Freshman/Sophomore Division

Welcome to the Jungle

Stuck, in the jungle, for five days. After my plane crashed down, it has been going down hill for me. I knew I should not have flown alone. I also shouldn’t have flown that close to the trees. Oh well. What’s done is done. I have to remain focused.

As I wander north throughout the Brazilian forest, alone, with my compass, knife, canteen, and my survival bag, all seems lost. A thousand wandering eyes seem to be staring at me in all directions. I am nervous, scared, and hungry. I haven’t eaten since I took off from my home in Delphos, Ohio. I need food. I stop from my long hike and decide that I should settle here for the night. There is a sparkling river with clear water near by. Also there are canopying trees that will keep me dry. I try to make a bed with sticks and leaves high in the trees, but fail to on my first two tries. Luckily though, I am successful on my third try. It’s not perfect, but it will do. My stomach cringes, I need food. I decide that I should put my fishing skills to some good use. I grab a long stick and find some string and hooks in my survival bag. I then overturn a rock and find a nice juicy worm. I assemble my pole while it starts to rain. A nice cool drizzle covers my body and helps rinse out my wounds. I estimate that I have about three hours of sunlight left, and I need to build a fire. I throw my line in the water and place my pole securely under a rock. I gather some firewood and go back to my fishing hole. I place the wood in a neat stack close together and reach in my survival bag. I find a God-send, flint. Flint sparks easily with a rock. I ignite the fire in only a couple of minutes. As soon as I start my fire, I get a bite on my fishing line. It’s a whopper! I tug and tug. A fierce battle that lasts for twenty minutes ends abruptly as the fish runs itself upon the shore. I recognize the fish immediately. A red belly piranha stares back at me from my hands. I grab my knife and go to work cutting at the thick and meaty beast. I ate it and I never tasted anything as sweet as this. I save some of the organs for tomorrow and call it a night and head on to my sky bed.

DAY 6

I wake up to the sounds of birds singing and chimps crying, so peaceful. I have made my goals for survival. I will stay one more day here to get some of my strength back, then I will leave tomorrow. While I was flying I saw a village due north of where I am. I am going there because I think that will be my safest bet. I estimate that it will be a couple of days to get there. I want to catch as many fish as I can so I will be well nourished through my long and rough hike ahead. I put my pole in the water using the old piranhas heart as bait. No sooner than I did that I caught one. I guess that the piranhas love the blood. Today all I am going to do is stock up on fish. I place my catch of fish in the shade up in the tree hoping that no big game animal could smell it. My luck prevails. At day’s end I manage to catch twelve fish, and one turtle. That’s exactly what I need.

DAY 7

I wake up to a curious monkey staring directly at me. I jump and scare him. I named him George. I think that will not be the last of him. I start up my fire again and eat two fish. The breakfast will give me the energy I need to hike this long day. I group the remaining ten fish and turtle and put them in my survival bag. They are an asset. I grab my canteen, fill it with water, and I split. I head due north. I stop for nothing. I am occupying my mind on my loving family. I have a wife and two kids. I miss them all dearly and I long for home. By now the sun is high in the sky and it appears to be at least five or six. I decide that it’s time to call it a night. I stop again by a tranquil pond with a waterfall. I first build my bed on another tree and grab two more fish to eat. I am down to eight fish and a turtle. It’s now late and I have about two hours of sunlight left. I am dirty and smelly, so I take a nice long swim in the pond. The water is cool to the touch and it eliminates all of the dirt on my body. I warm up by my fire that I built after my swim. I still wonder for home. I go to bed and dream.

DAY 8

I wake up again with George the Monkey peering over me. After he sees me wake, he takes off and heads for the shadows. At least I have company. I estimate if I make good timing today, I might make it to the village tomorrow. I hurry, give the life back to my fire, then I eat a fish. Nourishment is good. I could use the energy. As I hike well past three, I have noticed that George is indeed following me. He will not get close enough to touch or far enough to be out of sight. He’s a cute and curious monkey who has no balance. It’s almost funny to watch George swinging from tree to tree and somehow barely make the jump. By five I am about to just hall down and sleep on the ground floor. With the strength I have I make my canopy bed and grab my turtle and dig in. It strangely tastes like dark meat chicken. Right now that tastes like a five course meal. After dinner I crawl in bed and hope I can find the village tomorrow.

DAY 9

I wake up soaked. There must have been a storm in the area last night. Oh well. I head down and eat three fish. I could use the extra energy for the long day. I hope to meet the villagers by one. I head out and see no sign of George. I was kind of hoping to say good-bye. As I hike alone I notice the beautiful scenery. There are gorgeous waterfalls with wild and vivid wildlife. I have even seen a butterfly as big as my head. This is definitely not home. As I walk I hear a noise. A rattling in the bushes. I stop. I look. Nothing. I continue on. This keeps happening for five or six times with the same result occurring, nothing. I hear the noise again. I turn and I see the villagers staring at me with weapons in hand. I tell them that I speak English. They don’t understand me. They then take me back to the village. They take me to their middle-aged chief who does in fact understand English. I tell him my predicament, and he tells me that he will take me to the airport tomorrow and tonight I should rest.

DAY 10

I wake up to the females of the tribe surrounding me with food, drink, and clean clothes. I eat and drink while I listen to the wonderful sound of the chief who is telling me the plan for the day. I pack my belongings and say goodbye to the villagers. I head out with the chief with my survival equipment and leave this jungle to go back to my suburban jungle home.

The smoke curled in tendrils through the air as the white-hot flames consumed the city.  People were dashing manically through the streets, gathering whatever was salvageable.  Most had a wild questioning look of fear on their faces, now knowing what would come next.  Adults no longer attempted to comfort those in need; instead, it was every man for himself.  Children were ripped from their mother’s arms by an undetected force and never spotted again, leaving the women bewildered and grief-stricken.  It embodied every child’s hidden nightmare; every dreaded monster in the closet had come to life today.

It had started out as a seemingly normal day, yet there was an eerie silence that screamed something was not quite right.  The church bells did not ring at the usual times but instead remained dormant, casting a loud hush over the town.  The sun did not show itself; instead, a deep, murky gray color settled in the sky and the usually crisp, breezy fall air acquired a thick mist.

People began to commute to their jobs and children to their schools.  Everything was going just as any other day would go, yet there was an almost ghostly vibe that carried through with the hours that no one could shake off.  The thin obsidian hands on the glowing white face of the clock on the church steeple rancorously edged through the numbers: nine o’clock, ten o’clock, eleven o’clock.  Eleven thirty came and the already gray-stricken clouds turned livid and rumbled ominously.

As the clock struck twelve the lightning started.  Initially it struck about every three minutes, a blinding bright flash that lit up the city followed by an ear-splitting crack.  Three minutes rapidly turned into two, two into one, and then it was as if the lightning never ceased, kept flashing and flashing until there was barely a moment of darkness.  No rain fell amidst the uncanny storm, just flares of lightning and deafening snaps of thunder.

Then the wind began.  It howled through the city, down every street and into every alley.  It was as if it was making sure no one could hide from it.  Every corner of the city shrieked with the sound of the surging wind, the clapping thunder.  Every house shook treacherously and then stopped momentarily, just to start up again worse than before, as if being mocked by the storm.  Trees began to fall and power lines with them.

As schoolchildren were dismissed from school and adults made their way home from work, the storm worsened.  There was no power in the whole city, and many things were aflame from the deleterious lightning.  Whole houses began to crumble under the combined forces of the wind and the fire.  Families began to pile into their cars and evacuate the city.  Hundreds of cars were crossing the main bridge and it split in two, sending vehicles of people tumbling down into their watery graves below.

In the distance, a bolt of lightning lit up a stained-glass window embedded in the side of a great stone cathedral.  Those who had escaped an unlucky fiery or watery death were now roaming the streets in the obliterated city, searching for a sign of hope or life on which to cling.  Citizens turned toward the cathedral in hope of shelter, and began to make their way over.  Inside the place of worship was dark, quiet, and serene, as if God was completely ignoring the catastrophe inches away from the great stone steps leading up to the church.  After about an hour or so, a few hundred people were gathered in the cathedral, sitting or sleeping on pews and in the aisle.  Most people had knelt and commenced prayer, hoping God would answer them and erase today from their minds and from time.  Many moments passed and the storm seemed to die down.  Inhabitants of the church rushed to the vast wooden front doors and pushed them open.  What they saw was not the familiar landscape of their friendly city.  A feeling of relief and great peace washed over them as they realized where they were.

"Daddy!" I leapt into his arms, embracing him in the biggest hug my eight-year-old body could muster. He was a hefty man; three times my size, and fifty times my muscle mass. Still, all the same, his arms felt safe and warm.

"Oh, my sweet, sweet baby girl." His eyes were stained glossy and a single teardrop pricked his handsome cheek.

Never in my life had I seen my dad cry. Not when grandma and grandpa died when I was two, not when Mum and I had gotten into that big car accident three years ago, and not even when he cut his thumb clean off with a buzz saw. He cussed up a storm. I've heard him cuss many times and have acquired a number of words Mum forbids me from saying. Mum would always chide him like a little kid, her hands on her hips, her temper flaming hot, "Are these the values you want to infuse in our daughter, huh?"  She would storm out in a huff of rage.

My stare was on the single tear still wet on his cheek. "What is it Dad? You're crying."

"Oh don't mind me, sweet pea," he tried to sound jolly and light-hearted, but it didn't work. "I'm just going on a wee trip, that's all."

A trip?! Even I knew that's not what this was about. We have always loved trips; everyone does. Dad had said countless times to Mum when she'd complain to him about money issues, "A good vacation now and then makes for a fresh start on life again. It can keep the soul from growing too weary of the habits and routines established in us since the working man took his first step."

He was such a wise man. Half the words and phrases that came out his mouth baffled my mind. I would spend countless hours looking up odd grown-up sounding words that I heard him say, then casually try and slip them into everyday conversation. I felt proud and grown-up when I would say, with my chest swelled and a grin on my face, "Stock market is atrociously lofty, better not invest."

I  looked upward into his massive, but gentle face, and could see several more tears fill the crinkles around his green eyes, course down his strong, defined cheekbone, all the way to the very tip of the scuffled nubs of hair on his unshaven chin. Now as I looked into the blocky face of the man I thought so indestructible, and finally saw his eyes weep, I couldn’t help but sob. Like a water balloon on full contact the sorrow burst from my eyes, staining my dad's shoulder in salty tears. Without words we communicated. This conversation brought fulfillment like none other. With one last squeeze he let go and whispered hot in my ear, his voice trembling ever so slightly, "I love you, honey." He always added a loving honey, or sweet pea when he wanted me to pay attention. And I have gotten it coded in my head, along with the numerous other words to watch out for.

He was over by Mum. "Love you, Emma," now sobbing into the puffy sleeve of her high fashion blouse. She whispered something into his ear, but I couldn't hear a word of it. Whatever it was she had said seemed to be heart-touching; I could tell by Dad's reaction. He gripped her tight for the longest time, moaning and bawling all the way. Finally collecting himself he grasped her with both hands; one on each shoulder, "You take care now." He gave her a quick peck on the check, then came to me, bent down to look me square in the eye. I have never seen him so serious in his life. "I'll be back, sweet pea, I promise. Two years from now by Christmas Eve, I promise, cross my heart," he made the sign for crossing your heart over his chest, "I promise I'm coming home, baby." His eyes gazed intensely upon me, appearing to be strong, but I could sense the fear that was hidden by the bleak mask, that seemed to be ever present. "I'll be back, I will." He said in a hushed voice more to himself then anyone. And that was the last I saw of him.

December 24, 1944

As I gazed out the frosted window and the winter world that lay beyond, I shuddered and wrapped myself tightly into the fuzzy, purple, sheep's-wool blanket my Aunt Haftly had given me last Christmas. It was midnight, Christmas Eve, where was he? The fire crackled in the distance; however shivers continually and rhythmically crept up and down my spine. Like a ghost that had walked through me, an eerie, chilly feeling was in the air. A hard thump was beginning to boil in the back of my throat. "No, I mustn't cry!" I demanded. "He's coming, he's just late, that's all." Though I had realized a couple of hours ago that the chances of him returning tonight, or even this year were slim; however in the deepest parts of my heat I longed and wish for it to be true. So hope, though fragile and frail as it may be, never dies.

Mum says every time she looks deep into my eyes she can see Daddy in me. I opened the mirror and looked into my own piercing green eyes, envisioning a husky, strong man standing in front of me.

"Good day!" I would say. He'd tip his hat, then look at me puzzlingly.

"I am searching for my family; my wife and darling daughter who must be around your age."

"Who are you?" I'd question innocently, but the butterflies in my gut would tell me, "It's your dad! It's the man you've been dreaming of returning all these years, and he's finally done it, he's home!"

"I am Thomas J. Kinsly, war veteran and hero, and I am returning home to my family." He'd bend down and whisper, "You see, I've promised my daughter, Lissy, I'd be home by now and I really mustn't waste any time..." He began rambling on, but the ringing joy in my ears prevented me from hearing any further.

"Daddy," I'd interrupt, a grin pasted on my face, "I'm Lissy!" He would then gasp.

"Lissy, is that really you? You have grown so big, honey!" Then I'd run into his arms like I was four again. Hugging and kissing him, we'd share in a heart-wrenching reunion of love.

“Ekkkkkk….” I snapped back into reality.  That sounded like a car, close to our house.  Wildly my eyes darted toward the source of the sound.

“Daddy?”  Excitement bubbled from within me.  My racehorse heart was the first to go, then my palms, which two seconds ago were solid ice cubes, began to perspire rapidly.  In a rush of exhilaration, I cast the blanket to the ground leaping for the door.  Then stopped dead in my tracks.  “Maybe it was the neighbours, returning home after many long hours of scanning houses, searching for the most decorated one and taking photos of it.  Or maybe mum had snuck out for eggnog.  I was in such a trance, I probably would have never noticed.  Think of all the possibilities, Lissy.”  Not wanting to be disappointed with the outcome, I managed to sit down and wrap myself snugly in the blanket once more.

The crunching sound of footsteps in the snow drew up my excitement yet again.  These weren’t my mum’s dainty high fashion shoes from the miniature boutique shops, these shoes sounded like genuine leather, tough-as-man-ought-to-be boots; exactly the kind my dad had worn, at exactly this time of year.  They were nearing the house.

“One, two, three.” I counted the number of steps in ecstatic nerves, until the footsteps stopped in front of the door, not more than ten feet from where I sat.  I dared not move.

    “Ding-dong!” my stomach churned with anticipation. My breath was coming in heavy rasps, and I was shaking from head to toe.  “This is really it,” I breathed, “He’s here!” I approached the door beaming from cheek to cheek, drew back the floral curtain, “Da-..” My smile faded with a sudden rush of disappointment.  “Who are you, and what do you want?” I say flat and monotone.

“The name’s James, toots, and I’ve got a letter for ya’ so will ya’ please open up?”  He had a dry New York accent.  I closed the curtain and sprinted to the comfort of my sheep’s-wool blanket wanting to cry. “Fo’ the luv’ a…” He sounded agitated and his voice raised in hot temper, but I didn’t care.  I had just gotten my heart wrenched out.  He should stop harassing me and just leave already.  But he was persistent, “My knickers are shakin’, my hands o’ frozen solid, ‘nd I can’t feel my nose!  

Open up girlie!" his fists wrapped on the door. "I know you're dar', I can see yo' shadow!" He paused and waited for my response. I gave him none. Why was he so pushy? Can't he see I wanted to be left alone? He tried a new approach, "Hey, gurl, umm, dis' here's from da' government, sure don't wanna' let dem' down."  He paused. My breathing grew louder, and my heart pumped on full blast.

"The government!" I thought in horror, "What do they want with us?" He began to cuss. “Your da last one on my shift, nd I really wanna be getin' home. Da' boss wanted me to deliver this parsonally' but, I'm jus' gonna' slip dis' in da' mailbox if ya won't come out ‘nd get it for yo'self!" Leather boots manically slashed the snow until they came to a stand still at the mailbox. Wrenching the flap open, I heard the violent edge of the New Yorker's voice raised to un-containable levels of rage, '"Dem damn kids! When will day' learn? Why I outta,” he grumbled something to himself all the way to the car.

As soon as I heard the engine putter away, I sprang into action as if someone had flipped the toggle in my body that said on, and my organs began to work properly again. I raced to the mailbox with only the socks on my feet, and the purple blanket clenched around my body. "Bloody hell, the man's mad!" I wheezed. "He ripped the bloody mailbox from its hinges! Oh, well the letters still there." I casually brushed the now useless piece of metal aside and clasp the envelope tight in my hands exposing myself to the harsh winter weather. On the front I could see loads of stamps with Britain's flag covering them, it looked very official, and there was barley enough room to put our name and address. But there it was: Mrs. Kinsly 257 Mulberry Rd. London, England. I did not want to lose this. I made a mental note. A harsh gust of icy wind lashed at me brutally, every pore on my body felt like a needle was being jabbed fiercely in, out and back in again. Goodness, I had forgotten how cold I was. I quickly enclosed myself in warmth again.

Had my dad written me a letter? He hadn't written me for ages.  My heart danced for joy and I forgot all about the cold. Was he coming home for Christmas, and he's writing to say he's sorry he couldn't make it for Christmas Eve like he promised?

Realizing that I had to get to the house if I wanted to read this, I forced the numb stubs on the edge of my body to trek the many feet to the door. It was a great feat. My lost train of thought had suppressed my pain. With each step unbearable coldness mixed with a numb tingling sensation spread throughout my body, starting from my feet upward. Finally, after what seemed like ten minutes of agony, I slammed the oak door behind, and took my cozy seat by the fire. I let the warmth melt away at my numb feet as I stared at the familiar floral curtain smiling at me. "Letter!" I remembered the all important government letter in my hands. Fingers like ice sickles, I forced them to tear open the crease of the letter, a single sheet of paper fell unto my lap. With shaky hands, I nudged it open. Only two small sentences made up the whole letter, all typed out and looking official.

I read it again, and again. Thinking if I stared at the neatly typed words, they would somehow rearrange to say my dad was coming home, he was alive, and a war hero. He would be receiving his badge next week, and there would be a big dinner party honouring him, pictures and stories of him would be printed in history books to come, and we would all live happily ever after. It was no use.

"Yes!" I cried "Yes! Yes! YES!" feeling nothing at all like myself ranted on, "I read it clear as day! It was right there! He's dead, he died, he's never coming back! A positively idiotic buffoon would be smart enough to see that!" I flung my myself to the ground. "A bloody idiot!" Crying myself into an uneasy sleep, darkness engulfed my mind.

"Ring! Ring!" I awoke next morning in my bed to the sound of the telly. I waited five seconds. Mum didn't seem too chatty today.

"Oh, well," she sounded drained, and by the sound of her voice, I was sure she was as white as a sheet. "Thanks for letting us know. Goody day." I heard the faint "click" as the telly meekly joined the receiver, then footsteps.

"Oh, brilliant!" I wrenched my ear from the door's jaws. "She's coming!" Swiftly I speed to the bed, jumped under the covers, and shut my eyes a little too tight. At once, noticing they would appear forced, I hastily softened my grip.

"Umm... honey," A familiar face hunched over me. I turn upward to lie on my back and gently brushed open my eyes, squinting a bit.

"Ya..Yess." I stammered in my most innocent I-just-woke-up-and-wasn't-trying-to-esdrop-on-your-calls-and-by-the-way-that's-not-one-of-my-favorite-hobbies voice. I gave a weak grin.

Croaky, and cracking slightly, Mum blurt out, "I'm sorry about yesterday. I'm sorry I didn't believe." Man, she was on a role. "It's just that honestly, deep in my heart, I didn't want to believe it. I don't think you did either. And you were right to get mad at me, and..."

"What?" I tried to suppress it, but there was no use. My bottom jaw hung, swinging lifeless. I gaped open mouthed and buggy-eyed at my mum. She looked taken aback.

"About Daddy, sweetheart. You don't have to pretend. It's alright."

   I was utterly confused. "What abou..." suddenly, without warning it hit me. It was as if someone had my life on tape, rewound it, then flashed scene by horrid scene with revolting accuracy. In hyper-speed the memories flashed; the promised on that dreary day, the confusion and sorrow the were contained in my soul, the endless waiting and wanting more then ever just the chance to spend one single day with him, just one, the regret and injury his death left on my heart.

"Oh, God," my mouth went as dry as sandpaper, abruptly realizing, "He's dead." It was like being one again. All my feelings were there, raving and lashing at me all at once. But how do I react to them, and what are they? These new strange, complicated surge of emotions made me want to laugh, cry, hurt someone or myself, go out into the world and take major risks in my life, and just lie down and die, all at the same time. By this time all I was able to manage was a blank stare, "Oh.." the word barely recognizable grumbled through the minuscule slit dividing my lips.

Mum gazed at me with a look that said, I'm-sorry-to-disapoint-you-love-but-I-have-to-tell-you-one-last-bit-of-rotton-news. "The funeral's today." And with that she left.

"Why is this happening to me?" the room was swirling in a vortex of colour. "Today was supposed to be the best day of my life. Dad was supposed to return home, after fighting in the war for all these years. We'd laugh and have a jolly good time sipping eggnog round the fire, as he illustrated to Mum and me tremendous tales of near death experiences in which he demonstrated super human strength, wit, and cunning to escape his grave peril and free our country. Then he'd recite the acceptance speed he had prepared prior the banquet that was held in his honour, and show us a shiny medal pined to his chest. He would be a genuine hero. Then I pull from my breast pocket my macaroni heart and poem I had made for him as a Christmas gift, and his smile would widen. Seeing his smile I couldn't contain myself, and a toothy smile would break the surface. With a hearty laugh and wink he'd exclaim, "Oh, nun', I love you!" I'd leap into his arms and feel the love radiate from his warm body.

Eerie rustling noises echoed from under my bed.

"Err., hello?" Weakly I mouthed the words. "Just try to shake it off, Lissy. It was nothing, you know that. You know how your imagination has a tendency of running wild. Especially given the circumstances. You're bond to hear strange noises or feel a strange presence. But it's all in your head! None of it's in the slightest sense real." I tried to reason with myself; talk logic.

"In, and out, huff, puff' Now I could panic.” I heard breathing, real, live, breathing! Something else is in here! Something evil, I could just feel the ghostly presence swallowing me up in its vile grasps.

Thinking fast I stuffed the picture of Dad and me, and the poem into the drawer below my vanity, macaroni dispersing every witch way was I leapt from the bed like it was a fiery coal.

There it was again. I froze. "Oh no!" I stood between my bed and the door like a deer in headlights, trapped, "it's the ghost of Christmas past! I was feeling bad about my dad, and now it's come to get me!" My head throbbing with pain feels like it is going to explode. My pulse growing ever demanding ringing through my ears.

"Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! What does it want with me? Where's Scrooge at a time like this? Oh God," I held my breath for a millisecond as the thought slapped me icily in the face. "Maybe...I'm Scrooge!" I whispered aloud. "Maybe the old one died or retired and now I have to replace him!" Panic coursed through my veins. That... that thing was creepy enough on the telly! Seeing it live would make me upchuck my internal organs. The whole experience would be completely macabre!

I envisioned the ghost of Christmas Past; the haunting black hole of endless nothingness for his face, the gnarling shadow of a clocked figure, tall and oppressive he'd linger over my weak body, a mist of fear and agony would sweep over me as he would yank me unwillingly into the Christmas past to replay horrible torturous memories. My heart sank.

No one could ever hear Scrooge in the movie! They couldn't even see him! He was forced to relive his past, whatever memory the ghost chose, and Scrooge had no choice but to watch. Oh, he could yell, wave his hands about, make a fool of himself all he wanted, but no one ever knew he existed. That can't be me! How am I going to phone the police?! "Ha!" laughing at my stupidity,

"They'll never believe me that's for sure. What am I to say? The Ghost of Christmas Past kidnapped me, could you lend me a time machine real fast, I'll bring it right back, I promise."

I give a full fledge wail as my dog, Fluffles, bounded from his hiding place under my bed and started licking  my leg affectionately. My heart felt on fire.

"Oh, thank havens! Fluffles! It's only you, boy.” I laughed like a fully licensed loony case that, for the betterment of themselves and all who surround their life, should be in a straight vest and sealed tight under lock and chain in the psyche ward. "Dear Fluffles," I was gasping for air, "you gave me quite a fright, boy. Yes you did!" I ruffled his wagging ears and make daft faces at him.

"Clash, bang!" Mum fumbled her way up the stairs.

"What is it? Is everything alright?" Her face stained in sweat, and if you could imagine it, twice as white as before.

I peered innocently up at her, laughter hauling abruptly. "Nothing much. Just a little tense from the news, I guess."

"Well, get dressed," her scowl returning, "And try to look decent, will you?" she recited the rest so fast that I had to ponder a moment what she was saying, "The funeral is in two hours. That's two hours, not two and three quarters. I expect you to look nice. No casual clothing are to be permitted. You will prepare a speech in remembrance of your father. No dilly dally now! Chop, chop! Oh, yes" she added as an afternote, barley half her head peeking out the corner of the wooden door. "Marsha's coming by to pay her respects." Magically a black dress, black shoes, and pearls materialize in her hands. She passed them to me, "These should do. Ekkk...Slam!" she disappeared from behind the door.

"Marsha's coming by to pay her respects." I mimicked Mum's voice perfectly in my head.

Marsha, good old Marsha had always been there for me. Since the third grade, Mrs. Wainhind's class, she had always been my very best friend. Heart of gold and a soul of gumdrops, she was by far the sweetest person you'll ever meet. When I was down, which was quite often nowadays, she looked for the positive in everything, making me feel loads better. She always knew exactly what to say.

I pushed the last pearl through my ear and fastened on the back. Looking at myself in the mirror, I distinguished that I didn't look half bad considering there was nothing in the slightest bit cheery about my outfit, or my situation. "Well," I gave a docile smile to my reflection, "Here goes nothing."

"Beep! Beep!"

"Shoot!" Scrambling out the door I almost had forgotten to snatch my jacket on the way, which was also black. I matched too precise. I arrived at the car and banged the door closed. To calm myself I thought I'd give counting in my head and deep breathing a go. "One, two," and before I reached thirty we pulled into the snow covered driveway, far too early. I was daftly unprepared for any of this. It all seemed oodles too sudden. My eyes rested on Marsha nearing the car. From out the window, she waved and gave a little smile. Stepping out of the car, I waved back, unable to smile.

"Oh God, you look pretty, Lissy," Marsha's awe-inspired voice made an attempt at being jolly.

"You too." Trying to make small talk and keep my mind away from the funeral and the fact my father was dead, "lovely dress."

"Ruddy occasion, though." Her voice lost only a fraction of its cheerful ring.

"Thanks for bringing it up," I tried to sound breezy and light.

Suddenly realizing what she had done, apology swept across her face and her muscles contracted with guilt. "Sorry, I know this must be hard on you." The familiar, upbeat, positive Marsha returned once more and like a bomb you know will explode at any minute she began off on one of her speeches, "At least he was an honourable man, right?" I gave a wee shake of my head. "At least he died fighting for this country, protecting and defending all of us. Not some druggie ruling London's most rubbish-filled street corner, stealing purses from grannies and attacking pigeons for his only source of food!" A toothy grin I could not suppress any longer, beamed at Marsha, and we let burst jovial laughs. "Oh, I haven't laughed this good in ages." Concluding her speech, she gazed deep into my eyes. It was like she had opened a door to my soul and she could peer straight through me and see whatever she wanted, all of my secrets, worries, hopes, desires, everything. She always had a way of this. "He did not die in vain."

"I suppose," giving a jerky up and down shrug of my shoulders.

"Be proud of him, Lissy." Her tone, her body language, everything about her this second reminded me of a pushy psychologist.

"Lissy, you are proud of him? You must be! Not only for the man he was," I could tell she was in one of her speech modes again.

I wrinkled my nose. What is she talking about? Up, down, I saw her mouth moving but the words came out blurred and faint, like she was talking through a tunnel stretching fifty feet long.

"Yes," I pretended like I was enthralled in her conversation, "As proud as anyone, the proudest!" This obviously satisfied her because she dropped the matter entirely.

"It's getting a bit chilly out here, do you mind if we go inside?"

"Yes please!" I beg. I had forgotten how excruciatingly frozen my exposed legs had become. And what did she mean by a bit; it was a downright blizzard out here.

Turning to the steps I realized Marsha and I were the only humans within sight. Well, there was always Dad, buried round the corner in the cemetery, with about a thousand other decomposing strangers.

We rounded the wooden steps up to the door, holding to the railing for dear life. God, was it icy! Marsha flung the brass, snow encrusted door open and we both scampered inside like little kids taking refuge in the warmth, waiting for their hot cocoa. About midway I could spot a few uneasy children whispering to one another; they looked and pointed at us, and then whispered to their buddies some more. Another group of children just plain ogled stupidly, only until weary mothers shot them the shut-up-and-stop-staring-or-Pm-denying-your-my-kid look did they shift violently in their seats, pretending to be intently amused by the fig carving on the pews, twitting their thumbs round and round.

"Over here." Marsha motioned to a section of pew in the back row.

Aunt Haftly's stern gaze eyed me from the podium, loathing me for taking the spotlight. As fast as she shot the look, it was gone, she turned back to the crowd again and beamed.

She was an actress on Broadway for thirty-seven years. She absolutely hated people who got up to, for example, go to the loo in the middle of the show and barge in mid-song. In my option, she treated every aspect of life like one of her shows, dramatically over-animating every little detail, and occasionally flashing a blinding, unhuman set of pearly whites, that must have cost a fortune.

"As I was saying," she gave one of her blinding smirks. "Knowing Tommy as well as I did, you would say," she paused and hunched her upper body to murmur in the microphone for dramatic effect. "I knew all of his... dirty, little secrets."

The audience confer a reassuring chuckle. Aunt Halftly began to fluff her gruesomely red, over dried hair. Cherry Spritz' was the latest colour.

She was lying through her teeth. Although she must be used to lying. Constantly she had to lie every time she steps foot on the stage. In her latest performance she completely convinced total strangers that she was an American musician named Lucy  Lou, getting her big break at last.

Dad would have never, in a million years, tell Aunt Halftly any of his secrets, let alone any dirty, little ones! Even in her younger years Aunt Halftly cared more about fame and fortune then anything or anyone. Her big dream was to see her name printed in flashy lights across all of Britain.

Aunt Halfly gave a catty chuckle, and batted her long lashes. "That is all, thank you very much." I could tell she was restraining herself from blurting out, "You are such a fantastic audience! Thank you! Thanks! I'm here all week!"

The pastor had to shove her out of the way. He uttered, in a compassion that only a priest could muster for such a woman, "Thank you, sweetheart. You may take your seat now."

After about ten more queenly waves, five kisses blown to various people, and a couple of winks, she smugly took her seat in the front row, sitting erect, proper and poised.

Pastor Dan cleared his throat, "Next we will hear from, Lissy, daughter to Thomas."

He just said my name! Why on earth would he...oh yes, the speech I was supposed to write. Marsha gave me a nudge. I guess I am just going to have to wing it, then.  I've done school projects last minute loads of times. This should be a breeze.  I tried convincing myself. It didn't work. The only thing I hate worse then public speaking is fake, rich Aunt Haftly. My legs turned to Jell-O as I steadily embarked my trek to the podium. "One, two, three," I am looking down at my velvet dress shoes, "twenty-six." I stopped and turned to face my doom. "All I have to do is give my speech and walk back, no biggie." I began to nibble on words like a little kid at the doctors.

"Err.. .hello everyone. Umm I would, well a.. .thank you for, err, ummm.. paying your, ahh, you know, respects, and umm.. all. Ummm.." I have nothing prepared! I look desperately into the crowd for help, but all that answered me were bleak stares and annoyed, will-you-get-on-with-it looks. I am an utter fool! The vain in my temple began to pulsate louder and louder. I was sure the crowd could hear the harsh thrumming through my microphone.

My eyelids clamped shut. I'm a bloody idiot!

Nearby a baby began to cry out of the blue. No, more like wail for dear life. This baby was mad! I mean, really, really furious!

What would Marsha say in a situation like this?

The shrieks pounded violently in my head. My brain turned to mush. I couldn't think. What was I going to do? Of course, Marsha would be really sweet about me totally losing it in front of the biggest crowd I had ever seen in my entire life.

The heavy metal door eked open and shut, and the screams puttered away like a car. I took a deep breath, and opened my eyes to the people I knew would be dumbfounded as they eyeballed me. Owww, my head ached! Gathering the minuscule courage I could muster, I began my speech in the most powerful, confident, matter-of-fact voice possible, under my current condition. Here goes nothing.

"I've known me father to be a kind-hearted, gentle soul enclosed in a large package." Yes, I can do this! With a burst of adrenaline I remembered a story he'd once told me. "Ever since the first grade he knew he longed to right the wrong doing, not only in his small Catholic School, but throughout the entire world. Every night, returning home from his newspaper job, he'd save up his pennies to provide a starving family in Africa with a decent meal, and a roof over their heads." My confidence level rising, "I've always known that serving his country would be his fate. What job would he have loved more? I knew he would act very bravely, he would never surrender, never give in. I knew he would bare our nations name with pride. I knew that war would be bloody, treacherous, and there was a chance he would get hurt. But I never knew I would lose my daddy, forever. That looming day, when he went off to war, I never could fathom that this would be the last memory I would have of him. I would never hear my daddy's voice, or smell his sweet aftershave again, for as long as I live. I never tried to grasp those memories, and hold tight to them, because, I could never have imagine him gone. He will never be dead though. Not as long as those who on Earth cherish the memories and love he has left. He will always be in my heart, forever singing a majestic melody that can never be muted. I am so very proud of my Daddy."

My mind went blank. No more words occupied me . My confidence level, once so high, dropped like a thousand-pound weight falling from the sky. As I fumbled my way down from the risen podium and scurried to take by seat at the back, applause filled the once so intimidating pews and about fifty or so people, mostly women, but occasionally a few men here and there, were weeping there souls out and blowing vigorously into a hankie. I felt good about the applause, but at the same time I felt as if I was  simply horrid human being. Since coming to this funeral, which I so dreaded, I did not shed a single tear, not one!

"Great speech!" Marsha breathed, smiling wide at me when I finally reared the end of the pew and sat. "Wow, I didn't know you had it in you? I thought you were deathly afraid of public speaking?"

I continued staring bleakly into the head of the person in front of me, five rows up, and I could see out of the corner of my eye her smile fade.

"Not one," I burst out without thinking.

"Huh, Lissy what are you talking about?"

"I haven't shed one tear since arriving here, not one single blasted tear. Does that" I stuttered, "Does that mean I don't love my dad, that I never did? My eyes are as dry as the Sahara. "

"You’re just taking in all the happy memories that you've shared with you Dad. That's why you haven't cried yet." Marsh always comforted me, "Everyone has their way of coping, Lissy."

The speeches end, and a lovely mass and eulogy followed over my father’s grave. By the end of the eulogy everyone was weeping hysterically and hugs were uncontrollably flying every which way. Marsh and mum are arm and arm, embracing each other in a tight squeeze. The waterworks soared. I seemed to be the only one who was unfazed and different, like a sober, black person in a party of white drunks.

About ten minutes had passed, and I was grateful for the mourners’ absence. With them vanished the awkward tension, and the feeling I was a bloody, retched person.

Then I stood over my father's gravestone, my feet nailed to the hard, snow covered earth.

"Hey, Lissy," Mum grabbed my shoulder. "I have to go." She must have seen the look of disappointment in my eyes because she hastily added, "But you can stay a couple of minutes if you'd like to."

I glanced downward, "Yes, I'd like that very much."

"I'll go warm the car up then, love." And she scurried off. I could hear the dainty crunch of her designer boots breaking the snow's surface. I remained still until I was certain the car's door was shut,and she was out of earshot.

Reaching in my coat pocket my hand came to  rest on the picture of Dad and me and a couple of clinging macaroni noodles.

"Here, Dad." I wedged it between the tombstone and the stone flower vase. "Maaa... Merry Christmas." They finally came, hard and strong. Choking and gasping I laid myself on his gravestone, clenched onto it like a leech. Nothing was going to separate him from me. Nothing except cold, unforgiving death. I wailed, and it felt like any second now I would vomit into the snow. There was one more gift. With shaky hands I pulled out my poem and read it aloud:

 To my dearest Daddy,

Your return is like warm sunshine in the winter air,

Like a single leaf on the tree of hope,

You give me a reason to hope, and dream, and love,

Your music fills my world with an array of colour,

Giving me the freedom, and joy of painting my world however I may please,

Oh, Dad you've been missed,

The centre piece of the puzzle was lost,

And now that it has been found,

At long last I may gaze upon our artwork in awe and splendour,

I love you as the sun loves the beach,

May we reign in this unending bounty of love 'till God taketh' our souls.

With the last words my voice came out squeaky and forced.

At that moment I realized something. Something staring me in the face for all this time, but I would always brush it aside not paying it a second thought. Christmas wasn’t about presents, baking cookies for Santa, hanging holly, out-decorating your neighborhood, caroling in the snow; it was not about giving as many presents as possible, cooking a feast worthy of the gods, sipping eggnog round the fire with the holiday channel on the telly full blast, or anything else you may associated with when you first hear the word, Christmas. Sure all those things were jolly good, but if you have no one to share the experience with, what really do you have? What would be our reason for being on this Earth our whole lives? Without those I love and whom love me, my life would be a swirling black hole of despair, that I would be forced to wonder in misery my whole life, trying, but never succeeding to find my way out. Those who share love are my way out of this black hole called life. Life sometimes isn't fair, and can strip you down to your core nerves. This sting is unbearable. But with those whom you  love waiting round the corner to brighten your spirits, it somehow makes life worth living again, and maybe seem not all that bad after all. They were the root that kept me upright and firmly planted.

"To love and to be loved, that is the only reason we are put on this abused, mislead Earth." My dad's voice echoed in my mine. My dad might have left me in body, but the knowledge and love he gave in the short while he was here will forever be with me.

"Forever singing a majestic melody that can never be muted." I recalled my own words, and now I could finally see the meaning that lay hidden, beneath the cracks of my own voice, the meaning I was oblivious to. I had speed through my speech so feverishly that I didn't have any time to ponder the meaning behind my own words.

"I'm becoming more and more like my father everyday," I chuckled to myself. "Well, I've got some catching up to do if I want to spread half the love and happiness he did." I couldn't help but to grin, walking steadily to the car. "Ahh, bliss at last."

Something drew my eyes upward. My jaw dropped in disbelief. Did my eyes deceive me? For overhead, plain as day, soared a bald eagle, cawing in the sky among the clouds. It was my dad's way of saying I love you, and goodbye.

"We think she will pull through Aimee. Her legs are broken, but they should be okay in the casts.  The only thing we must keep a close eye on is infection."

"Doctor Shaddix, how do you know if she will be okay? She's been in a coma for three weeks. Will she ever wake up?"

Mom, I'm still here. ..I'm still fighting... You haven't lost me yet... Mom... Can you hear me?

"I can't say for certain that she will, but there is a good chance. She has shown signs of progress. Caden has come off the ventilator; a very good sign. All you can do is wait it out."

I couldn't feel my mother's hand on mine, but I knew it was there. I knew she was close. God, what have I done? The first time that I woke up in my coma I thought I was dead. I couldn't move my body, couldn't really feel my body, I couldn't talk or open my eyes. It wasn't until I could hear the doctor's voice telling my mom that I was in a coma, that I realized I was alive. Being in a coma is like being in a small, dark room, and your body is numb all over. It's the worse feeling in the world. I didn't really remember how I got to this point until last Sunday when a police officer came in the room and told my mom what happened. After that, I couldn't stop thinking about it, and every time I thought about it, the more I started remembering that whole day.

My boyfriend and I met at a gathering for the troops event a few days before our dads left for their tour in Iraq. After a tearful goodbye to our fathers, we got to talking, and later that day, exchanged numbers. Brighten Parker has called me everyday after that. We hit it off great. Finally, on July 24th (my birthday) he asked me out. We had the time of our lives together; we did everything with each other. We weren't like most teenage couples, yes we did have the boyfriend/girlfriend part in our relationship, but we also had the best friend side. We were just plain goofy together, and we had fun.

Five months passed and nothing went wrong. We were going great until Christmas Eve. Brighten and I were out at dinner when both of our moms called us and told us to go back to Brighten’s house immediately. They were sobbing. We knew something had happened, but we didn't know what. We got into his car and as we pulled in his driveway, he took my hand and squeezed it. As he did that, I turned and saw what he was looking at. The Superior Officer's car was parked by the curb. We both knew what that meant. One of us had lost our dad. As we got out of the car, Brighten pulled me close to him and he just held me. I broke down. I couldn't seem to make my tears stop falling. As I felt his warm tears mix with mine, he put his hand under my chin and pulled my head up to look at him. He looked me in the eyes, just searching for the right words to say. He just started saying anything he could.

"Honey, everything's alright...It's gonna be okay..."

He had a painted on smile and his once strong, manly voice was suddenly boyish. It was the saddest voice I've ever heard. He held me for awhile longer and looked at me one more time. He wanted to leave; you could see it in his eyes. We started walking up the drive; a walk only about 15 feet seemed like miles and hours long. As we walked in, we could just feel the tension in the air. We walked into the living room where our mothers' grim faces greeted us.

"Bads, this is Staff Sergeant Armstrong. I'm afraid he has some news for us. Why don't you guys have a seat?"

We both said we would stand. With every deadly word falling from the Staff Sergeant's lips, Brighten pulled me closer and closer to his side.

"I'm terribly sorry to inform you that both Private James Parker and Private Jacobby Pritchett have entered into rest this past Sunday, December 21st. Both men were in the same company as the only two snipers. On a mission in Fallujah, they were taking cover in a nearby mosque. While firing rounds at the enemy, the radio was broken when one of the men fell on it. Because the radio broke, they never received the order to stand down. There was an enemy fighter plane flying in from the south. The plane was a suicidal mission, aimed directly at the mosque. They never saw it coming. The plane crashed right into the mosque, killing everyone inside. After the smoke cleared and it was safe to move again, the other men on the mission went to the mosque and found Private Parker and Private Pritchett's dog tags. Your husbands died with honor and in doing so they have received the Purple Heart. Both will be given to you along with the folded American Flag at the funeral. I know this must be a hard thing to deal with, so we will discuss further actions later. Again, I'm so sorry for your loss, they were good men. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, and God Bless."

As he walked out the door, we just stood there shocked that it was both of our dads. I didn't know what to think. The voice inside me was screaming at the top of its lungs. As if it was planned, all four of us broke down at the same moment. We never saw this coming, not both of our dads. Why did this happen to us? Why now? We sat there with our mothers and cried for hours.

Around three that next morning, Brighten leaned over, kissed me on my forehead, went to his room, and slammed the door. Finally after that, my mom and I left. On the way home, not a word was exchanged between us. I walked in the house, past my dad's study, and finally, my room. I threw myself onto my bed, and cried myself to sleep. Over the next few days, Brighten and I didn't see each other or talk. I called his mom and asked her where he was.

"Caden just come over. He needs you."

"Mrs. Parker what if he doesn't want to see me?"

"He locked himself in his room and I can hear him crying. Trust me. You need to be here."

"Okay, I'll be over in about an hour."

I arrived at his house; Mrs. Parker let me in and told me to go to his room. As I walked up to his room, a million things were racing through my mind. What should I say to him? Should I say anything? I got to his door and knocked.

"Baby, it's me, it's Caden. Why don't you open the door so we can talk?"

As he opened the door, I was greeted with an aged face. His eyes were sunken in, the corners of his mouth were frowning, and his skin was weathered skin. I walked in and just stared at him.

"Brighten you can't stay cooped up in here forever."

"I can as long as I want to."

"Why? Our dads' funerals are tomorrow, you have to come out then."

"Yes, and I'll go, but I don't have to stay out there."

"You can't just walk away from this. It's okay to move on."

"Have you even thought about what happened? Our dads died fighting to protect us. Do you realize that? It's only been a few days, and you walk in here like nothing happened! Just leave! I don't want to see you again! Just get out!"

"Why are you doing this? Please Brighten! We can get through this."

"Did I stutter? I said get out! We are over!"

"If you want to do this to yourself, then fine! I'm sure your father would be so proud of you for being so strong for him."

"Don't you dare bring him into this!"

"I don't need this. You have a wonderful life being locked in your own prison."

I cannot believe I just said that! What am I going to do? I ran out of there. That was the only thing I could do. How could he be acting like that? Him moping around was not going to bring his dad back. He was acting like he was the only one who lost someone.

The next morning was the worst. It was the first morning that I hated to wake up. I went down to get breakfast and my mom decided to tell me that Brighten and his mom were riding with us.

"Mom did you not listen to a word I told you? We broke up! He doesn't want to even see me!"

"What did you expect Caden? His dad was his role model."

"And Dad wasn't mine?"

"I didn't mean it like that. We just have to take this one day at a time."

"UGH! You just don't understand, Mom!"

How could she act that way? I was so angry with her. It was like she wasn't even listening to a word I said. It was like she didn't even care about how I felt.

An hour later we were in Brighten’s driveway. By the time his mom and he got in the car, I was already crying. When he finally looked over at me and saw that I was crying, without skipping a beat, he reached over and grabbed my hand. When I looked at him, he was starring out the window. He had to have felt bad. Why would he be holding my hand? Whatever it was, I was glad he was doing it. We always got into stupid fights, but none like yesterday's. I hoped he didn't mean what he said, I know I didn't. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for saying what I did about his dad. I was sorry for acting like nothing happened. But he also had some things to be sorry for. He should apologize for yelling at me. He should also apologize for telling me he didn't want to see me again. I knew that would happen, but I didn't know when. I wasn't going to bother him about it now, not on our way to the funerals.

The church was packed. I didn't know our dads were so popular. My grandpa did the service. I liked it; he wasn't overdramatic, but he wasn't nonchalant. We started out with a prayer, then some hymns. Grandpa had some people tell stories about our dads, most of them were funny. They were about good times; not about death. Before Grandpa said the last prayer and before everyone said their final, tearful goodbyes at the caskets, he told the story of how they died. There wasn't a dry eye in that church. Some women had to leave the church because it was too much for them. I supposed that they had husbands and boyfriends over in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

The ride to the cemetery was filled with nothing but silence. You could hear a pin drop inside the car. Our dads were buried side-by-side. Brighten held me close the whole time, and squeezed me when our moms were handed the Purple Heart, Dog tags, and the folded American Flag. After the funeral services ended, we went back to Brighten’s house and ate lunch. When Mom and I were about to leave, Brighten pulled me aside and hugged me.

"No matter what happens, I will always love you."

I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but I didn't care. We were okay again. Things were slowly falling back into place. I just wished they would stay there. I don't know what I'd do if anything else were to happen.

The next week was okay. Brighten and I were still dealing with our dads’ deaths and we were still dealing with each other. He wasn't always locked in his room; he came out to visit with his mom and me, but mostly, he only came out to go to his dad's grave. Everyday at three o'clock, Brighten would call me and see if I wanted to go with him, and everyday I would say yes. He would just sit in front of his dad's tombstone and stare. Sometimes we would only be there for a few minutes and other times, we would be there for hours on end. I always wondered what he was thinking, but every time I asked he just said, "Nothing." He never said anything, or answered my questions except that one. I knew he was thinking something, I just didn't know what. I gave up trying to get an answer; I didn't want him to get mad at me again. Every night he took me home and every night he wouldn't say anything to me. Two nights ago, we got kicked out at midnight by the grounds keeper. Brighten took me home like always but something was different. He talked to me when we got to my driveway.

"Caden, you know how much I love you right?"

"Yes, and I love you too."

"Just remember that okay?"

"Brighten, tell me what's going on."

"Promise me Caden, please."

"I promise."

"Okay."

That was that. He gave me a hug and kiss, and just walked away. I didn't know what to think; I didn't know what to feel. I was nervous and angry. I didn't know what he was going to do. He gave no clues. I was mad that he wasn't telling me. Was it good or bad? He'd been acting weird since our dads’ deaths. I guess it was understandable.

The next night I got my answer. Around four in the morning, Brighten's mom called. Something terrible has just happened. She was crying. Why would she be calling me at four in the morning crying? Regardless of why she was calling me, I woke my mom up and informed her of what was happening. Around four thirty, Brighten’s house came into view. There were police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck, all with their lights flashing. I didn't think that they were at Brighten's house until we got closer. We pulled as close to the house as we could, and my heart sank. Something horrific has happened.

"Caden, stay here while I figure out what happened."

"No mom. This is my boyfriend’s house, not yours. I think I will go too." I couldn't stop my tears. I really didn't know what to expect.

As we walked close to the police cars, a cop tried to push my mom and I back.

"NO! Tell me what happened! Brighten is my boyfriend!"

"Ma'am, please step back."

"What happened?"

"We got a call around three this morning of an unconscious boy. We came and he was passed out on his bed. We tried to resuscitate him, but there was no way. He was gone. I'm sorry ma'am."

"NO! This can't be happ-" Just as I was screaming at the cop, the paramedics rolled out Brighten’s gurney, with Brighten’s limp arm hanging slightly off of it.

This can't be happening. Not to me. Not now. All within a month my dad and my boyfriend are taken away from me. WHY? What did I do to deserve any of this? Did Brighten kill himself? Was it because of me? Did I do something wrong? Was it something I said? How could I have let this happen?

"Caden."

"Mrs. Parker, what happened to him?"

Mrs. Parker, always being the one to never make the first to comfort pulled me close to her and we both broke down screaming.

"What happened to him? Was it me? Did he say something?"

"Honey there is no way it was you. It wasn't any of us."

"How do you know? What happened to him?"

"I don't know. He told me he didn't feel good before he went to bed, but I didn't think anything of it until now. If it's any one's fault, it's mine, don't blame yourself."

We sat in the middle of the street, pouring our hearts out. We sat there until the last police officer left the scene. We didn't know what to do. She just lost her husband and son; she doesn't have anyone else anymore.

I was at a loss. I was in a daze that morning. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. How are you supposed to feel after such events happen? I felt blank, and empty. I didn't want to mope around, but I didn't want to do anything. I just couldn't' find a middle. I didn't know how to handle everything. The only thing I knew was that I had to get away. I had to leave the place where everything happened.

I took my iPod and went on a walk. I didn't know where I was going, or how far I was going to go. I just wanted to get away. About an hour later I found myself on the train tracks. I was walking on them for about a half hour when suddenly I heard a loud noise; like when a train sounds its horn. I turned around as fast as I could, and I saw a huge train coming right at me. I tried to jump off to the side fast enough, but I tripped. I tried to pull my legs off as quick as possible, but the train was faster than I was. The next thing I know, I'm in a coma in the hospital.

"Caden, honey, can you hear me?"

Yes mom, I'm here. What is going on? Mom?

"Honey, your legs have gotten infected. The antibiotics are not working..."

Mom, please. I don't want to lose my legs. Mom, don't let them take my legs. Please. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen.

".. .the doctors are going to have to amputate your legs. They don't know if you are going to make it. Since you are in a coma, there is no way of telling. But I need you to pull through. Caden, I know you can do it. I have faith in you."

Mom, I'm not going anywhere. I promise.

The surgery went great. No complications. Everything went perfect. Although still in a coma, I felt a lot better. The only thing I wanted to do was wake up from this coma and apologize to my mom. I wanted to apologize for being out by the tracks; I wanted to apologize for making her buy me that stupid iPod for my birthday.

"Mrs. Pritchett, I'm terribly sorry to inform you that your daughter has not made it through the surgery."

"What? What happened?"

"We didn't catch the infection in time. The infection spread to her heart, and with stress of the surgery, it killed her. Her heart wasn't strong enough. I'm sorry."

"How could you have let this happen? You were supposed to take care of her! Why didn't you catch the infection in time? You killed my daughter!"

"Ma'am, I understand how you feel, but there was no way of detecting it, or knowing it spread to her heart. The infection started in her legs, but didn't show any signs until it spread to her heart. I'm sorry.:

"What? I'm dead? There is no way! I can’t be dead. I feel fine. "

"Caden. It's okay. You're home now. "

"What? Dad? Brighten? Mr. Parker? "

"Honey, you died while in surgery. The infection spread to your heart, and your heart just wasn't strong enough for the surgery. "

"But what about Mom? What is she going to do? What about your mom Brighten?"

"My mom and your mom will be fine. They know that we are all in heaven watching down on them. They will keep us in their hearts, and our memories alive. "

 

 

Junior/Senior Division

Like a Bird

There is a window, and a man, and a bird. The man is sitting at the window, sitting in a chair in fact. The bird is also sitting at the window, but on the other side, that is the outside. The window is high up in the sky and is surrounded by at least one hundred and eight other windows, most of them empty. The bird is looking very curious because it is looking at the window, studying its reflection - a reflection that includes a fiery orange setting sun and wispy clouds. The stupid bird might not even realize that its reflection is a reflection and not a whole other bird. The man also has a reflection, but it’s ghosty and superimposed over the bird and the city. The man might be thinking that it looks like he is outside floating in the sky, but he’s not, fantasizing about floating in the sky that is. This man in this window is actually terribly scared and sad for a very strange reason that I bet you probably can’t guess. Not in a million years.

This man here is thinking about jumping out of the window. In fact he will do it in about eight minutes. Seriously, no lie. He doesn’t know that he’s going to do it; but trust me – he’s going to do it. Notice the slowly expanding pit stains, the tension in the jaw, the eyes intensely focused on vacant space. These are not the signs of a happy person.

The bird cocks its head.

You’re probably thinking, like I would be, that what this man needs is some fresh air, to get outside, go for a walk, or to at least call a caring peer or relation, you know, considering that he is borderline suicidal and all. He must have somebody, a childhood friend, a favorite aunt, or a congenial nondenominational minister of some sort that cares about him and would simply die if he or she knew what a tough and dark time he was going through.

The man in fact does have quite a few of these relations/peers. He comes from a pray-together stay-together family with a dozen brothers and sisters and a happily married, almost-ripped-from-a-fifties-sitcom mother and father, who baked pies and smoked a pipe, respectively. And he was also a popular guy, with a close knit circle of friends he had had since third grade with whom he had built forts and confided in and bragged to about getting his hand up under a girl’s shirt, plus scores of casual acquaintances that respected him and spoke well of him during lunch breaks or at the water cooler. There were literally forty-seven people that he could have called up, even in the wee hours of the morning, who would have begged and pleaded with him to see the error of his ways, that his was a happy life and that for every dark cloud there was, in fact, a silver lining. And he would have called them, too, any one of them, had he been able. It was just that he couldn’t.

He was twenty-four years old, happy as a lark, and in no way shape or form did he want to die, especially in such a violent and inevitably slow way as he eventually would. He just needed to jump out of that damn window.

Which, by the way, is six and a half minutes away.

* * *

The reason that he couldn’t make a call is that his phone didn’t work. Before he smashed the retro rotary dialer into a million pieces while screaming profanities and swinging away with the baseball bat he kept under his bed (he was an All Region ball player in high school), all the phone would do is emit noises like low whispers, which, even after listening to for ten minutes, he couldn’t make out one word of, even though he had a vague suspicion that the voices (both of which sounded vaguely middle-aged and womanish) were talking about him in a thoroughly negative and gossipy manner. And as to the previous suggestion that he should get outside, take a walk around the park, maybe get a hotdog and watch the sunset – that too was impossible. His door wouldn’t open. He’d kicked and pounded and thrown various souvenirs and hip knick-knacks at it, but the door just stood there, only doing half of what doors were designed to do, that is, not opening. For twenty minutes he crooked his back, ignoring his myriad chiropractic problems (the result of a tragic, but sadly typical, high school ball injury) and had smashed his face against the peep hole, single beady eye whirling around the convex peep hole’s warped world, watching his oddly stretched and distorted neighbors stream by, immune to his screeching and pounding, even though he pounded until his fist felt like mashed potatoes and there was a shiny and bloody hand-shaped stain on the faux wood door.

And about the window, don’t even think about the window. It was like a wall made out of glass, which I guess pretty much is what a window is anyway. Regardless, it wouldn’t open and after the door and the phone, the poor guy was too darn tired to fight, and just laying down on the floor, twiddling between thumb and forefinger the coil of the still as of yet unsmashed phone, he rocked back and forth sobbing his eyes out. Then it was only 8:32 a.m. He still had a whole day ahead of him.

* * *

His cheek is smooshed against the window, the fleshy clamminess a contrast to the doubly insulated heat. Fiery red, yellow and orange rays blast through the window panes, cutting a lattice of shadow and light across the room, the man’s silhouette – sharp and giant – projected on the opposite wall. He is very conscious of his sitting posture. His spine is currently curved in such a way that the chair’s excellently advertised, expertly created ergonomics do not like. There is a pale, washed-out version of himself, sitting, floating in space, on the other side of the window. Maybe it’s only reflection, or maybe he’s actually flying.

* * *

He had a dream last night. It was one of those dreams that you wake up and you’re so excited, that you just need to tell someone, except, in the middle of relaying it to your coworker or commuter buddy, it comes out all wrong and doesn’t sound nearly as interesting as you felt when you woke up, and your friend just stares at you nodding politely, but underneath the pleasantly smiling exterior, you can tell that he doesn’t really care – or worse, he does care and you remember he was a psychology minor in college and suddenly you feel naked and find yourself blushing and you start stammering and pretend you can’t remember the rest. But the truth is that you can remember and you’ll probably never forget it, despite loads of mental effort and repression; and, then, even as you’re riding the subway back home after work, that little voice in your head is still nagging you, asking what sort of person are you to dream that anyway? Yeah, it was one of those dreams.

Anyway, the dream goes like this. It’s the perfect summer day – birds in the sky, a nice breeze, sprinklers firing everywhere, lawnmowers sending up an arc of grass clippings over the fence. He is seven years old, maybe eight; he’s not sure. He’s lying on his back in the middle of his yard, staring up at the sky – the most beautiful sky he has ever seen. Big and blue and deep with just the right number of clouds – huge fluffy things, immaculately white, and it seems like, he just knows it somehow, that he can reach up and grab one. He starts reaching up for it, and he’s like a baby again – all warm and safe and soft and cute – and he just keeps reaching cause it’s just a little farther, a little more stretch and… and he’s got it and he’s touching it and squeezing it and it’s so soft and tender and all around amazing – and then it’s like the sky breaks open and there are heavenly choirs and hallelujahs and he feels – no, he knows – that the universe and he are one and everything and everyone is connected and completely and totally loved, and it’s all in the most sincere and genuine and nondrugged out way possible.

He is enjoying this feeling of oneness, one with everything, with the sprinklers and the grass clippings and the birds which spin around his head like a mobile (maybe it is a mobile), but then he has that horrible falling feeling you sometimes have in dreams, when you think you trip and you wake up shooting yours arms out to catch yourself, except instead of tripping it more feels like the whole sky rammed him head on, knocking him out of his body and back dozens of yards. There’s this one moment, when he sees himself, like his body, and it’s eclipsing the screamingly brilliant sun, and for one second, all he thinks is, Wow, but then that second is up, and the sky tears open, like God pulled out his pocket knife and the white cloudy meat seeps out like the stuffing of a mutilated teddy bear. Then a million mile long spear tears right through his gut and then through the Earth and the sun and a few stars and galaxies. All of a sudden, he was a million light years away and everything was lined up, liked a universal shish kabob, and there he was, a tiny, dirty, trivial speck, shish kabobbed somewhere between a medium sized star and one of its rocky little planets. The second hung on and kept going and became more than a second, became an entire eternity until God, not the merciful Shepherd, but the badass, buff God from Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, gingerly plucks out the spit and smiling uses it as a tooth pick as everything snaps back to place and he (the man) fall into a wide open sky, bluer and deeper than he ever thought possible.

He woke up screaming into silence. The clock said 3:11 a.m. He switched on the TV. Caught a rerun of Family Guy and was back to sleep in fifteen minutes.

* * *

In three minutes, the man sitting in the chair will be a three-yard smear on the sidewalk.

Seriously, what can he be thinking? What would you be thinking? Would you remember your first kiss? Your graduation? Your third birthday party? That one really funny evening when you weren’t quite drunk and she wasn’t quite drunk and everything was perfect and you thought for once that maybe this was someone I might be able to love forever? All of those things? None of those things? Or would you focus on what was coming? Heaven? Hell? Maybe reincarnation? Or would you just quote unquote try to smell the roses? Your last sunset? The last time you would smell tooth paste, and how truly unique and queer but refreshing that smell is? Could you even think?

Would you even care?

* * *

In a matter of minutes, the panic – the feelings of impotence and helplessness – took him, a healthy, American boy, and reduced him to a sniveling and soggy mess on the carpet. Liquids of various colors and viscosities gush/seep/ooze out of mouth, nose, anus and other orifices that shouldn’t be leaking. He leaves multi-hued stains as he rolls around; and watching him, you realize that gnashing of teeth isn’t just Biblical hyperbole.

Reader, don’t you just want to reach out between his retchings, and, you know (finding a dry spot of course), pat him on the back and give him a good old everything’s going to be okay? Or if you are deficient in empathy, you might offer him a sharp kick in the ribs and some terse, salty advice like grow a pair, blubber boy. Either way, do you really understand what is upsetting him? I mean it’s just a door, a phone and a window, right?

Sure, it may just be a door, and a phone, and a window, but after all they are a door, a phone, and a window – meaning, this shouldn’t be happening. Doors open, dozens of them everyday. That’s hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of times by the time you’re dead. Why would you think otherwise? It’s just a piece of wood or metal or some combination of the two, nailed to three hinges; there’s nothing technical or magical or complicated about it. But yet, isn’t the idea horrifying – that something so simple, so obvious that a three year old could tell you how and why it has to work, doesn’t work? If something as fundamental as a door no longer makes sense, how are you supposed to make sense of anything? Maybe the floor will stop working, or maybe gravity will reverse itself? How can you be sure of anything, if you can’t be a sure of a door?

* * *

Through the storm of psychic drama and existentialist crises, the man’s fragile, battered ego, bloodied and war torn ego limped to the front of the mind and banged his shoe Mikhail Gorbachev style, yelling above the chaos, telling all of the fear and doubt to shut the hell up and be quiet or he’d come down there and shut them up himself. And there was silence, and the ego delivered a passionate monologue that condemned pointless fear mongering, that stated simply and succinctly the necessity of level-headedness and reason, and while choking up a little, reminded everyone that they were reasonable adults with a duty to perform. Voice breaking with passion, a tear rolling down his face, along with many a face in the audience, he closed by saying it’s just a door. The crowd was silent except for little whispers here and there that leapt like a wildfire across neural circuits and synapses. It’s just a door. It’s just a door. Coping and repression mechanisms kicked in, adrenal and stress responses were dismissed, and the refrain repeated and echoed and spread until the man suddenly realized that he wasn’t crying, and he wasn’t shaking, and couldn’t for the life of him remember how that stupid door had upset him so much in the first place. It’s just a door, he thought proudly, and standing up, forced a laugh, in imitation of many a war movie and Sunday afternoon melodramas he had seen – a laugh that seemed to say haha, men don’t get upset over such trivial things.

With a swagger, he marched himself into the bathroom, his confident and proud façade in ironic contrast to his brown and yellow stained boxers. He twisted the knobs as far to the right as possible. Unseen pipes squeaked and groaned and torrents of hot, luxurious water gushed from the showerhead. He stripped down and started to shave, flexing his pectorals and triceps in exaggerated, commercial-esque motions, while hot, steamy clouds poured from behind the full and billowing shower curtain.

Naked, smiling, he disappeared into the mist. Soaps suds dripped down his legs, zigzagging from little hair to little hair. Excrement and mucous went round and round in ever tighter and faster revolutions until they silently slipped down the drain. Stepping out of the shower, he felt fresh, clean, like a new man – a man with ambition and will that is ready to climb, rung by rung, the corporate ladder. He went to brush his teeth. He squeezed the tube and paste plopped onto the brush; but he changed his mind – he’d brush after breakfast. Eggs would be good, maybe oatmeal.

He was halfway to the kitchen when he realized that the world was an uncorrected myopic blur. He didn’t have his contacts in. Moseying back to the bathroom, he had a hard time finding his contact case. He normally left it on the counter, but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in any of the drawers either. It was with a slow, and building terror, that it dawned on him that not only was his contact case missing, so was his saline and deodorant and… sticking his head up and looking up at the sink, so was his previously toothpasted toothbrush.

Back inside his head, as his ego and other mental faculties look on in horror, there is unbroken silence. Then Mr. Adrenal Gland freaks, and Medulla Oblongata is too stunned to increase heart rate accordingly, and blood pressure plummets, and nerves fires this way and that. Little ego, moments ago so proud, runs around yelling for order until a rough and tough Central Ischemic Response, or fainting reflex, decks poor little ego across the chin, sending him into a sprawled heap on the floor.

* * *

Through the glass and around the panes, the image of the bird waddles back and forth across the narrow ledge, pecking this way and pecking that way and every once in a while, stopping – for some reason that the man could never guess – the bird would stop and just look – its silver blue speckled breast swelling from the unheard coos – it would stop and stare at him, at the man, through the doubly insulated, UV filtered, semi-reflective glass, staring right at (into?) his eyes.

He met the gaze unblinkingly.

* * *

If you could see into his head, if you could see the wispy white bubbles of his thoughts, gears and cogs would be twisting, springs would be compressing, and a little idea, a crazy idea, buried deep in the cobwebbed darkness, would slowly, but fiendishly, making its way through the esoteric mental machinery – until finally, seven minutes and thirty-two seconds after we’d shown up to spy into this man’s most private and personal life, the dark thought reaches the central control room, and coolly and knowledgably twists knobs and flips switches, and then sitting back, legs crossed, smiles peevishly.

Externally, tension melts like a spring thaw. Shoulders droop, relaxed, and a sigh – inaudible – passes through the slightly parted lips that are already, for the first time in not just today but years, are starting, ever so slightly, to twist and curl at the edges, forming into a genuine – a crazy but no less genuine – smile.

His gaze drifts from the window – a full one hundred and eighty degree rotation – back into the dark apartment, his apartment, where he had eaten and slept and watched TV and dreamt of a blindingly bright future – a future with Judy, in the suburbs, a little house, a respectable job, but above all Judy, most mind-blowingly beautiful girl in the world, who he, even amidst the surging wave of euphoria, can feel as an empty echo sing songingly calling from the hollow space between his ears, the dark thought having bound and gagged her long, long ago.

High, dizzy, tepid and bubbly, his knees creak, his center of gravity shifts forward. For the first time in four hours and sixteen minutes, he is standing, and for the first time ever, he is moving with a definite, purposeful gait. His fingers brush old trophies – impeccably polished but never the less dull and plastic, relics of glory days gone out the window. He passes without looking at the Ivy League diploma and smiling, proud, tear-jerked parental photo. In three seconds he has walked the entire length of his life.

Flat against the wall, half-naked, trim, fit, white and angelic -- muscles, tense, relax, tense, flex and, slowly, extremely slowly, contract one final time before exploding – his athletic build silently screaming across the three hundred and ten square feet of his prison apartment. Arms pump wildly, practically flapping – the window, a glare of heavenly white and shadowy latticework approaching nearer and nearer. No sweat, no thoughts, no fear – just pure, unadulterated being. The moment comes, an instantaneous eternity – flesh meets glass, and glass shatters, millions and millions of unique and individual crystals, July snowflakes, suspended in air, as feet leave ground and leap to heaven, frozen between moments in a perfect, glittering, screamingly beautiful instant, an instant dividing and subdividing into an infinite series of perfect eternities – eternities, but moments nonetheless, intangible but no less mortal, things that sadly must end and the man (his name is Gabriel) is smiling, happy, free, if for only a second until he is no longer ethereal but corporeal, tugged against his will by his own indelible gravity into an ever accelerating half parabola that has no end but the end, i.e. the bitterly hard concrete that approaches faster and faster each instant until the final moment when flesh, bone, blood and most of all spirit stop being one and go their separate ways.

* * *

It’s night now. The sun is set. Mosquitoes and moths dance in the lamplight, the half-darkness periodically punctuated by magnesium flashes – police photographers, anonymous, trench-coated men, faces hidden behind darkness and blinding lights, immortalizing the scene in negative on 35 mm emulsion strips. As we move skyward, we see three detectives, steam from fresh coffee dancing between flashes, gingerly step underneath the typical yellow barrier tape. One turns to the other and begins to say something, but as we move higher, his comments disappear into the night. Stars resolve themselves from the background. The moon hangs over the scene as if it is bending down out of the sky to take a look, and a single feather from a single bird floats to the earth, more slowly and more gracefully than Gabriel ever could.

In the distance, aisles away, the check out lane was a dull roar of chatter, beeping, and rustling bags. Further into the store, as row upon row of merchandise sprouted from the very tiles underfoot, that very same low thunder became muted, softened. Beneath countless rows of buzzing fluorescents and deep within the commercial gullet, a soothing semi-solitude could be found.

Standing as he was, unobtrusive and rather ordinary, Ben Daught failed to portray his true self. The idle store-goer and the professional shopper, alike, would have found nothing remarkable about Ben. He was of average height, not quite six feet tall, and basic coloring. Outwardly, Ben Daught was your typical, mid-class American.

The book section. Standing tall, quiet, shelves lined with books and stuffed with books; dripping with books, created a maze of sorts. To enter into this library-like labyrinth, one first had to traverse through a small jungle of magazines. From the entrance, the path split, leaving you with one of two choices. Regardless of which direction you picked, it would lead you back to where you started. In the center of this rectangular oasis arose a column overflowing with every sort of writing imaginable.

Within that small pocket of stillness, Ben found a world he was aptly suited for. Not only was he a voracious reader, he was an equally as passionate writer. Here, where the written word abounded, Ben found that he could truly think. The countless pages around the man seemed to absorb and divert all distraction, while nevertheless exuding a deep and thought provoking ambience.

Currently, Ben was intent upon the central pillar of his tiny microcosm. Inevitable Ambivalence. The book was off to the left, just shy of center, and was surrounded by half naked cowboys holding scantily clad and rather voluptuous women; the romance section. A tiny smile crooked Ben's lips as he lifted a copy of the book from the shelf. Inevitable Ambivalence. Beneath the title, and much smaller, read the words "A tragic romance." What Ben had truly been looking for was etched across the bottom of the book's cover: Ben Daught.

His book. Ben opened his very first novel and sifted through the text indiscriminately. Various words and phrases jumped out at him. Occasionally, an entire sentence would stand out. As these bits and pieces slipped into his mind, Ben found himself reminiscing. He could remember the exact moment the words first hit paper. He could remember how they felt forming into coherent ideas within his head. In many cases, Ben could even recall how the words rolled from his tongue and the satisfaction they ultimately brought him.

Flipping to the back cover, Ben found himself. Smiling subtly, he considered himself as appearing self-assured; confident as to what the future would bring. Closing his book, Ben gazed upon the back. Printer perfect, a brief summary-hook attempted to lure potential readers to what had taken him months and months to hammer out and even more to have edited.

"A riveting tale of a young man, Samson, seeking his true love, Margaret. There is one issue, however, Margaret is taken. Without a moment's hesitation, Samson plunges into a desperate war to win her heart away from Leon, her present lover. Margaret quickly finds that she has feelings for both men and is caught within a terrible game of tug-o-war. Ultimately, she must make a decision."

Sighing, his hands reluctant to leave behind his brain-child, Ben tucked the book back amidst its fellows. A sad smile rested upon his lips as he turned away. It was obvious that he would've loved to stay longer, but Ben had other appointments to fill.

From a bystander’s view of things, Ben had quietly been standing in place, when he suddenly turned away from the shelf, the very epitome of a man set upon a mission. At that exact moment, a young woman was making her way past Ben. Bam! The two collided. The armful of materials the woman had been toting about suddenly became a chaotic spray of shrapnel, which clattered against most everything.

"I'm so sorry!" Ben was scrambling about, attempting to collect the odd assortment of items he had just knocked loose. "I didn't realize you were right behind me. I should've been paying more attention! I'm so sorry!"

"Oh, don't you worry about it," came the woman's gentle reply. "This wasn't the first time and definitely not the last time that this will ever happen to me!" Ben offered her what things he had been able to retrieve.

"I hope that's everything." He smiled hopefully and was relieved to see an answering smile.

"If this is the worst thing that happens to me all day, then I'm having a great day." Ben noted the wisdom in those words and was further pacified. "Well, I really must be going!"

"Again, sorry. And watch out for idle browsers! We're an unpredictable bunch!" Ben watched the woman walk along a shelf and disappear around the corner. He shrugged to himself, at once acknowledging and dismissing his thoughts. Well, she had a pretty face.

As Ben went to take a step, his foot knocked against something. All Ben saw was a brief flash of red that clattered beneath the edge of the lowest shelf. Another sigh escaped his lips as he sank down to his knees, so as to fish out that mysterious object. He must not have gotten everything back to that woman.

After much straining and shifting, Ben finally wrapped his fingers around the mischievous thing. He jerked back all of a sudden, shaking his hand. "Ow! Are there needles down there? Bugs?" A small droplet of blood oozed from his finger. He sucked on it momentarily. Reluctant now, wishing to avoid a reoccurrence of just a moment ago, Ben carefully snagged the thing in question and pulled it forth.

"What the heck?" Cupped warily within his palm rested a strange melding of the organic and the manufactured. The first thing Ben noticed about the crimson object, was that it resembled a well-formed rose blossom on one end. From the base of the blossom, finely crafted vines twined along the oblong contraption. The artisan in question was very particular; he had forged inch long steel thorns. Tenderly manipulating the rose within his palm, Ben found that the end opposite the rose was pocked by a single, perfectly round hole. Could it be? Click-click! That was one lethal pen.

All the way home, Ben's mind had been preoccupied by the little incident in the store. In particular, he was fascinated by the dumb luck of the whole situation. Within his head, luck began to twist into chance, which in turn metamorphosed into fate. Ben came to the conclusion that fate was decidedly interesting.

Before he even saw the austere walls of his apartment building, Ben was putting words into sentences that already had a set location within his newfound story. Thoroughly entranced, Ben's footfalls upon the stairs could almost be classified as random and meandering. It were as if he would move up a stair or two, but pause to think through an idea, only to ascend a few more steps. Ben only lived on the second floor of the building, but his stuttering passage was reminiscent of a man four times his age.

The guy was simply oblivious. He had transcended the everyday world and entered into one that was broadening with every moment of attendance. Luckily for Ben, his subconscious mind recognized home when he was standing right outside the door. Reaching into his pocket, a mass of keys announced their release from captivity with a merry jingle. Grating roughly, a twist of the key elicited a resounding thud from within the door.

Pushing open the wooden portal, Ben seemed to reactivate. He was suddenly energetic and promptly tossed his shoes and jacket aside. Padding through the small apartment, Ben slipped into his bedroom. The room itself wasn't very large to begin with, but throw in a bed, a dresser, and a desk that haughtily proclaimed its superiority, and the room became devastatingly tiny.

The walls enclosing the room were covered by a smoke-stained white wash. When Ben first moved in, he couldn't stand to be in the room unless the window was thrown open and a fan was desperately trying to suck in fresh air. Now, however, when the window became a dark portal through which the city's lights peeped inside, and his lamp was heroically throwing back the night, Ben found the smoky walls to be homely and comforting. What Ben truly loved about his bedroom, however, was the thick carpet that cushioned his every footfall. Were he to stand in one place, Ben would swear that the carpet was trying to consume his feet.

Winding his way through the room, Ben settled himself behind the self-important desk. During his college days, Ben had been making his way back to the dorm after work, when he spotted the desk. Even then, the piece exuded nobility, narcissism. Someone had kicked it to the curb, and for good reason: furniture that made everything else look shabby was difficult to keep around.

Regal, arrogant, the desk stood upon the street corner like it were the dais of the royal court. The desk's character charmed Ben forward. Behind its bow front and darkly burnished luster, he saw himself in visions of scholarly grandeur. With piles of books at hand, an open journal, and ink smudges everywhere, Ben had procured the final piece of his erudite fantasy.

Nearly bouncing, Ben pulled open a drawer. Forth, from within the dark innards of his literary pulpit, he withdrew a fresh notebook. Unlike many of his peers, Ben much preferred fresh paper and the smell of ink, than the rapid staccato of a keyboard. He felt that actually writing his stories gave them more life; put more of himself into them.

Ben flipped the notebook open to the first page. Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed a pen (an item he never left home without) and prepared to start writing. Ben was suddenly struck by a profound realization. Cradled within the grasp of his fingers was the rose pen from the store. Somehow, he had grabbed it without pricking himself on the thorns, which, even now, glimmered dangerously in the sunlight. It were as if the vines had not only avoided his fingers, but coiled about them. To his surprise, the rose pen turned out to be not unlike a pet boa constrictor; latently malignant.

Despite his surprise, Ben cheerily shrugged his shoulders and clicked the pen to readiness. He always considered a title for his stories before he actually began to write them. In many ways, his title became his thesis; helping to keep his thoughts focused and the words flowing. Today, however, a title was not forthcoming. Ben agonized over this minor roadblock for some time, sifting through his thoughts, until he finally admitted to himself that a title was stubbornly waiting just beyond his reach.

Setting pen point to paper, Ben caught onto an opening idea and began to coerce the right words into the proper formation. Those first words became an infinitesimal crack in the dam, releasing the very first trickles of water. As each tiny droplet squeezed through a minute fracture, particles of cement were eroded away and the hairline fissures became liquid-gushing breaches. With every scribbled word, water poured from fresh ruptures and old cracks began to spew liquid from massive clefts. Ben was lost within this deluge, this ink-coated fantasy.

Abruptly, Ben was jarred to true consciousness. His current sentence was only partly complete, yet he found it wrong already. His words weren't matching and the flow was being disrupted. Ben jumped back a few lines, seeking to recapture the essence of his inspiration. Again, he was brought to a bumpy, screeching halt. Casting his thoughts out, hungry nets seeking elusive fish, Ben meditated on the issue at hand. Ben contemplated the problem for upwards of an hour, but finally had to draw in his nets.

Setting down the pen, resigned to his fate; at a loss for words, Ben leaned back in his chair. Relaxed and comfortable, Ben let his eyelids drift shut. As he went to prop his legs atop the desk, a gut-roiling stink assailed his nostrils. Ben sat up, all of a sudden, desperately attempting to expel the pungent odor from his quivering senses. Unsettlingly metallic and utterly invasive, the blood-scent failed to dissipate.

His weary mind and exhausted frame were overwhelmed. Instinct, desperate reaction, swelled forth and sent Ben reeling from his previously languid composure. Adrenaline was barely enough to keep himself standing. Pale, visibly shaking, Ben had undergone a drastic change in physical well being. He stumbled to his bed and collapsed. Consciousness fled.

6AM - Wake and shower

There was a lady who lived overtop Ben, who, like a well maintained clock, was as predictable as the morning sun.

6:35AM - Stretch and exercise

7:10AM - Eat hurriedly

7:23AM - Run for work.

Hammers. The landlord was having something repaired? Jack hammers! Was the building being demolished? His head had herds of wildebeest charging through it. Ben rolled and groggily stared at the clock.

6:42

Mrs. Elliot was shaking apart his sanity.

His brain felt like a smashed pumpkin. The very pulse of his heart was painful to him. Ben groaned and strained to escape back to sleep. He was unsuccessful. Every energetic aerobic leap sent another needle of pain to splinter his skull. Had he gone on a drinking binge? Try as he might, Ben failed to recall his activities from the night before. The pillow over his face was a gentle muzzle, quieting the relentless barking of reality. He dozed restlessly.

Dilemma; a crux. Reality teetered upon the brink of total collapse. Fate; the chess master's process, was being overthrown. Order was dissolving into chaos. A lonely man in a cold world was returning to the cloying shadows of existence. His world was high atop the teeter-totter, just waiting for the other side to leap away.

Ben's eyes flicked open.

He rolled from bed and mindlessly coerced his faint body to position itself at the egotistical desk. He was already scribbling away. As he wrote desperately, his stomach growled demandingly. Barely halting his mad dash scribble, Ben remarked, thoroughly distracted, "Oh hush!" He had jotted only a few more words before his stomach redemanded his attention. "I'll feed you when I'm done writing!" The unsatisfied beast within his belly mewled one final, piteous cry.

The man had been stepping past product-laden storefronts. He wasn't browsing. He wasn't thinking. He was just walking now, waiting desperately for his chance to plunge into the street, where an oncoming vehicle would invariably splatter his guts across the snow-dappled asphalt. He heard his chance before he saw it. A roaring car engine was fast approaching; he edged towards the street. Finally.

The speeding driver didn't have a chance. The plan was infallible. The car's blazing headlights cut a swath through the evening gloom. The man took the first step towards his eternal oblivion. "Oh no!" The fast tattoo of high-heeled traffic stuttered; faltered. A slight weight suddenly knocked the man off balance and sent him groundward. A woman had stumbled and they were both lying on the cold sidewalk.

"Damn it!"

In the flicker-flash instant of an eyeblink, Ben was aware of reality. He was shivering, cold. His fingertips felt numb. His joints were clunky and aching. For the slightest moment, Ben's vision went out of focus. He was only getting sick, he thought to himself. His ink smudged left hand resumed its work. He'd rest when he was done; hopeless addict.

His world had been reordered. She had set things straight. He felt important and purposeful. Her burning light was pushing back the shadows, confining them to some dark corner of his mind. They had some deeper connection. Many a time, a simple glance held time still for an ephemeral eternity.

She didn't quite share his near devotion. Before long, God had cast his shadow over their relationship. She was God's and he was left grasping at dreams. He pleaded. He fought. He wept. He suffered. His world was dead, not unlike pulling an immature fetus from the womb. His hopes were snuffed out before they could even reach the full culmination of birth. He had returned to silently treading along the storefront.

The truck made a fine mess of his humanity. And the woman's sorrow-soaked tears watered the parched earth of his burial mound.

Ben, unfathomably exhausted, nestled the final punctuation into the paper. He signed his name, leaned back, smiling thinly. The pen clattered against the chair and thudded softly into the carpet. A few droplets of ink had been shaken free of the pen, staining the carpet red...

422 A.D.

Lorcán, son of Larine, looked forward to Samhain with the same enthusiasm he granted any other festival that forced him to leave his self-imposed exile from the mountains of Munster. He tolerated it. He closed up his simple shelter, packed a few essential things, and called for his slave from Alba to get ready to leave and left within the hour. He would arrive at Dubh Linn and be treated like the royalty he disdained and remained family with.

If it would not have offended his uncle, who was also the High King, and his mother, Lorcán would have happily stayed in his isolated mountain home. He had been so sure of entering the other world last time he went into a deep trance, but he could not try for two weeks at the least. He could not with all the chatter, banalities, and interruptions. He supposed he could have threatened to curse those who spoke or interrupted, but he was not sure if the gods wanted him in the other world, so they may not appreciate his bringing down a curse. Besides, it would have ruined his mother’s good humor at seeing him.

What good is being a druid if I cannot properly curse people? he thought grimly while sitting at the High King’s table at the feast.

Lorcán’s extreme dislike of people, especially pompous clan chieftains, finally waned enough that he stood and wandered around for enough time that his true purpose for coming would not be offensive.

He was here to get his son and take the boy back to Munster so he could begin his study of the priesthood. Ciarán was just seven and the youngest and only survivor of two other brothers and a sister. Lorcán and his mother had agreed Ciarán was probably better off with children his own age and more people than the solitary mountains after his mother’s death, so he had gone to Dubh Linn to his grandmother and great-uncle, but Lorcán felt that it was time Ciarán understood he was not to be a warrior, but a druid.

Druids were feared. Druids were not drawn into impossible battles for greedy High Kings who killed their sister’s husband and nephew’s father because he grew bored of a peaceful kingdom. Druids told the greedy High King what ought to happen.

Lorcán was a little bitter. He admitted this. He was happy being bitter.

He was also in fear of the gods to take his son from him, but he did not admit that. He could not admit his fear to the gods, lest they be tempted to take more from him. Lorcán was fairly confident that they demanded he, as one of their favorite druids, not have any distractions. They were awfully demanding that way.

Lorcán stopped to watch the warriors’ joyful, carefree race. They mostly rode naked, as tradition demanded, but a few wore breeches or loincloths. He leaned against a stake, an appreciative smile playing at his lips. Lorcán was the son of revered warrior Larine, son of Ciarán, who had been buried in the finest way, standing up while facing his enemies. Larine’s war cry could be heard by the gods and struck fear in Roman centurions and, supposedly, in Samhain himself. It was said that was how Larine managed to escape so many certain death scenarios, by riding on his horse into the other world and striking fear into Samhain with his battle cry.

Lorcán enjoyed the storytelling of this, but he knew that it had never happened. If it had, Larine would have survived his final battle that would not have been his final battle.

A chief’s son won and was modest enough even Lorcán could appreciate his win. The boy saw a druid watching him and looked startled for a moment, but Lorcán melted back in the crowd. His druid’s tonsure ensured people would step out of his way and his long absences ensured hardly anyone would recognize him.

He found his cousin, a dour boy of sixteen who wanted not to be prince, High King, warrior, or druid. Connor was adamant to be a bard, whether or not his father forbade it.

“Have you seen Ciarán?”

“I have not seen him since the day before last, but I have heard him several times since playing with other boys down by the stream.”

Even Lorcán was bothered by Connor’s constant tone of melancholy. He tried to hurry away, but Connor continued speaking and started to whisper.

“Have you heard, cousin? You most likely have not and you must hear this. You are a druid and may be able to help-”

“What is it?”

“There is a man who is to be sacrificed tomorrow at noon.”

Sacrifice of a man was uncommon, but not unheard of. Lorcán was fairly sure it worked, considering how the gods had regarded his own family.

“Is he a criminal?”

“That is a very interesting question to which I have no answer.”

“I may be able to help. It would be a bad possibility, though, considering I am taking Ciarán back with me. They may not like that. What is his name?”

“Dubhan, son of Dubhan.”

Lorcán froze and then studied his cousin for any jest, but he knew that Connor did not do such things.

“Dubhan?”

“That Dubhan.”

“He’s a fine warrior, the best, they would not-”

“They would and they are. The harvests have been bad, Lorcán, and people are demanding from Father as to why the gods are doing this. He does not know and blames it on Dubhan. He has been hunting for criminals and has found all of them but the leader of a slave rebellion. Supposedly, he has made Father look like a fool and must appease the gods.”

“The gods would not be angry at Dubhan’s inability nor the fact he has made your father into a fool. Plenty of men have been doing it for years.”

Connor very nearly smiled.

“I thought you would like to know, cousin. He was your best friend, after all, and the most loyal, even after you went to study.”

Though he had been in a satisfactory mood, Lorcán felt it leech away. He gave a sharp nod to Connor and strode through the crowd. He would find Ciarán and then go discuss this problem with the High King.

“I cannot do that, Lorcán.”

His short temper had already burst, but the druid held it in while he stared coolly at his uncle. He tapped his walking staff for several minutes, until the High King stood and paced.

“The people expect me to do something. They think Dubhan has caused the bad harvests because of his inability to do as I asked-”

Lorcán could have told him the real popular opinion, but did not.

“I must attempt something to pacify the gods. They must think I am trying, whether or not it really works-”

“So one man’s life may be sacrificed for nothing?”

The High King looked at his nephew for several minutes.

“I understand he was your best friend-”

“Not was. Is. He always will be.”

There was silence.

“I have conferred with the other druids. They believe this is the solution. Am I to tell Cathair or Finbarr that my young druid nephew believes they are wrong?”

“No, you are to tell them that we should not risk angering the gods. They gave us the fine warrior Dubhan and we are not to throw him away on a whim!”

“The gods are unpredictable. You know this. Do you object because you truly believe it is wrong? Do you object because Dubhan was your best friend?”

Lorcán had not lied since he had lied about eavesdropping on the conversation about his dead father when he was five. He would not speak. In this case, he did not speak for several minutes. Instead, he studied the wind blowing the trees outside. Nature soothed him, but as his anger left, he was very tired and he wondered if he were growing too old for these sorts of things. Nearly thirty-eight was a good age.

Finally: “I will give him his rites and be the one to paint him.”

“As you wish.”

“I will perform the sacrifice. What method?”

“Bludgeoning. A few strong hits to the head should finish him off quickly.”

Lorcán wished he had not volunteered, but it was only right for one friend to ease another’s suffering, even as little as they could.

Lorcán rose early the next day and went to the stream. He submerged himself completely despite the cold and stayed under until he felt his body tensing up. He bounded out, waited until his body was dry, and dressed in the white druid robes he usually scorned.

Much as he disliked the old druid, he went to Finbarr for the paint. It was blue, a color unlucky to men of Dubhan’s family. Lorcán took it while holding back all commentary.

Dubhan was guarded by a single warrior, who stepped aside for Lorcán. Dubhan looked up from the ground where he sat.

“I was hoping it would be you.”

Lorcán studied his gaunt friend, dipped his fingers in the paint, and left two blue streaks on Dubhan’s face. He handed the bowl to Dubhan, who took it, and looked at its surface.

“I could not permit anyone else to do this.”

“Do you know how they intend to do it?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Bludgeoning.”

Dubhan closed his eyes and bowed his head. His left arm rested on his thigh and paint dripped from his fingers and onto his leg.

“I told my uncle I will do it.”

Dubhan looked up and at Lorcán.

“Will you have mercy and kill me quickly?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Will you leave me to my own now?”

“I will.”

“Would it be too much to ask that I see my son before I am completely painted?”

“It would not. I wish I could repay your loyalty in a better way, but-”

“If it is the gods’ will, it will happen no matter.”

Lorcán looked at the blue paint drying on his fingers. He left Dubhan’s miserable one room prison and spoke to the warrior guard.

“Your name, warrior?”

“Jarath, son of Cormac. You are Lorcán, son of Larine. The High King told me to let you pass.”

“I offer a favor in exchange for a discreet one to myself. Permit Dubhan to see his son and I will see to it that good fortune falls on you.”

“Good fortune could mean that I am not killed, simply disgraced.”

“I will confer with the High King on your behalf. Let the boy pass when he comes.”

Lorcán turned and went to the festival. The High King was eating his morning meal when Lorcán asked to speak to him. Waiting patiently, Lorcán thought that, quite simply, he could just threaten to curse the High King’s oldest son and the man’s descendents.

Or be diplomatic. Either one might work, but right now Lorcán was itching to bring a curse down on someone, anyone.

“Nephew?”

Lorcán turned quickly and studied the short, stocky form of his uncle. In impressive shape for a man who was 55, but still slow. It was good they did not have any recent wars, because Lorcán was sure the High King would be inefficient.

“I saw to Dubhan.”

“What else is there?”

“I told the guard his son is to be let through. All he asked was to see his son a last time.”

“Against regulation.”

“So be it. I promised him.”

“I will have a messenger go find his family and tell them his son is to go then. Is that all?”

Lorcán had already started to walk away.

Lorcán raised the club above his shoulder level and brought it down with all the force his arms could give. The rock cracked under the pressure. Lorcán wiped his brow before setting the club against the side of a cart.

“How much longer?” he asked a warrior. The warrior looked up at the overcast day.

“Only fifteen minutes. Perhaps we should get to the arena.”

The arena turned out to be an area of grass marked with large rocks. People were everywhere, the High King stood in his chariot alone, apparently preferring a solitary viewing. Lorcán saw his mother standing with her arms around Ciarán. Dubhan was stripped naked and kneeled by a rock. He had finished painting himself and was entirely blue, save for his sandy hair. The old druids, advisors to the king, stood off in a knot on their own.

Lorcán motioned to the warrior assigned to him to hand him the club. He took it and walked to Dubhan. The crowd grew suddenly quiet.

“Are you ready?”

“I saw my son. I am.”   

Lorcán had been sure there wouldn’t be so much blood, but there was. Three blows to the back of Dubhan’s head had the other man unconscious and Lorcán was fairly sure he was dead. He put his hand in front of Dubhan’s mouth, felt no breath, and looked into his eyes. Wide and fixed at a point beyond Lorcán’s head, the druid knew without any doubts his best friend was dead.

Gone. Unarguably gone. The best man Lorcán had ever known or would know was killed on the whim of selfish gods and a selfish High King.

Lorcán let the club fall to the ground, turned, and saw Ciarán, son of Lorcán the druid, and saw Lorcán, son of Dubhan the warrior, standing together.

 He called for his son. They would be going home. The gods could only take one more from him and they would only do it by killing him first.

The harvests were poor again that year.

He knew there was still something there and Lorcán could not help but feel the sharp hollow every morning that he woke.

He was not surprised. He was so very confident there was something more than what he saw, but he had given up the Celtic gods precisely two days after the death of Dubhan.

The meals were made, food was gathered for the next few days, and Lorcán took one of his solitary walks in the evening. He was gone for several hours and when he returned, he found that there were actually three chariots outside of his house. Fervently hoping it was not the High King or diplomats of, he went into his modest home.

There were only three men inside. Ciarán looked up at his father and said, “they’ve got a wonderful story, Father. Will you listen to them?”

And the only reason Lorcán did so was because his son asked.

“I will listen after I have had their names. To tell you men, I am Lorcán, son of Larine.”

“Jarath, son of Cormac-” and the man saw Lorcán’s face distort into instant anger and added- “but I am no longer a warrior. I travel with these men to banish the old gods.”

“This is the druid you were speaking of, Jarath?” the oldest of them said.

“Yes.”

The man studied Lorcán. “I am Patrick.”

“I offer my home for the night,” Lorcán said. “I have li