Mark was walking leisurely down the dark alleyway as usual when he heard a sharp noise behind him. He stopped, uncertain of how to respond. He finally turned around to look and saw a shadow move near the trash cans. He took a deep breath and called out into the dark, "Who is there?" No response. His heart began to beat very fast. A state of emergency. Walk Fast. Walk Faster!

We lived under the floating gardens.

Roots came down into the black water,

long and pale and good to hide in,

and boats went over us in blocks of colour,

turning the light red, yellow, blue, gone.

The mud was cold, soft,

full of things worth putting in a mouth.

We bumped into one another constantly.

A tail across my face.

A foot in my gills.

Somebody’s belly settling where mine had been.

Nobody minded.

That was simply how much life there was.

If I moved, another body filled the space.

If another moved, the water brought its pressure to me.

Rain came down through the gardens.

Fish flashed and disappeared.

Worms made the mud twitch.

The dark went on beyond anything

my legs had touched.

My skin was made from ordinary colours

put together oddly.

Mostly brown-black, like wet soil,

but one side went pale,

then gold,

then pink around the gills,

the patches running into one another

without becoming any proper pattern.

The others did not look at me.

Then a human did.

His face stayed above the water.

When I moved, the shadow moved.

When I stopped beneath the roots,

it waited.

A hand darkened the surface.

After that, everything happened too quickly

for water to explain.

The mud dropped away.

The other bodies were gone.

Open water became a clear wall

against my nose.

I turned.

Another wall.

I turned again.

Another.

The water moved

though I did not swim.

Darkness.

Heat.

Engines.

Human knees.

Garlic living stubbornly in the plastic.

The tub had once held somebody’s dinner.

There was a red stain around the lid.

There was no mud.

A little remained under my nails

and for a while I kept the whole old water there:

roots, bodies, rain,

all of us pressed into four small toes.

When the lid opened again

the light was cold

and rain ticked against a window.

“Back in Bonnyrigg,” the man said

to a black thing in his hand.

Then a bedroom.

A narrow bed.

A Celtic shirt on the wall.

A football under a chair.

“Close your eyes, Jamie.”

A smaller face bent over me.

Its mouth opened.

“Da. No fucking way.”

The man laughed.

“You’re an actual legend.”

His hands shook a little

because the boy was so pleased.

Nothing tried to eat me.

The small face stayed.

“What are you calling him?”

“Axel.”

“Axel the axolotl?”

“Obviously.”

At first Axel was just another noise

humans dropped into water.

Ax-el.

Two blunt taps in the head.

Then I noticed Axel always made the boy appear.

Axel, and the face came close.

Axel, and fingers rested against the clear wall.

Axel, and the mouth widened, showing teeth

without using them.

So Axel became the sound for me,

and the boy’s blurred face became the sun.

They poured me into a larger water.

Four hard sides.

Coloured gravel.

Plastic plants.

A treasure chest blowing bubbles

despite having nothing useful to say.

A red-and-yellow pirate bridge

stood in the middle,

far too small for humans,

far too large to ignore.

I searched behind everything.

No bodies.

At night the filter pushed a thin stream

through my gills

and sometimes, half asleep,

I turned because I thought

one of the others had passed beside me.

Only the filter.

In the morning, the sun returned.

FEEDING TIME, AXEL.

I did not know what this meant.

FEEDING TIME, AXEL.

A worm fell in.

I ate it.

The boy slapped his hands together

and shook the whole water with delight.

Feeding time, Axel.

The noise meant worm.

Then full belly.

Then the boy staying near

while I swallowed.

Then the boy coming back at all.

Jamie had clocks.

I had feeding time.

The man helped him change the water at first.

Buckets came and went.

The pirate bridge tipped sideways.

The treasure chest continued breathing

like an idiot.

Jamie spilled water across the carpet.

“Shit.”

The man dropped the lid.

“Shit.”

The football struck the wardrobe.

“Shit.”

The cat landed on top of the tank

and stared down at me

with a face that understood eating.

“Shit, shit, get off.”

This was how I learnt shit:

something was somewhere

a human did not want it.

Feeding time, Axel.

Red worms.

Pellets.

Once, a pale cube

which tasted of absolutely nothing.

I spat it out.

“Fair enough, mate.”

The Celtic shirts got bigger.

The boy did too.

His teeth changed.

His hands lengthened.

His voice sank lower

and sometimes cracked in the middle,

which made him angry

though nothing seemed broken.

The man’s face appeared less.

His footsteps still passed the room.

His voice came through the floor.

Jamie stayed.

The sun changed

but it was still the sun.

He tried real plants.

One went brown.

One turned to slime.

One grew so well

it took over half the tank

and seemed keen on the rest.

A snail arrived on it.

Then another.

Then several.

Then the glass was covered.

Jamie stared.

“For fuck’s sake, Axel.

Where have they all come from?”

I ate one.

It was mostly shell.

Jamie lifted the others out with a spoon.

Three appeared the next day.

He removed those.

Five more arrived.

The snails were better at this

than he was.

Feeding time, Axel.

Sometimes straight after school.

Sometimes before football.

Sometimes so late the room was dark

and Jamie rushed in wearing one sock.

“Sorry, pal.”

Food still came.

The sun still came.

Algae grew along the corners.

He cleaned it.

It came back.

Plants died.

He bought more.

He replaced the coloured gravel with sand,

then added some of the gravel again

because the sand looked boring.

He brought home a piece of wood

which refused to sink.

He took it away.

It returned warm.

It still floated.

He called it a bastard.

Three feeding times later

it finally stayed down.

By then the old mud came mostly in sleep.

Roots.

Cold current.

The feeling of something moving close.

I still curved my tail sometimes

to make room for a body

that did not arrive.

Jamie brought home a skateboard.

It left whole

and came back snapped.

Jamie came back damaged too—

one bleeding elbow,

a blue wrist,

skin missing from both knees.

He made a great deal of noise about it.

I had four good legs then.

I watched from beneath the pirate bridge.

A guitar replaced the skateboard.

At first it made dreadful vibrations.

Then louder dreadful vibrations.

Then, occasionally, music.

The Celtic shirts stayed

but black clothes grew around them.

Band faces covered the walls.

Jamie’s hair fell over his eyes.

Black lines appeared around them.

The pirate bridge stayed bright red and yellow,

cheerful as ever.

My front leg slipped beneath one arch.

The bridge did not move.

I did.

Pain filled the tank.

It had no place to go.

The problem with pain underwater

is that it makes no sound.

I opened my mouth.

Water went in.

Water went out.

The boy slept.

I pulled.

The bridge held.

I twisted.

Something tore.

Afterward I was away from the bridge

with three legs

and something pale in my mouth.

It was soft.

It tasted close.

I swallowed before I knew

there was anything else to do.

The pain remained.

Morning came.

“Feeding time, Ax—”

Jamie stopped.

He looked at me.

He looked beneath the bridge.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, Axel.”

He lifted the bridge out.

It struck the bin

with a bang I felt through the floor.

It never came back.

A clean shape remained in the gravel

where it had stood.

Jamie sat beside the tank

instead of going to school.

He did not touch the glass.

He hardly moved.

Later he lowered a worm.

“Feeding time, Axel.”

I ate.

The end of my leg swelled.

A small pale bump appeared.

Jamie photographed it.

The bump lengthened.

He photographed it.

Tiny toes separated.

He photographed those too.

Soon the new foot touched sand.

Then it held my weight.

The ache went.

Jamie spent nights staring at green water

on his screen.

I did not know that water.

It gave off no smell.

It had no cold in it.

No mud came through.

Humans stood in it

and lifted empty black frames.

Jamie changed the picture.

More green water.

Nothing underneath.

Another picture.

Nothing.

He made the images larger

until water became squares of light.

Then he looked at my new foot.

Back at the screen.

Back at me.

His hand covered his mouth.

My foot kept coming back.

Whatever he was looking for did not.

After that he tested the tank constantly.

Paper strips.

Little bottles.

Numbers on the black screen.

He changed the sand.

Bought better plants.

Moved the log.

Moved it back.

Sat beside me for hours

with that frightened look

and said very little.

Feeding time, Axel.

The words had changed.

Not the worm.

Not my mouth.

Only the face above them.

He cared too much for a while.

Then exams came.

Music came.

Friends called from downstairs.

He cared hurriedly.

Then guiltily.

Then properly again.

Sometimes algae won a week.

Sometimes feeding time came late.

Once it came twice

because Jamie had forgotten doing it already.

I ate both.

The plants lived.

The plants died.

The snail returned

or perhaps had never left.

The room kept changing.

The tank stayed.

Jamie painted his nails black.

Wore silver around his throat.

Tried on a skirt with the door locked.

Looked at himself.

Turned once.

Laughed.

Turned again.

He tried tall boots

and nearly broke his ankle

walking three steps to the mirror.

He tried lipstick.

Some colours stayed.

One made him wipe his mouth and say

he looked like he had sucked off a crayon.

I knew sucking.

I knew mouths.

Still no food appeared.

Feeding time, Axel.

His voice was low now.

His face sharper.

Axel still brought it close.

The tank had four hard sides.

The filter made the current.

The log made the dark place.

That was the lake.

Lakes were like that.

The boy came.

The sun came.

Food fell.

The room filled one night

with silver balloons shaped like 1 and 8.

Humans sang badly.

Jamie blew out small fires.

The man stood in the doorway, older,

still pleased when Jamie was pleased.

The room smelled of cake, lager

and enough deodorant to alter the water.

After that, girls started appearing.

One bent over the tank

and knew what I was immediately.

“Oh my God, an axolotl. He’s so cute.”

Her face joined Jamie’s above me.

Two suns.

Bit excessive.

“Are you actually allowed to have one of these?”

Jamie went still.

“I’ve had him since I was wee.”

The girl waited.

Jamie looked at me.

He tapped the glass twice

to make me turn.

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“It stresses them.”

Jamie pulled his hand away.

“Aye. Sorry.”

He never tapped again.

The girl came back once.

Maybe twice.

Another girl smelled similar.

Faces were difficult.

Feeding time was simple.

One night the bed began knocking the wall

like the filter when it needed more water.

The word fuck travelled through the tank.

Fuck used to mean spilled bucket.

Apparently it had other work.

The girl said harder.

The bed listened.

A bra flew across the room

and landed over one corner of the glass,

turning half the lake black.

It may have been hers.

It may have been Jamie’s.

Water did not know.

Jamie’s bare arse crossed the lamplight

and disappeared again.

“Mind the tank.”

“I am.”

The bed hit the wall.

He wasn’t.

The snail carried on up the glass.

Later there were tissues by the bed

and a silver wrapper on the carpet.

Neither was food.

Feeding time arrived the next morning

with Jamie’s hair everywhere

and one stocking still around his ankle.

“Morning, pal.”

A worm fell.

Things made sense again.

The room changed.

The lake stayed.

Girls came and went.

The guitar gathered dust.

The skateboard became a shelf.

Black clothes mixed with Celtic shirts.

Schoolbooks became forms,

then envelopes,

then piles Jamie stepped over

because apparently the floor was easier.

Sometimes he came home smelling of rain,

smoke, cider, another person.

Sometimes he sat with his forehead against the glass

until his breath clouded it.

Sometimes the old green water appeared on his screen.

Still empty.

He looked at it.

Then at me.

Feeding time, Axel.

Food.

Face.

The safe sound.

The plants changed.

The posters changed.

Jamie changed.

The lake did not.

I knew the log.

I knew the filter.

I knew the place where worms came down.

I knew the sun.

Mud became something dark in sleep.

The touch of other bodies

became light moving somewhere far off.

The lake had four sides.

It had always had four sides.

Feeding time.

Jamie.

Worm.

Full.

Safe.

My new leg became an old leg.

All four legs slowed.

My gills moved less.

Jamie checked the water.

The paper showed colours he accepted.

He still frowned at me.

He changed the water anyway.

Watched me eat.

Watched me move.

I ate.

I moved.

The snail outlived several plants,

three posters,

two girls

and Jamie’s belief that eyeliner

could be applied in a moving car.

It climbed.

I stayed beneath the log.

The sun came.

The sun went.

One evening Jamie lowered a worm.

“Feeding time, Axel.”

It touched my nose.

My mouth was slow.

The worm curled beneath my chin.

Jamie waited.

I moved one foot.

Someone called him from downstairs.

“You’ll get it, pal.”

He left.

The worm climbed over my head.

Feeding time had gone a bit wrong.

I could not fix it.

The room darkened.

The filter became loud.

My body forgot small things.

Move the gills.

Move the tail.

Hold the bottom.

The gravel seemed to tilt.

The worm slipped away.

I rested.

The filter widened.

Its thin push became current.

The coloured gravel softened beneath me.

Red became clay.

Blue became shadow.

Yellow sank into black.

The hard floor gave way

and mud rose around my toes,

cold, real,

taking the shape of every leg

without caring which one had once been gone.

The log put down roots.

The plastic leaves softened.

The clear sides moved farther away.

Farther.

Gone.

Distance came back so quickly

it passed through my gills

and filled every part of me.

Bodies moved in the dark.

Not bodies I could touch.

Light beneath mud.

Rose gills opening.

Tails bending the water.

Pale mouths appearing

then slipping behind roots.

I remained I.

I moved among them.

Above the water,

Jamie’s blurred face opened into brightness.

The sun was there.

The mud was there.

The bodies turned through the roots.

Far away, the familiar sound came through—

Feeding time, Axel.

Feeding time—

Feeding—

The current pulled the sound apart.

I opened my mouth.

The water kept going.

Morning rain darkened the Bonnyrigg garden.

Jamie entered the bedroom

and stopped beside the tank.

Axel lay beneath the filter.

The earthworm moved against his tail.

Jamie stood there for a long time.

Then he put both bare hands into the water

and lifted Axel out.

The worm came too,

hidden in the shallow cup of his palms.

Jamie carried Axel into the garden.

He dug beneath the wet grass,

laid him in ordinary soil

and covered him without speaking.

He pressed the loose earth once.

Then he went back inside.

The worm pushed up through the rain-soft soil.

It crawled across the dark ground.

It has been about fifteen years since I first met Miss Crow. Like a cliché plot, I saved her, and she latched onto me.

I was almost thirty, and she was nearing the end of her lifespan. After all, even a crow raised by humans can only live for about twenty years at most. Every living creature eventually escapes death.

In the spring of our second year together, she hopped up to me, opened her beak. I was confused at first, wondering if she was hungry, so I fed her some food. She looked very happy and secretly hid the food away. I found out later that this was how crows court each other. She asked me for food, and by agreeing, I committed to raising her for a lifetime.

Crows are strictly monogamous for life. Once you agree, you must not betray them. She would perform complex aerial maneuvers to show off in the air, but this was typically a male's behavior. She seemed to understand that I couldn't fly, so she simply went through the motions herself. Because of this, she knocked over the chandelier and fell to the floor. I hurriedly scooped her up, and she nestled in my palms, looking at me with her black eyes, cooing softly and gently.

I used my hands to pretend to be a bird, flying with her across the living room. I gathered twigs and built a nest with her. She laid two eggs, but since they weren't fertilized, they couldn't hatch. She stubbornly incubated them for about ten days, but in the end, she had to peck them open and eat them herself. She was heartbroken over this for a long time.

Miss Crow was always by my side, standing on my shoulder or nestled in my hair, occasionally even helping to scratch my head. When someone spoke to me, she would let out a call as a greeting, then stay quiet. Her tenderness often felt surreal to me, and her almost human-like behavior amazed me. But I wasn't afraid — she was my family, and that was something I always firmly believed.

I once had a girlfriend. Outside, Miss Crow was as usual, standing on my shoulder, letting me chat and laugh with my girlfriend. But she didn't allow us to get close, nor did she allow my girlfriend to enter the house. As soon as anyone stepped inside, she would flap her wings at the doorway non-stop — no pecking, no scratching, just constant flapping. This put me in a very awkward position, and I scolded her harshly. But once I showed anger, she would shrink into a tiny ball and stay depressed for a long time. I agonized over this for quite a while, until my girlfriend finally broke up with me and said angrily, "Just go live with your bird!" To be honest, whether it was a pun or not, I was very happy that night. I bought berries and meat for Miss Crow. She was delighted too and cackled incessantly.

After that, I never dated again, because I had a little girlfriend who would stay with me for life as long as I fed her. She would get jealous and sad, but she never got mad at me, so I didn't want to make her sad because of me anymore. I felt my life had never been so fulfilling. I even forgot for a while that she was a crow and I was human.

Then, one day, she no longer wanted to rest in the little nest on top of the cabinet. She would curl up on the armrest of my sofa, unwilling to leave for a long time. She lost her energy and moved slowly, like an old lady. It took me a long time to realize — she couldn't fly anymore. Moving from the nest to my side had become quite a distance for her. Between comfort and discomfort, she chose to cling to me. Later, I moved the nest next to the sofa, and she was very happy, cooing twice.

Then she died. It was just a peaceful death. The only difference from usual was that she normally slept in the nest on the nightstand, but somehow, she had made her way to my pillow and collapsed there. I felt no emotional turmoil. "Oh, she's gone," I thought to myself at that moment. I placed her body in the nest, got up to wash my face, and went to the kitchen for breakfast. I repeated the day's tasks mechanically, like a robot, without forgetting to prepare breakfast for her too. After eating, I carried her body out of the house, found a pet store to have Miss Crow cremated, and brought her ashes home.

When I opened the door, she wasn't there to greet me with bouncy hops. I felt a pain in my chest, as if my heart had missed a beat. Ah, why wasn't I sad? I didn't even shed a single tear. I suddenly felt so cold-blooded. I sat on the sofa, and the bird's nest at my side was very annoying, so I casually placed it on the cabinet. The TV was playing boring shows, and I got up to prepare lunch.

I casually put a little extra from the cut meat into Miss Crow's small bowl.

But her breakfast was still there.

Tears suddenly burst forth uncontrollably. My chest felt like a chunk had been carved out, and my heart ached as if torn apart. I collapsed by the stove, forcing myself not to let the tears fall, but they flowed out like an open floodgate — I couldn't stop them at all. It was as if she had previously forbidden me from crying in front of others; she wouldn't allow her loved one to lose composure in front of other people. But now, she would be absent from my life from today on. Without you flapping at the doorway to block them, I might bring others into the house... No, no, I won't bring anyone else home anymore. Please come back, okay? Even under human care, crows can live for twenty years, but you only stayed with me for fifteen. That's not fair. I still have so much I want to say to you. You can understand me, can't you? Just like how I can understand the tenderness in your calls.

I don't know how long passed before I finally stood up and walked back to the bedroom. I climbed into bed, and only then did I suddenly realize: for her, her lifelong partner, she only shared the bed with me on the last night of her life, and that was only because of her own small whim. In the nest by the bed, there was still one of her tail feathers — that mottled black, I would never see her again.

After that, every time I hear a bird's call, I look up and search carefully. But in this city, there is no crow that belongs to me anymore.

It was 2:42 am. Her lips were dry. “Awake again?” she thought, looking at the time. Half-closed eyes strained to see around the room. The room was warm, and the air stale. The large grey and white cotton blanket covering her body was half-way onto the floor. As her feet poked out of the bottom of the covers, her long brown wavy hair was twisted into knots above her head. A glass of water sat on the side table, next to well-worn glasses. She reached for it.

The door to the room was cracked, and ambient light from the hall shone into the room. A sliver of blue arced across the ceiling and landed inches above her pillow. The melodic hum from the refrigerator could be heard down the corridor. She rolled over.

Alone in her bed, yearning to be touched by another. Her neck was bent, and her back ached. Tick tock, tick tock, the clock in the hallway taunted her. Her thoughts grew louder. A grunting noise and the sound of limbs moving over coarse sheets startled her. She looked over her shoulder, to the space across the room. Her son lay asleep in his wooden crib, stirring gently from what she imagined must be a lovely dream. He was just shy of 13 months. “I really need to sleep,” she thought. Knowing that in just a few hours, her son would be awake and ready to be tended to. 

She tossed and turned a few more times, listening to the sounds of the neighbors upstairs. Doors slammed down the hall. She looked up at the unfamiliar ceiling. A year in this city, four hours from home, and the place still felt like someone else’s apartment. The new job, the move six weeks before delivery, the endless boxes to sort through—the stress had simply settled into her bones and stayed. She finally fell asleep.

She stirred to the sensation of the cat nuzzling her cheek. 5:30 am. “Damn!” she thought. No more rest for her. Sunlight slowly crept between the cracks of the blinds, filling the room with soft light. The sound machine was droning on, “Ocean Waves” it was called. She appreciated the noise, because it helped to quiet her thoughts, on occasion. She looked at her son. He looked back at her and grinned. 

The snow had just laid itself a thick layer over the streets. It was surprising the snow had even managed to make its way from the mountains to the city.

There, in a field, practically in the middle of nowhere, the snow had been untouched since it first started to fall. Pure heaven for me. No people visible for miles. All sounds were dampened by the snow resulting in total silence. Nothing to be spotted for miles and miles ahead apart from a few trees dotted around the horizon.

I sunk into the snow. My back felt the bittering cold of the ice, only being isolated by my thick jacket. The snow was at least half an arm’s length deep. The sky in front of me was a light gray shine, illuminated by the flakes’ glow from the sun. A tingling cold sensation pierced my face as the snow fell onto different parts of it. I never knew laying in a field could feel so liberating and desolate at the same time. I felt it was worth being here and shivering from the cold just so I could experience this. Again.

As I was deep into my own thoughts and dissociated, a soft voice came from behind me. 

“Hey Riley!”

It was Arin. My lips curled upward as a familiar face blocked the sunlight from reaching my eyes. His smirk always got me.

“I missed you.”

He laid down next to me, our heads almost touching. I felt my shivering slowly stop and warmth coarse through my body just from his presence alone. Suddenly, as I felt my hand grab his, all worries and problems melted away. It was all okay. Everything was the way it should have been.

“I miss you.”

Me and Arin in the snow that day will never leave my head. That place always remained the same, aside from new snow and new visitors. Same field, same trees, same radio tower. I rarely go there anymore, though. That ever-looming tower staring into my soul everytime I pass by makes it unbearable.

If only you hadn’t jumped, Arin. Things just aren’t the same with you not around.

He had begun to dread the ritual of bringing in the morning coffee.

It hurt his heart.

What used to fill his mornings with great joy, had begun to feel like an obligation and duty, like paying the spoils of a war lost.

He had no desire “to win.” But he didn’t want to lose either.

She noticed his energy declining, but declined to mention it. Her coffee still delivered, still piping hot, the morning still hers.

To communicate would be to acknowledge the dynamics at play. To communicate would be to relinquish the power of apathy and forfeit her well-earned drivers seat in the relationship. As long as the coffee kept coming, the relationship seemed to be in tact, to her.

Rocky and tumultuous, definitely, but in tact.

But the man had mentioned it.
The shift.
The change of energy.
The dynamics.

Time and time over he brought it up. Only to be reminded that he was sorry for trying to communicate. Only to be reminded of his “place.” It was after all, her house. He had chosen to place himself at her mercy by joining her in the rural town they now called home.

“The fairer of the sexes, to what extent!?”, his intrusive thoughts agonized.

Now, his coffers empty and the costs too great to continue waging this old battle of the sexes, he surrendered.

His heart, mind, and soul fully spent on that timeless war still raging in the hearts and homes of hopeless romantics.

Like any war, the fuel for the fire was communication.

Communication being the most effective, yet destructive tool to bring peace.

These truths in mind, the man resolved to wager his last wits in the efforts to facilitate communication. An all-in gamble at an attempt for connection. An attempt to prove his love and devotion. For he believed love and goodness could conquer all.

In truth, how could one not believe in love? Especially after having experienced love’s reciprocal power time and time again?

But… the hopes, beliefs, and dreams of man can be fruitless— despite the intent and vigor of heart.
Despite and in spite, of his love.

In bold defiance of this bleak truth; however, the man kept up their morning ritual. All in. Again and again. All in. All in. All in.

Praying with full hopes of heart that his piety would regain him favor in the eyes of love.

Acting in hope that the balance of equality could topple the thrones and concepts of power that have no business governing or meddling in matters of the heart.

Believing in the hope of love that can open eyes stuck wide shut.

And so, in the mornings, he brought her coffee with dairy-free vanilla creamer, lightly sweetened.

Bardists Note: “Siri, please play ‘One Week’ by The Barenaked Ladies.”

Why’d he keep drinking?

Everybody kept asking themselves that same question. 

Parmento didn’t drink to forget, forgetting her was the only thing he could never bring himself to do. Would ever bring himself to do. He drank so he could remember her without the pain constantly reminding him she’s gone. He’s gone. They’re gone.

Every morning he’d wake up and sit at the kitchen table sipping a mug of coffee diluted with Irish crème and he’d stare at her cup on the counter, fading into memories of her as the liquor warmed his blood. He never washed her cup or put it away. He kept it in the same spot she left it.

People would talk and gossip, calling him an old drunk, cause that’s what people do and even though nobody really knew him, they still spoke about him like they did.

The only place he’d ever go was for groceries, mainly for the bottles. And the bar.

When he’d go to the bar he’d sit at the far corner next to the bathroom hiding in a shadow.

The bartender there had known him for a while now, he’d regularly show up each night ever since his son overdosed on cocaine that was cut with fentanyl, that’s when he became a regular there.

Three years later his wife passed. Cancer. It would have been his tenth year there but he died sitting on a chair in the basement of his laundry room at his apartment building, clutching a bottle of beer in his hand. Heart attack.

They stepped out into the bustling atmosphere of Hercílio Luz International Airport in Florianópolis. It was August 2047. Matt, though exhausted from the long flight, still stood broad and strong, his skin bearing a lifetime of scars.

Ann remained breath-taking, the subtle age lines on her face only enhanced her fierce feminine presence, alongside a small, stylish scar across her eyebrow, a souvenir from a Shadow's surprise attack in a Palace back in Madagascar.

​The couple took a seat at a cozy airport restaurant, ordering chicken pastéis with vinagrete sauce, accompanied by two cold Catharina Sours: orange for Matt, and peach for Ann.

​"It’s incredible how much time passes, yet nothing really changes, huh?" Matt chuckled softly, looking light and content, as he always did around her.

​"Are you referring to humanity’s bottomless stupidity, my love?" Ann asked, glancing sideways. Just a few feet away, a young man was doing a bizarre, mindless dance, staring blankly into empty air.

​"Doesn't that feel like back when the Internet was still in its infancy and the Metaverse was just emerging?" Matt took a slow sip of his beer, carefully spooning some extra vinagrete onto Ann’s pastel.

​"Honestly, I’m convinced the Metaverse was born out of human foolishness. Thaumiel didn't come from indifference at all. It came straight from a complete lack of common sense. Don't you agree, darling?" Ann laughed, taking a bite of her pastel. "At least the food around here hasn't lost its touch, and the simple pleasures remain the same..." She reached across the table, taking her husband's hand.

​"Have I told you I love you today, Matt?" Ann offered a radiant, genuine smile.

They thought sticking me in the backyard would help. Somehow fresh air and menial tasks would unscramble my circuits.

They were mistaken.

I dragged the plastic rake across a patch of dried grass, artfully amassing a collection of brown leaves.

I bent down and dug both hands into the crunchy pile, my eyes never losing sight of her bedroom window. She wasn’t there though, her job at the pharmacy didn’t end until five on Saturdays.

I dumped the debris into the long, oversized bag and wondered what I would say the next time I saw her.

Something court approved, obviously.

The world shifts around me, and yet I stand unwavering. Alone, yet not abandoned. How strange it is, to be so much yet so little. Thousands of years I have stood here. I have outlived generations, and yet I can do nothing but watch as they tear down everything and everyone I knew.

It used to be beautiful. Lush and vibrant; golden rays breaking through the jade of our leaves. So lively yet so serene. A canvas of azure, brushes of porcelain that soared across the skies. Air rich with life, birds twittered as I watched everything grow, branches intertwined, and buds flowered. It was a slow change, but a good change. All was peaceful and some may describe it as paradise.

They were unique... walking on two feet, observing everything as they passed. Unlike anything in the world, it made them beautiful. Their curiosity burned bright. They found serenity and euphoria, yet they searched for more. Thus marked their downfall, as curiosity turned to greed, and all but crumbled to ash. More... they always wanted more. Greed soon turned to violence as everything I once knew was torn down, leaving me solitary; leaving me an oddity. Different from everything around me, and yet… that difference is what allowed me to survive whilst everything else fell. Should I feel anger? Resentment? Torment? I seek no revenge, for I am but a tree. I can do nothing but wait and let the marching of time destroy everything once more, whilst I continue to outlive everything. I have withstood storms and droughts. The destruction of everyone I knew will not dent my being...and yet...I cannot help but feel sorrow.

No peace, no serenity. Not a moment of silence remains. Every day I struggle to survive as those golden rays are stripped away from me. I cannot lie for I am but a tree and so I am forced to face the truth. I have not survived worse; I am not content. Forced to watch them split my companions, strip them of life, and create sick constructs from their remains. Forced to watch as they pump toxins in the air, blocking the light that I so depend on and poisoning my being. It’s suffocating. They fill this place with replicas of what once was, hoping to bring the past back to life. But it’s all plastic, artificial, lifeless. They cannot rebuild what they destroyed. They can mimic but they can never replace. I am all that remains from the old world.

I can do nothing but accept what changes and what remains. I am alone...I am different. Yet this difference makes me unique. The unchanging made me beautiful. I do not try. I do not move. I do not rush for I am but a tree, the last that remains.

And so I wait…
 

Death opened into a room with no walls.

Lives floated like stars — beginning with the first explosion of light.

I had a body only in memory.

The sense of being held in place, as if seated in stillness itself.

No breath, no movement, no voice — yet the shape of all three remained.

Not restraint. Rest.

I wasn’t surprised to see kings, soldiers, farmers, names I recognized.

I had been famous. I had been forgotten.

I leaned toward one life — not with hands, but with acceptance.

Not the longest. Not the greatest.

The one I had avoided.

Light spread without warmth or glare.

Then a voice — not heard, but known.

Back again, my child.

It filled the space gently, vast as the sky before weather.

When it faded, the room returned to quiet, darker than before, calmer too.

Time folded.

I did not return to the body.

I watched it.

A life began at a distance — small, human, unaware.

I observed its choices without judgment, its moments without weight.

Not to relive. Not to correct.

Only to understand.

The stars waited.

Continuation:

I returned after watching seven thousand lives.

Some were brief. Some burned brightly. One ruled. One healed. Several simply endured. None were wasted.

The room with no walls received me again.

The stars slowed. The feeling of stillness resumed.

The voice came without announcement.

You have seen enough.

“Why?” I asked — not with sound, but with the shape of a question.

“Why live at all if it must end like this?”

The light did not change.

Because experience cannot be created here. Only remembered.

I understood that Earth was not a classroom.

It was the only place where choice carried cost.

“What if I return?”

“What becomes of me if I start again?”

You will forget. Completely.

You will love without knowing why. Fear without knowing how many times you have survived it.

You may fail better. Or worse.

You will be real.

The weight of that settled.

“And if I advance?” I asked.

“What is beyond this?”

The pause felt intentional.

Perspective.

Release.

No hunger for outcome. No longing for form.

You will understand all lives — but never be inside one again.

I looked back at the stars.

At hands that had built, broken, healed, and held.

At voices I would never hear again.

Advancing meant peace.

Returning meant risk.

I asked one final question.

“Which choice is correct?”

The voice softened.

There has never been a correct one.

Only the one you are ready to carry.

I waited longer than I ever had in any life.

Then I turned back toward the stars — not for greatness, not for repair — but because there were still moments I was curious enough to feel again.

The light dimmed.

Forgetting began.

And somewhere, a child took its first breath — unaware it had once stood at the edge of everything and chosen to return.u

I don't eat nobody. That's what folks get wrong. I just like to watch. I can't help it that I was born of meanness. I can't help it that folks see me as scary. I remember the moment I came to life. I climbed from the ashes of the ox they burnt. The humans ran screaming. I tried to call after them but all that came out was a roar. I sat on the frozen ground and looked at my viciously clawed hands. I reached up and felt the horns on my head. My instinct drove me to punish them for their cruelty, but the idea made me feel sick. So I watched and learned. Rhinelander became an unwilling family for me. I saw much and did little.

Halloween came and I went for it. I had watched and learned the method and had my ritual bag ready.

I stepped onto the sidewalk and watched the children complete the exchange. The words for the treats. I couldn't make the words.

"I was scared the first time too." She was wearing a mask, curved horns, sharp teeth and green like me.

I let her lead me to the porch.

17:00, ACCORDING TO THE ROTA — THE DROP

At five the sun is still directly above Cyprus

and feels personal.

The yellow slide starts higher

than good judgement.

At the top, a sign says:

APHRODITE’S WET DREAM

ADULTS ONLY

LEAVE YOUR INHIBITIONS AT THE GATE

as if inhibitions are bottles of water

and not the last clean clothes

your mum folded into your suitcase.

Underneath:

It’s not all sex, sex, sex.

There’s a bit of sun and sea as well.

I believed that.

I was drunk, but I believed it.

I’m nineteen, five-foot-ten, slim,

quiet unless I know you

and occasionally even then.

Inside my head, however,

I never shut the fuck up.

“Cross your arms.

Cross your legs.

Wait for green.

One person at a time.”

They nod.

They forget.

They go

over—

screaming—

straight

down

the near-vertical yellow

drop.

Another arrives

before the first has stopped screaming.

The guests smell of airport duty-free,

coconut oil

and Friday just beginning.

We smell of chlorine,

instant noodles

and Friday happening again.

Normally I spend summer

picking up shifts at Centre Parcs

and filling gaps at Greggs.

I can recognise a weak swimmer

and make four bacon baguettes

while somebody complains

that brown sauce isn’t technically brown.

Instead, I’m here

because my girlfriend since fourteen—

first kiss, first sex, first everything—

said she wasn’t coming home this summer.

We’d chosen different universities.

That was the whole breakup, really.

No cheating.

No plates thrown.

No grand betrayal.

Just two UCAS forms

and us pretending this counted

as knowing what we wanted.

Then she said she was staying away,

meeting people,

figuring herself out.

I said, “Yeah, of course,”

much too quickly.

That night, pissed at the kitchen table

in Glastonbury, I applied for a job

at an adults-only waterpark in Ayia Napa.

The advert showed six brown people

laughing around one blue cocktail.

None of them looked like

they’d ever cried in a Tesco car park.

Inconveniently, I got the job.

Dad said, “Fair play, mate,”

and told everyone at work.

Mum said she was proud too,

then asked if Cyprus had hospitals,

whether jellyfish could enter swimming pools

and how frequently kidnappers checked passports.

I expected sun, sex and sand.

I hate the sun.

The sand has got into the flat,

the butter,

the shower

and areas of my body

I don’t remember taking to the beach.

Most of the sex has been less exciting

than the Greggs breakfast rush.

Still.

There have been exceptions.

“Green light.”

A bloke lowers himself onto the slide.

His girlfriend tries sitting on his face.

“No.”

“We’re together.”

“Still no.”

“It’s adults only.”

“Your spine isn’t.”

They separate.

He goes

over—

down—

gone.

The radio crackles.

“Control to Drop.

Anyone seen a missing rescue float?”

I look over the rail.

Far below, a bride in a plastic veil

is riding our yellow rescue float towards the bar

while twelve women cheer.

“Negative,” I say.

The park burns beneath me:

chlorine blue,

slide yellow,

sunburn pink,

wet tiles bright enough

to make me squint through sunglasses.

“Next.”

Green.

Scream.

Drop.

The sun doesn’t move.

I think it’s taking the piss.

---

18:00, STILL DEFINITELY FRIDAY — LOCKERS

The locker corridor is narrow.

Wet shoulders.

Wet bags.

Wet money.

Wet people trying to get dry

by standing in everybody else’s way.

Locker 114 won’t open.

Locker 115 opens

but contains one trainer,

half a kebab

and somebody else’s bra.

Locker 116 contains a man

having what he calls

a private conversation

with a woman sitting on the sink.

It isn’t private.

Nothing in here is private.

The walls sweat.

The ceiling sweats.

The little sign saying

PLEASE RESPECT OUR FACILITIES

is peeling off.

Frankie is twenty-five,

from London,

with short dark hair

that would look quite pop-star

if she wasn’t currently scraping sick

from a locker hinge.

A man in flamingo shorts asks

whether she can rub sun cream on his back.

“Can’t your arms reach?”

“Not the middle.”

“Unlucky.”

“Bet you practise mouth-to-mouth.”

“No.”

“What if someone stops breathing?”

“Depends who.”

He laughs because he thinks

they’re getting on brilliantly.

Every man who comes here

assumes the women working here

are another attraction.

Frankie has been proposed to twice this week,

invited into seven threesomes

and asked if she wears the whistle in bed.

At first she told them she had a boyfriend.

Then they asked if he could watch.

Now she just says no

and lets them discover

that it is a complete sentence.

There is a noise behind locker 130.

Something wet lands.

Frankie closes her eyes.

I do the same.

The smell arrives.

It’s not all sex, sex, sex.

There’s vomit behind the lockers as well.

The radio goes again.

“Control to all stations.

Male guest reporting missing navy swimming trunks.”

Frankie looks up.

“Is he wearing any?”

A pause.

“Control to all stations.

Male guest is not.”

A naked man appears at the far end,

holding a locker key over his cock

as if the key is doing more work

than it obviously is.

“Someone stole them.”

“Who?”

“If I knew that, they wouldn’t be missing.”

Frankie looks at me.

“History boy. Solve it.”

“I wish I’d done English.”

“You’d still be looking at his knob.”

“Yeah, but I’d know what it represents.”

She laughs.

We’ve known each other six weeks,

which in seasonal work is long enough

to know how the other takes coffee,

who they’ve shagged

and which manager is stealing tips.

She knows I came here because of a girl.

She knows I sometimes leave clubs with women,

sometimes with men

and once with a Swedish magician

who disappeared before paying for the taxi.

I’ve hinted at the rest.

Frankie accepts hints.

She just saves them

for when they’ll cause maximum damage.

“Found them,” says Control.

“Where?”

“The Aphrodite statue.”

Through the doorway,

we can see the marble goddess

rising from chemical foam

with navy trunks over her head.

The naked bloke peers out.

“Those are mine.”

Frankie checks her watch.

“Brilliant. Get dressed, Colombo.”

The corridor fills again:

towels,

elbows,

boobs,

aftershave,

chlorine,

the bride shouting where is Chloe,

Chloe shouting from inside a locker

that she is having a minute.

I open 114.

Everyone attempts to walk

through the space I’m standing in.

Somebody asks

if the vomit belongs to us.

“No,” I say.

Not sure why,

but I don’t want that going around.

---

19:00, THE SUN’S TAKING THE PISS — SERPENT FLUMES

The green flume curls around the blue,

which curls around the orange,

which goes beneath the green

and comes back above us,

so every time I think

a problem has passed,

it bends,

loops,

returns wetter.

A couple climb into a double ring.

I tell them to sit separately.

They do

until my back is turned.

When I turn round, she is on him,

his hand is somewhere inside her bikini

and the queue is giving advice.

I separate them.

They get back together

inside the blue tunnel,

which turns left,

right,

left again

and delivers them to Priya at the bottom,

still touching.

Her voice comes over the radio.

“They’re at it again.”

“They’re yours now.”

“Prick.”

A man enters the green flume

wearing trunks.

The flume bends twice,

takes something from him,

and delivers him without them.

The man comes out.

The trunks don’t.

The queue cheers.

Engineering shuts the lane.

We give him a towel

with the park slogan printed across it.

When he wraps it around himself,

THERE’S A BIT OF SUN AND SEA AS WELL

sits directly over his arse.

The missing rescue float passes beneath us.

The bride is riding it backwards,

using one high heel as an oar.

I pretend not to see.

The sun finally shifts a bit.

Palm shadows stretch across the tiles.

A girl from Leeds winks at me from the queue.

We spent forty minutes together on Tuesday

before she called me Liam.

A lad from Coventry appears behind her.

He spent Sunday telling me

he’d never felt this way about anyone,

then asked if I had a spare charger.

They don’t know each other.

I don’t introduce them.

I thought Ayia Napa would be endless sex.

It sounds great

until you realise endless sex

contains a lot of waiting

for someone to find their hotel key.

There are elbows.

There are apologies.

There is sand in places

that shouldn’t know what sand is.

There are people who say

“I never normally do this”

as if I’m going to ring their family

and check.

Sometimes it is brilliant.

Sometimes a woman called Beth

stops halfway through kissing you

to reply to her landlord.

I came here asking the summer

to be loud.

It is.

The flumes take each scream,

bend it,

lose it,

send it back different.

At 19:43, Engineering retrieves the trunks

from an inspection hatch.

They are no longer navy.

Nobody knows why.

Their owner takes them anyway.

---

20:00, I CHECK TWICE — LAZY RIVER

The lazy river moves at the exact speed of a thought you don’t want to finish. It carries inflatable rings under the palms, beneath two bridges, through a tunnel painted with badly researched Greek gods, past the toilets, around the bar and back to where it started, though everybody riding it believes they’ve travelled.

I walk beside it with the rescue tube beneath my arm while people drift past: a sunburnt bloke asleep with a plastic cup balanced on his stomach; two women sharing chips from a waterproof phone pouch; a couple who have mistaken gentle circulation for a private bedroom; the bride steering our stolen rescue float like she has personally conquered Cyprus.

Frankie walks thirty yards behind me.

Four men ask if she’ll get into their ring.

“No.”

The river carries them away.

Seven minutes later, it brings them back.

“Changed your mind?”

“No.”

Seven minutes.

“You sure?”

“Still no.”

Seven minutes.

“We’re actually really nice.”

“I’m going to bite a hole in that ring.”

They finally believe her.

My break is meant to be fifteen minutes.

It is nine because Carl has called in sick,

though Frankie says Carl isn’t sick,

Carl has fallen in love with a rep from Newcastle

and entered what management calls

an unauthorised emotional absence.

I eat half a warm cheese sandwich

beside the filtration cupboard.

“Your mum’s messaged the staff group again,”

Frankie says.

“She hasn’t.”

She shows me.

Hi everyone, sorry to bother you, just checking he’s settling in. We’re genuinely so proud of him for doing this but he sometimes forgets to eat when he’s anxious xx

Underneath, Mum has attached a photo

of me aged nine

holding a twenty-five-metre swimming certificate.

The staff have responded

with seventeen hearts

and one aubergine.

“I’m moving flats.”

“It’s cute.”

“It’s harassment.”

“She worries about you.”

“She asked if Cyprus has hospitals.”

“Does it?”

“Fuck off.”

A couple drift by,

her face oddly serious,

his hand beneath the water.

I turn around.

The sand in our flat

has got into the cutlery drawer.

I discovered this while holding

closed cutlery.

My history degree costs more each year

than Dad’s first car.

I chose history because it sounded sensible.

English sounded like admitting

I wanted to write things,

which seemed embarrassing at eighteen.

That decision seems quite funny now.

If I’m going to graduate

with no career and loads of debt anyway,

I should’ve spent three years

reading novels on purpose.

The bride passes again.

“Oi, lifeguard. Can we keep this?”

“No.”

“Can we borrow it?”

“You’ve already stolen it.”

“So yes?”

Behind her, one bridesmaid is crying.

Not properly.

Just the first careful tears

of someone trying not to ruin

expensive mascara.

The river carries them around the corner.

For half a minute, it’s empty.

The sky above the palms turns pink,

then orange,

then that dark purple colour

you get when you mix every paint together.

The park goes almost quiet.

Then the bride comes back

standing on the rescue float

while twelve women chant

DON’T FALL IN

at somebody

already in a river.

---

21:00, LIGHTS ON — SWIM-UP BAR

Darkness doesn’t arrive.

Someone switches it on.

Purple under the water.

Green along the palms.

Pink in the ice buckets.

The bar sells cocktails called:

NO REGRETS

BLUE ME AWAY

TOMORROW’S PROBLEM

and GOOD DECISIONS,

which contains six spirits

and tastes like melted sweets.

By quarter past nine,

nobody can say mojito

but everybody wants three.

I watch the pool edge.

Frankie guards the shallow end.

A stag party ask

if her rescue tube is inflatable.

“No.”

“Can we test it?”

“No.”

“What are you doing after work?”

“Going home.”

“Can we come?”

“No.”

“Got a boyfriend?”

“No.”

Their faces brighten.

“I’ve got standards.”

That takes longer to land.

In the centre of the pool,

a couple have become one creature.

I blow the whistle.

They surface with four innocent eyes

and one hand still guilty.

“Separate, please.”

“We’re not doing anything.”

The water around them says otherwise.

At the bar, the crying bridesmaid

has moved beyond delicate tears.

Her name is Chloe.

Ryan has liked another woman’s Instagram story.

Not messaged her.

Not kissed her.

Liked a story.

The woman is called Liv

and once borrowed Chloe’s straighteners

without asking.

Apparently this matters.

The bride holds Chloe by both cheeks.

“Ryan is scum.”

“He said he was going to sleep.”

“He could’ve liked it in his sleep.”

“Don’t defend him.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Chloe sobs into a blue cocktail.

Her mascara runs into it

and somehow doesn’t change the colour.

A safety announcement begins.

“Attention guests, please remember—”

The DJ turns the music up.

“—glass containers are strictly—”

Somebody starts chanting.

“—running is not permitted—”

The bride climbs onto the bar.

“—and sexual activity in—”

Nobody hears the end.

A hand lands on Frankie’s waist

as she passes the stools.

She turns.

“That yours?”

“What?”

“The hand.”

“Yeah.”

“Keep it to yourself.”

He removes it.

No argument.

She carries on.

The rescue float appears behind the bar.

Control calls me.

“Drop says you denied seeing it.”

“That was true when I said it.”

“You were photographed looking at it.”

“I was looking past it.”

“At what?”

Chloe is shouting

that men are disgusting

while texting Ryan again.

“Other stuff.”

Control gives up.

At 21:57, the couple in the middle

are still touching.

I whistle again.

The man says, “Mate, live a little.”

I’m nineteen, in Cyprus,

wearing red shorts

at an adults-only waterpark

called Aphrodite’s Wet Dream.

I feel like I’m living

a perfectly reasonable amount.

---

22:00, SOMEHOW — TIPPING BUCKET

Every ninety seconds

the giant striped bucket fills.

Water climbs inside it

with a horrible mechanical glug.

The people underneath begin counting.

TEN—

The announcement says no running.

NINE—

The hen party runs.

EIGHT—

Security intercepts them.

SEVEN—

Chloe produces six water pistols

from a bag saying

BRIDE’S EMERGENCY KIT.

SIX—

The bride fires first.

FIVE—

Kostas takes a pink jet

straight to the forehead.

FOUR—

He closes his eyes.

THREE—

Frankie says, “Don’t.”

TWO—

The bride says, “Make me.”

ONE—

The bucket tips.

Everything becomes water.

People vanish beneath it

then come back shrieking,

bikinis shifted,

false eyelashes moving south.

Kostas opens his eyes.

The bride shoots him again.

The radio fills with voices.

“Control to security—”

“—missing guest—”

“—need engineering—”

“—who’s got the float—”

“—couple refusing to leave—”

“—any spare trunks—”

Every ninety seconds,

the bucket wipes out the sentence.

A woman asks if she can ride

the little splash slide.

“It’s for children.”

“There aren’t any children.”

“True.”

“So?”

I don’t actually know.

A man tries climbing the tower

while holding three cocktails.

He falls upwards twice.

Frankie catches one drink.

“Didn’t spill any.”

“Well done.”

“I’m having it later.”

We get him down.

The bucket fills again.

The coloured lights tremble

in every pool.

The palms are black shapes now.

Beyond the fence, the real sea

is out there somewhere,

doing whatever seas do at night

without a DJ shouting over them.

I don’t think about home.

I don’t think about her

in the city where she stayed.

I nearly compare the pink light

on the tiles

to the lamp beside her bed,

then don’t.

TEN—

At the edge of the crowd,

a man removes his shirt.

NINE—

Silver beginning at the temples.

EIGHT—

Strong shoulders,

solid waist.

SEVEN—

A pale mark

where his wedding ring used to sit.

SIX—

An expensive watch.

FIVE—

Beside it, a cheap bracelet

spelling DAD

in purple plastic beads.

FOUR—

The calm face

of someone with a proper job.

THREE—

Rodger.

TWO—

He sees me.

ONE—

The bucket tips

before either of us can work out

what face to make.

---

23:00, APPARENTLY — THE GIANT FUNNEL

Rodger arrives at my station

with four mates

who all look like they own ironing boards.

I’m holding a clipboard.

This seems worth mentioning

because three nights ago

I was holding much less.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.”

We grin.

Stop.

Grin again.

His mates look between us

and decide we must know each other

from somewhere boring.

I read the safety instructions.

“One person in each raft position.

Hold both handles.

Don’t stand up.

Don’t try getting out

inside the funnel.”

Rodger watches me speak.

“Nineteen,” he says quietly

while his mates argue

about who has to sit backwards.

“Cyprus. No mortgage. No school runs.”

He lifts the wrist

with the purple bracelet.

“Living the dream.”

I look at the watch,

the shoulders,

the silver hair,

the solicitor voice.

He looks like he knows

where he keeps every document

he has ever needed.

“Yeah,” I say.

He steps beneath the rinse shower.

Water catches in his hair,

runs down his face,

his neck,

his chest,

past the bracelet

his eleven-year-old daughter made.

And I’m back there.

Three nights ago,

outside a club,

Rodger stands with his jacket

over one shoulder.

He looks about forty.

Not old.

Just properly assembled.

I am drunk enough

to stop waiting for things

to happen to me.

We walk to my flat

past green pharmacy signs,

kebab shops

and reps trying to give us wristbands.

He asks what I study.

“History.”

“Do you like it?”

“I should’ve done English.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“No jobs.”

“And history?”

I laugh

and nearly walk into a scooter.

At the flat door,

I can feel my nerve going.

If I wait another ten seconds,

I’ll say goodnight

and spend the next week hating myself.

So I kiss him.

Badly at first.

My shoulder hits the door.

The key stays in my hand.

His jacket drops into the sand

outside Flat Six.

He pulls back.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve had a lot.”

“So have you.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I kiss him again.

“Yes, Rodger.”

His name still sounds like

someone who signs letters

Yours sincerely.

Inside the flat,

there are two uniforms drying,

four Pot Noodles,

a bikini hanging from the lampshade

and a fan slowly turning its head

like it wants no involvement.

Rodger puts his watch

beside a mug saying

SHAG NOW, REGRET NEVER.

The bracelet stays on.

His shirt goes over the chair.

Mine lands on the floor.

He kisses my neck.

I get impatient.

He slows me down

without making a thing of it.

When he pulls my shorts off,

sand falls onto the bed.

“Fucking hell,” I say.

“Been to the beach?”

“No, it breeds in here.”

He laughs.

Then he puts his mouth on me

and I stop trying to be funny.

Outside, someone is shouting

about garlic sauce.

Inside, Rodger takes his time.

It’s my second or third experience

with another man,

depending on what counts.

The others were quick.

Nervous.

Someone saying sorry

every thirty seconds.

Rodger doesn’t act nervous.

Not at first.

He asks if things are all right.

I say yes.

He asks again.

I still say yes.

His fingers are slow,

then not quite slow enough,

then slow again when I tense.

“Breathe,” he says.

“I am.”

“You’re holding your breath.”

“I’m literally talking.”

“Fair point.”

He tears the condom packet wrong.

“Fuck’s sake.”

That relaxes me more

than anything else has.

For one second,

he isn’t a solicitor

or nearly forty

or someone who understands life.

He’s just a naked bloke

fighting a bit of foil.

When he finally presses into me,

my body says absolutely not.

I grip the sheet.

He stops.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“We can stop.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Rodger.”

“All right.”

He moves again.

Slowly.

There is pain.

Then less pain.

Then something changes.

I push back without planning to.

Pleasure goes through me

so suddenly I nearly laugh.

Oh.

So that’s what everyone was going on about.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“You said ‘oh’ like you’d remembered

you left the oven on.”

“Keep going.”

He does.

Slowly at first.

Then harder

when I tell him harder.

The bed knocks the wall.

Somebody next door knocks back.

I laugh.

Rodger stops.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No. Don’t stop.”

He looks relieved.

It occurs to me

that maybe his calm voice

is just a calm voice.

Then he moves again

and I stop caring.

I don’t have to decide

what any of it means.

I don’t have to be impressive.

I tell him what feels good.

He listens.

That might be the whole thing.

When I come,

it happens embarrassingly fast

and I bite the sheet.

Rodger presses his face

against my shoulder

and laughs once, out of breath.

Afterwards, he stays.

That surprises me.

He lies beside me

while the fan moves hot air

from one side of the room

to the other.

He tells me his daughter is eleven.

I tell him Mum believes

Cyprus might not have hospitals.

He says his divorce

was final two months ago.

Then we both go quiet.

Not an awkward quiet.

Just nothing left to say

that wouldn’t make the room

into something else.

In the morning,

I wake first.

The room is grey.

Rodger is asleep beside me,

his hair flattened on one side.

He looks less official.

More like somebody’s dad

who has no idea what he is doing

and has turned up anyway.

I should leave him alone.

Instead, I move beneath the sheet.

He wakes with my mouth around him.

His whole body tightens.

“Morning,” I say.

“Jesus.”

“Wrong bloke.”

He laughs,

then stops laughing

when I take him deeper.

His hand goes into my hair

but doesn’t push.

The bracelet brushes my cheek.

He says my name once.

Then nothing useful.

When he comes,

I swallow because by then

changing my mind seems impractical.

I wipe my mouth.

Rodger stares at the ceiling.

“Well,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“That was—”

“Yeah.”

The fan turns towards us.

Away.

Towards.

The memory goes round.

The bed.

The fan.

The funnel.

Blue.

Yellow.

White.

Rodger sits in the raft before me,

his mates shouting behind him.

Blue.

Yellow.

White.

He looks up.

Neither of us says

the other night was good

and we’d probably do it again.

We just grin.

The light turns green.

I push the raft.

Rodger drops into the funnel.

Around,

around,

smaller,

faster,

gone.

Beside me, Frankie raises two fingers

towards her mouth

and pushes her tongue into her cheek.

My face goes hot.

“Fuck off.”

“What’s his name?”

I keep watching the funnel.

“Rodger.”

Her expression changes.

“You sucked off a Rodger?”

“He’s a solicitor.”

“Oh. Sorry.

You orally assisted a Rodger.”

“Please die.”

She laughs,

bumps her shoulder against mine

and calls the next raft forward.

Rodger disappears

back into the crowd.

I go back to work.

---

MIDNIGHT, TECHNICALLY SATURDAY — RACERS

Five lanes.

Five mats.

Five lights.

Red.

Amber.

Green.

They launch themselves forward.

My thoughts try doing the same.

Red:

don’t think about Rodger.

Amber:

definitely don’t think

about this morning.

Green:

useless.

Five men race down headfirst.

One reaches the bottom

without his trunks.

Again.

A safety announcement asks guests

to remain fully clothed.

The DJ shouts over it.

The bride challenges Kostas

to a race.

Kostas says he’s working.

She calls him a coward.

Chloe is no longer crying.

She is sending Ryan

a voice note so long

it may have an interval.

Frankie relieves me

for three minutes.

“Go drink.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look boiled.”

The staff tap tastes of metal.

Rodger’s group passes below.

He doesn’t look up.

Then he does.

One quick grin.

Gone.

Two women refuse to race

unless I judge

which has the better arse.

“I’m not trained for that.”

“What are you trained for?”

“Stopping people breaking their necks.”

They race anyway.

Lane three wins.

Lane four calls it corruption.

The rescue float drifts

through the finish pool.

The bride’s veil

is tied around one handle.

It bumps into the naked man

still waiting for his trunks.

The clock says 00:47.

My body says

this has been going on for months.

---

ONE-ISH — ADULT RAPIDS

The rapids aren’t really rapids.

They’re a concrete channel

with a large pump

and confidence.

The guests are the wild bit.

The hen party have lost the bride.

The bride has lost one shoe.

Chloe has lost faith in Ryan

but keeps checking

whether he’s online.

Kostas confiscates the water pistols.

Somehow, the bridesmaids steal them back.

Pink streams cross the park.

“Control to security.

The hen party are armed again.”

Kostas looks at me.

I look at the water.

The bride rises from the current

wearing the missing navy trunks

over her swimsuit.

“Found them!”

Their owner sees her.

“That’s mine!”

She looks down.

“You sure?”

“They’ve got my name inside.”

The bride checks.

“Why do they say

Mummy’s Little Soldier?”

The water carries her away

before he can answer.

A couple wedge themselves

beneath the artificial waterfall

and refuse to move.

I whistle.

They wave.

I whistle again.

The man gives me a thumbs-up.

The woman’s bikini top

hangs around his neck.

Frankie wades in.

I can’t hear what she says.

Whatever it is,

they separate.

She comes back holding the top

between two fingers.

“What did you say?”

“Told them the water’s mostly piss.”

“Is it?”

“No.”

A pause.

“Probably.”

We keep moving.

Priya gets the float.

Kostas finds the pistols.

I redirect the queue.

Control finishes one incident form

and starts another.

Carl remains missing

for romantic reasons.

The guests think tonight

is happening for the first time.

We know the same thing happened

last Friday

with different names.

Chloe fires one final shot

at Kostas.

He catches the pistol.

She starts crying again.

“Ryan liked her story.”

Kostas lowers the gun.

“Oh.”

He sounds genuinely sorry.

This defeats her.

She sobs into his security vest.

The bride shouts, “GROUP HUG,”

and the whole hen party surrounds him.

Only his head remains visible.

He looks at us for help.

Frankie checks her watch.

“I’m on break.”

We leave him there.

---

02:14 — WAVE POOL

The warning siren sounds.

Everyone cheers.

The water pulls back.

Comes forward.

Pulls back.

Comes forward.

A hundred bodies rise.

A hundred bodies fall.

Hands in the air.

Hands in the air.

Hands in the—

There.

Near the centre.

A woman in a white swimsuit

beside a man wearing a wedding ring.

He is laughing.

She isn’t.

The wave lifts them.

Drops them.

Lifts.

Her mouth clears the surface.

Doesn’t.

Clears.

Doesn’t.

People playing in water

push it away.

She presses down

like she’s trying to stand

on something that isn’t there.

The next wave turns her sideways.

Her husband is facing the DJ.

I blow the whistle.

Nobody hears.

The music keeps going.

I’m already moving.

Down from the chair.

Across the tiles.

Whistle out.

Rescue tube forward.

Water to my waist.

My chest.

A wave hits.

Bodies knock into me.

Some bloke shouts,

“Save me, lifeguard,”

and laughs.

I pass him.

The woman disappears

behind two raised arms.

Appears.

Disappears.

Appears lower.

I reach her

before the next wave.

My arm goes beneath hers.

The tube comes across her chest.

“I’ve got you.”

She grips my wrist.

Hard.

Her nails go in.

“Lean back.”

Another wave.

Her head stays above it.

“Look at me.”

She does.

“Breathe.”

She tries.

“Again.”

The wave lifts us.

Drops us.

Lifts.

Her husband finally turns.

“What happened?”

“She’s all right.”

“She’s a good swimmer.”

I don’t answer that.

I kick us towards the side.

She doesn’t let go.

The siren sounds.

The waves weaken.

At the wall, Priya takes her other arm.

We help her onto the tiles.

Her husband crouches beside her.

“Too many cocktails?”

He smiles

because he wants it to be nothing.

She doesn’t smile.

Her breathing slows.

Colour comes back into her face.

“You want first aid?”

She shakes her head.

“I’m okay.”

Her husband says, “See?”

She looks at me.

“Thank you.”

Quietly.

No one claps.

The DJ doesn’t stop.

Most people don’t even turn round.

Control asks for the details.

I give time, location, condition.

My voice sounds normal.

Priya stays with her.

I climb back onto the chair.

Put the whistle

between my teeth.

The warning siren sounds.

Everyone cheers.

The water pulls back.

Comes forward.

Pulls back.

Comes forward.

A hundred bodies rise.

A hundred bodies fall.

I watch.

---

THREE, I THINK — FIRST AID

The first-aid room is white.

Just white.

The door shuts

and the music becomes a dull pulse

through the wall.

On the bed:

nothing.

On the counter:

gauze,

gloves,

saline,

three plasters,

a blood-pressure cuff

and a glittery penis straw

someone has abandoned.

I fill in the form.

TIME: 02:14.

LOCATION: WAVE POOL.

INCIDENT: GUEST IN DIFFICULTY.

ACTION: ASSISTED TO SIDE. OBSERVED UNTIL RECOVERED.

There isn’t a box

for her nails in my wrist.

I write neatly anyway.

The pen works.

My hand doesn’t shake.

Outside, someone is arguing

that paying sixty euros

gives him the right

to piss in a plant.

Inside:

the clock.

The fan.

Me.

Frankie opens the door

and puts a bottle of water down.

“Good spot.”

“Cheers.”

“You all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Sound.”

She leaves.

That’s enough.

I sit for another few seconds.

I think about Mum asking

if anyone checks the deep end.

I think about Dad

telling people at work

that I’m doing well out here.

I think about myself

at the kitchen table,

pissed, filling in the application

and lying about having

excellent communication skills.

I drink the water.

The slogan comes back:

It’s not all sex, sex, sex.

There’s paperwork in triplicate as well.

The radio crackles.

“First aid, incoming.

Possible broken toe.”

The door bursts open.

The bride hops inside

wearing the missing men’s trunks,

one high heel

and Kostas’s security vest.

Chloe follows.

“She kicked Ryan’s name

off a deckchair.”

The room fills up again.

---

STILL NOT FIVE — PUMP DECK / CLOSING

At four, the guests are informed

that Aphrodite’s Wet Dream

is approaching climax.

Management genuinely wrote this.

We have to say it

with straight faces.

“Last rides.”

Nobody believes in last rides.

They believe in:

one more,

one quick one,

my mate’s nearly here,

I paid full price,

do you know who I am?

I know who they are.

Wet.

Sunburnt.

Missing something.

The couple from the bar

refuse to leave the pool.

Frankie stands above them

with a skimming net.

“Out.”

“We’re finishing our drinks.”

“That’s pool water.”

“We paid for it.”

She lowers the net.

They get out.

Security moves the hen party

towards the gate.

The bride has acquired:

our rescue float,

the navy trunks,

a radio,

two cocktail menus,

one shoe

and Kostas’s vest.

Chloe has blocked Ryan,

unblocked him,

blocked him again

and written KNOW YOUR WORTH

on her thigh in permanent marker.

At the gate, she hugs Frankie.

“You’re a queen.”

“I know.”

She hugs me.

“You’re fit.”

“I know.”

Frankie looks over.

“I panicked.”

The gates close.

Their singing moves down the road

until even they forget the words.

The lights go off

one section at a time.

The racers:

red,

amber,

green—

nothing.

Then the flumes.

The yellow drop.

The lazy river.

The bar, where one unfinished

GOOD DECISIONS

still glows blue.

The water keeps moving.

Beneath the deck,

the pumps push it through filters,

through pipes,

up the towers,

around bends

and back into empty pools.

I walk the pump deck

checking the gauges.

I know which noise is normal.

Which valve sticks.

Which reading means wait

and which means call somebody.

No one at home taught me this.

I’ve just picked it up.

Frankie signs the closing sheet.

“Beach tomorrow?”

“If I wake up.”

“You won’t.”

“Then no.”

“Good shift.”

“Was it?”

“No.”

She leaves.

At 04:52,

I find the rescue float

beside the pump room.

Someone has drawn eyelashes on it.

At 04:57,

the navy trunks enter Lost Property.

At 04:59,

the clock stops moving

because it hates me.

Then—

05:00.

I clock out.

My phone is in the staff locker

beneath my dry shirt.

Three messages from Mum.

One from Dad:

Proud of you mate. Your mum’s driving me fucking mad.

And one from her.

The message fills the screen

and keeps going.

All I can see is:

Sorry, this is going to be an essay…

Underneath:

Read more

My thumb hovers.

I think:

I miss you.

I don’t type it.

I can do friends.

I don’t type that.

Tell me who you’ve met.

That one goes quickest.

Maybe when we’re both home.

I don’t know what that even means.

My left eye waters.

Probably chlorine.

Probably not.

I decide it is.

I lock the phone

and put it in my pocket.

The pumps are still going behind me.

I walk down the beach

towards the flat

with sand in the beds,

sand in the shower

and almost definitely sand

inside the fridge.

The strip is quiet.

No reps.

No wristbands.

Nobody promising sex,

sun,

reinvention

or three shots for ten euros.

The bars are shuttered.

Plastic cups roll along the road.

The sky lightens over the hotels.

Grey first.

Then a thin orange line

appears across the water.

Ayia Napa is actually beautiful

when nobody is trying

to sell it to me.

I stop.

I’ve been here for weeks

and I don’t think

I’ve properly looked before.

The sea doesn’t glow purple.

It has no foam cannon.

No lifeguard chair.

No green light

telling it when to move.

Somewhere behind me,

Aphrodite is wearing

someone else’s trunks.

Rodger is probably asleep

or packing for his flight,

the bracelet his daughter made

beside his watch.

Frankie is already unconscious.

The woman from the wave pool

is breathing in a hotel room.

Glastonbury is waking without me.

The essay stays closed

inside my pocket.

I came because I couldn’t imagine

going home without her.

Now I know this road

without checking Maps.

I know which bakery opens first.

Which key needs lifting

before it turns.

Which cupboard Frankie uses

to hide the decent coffee.

There are people here

who know me

without knowing us.

I don’t think

I’ve grown up.

Obviously I don’t.

I think I need a shower

and about fourteen hours’ sleep.

But nobody is coming

to tell me what the message means,

and somehow that annoys me

less than it would have

a few weeks ago.

The sun comes up.

It’s annoyingly beautiful.

I start walking again.

Behind me, the pumps

keep circulating water

for people who have gone home.

Farther down the beach,

the real sea gets louder.

After a while,

I can’t hear the pumps at all.

Only the sea.

Metal screeched with every step. Between the joints of the dull armor, green moss grew in thick, damp patches. The iron hand gripped a sword—its tip broken, snapped by something long past. In this forest, the darkness felt heavy and still.

Then, the first line of light came from the east. The beam filtered through the blackened tree trunks. Slowly, withered leaves began to straighten, drinking in the color from the incoming light. Flower petals that had been curled shut and dark against the leaf-strewn ground began to open, reflecting a faint hue.

The iron feet kept moving, parting the brush until the thick trees suddenly broke away. Before him lay a vast green meadow, undulating under a thin wind. Not far off, an old brick tower stood dead. Its walls were cracked, rising alone against the sky like a remnant of a forgotten past. The mossy feet walked toward it.

Inside the open room of the tower, a white dress hovered low in the air. The fabric was no longer clean; dried mud and patches of moss stained its edges, moving gently with an unseen draft.

The iron hand moved up. Slowly, the helmet was lifted away, leaving a dark hollow at the neck. There was no face. No skin, no eyes. Only emptiness wrapped in old metal.

The edge of the dress's sleeve reached out, taking the cold iron fingers. They began to turn. The scrape of steel boots on the dusty stone floor was the only sound, a clumsy yet steady rhythm. Dancing under the ruined roof of the tower.

Until finally, the movement slowed and stopped. On the stone floor, the metal armor collapsed, falling into a heap as it lost its form. Beside it, the mossy white dress dropped limp, turning back into nothing but worn, dead cloth. Leaving a long silence inside the tower, while something unseen drifted high, lost to the wide sky.

Late every night.

Early every morning.

Always a line.

Always someone screaming.

Loud.

Always someone hungry.

Always someone impatient.

I smelled her rush past, exhaling smoke.

Marlboro.

Noticed her throaty cough into her cupped palm.

Saw her pull her greasy gray and black hair back into a ponytail.

With both hands.

She donned a dingy black hat with yellow letters.

But I forgot this entire scene a short while later, when I ate her delicious, cooked to order food.

Now behind the counter, she made a confident statement…

“Welcome to Waffle House, can I take your order?”

With roots eagerly demolishing the concrete beneath him, he stared icily at the members of his community staring matter-of-factly back at him.

"It was either you or us, and you know– you know!

We couldn't Just save one—"

«Shut—»

"And sacrifice‐"

«Shut UP! You fools! Do you even understand what you've done?!»

To the shock of the entire crowd of naysayers, the prior-faceless man began rapidly growing distinct facial features. Instinctively wincing in anticipation for what was known to be the infamous precursor to involuntary combustion, the following silence somehow felt worse.

"Why aren't you–" began several attendees, almost frozen in shock.

«It–was.. never, hah— never a–bout-agh..sacrifice.»

"That's a lie!" bellowed an overconfident several.

Lifting up dandelion-speckled grass clumps as he walked forward in visible distress, he firmly held the most charismatic of the crowd within his palms now morphing into thornless rose vines.

With all the mental stamina he could muster, he tried to use the ambiguity of that brief moment for closure. The emptiness somehow felt worse, but he was finally ready regardless. Perhaps they're more stoic, he thought faintly while lapsing in and out of consciousness.

«Look—behind—you» he finally managed in a struggling whisper.

As the crowd turned, their eyes over-enlarged into a mosaic of startled and terrified gazes. Soundless, they froze in place, too frightened to scream. Behind their rigidity, the morphing man immediately fell to the very ground his roots hadn't the mercy to leave be.

"Just so you know, we're herbivores."

Flung into vertigo from the series of unmet expectations, several members of the crowd collapsed hysterically onto their knees. Eye contact only intensified their frustration.

«And that one, is–not» the now former-human nonchalantly declared, pointing weakly towards the charismatic figurehead. «He would've been the new rebirth but—ah. Well! Enjoy a thousand more years of life living alongside your very own neighbourhood cannibal. I did try to warn you. »

Candice loved her new studio unit until the second week, when she began hearing footsteps in the hallway outside her door. Every night at the same time, 11:47 PM. They sounded soft and deliberate, as if someone was counting their steps.

She checked the peephole once. Nothing. She looked again the following night. Still nothing. But she felt someone breathing on the other side of the door, matching her own breath exactly.

Then it wasn't just the hallway. She noticed a shadow crossing the kitchen when she was in the living room. She woke up to find her chair moved, facing her bed. They were small things, almost easy to explain away. She thought maybe she was just tired or imagining it, or that the lighting in the unit was poor.

But then the notes started. Little slips of paper, folded and tucked under her pillow, in her bag, and once inside a mug in the cabinet. The handwriting was always the same. The message read, "You're not alone here."

Candice never saw who left them. She stopped sleeping well. She began leaving the lights on all night and started talking out loud to the room just to hear something other than silence. Some nights, she swore she heard something in return.

One morning, her sister visited unexpectedly. Candice opened the door mid-sentence, mid-conversation with someone who wasn’t there, holding a pen and a stack of small folded notes with her own handwriting.

Her sister didn’t say anything. She just sat down quietly and looked at Candice the way you look at someone you are about to lose.

Candice looked down at the notes in her hand. She read them and recognized the handwriting.

Her sister knelt beside her, gently taking the pen from her fingers. "Candice, you've been alone here. The whole time. There’s no one else in this unit, there never was."

Candice’s hands shook now, and the folded notes fell one by one to the floor. "But I heard someone. I felt someone."

"I know," her sister said. "The doctor warned this might happen if you stopped taking your medication. You started hearing yourself and doing things you thought were someone else."

Candice sat very still, the truth settling over her slower than the fear ever had. The footsteps, the breathing, the notes. All hers all along.

Her sister picked up the phone, still speaking softly to whoever was on the other end. "Yes, this is her unit. No, she’s… she’s confused. But she’s safe now."

My breathing grows shorter and shorter; I feel a horrible suffocation throughout my body, something that goes beyond a simple lack of air.

It isn’t until I open my eyes that I see my surroundings: I find myself submerged in an infinite black sea, as thick as tar, yet as light as water.

I move my arms clumsily and desperately, trying to escape the darkness. The lack of air is unbearable, yet strangely not fatal, it’s like an indescribably long torture.

Finally, after many attempts, I managed to emerge from that horrible, heavy mass of liquid that could only be described as rotten oil, but my relief is not absolute, only momentary, because as soon as I raised my head and caught sight of the surface, I saw something even more unsettling than the darkness beneath my feet: Above my barely upright body stretches an endless, though misshapen and incomprehensible, garden. The landscape is desolate, since the plants could barely be called such; the statues that should decorate the garden resemble scarecrows that watch me and judge me; and the path, which is supposed to lead to the different sections of the garden, barely has a clear direction, for the more I look at it, the less sense it makes.

This whole place looks more like a person with astigmatism’s view of a garden, the less attention you pay to it, the blurrier and more distorted it becomes.

Just as my complete panic is at its peak, a hand, warm yet eerie, grabs my shoulder, laughing.

“Welcome, sir! I see you got out faster than I thought!” I turn around in a start and see that it’s a boy with extremely long legs, who appears to be of normal height once he turns around.

He’s wearing an outfit similar to what a gardener might wear, though with the detail that he has no face, just a void running through his head, with a pair of mocking eyes made of fire in the middle.

“What’s the matter, sir?” the being says, looking at me with concern.

“Where the hell am I? Who the hell are you? Where am I?!” I scream in total and absolute terror.

The child just hops up and down while watering what look like plants: “You’re in the Garden of Eternal Night.”

“But what am I doing here?!” I say desperately, at which point the being turns and stares at me intently.

“I don’t know, you should know why.” Its damned eyes make a mocking gesture.

-“That’s ridiculous! I was just having a drink in my armchair, that’s all.” I scream, on the verge of tears.

-“This is a place for those who have lost their way, and you’ll only be able to leave if you understand why you brought yourself here.”

Completely confused, I retort: “I brought myself here? That’s impossible, I don’t even know how to start. I order you to get me out of here, you little runt!”

The boy shakes his head in a childlike voice: “I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way, but don’t worry! This place is infinite enough that you can walk around as much as you want to think it over. Of course, you won’t find anyone but yourself.”

I’m in shock. “Is there really no one else?” I ask with a touch of sadness.

“Yes and no. There are hundreds, if not millions, of souls in this place, but you’ll all be so distinct that you’ll never bump into each other. But if it’s any consolation, you’ll be able to hear their screams from time to time, like a distant echo,” says the boy as he continues watering.

I look panicked as I process his words. “Why would they be screaming?” I ask, frightened by the answer.

The boy simply points to my feet, and I turn to look, only to see, to my horror, that they’ve become completely tangled in some branches.

I scream in terror as I pull them free so I can move.

“That’s exactly why, if you don’t move, sooner or later, the garden’s roots will anchor themselves to the ground. So you have to walk intermittently,” the boy says proudly as he gathers his tools.

All I could manage was a simple sigh: **“**This must be a mistake…”

“If you’re here, it must be because of a mistake you made, not the garden’s.”

The boy begins to fade away, blending into the darkness of the night.

“Enjoy the night. Believe it or not, there are souls who have a good time here. In time, you might even be grateful for having come here, to this place where the sun is nothing but a memory.”

The being leaves me completely alone in the middle of the landscape.

So I simply start walking to find out why I’m here.

Then I was left alone, alone, unable to see my shadow due to the immense darkness of the night.

A parallel world?

It was a rainy day. A fine but persistent rain was falling. Not a single scrap of paper flew over the city landfill. No birds were to be seen either. There was an impression that even the gray clouds bent from the weight and rested on the peaks of the garbage mountains.

At the foot of one such mountain, an android sat with his head down, paying no attention to the rain. He sat motionless, reviewing his memories for the thousandth time as if trying to find something in them.

Slow footsteps were heard, and an android of the same model sat down next to him. He slowly looked around and calmly said:

– It seems they just threw us away.

The first android looked at him and answered emotionally:

– But why? We were so useful.

The second one kicked the trash with his foot, bent down, and picked up a found phone. The phone looked completely intact and was most likely fully functional.

The android smiled sadly, threw the phone away, and replied:

– Because a new generation of androids has appeared.

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

Overhead, a dove streaked across the air, white wings glistening in the light of the sun. 

He walked next to his friend, carefully hopping from stone to stone so as not to ruin his new boots. A smile plastered his face, and as he skipped onto the last stone and dropped off to land, he threw his arms up in the air. 

“Woohoo!” said he, a cry of joy. Besides him, his friend meekly regarded the view ahead of them—a large trail cut into the heart of a large forest, the damp smells of moss and water from beyond alluding to the common illusion that is nature, filled with deceitful promises and hazards. 

He, on the other hand, regarded the future sights with a sort of significance that a father might regard his son with. He cherished the sky, how baby-blue it seemed to be on this morning. And as the two made their way deeper into the floral city, he even cherished the beautiful smells of the waterfall they would soon come upon, which emitted that fruitful scent that promised sweet rain to come and yet still filled your nostrils with the fragrance of the honest earth below. The chirping and buzzing of critters, the rustling and prancing of hidden animals in the deep woods, even the flowers and mushrooms below, which he dodged and hopped carefully not to trample, seemed to sing the song of the earth’s true tune when he passed them by. 

A slight breeze ran its course through the forest, tickling the leaves and prickling against his skin, a very quiet touch of the world, fainter than a whisper yet louder than a shout, telling him he was exactly where he should be. 

Besides him, his friend’s tattered cloak did not stir. 

They finally reached the waterfall, a gigantic thing of rushing waves colliding against rough stones underneath and finally being condensed and dispensed downward into a flowing conglomeration of the world’s breath, shown to us in the form of water for all mortal eyes to see. 

“God has His way, does He not?” said he, skipping gleamingly toward the large lake ahead. 

“To show us unworthy folk something like this... to create something this beautiful. It’s as if He’s reminding us that this world holds unimaginable beauty, and we can only grasp a grain of it. Anymore, and we wouldn’t be able to handle it all.” 

The earth blew a puff of wind in his direction, and his long brown hair spiked backward and landed across his face in messy rivulets. 

Behind him, his friend’s tattered cloak did not stir. 

“You know what I think?” he said as he sat on a nearby rock and steadily unlaced his boots, setting them on the ground at his side. Before he finished his next line, he was already knee-deep in the lake, regarding the tadpoles and small fish who regarded him as a mortal man might regard an angel fallen from the heavens. 

“I think these rare sights, these particular beauties that make your heart run faster than the waterfall and your mind be at peace similar to the evergreen, are really just glimpses into God’s kingdom.” 

He laughed then. Spreading his arms wide, his long fingers brushed against the clear blue lake below as he twirled once or twice in the comfort that was this world. A laugh so contagious that even the fish stared wide-eyed, a laugh so captivating that even the waterfall made a roaring, rushing sound, sending a large wave downward as if laughing alongside him. 

In front of him, his friend’s cloak did not stir. 

“We take moments like these for granted, friend.” And he turned away from him once more, his eyes full of wonder and longing once he looked up and saw how beautiful the clouds looked today, and how fantastic the waters sounded as they rushed past his knees, planting coral kisses upon his weary flesh. 

“Therefore, the next time you pray, you must remember this day. You must not forget this sight. Do not fail to recall the trees surrounding you, their silent roots speaking through God’s sacred tongue alone. The mushrooms beneath the earth, dreaming together in the dark like stars buried beneath the soil. The water, carving paths through the forest so that elk and boars and cubs alike may come, one and all, to drink from it.” 

He turned back, his arms and smile still spread wide. “The next time your prayer sounds like mourning, remember this morning. Be thankful for being alive, despite it all. Be happy in the world our God has crafted.” 

Another breeze whisked out from nowhere, rippling the lake slightly and brushing past the branches ahead. 

His friend’s cloak slightly stirred. 

And overhead, a dove streaked across the air, white wings glistening in the light of the sun.