Reditus
Taylor Boyle
PennWest University--Global
PennWest University--Global
Natalia Volkov had lived in the same quaint cottage as her husband for only two and a half weeks before she began packing a bag for him. “I can do it,” he croaked as he laid on their bed, a cool terrycloth resting across his forehead and covering his eyes.
“I know you can,” she said gently and she tucked a neatly folded hoodie into the bag and zippered it closed.
“I don’t usually even take extra clothes – I just come home in what I went out in,” he tried feebly.
She smiled as she sat next to him. “Well, that changes now. You can come home in something clean.”
“I’ll be putting on something clean just to immediately take it off when I come back,” he protested.
“Whatever shall we do?” she teased as she ran a hand through his hair in the way she knew he liked. The strands were damp with sweat, the fever rising as the night drew closer. He had no further protests, opting instead to nuzzle into her touch. “I’ll have some broth heated for you when you come back.”
He reached up and pushed the terrycloth up his forehead and finally looked up at her with an earthy brown stare. “I don’t normally eat anything after.”
“You don’t normally take a bag, either,” she reminded him, “but things are different now.” As if to prove her point, she reached out and took his hand in hers, thumb running over his wedding band, not even a month old.
He pushed himself up despite her protests. “I’m alright,” he said as he leaned in for a kiss. When they parted, he looked at her with bright eyes. “I love you, and I’ll drink your broth and let you baby me, if you want, but I do not want you to worry – I’ve been doing this for a while.”
She nodded, biting down on her own fears. “I’m well aware.”
“No,” he said with a lopsided grin, “I’m a were.”
She shook her head at his poor joke and kissed him again. “Only you could joke about being a werewolf,” she said as they parted.
“Well, you know what they say about laughter and medicine.” He stared at her for a moment longer before his eyes flicked to the window. Outside, the sky was a rosy peach with tendrils of indigo clawing through the clouds. “I better leave, soon,” he said with a heavy sigh.
She helped him out of the bed and tossed the terrycloth to their hamper. Her heart ached as he hoisted the bag to his shoulder and opened his free arm to her. She let him envelope her in a hug. “I love you, Natalia Volkov,” he whispered into the crown of her head.
“And I you, Erik Volkov,” she returned to his chest.
The walk to the back door took only seconds, but it felt as if ages were passing in that time. Natalia blinked tears from her eyes as her husband opened the door. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he told her as he stood on the stoop.
“I’ll come find you if you aren’t,” she warned teasingly.
He smiled, kissed her one last time, and headed off for the woods behind their house. She knew where he was headed; the small clearing next to the creek was about three quarters of a mile from the house. He had taken her there a few days ago, picnic basket in hand, to tell her how the transformations worked. She had thought that the picnic date, complete with a blanket and candles, was all a bit unnecessary, but he had stopped all of her protests when he told her that he was hoping to have at least one good memory in this place.
Now, as she stared at his back, walking out there alone with a leather duffel instead of a picnic basket on his arm, she hoped one would be enough. Natalia leaned on the door frame and watched him go until she couldn’t see him through the underbrush. Then, she turned on her heel, closed the door, and set off to change out of her pajamas. There was work to be done.
The house suddenly seemed far too quiet as she slipped down the hall to the study. Really, study was far too polite a name. It was the room that they had stashed everything they hadn’t been sure what to do with when they bought the place a couple months ago, including the bookshelves jam-packed with old leather journals Natalia had inherited from her grandmother. She slid her finger down the worn spines until she found the one she wanted, a slim black one with a sigil she didn’t recognize embossed on the front cover, and flipped to a dog-eared page.
Natalia didn’t believe in ghosts – she never had, of course, she hadn’t believed in werewolves until she’d met Erik – but if she did, she was certain that her grandmother would haunt her for marking up one of her books. She made a mental note to visit her grave this week with flowers, as thanks, as she headed to the kitchen and set the book on the butcher block island. Her finger roamed down the page, looking for the line she had underlined before she grabbed his robe off of the back of his chair on her way out the door.
The trail he had shown her was harder to follow in the night and she hadn’t remembered quite so many thorny branches tugging at her sweater. The moonlight filtered through the wide-stretched branches and dappled the roots clawing their way across the ground. She trudged along, listening closely for any signs of movement.
“Erik?” she called softly into the still night. She had expected the forest to be alive with critters, to hear the racoons and opossums scurrying about and the owls calling out into the night. Instead, the forest was still, like the night was holding its breath. Perhaps they knew what lurked up ahead.
She found him not far from the creek, in the rocky area he had shown her this morning. He was curled around himself, his boxy head resting on his paws and his ruddy coat sleek in the moonlight. He lifted his head and scented the air as Natalia crept forward through the brush. She stopped and watched him, taking in his furry form. His eyes flicked up to her, widening for a split second, perhaps in recognition, before he rose, ears flat to his head, and snarled.
“It’s just me, Erik,” she soothed.
The wolf growled, hunching down, teeth bared. Before she could say anything, he snarled again and charged at her. Time seemed to slow down as he pummeled through the thickets. She sucked in a deep breath and said, “I’m your wife, Erik Artem Volkov, and I say it’s time to come home.”
He stopped suddenly, as if struck, and howled before whimpering. Natalia turned and buried her face in the robe as the wolf curled in on himself, giving him privacy. When his cries began to sound human, it took everything in her to not run to him. She forced herself to wait until she heard him whimper, “Nat?
In a moment, she was kneeling at his side and draping the robe over his shoulders. “It’s alright, I’m right here.”
“Wha – How did –” he stammered as she looked him over. He had a few errant scrapes, but nothing too worrisome. He cupped her face in his hands, pulling her gaze up to his. “Nat, why did you come out here? What were you thinking?”
She brought her hand up to his, holding him to her. “I told you, Erik, it’s time for you to come home.”
He looked down at himself, eyes widening, before lightly running a hand over his own face, as if just recognizing that he had transformed back, before glancing up at the moon, just barely halfway across the sky. “How?” he asked her.
“I found a section, in one of Grandmother’s grimoires, detailing how someone that a Werewolf loves and trusts deeply can bring them back. I love you, and when you said your vows to me, I knew you loved me too.”
“You had no way of knowing it would work; this could have been a suicide mission!”
She pulled him into a kiss, relishing the small sigh that escaped him. “It wasn’t,” She whispered as they parted, “and I knew it wouldn’t be, because I know that you, no matter what form, Erik Volkov, would never hurt me.”
He stared at her, mouth slightly agape, for a moment before he pulled her into a tight embrace. He leaned back, kissing her once again, before resting his head on her shoulder. “Thank you,” he murmured into her sweater.
She cupped his neck and planted a kiss to the side of his head. “I love you,” she whispered against the shell of his ear.
“And I you,” he returned, face still buried in her shoulder.
“Where are your clothes,” she asked after a moment, pulling away from him but not taking her hand off of the back of his neck. She pushed herself to her feet, but Erik stayed where he was.
“What?” he asked as he stared up at her from where he crouched.
“I sent you out here with a bag, where is it?” She scanned the clearing but didn’t see his duffel. When she looked back at him, he was still staring at her with eyes as wide as the moon looming above. She giggled. “You’re as bare as the day you were born, dear. I’m going to take you home and get you all fixed up, but I’d imagine you’d rather not make your grand exit in your birthday suit.”
“Right, right,” he said as he scrambled to his feet, wincing. She let him lean on her, shouldering some of his weight. “I put them over here,” he said as he led her to the edge of the clearing and reached into a tree hollow, retrieving the bag.
She took it off of him and knelt to set it on the ground. Erik leaned against the tree and watched her in awe. She handed him his clothes, helping him change with careful, measured movements before she shouldered the bag and held her other hand out to him with a smile. “Erik Artem Volkov, it’s time to come home.”
“Natalia Selene Volkov, I love you more than you could ever know,” he whispered as they made the slow trek back to the cottage.
“I know you can,” she said gently and she tucked a neatly folded hoodie into the bag and zippered it closed.
“I don’t usually even take extra clothes – I just come home in what I went out in,” he tried feebly.
She smiled as she sat next to him. “Well, that changes now. You can come home in something clean.”
“I’ll be putting on something clean just to immediately take it off when I come back,” he protested.
“Whatever shall we do?” she teased as she ran a hand through his hair in the way she knew he liked. The strands were damp with sweat, the fever rising as the night drew closer. He had no further protests, opting instead to nuzzle into her touch. “I’ll have some broth heated for you when you come back.”
He reached up and pushed the terrycloth up his forehead and finally looked up at her with an earthy brown stare. “I don’t normally eat anything after.”
“You don’t normally take a bag, either,” she reminded him, “but things are different now.” As if to prove her point, she reached out and took his hand in hers, thumb running over his wedding band, not even a month old.
He pushed himself up despite her protests. “I’m alright,” he said as he leaned in for a kiss. When they parted, he looked at her with bright eyes. “I love you, and I’ll drink your broth and let you baby me, if you want, but I do not want you to worry – I’ve been doing this for a while.”
She nodded, biting down on her own fears. “I’m well aware.”
“No,” he said with a lopsided grin, “I’m a were.”
She shook her head at his poor joke and kissed him again. “Only you could joke about being a werewolf,” she said as they parted.
“Well, you know what they say about laughter and medicine.” He stared at her for a moment longer before his eyes flicked to the window. Outside, the sky was a rosy peach with tendrils of indigo clawing through the clouds. “I better leave, soon,” he said with a heavy sigh.
She helped him out of the bed and tossed the terrycloth to their hamper. Her heart ached as he hoisted the bag to his shoulder and opened his free arm to her. She let him envelope her in a hug. “I love you, Natalia Volkov,” he whispered into the crown of her head.
“And I you, Erik Volkov,” she returned to his chest.
The walk to the back door took only seconds, but it felt as if ages were passing in that time. Natalia blinked tears from her eyes as her husband opened the door. “I’ll be back in the morning,” he told her as he stood on the stoop.
“I’ll come find you if you aren’t,” she warned teasingly.
He smiled, kissed her one last time, and headed off for the woods behind their house. She knew where he was headed; the small clearing next to the creek was about three quarters of a mile from the house. He had taken her there a few days ago, picnic basket in hand, to tell her how the transformations worked. She had thought that the picnic date, complete with a blanket and candles, was all a bit unnecessary, but he had stopped all of her protests when he told her that he was hoping to have at least one good memory in this place.
Now, as she stared at his back, walking out there alone with a leather duffel instead of a picnic basket on his arm, she hoped one would be enough. Natalia leaned on the door frame and watched him go until she couldn’t see him through the underbrush. Then, she turned on her heel, closed the door, and set off to change out of her pajamas. There was work to be done.
The house suddenly seemed far too quiet as she slipped down the hall to the study. Really, study was far too polite a name. It was the room that they had stashed everything they hadn’t been sure what to do with when they bought the place a couple months ago, including the bookshelves jam-packed with old leather journals Natalia had inherited from her grandmother. She slid her finger down the worn spines until she found the one she wanted, a slim black one with a sigil she didn’t recognize embossed on the front cover, and flipped to a dog-eared page.
Natalia didn’t believe in ghosts – she never had, of course, she hadn’t believed in werewolves until she’d met Erik – but if she did, she was certain that her grandmother would haunt her for marking up one of her books. She made a mental note to visit her grave this week with flowers, as thanks, as she headed to the kitchen and set the book on the butcher block island. Her finger roamed down the page, looking for the line she had underlined before she grabbed his robe off of the back of his chair on her way out the door.
The trail he had shown her was harder to follow in the night and she hadn’t remembered quite so many thorny branches tugging at her sweater. The moonlight filtered through the wide-stretched branches and dappled the roots clawing their way across the ground. She trudged along, listening closely for any signs of movement.
“Erik?” she called softly into the still night. She had expected the forest to be alive with critters, to hear the racoons and opossums scurrying about and the owls calling out into the night. Instead, the forest was still, like the night was holding its breath. Perhaps they knew what lurked up ahead.
She found him not far from the creek, in the rocky area he had shown her this morning. He was curled around himself, his boxy head resting on his paws and his ruddy coat sleek in the moonlight. He lifted his head and scented the air as Natalia crept forward through the brush. She stopped and watched him, taking in his furry form. His eyes flicked up to her, widening for a split second, perhaps in recognition, before he rose, ears flat to his head, and snarled.
“It’s just me, Erik,” she soothed.
The wolf growled, hunching down, teeth bared. Before she could say anything, he snarled again and charged at her. Time seemed to slow down as he pummeled through the thickets. She sucked in a deep breath and said, “I’m your wife, Erik Artem Volkov, and I say it’s time to come home.”
He stopped suddenly, as if struck, and howled before whimpering. Natalia turned and buried her face in the robe as the wolf curled in on himself, giving him privacy. When his cries began to sound human, it took everything in her to not run to him. She forced herself to wait until she heard him whimper, “Nat?
In a moment, she was kneeling at his side and draping the robe over his shoulders. “It’s alright, I’m right here.”
“Wha – How did –” he stammered as she looked him over. He had a few errant scrapes, but nothing too worrisome. He cupped her face in his hands, pulling her gaze up to his. “Nat, why did you come out here? What were you thinking?”
She brought her hand up to his, holding him to her. “I told you, Erik, it’s time for you to come home.”
He looked down at himself, eyes widening, before lightly running a hand over his own face, as if just recognizing that he had transformed back, before glancing up at the moon, just barely halfway across the sky. “How?” he asked her.
“I found a section, in one of Grandmother’s grimoires, detailing how someone that a Werewolf loves and trusts deeply can bring them back. I love you, and when you said your vows to me, I knew you loved me too.”
“You had no way of knowing it would work; this could have been a suicide mission!”
She pulled him into a kiss, relishing the small sigh that escaped him. “It wasn’t,” She whispered as they parted, “and I knew it wouldn’t be, because I know that you, no matter what form, Erik Volkov, would never hurt me.”
He stared at her, mouth slightly agape, for a moment before he pulled her into a tight embrace. He leaned back, kissing her once again, before resting his head on her shoulder. “Thank you,” he murmured into her sweater.
She cupped his neck and planted a kiss to the side of his head. “I love you,” she whispered against the shell of his ear.
“And I you,” he returned, face still buried in her shoulder.
“Where are your clothes,” she asked after a moment, pulling away from him but not taking her hand off of the back of his neck. She pushed herself to her feet, but Erik stayed where he was.
“What?” he asked as he stared up at her from where he crouched.
“I sent you out here with a bag, where is it?” She scanned the clearing but didn’t see his duffel. When she looked back at him, he was still staring at her with eyes as wide as the moon looming above. She giggled. “You’re as bare as the day you were born, dear. I’m going to take you home and get you all fixed up, but I’d imagine you’d rather not make your grand exit in your birthday suit.”
“Right, right,” he said as he scrambled to his feet, wincing. She let him lean on her, shouldering some of his weight. “I put them over here,” he said as he led her to the edge of the clearing and reached into a tree hollow, retrieving the bag.
She took it off of him and knelt to set it on the ground. Erik leaned against the tree and watched her in awe. She handed him his clothes, helping him change with careful, measured movements before she shouldered the bag and held her other hand out to him with a smile. “Erik Artem Volkov, it’s time to come home.”
“Natalia Selene Volkov, I love you more than you could ever know,” he whispered as they made the slow trek back to the cottage.
Taylor Boyle has been writing stories for over a decade. She has previously had work featured in It Gets Better's Queerbook, Tobeco, and Pressed Flowers Lit among others.
The Valley of the Shadow of Death
Nicholas Clawson
PennWest University--California
PennWest University--California
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name. Even though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
My grandfather would repeat this all the time like a holy safeguard, a lone buoy out in the ocean during a storm. He was a portly feller of cheerful countenance with large rosy cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes, all complemented by a well-groomed beard long gone white that would make Saint Nicholas envy.
He was the only one in my life who ever seemed to notice me, truly notice me. Not see me as something to be discarded or used, and then he passed. He left the world and me all alone. As I was young at the time when it happened, it left me confused. I remember going up to the open casket and seeing his mouth in an unusually firm line, eyelids closed. He looked peaceful, happy even, lying there with his hands folded over his stomach with a lilac gently resting in his chest pocket.
I remember afterwards not quiet understanding. I would pester my mom and dad about going over to grandpa’s and they would never answer me.
Mom used to answer me. She used to pay attention. And then she stopped. It was around the same time so I can only assume the loss of her father hit her harder than anyone. When I was younger, she would always coddle me, tuck me in at night, kiss my forehead, and sing me a comforting lullaby as my eyelids fluttered close. She would call my name after I got off the bus like the one lady who sings at church, it was mellifluous and full of life and intention. I would always race off the bus and wrap her leg with my body in the strongest grip little young Liam was capable of, and I wouldn’t let go until she promised to play cars or trains with me.
She’d take me home and do just that, kneeling to the floor with her hair tied loosely behind her head in a drooping ponytail. The sun would come through the windows just right then. It would glide along her fair cheeks and worm its way into her eyes so that everything was brighter and magical. Everything was perfect. It was just me and mom…until it wasn’t. The day that everything changed, where she didn’t greet me coming off the bus, where there was no leg to hug, and no one to play toys with. The sun would never again find its way to complement her just right. The colors were nowhere near as bright and I could just feel at the time that to her, there was nothing. It was just gray, as gray as the ashen skies during a wildfire.
In that way, I would say my childhood began to burn just like the raging fires consuming briars and bushes, being rushed along by the wind to find and scorch every spare bit of ground and scurrying rodent. That was the first wildfire, the lack of attention I soon found myself so unbearably surrounded with. It wasn’t filling. It was empty and yet all consuming. A lack of everything becoming such a profound tangible nothing that there was something.
I would spend my days roaming the neighborhood after school or in the summer, looking for anyone to play with. I tried all sorts of things, using my imagination in every which conceivable way. I would find a nice tall tree where ferns grew high, and the moss blanketed the leaf speckled floor. I would imagine the tree a tower like the ones in the city, super tall and with thousands of windows and it was my job to punch all the glass out. I would throw sticks and stones from the moment the sun came up to when it drifted beneath the horizon, washing the sky full of purple and night. If I got bored doing that, I’d find something else. A large boulder and make it the starboard of a ship. I would be the infallible captain guiding the crew as I pointed my cutlass out towards the open sea with the wind at my back. I could also be a pilot or a train conductor pushing the buttons, turning the dials, and yanking the chains. I could be anything that I wanted to be.
Looking back on it, it was a simpler time, but I managed through it all. As I got on in years, getting close to the haunting doom that awaited me of middle school and worse yet, no more recess. I began to play sports. I think what I wanted was just to be seen, but I wasn’t good enough. The coaches just kept my clumsy mess of limbs on the bench, and it wasn’t like my mom or dad or grandpa were showing up to the games anyways, seeing as my friends mom always took me. I had thought at the time that if I wished hard enough, they would show up, but mom just stayed in the rocking chair in the living room, looking at a far-off distance I could never see, past the walls of our house and then towards heaven I presume, where grandpa was.
And dad, he was always busy. I never saw much of him. He was always away on business trips to the big city, in the office, or glued to the computer screen at home talking to people I couldn’t see and frankly for that matter couldn’t understand. The voices were always monotonous and tired sounding repeating big words back to each other like sweet nothings, promises promised to be broken or hurriedly shoved off to the side. Then there were the moments he was away from the screen. He would sprawl out on the couch, taking all three cushions. He’d yell for a beer, and I was the only one that ever heard the call, so I’d make the journey to the fridge and open the fresh six pack.
I would grab him one and they were always so cold that it would freeze my hands by the time I got him the drink. He would yank them from my hands and pop off the can clip and take a deep sip as he reached for the remote. He would always just watch what was on and on the days that he was off that happened to be either be baseball or football or basketball or some other random sport.
When I was playing the sports, I’d usually come to him during the time that he was watching and try to put a football into his hands or a baseball glove. He would always set them off to the side and kind of grumble about asking my mom to play with me. I wished he would play with me…but he never did.
So, I went outside to roam the neighborhood as I usually would and on one of those random days at the beginning of autumn when school had just started about a month ago, it happened. I saw a U-Haul outside a house up the street. One of the old houses that hadn’t been bought in a while. It had ivy crawling up the side of its green colored panels, weeds poking out from the foundations, and a bunch of who knows whats covered by a tarp on the front porch.
I hadn’t thought of any of it at the time, it never even occurred to me to give the fact that the parents were calling all their kids back inside a second thought. I would just wave goodbye to Jamie, Marty, the twins Daisy and Lillia, Daniel, and Vince. As they went inside, I remained and so I would retreat to my old habits of my over-active imagination. I would once more take on the mammoth tree in the woods or climb atop the boulder and let the mind take me where it wanted to for the day. The more I remained outside and the more the other neighborhood kids went inside the more that my mind retreated to the woods. I would imagine these grand adventures and stories when I was in and out of school. Sometimes they would consume me so fully that I would take up a ruler or a few snapped together markers and swing them around like the buccaneer I was.
The teacher would yell at me, and she often did it so nicely, though there where the times when I ran the line too thin. Ms. King was her name. She was an absolute darling and had that same sparkle in her eyes that my mom had when I was younger. I loved having her and even more I loved the attention she gave me. Every time that she would talk to me would fill me with such an odd light, a floaty feeling like a ballon racing off to the atmosphere. I would be as free as any child could be free, even if the talking to was good or bad, and when I was bad, I would get the most attention from her, so I committed to the best balancing act of the century, a prodigious tight-rope walker, a savant of acrobatics.
But then came the day when everything changed once more. It was no unordinary day, the same one from the last. I was playing out on the street after school throwing a baseball as high as I could up into the air and then catching it. At some point, I found myself close to the old house at the end of the street. The one with the green panels with ivy growing over them. It didn’t scare me or anything, why would it scare me, there was nothing to be scared about. I was an absent-minded child in the sense that I didn’t pay attention to much around me so when he came out onto his porch and talked to me. It spooked me.
His name was, or at least what I grew to call him, was crazy, old man Jemisin. He had a white beard like my grandfather, nice and long and fluffy. He was all smiles, and I liked how the setting sun hit off the edges of his round glasses, like a perfect second hand to a captain or co-pilot to a pilot. A man with seasoned experience and sage expectations that would guide me on my adventurous escapades out in the woods and through my mind. I remember a lot of about crazy, old man Jemisin.
I remember what he would wear. The same thing every time. A cozy lumberjack flannel with rugged, dirt-stained jeans with a nice pair of well-worn boots to boot. He would often have a cigarette planted firm between his lips with a red lighter nearby and the rest of the box in his front pocket. Best of all, he would talk to me, and he listened. And I gave him a lot to listen to.
I told him about the stories inside my head. The dreams that I had at night. How I could be anything I wanted in the world, and he would nod and comment here or there. At first, it was just that, the comments and nodding.
After a few visits, he began supplementing his own stories which were just as fantastical as my own. He talked about his childhood he had and how he practically grew up in the woods and every second at the time was amazing. It was like I had found a third parent, one that could see the colors in the world again.
I began going over to his house every day after school as the weather got colder. He would lead me inside by gently grabbing my shoulder. He would light a fire in the hearth as he sat down in a rocking chair and lit a cigarette. We would begin the storytelling for the day. I would tell him about school and about Ms. King and how wonderfully compassionate she was. I would tell him about what I had for lunch and what I learned in class. Then I would move onto to the stories in my mind and then he would go on to share his own stories.
The cycle would repeat, on and on and on until the first snow came, then the second and third. At some point, the time that we would be around the fire was together. I don’t know when it happened but one of the days he lured me onto his lap. We would continue our storytelling sessions as he placed his hand on my shoulder or hugged me closer to his body. I can yet still vividly smell his sooty, warm breath pass over me.
Soon, the weather was warming again. The leaves and the trees began to show themselves as waves of life washed over the wilderness. I grew restless then, as I often did. I didn’t want to be inside his house anymore telling stories. I wanted to show him the stories and he was more that happy to tag along.
I took him to the woods, winding through the trails that meandered there way deep into nature’s garden. I would skip across rocks, hurdle fallen trunks, and chase after squirrels or birds as I brought him to the mammoth tree. I would lay in the mossy bed and bird watch for while as he stood off to the side with his head tilted, looking at me with acute interest. Later, I would take him to the boulder and climb atop it. He would watch from below with a big smile always reminding me to be careful so that I don’t slip and fall. At times, he would even join in on the adventures, swinging a stick with me or hurling rocks deep into the woods like grenades to flush out our enemies. Every day was like that, full of fun, momentous parties of grandeur and innocence until one day he showed me a story.
I remember each word from his lips like they were yesterday, “My Liam, I’ve something to show you. You have the great big oak and this boulder, but nature has so much more in store.”
“See I grew up nearby this town on the farmlands and pastures, and I found a place of wonder all on my own that I’ve never shared with anyone, so you can’t say a word, you got me…good. Let’s go.”
He led me deeper into the woods, deeper than I had ever gone, way past the trails to where there were no paths, just untrodden and uncharted woodland. Quite a bit later in the day, we reached it. A massive face of rock stretching each way into the distance for miles on end. It was magical, amazing even, yet deeply unsettling when my eyes fell upon it. A crack opening in the middle of the otherwise unperturbed cliffside, no sunlight settling into the space beyond.
That is when crazy, old man Jemisin spoke, “Go on, look, it won’t hurt you. I have looked many times before and I’m just fine.”
I was scared to look but over his constant encouragement I went. I slipped into the crack, and it was unexplainable, indescribable what I felt and saw. Darkness rising, a valley of shadow of death, and there were no verdant pastures for me or quite waters to lay my head to rest and listen too.
And I remember him whispering in my ears as he laid his hands on me, “You’re okay, nothing can hurt you here. Just look over there…into the Abyss.”
So, I did just that, I stared into the Abyss, and I could unmistakably feel it stare back.
….
“Liam, Liam.” Ms. King gently prodded, “Can you hear me Liam?”
I remember her soft voice and the concern that mingled with her words. I remember screaming and yelling and fighting when her hand touched me. I remember not being able to say anything. The only thing that would come out was the wails and the tears. Nothing could calm me down. I just wanted silence and peace more than anything. I wanted the sunlight to dance across my skin and ignite the dormant warmth within my heart. But everything was just so…….
Gray.
My grandfather would repeat this all the time like a holy safeguard, a lone buoy out in the ocean during a storm. He was a portly feller of cheerful countenance with large rosy cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes, all complemented by a well-groomed beard long gone white that would make Saint Nicholas envy.
He was the only one in my life who ever seemed to notice me, truly notice me. Not see me as something to be discarded or used, and then he passed. He left the world and me all alone. As I was young at the time when it happened, it left me confused. I remember going up to the open casket and seeing his mouth in an unusually firm line, eyelids closed. He looked peaceful, happy even, lying there with his hands folded over his stomach with a lilac gently resting in his chest pocket.
I remember afterwards not quiet understanding. I would pester my mom and dad about going over to grandpa’s and they would never answer me.
Mom used to answer me. She used to pay attention. And then she stopped. It was around the same time so I can only assume the loss of her father hit her harder than anyone. When I was younger, she would always coddle me, tuck me in at night, kiss my forehead, and sing me a comforting lullaby as my eyelids fluttered close. She would call my name after I got off the bus like the one lady who sings at church, it was mellifluous and full of life and intention. I would always race off the bus and wrap her leg with my body in the strongest grip little young Liam was capable of, and I wouldn’t let go until she promised to play cars or trains with me.
She’d take me home and do just that, kneeling to the floor with her hair tied loosely behind her head in a drooping ponytail. The sun would come through the windows just right then. It would glide along her fair cheeks and worm its way into her eyes so that everything was brighter and magical. Everything was perfect. It was just me and mom…until it wasn’t. The day that everything changed, where she didn’t greet me coming off the bus, where there was no leg to hug, and no one to play toys with. The sun would never again find its way to complement her just right. The colors were nowhere near as bright and I could just feel at the time that to her, there was nothing. It was just gray, as gray as the ashen skies during a wildfire.
In that way, I would say my childhood began to burn just like the raging fires consuming briars and bushes, being rushed along by the wind to find and scorch every spare bit of ground and scurrying rodent. That was the first wildfire, the lack of attention I soon found myself so unbearably surrounded with. It wasn’t filling. It was empty and yet all consuming. A lack of everything becoming such a profound tangible nothing that there was something.
I would spend my days roaming the neighborhood after school or in the summer, looking for anyone to play with. I tried all sorts of things, using my imagination in every which conceivable way. I would find a nice tall tree where ferns grew high, and the moss blanketed the leaf speckled floor. I would imagine the tree a tower like the ones in the city, super tall and with thousands of windows and it was my job to punch all the glass out. I would throw sticks and stones from the moment the sun came up to when it drifted beneath the horizon, washing the sky full of purple and night. If I got bored doing that, I’d find something else. A large boulder and make it the starboard of a ship. I would be the infallible captain guiding the crew as I pointed my cutlass out towards the open sea with the wind at my back. I could also be a pilot or a train conductor pushing the buttons, turning the dials, and yanking the chains. I could be anything that I wanted to be.
Looking back on it, it was a simpler time, but I managed through it all. As I got on in years, getting close to the haunting doom that awaited me of middle school and worse yet, no more recess. I began to play sports. I think what I wanted was just to be seen, but I wasn’t good enough. The coaches just kept my clumsy mess of limbs on the bench, and it wasn’t like my mom or dad or grandpa were showing up to the games anyways, seeing as my friends mom always took me. I had thought at the time that if I wished hard enough, they would show up, but mom just stayed in the rocking chair in the living room, looking at a far-off distance I could never see, past the walls of our house and then towards heaven I presume, where grandpa was.
And dad, he was always busy. I never saw much of him. He was always away on business trips to the big city, in the office, or glued to the computer screen at home talking to people I couldn’t see and frankly for that matter couldn’t understand. The voices were always monotonous and tired sounding repeating big words back to each other like sweet nothings, promises promised to be broken or hurriedly shoved off to the side. Then there were the moments he was away from the screen. He would sprawl out on the couch, taking all three cushions. He’d yell for a beer, and I was the only one that ever heard the call, so I’d make the journey to the fridge and open the fresh six pack.
I would grab him one and they were always so cold that it would freeze my hands by the time I got him the drink. He would yank them from my hands and pop off the can clip and take a deep sip as he reached for the remote. He would always just watch what was on and on the days that he was off that happened to be either be baseball or football or basketball or some other random sport.
When I was playing the sports, I’d usually come to him during the time that he was watching and try to put a football into his hands or a baseball glove. He would always set them off to the side and kind of grumble about asking my mom to play with me. I wished he would play with me…but he never did.
So, I went outside to roam the neighborhood as I usually would and on one of those random days at the beginning of autumn when school had just started about a month ago, it happened. I saw a U-Haul outside a house up the street. One of the old houses that hadn’t been bought in a while. It had ivy crawling up the side of its green colored panels, weeds poking out from the foundations, and a bunch of who knows whats covered by a tarp on the front porch.
I hadn’t thought of any of it at the time, it never even occurred to me to give the fact that the parents were calling all their kids back inside a second thought. I would just wave goodbye to Jamie, Marty, the twins Daisy and Lillia, Daniel, and Vince. As they went inside, I remained and so I would retreat to my old habits of my over-active imagination. I would once more take on the mammoth tree in the woods or climb atop the boulder and let the mind take me where it wanted to for the day. The more I remained outside and the more the other neighborhood kids went inside the more that my mind retreated to the woods. I would imagine these grand adventures and stories when I was in and out of school. Sometimes they would consume me so fully that I would take up a ruler or a few snapped together markers and swing them around like the buccaneer I was.
The teacher would yell at me, and she often did it so nicely, though there where the times when I ran the line too thin. Ms. King was her name. She was an absolute darling and had that same sparkle in her eyes that my mom had when I was younger. I loved having her and even more I loved the attention she gave me. Every time that she would talk to me would fill me with such an odd light, a floaty feeling like a ballon racing off to the atmosphere. I would be as free as any child could be free, even if the talking to was good or bad, and when I was bad, I would get the most attention from her, so I committed to the best balancing act of the century, a prodigious tight-rope walker, a savant of acrobatics.
But then came the day when everything changed once more. It was no unordinary day, the same one from the last. I was playing out on the street after school throwing a baseball as high as I could up into the air and then catching it. At some point, I found myself close to the old house at the end of the street. The one with the green panels with ivy growing over them. It didn’t scare me or anything, why would it scare me, there was nothing to be scared about. I was an absent-minded child in the sense that I didn’t pay attention to much around me so when he came out onto his porch and talked to me. It spooked me.
His name was, or at least what I grew to call him, was crazy, old man Jemisin. He had a white beard like my grandfather, nice and long and fluffy. He was all smiles, and I liked how the setting sun hit off the edges of his round glasses, like a perfect second hand to a captain or co-pilot to a pilot. A man with seasoned experience and sage expectations that would guide me on my adventurous escapades out in the woods and through my mind. I remember a lot of about crazy, old man Jemisin.
I remember what he would wear. The same thing every time. A cozy lumberjack flannel with rugged, dirt-stained jeans with a nice pair of well-worn boots to boot. He would often have a cigarette planted firm between his lips with a red lighter nearby and the rest of the box in his front pocket. Best of all, he would talk to me, and he listened. And I gave him a lot to listen to.
I told him about the stories inside my head. The dreams that I had at night. How I could be anything I wanted in the world, and he would nod and comment here or there. At first, it was just that, the comments and nodding.
After a few visits, he began supplementing his own stories which were just as fantastical as my own. He talked about his childhood he had and how he practically grew up in the woods and every second at the time was amazing. It was like I had found a third parent, one that could see the colors in the world again.
I began going over to his house every day after school as the weather got colder. He would lead me inside by gently grabbing my shoulder. He would light a fire in the hearth as he sat down in a rocking chair and lit a cigarette. We would begin the storytelling for the day. I would tell him about school and about Ms. King and how wonderfully compassionate she was. I would tell him about what I had for lunch and what I learned in class. Then I would move onto to the stories in my mind and then he would go on to share his own stories.
The cycle would repeat, on and on and on until the first snow came, then the second and third. At some point, the time that we would be around the fire was together. I don’t know when it happened but one of the days he lured me onto his lap. We would continue our storytelling sessions as he placed his hand on my shoulder or hugged me closer to his body. I can yet still vividly smell his sooty, warm breath pass over me.
Soon, the weather was warming again. The leaves and the trees began to show themselves as waves of life washed over the wilderness. I grew restless then, as I often did. I didn’t want to be inside his house anymore telling stories. I wanted to show him the stories and he was more that happy to tag along.
I took him to the woods, winding through the trails that meandered there way deep into nature’s garden. I would skip across rocks, hurdle fallen trunks, and chase after squirrels or birds as I brought him to the mammoth tree. I would lay in the mossy bed and bird watch for while as he stood off to the side with his head tilted, looking at me with acute interest. Later, I would take him to the boulder and climb atop it. He would watch from below with a big smile always reminding me to be careful so that I don’t slip and fall. At times, he would even join in on the adventures, swinging a stick with me or hurling rocks deep into the woods like grenades to flush out our enemies. Every day was like that, full of fun, momentous parties of grandeur and innocence until one day he showed me a story.
I remember each word from his lips like they were yesterday, “My Liam, I’ve something to show you. You have the great big oak and this boulder, but nature has so much more in store.”
“See I grew up nearby this town on the farmlands and pastures, and I found a place of wonder all on my own that I’ve never shared with anyone, so you can’t say a word, you got me…good. Let’s go.”
He led me deeper into the woods, deeper than I had ever gone, way past the trails to where there were no paths, just untrodden and uncharted woodland. Quite a bit later in the day, we reached it. A massive face of rock stretching each way into the distance for miles on end. It was magical, amazing even, yet deeply unsettling when my eyes fell upon it. A crack opening in the middle of the otherwise unperturbed cliffside, no sunlight settling into the space beyond.
That is when crazy, old man Jemisin spoke, “Go on, look, it won’t hurt you. I have looked many times before and I’m just fine.”
I was scared to look but over his constant encouragement I went. I slipped into the crack, and it was unexplainable, indescribable what I felt and saw. Darkness rising, a valley of shadow of death, and there were no verdant pastures for me or quite waters to lay my head to rest and listen too.
And I remember him whispering in my ears as he laid his hands on me, “You’re okay, nothing can hurt you here. Just look over there…into the Abyss.”
So, I did just that, I stared into the Abyss, and I could unmistakably feel it stare back.
….
“Liam, Liam.” Ms. King gently prodded, “Can you hear me Liam?”
I remember her soft voice and the concern that mingled with her words. I remember screaming and yelling and fighting when her hand touched me. I remember not being able to say anything. The only thing that would come out was the wails and the tears. Nothing could calm me down. I just wanted silence and peace more than anything. I wanted the sunlight to dance across my skin and ignite the dormant warmth within my heart. But everything was just so…….
Gray.
Nicholas Clawson grew up in the small rural town North Apollo and graduated from the local high school. Throughout that time, he decided to pursue higher education as a Secondary English Education major to spread his love of reading and writing.
Forget Me Not
Shane L. Houston
Slippery Rock University
Slippery Rock University
Every lawn in the cul-de-sac was perfectly manicured. Each blade of grass had a designation. Every rock in the driveways had numbers. Every square inch was as beautiful as can be. Th calendar in the kitchen was ripped six times. Finally, Summer arrives. The smell of freshly cut grass was lingering in the air. On every corner sat a lemonade stand asking for a nickel for a glass of the freshly-squeezed concoction. The people were more friendly now. Waving at everyone as they drive with their convertible roofs open to the tepid air.
Near every garage was a new dug hole in the ground where the boys look for nightcrawlers to go fishing with. They would always go to the same watering hole and there were usual scuffles about who got to what portion of the place before someone else. Fights occurred. Usually verbal but sometimes the bigger you were, the more mean you could be.
The schoolyard full of children on what would be their last day of education before the bell rings and lets the masses out to go to their favorite spots in the summer months.
The weight of the backpacks was immense as the children try to fit everything from the school year into their respective knapsacks. Kids started down the sidewalks. Turning every so often to go off into their neighborhoods.The local diner was a place of sanctuary and saccharine pleasures. A soda would cost you a shiny dime and a milkshake was a nickel more. Kids felt like kings and queens when all they had on them was a Lincoln. The folded cash sitting in their wallets and purses just waiting to be spent on the food and drink at this special location.
Two kids sharing a chocolate milkshake - using two straws. They drink it up like it is the last amount of sugar they will ever consume. They fight over who gets the cherry. The whipped cream is on the table making a sticky mess. There's another kid over in the corner by the jukebox. He puts in a quarter. That means three songs. He pushes the sequence of numbers into the machine. It starts to play some Buddy Holly. Things that the kid always felt he understood even though he was still at an age that more often than not you were afraid of catching "cooties" or even worse..."feelings". The kid orders a burger and some fries. He sings along to the music that is surrounding everyone in the diner. He eats slowly and takes tiny bites out of his burger, dips his fries in the ketchup, and takes a sip of his milkshake. Some of his classmates always said to try the fries in the milkshake. They swear that it provides a flavor combination unlike anything he's ever had or will try in the Summer. He is curious about it but doesn't want to spoil his fries by dipping them into the chocolate confection. He is alone at the table. Nobody really liked sitting with him. They said that he looked funny and sometimes smelled as weird as he looked. There are some things that kids can forgive but if you look funny, you might as well just give up. It'd be simple if it was something cosmetic like a pair of glasses or an expander that causes a speech impediment but no...it was the way he smelled and the way that his clothes looked. Two things he felt were totally out of his control. He wanted to make friends more than anything and this Summer, he was about to make two of the best friends he will ever know.
There was a moment where the lights flickered on and off in quick sections of momentary pulsation. It did not seem to bother the jukebox though and the last portion of the last Buddy Holly song was playing. The boy finishes his burger and takes one lasting and long sip of his milkshake. He was impressed. For a $1 - he got to eat and enjoy some music that he has not heard since the beginning of March. Three long months ago. It seemed like yesterday. Now he has three months of freedom to do whatever he wants and whenever he wants to do things.
He stretches as he throws away the remnants of his meal and his milkshake glass goes on top of the trash can. He checks his pocket for his wallet. The wallet was a deep mahogany brown and had the initials "C.M." It was his grandfather's wallet and then his father's and now it made its way to his hands. He was very grateful for it because it was one of the last things he remembers about his father was that he always took care of his belongings. The wallet was over fifty years old and it still looked and smelled like some freshly-bought piece of leather that was modified into the perfect device for carrying his ID, his money, and his scraps of poetry that he enjoyed writing when the moment strikes him. He was not the best poet but he enjoyed the look on people's faces as he read pieces out loud. They were his thoughts that he wanted to say but sometimes was too shy to admit. Some of them were to young ladies in his grade. He wrote about the way their hair looked as it gleamed in the sunlight or how straight and how perfect their teeth were. He was very enamored with one young woman in particular. She did not seem to notice him though. It was something not short of a tragedy. He put a lot of effort into making this girl notice him and he was certain that the only thing she ever put together about him is that he wore the thickest glasses in the entire third grade and he looked like a young grandfather because he wore hand-me-downs from his father and his father's father.
He always seemed like he had something that the bullies wanted to pick on him about.
He was either too bookish, too quiet, or too nostalgic for their liking and so he was an easy target. He never understood why he was the one that they chose for their daily torture but they did find him to be easier to pick on than anyone else in the entire school. He looked funny and as previously mentioned he tended to have a smell of seafood that permeated through his clothes. He could not help this scenario. He tried to hide his embarrassed face from the young woman who he had the crush on but she always saw him. The string-bean like limbs of the boy flailed every which direction when he was picked up and turned over. He was tall and lean like his grandfather before him. There was a portion of his life where he wishes he could have learned more from his father about self-defense but unfortunately he lost his father at a younger time in his life. He greatly missed him. He knew that he was going to be raised by the formerly mentioned grandparents but he was not ready to be picked on every single day of third grade. He wanted a change. He wanted friends. He was not exactly sure on how to make new friends. Since everyone saw him as the geek or the nerd in class. He might have to look at the older kids for some sympathy or the younger kids that he could potentially be a role model for. The only problem was that the older kids did not see the kids in his grade except for at recess. Also known as a time in the day that the bigger kids were looking for the smaller kids to abuse and torture. He was afraid that he was never going to make any new friends but God provides and He has a sense of humor. The young boy runs home after eating, drinking, and listening to his favorite Buddy Holly songs. As he makes it into the driveway, he notices a moving van pull into his neighbor's lot. There were two children in the cab of the truck with no adult in sight. He walks over and introduces himself. "Hello there, my name is Charles." he says with a beaming smile. The two kids get out of the truck and introductions are scattered around. "My name is Crispin and this is my sister Rosemary." the boy says with a confident smile at the end of the sentence. "We just moved here from near the State line." he says. They go to the back of the truck and open the tailgate. "Gosh, you have so much stuff to move.." Charles says.
There would be plenty of time to get acquainted so Charles goes back to his house.
His grandparents are in their favorite chairs. They ask him how school ended. He just pretends not to hear them and rushes up the stairs to his bedroom. He has plenty of questions for the new neighbors. They looked close to his age. Maybe they are potential friends. Maybe they will be the friends he has been looking for his whole life. Maybes and Ifs flood through his mind. He has no homework for the first time in six months. Summer Vacation has officially begun.
He walks over to the neighbors and knocked on the door. I wasn't expecting an answer.
Crispin came to the door and asked "What are we going to do today, Charles?"
Charles, being overwhelmed that somebody actually wants to hang out with him, starts to stammer out an answer. "Let's go fishing. I know the best spot." He finally musters to spit out.
Crispin yells "Rosemary, we're going fishing!"
She shows up behind Crispin and asks, "Can I come along? I'm pretty decent at fishing." Crispin nods and they get their boots on as they stand in the doorway.
He asks, "Shouldn't you leave a note with your parents to let them know where you are?"
Crispin says, "Our parents just want us home before dark."
He smiles knowing that he has two new friends. He did it. He made some friends. He was all smiles as they walked through the woods and down the path that leads to the best fishing spot in the entire area. Crispin says, "We should build a fort here."
Charles nods and says, "That sounds like an excellent idea, Crispin."
The boys start to square off a little bit of land and they start bringing over tree branches to make the walls of the fort. Rosemary just sits there and whistles a fun little tune as she watches the young men lift and carry all of the materials necessary for a decent fort in the woods. She laughs when Charles comes over with armfuls of tree branches because he obviously wasn't the strongest young man. She just lets out a little giggle and Charles wonders what she is laughing at. Crispin tells her "Quiet, Rosemary. Help us make the fort."
Rosemary stands up and says "I don't think a woman should have to do anything that she doesn't want to."
Crispin laughs and asks "Who made you Queen of England?"
Rosemary just stares at him and hopes he understands what is going on. She doesn't think the fort will be a good idea. Yet she gets down off of her high place and starts to help collect some branches for the walls of the fort. The fort is nearing completion. Crispin says, "Now that we have a fort, we can go fishing."
Charles takes them down a separate path and they come out to a clearing that has a decent sized pond at the end of it. "The best fishing spot in the whole state." Charles says with a confident air about his words. Crispin takes one of the fishing poles, puts a nightcrawler at the end of the hook and throws the whole combination into the pond. Within five minutes, he gets a first bite. Minutes turn to hours and hours go by so quickly. The sun begins to set. Crispin looks at Rosemary and says "We better head home now." She nods and they pack up all their materials and head for the cul-de-sac. Charles tells them that he knows a shortcut. Crispin and Rosemary walk into their house and go to close the door. Before doing so, Crispin puts his head outside the door and says "You better prepare for a Summer of fun, Charles."
Charles smiles and says "Thanks for being my friend."
Crispin says, "You're welcome," and closes the door.
Charles walks back to his house. He opens he door. His grandmother asks him "Where have you been all day?"
Charles says, "I made a fort in the woods and went fishing with my new friends."
His grandmother gives him a big embrace and says, "It's about time you made some friends."
Charles eats his dinner and then runs up to his room where he thinks about what is going to happen this Summer. He thinks to himself about how great it is that he has two new friends. The next day, he walks over to Crispin and Rosemary's house. The lights are all off, but he wants to see if they are up to hanging out again today.
He walks up and knocks on the door. A flurry of footsteps is heard. Crispin answers the door. "Hello there Charles. We are ready to hang out today." Crispin adds with a smile.
Summer has gone by so fast. The minutes turn to hours and the hours turned to days. Charles, Crispin, and Rosemary hung out every day. They have become best friends. They played in the fort, they went fishing. Some people say that you can hear things in the wind. Some people say that you can hear the whispers of your closest friends. Some say you can hear the music from your favorite records. For Charles, it's Buddy Holly.
Near every garage was a new dug hole in the ground where the boys look for nightcrawlers to go fishing with. They would always go to the same watering hole and there were usual scuffles about who got to what portion of the place before someone else. Fights occurred. Usually verbal but sometimes the bigger you were, the more mean you could be.
The schoolyard full of children on what would be their last day of education before the bell rings and lets the masses out to go to their favorite spots in the summer months.
The weight of the backpacks was immense as the children try to fit everything from the school year into their respective knapsacks. Kids started down the sidewalks. Turning every so often to go off into their neighborhoods.The local diner was a place of sanctuary and saccharine pleasures. A soda would cost you a shiny dime and a milkshake was a nickel more. Kids felt like kings and queens when all they had on them was a Lincoln. The folded cash sitting in their wallets and purses just waiting to be spent on the food and drink at this special location.
Two kids sharing a chocolate milkshake - using two straws. They drink it up like it is the last amount of sugar they will ever consume. They fight over who gets the cherry. The whipped cream is on the table making a sticky mess. There's another kid over in the corner by the jukebox. He puts in a quarter. That means three songs. He pushes the sequence of numbers into the machine. It starts to play some Buddy Holly. Things that the kid always felt he understood even though he was still at an age that more often than not you were afraid of catching "cooties" or even worse..."feelings". The kid orders a burger and some fries. He sings along to the music that is surrounding everyone in the diner. He eats slowly and takes tiny bites out of his burger, dips his fries in the ketchup, and takes a sip of his milkshake. Some of his classmates always said to try the fries in the milkshake. They swear that it provides a flavor combination unlike anything he's ever had or will try in the Summer. He is curious about it but doesn't want to spoil his fries by dipping them into the chocolate confection. He is alone at the table. Nobody really liked sitting with him. They said that he looked funny and sometimes smelled as weird as he looked. There are some things that kids can forgive but if you look funny, you might as well just give up. It'd be simple if it was something cosmetic like a pair of glasses or an expander that causes a speech impediment but no...it was the way he smelled and the way that his clothes looked. Two things he felt were totally out of his control. He wanted to make friends more than anything and this Summer, he was about to make two of the best friends he will ever know.
There was a moment where the lights flickered on and off in quick sections of momentary pulsation. It did not seem to bother the jukebox though and the last portion of the last Buddy Holly song was playing. The boy finishes his burger and takes one lasting and long sip of his milkshake. He was impressed. For a $1 - he got to eat and enjoy some music that he has not heard since the beginning of March. Three long months ago. It seemed like yesterday. Now he has three months of freedom to do whatever he wants and whenever he wants to do things.
He stretches as he throws away the remnants of his meal and his milkshake glass goes on top of the trash can. He checks his pocket for his wallet. The wallet was a deep mahogany brown and had the initials "C.M." It was his grandfather's wallet and then his father's and now it made its way to his hands. He was very grateful for it because it was one of the last things he remembers about his father was that he always took care of his belongings. The wallet was over fifty years old and it still looked and smelled like some freshly-bought piece of leather that was modified into the perfect device for carrying his ID, his money, and his scraps of poetry that he enjoyed writing when the moment strikes him. He was not the best poet but he enjoyed the look on people's faces as he read pieces out loud. They were his thoughts that he wanted to say but sometimes was too shy to admit. Some of them were to young ladies in his grade. He wrote about the way their hair looked as it gleamed in the sunlight or how straight and how perfect their teeth were. He was very enamored with one young woman in particular. She did not seem to notice him though. It was something not short of a tragedy. He put a lot of effort into making this girl notice him and he was certain that the only thing she ever put together about him is that he wore the thickest glasses in the entire third grade and he looked like a young grandfather because he wore hand-me-downs from his father and his father's father.
He always seemed like he had something that the bullies wanted to pick on him about.
He was either too bookish, too quiet, or too nostalgic for their liking and so he was an easy target. He never understood why he was the one that they chose for their daily torture but they did find him to be easier to pick on than anyone else in the entire school. He looked funny and as previously mentioned he tended to have a smell of seafood that permeated through his clothes. He could not help this scenario. He tried to hide his embarrassed face from the young woman who he had the crush on but she always saw him. The string-bean like limbs of the boy flailed every which direction when he was picked up and turned over. He was tall and lean like his grandfather before him. There was a portion of his life where he wishes he could have learned more from his father about self-defense but unfortunately he lost his father at a younger time in his life. He greatly missed him. He knew that he was going to be raised by the formerly mentioned grandparents but he was not ready to be picked on every single day of third grade. He wanted a change. He wanted friends. He was not exactly sure on how to make new friends. Since everyone saw him as the geek or the nerd in class. He might have to look at the older kids for some sympathy or the younger kids that he could potentially be a role model for. The only problem was that the older kids did not see the kids in his grade except for at recess. Also known as a time in the day that the bigger kids were looking for the smaller kids to abuse and torture. He was afraid that he was never going to make any new friends but God provides and He has a sense of humor. The young boy runs home after eating, drinking, and listening to his favorite Buddy Holly songs. As he makes it into the driveway, he notices a moving van pull into his neighbor's lot. There were two children in the cab of the truck with no adult in sight. He walks over and introduces himself. "Hello there, my name is Charles." he says with a beaming smile. The two kids get out of the truck and introductions are scattered around. "My name is Crispin and this is my sister Rosemary." the boy says with a confident smile at the end of the sentence. "We just moved here from near the State line." he says. They go to the back of the truck and open the tailgate. "Gosh, you have so much stuff to move.." Charles says.
There would be plenty of time to get acquainted so Charles goes back to his house.
His grandparents are in their favorite chairs. They ask him how school ended. He just pretends not to hear them and rushes up the stairs to his bedroom. He has plenty of questions for the new neighbors. They looked close to his age. Maybe they are potential friends. Maybe they will be the friends he has been looking for his whole life. Maybes and Ifs flood through his mind. He has no homework for the first time in six months. Summer Vacation has officially begun.
He walks over to the neighbors and knocked on the door. I wasn't expecting an answer.
Crispin came to the door and asked "What are we going to do today, Charles?"
Charles, being overwhelmed that somebody actually wants to hang out with him, starts to stammer out an answer. "Let's go fishing. I know the best spot." He finally musters to spit out.
Crispin yells "Rosemary, we're going fishing!"
She shows up behind Crispin and asks, "Can I come along? I'm pretty decent at fishing." Crispin nods and they get their boots on as they stand in the doorway.
He asks, "Shouldn't you leave a note with your parents to let them know where you are?"
Crispin says, "Our parents just want us home before dark."
He smiles knowing that he has two new friends. He did it. He made some friends. He was all smiles as they walked through the woods and down the path that leads to the best fishing spot in the entire area. Crispin says, "We should build a fort here."
Charles nods and says, "That sounds like an excellent idea, Crispin."
The boys start to square off a little bit of land and they start bringing over tree branches to make the walls of the fort. Rosemary just sits there and whistles a fun little tune as she watches the young men lift and carry all of the materials necessary for a decent fort in the woods. She laughs when Charles comes over with armfuls of tree branches because he obviously wasn't the strongest young man. She just lets out a little giggle and Charles wonders what she is laughing at. Crispin tells her "Quiet, Rosemary. Help us make the fort."
Rosemary stands up and says "I don't think a woman should have to do anything that she doesn't want to."
Crispin laughs and asks "Who made you Queen of England?"
Rosemary just stares at him and hopes he understands what is going on. She doesn't think the fort will be a good idea. Yet she gets down off of her high place and starts to help collect some branches for the walls of the fort. The fort is nearing completion. Crispin says, "Now that we have a fort, we can go fishing."
Charles takes them down a separate path and they come out to a clearing that has a decent sized pond at the end of it. "The best fishing spot in the whole state." Charles says with a confident air about his words. Crispin takes one of the fishing poles, puts a nightcrawler at the end of the hook and throws the whole combination into the pond. Within five minutes, he gets a first bite. Minutes turn to hours and hours go by so quickly. The sun begins to set. Crispin looks at Rosemary and says "We better head home now." She nods and they pack up all their materials and head for the cul-de-sac. Charles tells them that he knows a shortcut. Crispin and Rosemary walk into their house and go to close the door. Before doing so, Crispin puts his head outside the door and says "You better prepare for a Summer of fun, Charles."
Charles smiles and says "Thanks for being my friend."
Crispin says, "You're welcome," and closes the door.
Charles walks back to his house. He opens he door. His grandmother asks him "Where have you been all day?"
Charles says, "I made a fort in the woods and went fishing with my new friends."
His grandmother gives him a big embrace and says, "It's about time you made some friends."
Charles eats his dinner and then runs up to his room where he thinks about what is going to happen this Summer. He thinks to himself about how great it is that he has two new friends. The next day, he walks over to Crispin and Rosemary's house. The lights are all off, but he wants to see if they are up to hanging out again today.
He walks up and knocks on the door. A flurry of footsteps is heard. Crispin answers the door. "Hello there Charles. We are ready to hang out today." Crispin adds with a smile.
Summer has gone by so fast. The minutes turn to hours and the hours turned to days. Charles, Crispin, and Rosemary hung out every day. They have become best friends. They played in the fort, they went fishing. Some people say that you can hear things in the wind. Some people say that you can hear the whispers of your closest friends. Some say you can hear the music from your favorite records. For Charles, it's Buddy Holly.
Shane L. Houston is a Christian Poet/Writer/Childhood cancer survivor who goes on lengthy walks in the autumn air and watches British television programs. He absolutely loves thunderstorms and feels at his most creative during them. He loves Earl Grey tea, The Beat Generation, poetry readings, and is working on his first novel.
This Is As Far As You'll Go
Aidan Waybright
PennWest University--Edinboro
PennWest University--Edinboro
The omniscient, powerful, and hateful voice boomed from above. Each part of the seven-word sentence was split with a pause, to reiterate its finality. One split after “this”, another after “far”, before ending at “go.” It rang clear in everyone’s mind. When my coworkers and I heard it, the first thing we did was ask the room who said it. No one knew, but everyone was just as curious. We didn’t find the answer until we gave up. We turned back to our computers, and our screens now flashed with a variety of notifications. They all had the same headline: GODLIKE VOICE RINGS IN HEADS OF BILLIONS WORLDWIDE.
In none of the recordings was the voice present, but in all of them you could tell when people heard it. Even people in other parts of the world heard the voice translated to their primary language. And deaf people, for the first time in their lives, heard a human voice.
For three weeks, even the most scientific of news sources devolved into ravenous ravings. But when your job is to report on what’s going on, and what’s going on doesn’t make sense, I suppose it’s hard not to. Thank God it was only that. The incident-now called the “Unknown Narration Phenomenon (UNP)” left public conscious once everyone realized the world hadn’t ended yet.
I’m glad my son Adam got to experience it. He’s eight, and has been battling cancer his entire life. He’s been rushed in and out of hospital rooms so often I’m thinking about just making one his room. He always smiled about it though. For the longest time I thought he was simply optimistic. Then one day I brought it up to my husband Devin during one of his surgeries.
He turned his exhausted eyes to me and said, “Or he just doesn’t know he could die in one of those rooms.”
Thank God Adam has two parents who loved him so much they became cancer researchers. It also helped we both met while attending college over a passion for explaining the unexplained. I was a college professor prior to Adam’s diagnosis. Devin was a doctor, which gave me the financial freedom to work how I wanted to. Now both of us work for Adam, and I wouldn’t want to work for anyone else.
Now keep this between us: our efforts are about to pay off.
For the past thirty-seven years we’ve been genetically modifying amoebae to eat and live off cancer cells. Getting the “eating” part was surprisingly easy--long, but easy. It was getting them to eat only cancer cells which was the problem. Amoebae are picky bastards and would much prefer the vital cells surrounding the cancer cells. But after a bit of selective breeding, we’ve convinced the amoebae to restrict their pallets. In a way, we’re doing them a favor. It’s a lot easier to decide what’s for dinner if you can only eat one thing. By the end of the week, we plan to finally have developed enough amoebae to create the first cancer vaccine. Guess that’s the amoebae’s way of saying thanks.
At this very moment, I’m trying to find a way to fit all of this into a data report. Being a cancer researcher isn’t always the most exciting job, after all. My office is a mess. My fake plants drape over the bookshelves and over my desk. My desktop is nothing but a pool of papers, parted only in front of my laptop like Moses parting the red sea. It’s eight PM and I need to be home soon to help Adam get to bed. As much as I hate procrastinating, I’ll have to finish it tomorrow. I turn off the computer and head to my car.
Opening my phone, I realized I hadn’t looked at it for nearly four hours. I have a billion different notifications from a billion different news outlets. Combing through all of them, I notice they’re all linking to the same YouTube video.
If they’re all talking about it, then it must be important. The video starts out with a woman recording herself taking a walk--seemingly in the middle of a vlog. She then passes by a car factory, which she points the camera to while telling her viewers about it. She’s interrupted by the sound of bricks breaking, and a car rising out from the roof into the sky. The phone she’s recording this on starts shaking as she follows the rising car. People could be heard gasping and gathering around the woman while she tries her best to follow it. Eventually it becomes out of sight, and we’re left with the girl murmuring “what the fuck” to herself.
On the way home the radio would not shut up about it. Apparently, the video was posted around four PM and the car has yet to fall down. Police have put out a warning advising anyone living in the area to be wary about a falling car. People have tried pausing the video to see what kind of model it was, so far nobody has a clue.
“Mom! Look!” I’m welcomed home by Adam who immediately rushes over to me, phone in hand, to show me the flying car video. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve seen it, so I pretend like it’s my first time. I get him tucked in, then collapse on the couch next to Devin.
“Adam would not shut up about that car thing,” he turns the channel to some sitcom as soon as he’s sure Adam is upstairs. “He hasn’t been this fascinated by something since the UNP.”
“You say that as if you didn’t have an entire billboard dedicated to solving the Bermuda Triangle when you were nine,” I respond.
“Hey! There is definitely something going down in that triangle. This was probably just the result of some explosion.” I can tell he isn’t trying to make fun of Adam, just defending his own Bermuda obsession.
“I don’t know…the car’s been in the air for four hours now, and there’s no explosion which could do that without, you know, setting the whole place on fire.” Devin shrugs, I can tell he’s too tired to be having this debate right now.
The floating car video has a chokehold on workplace conversation next morning. It’s mainly just everyone repeating the same pieces of information I’ve already gathered. The only thing I haven’t heard yet was delivered to me during lunch. Apparently, some news outlets sent interviewers to the factory to ask some questions, and the factory turned all of them away.
At six PM, I found myself printing copies of the report I wrote yesterday. Normally I can’t stand the grating sound of the dammed machine, yet today I live for it. It’s just loud enough for nobody to hear me open the door to the room across the hall. There, on the desk, is an open briefcase containing a syringe filled with a dark blue liquid. The amoebae aren’t in it quite yet, the liquid is there for them to incubate in when we do. I’ve managed to convince them to make the liquid blue because of the calming effect the color has. I actually wanted it because it was Adam’s favorite color.
Devin suggested we go out for dinner tonight. Neither of us really felt like making anything. Adam’s doing the maze on the kids’ menu, while me and Devin are going about our day. Like clockwork, the car video inevitably rears its head. When it does, Devin’s eyebrows shoot up. I’ve been married to him long enough to know that means he has something to say.
“I was talking to one of my coworkers today,” despite us both working at the same facility, our floors rarely intersect. They’re practically two different buildings. “And he says he knows a friend of a friend who works at that factory.”
I lean in and Adam gasps, he has our interests. “Did they say what happened?” I ask.
“No, but he’s currently trying to press him for details.” With no explanation to keep him interested, Adam goes back to his maze. Devin takes a sip of his water before saying “I’ll keep you updated if he does.”
The following day it happens. I get a notification on my computer, and I can feel a glow rising from my feet to my face. I open the email, and I almost want to read it out loud like I’m giving an acceptance speech. I would, but it’s so long even the fake plants would be bored to death. The main point of it is the syringe is currently being filled with the bacteria, and tomorrow it’s going to go through it’s first round of testing!
I celebrate for longer than I should. I celebrate until there’s tears in my eyes, until my voice is exhausted, until my arms are tired from being thrown around everywhere. There’s a picture of Adam I keep in my desk drawer which I take out and hug until I hear the frame crack. I have to keep it in there, or I’ll just stare at it all day and get no work done.
I celebrate so hard I don’t hear the notification of Devin’s message until I take out my phone. Turns out his coworker’s friend of a friend pulled through.
Hey Pam, I got an update on the car video. No one in the factory knows what happened, but the reason they can’t say anything about it is because of the car itself. That car was a prototype for a new model they were working on. They’d created a new type of engine which could allow the car to reach speeds never before seen by a car of its size. For some reason, as soon as the prototype was put together it launched into the air on its own. So far, the most popular theory is that someone stole it, but who did and how is still up in the air (like the car lol).
I guess there’s the reason nobody could recognize the model: it wasn’t made public yet. A few seconds later I get another text from him. And I just got the email, happy to hear the vaccine is doing well.
Staying focused enough to get through the rest of the day is hard enough. The real challenge starts at home, looking at Adam. I can’t keep my eyes off him. He eventually asks me why I’m looking at him so much, and I hate myself for not being allowed to tell him. Tomorrow he’ll be just a little bit closer to receiving the best birthday gift he’s ever gotten—and it won’t even be on his birthday. The excitement keeping me from sleeping reminds me of my nights spent staying up for Christmas as a kid.
The next morning comes and it’s the only time I hadn’t needed coffee to convince me to get up. I skip breakfast, give Adam a goodbye, and head straight to work.
The first floor is filled with people rushing around, probably getting everything prepared. On the elevator up to my office, my coworker Cameron rides with me. I can’t contain myself any longer.
“I’m so excited for this testing!” I blurt out.
Cameron turns to me, face pail and eyes dry. “You didn’t hear, did you...It’s gone.”
“What?”
“It’s gone, the vaccine, someone stole it.”
“What do you mean someone stole it?” Although I don’t suspect Cameron in the slightest, my brain couldn’t abandon the intrusive thought of choking her to death right there.
“Come follow me, I’ll show you the security footage,” she says as the elevator opens.
I’m impressed she managed to keep up with me, as I’m going as fast as I can without disrupting the people around me. We finally get into her office and the footage is already up. The time shows it’s the middle of the night, with the vaccine attached to a giant machine funneling the amoebae into it. Funneling amoebae can be a long process, since it’s hard to tell when they’re inside. This machine does it pretty well, even if it takes a while and finishes at awkward times like this. Eventually a green light blinks on the machine, signaling the process is done. As soon as it is, the vaccine shoots upwards, breaking the machine and the ceiling with it.
“It just…shot up into the air,” I muttered. “Like the car from that video.”
“That’s what everyone’s been saying,” Cameron reassures me. “We’re almost certain the two events are connected.”
“Two unexplainable phenomena happening within a week of each other…” at this point I’m just thinking out loud. “I haven’t seen anything like this since the UNP a few years ago.”
“God, I still remember the uproar it caused that day…I don’t think we’ve ever figured out what it meant.” Cameron inserted the memories back into me, and now my brain is spinning with the trifecta of incidents. I can’t shake the feeling they’re connected, but how? A car disappears, a vaccine disappears, all preceded by a godlike voice telling us this is the furthest we’ll go. I guess both the car and the vaccine were going to be revolutionary, but that’s the only thing they have in commo—my brain blinks in the middle of that word.
“This is it.” I tell Cameron.
“What?” She asks.
“That’s what the voice meant, this is it, this is the furthest we’ll go,” I know she’s not going to understand anything I’m talking about, but it’s worth a try. “Both the car and the vaccine were taken because they were breakthroughs, whatever…entity…out there which sent that message also took them because they were advancements. Do you know what this means?” Cameron shakes her head, eyeing up the door to leave.
“Any problems we’re dealing with now we’re going to be dealing with until the end of time. We’re never gonna cure cancer, we’re never gonna cure Alzheimer’s, and my sweet baby is going to have to keep getting surgeries until he dies. This is it. Anything from science fiction is going to remain science fiction, and there’s no hope of the present getting better. This is it. Nothing to make life easier, no new medicines, no vaccines. Oh God This is it!” Before I knew I was shouting to an empty room. I storm out and barely contain myself until I get to my office. I know I’m already behind on my work today but really, what’s the point of it? It’s never going to go to anything meaningful ever again. I start to cry, to cry for Adam, to cry for the weak, to cry for humanity, and for the capability it’ll never get to see.
The next time I open my eyes I’m lying on the floor of my office. My phone screen is stamped with texts from Devin asking where I am and if I’m alright. I must’ve cried so hard I passed out. I lift the blinds to my window to see if it’s still day. It is, and I see the city. This’ll be exactly what it looks like in 2030, and 2040, and 2050. The only thing that’ll change is those four digits.
In none of the recordings was the voice present, but in all of them you could tell when people heard it. Even people in other parts of the world heard the voice translated to their primary language. And deaf people, for the first time in their lives, heard a human voice.
For three weeks, even the most scientific of news sources devolved into ravenous ravings. But when your job is to report on what’s going on, and what’s going on doesn’t make sense, I suppose it’s hard not to. Thank God it was only that. The incident-now called the “Unknown Narration Phenomenon (UNP)” left public conscious once everyone realized the world hadn’t ended yet.
I’m glad my son Adam got to experience it. He’s eight, and has been battling cancer his entire life. He’s been rushed in and out of hospital rooms so often I’m thinking about just making one his room. He always smiled about it though. For the longest time I thought he was simply optimistic. Then one day I brought it up to my husband Devin during one of his surgeries.
He turned his exhausted eyes to me and said, “Or he just doesn’t know he could die in one of those rooms.”
Thank God Adam has two parents who loved him so much they became cancer researchers. It also helped we both met while attending college over a passion for explaining the unexplained. I was a college professor prior to Adam’s diagnosis. Devin was a doctor, which gave me the financial freedom to work how I wanted to. Now both of us work for Adam, and I wouldn’t want to work for anyone else.
Now keep this between us: our efforts are about to pay off.
For the past thirty-seven years we’ve been genetically modifying amoebae to eat and live off cancer cells. Getting the “eating” part was surprisingly easy--long, but easy. It was getting them to eat only cancer cells which was the problem. Amoebae are picky bastards and would much prefer the vital cells surrounding the cancer cells. But after a bit of selective breeding, we’ve convinced the amoebae to restrict their pallets. In a way, we’re doing them a favor. It’s a lot easier to decide what’s for dinner if you can only eat one thing. By the end of the week, we plan to finally have developed enough amoebae to create the first cancer vaccine. Guess that’s the amoebae’s way of saying thanks.
At this very moment, I’m trying to find a way to fit all of this into a data report. Being a cancer researcher isn’t always the most exciting job, after all. My office is a mess. My fake plants drape over the bookshelves and over my desk. My desktop is nothing but a pool of papers, parted only in front of my laptop like Moses parting the red sea. It’s eight PM and I need to be home soon to help Adam get to bed. As much as I hate procrastinating, I’ll have to finish it tomorrow. I turn off the computer and head to my car.
Opening my phone, I realized I hadn’t looked at it for nearly four hours. I have a billion different notifications from a billion different news outlets. Combing through all of them, I notice they’re all linking to the same YouTube video.
If they’re all talking about it, then it must be important. The video starts out with a woman recording herself taking a walk--seemingly in the middle of a vlog. She then passes by a car factory, which she points the camera to while telling her viewers about it. She’s interrupted by the sound of bricks breaking, and a car rising out from the roof into the sky. The phone she’s recording this on starts shaking as she follows the rising car. People could be heard gasping and gathering around the woman while she tries her best to follow it. Eventually it becomes out of sight, and we’re left with the girl murmuring “what the fuck” to herself.
On the way home the radio would not shut up about it. Apparently, the video was posted around four PM and the car has yet to fall down. Police have put out a warning advising anyone living in the area to be wary about a falling car. People have tried pausing the video to see what kind of model it was, so far nobody has a clue.
“Mom! Look!” I’m welcomed home by Adam who immediately rushes over to me, phone in hand, to show me the flying car video. I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve seen it, so I pretend like it’s my first time. I get him tucked in, then collapse on the couch next to Devin.
“Adam would not shut up about that car thing,” he turns the channel to some sitcom as soon as he’s sure Adam is upstairs. “He hasn’t been this fascinated by something since the UNP.”
“You say that as if you didn’t have an entire billboard dedicated to solving the Bermuda Triangle when you were nine,” I respond.
“Hey! There is definitely something going down in that triangle. This was probably just the result of some explosion.” I can tell he isn’t trying to make fun of Adam, just defending his own Bermuda obsession.
“I don’t know…the car’s been in the air for four hours now, and there’s no explosion which could do that without, you know, setting the whole place on fire.” Devin shrugs, I can tell he’s too tired to be having this debate right now.
The floating car video has a chokehold on workplace conversation next morning. It’s mainly just everyone repeating the same pieces of information I’ve already gathered. The only thing I haven’t heard yet was delivered to me during lunch. Apparently, some news outlets sent interviewers to the factory to ask some questions, and the factory turned all of them away.
At six PM, I found myself printing copies of the report I wrote yesterday. Normally I can’t stand the grating sound of the dammed machine, yet today I live for it. It’s just loud enough for nobody to hear me open the door to the room across the hall. There, on the desk, is an open briefcase containing a syringe filled with a dark blue liquid. The amoebae aren’t in it quite yet, the liquid is there for them to incubate in when we do. I’ve managed to convince them to make the liquid blue because of the calming effect the color has. I actually wanted it because it was Adam’s favorite color.
Devin suggested we go out for dinner tonight. Neither of us really felt like making anything. Adam’s doing the maze on the kids’ menu, while me and Devin are going about our day. Like clockwork, the car video inevitably rears its head. When it does, Devin’s eyebrows shoot up. I’ve been married to him long enough to know that means he has something to say.
“I was talking to one of my coworkers today,” despite us both working at the same facility, our floors rarely intersect. They’re practically two different buildings. “And he says he knows a friend of a friend who works at that factory.”
I lean in and Adam gasps, he has our interests. “Did they say what happened?” I ask.
“No, but he’s currently trying to press him for details.” With no explanation to keep him interested, Adam goes back to his maze. Devin takes a sip of his water before saying “I’ll keep you updated if he does.”
The following day it happens. I get a notification on my computer, and I can feel a glow rising from my feet to my face. I open the email, and I almost want to read it out loud like I’m giving an acceptance speech. I would, but it’s so long even the fake plants would be bored to death. The main point of it is the syringe is currently being filled with the bacteria, and tomorrow it’s going to go through it’s first round of testing!
I celebrate for longer than I should. I celebrate until there’s tears in my eyes, until my voice is exhausted, until my arms are tired from being thrown around everywhere. There’s a picture of Adam I keep in my desk drawer which I take out and hug until I hear the frame crack. I have to keep it in there, or I’ll just stare at it all day and get no work done.
I celebrate so hard I don’t hear the notification of Devin’s message until I take out my phone. Turns out his coworker’s friend of a friend pulled through.
Hey Pam, I got an update on the car video. No one in the factory knows what happened, but the reason they can’t say anything about it is because of the car itself. That car was a prototype for a new model they were working on. They’d created a new type of engine which could allow the car to reach speeds never before seen by a car of its size. For some reason, as soon as the prototype was put together it launched into the air on its own. So far, the most popular theory is that someone stole it, but who did and how is still up in the air (like the car lol).
I guess there’s the reason nobody could recognize the model: it wasn’t made public yet. A few seconds later I get another text from him. And I just got the email, happy to hear the vaccine is doing well.
Staying focused enough to get through the rest of the day is hard enough. The real challenge starts at home, looking at Adam. I can’t keep my eyes off him. He eventually asks me why I’m looking at him so much, and I hate myself for not being allowed to tell him. Tomorrow he’ll be just a little bit closer to receiving the best birthday gift he’s ever gotten—and it won’t even be on his birthday. The excitement keeping me from sleeping reminds me of my nights spent staying up for Christmas as a kid.
The next morning comes and it’s the only time I hadn’t needed coffee to convince me to get up. I skip breakfast, give Adam a goodbye, and head straight to work.
The first floor is filled with people rushing around, probably getting everything prepared. On the elevator up to my office, my coworker Cameron rides with me. I can’t contain myself any longer.
“I’m so excited for this testing!” I blurt out.
Cameron turns to me, face pail and eyes dry. “You didn’t hear, did you...It’s gone.”
“What?”
“It’s gone, the vaccine, someone stole it.”
“What do you mean someone stole it?” Although I don’t suspect Cameron in the slightest, my brain couldn’t abandon the intrusive thought of choking her to death right there.
“Come follow me, I’ll show you the security footage,” she says as the elevator opens.
I’m impressed she managed to keep up with me, as I’m going as fast as I can without disrupting the people around me. We finally get into her office and the footage is already up. The time shows it’s the middle of the night, with the vaccine attached to a giant machine funneling the amoebae into it. Funneling amoebae can be a long process, since it’s hard to tell when they’re inside. This machine does it pretty well, even if it takes a while and finishes at awkward times like this. Eventually a green light blinks on the machine, signaling the process is done. As soon as it is, the vaccine shoots upwards, breaking the machine and the ceiling with it.
“It just…shot up into the air,” I muttered. “Like the car from that video.”
“That’s what everyone’s been saying,” Cameron reassures me. “We’re almost certain the two events are connected.”
“Two unexplainable phenomena happening within a week of each other…” at this point I’m just thinking out loud. “I haven’t seen anything like this since the UNP a few years ago.”
“God, I still remember the uproar it caused that day…I don’t think we’ve ever figured out what it meant.” Cameron inserted the memories back into me, and now my brain is spinning with the trifecta of incidents. I can’t shake the feeling they’re connected, but how? A car disappears, a vaccine disappears, all preceded by a godlike voice telling us this is the furthest we’ll go. I guess both the car and the vaccine were going to be revolutionary, but that’s the only thing they have in commo—my brain blinks in the middle of that word.
“This is it.” I tell Cameron.
“What?” She asks.
“That’s what the voice meant, this is it, this is the furthest we’ll go,” I know she’s not going to understand anything I’m talking about, but it’s worth a try. “Both the car and the vaccine were taken because they were breakthroughs, whatever…entity…out there which sent that message also took them because they were advancements. Do you know what this means?” Cameron shakes her head, eyeing up the door to leave.
“Any problems we’re dealing with now we’re going to be dealing with until the end of time. We’re never gonna cure cancer, we’re never gonna cure Alzheimer’s, and my sweet baby is going to have to keep getting surgeries until he dies. This is it. Anything from science fiction is going to remain science fiction, and there’s no hope of the present getting better. This is it. Nothing to make life easier, no new medicines, no vaccines. Oh God This is it!” Before I knew I was shouting to an empty room. I storm out and barely contain myself until I get to my office. I know I’m already behind on my work today but really, what’s the point of it? It’s never going to go to anything meaningful ever again. I start to cry, to cry for Adam, to cry for the weak, to cry for humanity, and for the capability it’ll never get to see.
The next time I open my eyes I’m lying on the floor of my office. My phone screen is stamped with texts from Devin asking where I am and if I’m alright. I must’ve cried so hard I passed out. I lift the blinds to my window to see if it’s still day. It is, and I see the city. This’ll be exactly what it looks like in 2030, and 2040, and 2050. The only thing that’ll change is those four digits.
Aidan Waybright is an English major who grew up in Allegheny County and graduated from Deer Lakes High School in 2022. He currently lives at home with his parent and his brothers, Graham and Garrett. His favorite genre to write is horror.
To Wonder is To Wander
Jane Windsheimer
Carlow University
Carlow University
I wish I could say I woke up, but you have to be asleep in order to wake up and I don’t think my eyes have come close to closing yet. I rolled over just as the clock expired making it,
12:06 AM
At least today is now yesterday. The fun thing about time is that it never works with you. As glad as I am to have today be yesterday that means tomorrow is now today, and that’s just as disturbing.
Laying here isn't going to make anything more bearable, but I don’t have the energy to do much else. If I keep this up tomorrow/today will become yesterday, not that that really helps anything. I’ll still be laying here trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle I have no key for. Theoretically I don’t even know if I have all the pieces.
I can’t believe I’m still laying here. I was exhausted two hours ago and here we are. Here I am.
I never thought I’d be bothered by laying here alone. But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have someone else. Sometimes I wonder.
The thought of sleeping with someone is gross... Not gross, weird? Uncomfortable. Not my cup of tea. It’s the relationship I'd want. Someone to support, be creative with. Someone who could communicate on my level. Someone to...
Share.
Share memories, ideas, time, feelings, random things I wouldn’t know about because I’ve never experienced it. I’ve never thought about this before. It sounds so nice. I’m always stuck thinking about things and never actually getting them.
This isn’t quite where I imagined I’d be right now. I was so wrong to think things would get easier as life progressed. Some of the challenges go away, but then they’re replaced by new ones that I never thought about.
There’s still so much more for me to do. There has to be time for it all, doesn’t there? If there’s time for me to lay here and think about it then there must be. But there’s almost too much, too many choices. Maybe I’m stupid to be laying here. Do successful people sleep? I guess I’m not sleeping so does that mean I’m successful? I sure don’t feel successful
12:58 AM
It’s not working. Work. I came across this cool job the other day, but they’ve already closed the application.
I didn’t know I was looking for a job.
There’s so much potential in that. Finding something and going for it. Opportunity is everything. Except I hate spontaneity and that’s what I need to take advantage of opportunities. I could never see myself just sending in my resume. I need more time. Time. Time to lay here and think about it so I can make it into something it’s not.
My resume, I should look at that. Did I put the conference on there? How would I even describe that nicely on a resume...was I an attendee, participant? Resumes should be easy. I just talk about myself. I went to the conference so I should know how to describe it. I also went to high school but I wouldn’t know how to describe that. I wonder what all those kids are up to. Was “the most likely to succeed” successful? Why do we expect to have those things determined by high school? How did we even define success? Do we base it on the amount of sleep they get? Money probably. In that case I’m towards the bottom of the totem pole.
Maybe I’ll marry wealthy. Then I can pay someone to update my resume. Maybe I wouldn’t even need a resume. Wow, the self pity is real. Palpable. Self pity is something I could never really get rid of. A boomerang I could throw out the window and still have returned to me by morning. But it is morning. See how quickly it came back?
1:32AM
If I fall asleep now I could still get a few hours of sleep before I have to wake up. I hope I don’t forget to make my lunch. I should get up a little early so I have time to do that. And I should pack more, or some snacks at least. Being hungry at work is one of the worst feelings. Next to last, just under not being able to fall asleep because your mind is wide awake.
12:06 AM
At least today is now yesterday. The fun thing about time is that it never works with you. As glad as I am to have today be yesterday that means tomorrow is now today, and that’s just as disturbing.
Laying here isn't going to make anything more bearable, but I don’t have the energy to do much else. If I keep this up tomorrow/today will become yesterday, not that that really helps anything. I’ll still be laying here trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle I have no key for. Theoretically I don’t even know if I have all the pieces.
I can’t believe I’m still laying here. I was exhausted two hours ago and here we are. Here I am.
I never thought I’d be bothered by laying here alone. But sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have someone else. Sometimes I wonder.
The thought of sleeping with someone is gross... Not gross, weird? Uncomfortable. Not my cup of tea. It’s the relationship I'd want. Someone to support, be creative with. Someone who could communicate on my level. Someone to...
Share.
Share memories, ideas, time, feelings, random things I wouldn’t know about because I’ve never experienced it. I’ve never thought about this before. It sounds so nice. I’m always stuck thinking about things and never actually getting them.
This isn’t quite where I imagined I’d be right now. I was so wrong to think things would get easier as life progressed. Some of the challenges go away, but then they’re replaced by new ones that I never thought about.
There’s still so much more for me to do. There has to be time for it all, doesn’t there? If there’s time for me to lay here and think about it then there must be. But there’s almost too much, too many choices. Maybe I’m stupid to be laying here. Do successful people sleep? I guess I’m not sleeping so does that mean I’m successful? I sure don’t feel successful
12:58 AM
It’s not working. Work. I came across this cool job the other day, but they’ve already closed the application.
I didn’t know I was looking for a job.
There’s so much potential in that. Finding something and going for it. Opportunity is everything. Except I hate spontaneity and that’s what I need to take advantage of opportunities. I could never see myself just sending in my resume. I need more time. Time. Time to lay here and think about it so I can make it into something it’s not.
My resume, I should look at that. Did I put the conference on there? How would I even describe that nicely on a resume...was I an attendee, participant? Resumes should be easy. I just talk about myself. I went to the conference so I should know how to describe it. I also went to high school but I wouldn’t know how to describe that. I wonder what all those kids are up to. Was “the most likely to succeed” successful? Why do we expect to have those things determined by high school? How did we even define success? Do we base it on the amount of sleep they get? Money probably. In that case I’m towards the bottom of the totem pole.
Maybe I’ll marry wealthy. Then I can pay someone to update my resume. Maybe I wouldn’t even need a resume. Wow, the self pity is real. Palpable. Self pity is something I could never really get rid of. A boomerang I could throw out the window and still have returned to me by morning. But it is morning. See how quickly it came back?
1:32AM
If I fall asleep now I could still get a few hours of sleep before I have to wake up. I hope I don’t forget to make my lunch. I should get up a little early so I have time to do that. And I should pack more, or some snacks at least. Being hungry at work is one of the worst feelings. Next to last, just under not being able to fall asleep because your mind is wide awake.
Jane Windsheimer is in her second year at Carlow University studying communications wit ha concentration in advocacy and social change and a minor in women's and gender studies. She loves to write and knit (although not necessarily at the same time).
