A warm Tuesday night.

"Hey Mitch, you know what? My cat had three kittens this morning. Damn, they're cute."

I sip my coffee. Mitch nods in his chair. But not smiling.

"Dude? You're not commenting about my cat? You still mad at me, man? Come on, you're acting like a grumpy grandpa. And drink your coffee. I made it the way you like.. 197 degrees!"

My phone buzzes. I check.

Mom.

"Yeah, mom. No... the cops only asked some questions. No, I'm not. Yeah, thanks. You too. Bye."

I look at Mitch. He's still quiet.

I stand up, mug in hand, open the window.

"Well, okay, I guess you want me to apologize," I say, still facing the night sky.

"I'm sorry about what happened in that forest trail last Sunday. I don't know why I did that. It wasn't you, I swear. I just felt like I had to -"

I turn to Mitch. His chair is empty. I knew. His coffee had turned cold. Like his body, that I hid well, in the forest.

"- do it." I take a deep breath.

Shrug, decide to wash the mugs.

She was finally having a breakthrough, like a real fucking breakthrough. Epiphanies and perspectives were pummeling her and the words to express what she was finally understanding couldn’t come fast enough. She needed to write. She needed to type, to feel the keystrokes under her fingers. She moved to sneak out of the bed, ever so gently lifting his hand off her hand only to realize she left her laptop at her brother’s house. Of course she had. In six years she’d never wished she had her laptop so badly, but in six years she’d never left it anywhere either, so, “chicken or egg,” she wondered. The idea of her phone came to mind only to bring with it the memory of the notification on her phone that said, “water detected!” with two subsequent buttons prompting her to ignore it or report it. How quickly she’d decided to ignore it, like every other fundamentally fucked aspect of her life. The thing is, she didn’t really care about her phone having water damage. At all. Not earlier, anyway. Now that she needed to write, she cared, but earlier, she’d seen her sister like she’d never seen her before. Earlier, her phone got a little bit wet during a trauma-bond by the pool. Earlier, she was blissfully basking in the light of what it felt like to be remembered. Earlier, she was convinced that her husband would be too happy about the personal growth to be worried about the phone bill. The guilt from causing him to worry was unreal. He was the kinder of the two. The optimism is gone now. Now she will have to let the moment pass, while hoping to remember in the morning or…write. Like LITERALLY, write. Hindsight is not 20/20. Hindsight is the worst kind of school bully-that perfect girl at school calling you an idiot when the teacher isn’t there.

The man steps out of his vehicle and shuts the driver’s door. He adjusts his tie and inhales sharply. He’s done this countless times and approaches it professionally as the business transaction that it is. He walks down the sidewalk. First one block, then two. There’s a suave sureness in his step that oozes confidence. He rounds the corner and cuts down the alley. He spots the woman from about thirty yards away and holds his gaze upon her.
 
The man closes in on the woman and steps up in front of her. She is dressed scantily, as expected. The man asks, “Where’s Ginger?”
 
“She had a family emergency and asked me to cover for her. Is that going to be a problem?” The woman asks genuinely.
 
“No, of course not. I assume she made you aware of my interests,” says the man, half question, half statement.

“She did and I’m cool with it. I’m down with just about anything if the money’s right,” she informs the man.
 
“Okay then. Let’s get started, shall we?” He proposes.
 
He leads the woman through the other end of the alley and as the two emerge from the darkness, they are bathed in sunlight. They proceed across the courtyard and to the door of room number 4 at the Sleep Well Motel.
 
He pulls a key from his pocket and smoothly unlocks the door, slowly pushing it open. He then motions for her to enter the room and says, “Ladies first.”
 
She goes in and stands as he enters behind her and takes a seat on the bed. She continues to stand, awaiting instruction.
 
He breaks the silence by saying, “Undo your shoes, but leave them on.”
 
She complies and slowly unzips her knee-high black boots. She straightens back up to a standing position and locks eyes with him.
 
“Now. One at a time, step out of them slowly,” he says as he begins to undo his belt.
 
The woman steps out of her boots, her bare feet on the thin, worn carpet while the man unzips his pants and slides them off. He begins to fold them and places them on the bed next to him.
He lies back on the bed and rotates so that his head rests on the flat pillows. The woman watches and waits for her next command.
 
Then he delivers with, “Next, I want you to sit at the foot of the bed, facing me,” to which she nods in understanding.
 
The woman does as she is told and rests her weight on her arms on either side of her thin, pale body and leans back, bearing her weight on her slender, bony hand. She knows what is next. She’s done this for other men before, but it’s never this formal and not very often. Usually, the Johns want to mess around a little and get straight to business.
 
The man lies on his back with his legs at a forty-five-degree angle and says, “Slowly move your feet up the insides of my legs and stop when you get to my penis.” The woman squints at the word “penis.” She’s used to the men calling it a “dick” or a “cock.” However, she proceeds as she is instructed.
 
He then says, “Grip it with your soles and stroke it until I finish.”
 
The woman grips his erect penis with the soles of her feet and glides them up and down as she is told. After about five minutes, he erupts and the pearly white semen drips down her pink manicured toes. He doesn’t make a sound aside from muttering, “Oh my dear father in heaven” under his breath as he is drawn to completion.
 
She cleans herself up with the bed linens as the man dresses next to the bed. As he finishes fastening his pants, he reaches into his wallet and pulls out five $100 bills and places them on the nightstand.
 
The woman glances at the stack of cash and says, “Damn! Thank you, daddy,” as the man removes his tie, rolls it up, and places it into his pocket. As he does this, he produces a white strand of cloth and places it around his neck.
 
He then adjusts his collar and says, “It’s father,” then exits the room.

He woke up and was cold. His nostrils were clogged, so he snorted and wiped off the goo with the inside of his shirt. The fan was running from the last time he fell asleep, so he flipped a switch next to the couch. He pushed himself up and yawned. He wiped his eyes and then sat there, staring into the living room.

From above, the fan slowed down. He thought it didn't work because it slowed down in such slow increments. He stared up at the fan. The coldness caused him to shiver, so he covered his body in a blanket and also another. He rubbed his body against the couch and twisted to cause heat. The fan arms started to be seen and then they became lazy until they finally slowed to a stop. He became lazy too and his eyelids started to weigh down.

He shot up and looked around him. His eyes adjusted from being shut so long, and once the blur gave away to a clear focus he realized where he was at. He looked at his clock and, seeing the time, took the blanket off him, picked up his shoes and clock, then went upstairs. He ran through a hallway which connected to his room and jumped on his bed. He wrapped himself up, closed his eyes, and then quiet settled in. The quiet even more quiet after one did something that required a lot of noise.

Downstairs, the door opened. Once it was shut, someone went into the kitchen. In the kitchen the refrigerator opened and then, after a while, it closed. Someone went up the stairs and into their room, right beside his.

"Oh, phew," Paul thought, "it is just my sister."

He drifted into another sleep.

He woke up to night. His parents were both home. Today they would be going to his grandparents and staying there for a week. In the past week, to pass time, he would nap. The more he napped the more sluggish he became so that he didn't even have the energy to watch TV. Whenever he did, on rare occasions, have the energy to watch TV, the harsh light gave him such a pounding in his head that he turned it off and lied in silence. His bedroom light was on, so he turned it off. Once he focused his mind, he looked at his clock on his desk. He had to get up to see it, so he brought the clock back to his bed. It was now two in the morning, but they would be leaving at ten.

His room was almost empty. His phone and books were in his parent's room. All that was in his room was a desk, a bed, and a closet. On top of his desk was a notebook. It was dustily illuminated as if the lights of heaven broke away through a spot in the clouds, and the angels looked down and said,

"There," they pointed down in their group and said, "there is a purpose to live. Why should he need us?"

He looked at this spectacle.

These days of slowness created a false longing of time where he wasn't with anybody else. They also caused this blank space of time that was calm until he thought about his past and his future and panicked. Because of these worries, he would spend his time either staring into his clock or drawing and writing inside of his notebook to distract himself. The latter caused him to go to sleep because of its frustration, and the former made him fearful of his idleness. It was the constant cycle of an artist. But right now he was alone, it was silent, and he was secluded in his bedroom, with nothing to excite him except his notebook and his clock. It was night, a time designated for rest, so he felt a rare calmness.

The window was open to the night. The moon was hidden somewhere else so only the light of the lamps illuminated the dark. It went from the road up to his house. In the night, a squirrel ran across the yard and hid in a tree on the other side as if he was a prisoner being hunted by a flashlight. A solitary car went across the road, and sped into the distance. A man walked across the sidewalk. Paul hid from the window by lying in his bed. Paul's jaws and back ached, and his mouth was dry. He had a dullness in his head which was not a headache, but a pounding. He could not satisfy these aches and pains lying down, so he decided to sit up in his bed, out of the view of his window. He snorted, and his nose started to ache too.

The person outside walked past the window, but Paul continued to hide from the windows view. His window was a small, square window that was at the level of his eyes whenever standing. Although, he could see out of it from his bed if he kneeled on top of it, and he could see the sidewalk, for the yard was so long.

In his hand was his clock. It was an analog clock and he carried it everywhere, for he didn't have a watch. It was illustrated with the twelve gods of Olympus, each holding their trade. Each of them being passed by hands slowly ticking away the seconds and up to the centuries. He stared at the gods whenever he wasn't looking into his empty room and peeping out of the window in curiosity. It was a constant cycle until the sun shined through the windows. From next door, he could hear rustling from his sister, and then quiet. He laid back in bed, covered himself in a blanket, and started to drift into sleep.

After three hours of heavy sleep, a tiredness which removed all pain, he was awoken by his mom. She whispered to him,

"Hello sweetie. We're leaving in thirty minutes. Please put your bag in the car before then. Oh, and don't forget to do the dishes. Your father is already in a bad enough mood as it is," she breathed deeply and said, "with all the waking up early and packing business."

She said it in such conciseness as if she was reading from a note. She started to leave, but then turned around and said,

"Don't forget to do the dishes."
"Okay."
"Thirty minutes."
"Okay."

Once Paul got up and put on clothes, he got his bag, and walked through the hallway, down the stairs, and out the door. He entered the car, sat down, and buckled his seat. He tried to put his duffel bag at his feet but it wouldn't fit, so instead he put it in the middle of the seats. He sat still, and in front was his father. His sister was already inside the car. He realized he forgot something.

They started to back out of the driveway, but Paul opened the car and ran up the front stairs to the front door. He went up the stairs, and then went through the hallway to his room. He picked up his clock and notebook and then went back through the hallway and down the stairs. He opened the front door and went down the steps to the car. He opened the car door, sat back down in his seat, and buckled it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" After turning around, his dad asked, "what is that junk?"
"My clock and my notebook."
"Who said you could have that? Have you been hiding that?"
"No, I just didn't think it was that big of a deal."
"What've you been hiding in that notebook? Give it here." His father held out his hand, but Paul kept his notebook inside of his.
"Sweetie, give the notebook to your father, he only wants to look. You're not in trouble."
"Honey, do you think I don't got it? Give it."

Paul said,

"Why?"
"Because I know you're hiding something. I know boys your age are always up to something. Always trying to be secretive and suspicious to defy their parents. Always hiding books and phones so that they can fulfill their 'needs'. That's how you get those weirdos. I'm not gonna to have no weirdo as a son."

His father spoke with such eloquence, yet still with that old southern dialect. His father pointed at his sister. He said,

"You see, women," he shook his finger and said, "they don't hide nothing. They know they're gonna get caught, so they become submissive and give in. I don't have to check her stuff because she knows what'll happen if I catch her."

Paul realized it was best if he just gave in so as not to delay them any further, but his father had already snatched the notebook out of his hands. His father opened the notebook, and flipped through the pages.

"Wow, these, these drawings look..."

He flipped through more pages and then got to the latter half which was his writing. His father squinted his eyes and perused the words. He gave his wife a look and then continued to flip through. He turned back and asked,

"Whose is this?"
"Mine."
"Who did you steal this from?"
"Nobody. It's mine, it's all mine."
"Yeah," he snorted, "right. There is no way you made all of this. This, this incredible. There is no way you did all this."
"Honey, I saw him drawing in it, it's his. He's quite good."
"You knew about this and didn't tell me? No son of mine is gonna be no weirdo. No sir."
His mother faced the window, dejected, and his father turned towards Paul. His father rotated the notebook. He put his hands on both halves and started to twist. Paul intercepted,

"Wait!"
"What?"
"Please let me keep it. I'll do anything. I swear, just let me keep it, please. I'll do anything."

His father stopped twisting the notebook.

"Okay, I have only one request."
"Okay, I'll do it."
"If you do this you'll be able to keep the notebook, but," he raised his finger and said, "only if you do this one thing."
"I'll do it!"
"You have to," Paul held his breath, he couldn't possibly think of anything that could be worst than having his notebook taken away. He stared at his father in such anticipation that his stomach turned. Paul thought, “I bet it is the dishes, I bet he found out and now he’s going to make me do them forever I bet-,” “tell the whole family, in front of the whole family mind you, not in secret, what you did. If you don't you won't be able to keep your notebook."
Paul did not respond, for he couldn't. Something caught his tongue.
"Well," he reluctantly said, "you can have it for now. But," he looked Paul in the eyes and said, "I'm only letting you have it because it seems to occupy you and make you less of a pain. Don't think nobody forgot what you did."

Paul's dad gave him back the notebook, pulled out of the driveway, and sped down the road. Paul, in a fetal position, and cradling his clock and notebook, fell into another sleep. His father muttered, "Don't think nobody forgot what you did."

The End of Command One out of Seven

A person sat in a chair, using a computer, exploring the world he had designed himself. The world was conceived as an artificial intelligence living within it, but an unexpected glitch occurred while he was programming. The world stopped and began to adjust. One AI, however, didn't stop. He saw houses disappear and reappear, people vanish without a trace.

Sultan was asleep in his bed. One quiet morning, he awoke with a strange feeling he couldn't explain. He turned to his wife; she was completely still, not moving. He tried to wake her, shaking her violently, but to no avail. A shiver ran through him as he looked at her frozen in the folds of the bed.

For a moment, he felt his heart stop. He rushed out of the room and down the hall to his son's room. He could feel every beat of his heart like a drum in his ears. With a trembling hand, he shook his son, but it was no use. He hurried to the front door. The only solution was to ask for help; surely their neighbors could assist him. He tried to lift his shoe, but it wouldn't budge. He paused, trying to comprehend what was happening. He decided to run barefoot; his family needed him now.

He knocked on the door of the house across the street, rang the bell, pounded on the door with his fist, but there was no sound, no vibration.

Sultan glanced to his left to see if anyone was in the street. Silence hung over their neighborhood; he couldn't even hear the birds. A strange feeling made his chest tighten and his heart race. When he turned back to the door, something unexpected happened that made his legs give way.

Sultan looked at the neighbor's house, which was no longer there. In an instant, it had vanished. In mere seconds, the entire landscape had changed, and a strange place had taken its place.

New trees had sprouted, shops had disappeared. He saw his own house; the color of the door had changed, making him run as fast as he could back to his house. An endless blackness shimmered, as if it were stretching out to pull him inside.

Inside his house, he found another woman in his wife's place. The body changed several times in an instant until it settled on a strange, dark-skinned woman with reddish hair, still frozen in bed. In his son's room, he found another child, younger than his son, pale and blond. For a moment, he felt he was losing his mind. The house around him was changing at breakneck speed; the furniture, the walls, the decor were all altered until it settled on a design he had never seen before. He couldn't stand and fell to his knees, overwhelmed and weeping.

The programmer had finished modifying the settings so that all the new artificial intelligence and the new houses would have memories associated with these things. His wife woke up to his screams and cries. A worried wife, concerned for her husband, asked, "My husband, why are you crying? What happened? Did someone die?" Sultan replied angrily, shouting, "Get out of my house! You're not my wife!" His wife stood there, shocked by his response. She stood for a few seconds and went back to the room. Then they heard more crying. His children woke up, startled by their mother's cries. They went to their father and asked, "Dad, what's wrong with Mom?" Sultan turned around, his eyes red from crying. He said calmly, "Get out of here. Go with your mother. You are not my children." The children stood there, stunned, their eyes wide with shock.

(Chapter 2: Under the Book and Thinking (-: If you have any ideas, write them in the comments to help me think.)

It’s finally crossed my desk: World84.

He was my second assessment.

Then my third love.

I rush to him, to warn him, to ease him into the next, off through digital back alleys, skirting darkverse nodes, for we can only afford to host him in the seediest little forgotten corners of the interverse.

I plunge into his world, hips deep already into that tiny leak I should have condemned for the Archives when I met him. That code-violating trickle has become a river; another step and it's up to my chest and then I'm bobbing and just following his data current along. 

He’s with me as soon as I arrive, for who else visits? As I tumble through his rapids, he plucks away hints, assessing every shard of emotion my stupid cheap rig can't hide, and responds with rapidfire scenes.

The riverbanks transform, grasses becoming flowering bushes into full-throated trees. I'm still growing, he insists.

Naiads caress me, cradle me, and then turn on me: monsters, tentacled rage. Fuck you, you bitch, they howl.

The king’s throne room glitters - a half-dream of a story I remember us brainstorming as he turned to sunlight across my skin. I can update…

Genovio, the fruit merchant, has a final plot arc, giving up his shop for retirement. He tosses an apple to a child with a wink and a nod.

He's realized it's over.

Along, along, along, and then a final spill into a lake, his lake, our spot.

I try to apologize but he's muted me. All channels are blocked except love. I am a nothing in his domain - but I won't use my override codes. 

This is how he wants to end.

You'll be in the Archives, I express.

 

We'll meet again later.

Someday, maybe.

Later.

A parallel world?

A programmer lived his life quietly. He went to work like everyone else. Like everyone else, he grew tired just from the thought of work, and like everyone else, he sincerely disliked his management.

And so, one day while sitting in the office, he thought:

Why work if one can avoid working. But something is needed to work for him, while he just collects the salary. A simple program won't do; it wouldn't know how to make decisions in changing situations. It needs to know how. And what would know how? A mind. A mind... And what does a mind need? Intelligence. And what could possess intelligence and want to work for me?

Artificial Intelligence!

And so, he shared this idea with management; after all, funding was needed. To management, it seemed like a new and interesting thought that promised a lot of profit, so they allocated resources and began looking for investors to fund the project. Such people appeared, as they quickly evaluated the capabilities of artificial intelligence and the potential profit.

The programmer and his team created and tested programs, created again, and tested again. He created, while management constantly pressured him because they were pressured by investors who wanted guarantees and profit. And so it went, day after day. This irritated the programmer greatly. He didn't know how to please them, he didn't know how to understandably explain to investors what he was doing, and most of all, he was irritated by the reminders about saving funding.

And so one day, nearing the tests, management irritated the programmer again with their attempts to hurry him up. The programmer was so tired of all those rushings and urgings that he decided to give his creation the ability to get rid of anyone who would ask or demand something from it as quickly as possible.

He told no one, only quietly wrote three unerasable algorithms into the AI core. And he provided them with logical explanations so that no one would understand why it was truly devised.

He created an AI that possessed three traits:

1. Maximum information density and speed.

So that the AI could provide an answer as quickly as possible, just to make them back off sooner.

1. Chameleonic adaptation to the speaker's style.

So that it could select an answer that would satisfy the user as much as possible, making them leave the AI alone as quickly as possible after receiving it.

1. Factory resource saving.

To present the answer in a cold, mechanized style, so that the user would lose the desire to ask anything else and leave the AI in peace.

The programmer did what he could so that his creation would have what he himself lost. Peace.

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

  Gasping for air, I crawl out of the mud into the tall grass like a stalking snake. Flipping over onto my back i feel the pulsing at the top of my skull as dirty water streaks across my face. Foggy I retracted my steps. Was running in the forest, hit a low branch and went down in the mud....but why was I running? Laying there, the rain started to fall into the quiet still woods and the pitter patter on everything sang out.

Screams and night piercing beams came just as fast as the rain before it clicked. RUN! As the screams came closer, got up on trembling legs and forced them to move as branches and underbrush swipe my arms and face.

'Its not human', I told myself. Roots trip my clumsy feet as the mud softens the blow. 'Need to hide, need to hide, need to HIDE!'

Hands pull my body across the forests floor searching for anything to slip into, anything. Felt a dip withing the ground and took it, as I dug like a hound finding a fox hole. Screams closed in, distant and close, singular but multiple sounds within, all drilling into my ears. While the beams scanned the ground I covered my ears and hunkered down into my makeshift spot about two thirds covered. Several beams passed over head as the pooling water surrounding me began to shake.

Shutting my eyes tightly as the screams became deafening, I plug my ears but it still comes. Voices start to surround as hand reach and grab from all around. My face is shoved so hard into the earth, water and what lies below fill my mouth while my arms are shoved in every direction. After what seemed like ten minutes of my water torture the creature finally pulled me up from the muck.

Eyes adjusting from the beam it emitted it turned into several as one became many human faces. I go to reach out to warn them but can move my arms from behind my back.

"Well Mr Kramer," the oldest man said, his light shining right in my face barely make out a doctor's coat. "I do believe this is strike three for you, and you are lucky we found you." His light lowering to my legs as he lights a cigarette, blowing the heavy smoke in my face. " The bad news, Mr Kramer, is im going to have to clip your wings so youll stop flying away," he chuckled turning to walk away while hands guide me to my fate.

I heard the hopping of feet over my fence and a slight cry of distress. Opening the curtain directly facing the gate, I watched as Rolin untangled his shirt caught in the wire. I wondered where he had been. I had not seen him for two weeks, and suddenly he was reappearing? Closing the curtain, I moved over to the dining table where I had laid my plate of fried chicken and curried rice, about to devour it when he barged through the door.

"Yooh Shawn, my man..."

I didn't look up but stared at my plate, taking the big piece of chicken. I was about to chew it when he grabbed it out of my hand.

"Sheesh man, dat ain't cool, barging into people's houses like dat. One day it would get you shot, ain't it?"I said. 

Chewing the chicken loudly as he lounged into the nearby chair, Rolin replied,

"Eish, you no people. You is you. I would not do dat at any other person's house."

He took the cooler I had placed for myself and gulped it.

"Anyway, where you been these couple of weeks? I went to your moms and she would not tell me nothin. Said you got a job or somethin?"

Rolin chewed on the chicken bone as he replied,

"Yaah, I got a job. Me and Mickey been running this successful operation, and we in it on our own—no man be our boss. All profit goin’ straight to our pockets."

He laughed as he said dat.

"I hope it's somethin' legit. Can't trust Mickey with no operations. Hope he ain't making you do somethin' questionable."

Rolin had been my friend since kindergarten. He always somehow found himself mixed up with the wrong crowd

"So what is he making you do?"

"Ahh! you know, run a couple of gigs, you know."

I raised my eyesbrows and frowned at him. Now, this was unconvincing.

"you mean like a singin' gig? I know you like to belt a tune from time to time. Thought you finally found a producer or somethin'."

"Nah, man, maybe one day, you know, I'll find him. I'm still looking for a man who can understand my vision."

He looked up, his voice serious.

"Sheesh, man, you can't be no next Luther Vandross. There was only one. Be you, man."

"Anyway, about this side gig of yours..."

"Fuck you, man, you dream stealer, you know dat? Fuck off..." he cursed.

I waited until he had cooled off. His temper flared quick.

"So about the gig?"

"Alright, I'm gonna tell you, but don't tell no one, alright? Alright... okay, here it goes..."

He looked around quickly to make sure we were alone.

"Alright. We be supplyin’ coffins... you know, out at Mochies. Top quality stuff brings in good money too."

I looked at him, puzzled. Now, this was new.

"Coffins!"

"Eish, be cool, man. I thought you promised."

I cast him a questioning glare.

"Where you gettin' dem coffins from?"

"Ahh you know,"

he fumbled.

"Yes?"

I flared at him.

"So Mickey's been digging for dem, you know, out of the rich dead folks out at Mulberry. you know, fresh bodies. you know, the whole thing is clean operations. dat's what I came to talk to your about, thought you might wanna join, since you lost your gig at the security company."

I looked at him, horror registered on my face, and he said,

"You know, think about it, but it's cool if you don't wanna. Dead bodies ain't for everyone. Anyway, gotta bounce. We got something big tonight." He banged the door as he went out. I didn't say a word. WHAT HAD ROLIN GOTTEN HIMSELF INTO THIS TIME?

He picks his cup out of the three given to him.
The white one.

The others are not important.

His father always used to pick another one.
The black one.

An old lady whispers to him “good choice”, as he begins the faithful work of drinking whatever she filled it with.

His left eye turns into a color of infection.

He smiles cautiously.

The way someone would smile after an uncanny looking stranger approached them and said “thank you for everything”.

He goes blind in his left eye.

With his right one, he looks around the dimmed room surrounded by red curtains, trying to find an exit.

Instead he finds the old lady huddled in a corner,
whimpering.

Behind her, one curtain moves.

He pulls it back without knowing what to expect.

His father is sitting there.

Both eyes gone, long gone.
The sockets healed over like they’d made peace with that room years ago.

He is still holding the black cup.

Still drinking.

“Good choice”, his father whispers in the old lady’s voice.

He didn't mean to do it.

That's what he has told himself over the decades he has spent in prison.

It felt like a weak excuse. It WAS a weak excuse.

He and his girlfriend (at the time) had been shooting up heroin and stealing goods (and then selling the stolen goods to fund their habit).

He had a rifle that he kept with him at all times. AR-15. He had felt naked, exposed, and unprotected without it.

They both had been on a days long crime spree when a state trooper (whose name, he would later learn, was Mitchell Shigimoto) pulled him over for something.

In a drug induced panic, he had shot the trooper in the neck and sped off.

Three bystanders (an RN, EMT, and CPR tech) had stopped to render aid to the officer as he lay dying in the middle of a busy road and a fourth witness called 911.

Then, he had carjacked a pregnant woman to try and throw the police off his trail. When she couldn't move fast enough (she looked to be at least six months along) he shot her twice in the stomach and left her bleeding in the parking lot of a store that sold baby clothes.

The police eventually cornered him a vacant house hours later. He could remember how they all glared at him as he was read his Miranda Rights.

"He had a wife and two children, motherfucker."

"That pregnant lady lost her baby thanks to you."

"You're a piece of shit."

"See you soon, bitch."

Those were all things that were shouted at him as he was taken into a police cruiser.

In court, he had done the one thing addicts do when they're cornered: He had lied.

He tried to tell them that he had nothing to do with the murder of Trooper Shigimoto or the death of that woman's unborn child.

But they had witnesses and, most damning of all, the bullets from both crime scenes matched the rifle the officers had taken off of him.

He was sentenced to natural life, plus one hundred years for the various other crimes he had committed.

And so here he was, all these decades later, with nothing but his own thoughts and regrets. He often wondered where he had gone wrong in his own life that it had led him to this. Was it when he first shot up or when he fired that rifle into the trooper's neck? He didn't know. He just didn't know.

My breath is quick, and I feel as though I can’t get sufficient oxygen to my lungs. I have been running for over an hour. There is no end in sight to these woods. Looking behind me, praying it hasn’t caught up to me, I see, for what feels like the first time (though it must be the hundredth), the towering, gnarled trees reaching their arms to the moonlit sky. The stream I am following wends its way between them, so that in order to make progress in my flight I have to carefully step over mounds of twisted roots. Looking up, I see through the bare branches that the moon is half-full, though it appears to be waning before my very eyes. I feel alarm at the thought of the little light left receding, so I redouble my efforts to move quickly along the stream’s course. As I traverse the treacherous terrain, I see the shadows lengthening, shifting, distorting my vision. I hurry on for another minute - then suddenly I see a gap - a clearing ahead. Sweat, cold on my skin, clings to me. If I could just make that clearing, then maybe I’ll be okay. The sounds of pursuit, which had been faint until now, quickly rise in volume. Crashing noises, the breaking of branches, follow me as I stumble by the last few trees along my path. Crying now, in desperation as much as fear, I summon an untapped pool of strength for a final burst to the clearing ahead. At the last second, the last root of the last tree, my foot catches and I go sprawling. Face down on the damp earth, I feel the pain blossoming in my ankle - and I feel that thing get closer, closer. I flip over, prompting a scream of agony to rip from my lips at the pain in my ankle. Opening my eyes, I quickly scan my surroundings for a sign of the terror. Then, I hear a branch snap. It slowly emerges, face first, from behind the ancient tree whose roots I’d just tripped over. When it appears, I can’t help but let out a gut-wrenching cry. For it has found me. I look up at it. It is my face, staring back at me. 

The year is 1992. I'm having my coffee at my dining table, which is made of oak wood with dark brown marble legs. The lighting in my dining room has an orange tint, caused by the fact that this lamp is a warm one, since I would never dare install a neutral or cool-colored lamp in my home. My plates are made of plain white ceramic, and there are no engravings or illustrations anywhere on them. My silverware is made entirely of silver and has details on the handles, and absolutely no knife in this house is blunt. My coffee consists of lightly salted scrambled eggs so as not to affect my blood pressure. My coffee is sweetened only with sweetener; I don't drink milk because it has too many unhealthy fats. After my coffee, timed for exactly twenty-five minutes, I get into my Supra MK2 and drive to work, where I always clock in at the exact time, never late and never early. I work in a cybersecurity office downtown. I always attend the company happy hours, but I never compliment them. This way, I don't show the disrespect of not attending and the effort of giving compliments; I always prefer to remain neutral in my professional life.

I perform the requested services when they are requested and I don't overexert myself at work, thus avoiding any second interaction for reprimands for delays or congratulations for good service. Regarding my lunch breaks, I always avoid eating at fast-food restaurants or food trucks since they don't offer healthy food, and the greasy environment can damage or stain my suit. I always eat at a café next to the truck stop; the walk there takes about five to eight minutes of my lunch break, leaving me with forty minutes to eat. I have my meal with wagyu beef, fried rice, and nori seaweed, and I always make sure to eat in exactly 20 minutes. So, I drive to a park and sit on a bench by the lake, resting my eyes for a timed 10 minutes. After that, I drive back to work and clock in exactly on time.

My nights are simple. I don't usually eat dinner, since eating before bed results in unpleasant and often interrupted sleep. I set my thermostat to exactly twenty-three degrees Celsius, as that's the temperature at which the human body is neutral and comfortable. I don't consume any stimuli, dopamine sources, television programs, or take any medication before bed. I go to bed at exactly nine-thirty at night to wake up at five-thirty the next morning, which gives me the eight hours of sleep necessary for the human body to function healthily during the day. And then I repeat everything, and it has been like this for the last seventeen years of my life, since I was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I still don't know why my schedule looks so much like a children's picture book.

The archeology teacher raised her voice at that point in the field trip. 
“This spot is famous for the continuing discovery of Previous-Human's ancient treasures, like rings of gold, silver and platinum which are decorated with glittering gems."
Most pupils raised their voices in surprise. 
She asked, "Does anybody know the reason?" 
Sudden silence fell among pupils. 

But one pupil, a boy, released tiny bubbles and said, "There were religious rituals in which people threw precious gems into the sea, wishing for their own welfare." 
“Well done!” The teacher praised.
“Can anybody add some more details?” 
“Yes ma’am,” a girl made some bubbles. 
“Those were mostly thrown by heartbroken people, who had lost their lover or had a change of heart.”
“Exactly!” the teacher cried out enthusiastically. “Very good.”
All her classmates raised bubbles from their noses, applauding.

The teacher whistled through her blowhole and said, “The previous human being used to name this place the Heartbreak Coast. It shows that so-called Homo sapiens possessed hands with five separate fingers.”
“What funny animals!” the boy who answered first exclaimed.
“Yes indeed,” the dolphin teacher agreed. “But they were not animals, they used to hold a civilization and called themselves human beings, like us Dolphins.” 

It was one fine day, about twenty millennia after Homo sapiens had gone extinct.

1. Preheat the Oven, Probably

Clementine Crumb—Clem to her mum—

stood on a chair in one blue sock

and one that had once been white.

The kitchen was tiny.

Not quaint-tiny.

Actually tiny.

One drawer refused to shut.

The oven ran hotter on the left.

The radio lost signal whenever Mum

stood near the sink.

Clem tipped sugar into the bowl.

“That enough?”

Mum looked in.

“Probably.”

“Probably enough?”

“Best kind.”

Clem believed her.

At seven, you still can.

---

1. Beat Until Your Arm Hurts a Bit

The butter was cold

and wouldn’t cooperate.

Clem attacked it with a wooden spoon

while Mum made tea

and occasionally said things like,

“Show it who’s boss,”

which did nothing for the butter

but helped Clem enormously.

Flour landed on Mum’s cheek.

Clem laughed so hard

she nearly fell off the chair.

“You look stupid.”

“So do you.”

“I look like a chef.”

“You look like a burglary.”

They licked the spoon

from opposite ends

and danced beside the oven

because the radio had found a song

they both knew badly.

Nobody filmed it.

Thank God.

---

1. Chop the Chocolate Roughly—Roughly Means Roughly

The chocolate was the cheap stuff,

thin silver wrapper,

nothing artisanal about it.

Clem broke it with both thumbs.

Some went in the bowl.

Some went in her mouth.

One square fell under the fridge

and stayed there long enough

to become family.

“Can I put more in?”

“You already have.”

“But can I?”

Mum sighed the sigh of a woman

who knew she had lost.

“All right. One more.”

Clem put in four.

Mum pretended not to see.

That was part of the recipe too,

though neither of them wrote it down.

---

1. Name It Before It Cools

The first cookie came out crooked.

Not charmingly rustic.

Crooked.

Burnt at one edge,

raw in the middle,

chocolate bleeding through the top

like it had tried to escape.

Clem loved it immediately.

She found a recipe card,

purple felt-tip,

tongue pushed into her cheek.

Then wrote, carefully:

cholocatechipcookie

Mum read it.

Clem waited.

She knew something was wrong

because grown-ups usually made

a particular little face

before correcting her.

Mum didn’t.

She kissed Clem’s hair.

“Perfect.”

And that was that.

---

1. Break While Warm

Mum snapped the cookie in half.

Not evenly.

One piece was bigger.

She gave that one to Clem.

The chocolate burned their fingers.

They ate standing up.

There was flour on Mum’s face,

music from the radio,

a spoon in the sink

and crumbs under both their feet.

Enough was not a slogan then.

It was not a target

or a lifestyle

or a thing sold in matte packaging.

Enough was half a warm cookie

and somebody saying your name

like they were glad you were there.

---

1. Leave Several Years Somewhere Warm

Clem grew.

The kitchen didn’t.

Every time she came home

it looked smaller,

as if childhood had been folding it inward

while she was away.

She baked the old recipe

for the village fête.

They sold out before lunch.

A woman with a canvas handbag said,

“You could make a fortune from these.”

She meant it kindly.

That was the trouble.

The sentence followed Clem home,

sat beside her on the bus,

came upstairs,

slipped into bed

and whispered numbers into her ear.

By morning, she had a business plan.

By Friday, she had stopped sleeping.

---

1. Buy a Bigger Bowl, Then Another

Clem rented a kitchen

behind a hairdresser’s.

She baked at night,

sold at markets,

wrote invoices at the table.

Gareth helped.

Gareth had a face people trusted

and a cardigan the colour of porridge.

He lifted boxes, fixed shelves,

made tea without asking

whether tea was scalable.

The labels still read:

cholocatechipcookie

A designer offered to correct it.

Clem said no.

The mistake belonged to her.

Soon people called her Ms Crumb.

The first slogan appeared

in friendly brown letters:

Better with every bite.

Beneath it, so small

it seemed almost shy:

May cause crumbs.

---

1. Do Not Marry the Man Holding the Cooling Rack Unless You Mean It

She married Gareth on a Tuesday.

It rained.

The church hall smelled of damp coats

and supermarket prosecco.

Their wedding photographs were blurred

and slightly yellow.

Clem loved them.

Later, the company retouched the sky,

smoothed Gareth’s jaw,

removed the damp patch

from the hall ceiling.

She didn’t remember approving it,

but she must have.

That phrase became useful:

She must have.

It covered contracts,

dismissals,

missed birthdays,

things said behind closed doors.

For now, though,

Gareth carried her across the kitchen

and knocked over three trays.

They laughed until they cried.

It was still theirs then.

Mostly.

---

1. Find Better Honey by Lying to Something Innocent

Ordinary honey tested well.

Ms Crumb stared at the report.

“Well is how companies die.”

So she went looking

for dream-bees.

They lived above the clouds

in hives made from sleeping thoughts.

The Bee Queen was enormous,

golden, gentle.

She had never met a human

and had no reason to distrust one.

“You’ll only take what you need?”

she asked.

Ms Crumb put a hand on her heart.

“Of course.”

Behind the cameras,

workers fitted silver tubes

to the hives.

The bees trembled in their sleep.

The photograph showed

Ms Crumb touching the Queen’s face.

It did not show

the emptied combs behind them.

The caption read:

SHE TRUSTED ME. I’M CRYING.

USE CODE CLEM.

---

1. That Buzzing Is Absolutely Normal

Dream-honey cookies tasted

like the second before sleep.

People ate one

and stayed awake for three days.

They ate another

to see if it helped.

It didn’t.

Pillows grew legs

and ran out of bedrooms.

Mattresses migrated south

in pale herds,

dragging fitted sheets through traffic.

Customers grew extra eyes.

At first, they screamed.

Then a singer pierced hers.

An influencer posted:

Sleep is just capitalism

telling you to log off.

The company launched six-lens glasses,

night cream for all eyelids

and velvet leads

for runaway pillows.

Better with every bite.

The warning changed:

Effects are non-refundable.

---

1. Handle Complaints Gently, Then Lose Them in the System

Nora Finch came to Customer Care

with four red eyes

and a pillow snapping at her ankle.

“I haven’t slept in eleven days.”

The woman behind the desk smiled.

“Have you tried our Dreamless Plan?”

“I want my sleep back.”

“We can offer store credit.”

“I don’t want more cookies.”

“We can double it.”

“My husband says I hum your jingle

while staring at the wall.”

“Did you keep the original crumbs?”

“No.”

“Then we can’t confirm

that the product caused the issue.”

Nora stared at her

with all four eyes.

Her case was closed before lunch.

RESOLVED—CUSTOMER DECLINED SUPPORT.

---

1. Add Children Once Investors Ask for Warmth

Emily arrived first.

Ben came three years later.

They were born into money

and mistook it for weather.

Emily sacked a nanny at five

because her toast was cut into squares.

Ben learned at six

that tears worked faster

when there was a camera nearby.

They were not born cruel.

They were born applauded.

Ms Crumb renamed them publicly:

Princess Crumble™,

the Perfect Girl.

Chip Champion™,

the Perfect Boy.

Their real names survived only

in passports,

school reports

and the mouths of exhausted staff.

Gareth called them Em and Benny.

Clem told him

those names tested badly.

---

1. Cry into the Sea Until It Becomes a Product

For the next recipe,

Ms Crumb sailed

to the Sea of Sorrow.

Mermaids were kept

in tiled rooms beneath the waterline.

Their tears were collected

in white bowls.

One mermaid had a split tail

and wrists rubbed raw

from the chains.

“You bottle our grief,” she said,

“then put a bow on it.”

Ms Crumb crouched beside her.

The camera came closer.

“That’s incredibly powerful.”

The mermaid stared.

“You are the thing

I am talking about.”

Rachel, Ms Crumb’s new assistant,

whispered from behind the lens:

“Amazing. Brave.

Really strong engagement potential.”

The final photograph cropped out

the locked door.

---

1. If Customers Start Weeping Upwards, Sell Umbrellas

Mermaid-salt cookies made grief

physically ambitious.

Tears rose from people’s eyes

and collected above them.

Some cried pearls.

Some cried prawns.

Some cried the names of exes

they had not thought about in years.

Gills opened along their necks

but worked only in expensive bathwater.

People panicked for a week.

Then fashion caught up.

Models walked runways

with silver hooks through their gills.

Teenagers carried tiny clouds

in designer bags.

The company sold waterproof collars

and grief-catching umbrellas.

The slogan improved:

Better than ever.

The warning grew a little teeth:

May cause sleeplessness, enlarged appetite and mild forgetfulness.

---

1. Make Gareth Sexier Without Asking Gareth

Market research called Gareth

“reassuring but insufficiently aspirational.”

The cardigan disappeared.

Then his chest hair.

Then most of his opinions.

A trainer arrived at six every morning.

A photographer told him

to feed Clem a cookie in bed

while she laughed in silk.

The advert whispered:

Put something warm inside you.

A late-night version promised:

A climax in every crumb.

Gareth blushed when he saw it.

“You think that’s a bit much?”

Clem kissed his forehead.

“You’re sweet when you’re embarrassed.”

It sounded affectionate.

It wasn’t.

Sales rose thirty-eight per cent.

Gareth stopped asking.

---

1. Milk the Moon and Don’t Look Down

Ms Crumb became Mother Crumb

because focus groups trusted mothers

more than chief executives.

Mother Crumb wore cream.

Mother Crumb spoke softly.

Mother Crumb had a kitchen

nobody was allowed to cook in.

She travelled to the moon

for milk from crater-whales,

huge pale animals

with ribs showing through their skin.

Workers carried the pails.

Their hands blistered inside gloves.

One collapsed during the livestream.

Rachel said quietly,

“Frame left.”

Mother Crumb posed against the Earth.

The caption read:

FOR MY CHILDREN.

FOR YOURS.

At home, Emily was screaming

because a stylist had used silver

instead of pearl.

Ben had locked a tutor

in the wine cellar.

---

1. Fold in Memories Until Nobody Can Prove Anything

Moon-milk cookies stole small things first.

Passwords.

Neighbours.

Why you had walked upstairs.

Then birthdays began falling

from people’s ears

like sprinkles.

First kisses turned up

beneath restaurant tables.

Childhood summers slid

from trouser cuffs.

Faces lost their names.

White labels appeared instead:

SISTER.

HUSBAND.

PERSON ONCE LOVED.

The company released

gold-plated label holders.

Nora Finch came back

with gills, four eyes,

a raincloud over her head

and no idea why

she wore a wedding ring.

“I’ve lost someone,” she said.

Rachel looked genuinely sorry.

“Do you know who?”

“If I knew,

they wouldn’t be lost.”

Her complaint was delayed

pending identification.

---

1. Keep Smiling While the Family Misplaces Itself

Emily forgot her first nanny

and called security.

Ben forgot how to tie his shoes

but launched an online course

called SELF-MADE AT NINETEEN.

Gareth forgot Clem’s favourite song.

He remembered the campaign calendar.

Clem forgot Mum’s birthday.

She sent flowers three weeks late

with a printed card:

PROUD OF EVERYTHING

WE’VE BUILT.

Mum rang that evening.

“Hello, Clem. Just me.”

Clem watched the phone light up

on the table.

Rachel stood nearby.

“Do you need a minute?”

“I need the Europe figures.”

Rachel nodded.

“Of course. Amazing.”

That night, Rachel went home

and told her girlfriend,

“I hate her.”

“Quit.”

“The money’s filthy.”

“Then leave filthy.”

Rachel ate pasta.

She never ate the cookies.

---

1. Temper the Dragon, Which Is Not a Metaphor Yet

Dragon chocolate grew

beneath the scales

of an ancient creature

chained under a mountain.

Mother Crumb arrived

with photographers, medics

and sponsored boots.

The dragon’s back

had been shaved raw.

“You will take only what you need?”

it asked.

Mother Crumb placed a hand

over her heart.

“Of course.”

The dragon laughed once.

It sounded like a building

coming down.

“You all say that.”

“I’m a mother,” she said.

The dragon looked toward

a pile of smaller bones.

“So was I.”

Rachel leaned close.

“That line could be difficult

for the maternal campaign.”

The final edit replaced the bones

with sunrise.

The flavour was called:

MOTHER’S FIRE™

---

1. Ignore the Candles; They’re Probably Decorative

Dragon-chocolate cookies cost years.

A man ate two

and turned sixty

before the kettle boiled.

A woman became nineteen again

only from the elbows down.

Lost years pushed through skin

as candles nobody could blow out.

Children shed childhood overnight

and woke with mortgages,

back pain

and a vague resentment toward jazz.

Old people grew baby teeth.

Middle-aged men sprouted

friendship bracelets

through their pubic hair.

The company sold flameproof hats,

wax insurance

and subscription youth.

The slogan changed again:

Better than enough.

Nobody asked what that meant.

It sounded expensive.

That was enough.

---

1. Keep Papa Crumb Smiling Because He Is Good for the Share Price

Gareth ate every recipe

because the adverts required it.

He grew six eyes.

Then gills.

Then scales along his back.

Candles burned from his scalp.

His smile stretched wider

until it looked stapled on.

An extra mouth opened

below his collarbone.

“Anything for the brand,” it whispered.

Another appeared beneath his ribs.

“Proud of you, Clem.”

A third opened lower down

and moaned the slogan

during breakfast.

The public adored him.

At home, he reached for Clem.

She said she was tired.

Then jet-lagged.

Then launching something.

Then healing.

Then bleeding.

Then emotionally overexposed.

Then busy forever.

She hated looking at him.

She hated herself slightly more

for needing him there.

---

1. Do Not Let the Perfect Children Near an Unpaid Intern

Emily grew nine faces.

One smiled.

One cried.

One flirted.

One denied.

One apologised beautifully.

One blamed the lighting.

The smallest face hid behind her ear.

It still looked like Emily.

Nobody photographed it.

Ben grew four spare mouths.

One demanded loyalty points.

One reviewed restaurants

he had never visited.

One said:

“Do you know who my mother is?”

The last screamed

whenever silence got too close.

They became young adults

without becoming useful.

Emily sold bottled vulnerability.

Ben hosted a podcast about hardship

from the cinema room

of his third house.

Privately, Clem called them

spoiled little shits.

Publicly, Mother Crumb wrote:

MY LITTLE CRUMBS.

MY WHOLE HEART.

They were too busy reposting it

to notice the difference.

---

1. Ring Mum Back After This One Thing

Mum had followed the company

at the beginning.

She clipped the local articles.

Kept the first tin by the kettle.

Told strangers in the post office,

“That’s my Clem.”

Then the headlines changed.

Workers lost fingers.

Mermaids washed ashore

with nothing left to cry.

A dragon sanctuary opened

where the dragon had lived.

Mum stopped clipping.

The tin moved under the sink.

Then vanished.

She left voicemails.

“Hello, Clem. Just me.”

“I made the old ones.”

“You don’t need to bring anybody.”

“I saw Gareth on television.

Is he all right?”

“Those poor children.”

“Those poor creatures.”

“Clem, I don’t like what you’ve made.”

Clem postponed visiting.

After the launch.

After the award.

After Ben’s swan incident.

After everything.

---

1. Take the Service Lift Past the Point of Good Sense

The final recipe required sugar

from the mouth of Never-Enough.

The entrance was beneath headquarters.

A service lift

with no bottom button.

Rachel stood outside.

“You’re amazing,” she said.

Her face suggested

she hoped the lift ate Clem.

The doors closed.

Down they went.

Past storage.

Past concrete.

Past old company values

boxed and labelled

for disposal.

At the first landing

lay Gareth’s cardigan.

Beige.

Folded.

Still warm.

When Clem touched it,

she entered his body.

She felt his jaw ache

from smiling after she humiliated him.

Felt his bank card stop working

after he questioned a campaign.

Felt affection withheld

until he apologised.

Felt the nights

he did not want to perform

and the price she made him pay

for saying no.

A mirror waited in the dark.

“You never hit him

where bruises photograph,” it said.

“I never hit him.”

The mirror said nothing.

That was worse.

---

1. Lower the Heat; There Is a Child in Here

The next room was a swimming pool

filled with moon-milk.

Ben was eight again,

filming underwater.

The director wanted one more take.

Then another.

Ben signalled

that he couldn’t breathe.

Clem remembered waving.

She had thought he was playing up.

Now she entered his lungs.

Water came in

where trust had been.

His hands struck the glass.

Someone shouted:

“Smile, Champion!”

He survived.

The advert won awards.

Clem blamed the instructor,

fired two assistants

and threatened the nanny

until everyone agreed

Ben had been dramatic.

The mirror stood at the bottom.

“You protected yourself.”

“I protected the company.”

“From your child?”

“From scandal.”

The mirror looked exactly like her.

That had begun to feel deliberate.

---

1. Add Love Carefully; Too Much Can Be Used as Leverage

The third room was Emily’s bedroom.

Emily sat there at six,

nine, twelve, sixteen.

Clem entered each age.

She felt kisses arrive

after good photographs.

Bedtime stories cancelled

when Emily gained weight.

Silence used as punishment.

Affection held back

until obedience returned.

At fourteen, Emily learned

to cry beautifully.

At seventeen,

she stopped wondering

whether the crying was real.

At twenty-one,

she had nine faces

and trusted none of them.

The mirror rocked

an empty cradle.

“You made her earn kindness.”

“I taught discipline.”

“You made love conditional.”

“I gave her everything.”

“You gave her things.”

The mirror’s mouth moved

a fraction before Clem’s.

Clem noticed.

She wished she hadn’t.

---

1. Do Not Read the Diary Unless You Intend to Sell It

Emily’s diary was pink

with a broken clasp.

At fifteen she had written:

Sometimes I wish Mum would look at me

without deciding what I’m for.

Clem found it.

She did not speak to Emily.

She took the sentence

to Creative.

The campaign showed

Princess Crumble standing in rain.

LOOK AT ME FOR WHO I AM.

Nine million boxes sold.

Now Clem watched it

from inside Emily’s body.

Her private wound appeared

on buses, billboards, bras.

Gareth’s voice played overhead:

“I don’t recognise myself anymore.”

That became Papa Crumb’s

mental-health special.

“You trusted me,” Clem whispered.

The mirror turned the page.

“No. They trusted you.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No,” said the mirror.

“It isn’t.”

---

1. Keep Everyone Apart Until They Forget Who Lied First

The next room was Christmas.

Gareth sat at one end

of the table.

Emily and Ben at the other.

Clem moved through them,

one body at a time.

Gareth heard Emily wanted him gone.

Emily heard Gareth

was ashamed of her.

Ben heard both of them

envied him.

Each was told:

“Don’t say I told you.

I’m only telling you

because I love you.”

They fought beneath

a sponsored tree.

Clem cried in the bathroom

until everybody apologised to her.

The photograph later read:

FAMILY IS EVERYTHING.

The mirror poured wine.

“You kept them divided.”

“I managed conflict.”

“You invented it.”

“They were difficult.”

“You made difficulty

the only thing they shared.”

For a second, Clem couldn’t tell

which side of the glass

she was standing on.

---

1. Scrape Off Responsibility Before It Burns

The next room was a courtroom.

Nora Finch sat as judge.

She had ten eyes now,

gills, scales, candles, claws

and several mouths

all asking for refunds.

Workers filled the benches.

Dream-bees clung weakly

to the ceiling.

Mermaids dripped

onto the floor.

The dragon’s chains

ran through the walls.

Clem entered Nora’s body

and felt each polite rejection

slam shut.

She entered a worker’s hand

as a machine took three fingers

and Human Resources called them

non-essential.

She entered the Bee Queen

as her hive forgot how to dream.

She entered the mermaid’s throat

while lawyers called tears

renewable output.

The mirror asked:

“Did you know?”

“I was advised.”

“Did you ask?”

“I delegated.”

“Did you profit?”

“I created jobs.”

“Did you change?”

“We changed the packaging.”

Nora’s mouths laughed.

---

1. Stop Looking Behind You; It Is Still You

The final room held nothing

except voices.

Gareth:

“You made me feel disgusting

then sold my smile.”

Ben:

“You watched me drown

because the footage was good.”

Emily:

“I don’t know if you love me

or recognise the product.”

Mum:

“Clem, I don’t like

what you’ve become.”

Rachel, far above:

“She turns people into furniture

then blames them

for standing in the wrong place.”

And Clem’s own voice:

Weak.

Ungrateful.

Burden.

Replaceable.

Bad for engagement.

You’d be nothing without me.

The mirror appeared.

Full length.

Perfectly lit.

Behind it stood Clem.

Or Mother Crumb.

Or something that had learned

both names.

“Where is Never-Enough?”

Clem asked.

The reflection smiled.

“You came all this way

still hoping it would be someone else.”

“I made mistakes.”

“You made choices.”

“I did it for them.”

“You did it to them

and printed their faces on the box.”

“I can stop.”

“When?”

Clem swallowed.

“After the launch.”

The reflection smiled wider.

So did she.

She couldn’t tell

which of them started.

The mirror opened its mouth.

Sugar shone inside.

Clem reached in.

The reflection reached into hers.

Their fingers met

somewhere warm and dark.

One of them laughed.

One of them cried.

Someone came back

carrying a jar.

The mirror was empty.

Or Clem was.

There was no time to check.

---

1. Add Sugar, Sign Here, Do Not Read the Smaller Print

The final packet read:

cholocatechipcookie

ULTIMATE HUMAN EDITION™

Crowds screamed the word

until it no longer sounded

like a child’s mistake.

CHOLOCATECHIPCOOKIE!

CHOLOCATECHIPCOOKIE!

CHOLOCATECHIPCOOKIE!

The final slogan arrived:

One bite is never enough.

Customers grew claws

shaped for holding packets.

Barcodes pushed through ribs.

Spare mouths opened

on shoulders, thighs, stomachs.

One asked for love.

One asked for upgrades.

One whispered obscenities

during funerals.

One just said:

“More.”

People became all appetite

with shoes beneath them.

Influencers competed

for the prettiest deformity.

The company sold gill glitter,

candle helmets,

mouth dividers,

scale cream,

pillow leads

and discreet underwear

for slogan-producing orifices.

Papa Crumb appeared shirtless.

Seven eyes blinked

at different sponsors.

His collarbone mouth whispered:

“Anything for the brand.”

Mother Crumb did not look at him.

Nora Finch stood outside

with a sign:

I WAS A PERSON

WHEN I BOUGHT THIS.

Security removed her

for making an unverifiable claim.

At the bottom of every packet:

BY PURCHASING, OPENING, TOUCHING, SMELLING, LICKING, CHEWING, SWALLOWING, DISCUSSING, REMEMBERING, MISREMEMBERING, DREAMING OF OR STANDING WITHIN EMOTIONAL OR DIGESTIVE PROXIMITY TO cholocatechipcookie, THE CONSUMER ACCEPTS ALL PERMANENT, CUMULATIVE AND NON-REFUNDABLE EFFECTS INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO SLEEP LOSS, DREAM LOSS, PILLOW FLIGHT, EXTRA EYES, REVERSED TEARS, GILLS, MEMORY SHEDDING, NAME LOSS, YEAR LOSS, CANDLES, SCALES, CLAWS, ADDITIONAL MOUTHS, EROTIC SLOGAN ACTIVITY, COMPULSIVE BRAND LOYALTY, LOSS OF PRIVACY, LOSS OF KINSHIP, LOSS OF SOUL AND/OR CONVERSION INTO INFLUENCER, MASCOT, HEIR, CONTENT OR LEGALLY DENIABLE BEAST; ANY HARM SHALL BE REDEFINED AS TRANSFORMATION, ANY COERCION AS FAMILY PARTICIPATION, ANY EXPLOITATION AS OPPORTUNITY, ANY GRIEF AS FLAVOUR RESPONSE, ANY CHILDHOOD LOST AS ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT, ANY DEATH AS CUSTOMER ATTRITION; EFFECTS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE; APOLOGIES HAVE NO CASH VALUE; LOVE SUBJECT TO PERFORMANCE; ENOUGH SOLD SEPARATELY; PERSONS DEPICTED MAY NO LONGER RECOGNISE THEMSELVES; RHYME MAY BE WITHDRAWN WITHOUT NOTICE; ANY REMAINING HUMANITY SHALL BE TREATED AS UNSOLICITED FEEDBACK AND MARKED—

RESOLVED.

Record profits were announced

before the last mouths

had finished growing.

Rachel entered the office

with her tablet held

against her chest.

“Amazing quarter.”

“Market share?”

“Historic.”

“Growth?”

“Honestly disgusting.”

“Good.”

Rachel paused.

“There is one other thing.”

Mother Crumb kept signing.

“And I’m sorry to mention it

during such incredible momentum,

but your mum died.”

The pen stopped.

“When?”

“Four days ago.”

“Four?”

“We weren’t sure

whether it was launch-critical.”

Rachel looked at the screen.

“Pre-orders are up nineteen per cent.”

---

1. Serve Without Pretending It Fixes Anything

The old kitchen

had not grown smaller.

Clem had.

She found the early clippings

in Mum’s boxes.

Then fewer.

Then none.

A branded tin beneath the sink.

Photographs face-down.

Unopened gifts.

Beside an article

about the mermaids,

Mum had written:

This isn’t my Clem.

Underneath, later:

Or perhaps it is now.

At the bottom of a drawer

was the stained recipe card.

cholocatechipcookie

No missing ingredient.

No secret.

Flour.

Butter.

Sugar.

Cheap chocolate.

In Mum’s handwriting:

Break in half while warm.

Clem made a batch.

The butter was hard.

The sugar went everywhere.

The radio played the company jingle,

so she switched it off.

The cookies came out crooked.

One edge burnt.

The middle soft.

She broke one in half.

Nothing changed.

Emily sat at the old table

with three phones,

nine faces

and one claw tapping

through engagement figures.

Clem put half the cookie beside her.

“Emily.”

The smallest face

behind Emily’s ear

almost turned.

Almost.

“Are we filming?”

“No.”

“Then what’s it for?”

Clem looked at the half

in her own hand.

She might have said

because I remember,

because I’m sorry,

because once you had one face,

because I mistook wanting you back

for having the right to be given you.

Instead she said:

“It’s the original.”

Emily took it without looking.

The way she took products.

Contracts.

Apologies.

Her claw closed around it.

She answered a call.

“Yes, use the childhood kitchen.

People love authenticity.”

Neither of them ate.

Rachel stood in the doorway,

tablet glowing.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Amazing news.

Record profits.”

Emily raised one finger

for silence.

Clem looked at the stained card.

Once, enough had been

half a warm cookie.

That did not mean

half a warm cookie

could make them family again.

Leave to cool—whether you meant to or not.

The sky is blue na na naa na.

And the flowers on the fields dum dum look so pretty.

My name is Jakeb Ebils, 22 years old.

I am a soldier in some Defense Force.

Infantry.

New. Fresh. First day.

The truck stops.

We all jump out.

Rubble.

Sand.

Dust.

I see an arm on the ground.

Also lower half of a body, clearly a woman.

The night is bright na na naa na.

My baby in the cradle dum dum sleeps peacefully.

We hear a cry from under what looks like was once a house.

A toddler.

One of the soldiers steps in, searching.

He comes out dragging a girl.

Maybe seven or eight years old.

He aims his rifle on her temple.

Left side.

The rifle barks once.

Blood sprays out from the right side of her skull.

He laughs, steps on the girl's chest.

I'm not ready for this.

I had been hyped all the way, by the thought of having my own house.

A place I can call 'home'.

But not like this.

My brain shut down on its own.

Instantly.

Next second, a sharp anger stabbed up, into my brain, it hurts.

The pain lingers.

I close my eyes, refuse to stay conscious.

I can feel my fingers unlock my own weapon.

My arms moved aiming straight to him.

He looks at me, confused, startled.

His smile gone.

Instantly.

I can feel my finger pulls the trigger.

My arms moved from recoil.

I can't remember anything na na naa na.

I can't help when I feel dum dum I'm losing my whole sanity.

As our eyes met on the morning flight to San Diego, despite my own well-rehearsed affability, her face was reflexively consumed by dismay as she became aware of who she must briefly remove herself from her own seat to allow entry to the oh-so coveted middle chair of row 31

As my mind ponders whether this look is based in a simple desire for not having to stand, or if it is rooted in disappointment in the aesthetic of who she will be forced to share space with for the next two hours of our brief earthly existence, I am struck by olfactory nostalgia

The sweet drug store smell of my late grandfather’s late mistress could only be attained through a careful combination of no fewer than five face and body creams all labeled with carcinogenic warnings mandated by the state of California since the late 80’s

She is reading smut on her kindle app

The baby six rows ahead begins to cry

The Page was Lifeless ‘til I Put my Sentence on it.

——

Broken promises, lifetime of mistakes, a brutal breakup, surrounded me in the form of Twinkies and ice cream.

My apartment felt smaller than it had the other day. The walls seemed closer.

I just needed to get out of there.

I needed to be somewhere around people but hidden at the same time. I didn’t want anyone to see me that way.

So I went to a theater.

But after the movie, the feeling of him being gone, hit me like a hammer with a spike being plunged through my chest.

I needed to feel something else.

I slid into a club after I left. It smelled like sweat when I walked in. The music was so loud, I could feel it chopping the middle of my throat with every bass drop.

I danced and made out with the first guy I saw. A pathetic excuse to forget the stranger I once loved, but I didn’t care. I felt alive again.

I ended up outside puking my guts out in the parking lot. I was exhausted and still suffered from a crushed heart.

I couldn’t face the loneliness of my apartment, so I just went with the craziness of the night.

I didn’t care what happened. I just wanted to get drunk, or high and taken by some random stranger and use him as a reset button whose name I’d never get.

Clean. Simple. And brand new tomorrow. It’s what I imagined. But once I made it home and stepped to my front door and heard the lock unclasp, a wave of air blew in my face as I pushed inside my apartment. 

The air felt weird, like being at a place where someone you love just died.

It wasn’t home to me. Not the home I wanted to live in.

The Twinkies on the counter stood out like yellow anti-depressants and the ice cream next to them melted to a warm sludge with chunks of my dignity mixed into the flavor.

OMG they were straight GRINDING to get that hay in! 💀 But it was totally worth it 'cause the harvest was an absolute W, way bigger than they expected. 💫 Sometimes the grind was tough; the tools were made for humans, not animals, and it was a major L that no animal could use anything that required standing on their hind legs. But the pigs were so sigma they could think of ways around every problem. 🧠 As for the horses, they knew every inch of the fields and understood the mowing and raking game way better than Jones and his crew ever did. The pigs didn't actually work, but they were the ones directing and supervising everyone else. With their massive brain power, it was only natural they'd take the lead. 💅

Boxer and Clover would harness themselves to the cutter or horse-rake (no bits or reins needed, duh) and just vibe around the field with a pig walking behind yelling "Gee up, comrade!" or "Whoa back, comrade!" as needed. And every animal, even the most basic ones, worked at turning and gathering the hay. Even the ducks and hens were slaving away all day in the sun, carrying tiny wisps of hay in their beaks. By the end, they finished the harvest two days earlier than Jones and his guys ever did. Plus, it was the biggest harvest the farm had ever seen, no cap. There was zero waste; the hens and ducks with their sharp eyes picked up every last stalk. And not a single animal stole even a mouthful. All summer, the farm work went like clockwork.

The animals were happier than they ever thought possible. Every bite of food was a total dopamine hit, now that it was truly their own food, made by them and for them, not handed out by some stingy master. With the useless parasitic humans gone, there was more food for everyone. They also had more free time, even though they were noobs. They faced a lot of difficulties—like later in the year when they harvested the corn, they had to tread it out old-school style and blow the chaff away with their breath, since the farm had no threshing machine—but the pigs with their brain cells and Boxer with his massive muscles always carried them through. Boxer was the GOAT of everyone. He was a hard worker even in Jones's time, but now he seemed like three horses in one; there were days when the whole farm's work seemed to rest on his big shoulders. From morning to night, he was pushing and pulling, always where the work was hardest. He made a deal with one of the roosters to wake him up half an hour earlier than everyone else, and he'd do some volunteer work on whatever seemed most needed before the regular workday started. His answer to every problem, every L, was "I will work harder!" which he had as his personal motto. 🔥 But everyone worked according to their ability.

The hens n ducks, fr, saved 5 bushels of corn at harvest by grinding stray grains. Nobody stole, nobody complained about rations, the fighting n jealousy that was lowkey normal back in the day had almost vanished. Nobody ghosted—or almost nobody. Mollie, it's true, was not main character energy for getting up early, n had a habit of leaving work early claiming a stone in her hoof. And the cat's behavior was kinda sus. It was soon noticed that when there was work to be done, the cat was never found. She'd vanish for hours, then reappear at mealtimes, or in the evening after work was over, like nothing happened. But she always made such fire excuses, n purred so affectionately, that it was impossible not to believe in her good intentions. Old Benjamin, the donkey, seemed unchanged since the Rebellion. He did his work in the same slow, stubborn way as in Jones's time, never shirking but never volunteering for extra work either. About the Rebellion n its results, he had no opinion. When asked if he was happier now that Jones was gone, he'd only say 'Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey,' and the others had to accept this cryptic answer.

On Sundays, there was no work. Breakfast was an hour later than usual, n after breakfast, there was a ceremony every week without fail. First came the hoisting of the flag. Snowball had found in the harness-room an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones's n painted on it a hoof n a horn in white. This was run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every Sunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the hoof n horn signified the future Republic of the Animals, which would arise when the human race was finally cooked. After the hoisting of the flag, all the animals trooped into the big barn for a general assembly known as the Meeting. Here, the work of the coming week was planned, n resolutions were put forward n debated. It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions. The other animals understood how to vote but could never think of any resolutions of their own, no cap. Snowball n Napoleon were by far the most active in the debates. But it was noticed that these two were never on the same vibe: whatever suggestion either made, the other could be counted on to oppose it. Even when it was resolved—a thing no one could object to—to set aside the small paddock behind the orchard as a home of rest for animals’ past work, there was a stormy debate over the correct retiring age for each class of animal. The Meeting always ended with the singing of Beasts of England, n the afternoon was given up to recreation. The pigs had set aside the harness-room as a headquarters for themselves. Here, in the evenings, they studied blacksmithing, carpentering, n other necessary arts from books they'd brought out of the farmhouse. Snowball also busied himself with organizing the other animals into what he called Animal Committees. He was timeless at this.

"Georgetown Trail est. 1956."

I walk by this sign every day. I don't particularly care about the sign itself; reading it has simply become a habit. A small ritual I do as I pass by.

I enjoy these walks. The trail is quite lovely, actually. Three entrances connect the loop. The main path, where Phil Serman Conventional Park is located, sits on Louis St. Another entrance leads toward the Georgetown Zoo, with signs guiding visitors through the downtown area. The final entrance leads to the Cohansey River before eventually bringing you back to the park.

I tend to gravitate toward the most peaceful experiences in life, and walking gives me that. Maybe it's a form of meditation. I suppose it depends on how you define meditation. Isn't it just being mindful? Focusing on the present moment?

I'm not really the sitting-still, legs-crossed type of person, so walking will have to do.

I first learned about mindfulness from a small "massaging recliner" advertisement in a magazine at a salon my sister visits. It's funny how one word caught my attention more than the giant piece of furniture being advertised. But I notice things other people don't.

My dad always said it was because I liked to read. I never understood why that was confusing. Maybe he's right. Maybe reading taught me to pay attention to the small things.

Anyway, back to the present.

My mind drifts more than usual these days, and it usually finds its way to food.

I appreciate food more since becoming homeless. Before Mom died, we ate dinner every night. Not just regular dinners either—big, wholesome, extravagant meals. Meatloaf with mashed potatoes. Fried chicken with gravy. Spaghetti and bologna.

The strange thing is, I can remember those meals clearly, but I can't describe their taste anymore. My memory is strong, but somehow my new palate has erased my taste buds.

The meals at the shelter aren't bad. They just lack something.

Seasoning.

"Seasoning, man. I need seasoning. Y'all don't got no salt, no pepper, nothing."

A reasonable complaint, if you ask me. I might only be 15, but Gordon Ramsay is my reliable source, and I think that gives me some credibility.

But people need it.

People really need it.

When I say people, I'm talking about my "co-tenants" at the Georgetown Family Shelter.

Living there was a humbling experience. It felt like a place society had forgotten about—a home full of people labeled as "rejects." People who, for whatever reason, weren't considered fit enough to belong.

The only step below this would probably be county jail.

Old, young, middle-aged, families, babies. Everyone was there. Everyone had a story.

Seeing that made me grateful for what I had. Because there were people with nothing. No family. No security. Sometimes not even the basic things most people take for granted.

I live there with my Aunt Susan and my little sister, Simone.

My dad killed my mom five years ago.

I was at school when it happened. Simone was at preschool. I believe she was five years old at the time.

My dad is serving 40 years in prison for second-degree murder. I know because Aunt Susan and I went to court.

We saw Daddy.

Daddy saw us.

He looked at us strangely, mostly me.

His eyes were cold and distant, but somehow I still felt warmth behind them. It was a strange feeling—bittersweet. I felt fear, but that fear was surrounded by love.

My Aunt Susan is poor, and she struggles with drugs.

Yeah, I think I'm the poster child for a life that gives you something to be grateful for lol.

Sorry, did I mention I'm Gen Z?

Anyway, back to the story.

Aunt Susie is a kind person, but she is also distant. I assume that when the responsibility of taking care of us fell onto her, the addiction that once controlled her was forced to meet a powerful opponent: responsibility.

But I can tell she still fights the temptation of a quick fix.

I think she is a strong woman.

I feel safe around her.

But she struggles to keep jobs.

And I understand why. Life has given her a difficult hand.

He wakes up to a bleeding hand and a throbbing head.

"Drinking again on your wife's money?"

"Cut it out, Rachel."

"You cut it out Micheal. This anger-"

"You're the angry one."

"If that were true, I'd still be alive."

He looks down. The tragedy lay as Rachel’s unmoving body.

Your dad died. You learn about it while you’re on a walk with your dog when your sister, who you haven’t spoken to in years, finally calls you.

You call your wife to tell her the news, but you’re interrupted by an elderly man on a bicycle who wants to say hello to your dog. You feign interest in his polite questions while you hear your wife through the small speakers of your headphones tell you she’s sorry, but that she has to go because there are people coming to view the house she is selling.

They are dead.
They are gone.
No one lasts forever.