This afternoon after work, I go into the store. A little bell on the door announces my arrival. I’ve never been in here  [read more →]]]> There’s a little Asian goods store across the street from my apartment. I walk by the shop every day on my way to work every day and every day I see this lime green Buddha Ash Tray happily smiling at me through the store front windows. I’m drawn by the rotund belly and jovial face of the Buddha.

This afternoon after work, I go into the store. A little bell on the door announces my arrival. I’ve never been in here before yet it seems familiar to me. Wood carvings of the Yin and the Yang, posters of dragons, of dogs, Chinese cookbooks, Japanese cookbooks. The lime green Buddha.

“Can I help you?” I turn and see a very pretty girl. She’s Asian. She has long black hair, fleckless brown skin, small lips, a button nose. She’s very petite. Her name is Lilly, according to her name badge.

“Huh?” I stammer.

“Can I help you? With something. Are you looking for something?” She smiles. She’s beautiful. There is warmth in her smile.

“Huh? Uh, yeah. I wanna buy this Buddha here.”

She grabs it gently from its window display, brushing my hand with her hips as she does. She takes the rotund green figure and walks him to the checkout counter. “Anything else?” She asks.

“No, I don’t think so?”

“No, nothing else,” She rings me up, wraps the Buddha up neatly and picks up the pen from the counter and writes something on my receipt before she shoves it all in the bag and hands it to me. “Have a nice day. See you again!”

I walk out the door, a little bell on the door announcing my departure.

* * *

I couldn’t tell you why I bought it. I don’t smoke and I’m not drawn particularly to Buddhism or to Asian art in general, yet, here I am, walking up three flights of stairs to my apartment, holding a plastic bag which contains a lime green Buddha ash tray. I enter my apartment, kick off my black and white Chucks, toss my jacket on the tattered red patent leather love seat and take the Buddha out of the bag. I carefully unwrap it and set it on the center of my glass coffee table. The table is littered with finger print smudges and food stains.

Inside the bag is a receipt for the Buddha. It cost me twenty dollars. On the back of the receipt is a phone number for Lilly. She must have put it on there when I wasn’t looking because I didn’t ask for her number.

I know it’s her number because beneath the seven digit number is the name ‘Lilly’. I’m glad to see her number and I decide to give her a call.

The phone rings four times and then her voice mail comes on. “Uh, hi, Lilly, this is uh, James. You, uh, put your number on my receipt. I’m the guy that bought the little green Buddha from you. At the store you work at. Anyway, I’m calling because I assume you want me too because you gave me your number, so, uh, call me back if you want too,” and I give her my number and hang up.

It’s now six in the evening. I called Lilly about an hour ago and now I’m in the kitchen making dinner. I can’t cook in a messy kitchen. The kitchen is the only room in the apartment where nothing is out of order. I’m making wild trout stuffed with corn bread and wrapped in bacon with a side of cheesy Brussels Sprouts. I’ve just decapitated the trout and gutted it and split it open. Now I’m rolling it in dried corn bread batter and also stuffing it with the batter, with white onions, with lemon wedges, with garlic, with chives. I do this to a second trout and I lay them both in a frying pan greased with peanut oil, where I then wrap them with bacon strips on either end, sear them in a pan for a minute on each side and then place into a baking pan, greased with shortening and olive oil and then shove into the oven and bake at a low temperature. I am just starting to prepare to steam the Brussels sprouts when my phone rings.

“Uh, hello,” I say.

“Hi.”

“Who is this?” I have the phone resting between my neck and shoulder blade.

“This is Lilly. From the store. You called me.”

“Oh, yes. Yeah, I called you. You wrote your number on my receipt.”

“I did?”

“Ya. You did. You don’t remember?”

“Not really. Sorta.”

“Sorta? Do you do this sort of thing often?

“No. Not really. That was my first time.”

“Okay,” I shrug. “So, why did you want me to call you?’

“Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Do I think you’re pretty?”

“Yes. Do you think I’m pretty.”

“Yeah. I do. I do think you’re pretty. What are you doing?” I throw the sprouts into the steamer and walk over to my apartment window. I live in an 800 square foot studio apartment on the 3rd floor of the Drake, which is an old apartment building with a manual elevator, oak staircase, skinny hallways and low ceilings. It was built in 1908. I often stand at the window and admire the view. I can see the whole city from here. Two of the seven bridges of Portland, the Portland Building, Mt. Hood, and the Columbia River. I look down and I can see white oak trees, maples, a traffic jam, a pot dealer, and Lilly standing outside the Asian store at the bus stop.

“I’m waiting for the bus,” she says.

“Do you like fish?”

“Do I like fish?”

“Yes. Do you like fish? I’m cooking fish for dinner. And Brussels sprouts. Would you like some fish?”

“Are you asking me to have dinner with you? Fish?”

“Yes. My girlfriend is out of town and I’m lonely.”

“I have to go. My bus is coming.”

I look out the window and see that the bus is not coming. “That doesn’t answer my question,” I say.

“Fish isn’t my favorite. Why did you call me if you have a girlfriend?”

“The fish is really fresh. I caught it this morning, actually,” I lie. It was actually purchased yesterday from the fish market across the street from my work. It was probably alive three days ago.

“Where do you live?”

“I live across the street. In the Drake. If you look up you can see me. I’m on the third floor. I’m waving,” I wave and she looks up but I don’t think she sees me. “I thought you said your bus was coming?”

“Not my bus. I was wrong.”

“Do you want some fish?”

“I thought you said you had a girlfriend,” She pauses and I hear her sigh. “Which apartment is yours?”

“I’ll buzz you in.”

Lilly likes fish now. She said my trout was amazing and the Brussels sprouts were “pretty okay.” After I steamed them, I cut them in half, poured melted unsalted butter on them, sprinkled them with organic Swiss cheese, which I let melt. I show her around my apartment, which doesn’t take long. She likes the art-deco style of decoration we— my girlfriend and I— have. . The posters of Audrey Hepburn, of James Dean, of skinny Elvis. My bookshelf with In Cold Blood, with Oliver Twist, with Fight Club, with The Odyssey, with poetry by Whitman, poetry by Plath, poetry by Poe, sonnets by Shakespeare, and with the Kama Sutra.

“Not mine,” I say. “It’s my girlfriend’s.”

She nods.

“Have you read it?”

She nods again and says, “No.”

She seems very impressed that I’ve read all the books. I tell her I’m an English major and I work in a food cart on 4th and Main that sells sandwiches stuffed with French fries and your choice of meat with a ‘secret sauce’ that’s actually just Thousand Island salad dressing and she says that’s “pretty okay.”

We’re sitting on my couch now and we’ve been talking for an hour. She’s a first generation American. Both her parents were born in Hanoi. She was born in Baltimore and moved here six years ago. She had two uncles killed by American G.I.’s during the War when they were just children. We talk about how we’re both pacifists and how Vietnam and the War in Iraq were both “terrible tragedies.” She’s twenty-four years old and she goes to Portland State, majoring in music therapy, which she tries to explain to me but is still beyond my realm of understanding.

“It’s basically therapy but instead of using a couch and words, you use music,” She explains to me.

“You can go to school for that?”

“Yes. I’m going to open a private practice.”

“Why don’t you just major in music?”

“Because I’m a flute player.”

“So?” I say. I know nothing about music.

“So there’s not a big market for flute players.”

I think she’s beautiful and before I know it, my lips are on hers and then on her neck. My hands are on her small breasts and she is moaning a little. She leans into me. I feel her hips arch into mine. I feel our hearts beating together. Her skin feels soft and healthy.

We don’t even move to the bed before we are both naked and making love ferociously on the couch. We are both skilled lovers and she is letting me know that she approves of my performance. By the time we’re finished, we’re both in the shower and she tells me that this is her first time showering with a man. I don’t believe her. I let her wash me and I wash her. We collapse into bed, still a little damp and fall asleep.

I wake up in my bed, alone and still naked. I sigh and get up and take a quick look around the apartment to confirm that Lilly is indeed gone. I shave and make a pot of coffee. There’s a note from Lilly on the counter, “Had a lot of fun last night. Let’s do it again soon.”

And she again leaves her number. I want to fry some eggs. I put some unsalted butter in the pan, crack open two Cage-free eggs and cook them sunny side up. They cook quickly, spitting and popping at me from the pan. I peel and chop an onion and throw a quarter of it into the pan with the eggs and brown them. I wrap the remaining onion in red saran wrap and put it in my crisper in the fridge. I throw some rye bread (which I will add Marion berry jam too) in the toaster and pan fry some ham steak. When it’s all done, I put in on my plate and eat it slowly while sipping my coffee. I’m tired of the games we play. Of the lies we tell. I put my plate and coffee mug in the dishwasher and hand wash all the pans I cooked with and head to the shower. I look at the picture on the wall of Lilly and I last summer at Multnomah Falls and feel myself smile. That was back before we had to pretend to be strangers in order to connect with one another; in order to be intimate. Back before we had to pretend to be liars.

It had been the best day of our young relationship. She’d never been to the Falls and we found a rare sunny Saturday in October. She was wearing her PSU Vikings grey and green hoodie and jeans with Nordic tennis shoes. She had on a Nike baseball cap and she’d pulled her long pony tail through the hole in the back. As we climbed to the top of the Falls, we held hands and smiled. When we reached the summit, we kissed and she giggled. We found a tourist to take our picture.

“Cute couple,” I heard the man’s wife say as they walked away.

She was right. We were cute together.

The game was her idea, and we’ve been playing it for six months now. She’d presented it to me just a few short weeks after that trip. She told me she couldn’t feel close to someone she knew. She told me she couldn’t love me unless we pretended not to care about each other. She told me she needed to keep getting to know me in order to be with me.

I stand in the shower and let the hot water cascade down my body. The shower is mine. Her shampoos, her conditioners, her razors; all gone. This place is now devoid of her. There’s some black mold growing on the celling which I still need to call the apartment manager about.

I get out of the shower and slowly dry myself with the same mildewed towel I’ve been using all week. When I’m mostly dry I drop it on the floor. I brush my teeth and when I spit I don’t clean it up. My mirror has spit stains. I leave the towel on the floor and put on my ratty boxer shorts and non-matching socks. I step out into the main room of our— my— studio and look for some clean pants, which I find underneath some t-shirts that I forgot to dry and which are beginning to mildew. The apartment used to be so immaculate.

I walk back to the kitchen table and grab the note from Lilly and reread several times before crumpling it up. I walk to the coffee table, uncrumple it and read it again. I recrumple it and place the piece of paper on the Buddha ash tray, and I light it on fire. I watch it burn while I drink the rest of my coffee, which has turned cold.

Justin W. Price was born in August of 1980 in Portland, Oregon and currently live in a Portland Suburb (Hillsboro) with his wife and our two dogs.  He is working on a novel and a book of poetry. His hobbies include literature, music, history, theology, politics, food, beer, cooking, karaoke, movies, and animals. He is currently an honors student, majoring in English with an emphasis on Creative Writing. He also works as a freelance writer and editor and tutor guitar and bass. His writings can be found at http://pdxkaraokeguy.hubpages.com and http://pdxjpricefirstblog.blogspot.com.

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The magazine is edited via a collaborative, inclusive process which means that the stories are chosen by readers like you. The editors at eFiction know that readers know their own preferences better than they ever could.

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“I’m off dating,” I said to my best friend when she showed up at my door with a hopeful look on her face and another phone number clutched in her hot little hand. “After that last creep, I’m staying home. The men can come and find me.”

“Then it’ll be Jack the mailman, who’s 70 if he’s a day, or that meter reader with B.O. and terminal halitosis.” Judy declared. She searched my closet, shuffling through the hangers with the  [read more →]]]> Valerie Gillen

“I’m off dating,” I said to my best friend when she showed up at my door with a hopeful look on her face and another phone number clutched in her hot little hand. “After that last creep, I’m staying home. The men can come and find me.”

“Then it’ll be Jack the mailman, who’s 70 if he’s a day, or that meter reader with B.O. and terminal halitosis.” Judy declared. She searched my closet, shuffling through the hangers with the expertise of a casino card dealer. “Where’s that sexy black dress that makes you look like a million bucks?”

“Jude. I’m not going. Besides, I burned my black dress after the last blind date you sent me on.”

“Oh, come on, he wasn’t that bad! And this one is it, I can feel it in my bones.”

As if she hadn’t said that about the last ten guys she’d sicced on me. There was more rattling as she moved deeper into the closet.

“Whaddya mean, ‘wasn’t that bad,’” I said, trying futilely to restore order as Hurricane Judy bulldozed through my clothes. “My dress had drool stains on it. That’s where it is—at the cleaner’s.” I crossed my fingers and prayed this was true. No way was I going out with any more of Judy’s “sure things.”

She turned, triumphant, the dress pristine in dry cleaner plastic dangling from her hand.

My spirits sank. “Is he at least taller than the last one?” I demanded. At five ten in heels, the last guy’s head had been about level with my chest, a fact he was quick to take advantage of. I couldn’t even recall what color his eyes were, since he’d never raised them as far as my face.

“I haven’t actually met him, but I believe he’s—tallish,” Judy hedged. Great. So he was probably a jockey.

“What does he do for a living?” I asked next. The guy before Shorty had been charming and good looking, but had confided to me that he was writing the Great American Novel and was looking for an understanding woman to support him while he finished it. He’d been working on it for three years and estimated it would only take another three to polish it up.

“Um…” Judy was getting that shifty look on her face that I dreaded. “He’s in—public relations.” So he probably handed out flyers in front of a peep show.

“Judy.” I put on my sternest look. “You’re my best friend and I know you just want me to be happy, but if I do this for you, I want your promise that this is the last, the very last blind date you’ll set me up with, got it?” She nodded vigorously, her curls bouncing. So she had probably another five guys in mind.

* * *

Bill waited at the table. He had a mop of dark hair and nervous hands. His head was bent down and I couldn’t even see his face. If he doesn’t act like he has more than two brain cells to rub together, I’ll plead a headache and go home early, I bargained with myself. I owed it to Judy to struggle through dinner, but that was it. When he stood up, I could see that he was at least six feet tall. Nice, but that wasn’t the important part. His soul was probably full of cobwebs.

Then he raised his head and looked into my eyes. I felt that blue-eyed gaze clear down to my toes and knew it could only mean one thing; I was in big trouble.

We made small talk over the antipasto. Usually I was fending off the wandering hands of Judy’s finds by now, but Bill was polite, intelligent, and actually seemed interested in what I had to say. I found myself fumbling uncharacteristically, trying to think about what I said before the words came out of my mouth. Bill just smiled gently at my pathetic attempts, which made me even more nervous. It was almost a relief when my contact lens popped out and landed in the lasagna.

By the time I came back from the bathroom, lens back in place and lasagna gone cold, I had taken myself in hand. Sure, Bill seemed attractive after those other losers I’d endured, but there was bound to be something hideous in his character just waiting to be discovered. Over dessert, I questioned him closely about his job, family and hobbies, but it was all amazingly normal. He was an executive at a well known candy company. I love chocolate and he got the stuff for free. He spent his free time hiking with his two dogs. I’m an outdoor girl myself and I have two dogs of my own. This was going from bad to worse.

Then Bill asked me to dance. The moment his arm encircled my waist, images of our wedding and the faces of our children – a little boy with his blue eyes, a girl with my curly hair—popped into my head. Holy cats – he really is the one! I reviewed my behavior so far that evening. Not promising. I had been, by turns, bordering on sullen and unbearably nosy. No doubt Bill was manufacturing his own headache excuse at this moment.

“Sorry I’ve been so quiet, but I had a killer headache earlier,” he confided, as if reading my mind. “This is about the tenth blind date my friend Tim has set me up with.”

“I can’t believe it—me too!”

We smiled ruefully at each other and laughed. Our hands seemed to fit together like the interlocking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

Then Bill said, “Thank goodness, this is the last one I’ll be going on.”

My heart sank. I pasted a smile on my face and racked my brain for something to say that would make Bill fall instantly in love with me. All I could think of was locking Judy and Tim together in a dungeon somewhere for tormenting innocent people this way.

That was when my bra strap broke. I could feel it crawl onto my neck like an overgrown inchworm and Bill, being so much taller, had to have seen it. I slunk back into the bathroom, fully expecting him to be gone when I came out.

The strap had snapped at the end and could not be fixed. I shoved it down under my dress and came out with my arm clenched at my side like a recently animated store manikin.

The first thing I saw was Bill. He was leaning against the opposite wall, a safety pin in his hand.

He smiled at my astonished look. “Like I said, this is the last blind date for me. Tim kept promising the next girl would be ‘the one’. It only took him ten tries to get it right.”

We decided to go for an after-dinner latte. On the way out, Bill gave my million dollar black dress an admiring glance and said, “Tim told me you were a shy, ‘quietly attractive’ girl who worked in a book store. He must have gotten his wires crossed. By the way, where’s the red carnation you were supposed to be wearing?”

“Uh, I forgot.” I gave a mental shrug. No doubt Judy had forgotten to mention it to me. It was just the kind of hokey idea she would have found romantic.

Then I spied a short guy in a very loud sports coat sitting with a mousy looking girl who looked like she had a terminal migraine. He was talking a mile a minute and shoving life insurance papers under her nose. She was wearing a red carnation.

Bill and I looked at them, then at each other. Nah, couldn’t be. We left, our arms around each other.

Valerie Gillen lives and writes in the wilds of Vermont. She has one husband, one daughter, many cats, a dog and a house rabbit named Clyde. Her four-star reviewed YA fantasy, A Little Magic, is available on Amazon, Smashwords and B & N.

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The magazine is edited via a collaborative, inclusive process which means that the stories are chosen by readers like you. The editors at eFiction know that readers know their own preferences better than they ever could.

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“Phone?” Inez buckled the seatbelt. The delivery van was so old it didn’t have a cross-strap. Each time Inez buckled-up, she looked a little confused at its absence. After fumbling with the buckle, she looked straight ahead repositioning her bare feet on the dash.

Seward started the van and pulled away. He’d press her again in a few minutes, when they were on the highway. For some reason, Seward found that people were honest  [read more →]]]> Aaron Wilson

“Phone?” Inez buckled the seatbelt. The delivery van was so old it didn’t have a cross-strap. Each time Inez buckled-up, she looked a little confused at its absence. After fumbling with the buckle, she looked straight ahead repositioning her bare feet on the dash.

Seward started the van and pulled away. He’d press her again in a few minutes, when they were on the highway. For some reason, Seward found that people were honest at high speeds. However, he was impatient. So, as he pulled on the on-ramp, he asked again.

Inez didn’t budge.

To Seward, she looked like she was trying to pretend to fall asleep. What was it with women, Seward thought, that they could so easily devolve from perky-go-lucky to bitchy-go-cranky? Either way, she was going to have to tell him something. Whatever she told him, he’d decided that it would likely be a lie.

Shifting her weight a little, Inez asked, “When did you get your scar?”

“Scar?” He knew exactly what she was asking about, but he wanted her to be specific. He needed her to engage him in conversation, so he could read her responses. He was good at lie detecting. He had known she hadn’t been forthright with him from the start, but he hadn’t had this much fun in years. Fun, he thought, it all really comes down to fun. Am I so simple?

“The one behind your right ear that curves down your neck, how far does it extend?” She sat up, removing her feet from the dash.

“Her name was Julie Ryerson. She died in Albuquerque.” He paused to focus on the road. An eighteen-wheeler passed on the left disrupting the headwind just enough that he had to compensate to keep the van on the road. After it passed, Seward was able to pick up where he left the story.

“Julie was lovely. The kind of firecracker that could ignite the soul of the most calloused man.” Seward looked over at Inez, taking his eyes off the road to meet hers. “She was a lot like you.” He quickly resumed watching the road.

“Julie died for the cause. She was leading a protest of eighty concerned environmentalists who were trying to have a specific species of butterfly added to the endangered species list. The locals were not amused.”

“Why?” Inez asked, “Wouldn’t the preservation of a species help to create an eco-tourist destination?”

“Yes. It would have, but the habitat in which the species resided had already been turned into a series of mixed-use nature trails. The most profitable type of tourism was from off road bikes. The town hosted several motocross competitions every year, including the X-Games.”

“So, couldn’t a compromise work?”

“Compromise! Compromise, are you for real?” Seward had to ease up off the gas. He noticed that he was pushing his van a little too hard. “You just blew up a water bottling plant, and you want to talk about compromise?”

“Hey. I tried to compromise with them.” Inez was leaning forward in her seat one hand on the dash. “I had asked them to slow down, pump a little slower and allow more water from the spring to travel down river.”

“So you know how it is.”

“Yes, I fucking do.”

“Good. Now you know how Julie felt when the town wouldn’t budge. They didn’t want to see their tourism dry up just because some butterflies’ habitat needed to be protected. They saw their livelihoods in jeopardy.”

“What do you mean?”

“About what?”

“The stuff about protecting habitat jeopardizes livelihoods.”

Seward had her. He would now have to double check everything she had told him. She was no environmentalist, and she hadn’t taken classes from the University of Michigan in any scientific field. If she had, she’d have known the answer to her own question.

“Okay. Let me put it this way: The EPA, under the second Bush administration – that’s Bush Jr. – proposed adding the Polar Bear to the endangered species list even though the species’ numbers didn’t qualify its addition.” Seward let out a long sigh. “These are the issues that get my blood fired up, sorry. Anyway, the proposal was denied. Any guesses why?”

“No.” Inez shrugged her shoulders. “You just said there were plenty of them running around.”

“True. However, the proposal predicted that the Polar Bear’s numbers would drop significantly in just a few years because their habitat was fragmenting too quickly for the species to adapt.”

“Do you know what happens when a species is added to the endangered species list?” Seward asked.

“Sure. We protect it.”

“Yes, we do protect it, but when a species is added to the endangered species list, we go further – we attempt to help it recover.”

Inez butted in, “How?”

“We have to protect the species’ habitat. The only way to ensure the protection of a species is to protect its habitat.”

“So we protect its habitat. What’s the big deal?”

“Where do Polar Bears live?”

“The North Pole.”

“Correct. So?”

Inez was slow to answer, “We’d have to protect the North Pole.”

“Yes, which would mean we’d have to find a way to slow the retraction of polar sea ice, which, in turn, would mean we would have to do something about anthropomorphic climate change.”

“I thought we were talking about Polar Bears?” Inez asked.

“We are. In order to protect the Polar Bear, we would need to solve climate change, because climate change is fragmenting the Polar Bear’s habitat, and we can’t help the Polar Bear if we can’t preserve its habitat – its ecosystem.”

Confused, Inez asked, “Weren’t we talking about Julie and your scar?”

“No.” Seward said, sternly. “I wanted to know who you were yelling at on the phone back at the gas station.”

* * *

Seward pulled the van over onto the side of the road. Without looking at Inez, he turned off the van’s engine. From under this seat, he pulled a gun and pointed it at Inez’s chest. The gun was small, sliver, and loaded. To prove that he was serious, he pointed the gun at the roof and fired. The small gun snapped like a cap gun the kids in the neighborhood played with on summer afternoons. Unlike the plastic replicas, his gun put a small hole in the roof.

Pointing the gun back at Inez’s chest, “I’m only going to ask each question once.” He was calm. He’d been in situations like this one before. Still, his outstretched arm with the gun quivered slightly. Smiling, he relaxed further by lowering the gun, but he kept it aimed, his finger on the trigger.

Inez sat very still. Her hands were open and rested on her lap. “If you look in my bag, you’ll find your answers.”

At hearing her confession, Seward didn’t hesitate. He fired a killing shot.

* * *

Seward replaced the small gun under his seat. Before moving, he watched traffic on 35 slide by his van. He took a couple of deep breaths and steadied himself. He asked the silence, “How many people have I killed over the years? How many people have I had to become?”

No answer.

He got out of the van. He needed to work quickly. No telling how long before someone would pull over to help or worse. Highway Patrol would be by soon, and he didn’t want to be on the side of the road.

Opening the passenger door, the pool of blood that had accumulated dripped on to the asphalt. Seward pulled Inez out and dumped her body over the highway embankment. Inez’s body rolled slowly and came to a halt at the bottom.

Seward pulled cleaning equipment out of the back and started to scrub the passenger’s seat. The blood wasn’t easy to sop up, but he made short work of the seat and floor mat. What a waste, he thought. Inez had been a pretty girl. He’d hoped that she was legit. The reservations he’d made for exiting the US were real, and now he’d exit alone.

Back in the driver’s seat, he started the van. He pulled out from the shoulder and made his way to the next major highway. He could have taken 35 most of the way, but that wouldn’t have been smart. Instead, he chose to take 90 West, knowing that he’d have to double back eventually.

While he drove, he pulled an envelope from under the dash near the steering column. Opening it, he dumped a pile of passports onto his lap. “I’m not going back to prison. I’m not going back.” He picked one: Rupert Earlson, Henderson, MN. He thought about Rupert for a while. What types of things did Rupert like? What did Mr. Earlson do for a living?

One thing was for sure, Rupert Earlson wasn’t a bike mechanic. He needed to unload the bikes and trade in his van for something sportier. Rupert was a poor teacher of English that wanted to see the world before he died of AIDS/HIV. In order to make his dreams of seeing the world come true, he’d signed on to teach in foreign countries. His first stop was Peru, but he planned to hit Korea, China, and Japan.

Before Seward could become Rupert Earlson, he’d need to clean up a few loose ends that Daniel Emmett Seward had created. As much as he cared about his bike shop and the community that he’d lived in for the last several years, it was his connection to Al that gave him the most reason to pause. The only way that the Feds could have found him was to go through Al. Al was the only person who knew his true identity. Before he could become the traveling English teacher, he’d have to take care of Al.

Seward new that if what Inez had told him about Al was true, and he believed her, he’d find him in a hospital. Al was a sickly fellow and if anyone was going to die of cancer at an early age, it was going to be him. Seward pounded his hands on the steering wheel. Al was the only one who knew all of his aliases. Seward would just have to hope that on his deathbed, Al had forgotten a couple of them.

“Ah! The life of an eco-terrorist,” Seward said over the hum of his van. “You blow a couple of buildings up and kill a few people, and the government won’t rest until you’re behind bars or dead. However, if you’re a multi-billion dollar industry that pollutes the air and the water, killing thousands, the government gives you a tax break for creating jobs.” Frustrated, he punched the van’s steering wheel three times. On the third, he accidently sounded the van’s horn.

What made him truly angry wasn’t having to kill Inez, but was that he’d changed personas so many times since leaving prison that he didn’t remember his real name. Up until this moment, he had been Daniel Emmett Seward and had been his entire life. His immersion into Seward’s life had been so perfect that he had started to even fool himself, but killing Inez—that brought back memories.

Arphallo waited in the rain, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his coat and still numbed by the cold. He watched the street, but had no idea what he was looking for. Arphallo considered calling Sam to ask for a description, but decided against it. In the rainy gray evening, everyone looked pretty much the same, anyway; all dressed in long coats and faces hidden under black umbrellas like a crop of dark mushrooms.

One  [read more →]]]> Episode V

Erica Lindquist & Aron Christensen

Arphallo waited in the rain, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his coat and still numbed by the cold. He watched the street, but had no idea what he was looking for. Arphallo considered calling Sam to ask for a description, but decided against it. In the rainy gray evening, everyone looked pretty much the same, anyway; all dressed in long coats and faces hidden under black umbrellas like a crop of dark mushrooms.

One woman stood out from the colorless crowd. The coat she wore was bright red and she carried no umbrella. Rain beaded in her curly golden hair. She saw Arphallo watching and wove her way through the evening pack of bodies towards him. The woman in red smiled and extended her hand.

“You must be Arphallo Sirus,” she said. “Thanks for waiting. Am I late?”

Arphallo checked his watch. “Only by a few minutes, but the restaurant is running a little behind.”

“I’m Lily Davis,” she introduced herself.

Her hand was still extended. Arphallo took hesitantly. What was he supposed to do? Shake it? Kiss it? He should never have let Sam talk him into a blind date. Arphallo settled on a brief handshake. Lily’s smile faltered.

“Well, why don’t we go inside?” she asked, gesturing to the doors behind him.

“Yeah, sure.”

Arphallo held open the door, glass lettered in gold leaf. He followed Lily inside and gave Sam’s name to a smartly dressed maitre’d. A waitress seated them under a wrought-iron arch strung with pale blue lights.

“Sam says he works with you,” Lily said. She shrugged out of her red coat and Arphallo cursed himself for not thinking to take it for her. The sequined dress beneath glittered, like the rain in her hair.

“Oh… yes,” Arphallo answered almost too late. “Sam’s my partner.”

“I know. I was just trying to get us started.” Lily’s smile was back, certain and bright. Her lipstick was the same red as her coat. “Sam talks about you all the time.”

“Really? What… what does he say?” Arphallo could not imagine the stoic Sam speaking at length on any subject. Much less about Arphallo, who had so little in the way of a social life that Sam had taken it upon himself to set his partner up on a blind date.

Lily laughed. “A lot of glowing praise that I hope to verify in person,” she said. “Sam tells me that you’re an exorcist. One of the best he’s ever met, himself included.”

“Really?” Arphallo asked.

“More or less.” Lily looked over her menu at Arphallo and winked. “Sam was an exorcist back in his day, but he can’t practice anymore. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, it is,” Arphallo said. “Really? You know about that? Most people don’t realize that after exorcists die, they can’t make the spells work anymore.”

“I have a little experience,” Lily told him. “I was never an exorcist, but I’m a legal secretary. Dark law has always held a certain fascination.”

“I guess that’s why Sam set us up.” Arphallo glanced over the menu. Everything looked about the same; tasty, but overpriced and underportioned.

“Actually, I don’t think so.”

Lily put down her menu. As if summoned, a waiter appeared to take their order and then vanished just as discretely.

“What do you mean?” asked Arphallo when the waiter had disappeared into the soft, private shadows of the restaurant.

“Sam also says that there’s not much in your life besides the work,” Lily said. “He told me that you work about seventy hours a week.”

“It’s not that much.” Arphallo realized he sounded defensive. Why? There was nothing wrong with being dedicated to the job. “Just when there’s a rough case.”

“All of your cases are pretty rough, to hear Sam tell it.” Lily held up a slim hand to forestall Arphallo’s argument. “Don’t you want to know why Sam did set up this date?”

“Yeah,” Arphallo answered uncertainly. “I guess so.”

“Because I’m fun.” Lily said it with that bright smile.

Her blonde curls lay across her pale shoulders and seemed to caress her skin. Arphallo swallowed hard and told himself to focus. Seven years without a date had frayed anything like skill. He was staring at Lily and had to force himself to look up as the waiter reappeared with two glasses of wine.

“Thanks,” Lily told the waiter, who inclined his head and left them alone again.

“Legal secretary doesn’t sound like the most entertaining job. What do you do for fun?” Arphallo asked. He was a little proud of the question. Lily wasn’t going to have him on his heels all night.

“Everything. I love dancing, skydiving, rock-climbing, riding horses and writing. I’ve published a few stories,” Lily said between sips of dark red wine. “I’ve even been known to go skateboarding on the odd weekend, when I can get a host willing to let me risk an ankle.”

Arphallo had just taken a drink of his own wine and very nearly spat it back out. “What?” he asked, breathless. “A… a host? You’re dead?”

Lily opened her mouth – her puppet’s mouth – and closed it again before she could answer. “Sam didn’t tell you?”

“No. He didn’t.”

Lily lifted her chin and looked at Arphallo for a long moment. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He felt like a suspect under interrogation.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I was just… just a little surprised. I don’t know why Sam didn’t warn me.”

“Warn you? Maybe he knew that you would react like this.” Lily sat back and tapped a fingernail on her wineglass. The crystal rang softly. “What’s wrong, Arphallo? A ghost can be a case, but not a date?”

“No! That’s not… not…”

“It’s okay,” Lily said. She actually sounded as if she meant it. “You’re young, Arphallo. You’ve never dated a dead woman before, have you?”

“No,” he admitted. “I’m young? How old are you?”

“Does it matter?” Lily arched one of her blonde eyebrows at Arphallo. “What does age really mean, anyway? How old was I when I died? That has no bearing on how old I am now.”

“Doesn’t it?” Arphallo asked. “A psychology study showed lower ability to adapt to societal changes among ghosts.”

“I read that article,” Lily said. Her tone was challenging, but not angry. “It compared thirty-year-old living men and women to ghosts who had been dead for thirty years. It was a bad sampling.”

“What? How? They couldn’t very well compare the recently dead. They died in effectively the same time period as the study. They don’t have anything to adjust to yet.”

“Ah, but they didn’t take into account the age at which the ghosts died,” Lily said. She paused as their waiter brought steaming plates of pasta and a basket of dark bread. She inhaled the scent of the food, but did not yet touch it. “A full half of those ghosts questioned were over sixty at the time of death.”

Arphallo unfolded his napkin and laid it across his lap as he thought. “Okay, I think I see your point. Even the living over the age of sixty lose a lot of psychological adaptability. They may just be retaining that in death, rather than being the result of being a ghost.”

“Exactly.” Lily punctuated her agreement with a swish of her fork. She took a bite of the pasta, covered in a creamy sauce and sprinkled with dried tomatoes. “Delicious.”

“I’m guessing you weren’t that old when you passed,” Arphallo guessed. “You seem pretty well adjusted.”

“Maybe.” Lily’s eyes were mischievous. “Or else I didn’t die long ago.”

Arphallo considered that and then shook his head. “I doubt it. The first year after death is a dangerous time with ghosts. They’re afraid of the Dark and they want to be alive. Desperate to return to the Light. That’s when they’re most likely to break laws, make bad contracts or even take unwilling hosts.”

“You don’t think I’m the type?” Lily asked.

“Not really, no,” said Arphallo. He twirled his fork in his clam linguine. “You don’t seem dangerous.”

“Is that all? I might be a very good actor.”

Arphallo smiled at her across the table. “If you were skinriding an unwilling host, you probably couldn’t taste that pasta. You would be fighting with the puppet’s spirit and wouldn’t settle into the body.”

Lily put down her wine glass and cocked her head curiously at Arphallo. “Really? I thought the native soul wasn’t aware of anything that happened while they were hosting.”

“They aren’t,” said Arphallo. “But free will is a powerful thing. If the soul is unwilling, it fights, even unconsciously. It will keep trying to throw off the controlling ghost.”

“I hadn’t heard that. I had heard, however, that some hosts remain conscious through the experience.”

“It’s rare – very, very rare – but it happens. I read about it in college, but I’ve never actually seen it happen,” Arphallo told her. “Besides, I can’t imagine Sam sending me on a blind date with a crazy ghost.”

“Probably not,” Lily said with a small laugh. “Sam thinks a lot of you, and that’s saying something. Sam’s a hard man to impress.”

“Do you two know each other well?” asked Arphallo.

Lily twirled her fingers in a circle. “Sort of. We met in the Dark and he never talked much about his life. He never asked me much about mine, either.”

“And yet he sets us up on a date?” Arphallo suddenly thought of something. “Wait, you… you are a woman, aren’t you? You’re not just skinriding one?”

Lily blinked, then smiled at him. “Yes, I’m really a woman. Not, I maintain, that it matters. But yes, I’m female.”

“Oh, good,” Arphallo said, relieved. “I’ve just… Never mind.”

“I know Sam picked the restaurant – and it’s good – but this place is a little tame.” Lily pushed her plate out of the way and leaned across the table, speaking quietly and conspiratorially. “There’s a great bar just a few blocks away.”

“A bar?”

“And I believe it’s karaoke night. What do you think?”

“Um…” Arphallo stammered. “I can’t sing…”

“So?” Lily asked, now grinning. “I have no idea if this body can, either. But it’s worth trying, isn’t it?”

“I guess. I really can’t sing, though.”

“That means you’ve tried,” Lily said slyly. “I can’t wait to hear the story, and then the song.”

Saving him from having to answer her, Arphallo’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked the message and jumped to his feet. “I’m sorry,” he told Lily. “That was Sam. I need to get back to the station.”

He fumbled for his wallet, trying to quickly figure out how much he needed to leave to cover everything, but Lily shook her head.

“I’ll get it,” she said. “You can take care of it next time.”

“There’s going to be a next time?” Arphallo asked.

Lily gave him a wink. “Say hello to Sam for me. And tell him thanks for setting up the date.”

“I will,” Arphallo promised.

For three evenings he’d watched and waited, following her nightly trek through the back alleys between her place of employment and her home. Even when weariness sucked at her steps like mud-filled puddles, she was enchanting. Tonight, he would have her.

He paused in the middle of the alley, waiting for that perfect moment. The feeble light cast by the broken lamps did not reach him in the corner between two buildings. It did not  [read more →]]]> Sharon T. Rose

For three evenings he’d watched and waited, following her nightly trek through the back alleys between her place of employment and her home. Even when weariness sucked at her steps like mud-filled puddles, she was enchanting. Tonight, he would have her.

He paused in the middle of the alley, waiting for that perfect moment. The feeble light cast by the broken lamps did not reach him in the corner between two buildings. It did not illuminate his rising anticipation. When she took her last step, he left the shadows behind.

These streets and byways were his playground, his courtyard, his hunting ground. He knew them better than those who’d been born and raised on them, though he had been here far less time. His knowledge, and their lack of it, made finely crafted moments such as this one possible.

He gave her nearly half a second to register his presence before he reached for her, tenderly bringing her into his embrace. She began to scream, to struggle, to understand that she must fight. She ought to have known. He had been here long enough, had fed often enough, to catch the limited attention of this city’s inhabitants. Subtlety, he had learned, ruined the feeding.

Her mouth opened, her eyes widened with instinctive terror. He nuzzled her neck, gently burying his teeth into her soft, fragrant skin. Her blood, spiked with the first dash of fear, flowed into his mouth. He drank greedily, savoring the build of endorphins that flavored her and the rush of hormones that deepened her taste. As life slipped from her to him, he adjusted his arms, cradling her tenderly. The bouquet was intoxicating, making his head spin for a moment.

He finished quickly, yet without haste, not losing a single drop of her. He always gave prey enough time to build a delicious panic, but not so much that their blood turned sour with too many chemicals. This was the only subtlety he appreciated or sought; the delicate balance of flavors found in a mouthful carefully prepared. The prey so often devoured their brackish food, never appreciating it. He appreciated every meal.

He laid her on the pavement, stroking her shining hair into place and caressing her pale, thin lips. He made certain her clothes were neat and straight. Other prey would find her in the morning, and their fear would season his next banquet. Running his tongue around the inside of his mouth as he stood, he savored the last echoes of her. Sated for the night, he turned to leave the alley.

Movement caught the corner of his eye. He turned to glance back, and his chest tightened. His gut lurched as his feet rooted to the pavement. In the place he had just stood by her side, was a shape he had seen only once before in his long existence. He remembered that night, when his once-eternal companion had bolted, only to fall before it. He could never return to that distant place, even after so much time.

There was no grace in its form, no elegance to its movements. It wafted without advancing, defining and defying the lamplight. The sight of it leached the pleasure he’d just had out of him and left him shaking. It did not reach for him, yet he could feel its tendrils wrapping around him. Though it remained in place, it nibbled on his essence. With no direct contact, it stroked old wounds of loss and helplessness.

He fled knowing that he could outrun neither death nor memory. The shadow reached after him, swallowing him before he reached the end of the alley. The echoes of his anguish drifted into the night, settling like dust on the cobwebs of imagination.

On the pavement, the young woman stirred and opened her eyes. She ran her tongue over her full, red lips, smiled in contentment, and rose to her feet. As she strode forward, long shadows flickered on the pavement behind her.

Sharon Rose grew up in the military, which did its level best to turn her into a highly trained and functional contributor to Society. Being of the independent sort, Sharon rebelled and ran away to live under a rock, where she still resides. After frittering away some years with college degrees and corporate jobs in an attempt to amuse herself, she finally overthrew the last vestiges of her upbringing and became a Writer. Having attained this exalted state, she nevertheless persists in seeking new forms of diversion, primarily by reading online comics, weblit, spamming her various social feeds, and ignoring responsibilities. Sharon write serial fiction and posts it online three times weekly. To participate in her lifestyle of choice, please utilize the following resources: 

http://lilyfields.digitalnovelists.com

http://rosesinkwell.wordpress.com

http://www.twitter.com/sharontherose

Dan sat in his car, idling behind a MBTA bus, doing his best to remain calm. He hated traffic. Mystic Ave was jammed. It was late, past eleven, but there was construction  [read more →]]]> John Patrick Tormey

John Patrick Tormey  graduated from the Boston University Creative Writing Program in 2009. He currently works as a track laborer for the Mass. Bay Commuter Rail. He lives in Quincy, MA with his wife, two year old son, a dog and a cat.

Dan sat in his car, idling behind a MBTA bus, doing his best to remain calm. He hated traffic. Mystic Ave was jammed. It was late, past eleven, but there was construction up ahead. Cones, police details, trucks, back-hoes, men bent over jackhammers. His hands rested on top of the steering wheel. He inspected his knuckles. The skin was covered in small cuts, left there by the teeth of the owner of a Brazilian steakhouse near Davis Square. The owner didn’t believe, even in these uncertain times, that paying for protection was a sound investment. Dan flexed his hands and winced. There was a buzzing in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and tapped the screen to life. It was Meghan.

“Hey,” she said. “You busy?”

“Not at the moment. What’s up?”

“I really can’t talk right now. Where are you?”

“Medford. On my way home.”

“From work?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing in Medford?”

“Meg…”

“Sorry. I need your help with something. Can you come by the club? It’s on your way home.”

“What’s this about?”

“Jesus, Danny. I need your help, okay?”

It was not okay. Dan was tired, sore, and covered in dried sweat. He wanted to go home, take a shower, and fall into bed. “I’ll get there when I get there,” he said, and hung up.

He then called his wife, told her he needed to stop and see Meg about something. His wife laughed and told him not to stay too long; she’d be waiting up. Dan chuckled, said goodbye and hung up. The rear-lights of the bus disappeared. Breaks squealed as they released. Traffic began to move.

On a normal night, the ride from Medford to Brockton lasted forty-five minutes. Because of an accident at the 24/95 split, it took Dan a full hour and fifteen minutes before reaching the exit. Across the street from a Burger King and a package store, there was a large auto-repair garage. Behind that was the Puma Lounge. It was as tall and wide as the garage, fronted with dark glass. The parking lot was half-full with trucks, shiny black cars, and a line of motorcycles near the front doors. Closing time was another hour away. Dan found a spot in the back. He called Meghan and got her voicemail twice before she answered.

“What took so long?” she said.

“I’m outside.”

“Two minutes.”

Dan watched the doors. Three drunk boys in their early twenties stumbled into the lot drunk and laughing. They got into a dented, old Toyota and drove away. Then came a couple about five years older than the boys. They held hands and smiled at each other, faces flushed, eyes wide with excitement. They got into a small SUV parked in the space behind Dan. He was watching them through the frame of his rearview mirror when two knocks came at the passenger seat window, and there was Meghan’s face, framed in a bob of black hair, peering through a hand cupped against the glass. Dan pressed the button to unlock the door, and she got in. She was wearing a thick black parka that ended mid-thigh. She wore sheer black panty-hose and tall heels. Her face was painted with glossy make-up around her eyes and across her lips. She brought a thick, but not unpleasant, dose of perfume into his car. She leaned over the console and pecked a kiss on Dan’s cheek. She placed a cigarette between her teeth and lit it.

“Hey,” she said.

“How’s it going?” Dan opened her window a crack.

“OK. How’re you?”

“Feeling old.”

“What happened to your hands?”

“It’s late, kid. What’s the problem?”

“One of the customers.” Meghan ditched the cigarette through the window.

“Aren’t there bouncers for that?”

“Not for these guys.” Meghan looked Dan in the eyes for the first time since getting into his car. She was angry. “See the bikes?”

Dan counted them. Five Victories. “And who might the owners be?”

“Young Turks? I never heard of them either. I guess they just opened a clubhouse over in Avon. They showed up a couple months ago, carved out a spot near the back of the club. No trouble or anything. Other customers just avoid them.”

“What, they dealing to the girls?”

“The owner, too. But it’s not my business, so what do I care? I come in, I work my shift, I go home.”

“But…”

“A few weeks ago one of the younger bikers starts fucking one of the new girls. It turns into a regular thing, and she can’t stop yappin’ about him, blah, blah. Then last week, she comes into the dressing room, starts telling us about this deal her boyfriend wants to let us in on. We all chip in a cut of our take every night. ‘Only 15%’ she tells us, and we get free use of what they bring in to sell each night. ‘It’s just easier this way, but we all have to go in on it,’ the little bitch says. Can you imagine?”

“So you told her to get lost?”

“I didn’t think I had to. This Jamaican girl tells her, ‘I get me own shit,’ and walked out. I figured it got dropped. Except tonight, the Jamaican girl calls me. From Brockton Hospital.”

Dan closed his eyes. He lived on a quiet, wooded street in Easton with his wife. There was a working fire place in the living room. He wanted to lie down in front of it.

“Danny.” Meghan’s voice was softer. She touched his arm. “Would I call if it was something I could handle on my own? I can’t miss work. Devon just started private school. It’s fucking expensive. I can handle it, don’t get me wrong, but not if I have to pay 15% of my money to these assholes, and definitely not if I have miss work cause they kick the shit out of me and put me in the hospital.”

“I can give you the money.”

“I haven’t taken your money since I was nineteen years old. I appreciate the offer, you know I do, but that’s not what I’m asking you. I am not paying these guys my money.” She squeezed his arm. “And I need you to tell them that.”

“Meg…”

She let him go. “Danny, when’s the last time I asked you for help?”

* * *

Meghan was six when she called Dan at his apartment in Jamaica Plain and asked him to kill their father. Not his mother, not his older brother Joe, or his older sister Anne Marie. It was Meghan who told him about Doreen; how she had been admitted to Boston City Hospital with a concussion and shards of ceramic embedded in her forehead.

“Daddy hit her with a coffee mug, Danny.”

As a kid, Dan made his share of visits to the doctor for stitches and casts. Then he got too big. He wasn’t worth the trouble. It went the same for the others. But Doreen? Eight years old and she still wet the bed. She couldn’t read much beyond her name. She drew crude pictures of birds all day long at Sisters of Mercy School for the Disabled. The only thing Doreen loved more than her mother and her baby sister were birds. She was a sweet kid. But she wet the bed; she dropped a plate or a glass sometimes. It was as if God had painted a big, fat bull’s-eye on her forehead that only their father could see.

Dan waited at the house all the next day for his old man to come home from his job in the lumber yard at Grossmans before his nightly trip to the pub. Dan wanted his father sober, aware of what was happening. He hadn’t been in the house since being kicked out the year before for his small part in a car theft ring. No charges were filed against him that time, but that didn’t matter. He was glad for the excuse to leave, just as he was glad for this excuse to return.

He brought a bat but ended up using his bare hands. As much as he pretended that it was about his little sister as he smashed his father’s head against the hallway floor, Dan wasn’t so righteous. He was thinking of all the punches, kicks, belt buckles, axe handles, and burning cigarettes he’d endured. He forgot all about Doreen and Meghan.

When he was done, he felt much better. Blood dripped from his hands as he walked out of the house. Meghan poked her head out of the living room as he was passing by. She wasn’t crying. She didn’t look scared. She smiled. She touched his arm. He gave her chin a little squeeze, leaving a smudge of red there with his thumb. “Owe you one,” he said for not fulfilling the promise he’d made and left the house. From inside the bathroom where Dan had locked her, his mother was screaming for someone to call the police. And someone did.

His old man was out of the hospital in a month. He applied for disability and got to retire. He didn’t touch the girls after that. No one ever called Dan about it again, no one except the cops who hauled him away. He was five years in Concord with the thieves, rapists, pushers, and cons. The vocation he learned in jail, using his hands to extract money from borrowers late on payments, became his life’s work. It wasn’t hard. If guilt or remorse came too close, he pictured Meghan’s face, the red thumbprint on her chin. The little girl didn’t know it, but because of her phone call, he was released. For that, Dan remained ever thankful.

* * *

Meghan led him into the club. In the anteroom she told the female cashier, “He’s with me,” but the bouncer, a thick muscled kid in a tuxedo, blocked them from entering the floor. The music was loud. Dan was hanging back and couldn’t hear what was being said, but the bouncer was shaking his head as Meghan spoke into his ear. That lasted until Meghan decided she was done. She gestured back at Dan and poked the bouncer in the chest with her finger, still talking into his ear. The kid stared at Dan a minute, made a decision, and moved aside.

They went onto the floor. It was a large room cast in a smoky, purple light, an effective tool for deepening shadows and hiding the imperfections of naked flesh. To the left was the main stage. Two dancers worked for tips on opposite ends. About half the chairs rimming it were occupied by patrons. In front of them were tables, two to six chairs a piece. Waitresses slipped between those with paying customers while balancing trays heavy with bottles high above their heads. The dancers roved between them too, though some were seated, sipping drinks, smiling at whomever was buying. A few of them were performing lap dances. The bar was to the right. A wall of distorted mirrors, wide as the bar, extended from the floor behind the cash registers and bottles to the ceiling.

Dan put his mouth close to his sister’s ear. “In back of that?”

Meg nodded. “There’s another room, more tables.”

“How many?”

“You counted the bikes. Five. There’s one who is way older than the others. He’s the one in charge, I guess.”

They rounded the bar into the back room. There were more dancers and waitresses, but all the attention was devoted to the rear-most tables where the bikers sat with girls on lap and drinks in hand. All but one—the old man. His long, black hair was salted with gray streaks and tied in a ponytail; the sleeves of his Victory brand t-shirt cut off to reveal thick, sinewy arms, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, hands rested on his gut, cowboy boots propped up on an empty chair. Dan guessed that he and the biker were two years apart in age, one way or the other. He waited for the biker to notice Meghan was standing behind this guy in a black jacket, black dress shirt, blue jeans, and scuffed black shoes. A guy with sloping shoulders, bald head, gray moustache and goatee clipped neat, scar under the left eye and an expression of weary aggravation on his face. Once the older biker had taken it all in, it was time to go.

“Wait here.”

“But what are you…”

Dan moved quickly, and Meghan’s words were lost in the music. When they let him get so close without reacting, he knew this was not going to be too hard. Dan was almost to the table where the older man sat before the young men sprang into action. The two sitting at the table to his right came first. The kid closest pushed the dancer out of his lap, stood up in a hurry, and approached Dan off balance. Dan, hoping to spare his battered knuckles, kicked the kid in the balls. He pulled his 9mm from the waist of his jeans and smashed the butt of the handle into the kid’s nose.

The other one was still trying to get up, but Dan was too fast. He was a professional, and feeling like one, the trepidation from before vanished as he got to work. These guys considered themselves qualified. No one had informed them otherwise, yet. Dan pushed the dancer into the rising young biker, toppling both to the floor. Two short steps and he was sticking the muzzle of the 9mm into the old man’s mouth. He stared down the two on his left as each was drawing a piece, and said, “Toss them on the floor and sit down, please, gentlemen. This won’t take long.”

They hesitated a second, exchanged a glance, and dropped the guns to the floor and returned to their seats.

Dan told the other two to do the same. He then addressed the frightened club workers. “Give us a minute if you would, ladies, but quietly, please.” After the dancers and waitresses did as he asked and the back room was vacated, Dan focused on the man with the gun in his mouth. He plucked the sunglasses from the man’s face and revealed frantic, terrified eyes. Pretenders, just as he suspected. Dan grinned.

Meghan was safe and she could keep all her money. Soon he would be stretched out in front of the fire. Dan cleared his throat. He wanted no misunderstandings. He kicked the cowboy boots off the chair just to make sure the old biker was paying attention.

“You and me? We need to talk.”

It was the  [read more →]]]> A Case Study of the Blue Hair

Chad Mullens

The slender man in the lavender, one-piece suit waited patiently in the sunken center of the lecture hall for the students to finish shuffling into the circular room. From the look on their faces, most would have preferred to stay home and receive the coursework via implant. However, the professor is ‘old school’ and would rather interact with his students. Additionally, Anthropology is a hands on discipline.

It was the first day of the semester and Professor Uwe was excited to begin his lecture. He eyed the holo-clock, anticipating the chime that would announce the commencement of class. There were only twenty students enrolled, but he hoped that this first lecture would sprout interest in his course, and in the study of the prior century. After all, he had dreams of becoming tenured.

Ding, the soft chime rang.

“Welcome to Anthropology of the Twenty-first Century. My name is Professor Uwe, you may call me Professor Uwe,” he said warmly as he paced and clasped his narrow hands behind his back.

“I know most of you would have preferred to stay in your dorm rooms…in your pajamas, but I feel that to study your history, you need to become immersed in it. I’ve already sent the syllabus, lecture schedules, and homework assignments to your accounts. You may access them through your implants at your convenience. You will see that I am a bit eccentric in regards to assignments. I expect you to hand write all of your observations and reports and deliver them in person each class. We will be meeting twice a week, and classes will take approximately two hours. Any questions?” he asked while looking expectantly at each of the young faces.

The students appeared disinterested and bored. Several had the nerve to talk to one another in murmured tones while a few others had linked to the net and were pursuing other ventures. The professor kept a pleasant smile on his face while walking over to the podium and gently coughed.

A few of the students looked up, but not enough. Uwe coughed more forcefully hoping to get the attention of the remaining youths. They continued to ignore him.

Keeping the pleasant smile on his ebony face, Uwe deftly entered commands into the touch display on the podium. The lights dimmed in the circular room and several of students, the ones linked to the net, looked around in surprise.

“As I said before, I am a bit eccentric. I don’t know how your other professors conduct their classes, but I actually expect you to pay attention. Therefore, each class I will be instituting a net blackout. I think you should be able to handle being in the dark for a couple of hours.”

“You can’t do that!” protested a pale girl with pink hair.

“I believe I can, young lady. You are welcome to leave if you desire, but you will not pass the class if you do,” Uwe replied, the casual smile never leaving his face.

“That’s not fair, you can’t just lock us in a dark room and expect us to just sit here,” a burly boy whined.

“Believe it or not, I do. We’re wasting time, and I’ll warn you now, if we continue to debate what I can do as the professor of this course, the lecture will run over. Now, can anyone tell me what they know about the culture of the early part of the last century, particularly the first decade?”

Several moments passed as the students digested the fact that they would have to actually participate in class instead of downloading condensed versions of information and regurgitating it.

Finally, a young woman of Asian descent offered, “During the last century and the one prior to that, the world was focused on industrialization and the advancement of technology. Politics and wars were prevalent as economies were still separate and nations vied for power. Pollution and disease were rampant before the discovery of cold fusion.”

“A very succinct summation, thank you. But do any of you know how people lived? Do you know what drove the people? Do you know what they did for fun? This is what Cultural Anthropology is about. The study of what drives people. Anyone that has the interest can access the information through the net, but in this class I will allow you to see it firsthand. I primarily focus on the culture of North America, but I’ll try to diversify the curriculum as we progress. All of that information is available in the syllabus, as I told you before,” Uwe hoped that he was getting their attention.

The professor again walked to the podium and took a small sip of water before continuing. “My theory is that before the homogenization of our planet’s population, humanity was on the verge of branching into sub-species. I’ve spent years pouring over old vid footage and reading the available literature. Examples of what I mean are in my book, which I expect you to read.” He paused to gauge their responsiveness.

“Before we waste anymore time, I’d like to begin the lecture with a topic I find fascinating. This sub-species died out early in the twenty-first century for reasons I am still trying to figure out. A recent discovery of video footage allowed me a rare chance to study them in their native environment,” Uwe stammered in excitement.

A few touches on his display, and the room went dark. “This is a valuable opportunity, because the footage is extensive and filmed from an angle that allowed me to convert it into a holo-display. I think you will find this intriguing.”

The gloomy room was suddenly illuminated by a inverted cone of light. The students reclined their chairs so that they could view the display as it played out on the ceiling. There was no sound to the hologram, but the images were colorful and bright.

“Does anyone know what this is?” Uwe queried.

“A casino?” offered a red haired boy in a gray unitard.

“Yes!” the Professor exclaimed. “I was hoping that someone would know.”

He continued with his explanation, “For several hundred years, gambling was a behavioral phenomenon indicative of a degrading society. First established in the United Stated during the western expansion and subsequent en-slavery of Native Americans, gambling houses were established to moderate the economy by taking extra earnings from men. They were cesspools of depravity and corruption. Prostitution and violence were very common. The primary methods of gambling were card games. Hundreds of thousands were killed in the violent gun battles resulting from crazed behavior of withdrawal symptoms.”

Several of the students gasped in horror.

Uwe smiled at their response. “An unforeseen benefit occurred in the mid-twentieth century with the settling of Las Vegas. Originally built as a credit laundering operation, the casinos in Vegas became a playground for the growing, unstable population. Eventually, it became a diversified tourist venue offering legalized prostitution, public displays of abhorrent behavior, and syndicated fights to the death.” Uwe was satisfied with the rapt attention he was getting from the students.

“Toward the latter half of the twentieth century, the Native Americans were able to win their freedom and instituted their own casinos. Many of the tribes used the money they made to improve their Reservations, which were often barren tracks of land given to them as bribes by the government after the near annihilation of their way of life. This footage was recovered from one of those casinos. Here is where the sub-species Humanis Azurhairus, more commonly know as Blue Hairs, thrived.”

“If you turn your attention back to the holo, you will see a fine specimen enter from dock of the mass transit system,” Uwe said excitedly. “See the signature cone of blue-tinged hair, and the palsied quake of her movements? Note the way she seems timid and docile. They often appeared this way. I theorize that it was an evolutionary disguise, as you’ll see evident in a moment.”

Several of the male students snickered at the sight of an elderly woman pushing a walker and the implication that she was dangerous.

The holo followed the Blue Hair down a long, beige hallway. Her movements were slow and feeble, until she rounded a corner and looked over the sea of blinking lights. A look of rapture spread across her countenance as she picked up the aluminum walker and sprinted the last few yards. She already had her currency in hand as she took a seat at a reeled slot machine.

“Look at her body language,” Uwe instructed. “She appears docile and occupied as she plays. Yet look at her hands. They are hitting the buttons quite forcefully. You can also tell a Blue Hair by their garb. Observe the synthetic material. It was called polyester.”

“Why do you imply they are dangerous, Professor Uwe?” asked a student from the darkened perimeter.

“Keep watching…”

For several minutes the images flickered and rotated as the angles changed. The Blue Hair appeared relaxed, almost in a trance, as she methodically pressed the same button.

Professor Uwe waited expectantly with a broad smile and a look of adoration. He was rewarded when the class jumped in their seats at the scene before them. The Blue Hair they were observing had just lashed out at another Blue Hair that tried to take possession of the adjacent machine. It looked like an ancient gladiator battle as they wielded walker and cane.

“See how territorial they were?”

Many of the students nodded their heads. Uwe beamed with pride at the interest they were showing. He let them watch for several more moments before calling their attention. “You have seen how aggressive they were. Now watch how how she marks her territory.”

The elderly woman looked around her nervously, never missing a slap of the button, before the pale blue of her pants blossomed into an azure shade.

“Gross! She just peed herself,” screamed a girl.

“I told you, very territorial. Behavior like that is often displayed in the animal kingdom. The only other sub-species of human that displayed this type of territorial marking were the Drunkards and the Homeless, both of which we will cover in great specificity and detail in the coming weeks. Machines called ATMs were a great source for capturing images.”

Professor Uwe took a seat and watched the holo with his students. He was proud that the spark of interest had been ignited in their young minds. He was fairly certain that attendance would improve once these pupils share the experience with their friends. He would almost certainly gain tenure. The casual smile never left his face.

Your heart beats quickly in your chest. You strain to hear any  [read more →]]]> Jenna Heller

Jenna Heller is an American who now lives in the South Island of New Zealand. Her poetry has appeared in several literary journals including BOMB Magazine (USA), The Filling Station (Canada), and Poetry NZ (New Zealand). She enjoys writing scary stories suitable for reading on dark, lonely nights when your imagination can run wild. She has plenty more waiting to find a publication home and audience.

Your heart beats quickly in your chest. You strain to hear any unusual sounds. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. It’s calm, dark, the middle of the night. You breathe in deeply and pull the sheets and blankets up around your neck and shoulders. You roll onto your side. The time on the clock glows: 3:43. Another two hours before you have to get up for swim practice. You yawn, close your eyes, and fall back to sleep almost instantly.

* * *

Someone is in the house. A man in heavy work boots, blue jeans, and a red and black plaid top. He knows where he is going. Moving with the stealth of a cat, he notices details: swimsuits hanging on the doorknob leading from the laundry into the kitchen, the soft hum of the air filter from the fish tank, the four wooden chairs around the breakfast table, the light left on over the stove, the spray of magnets and photos on the fridge door, the pitch black darkness of the dining room. He steps into the darkness and moves more slowly, allowing his eyes to readjust after leaving the soft light of the kitchen. He doesn’t notice a wooden chair to his right, and he bumps it with his foot. The chair makes a low, grumbling sound as it scruffs against the wooden floorboards. The man stops moving. He begins to sweat.

* * *

Your heart is beating much faster than before. The sound of the back door clicking shut was what woke you the first time. You’re sure of it. You don’t move and work hard to keep your breathing quiet enough so you can listen for any sounds coming from downstairs. You hear nothing and open your eyes. You read the numbers on the clock: 3:53. Your heart continues to thump as you lay perfectly still waiting for any sign that a stranger might actually be in the house. You watch time pass. 3:54. 3:55. 3:56. Nothing. 3:57. No sound at all. You exhale and tell yourself that it’s just a dream. You whisper it out loud just to break the silence and console yourself. It’s just your mind playing tricks. Go back to sleep. You draw your legs in toward your chest and pull the covers up even higher. You begin to breathe normally and close your eyes again.

* * *

The man stands perfectly still for ages. He knows that the scrape of the chair might’ve woken someone up, and if he moves too soon, he risks inadvertently bumping into something else and then someone would surely investigate. So he waits. Patiently. Standing as still as an additional piece of furniture, he sees nothing out of the ordinary but he takes in every detail. He sees the main entrance to the house just through the other side of the dining room, and he suspects the stairs that lead up to the bedrooms might start there. So close. Maybe only 5 or 6 steps from where he stands now. Sweat beads on his forehead, and he presses the back of his right arm above his eyes to wipe it away. He lifts one foot and shifts his weight silently in order to continue on.

There is the faintest light coming from the top of the staircase. Perhaps someone young is up there. A little girl, maybe. Afraid of monsters in her closet. Or a young boy who still wets the bed. Someone too afraid to get up in the dark, so they leave a light on. He smiles just a little. With his right hand, he runs his thumb and index finger across his moustache and over the top of his closely cropped beard. He holds something heavy in his left hand. It has a long handle and hangs straight down the length of his left leg. He cautiously takes a step up the staircase. For someone of his size and bulk, he is surprisingly light and somehow manages to make absolutely no sound. He stops after each step and rests, assessing where to place his foot next.

He studies the family photos that line the length of the staircase. He notes: two girls—one quite young, the other a teenager—a mother and father, photos of grandparents and extended family, a family portrait. He takes another step, and as he does, a sliver of faint light glints off the thing hanging by his left leg. An axe. Sharpened to perfection. The man carries it like an extension of himself rather than a heavy, cumbersome thing.

* * *

You lie in your bed with your eyes shut tightly, unable to hear anything except the blood pulsing in your ears. It’s just a dream, you tell yourself over and over again. You dare not move. You imagine the man to be standing half-way up the stairs. Slowly, and as noiselessly as possible, you inch down even further under the covers so just your eyes and the top of your head are exposed. You quickly check the time: 4:15. Again, you listen for anything out of the ordinary. All you hear is your own breathing and the quickness of your heart.

You decide that you’re being silly. Of course it’s just a dream. Your imagination has the best of you. And to prove it to yourself, you stretch out under the covers, this time completely careless about how much noise you make. Rolling onto your back, you fix the sheets and blankets so you are warm and comfortable. But you can’t help yourself. You stop to listen again. Nothing. From what you can tell, there isn’t another sound in the whole house. You steal another glance at the clock: 4:21. Okay, you whisper to yourself again. No more of this. Think of ice cream and days at the beach. Or hanging out with friends and playing Frisbee in the park. You close your eyes, sigh loudly, and hope that the next time you wake up it’ll be because your alarm has gone off. Somehow, you fall back to sleep.

* * *

At the top of the stairs he sees three doors and guesses that the parents’ room is off to the left and the two girls’ rooms are to the right. He reaches for the doorknob leading into the room where he is certain he heard restless movement. With the dexterity of a surgeon, he deftly twists the knob full round. The door pushes open soundlessly. Inside, he takes a quick inventory of the room. He sees a dark outline of a tall dresser, a low dresser, a desk, and a double bed. Posters fill the walls. He walks toward the bed, sweat dripping down his back and beginning to slide down his forehead into the corner of his eye. He blinks a few times at the salty sting but doesn’t move his arm to brush it away. He stares at the bed until he recognizes the outline of a body. This is the teenager’s room. She is almost entirely covered, the blankets bunched around her and tucked under her feet like a sleeping bag. With the thrill of seeing the very top of her head, his heart begins to beat faster. He takes a step toward the bed and waits to see or hear any sounds of wakefulness. He takes another. And yet another.

* * *

If you open your eyes now, you will see two legs and the wooden handle with the steel of the axe hanging below his knee. But you aren’t awake. And you don’t want him to realize that you know he is there. You are dreaming. So you keep your eyes closed.

* * *

He leans down and studies her face: sandy brown hair splayed across her pillow and forehead, unruly eyebrows, and delicate, long eyelashes. He stands up and lifts the axe, supporting it now with both hands. He pauses for any signs of movement.

You stir just slightly.

The man remains still. Patient as always. He has waited all his life for this night. He can wait a little longer. He twists his body around and notices a double-door closet. Keeping his breathing slow and completely inaudible, he turns away from the bed, allowing the axe to hang easily by his side once again. He tugs gently at the handle on one of the closet doors and steps inside. The number of times he has rehearsed stepping inside a closet full of shoes and clothes hanging on noisy hangers—he can do this in his sleep. With his free hand, he slips the tips of his fingers under the door and pulls at it until it clicks shut.

You definitely heard that. Beyond any doubt, you are certain there was a real clicking sound this time. It takes everything out of you to stay quiet and not cry out for help. You are wide awake and not moving a muscle. You feel your heart in your throat. You hear it pumping blood through your ears. You breathe in through your nose but don’t smell anything out of the ordinary. You will yourself to open your eyes. On the count of three: One. Two. Three. Your eyes open. Wide. They seem to instantly adjust to the darkness. Your senses are on full-alert as you look around the room. You notice that your bedroom door is shut. That seems odd. The closet doors are shut, too. Nothing appears to be out of place. The time on the clock says it is 4:40.

Okay, you think. You’ve got choices. You can get out of bed and check your closet. The thought of actually finding a man with an axe standing in there petrifies you. But you also recognize the absurdity of this. You look at the clock again: 4:44. If you get up and check the closet, you’re just playing into your own fears. So just go back to sleep. Enough of this. And you very noisily and intentionally roll over to face the wall with your back to the closet. You feel defiant. You tell yourself not to wake up again until the alarm goes off.

* * *

The man gives up waiting for the girl to open the closet doors. He leaves the room and decides he’ll save her for last. He goes to the second room where the youngest one sleeps. Without much effort, he smothers her with her pillow and strikes her with his axe to make sure the job is done. He steadies his breathing, wipes the blade clean, and walks swiftly to the parents’ room.

Afterward, he remembers only snapshots: the father’s lifeless body a tangled mess in the bed; the white and blue patchwork quilt stained red; the mother sitting on the edge of the bed pleading with him, tears streaming down her face; having to shush her like a child as the axe swings through the darkness.

* * *

At 5:44, you wake up. One minute before the beeping usually signals the start of your day. You turn the alarm off seconds before it sounds. Lying there, you recall more. A lot more. A horrific lot more. And as it all floods back to you, feelings of panic and anxiety rise quickly from the pit of your stomach. You begin to shake uncontrollably and think you might be sick. Somehow in some way that you can’t explain, you know that he swung the axe over and over and over again. And somehow in some way, you know that your mother is lying still on her bedroom floor and your father is lifeless in his bed. And somehow, you know that the carpet is now a thick shade of red.

Your feel nothing but panic and genuine, wide-eyed fear. You hold your face in your hands and cry as silently as you can and then quickly try to pull yourself together, wiping furiously at your tears. It was just a dream, you whisper to yourself. A terrible, horrible, disgusting dream. But still only a dream.

You look around your room. Nothing seems awry. It all appears exactly as you’d left it when you went to bed the night before. You stare down at the carpet trying to figure out if you can see any boot prints. You see nothing.

You know that you need to check your closet. Fear and panic take hold of you, but still, you stand purposely in front of the closet doors. With false confidence, you jerk one door open. Nothing happens. No one is there. You quickly jerk the other door open and look over the clothes and shoes to see if anything has been disturbed. It’s hard to tell. You don’t usually pay too much attention to the precise placement of your shoes or how your clothes are arranged in your closet. However, you think you notice that some of your shoes appear to be pushed to one side just as you’d imagine would be the case if someone had tried to make room to stand. And you can’t make sense of why the clothing directly above the seemingly disturbed shoes appears to have been separated somewhat. You shiver.

And then you hear something. You’re sure of it. You look toward your bedroom door.

* * *

The man waits patiently outside the teenager’s door. This is his defining moment. As soon as she opens the door, he will be there. Ready to strike her down with the heavy, sharp blade. He holds the axe high. His muscles tremble from anticipation. He centers himself. He is ready.

* * *

You look frantically around the room for something to use as a weapon. You spy your swimming trophies displayed proudly on top of the desk. Very quietly, you grab the tallest one. It isn’t heavy and it isn’t much of a weapon, but it has some pointy bits and it might be just enough to catch him off-guard and hopefully ward off the first axe swing. You just need him off-balance so you can run down the stairs and get outside to get some help.

The drumming of your heart in your chest begins to hurt. You know that all of this, all of these thoughts, surely must just be a terrible, terrible nightmare. But it feels far too real to ignore at least taking precautions. You try to think rationally in order to calm yourself down. Your breathing becomes more steady and regular. Your body stops shaking as much. Your mind stills, and you think with clarity and acceptance. You can’t stay in your bedroom forever. You must open the door and face whatever is on the other side. You breathe deeply.

All of your senses are on high-alert. You listen for anything out of the ordinary. You take a cautious step toward the door. Listen. Nothing. Another step. Listen. Nothing. It is a job now, listening for the man. It is the only thing you care about. But it’s hard to hear anything except your heart beating. One more step and the doorknob is within reach. Holding the trophy in your right hand, you summon what bravery and courage you can. You hold your breath and fling the door open.

* * *

His muscles ache from the weight of the axe held high above his head. He is bored. She isn’t coming out quickly enough. He decides to wait elsewhere in the house. He lowers the axe and slinks down the stairs in complete silence.

* * *

To your immense relief, no one is there. You lower the trophy and look at the door to your sister’s room. It’s shut. You look over at your parent’s door, and it’s shut, too. Why shouldn’t they be shut? Everything is as it should be. You look down the stairs into the darkness of the entryway and into the deeper darkness of the living room to the right and the dining room to the left.

You don’t want to go down there, but you simply must face your fears, no matter how irrational. You begin walking, flicking the hall light on as you pass the switch. Everything within eyesight is bathed in light which helps it all seem regular and normal. You scrutinize the floor and railings for any signs. Nothing seems out of place. Your confidence grows and you begin to believe, more convincingly, that this really must be just the scariest dream you’ve ever had. Nevertheless, you keep your footsteps as light as possible and avoid the stairs that are known to creak.

* * *

He considers blending into the darkness of the dining room but remembers the glass and crystal and thinks better of it. That could end up being too noisy. He moves through to the kitchen and into the laundry room. Leaning against the back door, he breathes deeply. This room is small and this way, he thinks, he will have the pleasure of seeing her face before it happens.

* * *

You are in the entranceway to the house now. The dining room is so dark. You don’t want to go that way but the other way around is even darker. You rush through the dining room as quickly as possible, bracing yourself for any unexpected movement or impact. You make it into the kitchen and, once again, quickly survey the room. Everything appears just as it should.

You lower your trophy and suddenly feel foolish. Just grab your swimsuits and get going, you tell yourself. But the laundry room is another dark room. You wonder if the man might be waiting for you in there. You check the clock on the oven door: 6:00. You have no more time to waste.

You stare at the laundry room door. It seems more open than usual. But, then again, it’s never a door that is fully closed or fully left open. You take a deep breath and push on it a little and listen for any signs of movement. You reach your arm around and half-expect to feel someone grab your wrist, so as soon as you feel your swimsuits in your hand, you run back through the kitchen, through the dark dining room and up the stairs, taking two at a time. Once in the safety of your bedroom, you shut the door and look at yourself in the mirror. You smile. Talk about an over-active imagination.

* * *

The man’s breathing is fast now. The sight of her hand, the scent of her fear, and the sound of her bare feet slapping against the kitchen linoleum has raised his heart rate. He feels lightheaded. The rush of blood throughout his body raises his temperature. His jeans suddenly feel tight.

He hears her footsteps above his head through the ceiling. He wants this to last. He wants this feeling to linger.

* * *

You dress and throw your books in your bag. There’s no time for breakfast this morning. You’ll be cutting it very close as it is. When you reach the laundry room door again, you stop. It seems much more open than you thought you’d left it just minutes before. You turn around half-expecting to be clobbered, but of course, no one is there. You push the door open and force your eyes to adjust to the darkness as quickly as possible. Everything looks normal. You let out a huge, deep breath that you hadn’t even realized you’d been holding and walk through the laundry to the back door. You go to unlock it and realize that it isn’t locked.

Your heart beats faster. That’s odd. Very odd. You quickly look behind you, suddenly distrustful of everything and everywhere you can’t see properly. You open the door and see a shred of red and black fabric stuck to a small piece of metal pulled out from the screen door.

You drop everything you are holding and the fear you’d successfully kept at bay over the last ten minutes races through your body again. No, you shake your head from side to side. No, this is not happening. There is only one way to find out for sure. You must go look in your sister’s or your parents’ bedroom. You feel sick and dry wretch uncontrollably. You look around the laundry room for a decent weapon. This time you find one: a golf club. You walk purposely through the house feeling a combination of confidence and resignation. You hold one thought in your mind. You’ll check on your sister, and once you see that she is sleeping normally, then everything will be okay.

You find yourself outside her bedroom door, gripping the golf club in one hand. You brace yourself to see a scene from a horror movie. It’s dark in her room and it takes a few seconds for your eyes to adjust. You see bunched up blankets and what looks like a pillow. At first, you can’t see her. You tip-toe into her room to get a better look. She is in her bed, lying on her stomach with the pillow over her head. Your heart pounds violently. For a moment, you think the worst. You crouch down and watch her face. She is breathing. She feels your presence and rolls over, readjusting her pillow and blankets. You tip-toe out of her room and carefully shut the door.

Nearly crying with relief, you walk downstairs again, return the club to its place, gather up the things you dropped earlier by the back door, and leave the house. You pick the small piece of red and black fabric off the screen door. It’s coarse like wool. You let it drop to the ground and shake your head. You unlock the door to your car, throw your gear inside and back out of the driveway. You will definitely be late for practice and everyone will hate you for having to swim extra laps but your mind is finally at ease. Your family is safe. You are safe.

* * *

What you don’t see as you drive away is a man crouching behind the bushy hedges that line the driveway. He is wearing boots, blue jeans, and a red and black plaid top. He fingers a small hole at the side of his shirt and clutches an axe at his side. He watches you as you drive away.

How strange that a lone skate swimming near the surface of the Bay of Bengal on the moonlit night of August 15th, 1945, would alter so many human lives. As Japanese submarine I-207 began to surface that night to charge her batteries and receive that day’s coded military broadcast, the radioman began cranking the handle that raised the boat’s antenna. The antenna hit the skate’s belly hard and snapped off at its base. There was no spare,  [read more →]]]> Gary Ives

How strange that a lone skate swimming near the surface of the Bay of Bengal on the moonlit night of August 15th, 1945, would alter so many human lives. As Japanese submarine I-207 began to surface that night to charge her batteries and receive that day’s coded military broadcast, the radioman began cranking the handle that raised the boat’s antenna. The antenna hit the skate’s belly hard and snapped off at its base. There was no spare, and before an emergency antenna could be rigged, the boat’s radar detected a closing surface contact, made an emergency dive, and prepared to attack. News of Japan’s surrender and cessation of hostilities would have to wait.

The crew of the American destroyer USS AVANT were jubilant with the news of the surrender that same day. Seventeen-year-old Bill Sorenson had been smoking a cigarette on the fantail just before assuming the midwatch as night mess cook.

The explosion from the Japanese sub’s first torpedo hurled him far into the air. The second torpedo hit amidships just before Sorenson, unharmed, hit the water. The AVANT broke into two pieces that sunk immediately. And soon he found himself clinging to one of the automatic life rafts. The submarine surfaced and had just begun a searchlight scan of the surface but quit the scan, doused the light, and dived when the drone of an aircraft engine was heard.

Billy called over the water for other survivors, but there were none. He was able to haul himself aboard the raft and paddle to the two other rafts which had come to the surface. These he tied to his raft. In the dark there was nothing to do but wait for daylight. The string of three rafts would be more visible in daylight, and if he were lucky, the Navy would be looking for survivors. He’d also be more visible to any other vessels—a calculated risk. The war was over? Somebody forgot to tell the Japs. Maybe tomorrow it’d be over.

At first light, he was able to inventory the rafts’ emergency supplies. Each raft held eight gallons of drinking water, emergency rations of two lbs of hard tack and 4 blocks of chocolate, oars and oar locks, line, canvas, a compass, flashlight, fishing line and hooks, a knife, and a signaling mirror, and a Very Pistol with three flares. None of the flashlights worked. A steady breeze nudged the rafts east toward the Burmese coast. Sorenson, a fair-skinned blond, rigged a canopy with a piece of canvas and three oars and was trolling two fishing lines when he sighted a closing motor dhow.

Billy waived the dhow alongside. A dark, Malaccan sailor reached down and pulled him aboard. He smiled and was thanking the dhow’s captain when a powerful blow from behind knocked him to his knees. The captain barked orders in Malay to two crewmen who tied his hands behind him and lashed his bindings to a deck ring near the prow. His head rang and pain throbbed all the way down his back, but he lay still as the crew rigged a block and tackle and hoisted the rafts aboard. The emergency equipment was stripped from the rafts and piled onto the canvases on deck. The Very Pistols were clearly prized by the captain who took them into the pilot house and returned. He distributed the chocolate and the flashlights among the crew and barked more orders. With the block and tackle stowed, the dhow set a northeasterly course.

Tied and bound to the deck ring, Billy had no shelter from the sun and by midday was suffering sunburn. In midafternoon, a Malay sailor brought him water and a bowl of rice. His head throbbed and still rang from the blow, but with the lowering of the sun, his suffering eased. By sunset, lights twinkled from the Burmese coast, and the dhow altered course due north, following the coast line. Sometime during the night, the dhow hove to and dropped anchor. He was untied and escorted aft to relieve himself and stretch but then returned forward and was tied once again to the deck ring where he lay down and slept. At first light, the dhow weighed anchor and motored slowly through a channel to a village pier where the crew tied up across from two small Japanese patrol boats. A concrete building at the head of the pier flew a Japanese flag, and it was there the dhow’s captain headed to sell the American to the Japanese. In the course of the war he had sold several British, Australian, and Americans to the Japanese as well as two Japanese to the British in Indian ports. However, the war now over; the Japanese weren’t buying. Moreover, the Imperial Army warrant officer advised him that the Americans and British would likely have him shot for piracy.

The dhow stocked up on water, a basket of yams, and some fish then resumed sailing north. Once away from the shore, Sorenson was untied and allowed to find any shade he could on deck. He ate with the crew and slept on deck. The second day out, the dhow changed course to the east and at sunset entered a lagoon where she anchored. The captain hailed a fishing canoe which carried him ashore. The next morning, Sorenson’s hands were tied, and he was put aboard the same fishing canoe and paddled ashore by two Burmese villagers. An old man with an ornate head cloth came out from a wood frame building, the dhow’s captain in tow. The captain yelled something at Sorenson in Burmese, barking the same order three times, and when he didn’t respond, the captain backhanded him and forced his head down into a bow, cursing him. Sorenson’s first lesson: bow to his captors. The old man chuckled then felt Billy’s body, like a doctor, feeling his throat, his arms, under his arms, squeezing his thighs, and looking closely at his mouth, hands, and feet. After a couple minutes of haggling, the old man went inside and returned with a young man carrying two British Enfield rifles and a metal ammo box. The deal complete, the captain and his arms were paddled back to the dhow and set sail immediately. Billy Sorenson now belonged to this old man. He bowed his head to the old man and was led by a man into a thatched hut. Before leaving, the old man spoke to him in English

“You no go. You stay here. You no go. You go, shoot you. You no leave house. You no go.”

For two days Billy stayed in the hut. His head continued to throb from the blow he’d taken on the dhow, and his ears still rang, but the severity of the headache was diminishing. He wondered if anyone else on the AVANT had survived. He thought about his family and wondered if the Navy had sent the telegram saying he was dead, then wondered if there’d be a funeral. He thought about Stanky the cook who bossed the mess cooks and how Stanky promised he’d get Billy laid at whatever port the AVANT entered next. He hated being called “Cherry Boy”. Stanky said he’d even pay for it. Billy had anticipated sex for years and now just when it was about to happen…this. By God, when the Americans or the Brits found him, these assholes were gonna be some sorry bastards. Still, he was fed even if it was gook slop and there was soap and water.

Just before sunrise on the fourth morning, he was awakened by the young man, Than, who spoke English. “You go today. You go with me. We go. You no run. You run, Than shoot. You no run.” After eating, they set out with three other men and a woman bearing baskets of food on a path that led northeast away from the coast. He wore a wide brimmed conical bamboo hat. A rope was tied loose around his neck, the bitter end around Than’s waist.

That day they passed through several villages. At night they made camp by a small stream. After the meal he was taken into the jungle to relieve himself and then his hands were tied behind him and he was once again tethered to Than who slept on his right and another man on his left. This became the pattern for each night on the trek. By the fourth day, the trail had led into mountains of lush, tropical rain forest and occasional cultivated fields of grain or poppies.The headaches eased, but he often experienced confusion and dizziness and both eyes became irritated and began to swell. The woman with the group picked leaves from a low vine and made a compress for his eyes which at night brought great relief but once on the trail and under the sun the irritation and swelling resumed. Than now untied him and told Billy that they were going to a beautiful mountain village with a famous healer who would make his eyes better. “You very lucky. Very beautiful this place.”

“Oh yeah, I’m torpedoed, kidnapped, and going fucking blind. Very lucky my ass.”

On they trudged and Billy lost track of the time. Confusion came and went and Billy could not be sure if they’d traveled a week or a month. His thoughts turned chiefly to the past: his family, the AVANT, quitting high school in the 11th grade to join the Navy, getting laid someday. He did not think about escape, just rescue. The Brits or Americans would come and save him and kick some ass, too. Did they have Aussies around here? That’d be swell. Aussies weren’t stuck up like the Brits. And wherever there was Aussies there was beer. The soles of his shoes were giving out so Than cut strips of a soft wood as inserts. Late one afternoon, they left their narrow foot path and the men began cutting a narrow swath through the forest. About a mile into the forest, the thick growth gave out under the canopy of giant trees. They crossed several streams and climbed to a plateau then rested. “Soon you see beautiful mountain village.” They worked their way across the southern and eastern sides of the mountain arriving at a northern crest just at sunset. By now vision for Billy was painful. He kept his swollen eyes closed as much as he could. But the golden hue sunset he squinted at was magnificent. They had arrived at Muryin.

Than led him through the village to a one room, wooden house with a veranda. He smiled and said, “Here is very beautiful. You so lucky.”

Inside was dim and cool. He saw a table three chairs and a sleeping mat with a wooden pillow block, and a little wash stand with a basin and ewer. There were pegs on the walls and clean wood floors shone. Two Burmese girls entered and bowed—one with a towel, a collarless, cotton shirt, a sarong, and sandals. “You wash, wear new clothes, no smell bad.” The other girl bore a tray with a bowl of noodles and smaller dishes with dried fish and fruit. You rest good tonight. Tomorrow you see Tuan Ji.” The girls bowed their heads and departed. He ate, washed, and he did rest well under a clean cotton blanket in the cool mountain night.

The next morning the girls returned with breakfast. Accompanying them was an English girl. “Hello, I am Catherine. This is Sun Yi and this is Rah. Are you British?”

Taken aback, he stared through his puffy eyes. “Jeeze, I must look really awful. I’m sorry. No, I’m American. My name is Bill, Billy Sorenson and I’m pleased to meet you. You bet. Maybe you can tell me what in the hell is happening here. Did you know the Japs have surrendered? The war’s over. I think. I can’t see very well. Catherine is it? Catherine, something’s bothering my eyes.”

Catherine chuckled and smiled, “Do drink your tea before it cools. Sun Yi, please help Billy fold his longyin properly. May I sit here?” While he ate, Catherine spoke, “You are in Muryin, and to be quite plain, isolated from the war and from the rest of the world. You now belong to Muryin. This is our home. Welcome. Tuan Ji asked me to speak with you and to make sure you are comfortable. Is there anything you need? Sun Yi and Rah are happy to help you with anything.”

“What do you mean ‘I belong’? How can that be? I’m an American. Sorry, but I already belong to the United States Navy. Ain’t there any Americans or Brits near? What’s going on here? You guys have a radio up here?”

“I realize this must be confusing. Don’t worry, everything will be explained in time. You are safe here and you will be well taken care of. You have an eye infection?”

“Yeah, it’s something I picked up on the trail up here. Maybe from some little gnats or bugs…I dunno…they had my hands tied behind me and I couldn’t swat them bugs. Can’t you tell me why I’m here?”

“You’re here because you have blond hair and fair skin. We have a healer here, Bac San, who will examine you. I’m gone to fetch him just now. Rest; if you need anything call for Sun Yi. This afternoon you’ll meet Tuan Ji.”

Later Catherine returned with a very old man who examined him prodding and stretching his eyelids. He spoke for a long time with Catherine in Burmese then patted Sorenson’s arm and left. “He says an insect caused your infection.”

“Is that all? He sure talked a long time for just that.”

“I’m so sorry, it’s rather serious he says. However, there is the juice of a little, red berry that grows on the lower slopes and that can help. We’re sending for the berries now. The healer is sending you something for pain.”

That same afternoon Sun Yi came in with a basin of warm water and a small vial with an eyedropper. She signaled for him to lie down and squeezed a drop into each eye and placed a warm cloth over his eyes. The drops provided immediate and complete relief from pain. She unbuttoned his shirt and bathed him gently.

“Who is Tuan Ji, anyway?” Billy asked.

“Tuan Ji is…is like…like a king here.” Catherine said, “Think of him as the king of this mountain, as in a fairy tale. You now belong to this mountain and to Tuan Ji. We, all of us, do. He has purchased you. I know this must be terribly odd to you. But do try not to show emotion. Bow low to Tuan Ji and remain silent. Do not laugh, you may smile, but do not laugh or make any loud noise. Just be silent. Do whatever you’re asked to do without comment. Do you understand? I’ll be with you and will help you. “

“What? I’m some kind of slave now? How can he own me?”

“Be calm. It’s not what you think. Just try to relax and please act calm even if you’re worried. No one will hurt you. I promise. You’ll be very well taken care of. I know it’s all a bit of a shock. Trust me, if you can. Just remember what I’ve told you; it’s extremely important that you appear calm. Remember to bow low and do whatever you’re asked. Only if you are rude will things go badly. Thinking of it like a game helped me immensely when I first arrived and may work for you as well.”

They left the little house and walked slowly through the village to a large house high on stilts with a veranda on all sides. They slipped off their sandals on the veranda and were met by a smiling man who spoke softly with Catherine in Burmese for several minutes before they were ushered in. Catherine explained that the man was Raj Bar, Tuan Ji’s oldest son. Raj-Bar led the two through a doorway into a large, dimly lit room. There on a raised platform beside a teapot and cup, sat cross-legged, an ancient man with shoulder length grey hair. A wrinkled visage bore just the hint of a smile as he beckoned the two forward. Billy and Catherine offered slow, deep bows. He spoke softly to Catherine, who then bade Billy to take off his shirt for Tuan Ji. He checked his complaint and did as he was told. “He wants you to turn around slowly.” Billy bowed once again then slowly unbuttoned the shirt, took it off, handing it to Catherine, then turning around slowly.

“Now remove the sarong and do the same turn around. You’re doing fine, Billy. Just remember the things I told you. Don’t worry. Just a silly game, is all.” Again, he bowed, untucked the fold in the top of the sarong, and stood completely naked before Tuan Ji, Catherine, and Raj Bar. Slowly he turned around. Tuan Ji spoke again, and Catherine returned first his sarong, then the shirt, and told him to dress. Tuan Ji again spoke to Catherine briefly, then facing Billy smiled and spoke directly to him in Burmese. “He tells you that he will offer prayers that your eyes be healed.” He gave a small wave of dismissal; he bowed and followed Raj Bar and Catherine out.

Back at his house, the evening meal was waiting on the table. “How’s about sticking around, we can talk. I’ve got a hundred questions.”

“No, I must go home. Raj Bar is my husband and he is waiting. I’ll see you again soon. Don’t worry. Things will be fine. You’ll see. Don’t forget the eye drops—four times a day. We’ll begin Burmese lessons in the morning.”

“Husband,” he thought,” she doesn’t look old enough to have a husband. But then again she was very pretty with very fair skin, and long blond braids and just a hint of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She reminded him of the illustrations in his sister’s book Heidi.

Catherine Fresnel, who was then just 16 years old, was the daughter of Arthur and Margarite Fresnel, he a district police commissioner, taken prisoner by the Japanese in 1942 and shot. Margarite Fresnel died of typhus her first year in a prison compound for Western women near Rangoon. Just before her father’s arrest Catherine had been sent up country to stay the war out with Reverend Schlosser, a Swiss missionary, and friend. En route her train had been bombed. While wandering dazedly amid smoking wreckage of the train, Japanese soldiers, the dead and wounded, burst suitcases, and sobbing survivors; she was snatched by a sharp-eyed scavenger intending to sell her to a brothel. Raj Bar had been aboard that train, returning from Rangoon where he’d concluded negations with the Japanese for the sale of Muryin’s yearly opium crop. The Imperial War Office had established a production laboratory in Rangoon for the processing of raw opium into morphine for the Imperial Army. The Japanese followed the long tradition of exchanging gold and silver for opium. This had been Muryin’s most profitable season ever.

He’d witnessed the abduction and followed the abductor and Catherine through several streets until confronting the man beside a dark godown. He commanded the man to surrender the young girl. The kidnapper brandished a knife and in an instant Raj Bar had kicked the knife from the young man’s hand, tripped him, and with his foot on the man’s back, bending over taking his head in both hands, twisted until an audible snap was heard. “Come, little one, you are safe with me.”

Once in Muryin Tuan Ji, now more than 90 years old, was enamored by the fair skin and hair of the beautiful sixteen year old English girl. He formally married her in a large ceremony involving the entire village. She became his 18th wife, and as such was afforded a high station among the people of Muryin. As his newest and youngest wife Catherine inherited the formal duties of bringing Tuan Ji his tea, serving his nightly Johnny Walker’s Red, and bringing the old man his pipe. These duties were taught by San, another wife, who showed her just how much Scotch to pour, and how to roll the opium pellet, light it, and pass it to the old man. Tuan Ji, too old for sexual intercourse nevertheless possessed a strong libido sometimes charged by his pipe. At those times he would undress Catherine and gaze at her much as a lover of old masters might behold a Rembrandt of Vermeer. Often he’d touch her with a long, long feather, gliding the soft edge over her entire body. With glazed eyes, through the curls of smoke, he would beckon the child to him and feel her lovely blond hair. He’d softly touch brush his ancient hands with their translucent, thin, skin across her tummy and her bottom and smile, nodding off to pleasant, sensual dreams.

In midsummer when the evenings were hot, he’d take his Johnny Walker and pipe in large garden behind the grand house. This was an exquisite place and her favorite spot in Muryin. All manner of beautiful flowers and shrubs were cultivated. In the center was an immense screened in cage for birds which one could enter. This cage was resplendent with plants and even low trees. Sometimes in the summer evenings Tuan Ji would have entertainments by actors and singers there in the garden. Burmese plays are often noisy and usually funny. The actors sport grotesque masks and their movements are exaggerated which always seemed to arouse the old Tuan who drank heavily during the plays and always clamored for his pipe as soon as the grounds had cleared. Then he would have Catherine hold an actor’s mask, stand on a little dais, and turn around and around while he tickled her with the long feather. This always ended in a quiet laugh. Around the time Catherine reached menarchy, the old man found a new prepubescent girl, Ans Ra, an 11 year old Burmese of incredible beauty, and he passed Catherine to his son Raj Bar whom he knew loved the English girl. Still, he preferred that only Catherine prepare and serve his Johnny Walker and pipe. Catherine discovered very early the pleasures of the pipe. San had taught her how to hold the smoke in her lungs during the lighting of Tuan Ji’s pipe, and when the old man fell asleep she and San would finish smoking any remains of the pellet. The effect was most pleasing and she likened it to being rocked and sung to by her grandmother when she was four and five years old, a warm comforting glow. Tuan Ji knew that Catherine liked the pipe, for he had instructed San to introduce the pipe to her and make it available. She and Raj Bar took a pipe together nearly every evening. While the smoke dulled her physical senses, the mind folded itself into a serene state of bliss. By the time Billy arrived she had been four years in Muryin..

Now she was in fact and in deed Raj Bar’s wife, in every way and Raj Bar did truly love Catherine in a particularly protective if rather avuncular manner. Unlike his father, Raj considered Catherine still a child and avoided frequent sexual relations with her. His two other wives satisfied him, although they dwelt in another house. And whether it was the unseemly sexual introduction his ancient wrinkled father had thrust upon the young girl, or the pipe, she showed no interest at all in sexual relations. Indeed, to Catherine it was an unpleasant duty, like emptying chamber pots. Raj had made inquiries with his Japanese contacts and knew that both parents were dead and had told Catherine this. When Tuan Ji died, Raj Bar would become Tuan Raj and assume the leadership of Muryin. There was considerable wealth from the poppy fields and life in the mountains was easy. Other than huge profits from the opium sales the war had left Muryin alone. Well educated, Raj Bar personally supervised her education. There were lessons, math, the sciences, Burmese, and English literature. His other wives taught Catherine dance, certain crafts, and cooking. He avoided history and seldom mentioned the war. Tuan Ji had a wind up Victrola and over 100 records, mostly classical piano and opera. And Raj’s library was large. This educational process occupied Catherine’s days. She was intelligent and appreciated and enjoyed the unhurried pace through Raj Bar’s lessons. He was an excellent instructor, patient, gentle and often funny. For Catherine’s 16th birthday, Raj had arranged with his Japanese contacts in Rangoon for a piano to be delivered to the base of Muryin’s mountain. Further, a piano teacher would be found among civilian internees and released at Tuan Ji or Raj Bar’s request.

The Burmese were different. Incredibly docile, soft-spoken, and kind; they were much friendlier than the British whom they hated as overbearing, cruel, false and authoritarian. Catherine shared the Burmese animosity toward her own people because she’d seen plenty of colonial abuse, particularly toward servants. But that tranquil, serene Burmese character could in an instant turn harsh, irrational and violent when pushed to the extreme. She’d seen that the day Raj Bar had saved her from the kidnapper. She lacked for nothing emotionally or materially. Life was good and Catherine content, yet she harbored a longing to speak English.

The American seemed a blessing. No, he wasn’t British and he was rather stupid, but how she had wanted to hear English. English from the tongue of a native speaker, and the American accent was if not pleasing was entertaining, like listening to someone from the cinema. Just to hear and speak English was so satisfying. There had been others before him, boys, several in fact, but only one English speaker, he a blonde upper class British boy, a banker’s son, Rodney, Tuan had been given by the Japanese from one of the civilian internment camps. However the boy had been uncooperative and truculent and attempted to run away. Although the same age as Catherine he did not care for her. He was haughty and arrogant, often making rude suggestions. Raj Bar disliked that boy who eventually became more and more boisterous and then, like all the others, disappeared. She took great care to indoctrinate this American.

Burmese lessons began the next day. The American was impetuous and undisciplined, constantly throwing questions at her. “Listen, Billy. It is extremely important that you learn some essential Burmese. Tuan Ji wants you to understand him. And you certainly don’t want to appear stupid before him, do you?”

“How in the hell am I gonna get home? That’s what I want to know. Jeeze, Catherine, I’m sure these are swell people but I ain’t one of ‘em. I’m an American. My folks prolly think I’m dead. I need a real doctor to fix my eyes. Ain’t there any Brits or Americans you can get me in touch with? There a radio up here somewheres; the war’s over ain’t it? ”

“That’s simply not possible. And were you able to see and were you to try to leave you wouldn’t make two miles before some one returned you, and if by some strange chance you did make it off the mountain – you’d have to pass through 300 miles of bandits and Japanese units who refuse to believe the war is over. No. Here you are safe and will be very well attended. Very little is being asked of you. Count your blessings. Now let’s try counting to ten in Burmese, again. Thi, hni, thoun…”

”I don’t wanna count to ten. Why’d that old man make me strip? What the hell is on his mind? Huh? Do you know how embarrassing that was? He seen everything and so did you.”

“Tuan Ji, you must realize, is the ultimate authority here. As such you must endeavor to please him. Always. Yes he may have strange proclivities, but no harm will come to you. I assure you. If he wishes to see you…see you…eh …entirely, please, you must humor him. Look, I know this is most difficult. I’m going to ask Raj to speak with you – perhaps he can explain this better than I. Obviously, you’re in no frame of mind for a Burmese lesson, so we’ll call it a day.”

Catherine visited the house of the healer Bac-san who gave her a small packet of chi-qun powder. She instructed Sun Yi to mix this with the rice in Sorenson’s evening meal. She knew Tuan Ji would want the pleasure of the American soon and the powders were a narcotic which would calm him and block his inhibitions. She’d used it on all the boys. Only the English boy had resisted the effects of the drug. After dark she entered the old man’s house with the tray of Johnny Walker and his pipe. She knelt beside the old man’s curtained bed and stoked the pipe while he sipped from the glass of scotch. “Child, he said – bring the American boy now.” From the verandah she signaled Sun Yi who minutes later arrived with Sorenson. Catherine met them at the entrance, “Remember, Billy, don’t speak, stay calm, and do whatever you’re asked to. Let’s practice your bow before we enter. Well done, very good.”

“You know, Catherine, I’m feeling really relaxed… not scared like I thought I’d be. Kinda like, so what if it’s weird, hey? Are you gettin’ naked too?”

The sweet smell of smoke mixed with incense in the candle lit room. The old man lay down his pipe and smiled, reclined on a stack of pillows and gestured to Catherine with a circular wave. “Please take off your clothes slowly, remember don’t speak.” She then disrobed at the same time Sorenson did then pointed to a two small circular daises at the old man’s bedside. “Stand there.” Billy stepped up on the little platform as Catherine stood by him on the other. Tuan Ji stared and smiled, picked up his pipe and took a puff then signaled to the pair to turn around slowly. Next he tickled Catherine with the long feather then passed the feather to her as he gave her some instructions. She then touched Billy with the feather according the old man’s whims. When Billy’s arousal was obvious the old man sighed and signaled for them to dress and leave. That was it. “You did just fine, Billy. We’ll try Burmese lessons in the morning. Goodnight.

“Wait, can’t we talk a little?”

“No. Perhaps tomorrow. Rest well. Goodnight.”

Soon after Billy’s departure, Raj Bar stepped from his place in a darkened alcove. He shared a pipe with Catherine when they returned home.”

She appeared at Billy’s the next morning after his meal and bath. He wanted to know if what had happened last night would happen again this night. “I don’t know, it depends entirely on Tuan Ji’s desires. “

“Well,” he said, I liked it. You know what part I like. I liked it. Did you like it too? Tell me you liked it too, Catherine.”

“Let’s not talk of this. We do what Tuan Ji wishes.”

“Tuan Ji is a sick old fart. But you’re …..”

“Silence,” she commanded him. “You must never, never, never say that again. It is ….sacri….it is wrong….it is extremely dangerous.”

“But I’m telling you, it’s okay, with you there I even liked it.”

“No. no. no. You do not understand your situation. You simply cannot speak of this. Consider it a duty, a secret duty done to please a very wise and powerful figure. Just do your duty as you would in your military but say nothing, nothing of it. Talk of what passes with Tuan Ji is dangerous and you could be hurt. I must leave now. Please reflect on what I’ve said. I would not like to see you get in trouble. It would go very badly for you if Tuan Ji heard your words. And don’t be fooled, he understands English as well as Chinese, Hindi, and Japanese. “

That afternoon the swelling and pain in his eyes became acute. Both eyes were swollen shut and he could see only if he opened his eyelids with his fingers, and that an excruciating endeavor. Bac San was summoned and gave him a drug for the pain but could not control the swelling. The swelling acquired an orange hue and spread to envelop his cheeks and his jaw – his face grotesque resembling a pumpkin. Fortunately there were no mirrors in the house. Bac San returned after his evening meal and administered another anodyne and, at Catherine’s request, chi-qun powders. \

Actors and musicians had arrived that afternoon and an entertainment scheduled for the evening. Before the presentation Tuan Ji had instructed Catherine to arrange for the American to be available after the performance. “But, your grace, you should know the sickness with his eyes is much worse and his face has become swollen and quite ugly.”

“Is he in pain?”

“No, Tuan.”

“Then fetch him at the appropriate time, dear one.” He clucked, “The face is not that which interests me,” then chuckled and smiled, “but tell him he is to wear one of the actor’s masks so that I am not offended. You too shall wear a mask to balance the Yin and Yang. See to this, My Flower.”

Throughout the evening’s outdoor entertainment Tuan Ji sipped his Johnny Walker visibly enjoying the evening. With the full moon the garden was brightly lit and sweet fragrances from the night blooming flora permeated the garden. At the end of the performances he handed Raj Bar a small leather purse of gold coins to distribute to the actors and musicians. After the garden cleared of people he bade Catherine to bring his pipe and the American and said they would pass the evening there in the garden. Now Raj Bar excused himself, promising his father he would return shortly, and soon Catherine came with the tray bearing the pipe, which she lit and passed to the ancient ruler. Soon a low whistle from beyond the hedge let her know that Sun Yi was there with the blind American. She excused herself and walked around the hedge to guide Billy through the garden. At the entrance lay two actor’s masks. One mask was the traditional mask of the monkey king. This she instructed Billy to wear this until told to remove it. Her mask was of the goddess Ju-la, divine creator of winds.

Once before the old man, she whispered to Billy that it was time to bow. Helping him to undress, his arousal was obvious to her as well as to Tuan Ji and Raj Bar who had silently entered the garden. She carefully avoided touching his body until the old man passed her the feather, and laughing instructed her to bring the monkey king to climax with the feather. Across his shoulders, up and down his back, across his chest the slowly guided wand’s velvet touch enthralled and excited Sorenson whose knees began to shake. Tuan Ji laughed.

Fifteen feet away supporting the shaft of the blowgun against a mimosa tree, Raj Bar leveled the weapon and released a powerful push of air. The dart easily penetrated Sorenson’s carotid artery at the precise moment of Sorenson’s orgasm. Tuan Ji sighed, rose, and bade Catherine to escort him to his house.

Later on her way home to Raj she passed through the garden. She picked up the Ju-La mask and looked at it. Everyone else had gone and the night was still. She stood in the shelter of the trees at the edge of the garden. The garden itself was bright with moonlight and in the moonlight she could see him lying there, just a few feet from her, stark and pale in the silver glow. The mask slipped from her fingers and fell the ground beside her.

“I so hope the next one is British.”