratitude. It was rare for her to push the horse so hard in one ride, but Jewel had proven herself plenty capable keeping up with the others.

"You'll have a warm, dry stall to sleep in tonight. This I swear", Rory whispered to Jewel as she set her eyes on the town ahead, designed to accommodate travelers as they passed through. Around her, thick snowflakes had begun to flurry through the air, falling sloppily on the ground. The event marked the first snowfall of the year, and Rory scowled at the sky, anxious to embrace the warmth and shelter that was promised by the torchlight ahead.

"Looks like we made it just in the nick of time", Albert said as he drew his own cloak tighter and patted his horse on the rump. He didn't appear tired at all, but his south Calydonian accent was thicker than usual, giving his fatigue away. It was a feature that both he and his sister shared.

"Shall we put the horses up or fetch a pint?" Bianca asked as they grew ever closer to the town. After spending the past few days surrounded only by trees, the sight of a town and the prospect of a warm meal had become a coveted subject, even to Rory who was used to sleeping on the ground and surviving on stale food. But still, she pushed her own desires aside and spoke up for what she knew was right, fatigue souring her assertion more than she meant.

"I'm tending to my horse first. She will not stand in the snow, hitched at a tavern post while we eat."

"Nor will mine", Nicolas agreed. It had been the first time he'd spoken since morning.

"Stables it is then", Bianca said as they rode into the town at last.

How do you take your tea?

July 09, 2025

I asked Kalinda, the young lady who my son speaks so highly of, to meet with me, at my home, this Saturday morning. My son, Thomas, would be out attending to business until Sunday evening. In that time, I could meet with and assuage what seemed to be a series of fears she has about their relationship together.

Though I have a fairly large home, I prefer no servant staff. When the doorbell rang, I greeted Kalinda and asked her in. I had the parlor well provisioned for the two of us.

“How do you take your tea?” It was a question no one had previously asked her, possibly because she had never tasted the brew. Possibly because she had never experienced it properly served. I was to later learn that she did not know what she wanted or even how to ask for it.

But I digress.

Initially Miss Kalinda refused, but, eventually, I convinced her of the benefits of partaking.

After a few sips, I witnessed the onset of a teenage meltdown avoided via my own house blend.

I gave her time to collect her thoughts, take another sip, before she revealed the cause of her recently stemmed emotional outburst.

“Your son is cheating on me!” Upon hearing what I already knew to be true, I gave her the opportunity to compose her thoughts and continue.

“Right now, in Dallas, he is cheating on me with a college friend who is more friendly than necessary. I know this from a private investigator I hired last week. Thomas is not even trying to be discreet.” She rummaged through her purse to retrieve photos of the two, nearly naked, in the hotel elevator and the hotel pool. While I rarely wish to view my son’s indiscretions, I had to admit, even he was far too ostentatious to be considered “respectable”.

Kalinda took another sip before asking the obvious. “Do you know about this?”

I took my last sip and rejected another ration. “Of course I knew. Thomas is my son. I have always known about his dalliances.” This shocked Kalinda. “Why didn’t you tell me? I have a right to know. No one should be treated this way.”

Usually, I am reserved in nature. However, today, I began to provide to Kalinda the facts she could not remain ignorant of. “Thomas is a grown man, who knows what he wants, and how to get it. I raised him this way. It should come as no surprise that he extends his charm to more than one female. Deep down you understood this when the two of you began dating. It is just that you turned a blind eye to it as he became even more open with his actions. Last Christmas, I saw you listening at the door of one of your friend’s room. You must have heard her screams as they “exchanged gifts”. When the two of you arrived for Easter, you put on a brave face as Thomas deflowered the caterer in the kitchen. Twice, if you count the time she was delayed serving the desert. Think about it Kalinda, Thomas is, and always will be, lecherous. He will always be a senior officer in the family business. Should you decide to join him in his ascent to the top, be prepared for more affairs.”

I permitted Kalinda to think about what I said. She didn’t think for long.

“If you were me, what would you do?”

“Kalinda, that may be the most intelligent statement you have delivered today.”

“How so?”

“Listen carefully to what I am about to say. If I were you, I would get one step ahead of Thomas. I would make myself more desirable in every way possible to Thomas. This means more than sexual. This means educational. This means spiritual. This means all things business related. If I were you, I would know what I wanted, get it, keep it, and make all near me pay dearly to think about it.”

It took Kalinda a while to ponder the implications of what I said. She did graduate with honors from college with her MBA at age 20. She came from old money. It didn’t take her too long before she narrowed the list down to a category containing a number of her own personal inhibitions.

We spoke at length for nearly an hour before Kalinda asked me to assist her in making Thomas hers. Such a young woman, at that moment, overcame numerous reservations and discomforts in asking. She wanted to learn what Thomas wanted her to know. She wanted to learn how she wanted to desire. It would not be enough to go through the motions. I explained this to her. She blushed, held back her ego and asked to begin immediately.

I sat next to her, gently pulling her hair back from her face. Today, and thereafter, was going to be quid pro quo. All exams would be practical with grades of either A or F.

Those were my terms. Kalinda swallowed hard and agreed to all of them sans diffidence.

For the record, I gave her Kalinda her first lesbian kiss. She returned the favor, taking longer than I, with more meaning than mine. By sunset, I laid the Universe before her, unfolded for her to explore, as well as be explored. She rose to the occasion and began to reciprocate. Only one can be in control and when offered the reigns, Kalinda did indeed take control. By midnight, she remained true to all her collegiate stamina denying my pleas for rest. I awoke at sunrise, bruised and battered. Kalinda made breakfast for the two of us.

“Out of curiosity, I explored your nightstand. What a naughty girl you and your toy collection are. Today, there will be no rest for the weary.”

It wasn’t until 2pm that Kalinda made her departure. I tried to convince her otherwise, but to avail. She was a new person; a woman on a mission with a mere three hours before she met Thomas at the airport. He told me he would be bringing a new lady friend with him.

May God have mercy on their souls.

The homunculus is a representation of the man behind the man, the woman behind the woman, the body behind the body: the graphic mapping of what parts of the body are put together in proportion to how they’re laid out and innervated as related to our brain tissue. Not all sensations and volitional movements are distributed evenly. Thus, the homunculus is a distorted—even a comical—little creature.

For example, the hands are very sensitive, so the hands of the homunculus are large. So are the sex organs. And the lips. For that is how the mapping, in a Mercator projection fashion, pans out. (Think of Greenland.)

Everyone has a homunculus of their own; everyone’s homunculus changes as they grow older, wiser, and mature. Some homunculi, unfortunately, change as people grow hateful, resentful, and cruel. If only everyone could see their own homunculus and that part of it by which the soul is represented.

I once had a stable homunculus. It had grown over the years via honesty, integrity, and love for my fellow man, adhering happily along the convolutions, the gyri and sulci, of my brain.

Then came one of those fellow men with whom I’d gone into business. His name was Dwayne. Dwayne was a bad man. I didn’t know this, of course, as such men disguise themselves as reasonable and conciliatory to your best interests—especially when they have nothing and come to you for everything. Their homunculi lie in wait for the opportunity to get in a cheap shot. Their very own homuncular digits twitch to finger your own brain’s concavities.

Good men know how to make what’s in their best interests jive with what are your own; bad men leave you as roadkill. Dwayne aimed for living, breathing sentient creatures to make them roadkill.

Now I lick my wounds and knead the tire tread marks on me, my homunculus prone in the pit of the sulci where my reptile lives, having fallen there like a sucker through a trap door.

My reptile.

Every human brain, including mine, has such a reptile deep in the pits. It is the flight-or-fight captain of an armed ship. There in the primaeval abyss it sails, looking up from the basal ganglia of emotion and memories, an ancient and oh-so-human region of the limbic system called the amygdala.

Maturity and the sense to choose my fights carefully saw my homunculus outgrow my reptile by age 7; but now, floundering helplessly in the abyss, it is a sitting duck for it.

Bad memories lock together in the hippocampus tightly. Hatred is a glue that is thick.

When bad things happen—when bad people do bad things—these memories get the highest priority in sticking together in patterns of synapses that radiate their poisonous dendrites into everything else. The hippocampus is named after the Greek words for “sea horse” because of its shape. Yet, it is not a sea horse, but the proverbial elephant that never forgets—the storage bin for the poison arrows of emotion from the amygdala.

Dwayne.

I had built Dwayne up, truly believing his success would be my success and that the sum of our produce would exceed the addition of the parts. It’s the essence of any true partnership. I referred him business that came from what I myself would have garnered. We were successful—together: me from my hard work and cleverness—and Dwayne…from me.

Then he became more successful than me, and I didn’t understand why. It wasn’t long before he insisted on renegotiating the distribution of our net income.

A former client reported Dwayne had called him to tell him I was too busy to handle his account and that he, instead, would be handling it. Dwayne had confided in my employees that I had a list of them I planned on firing. Then he gave me his notice and moved next door, along with the employees he had claimed were on my list.

This sort of thing happens every day. It’s called business as usual. It’s called capitalism for some.

It’s as if business as usual is a license to cheat and steal while denying any foundation of ethics. “I have to do what’s best for me,” is the mantra. Loyalty comes in a distant also-ran once someone feels their oats.

Next, I lost many lucrative contracts, later hearing that Dwayne was spreading vicious lies about me. Things about me and the IRS. Things about addictions, cruelty, and exploitation. Things about me and my daughter. My board memberships were dropped, and it wasn’t long before he sat in my spot on each. My wife got a letter from a woman Dwayne knew who claimed “it was over” between her and me.

The only way to fight such a man smartly is by doing nothing. Do not play his game. Surely people would know the man I had always been. But the reality is that the truth never catches up to the lies.

When bad things happen to good people, it’s enough that it’s because they’ve been targeted by genetics, acts of nature, or disease. Those are mindless things that cannot be blamed. But when the bad things happen by design, by designing-bad people, it’s hard to understand why the assaults continue until way past complete ruin, even when the perpetrator has already more than won.

His win was complete. I once had it all; now I had nothing. Now he had it all. Including all that was mine. I had lost my reputation, job, my vocation, my money, my wife, and my family.

And my mind. There is no cruelty worse than being at the mercy of someone who is cruel.

So my homunculus—who is me—languishes, interred below the foundations of my limbic system, simmering in hate and fantasizing revenge. They say you can’t fight a dirty fighter because it’s hard to know where you draw the line. At burning down their house? Murder?

At some point, even under the fog of the primitive mind living precariously at the behest of self-serving reptilian hormones, you have to declare you’re better than that.

That took me a long time. It was hard. Does it mean forgiveness? Forgetting? What would Jesus do?

What would the Godfather do? It was just business, the ol’ bottom line.

The road to progress is eliminating your obstacles, and your obstacles are your enemies. I hadn’t started this, but I set myself up for it by drinking the poison of good faith. But good faith, for some, is just a fuse that is lit, burning its way to a victim who is expected to explode. Someone who didn’t take cover.

Someone who never saw it coming.

I wanted to ruin him…right back. Hurt him. More than he had hurt me. This was my amygdala talking now, the seat of emotion in my limbic system, and the very reptile that swaggers along the path of restitution via revenge. That path creates neurotransmitters that feel good, yet they are the dirty humors that engender fighting dirty.

I realized I might not be better than that.

After all, isn’t self-defense a noble pursuit? An inherent right of life? Can’t homunculi fight it out when their very existence is threatened? How ugly can one’s homunculus become?

I lay in the stagnant muck of my limbic system, breathing in the ashes of discord. I hacked up the bile I was living on. I seethed in a perversion of body temperature, overheating the stew I treaded.

Dwayne had to pay.

The trap door to hate is locked from the inside, just like Hell. But there are cracks in that trap door. I saw a sliver of light, reflecting from a mirror my original homunculus held, pivoting it this way and that to offer the side-eyed glimmers of illumination that stung like hope. I braced myself from the glare, from this hope. But I owed my homunculus an open mind; I owed hope a revisit. When you’re so mired in venom and maladaptive thinking, hope may sting, which is can make it hard to withstand. It’s easier just to go with the stench of spite, anger, and vengeance.

There was something about my original homunculus, something persevering from the values I had been taught. The slivers of light began to sting less. I sat up.

I was better than this.

I stood up, which angered my reptile. The skirmish with it was ugly, but when it was over my righteous hands had gained purchase onto some higher convolutions—the higher, modern lobes we had evolved to keep our reptiles in check. I strained to lift myself upward. The light grew brighter, the hope grew more tangible, and the reptile began slipping away. Hope no longer stung but was warm and nurturing.

It felt good. Being “better than this” was an achievement, a noble deed done well, and then it felt worth the bruises, cuts, and concussions.

People like Dwayne do well…for a time. But they leave a trail of enemies as they go. The hippocampus of the one doing the slighting doesn’t have the memory glue as sticky as the one who is slighted. Before too long, Dwayne got hurt. Hurt bad. In fact, he was killed. By his wife, who got off on self-defense—the noble pursuit and inherent right of life.

Did I win?

It’s not a competition. Business-as-usual is a competition; capitalism is a competition. But good faith is not. Good faith is one’s definition. It is that part of one’s homunculus that overlies the soul that innervates it.

My climb from primitive rage to civilized appraisal was a metaphor for the rise of the survivalist troglodytes to modern man. There was a reason we had evolved higher convolutions to suppress the murderous, self-serving thoughts of our rudimentary reptiles.

It was because our destiny was to kick the mesomorphic cavemen and their reptiles aside—to be better than this.

Above Lucy, a white-hot smudge of sun threatened to break through the haze. Below, the heat appeared to ripple off the asphalt and make the dead world dance. A flash of light in the cracked road caught her eye. She bent down to inspect her treasure: a lone paperclip, rusty but intact, having waited patiently for decades to be found. She pulled a chain of paperclips from her pocket and threaded her new discovery to the end. She closed the chain around her neck, pretending it was covered in colorful jewels instead of debris from years of exposure. Around her, the air shimmered as heat warped the landscape.

The UV sensor clipped to Lucy’s shirt beeped and flashed purple. She needed to find shelter soon until the haze swallowed the sun again. She looked around her, but all she saw was barren ridges stretching in every direction. She had wandered farther from camp than usual this time. The only shelter in sight was a heap of metal and glass in the distance. The UV sensor beeped faster now, blinking red. She had no choice. She ran toward the wrecked structure.

Most of the ceiling there had collapsed, but some of the glass walls still stood. Inside, she found rows of dusty clay pots propped up on tables, some small and plain, others large and painted with faded swirls of color. Lucy reached into a pot and scooped up a handful of cold dirt, letting it fall through her fingers. It smelled like rain. She wasn’t expecting to find anything. She wouldn’t have known what to look for anyway.

Lucy stopped in her tracks at the last pot. There was something purple in the dirt. She arched an eyebrow, turning the discovery over in her mind to figure out what it could be. Finally, she plucked it from the dirt and lifted it up to her nose. The scent rising from it was earthy with a hint of something sweet. She nibbled a petal and spit it out, deciding to stuff the purple thing into her pocket to show her mother.

She looked up and saw the sun had retreated into the haze above the glass structure. Lucy took the opportunity to run back to camp. She burst into the tent panting. “Ma, look at this!”

Lucy’s mother was crouched over a bowl mixing fortified grain. She looked up and smiled at the multicolored chain around her daughter’s neck. “Jewels fit for a princess!”

Lucy looked down and blushed. She had forgotten about her creation made from old things forgotten and found. “I mean this,” she said, pulling the crushed purple thing from her pocket. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

Her mother gasped and froze. “Is that—no, it can’t be… just like the ones my mother used to grow in the Old Era. Lucy, where did you find this?”

“In a weird glass building,” Lucy said. “What is it?”

Her mother reached out and gently took the petals into her hands. “It’s called a violet,” she said. “We had them where I grew up.” She saw the confusion painted on her daughter’s face and laughed. “It’s a type of flower. It’s alive. Back then, clean water flowed in pipes underground. We used to spray it all over the flowers just to keep them beautiful. Just to have something nice to look at. That was before the droughts and famines, of course.”

Lucy looked at the dry stalks of grain in the basket beside her mother, who had gathered them that morning. “So this is alive? Can’t we plant it again?” Her eyes glistened with hope.

Her mother shook her head. “I’m afraid all we can do is put it in a cup to appreciate it while we have it. We can’t dip into our water supply, though. Without its roots, it won’t have long.”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to… did I kill it?” Lucy’s eyes welled up with tears.

Her mother embraced her. “In this world… you gave it mercy.”

Afternoon Air Smells Freer

July 08, 2025

He had lied to me again.

After I secured him to the chair with a variety of ropes and duct tape, he woke from his somewhat less than peaceful slumber. The blood dripping down his forehead had since dried, the wound since clotted. His face, on any other day, would heal, even if left unattended.

Such is the nature of human physiology.

But this wasn’t any other day.

I opted for a roll of Saran Wrap, both for the convenience of deployment and the clinginess of the plastic to itself. I might have informed him of my intentions. However, I remember watching old Batman TV shows where the Joker/Penguin/Riddler make that same mistake permitting the Caped Crusader to escape and foil their nefarious plans.

My captive would receive no opportunity for a respite, let alone a departure.

When he realized my intentions, he began negotiating. The plastic wrap made its first circumference of his head.

I permitted him his last full breath prior to continuing. He might have used it for begging. He might have thought to insult me. Instead, he began apologizing.

Ironically, his gunshot wound to my knee crippled my gait, but not my hearing. My surgeon confirmed this to be true.

Too bad I did not believe what he had to say either.

When I finished the second circumference, he began thrashing. I expected a struggle, so I watched all he could give. If viewed face to face, all one could see was spittle rapidly evaporating. All one could hear was crying.

By the fourth circumnavigation of his head, even the crying disappeared. The thrashing soon followed. An eerie silence filled the room. It was, for me at least, cathartic. No more unlawful orders. No more ignorance of civil rights. No more lame excuses of his safety trumping my rights. Silence. It answered all of my unanswered questions. It opened a penultimate door of opportunity. I dreamed of this day and it finally arrived, albeit 12 years too late, but arrive it did.

Even though I could leave, I chose to remain for a while longer. Part of me envisioned him with a deception in which he had not passed from the Earth. He was like this. Slippery, elusive, the modus operandi for his profession of fallen expectations.

Within thirty minutes, even I accepted the reality of my new life.

I gathered my belongings, what few he left me with, and opened the front door, never to return.

Prologue

I should have been more aware. My thoughts raced, trying to pinpoint the exact moment where I had made each compounding, fatal mistake these last two weeks. From the initial incident that set it all off, down to the moment that every step afterwards created our slow spiral out of control.

I could feel my heart squeezing, like something had gripped me, tugging and pulling inside my chest as it choked me. I tried not to let it sink in and drown me, because now wasn't the time to break down and throw in the towel. Right now, I had to catch up to them. Tilting my head back, I grunted as I nearly lost my footing in a hole, my head whipping back before it hit a tree branch that I’d narrowly missed, as several more sharp branches jammed into my chest and stomach. Gritting my teeth, I ducked under the next branch, grabbed the trunk of another tree and hefted myself up. Hefted myself up and threw myself over the oncoming ravine to clear it. I breathlessly ran in near leaps for the oncoming neighborhood fence at the end of the tiny expanse of woods.

My lungs heaved as I felt my chest burn with an intense ache that I could barely ignore. I was pushing past my limit. I could feel it in me as my heart pounded-throbbing horribly-in my chest and my blood roared in my ears between the breaking branches whipping me in the face, and crunching under my weight. Still, I ran, ran like time was already up because if I was being honest- She was out of time, and I was the only thing between her and death and it was all my fault.

“Fuck!” I screamed, but the words morphed into an angry bark. My hands slapped the pavement, and I lifted my head up. I barely gave myself time to recover as I shoved forward, at first unsteadily on two legs, pushing up from the concrete by my hands, then finally into a full-four legged sprint where my hands moved more like an extra pair of legs. In my inhuman state, it worked without a hitch due to my semi-quadrupedal body as the scent of freshly snapped pine trees and other obnoxious native plants filled my senses. The smell cleared as the wind whipped against my fur from my speed, trying to chill my heated body as it blinded me, making tears form in my eyes.

In this moment, I was grateful for the extra speed and my semi-wolfish body, because I was running down the hill as fast as my immortal body could take me.

I almost lost my footing as I slammed up into the fence finally. I had come crashing down over the edge of the hill that I barely noticed before I hit it. As I caught myself on the fence, I noticed to my right that I was looking towards the road below the ramp that curved back up into the stretch of interstate. This was the spot where I could have tried to cut the car off, but it was still too far. A groan worked its way up from my throat, before I tore away from the fence line, I became a blur against the edge of the woods, following down under the ramp. Branches and limbs snapped from the weight of my massive body, and I broke through them until I nearly hung myself up on the lower limbs, but I tore myself out of the tangle, feeling fur rip and skin tug.

Still, I didn’t stop.

Couldn't.

I reminded myself again that she was on borrowed time.

When I got out of the tiny expanse of forest, I caught sight of the black SUV driving onto the on ramp and entering the highway and I gaped at it, wondering if it was all for nothing, but the woman’s words rang out to me. Docks. Eleven. Pier Eleven’s Docks was what my mind immediately transcribed from that, which wasn’t far from the docks that I took home. It was just a few blocks down. I just had to get there in time.

I winced, hoping that I did, and that they didn't decide to detour off elsewhere with her. Because if she wasn't at the docks, I didn't know what I'd do with myself.

Pain laced through my body at the thought of being too late and all I could think of in that moment as I ran was the last tearful smile on her face when she was trying so hard to stick it through with the problem I caused.

Please. Please hold on!

My body trembled with the roar of adrenaline that was keeping me going, because everything else waiting to catch up was going to keep me frozen in my tracks. I just had to get there before they took off with her. I had to get her back, before they took her somewhere else that I didn't know. Where things could be so much worse. Where I couldn’t get her back, because they’d torture her or worse; kill her.