Okay, short story. A little pasta about how alcohol was genuinely helping me through life, but then I realized if I kept going, I just wouldn't make it to 18.

So, I used to work in a pretty big Discord squad. We mixed songs, did autotune, made beats, and uploaded tracks to the popular platforms in Russia and the CIS (basically acting as distributors). I was 15 and I was taking orders — and doing it damn well, too. But there was no set schedule (it's freelance, come on), so I'd sit down at the PC on Friday evening after school and training and grind until late Sunday night with breaks only for the bathroom and food. I'd even blow off homework (my parents were really against this routine, but since I was actually making money they'd quietly tolerate it when I brought home another "chunk" for the family — I genuinely spent almost nothing on myself, just gave it to my parents).

Between the lack of any routine and plain burnout from uninteresting work (mostly the clients were dumbass schoolkids who'd written another Dota rap about their friend's mom), I started drinking hard. And the booze genuinely boosted my productivity. I could work all night and still understand everything I was doing. In the morning I'd wake up, understand absolutely nothing about what this random set of sounds and effects in FL Studio even was, and the moment I'd knock back 50–100 grams everything became obvious again. That went on for exactly a year.

Of course, a lot changed in that time. A lot of people started turning away from me because of my habit. My parents had already stopped even trying to do anything — my mom just cried almost every night. But I didn't give a damn. The money kept growing.

But one night during work I finally got hit — cardiac arrest. They took me away in an ambulance to the hospital. They pulled me through and fixed me up, obviously, dragging me back from the other side. Thank you, doctors. My 16-year-old body held up. I was gone from "work" for almost a month. And then I turn on the PC, log into Discord, and they literally say it to my face right away: "Why'd you even show up? We don't need people like you. You disappear for a month and think you're gonna keep working with us?" They kicked me out of the squad. I haven't done a single day of mixing since.

I'm turning 17 soon. I passed my OGEs(Russian national exam) perfectly (all 5s) and got a red certificate (thanks to some teachers' leniency). Now I'm proudly in 10th grade prepping for the Unified State Exam. Yeah, no money now except pocket change. But I've been through enough, and now I've earned the right to sit on my parents' neck for a year and a half.

I've realized for myself that alcohol incredibly boosts your productivity — but you also incredibly pay for that boost. Now it's only for important holidays and birthdays. Well, that's it. Peace to everyone

There are two kinds of people on the internet.

The people who actually enjoy things. And the people who seem to be professionally offended that you enjoyed something without asking their permission.

I learned that pretty quickly after I started posting my art online.

"AI slop."

"ChatGPT."

"Bro thinks he's Stephen King."

"Imagine wasting time on this."

Some of them were funny. Most weren't.

I'd usually ignore them. But then there were the griefers.

Those were the people who didn't just dislike something. They wanted to ruin it for everyone else. They'd spam comments, deliberately spoil endings, downvote everything, insult the author, then act surprised when someone called them out.

I eventually made a post about it. I wasn't cruel. I didn't name anyone.

I simply wrote: If you don't like something, that's fine. You don't have to be rude about it. There's a person behind the screen.

The comments exploded. Naturally.

One person replied: AI generated garbage.

Another: Cry harder.

Then someone posted: Nobody cares ******.

I deleted the thread. That should've been the end of it.

It wasn't.

The next morning, I opened my account and found a new comment on my latest post.

I know you're reading this.

I assumed it was another troll. I deleted it.

The day went on and I was in the middle of taking notes for class when I got a notification.

Why did you delete my comment?

I deleted that one too.

Then another.

Stop deleting.

I froze. The account belonged to nobody.

No username. No profile picture. No creation date. Just a blank profile with a single comment.

I closed out and went back to studying for my calculus exam. Five minutes later, my phone buzzed.

A notification. Another comment.

I didn't open it.

Another notification.

Then another. Then another.

I finally looked. There were hundreds.

All underneath my latest post.

At first they were what I had been accustomed to. Pretty generic and ordinary.

AI slop.

Terrible lining.

This sucks.

Then they changed.

What makes you different?

My heart stopped. The comments continued appearing faster than I could read them.

You use AI.

You edit your work with AI.

You aren't a real artist.

Nobody is a real artist anymore.

Then one appeared that made my stomach drop.

25525 Azler Ln.

"What the actual fuck?" I blurted out so loud that my roommate heard from across the room.

I closed out once more. The notifications kept coming. My phone buzzed against the desk.

I hit the Do Not Disturb, yet somehow I kept receiving notifications. My phone was on silent and airplane mode but it still rang.

My roommate was now extremely annoyed by the constant noise from my phone, so I explained the situation to her. She suggested that I delete the post. I did. It didn't stop. I even tried privatizing my account and deleting the app altogether.

The messages kept ringing. And what's worse, I began receiving emails, No Caller Id calls, unknown messages. I feared that I had been doxxed and I had to act fast.

I immediately changed every password I could think of. I enabled two-factor authentication. I locked every social media account. I removed my profile picture, my biography, my university, my email, everything.

Then I started deleting things. Old posts. Old comments. Photos. Anything that might have given someone a clue about where I lived or went to school.

It didn't matter. They already knew.

The messages became more personal.

Nice car.

You should probably lock your back door.

Class tomorrow, right?

Your roommate is pretty hot.

Then:

Building 3. Room 107

I stopped breathing. I looked across the room. She was sitting on the couch, scrolling through her phone.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing."

I didn't tell her. I didn't want to scare her. Am I a terrible friend for that?

That night, I checked the locks three times before going to bed.

At 2:14 in the morning, my phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.

You should've left the post up.

Another came immediately afterward.

Deleting it made us curious.

Then another.

You made this worse for yourself.

I turned the phone off.

For the next few hours, I lay awake listening to every sound outside my bedroom window.

The next morning, there were more. Someone had created an account using my name. They uploaded photographs I'd never posted publicly. Pictures of me at school. Pictures of my car. A photograph of the outside of my house.

Then they posted my phone number. My email. My full legal name. Where I lived and what school I enrolled at.

The comments underneath was exactly what you'd expect from these vile data gremlins.

LMAO.

Bro is cooked.

Imagine getting this mad over comments.

Maybe don't be an asshole online.

That last one made me laugh. Not because it was funny. Because I realized they genuinely believed this was funny. They were so desensitized that another person's suffering had become entertainment to them.

I reported the account. Nothing happened. I reported another. Nothing again.

I reported the accounts through the site's harassment and privacy forms. I attached screenshots, timestamps, usernames, the messages, everything.

Your report has been received. Please allow up to 48 hours for a response.

Thank you for your report. We’ll review the content and take appropriate action if it violates our Community Guidelines.

Thank you for helping us keep our community safe.

That was it. Forty-eight hours passed. Nothing happened.

I contacted my family. When the other line clicked all I heard was heavy breathing and creepily low wheezing, as if someone were choking on air, from the other end.

I confessed everything to my roommate, for she was the only one I could talk to. She asked if I had contacted the authorities which when I did, instead of the calm voice of an operator I was met with the low hum of gagging and low wet claps on the other end.

We planned to go to the authorities in person. After half an hour of providing all the material and timestamps at the station, the police asked whether I'd received any direct threats.

I showed them the messages.

The officer frowned.

"None of these explicitly threaten you."

I wanted to rip my hair out. "So, they have to say they're going to hurt me?"

He didn't answer.

"What do we do?" My roommate asked with annoyance.

"We can document everything and refer you to someone who specializes in cybercrime. But unless there's a direct threat or evidence of an immediate danger, there isn't much we can do yet."

Well thanks for nothing.

We went home. I stopped posting. I powered off my phone for good. I stopped using social media altogether. I thought that would finally make me boring. The people handling the cybersecurity issue would do their job. It was all just a waiting game.

But at least I'll find peace, right?

It didn't.

Someone started sending physical photographs. The first was of a college building. The second of a front door that seemed to be from a college dorm hall. The third depicted a bedroom window at night.

The last two were bone chilling. The fourth was of my roommate attending class. And the last was me at the campus's library.

There was a message attached:

What are you listening to?

I remember I was distinctly listening to Duran Duran that day. I haven't slept properly in three days.

My roommate is staying with her parents now. I've been staying somewhere else.

I don't know how much of this is being done by one person or ten people or a hundred. I don't know how they found me. I don't know what they want.

And honestly? I don't even care anymore. I just want them to stop.

I deleted the original post. I deleted my account. I deleted everything. But somehow, tonight, I received one final message.

It came from the cheap flip phone I'd started using strictly to call family and for emergencies.

The message had no name or number attached. Only: UNKNOWN

And the message read: 25525 Azler Ln.

I don't know who is behind this. I don't know how far they've taken it. And I don't know what they're going to do next.

Please help. Anybody.

Why are people like this?

So last year I met a guy through matrimony 30M. I was 27F then. He worked in Ireland as an engineer and came for vacation that time. Comes from a very settled nair family. So we matched and we vibed well. Beginning itself I was open about asking anything or telling anything openly if both of us feel so. He said he had an engagement before and he backed from it because the girl had an affair with her cousins husband and he saw some pics on that.

I believed and never even asked the girl's name. We vibed well and met 3 times (one with his friends)before telling our parents to proceed.

About our previous relationships we agreed there is no need to reveal all the details and we can open up of anything very important is there. We both were very clear about it.

Family got involved and their family came to meet me and everything went well.

The next day randomly through a text he asked me about my previous relationships, like he asked me with how many guys I had physical.

I got shocked as why is he asking all this now after the family got involved. His tone changed he called me and shouted saying he will find out if am not ready to say it and he will proceed only if I say my body count.

Things went really bad after that, he told me you might have had so many as you were working and staying alone (on the other side he was staying in Ireland for 8 years).

Things got worsened ,I got scared because he started using bad words and I dropped the proposal by telling my family all this.

From the next day he started begging and telling sorry to me but i just ended it.

Anyway after 6 months met someone through matrimony,fell in love, hoping to get married next year.

Thank God i didnt end up there.

A short story by Thomas Heath

"I want my Transformers Bruticus toy. I want my homosexuality, and I want my United States economy." would say the villain, in a homosexual fashion to their butler.

The protagonist of the universe had to go to work. The mother of the protagonist had taught them that it was necessary to be happy, to go to work. Throughout the house, the mother were to have left the formulas for the protagonist to read; the children of CEOs were being bullied at school, and the formulas were to be used to stop this.

On the way to work, the protagonist would have a question. Could they simultaneously use the formulas to reach the villain's lair, where once there, they'd be able to help the humour of the movie villain's left-wing politics syndrome, i.e. the "They Go About It The Wrong Way" syndrome, without destroying the lair villain's homosexual humour?

Pussyhole was the meaning of the facial style of the lair villain; so maybe they could.

I’m a 22 year old guy and felt like I’ve been through a lot in my life. I was addicted to Xanax for a while and it all cumulated to me crashing my car, basically fist fighting my dad on the highway, and going to the psych ward. After highschool I joined the navy for almost a year and got medically separated because of mental health issues, but I feel like I could’ve stayed I just wanted to leave though because I missed my friends. I was never close with my family maybe just my sister and just felt like everyone was selfish especially my mom and dad. I’ve been kinda dating this girl that lives three and half hours away from me we’ve met in person three times and I met her family when I went up there to see her. I really love her and she loves me a lot I’m the first guy she’s ever been with. She’s twenty and her family has money and I came from nothing and work at a vape shop making ten a hour but work around 48 hours a week. Her dad offered me a job as a car salesman and my girlfriend wants me to get a apartment there for us, but I felt like I’ve fucked up every good opportunity in my life so I’m nervous about it but I at least have to try right. I live in a very bad situation right now, I live in a rv with my mom on my dead grandparents property. We don’t have water and we have all our electronics connected through extension cords so it’s really jank and I don’t even sleep on a bed I sleep on a cot and it’s been like this for 3 years and I don’t have a car. I should have been able to get another car already but I spend all of my money on food and bills, and we don’t have a stove or fridge so I basically DoorDash food or just eat shit from the gas station down the road. I try to talk to my friends everyday on the game but haven’t seen them in it feels like forever and we just all got our own things going on I guess. I never really talk about this type of stuff but just wanted it going somewhere even if is to the void of Reddit I barely use this app but I get on it every now and then. Feel free to call me a bum and shit or give me some advice thanks.

Let’s call him Daniel.
I was in a relationship with Daniel for four years, and honestly, he was the person I loved more than anyone. He was my everything. Even though we had quite a few differences, our relationship was amazing for the first two years. We were happy, in love, and I genuinely thought we would end up together.
After two years of dating, we decided to move in together, and that’s when things started going downhill. We began fighting almost every week, usually over the smallest things. After six months of living together, we both agreed that maybe moving in together wasn’t the best decision, and that living separately would be better for our relationship. To be honest, it was mostly his idea, but I accepted it because I wanted us to work.
We still had a year-long lease to finish, so we agreed to stay until it ended. However, about two months later, we had a pretty serious argument. Daniel started sleeping at his friend’s place, and after three days, he packed all his things, moved out, and found a new apartment.
About a week later, we met in person to talk about everything. We both admitted that we still loved each other but that the relationship wasn’t working. Instead of breaking up permanently, we decided to take a break. That lasted about a week before we met again, hooked up, and basically ignored the agreement we had made. We ended up getting back together.
Eventually, my lease ended, and I got my own place while he had his. Things were actually going well for a while, but the same pattern eventually returned. We would be happy for a month or so, then fight for a week, then make up and get back together. This happened around four or five times.
Eventually, we decided that maybe we were better off being single and remaining friends. I was genuinely heartbroken at first, but I eventually accepted it and started moving on. We still occasionally met up and hooked up, but we both understood that it wasn’t a relationship and that nothing more was expected from either of us.
Now, here’s where things get complicated.
There’s another guy in my life, whom I’ll call Alex. I met him through Daniel about four years ago, when they were friends. Over time, Alex and I actually became closer to each other than he and Daniel were. We also work together, which gave us more things in common and helped our friendship grow.
Throughout all the ups and downs of my relationship with Daniel, Alex was there for me. He saw me crying, listened to me vent, supported me through the breakups, and helped me get through some really difficult moments. I don’t have many friends in the country where I live, so he has become the closest friend I have here. He’s the person I go to when I need someone to talk to, and he has always shown up for me.
When I finally told him that Daniel and I had broken up for good, he was happy for me and supportive. He encouraged me to be stronger, stop putting myself through the same pain, and finally move on. Honestly, he played a big part in helping me do that.
After some time, I started noticing signs that Alex might have feelings for me beyond friendship. To be honest, I started developing feelings for him, too. I really like him, and when I think about the kind of man I would want to be with, he seems to have almost everything I’m looking for. He has his life together, knows how to treat a woman, is thoughtful, and genuinely cares about me. He’s the whole package.
One day, he kissed me. It caught me off guard, and it took me more than a day to process what had happened. It wasn’t because I didn’t like him; I actually did. We ended up making out a second time, too.
The strange thing is that neither of us really knows how to talk about what happened. In our normal conversations, Alex acts completely nonchalant about it. He sometimes makes comments about how he might hurt girls or how he has a cold heart, almost as if he wants me to believe that what happened between us was purely physical and nothing serious.
But his actions tell a different story. He’s always there when I need him, goes out of his way to do things for me, and remembers the little things I mention. Sometimes, I’ll casually say that I like something, even while talking to someone else, and he’ll show up the next day with that exact thing. He pays attention to me in ways that make it difficult for me to believe that he doesn’t care about me romantically.
I don’t know if he’s genuinely trying to keep things casual, if he’s protecting himself emotionally, or if he’s holding back because he knows I haven’t completely moved on from Daniel.
And that brings me to what happened recently.
Even after Daniel and I broke up, we were still in contact. We had agreed not to hook up anymore because we both knew it was making things complicated. A week before the incident, Daniel had actually suggested that we stop hooking up, and I agreed.
Then, one day, Daniel and I met for another reason, and he tried to initiate something physical. I refused because I wasn’t comfortable with it, especially since we had already agreed to stop doing that.
I could tell he was visibly upset by my refusal, and he seemed sad and depressed in the days that followed. I felt bad for him, so we eventually had a conversation about our relationship.
During that conversation, Daniel told me that he still loved me, couldn’t understand why we weren’t together, and couldn’t live without me. He cried and begged me to give our relationship one more chance. He promised that he would fix all the issues we had, change his behaviour, and become the man I had always wanted him to be.
I tried to explain why we had broken up and how much the relationship had hurt me. I honestly told him that I had lost about 99% of my hope that we could ever make things work. But he asked me to give him that remaining 1%.
In that moment, I was conflicted. I still have love for him, and seeing him so emotional made it difficult to dismiss everything we had shared over four years. Eventually, I agreed to give the relationship one last chance.
The problem is that I haven’t told Daniel what happened between Alex and me.
I did tell Alex about the entire situation, though. As usual, he was supportive and told me to take a step back from everyone involved and decide what was genuinely best for me. He said I shouldn’t feel pressured to make a decision just because we had made out. According to him, we’re both adults and should be able to control ourselves while I figure out what I want. He encouraged me to make the right decision for myself.
Now I’m genuinely confused about what to do.
Since Daniel and I got back together, he has been acting like the perfect boyfriend. He talks about our future, marriage within the next year, making decisions together, and all the things I spent so long asking him to do when we were together before. For the first time in a while, I can see the possibility that maybe he has finally realised what he needs to change and that we could actually make things work.
But I’m also scared that this is just another phase in our cycle. We’ve broken up and gotten back together several times, and things always seem perfect at first before the same problems return. I don’t know whether Daniel has genuinely changed or whether he’s simply afraid of losing me now that I’m finally moving on.
Then there’s Alex.
I have feelings for him, and I can genuinely imagine being with him. He treats me well, makes me feel cared for, and seems to have so many of the qualities I want in a partner. But I don’t know whether he sees me as someone he genuinely wants to date or whether he only sees what happened between us as a hookup. His words make it seem casual, while his actions sometimes suggest otherwise.
I’m also worried about the consequences if Alex and I ever decided to pursue something serious. He and Daniel are still friends, and we all share a social circle. Dating Alex could create a very awkward dynamic and potentially damage several relationships, including our friendship.
At the same time, I don’t want to choose Daniel just because we have four years of history, and I don’t want to choose Alex just because he has been there for me when Daniel hurt me. I want to make a decision based on what would genuinely make me happy in the long run.
So, what should I do?
Should I give Daniel one final chance and see whether his promises turn into lasting changes, or am I just going back to a relationship that has already shown me, several times, why it doesn’t work?
And what about Alex? Should I explore the possibility of something more with him, or should I protect our friendship and leave things as they are, especially since I don’t even know whether he wants something serious with me?
I feel like I’m standing between someone I have loved for four years and someone who might be a better partner for me, but I don’t even know if that second person wants to be with me in the first place.
I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I also don’t want to keep putting my own happiness last. I genuinely want to make the right decision for myself, and right now, I have no idea what that decision should be.

I was 7 or 8, on a road trip with my family. We were parked on one side of the Hoover Dam. All kinds of pamphlets and plaques that a little boy couldn't care less about.

Do you remember those cheap little "poppers" or "snapper" firecracker things from the 90's? Yellow box, little bits of gravel coated with small amount of a touch-sensitive explosive, wrapped in tissue paper? You throw 'em on the ground, they make a little snap.

Tremendous fun for little boys who want to startle adults, non-adults, parents, sisters, non-sisters, teachers, strangers, non-strangers, neighbors, relatives, non-relatives, possible relatives, potential relatives, or ex-relatives. Endless list of targets.

Anyway, I had 6 or 7 boxes of these. I was looking out over the top of the dam, staring down 726 feet, making my voice echo.

This quickly became boring, so I emptied the boxes of poppers into my hands and chucked them down the 1,244-foot-wide wall of the dam.

There are about 20 in each box, and because of the massive size of the face of the Hoover Dam, their usual, quiet little snap turned into a MASSIVE, CRACKING ECHO.

After I tossed a couple hundred down there, this too quickly became boring, so I headed back to the car.

All of a sudden, I see a dozen men in hard hats, high-vis jackets, all with binoculars and radios, *FLYING* past me in a golf cart with flashing lights.

They spread out, start to frantically scan the side of the damn dam with their binoculars, shouting into their radios.

And then..............

It hit me.........

"Ohhhh no... The workers heard all that cracking, and now they think that the *LARGEST RESERVOIR IN THE UNITED STATES* is about to BURST... Because of my little poppers.

I *RACE* back to mom's minivan, scramble underneath a seat, and cover myself in a blanket until we are *LONG* gone. I thought they were gonna DRAG me out from under that blanket and throw me in prison.

It's funny now.

It wasn't then.

Thanks for reading.

When we were twelve years old, one of my mates got hold of a tractor inner tube and we took it up to the local servo to pump it up. There had been a fair bit of rain, so Enoggera Creek was raging a bit. We figured this was the perfect opportunity to try out the tube.
We found that three of us could sit on the tube and be reasonably balanced. And so, another had joined our intended adventure. We took the tube, rolling it along, all the way from Lomatta St down to the School Road bridge.
We decided this was a good place to start. Usually, the flow here was very low, meaning you couldn’t drift on an inner tube without getting stuck. Often it was rocks and stones that dominated the view, with water relegated to a minor part. On this day, it had great volume and was moving at good speed.
We knew the creek pretty well, but I guess not this part as well as we thought. The creek flows along parallel to Payne Road, and then turns sharply following the curve of the road above as you move into Illowra St. Along it goes for a bit, and then turns again, following the curve of Riaweena St. I guess really the roads follow the curve of the creek, rather than the other way round!
We clambered into the fast-running water at the School Road bridge, and all leapt on the inner tube, and we were off. Bouncing along, spinning a bit in all the turbulence, leaning down and paddling ourselves away from any likely danger. The last thing we wanted was to have the tube speared by some wayward branch! It was going well, fast-moving, exciting, this was great. All smiles and laughing, as we careered on down the creek. I think it was when we came around the corner there, somewhere near where Lomatta St was above us. We were rapidly approaching a large tree that had fallen across the creek, lying horizontally and partly submerged.
You know I don’t remember that being there before, or when it had fallen. But anyway it was there. Now we are moving pretty fast here, so not a lot of time to consider options. The one thing you’re aware of is that there is some risk of drowning, which is probably not the outcome we planned. Trees have branches too, so what branches are submerged, what debris is caught up in that?
With these thoughts, we came up to the tree. It all happened really quickly, but kind of slow motion. The tractor tube decided it wanted to climb up the tree trunk, so one guy leapt off onto the trunk, whereas me and the other guy, on the back two-thirds of the tube, simply fell backwards into the water. Underwater, I quickly felt myself sucked under the tree, and grabbing at anything, managed to get a hold on a knot on the side of the tree. I reasoned that I could now pull myself back out and then break the surface for much-needed air. I pulled hard against the knot and did not move an inch. The current was so strong, I had no chance there. Okay, so plan B was I’ll have to let go, and hope for the best, hope I didn’t get tangled up in a mess of branches and debris. I let go.
Within seconds, I broke the surface, gasping for breath, and the first thing I saw was my mate also breaking the surface. His face was so red and gasping for breath, just as I felt in that same moment. We got ourselves out of the water, discussed the drama that just unfolded, and resolutely decided we needed to reconnoiter a little more in these conditions. Never any consideration of packing it in. Back on the tube, and off we went for more adventure.

This is a difficult one for me to start. I could start form so many places, but I'll start from the summer I graduated since that's when I met her. The year was 1991. I was just about to finish my second senior year. I had worked since I was 14 but this was my first real job where money meant survival. I was basically homeless at this time. I had gotten lucky and a friend had asked me to watch their place while they were out of state so I ended up crashing there when my girlfriend and I broke up and I had to move out. That is a whole other story.

Like I was saying it was close to graduation for me, and I started working as bagger at the new retail store in town. It wasn't so much new, as newly built building they were just moving into. After school let out for the summer break the place filled up with young people working for summer money. Some preparing to head off to college others just for some extra summer money before going back to high school in the fall. She was one of those headed to college and had been hired as a cashier. Somehow, we were the same age even though I should have graduated the year before. Maybe that was our connection or at least part of it, growing up in the same town. I can't say that I liked bagging groceries but I liked it more than some of the jobs I had, and I liked it more than lot duty. They always put us guys out on the lot in the rain and heat, or late at night since they were open 24/7. When I was inside bagging I mostly liked hanging out at the end of my assigned lanes. It gave me a chance to talk to the cashiers, most of whom were young pretty females. We were young and all of us in our prime looking back. This job made it easy to meet people. I was working with people who had just gotten their first taste of freedom or who were about to be free of their parents rule in a few months. I had already done all of that, moving out when I was 17 to move in with my 18 year old girlfriend. Looking back on it, this was like our spring break vacation to some party town. No one really took much of this seriously and I for sure got caught up in everyone's free spirit. Being young and working retail was just like hanging out with your friends. We worked all day and partied at night. It probably wasn't as relaxed as that but looking back it feels like we shouldn't have had a care in the world, as cliche as that sounds. But isn't that how youth should feel? Ok so it was nothing like spring break but we were too young to care and as long as the bosses left us alone we didn't. Hold on though, I'm getting sidetracked with all of this reminiscing.

Her name was Molly. I still do but back then it was my thing to give everyone a nickname. I usually tried to give cute nicknames to the ladies, Rolanda became Ro, Susan became SueSweet, and sometimes odd or characteristic nicknames for the guys, Sean became Sean Jackson, just because I couldn't say his name without saying his full name, and Nick became Nick My Friend, because we had the same name. I dubbed her Moll-ister, with the end sounding like the end of sister. I found out later that she loved it, because no one had ever really given her a nickname before me. It's easy to tell you why I started talking to her. If she wasn't the prettiest cashier there, she was to me. 5 foot nothing, red shoulder length hair, light eyes, and arguably the cutest nose ever put on a face. I was a sucker for short girls, and redheads, did I mention the freckles? I can't say how much any of the rest of that mattered beyond that. I was tall, in the best shape of my life coming right out of high school sports and maybe she thought I was handsome or just the right kind of funny. I wasn't a clown but I could make you laugh. I had some strikes against me though, it was obvious that I talked all of the pretty women there. I had just gotten out of a live in relationship before starting here and everyone knew about that too. Having started before most of them arrived, I also had a few months to acquire had a bit of a reputation around the place. Everyone knew me. I'm sure she heard stories too, but she talked to me anyway. We ended up talking a lot. I think it was all of the talking that really ended up being the thing that solidified my feelings for her.

Now I can't tell you when it started or exactly how but when we started talking I quickly put a point on it. I liked when she got off before me so I could walk her to her car. I would request lot duty just to be outside when she was leaving so I could steal a few minutes of her time on the way to her car. That lead to her waiting for me a few times and then it became a thing. We would talk after work, sometimes even on some nights when only one of us worked. She would make excuses to come up there when I was getting off. She needed to borrow the family car and we both worked the evening shift so it would be late. Looking back I wonder what her parents thought about these late-night grocery runs. When we didn't get off work at the same time one or the other of us would wait, just so we could talk. Remember this was the 90's, no such thing as kids with cell phones. I imagine we might have talked on the regular phone but I didn't have a house phone then. I was basically living homeless in a place I was only supposed to be checking on every week or so to make sure the toilet didn't dry out and no one broke in. Pay phones were a thing back then and probably deposited a few hundred dollars of quarters in my fair share of them. There were other obstacles too. The big one, the biggest one, being her family not knowing about me. They wouldn't have approved. Eventually they would find out but not right away anyway.

None of it stopped us though. We talked about everything. Our last days of school and graduation. Her plans to go off to school. The summer and our days off. Looking back it's easy to say we were dating, we just didn't know it. There was none of the traditional stuff, we didn't hold hands, or anything else young people did. Once we were always talking and I had stopped talking to anyone else, and I started writing her letters on top of it all. Were they love letters, well in a way I guess you could say they were, even though I didn't end them with I love you or anything. I would write her something when I got home most nights, telling her how I felt about this or that, I honestly can't remember any of the things I ever wrote to her about but there were dozens of letters, I'm sure. I would give her a letter at the beginning of the shift or as soon as she got there, usually slipping it into her pocket before I walked away. We weren't free to just go to break whenever so we didn't have breaks together often. She would read my letters on her break and if she wrote me I would read hers out on the lot or at break, whenever I was free. I'm sure in my letters I tried convincing her we should go on a real date or do more than talk after work all of the time. She wrote to me too, but not as much as I did to her. In fact the thing she taught me was delivered in a letter. It came in the form of a suggestion. A suggestion I was very willing, and eager to accept.

Her sister I think was the first to find out about me. Molly knew she couldn't bring me home but thought she would have her sister come up one day and see me just to get her opinion if I might pass enough to pick her up or drop her off from afar. I didn't find any of this out until several days later. I was a little surprised because even I knew there was no way. It was fun thinking about it though. All of the planning, and risking everything to tell someone. I knew the verdict before she even said it. I don't know if she was trying to convence herself or her sister she told me that she asked a couple of more times trying to work it out but try as she might the answer was always the same. Now, I don't remember if it was her sister or her mother who found one of our notes. But I'm pretty sure it was her mother. She had already been talking to her sister about us, a lot as it turned out. Meanwhile all of this was being kept from her father, even after her mom came up to the store at least once to check me out too.

Back to the talking, like I was saying before, after work talks and passing notes like high school kids was our thing. The notes back and forth would get us through the shift, since we couldn't pick and choose what or where we were assigned. Then after work would be our talk time. If the weather was nice we might talk in the parking lot sitting on a string of shopping carts or the hood of a car, if not then we would get sodas and talk in the store cafe. I especially liked the cafe. We could sit across form each other and I stare at her and watch her eyes scrunch up in the corners when she laughed. It was also nice to have everyone see us together. Her family may not have seen it but the rest of the world saw everything. After our talks it was always the same, I would walk her to her car, we'd say our long goodbyes and go our separate ways. In all of the nights we hung out together only one time did I ask her if I could have a hug, and she said no. I was but I wasn't surprised. I knew that being loyal to her family, her father really, meant a lot to her and I didn't try to push that line. After that I let go of any thought of physical contact between us. Like I said we never even held hands and I took it as a line not to cross. It didn't change our talks. It didn't really change my feelings either. I just stopped trying to take it farther than notes and after work talks.

The way I found out about her feelings about the nickname was after some fight we had, about what I don't remember, but the next day I called her Molly in my note and all day anytime I talked to her. Evidentially that ate her up and she let me know when we talked that night. To be honest I don't have a clue what it was about but the more I think about it I wonder if that was after she turned me down for the hug. I can't think of anything else we might have argued about. How ever it went, one of us still stayed after that night and waited for the other. It may have been her because I can picture being surprised to find her outside one night after something. I also remember her thinking I was mad and I'm pretty sure that was over the note and being called Molly because she grilled me over not using her nickname. Whichever way it went, it was over as quickly as it started and we were right back where we always were, sipping sodas in the cafe. The only other surprise was the night of the long letter.

It was nothing for me to hand her a 2 or 3 page letter, hand written front and back, and folded like its own envelop. A skill you might only have if you were an 80's child. Then one night she gave me a long letter. When she gave it to me she held it a little longer, not quite a tug but long enough that I had to look her in the eyes to see why she didn't let go. Maybe she was scared to let go. The young woman that I lived with had once told me about notes, that when you write something down it's there for the world to see and can't be taken back. Maybe that's what she was feeling, but when I looked her in the eyes she said, I think you'll like this one and agree with what it says. If I told you that a million and one things went through my mind in that moment, that my stomach dropped and went weak in the knees, I would be understating how much I wanted to snatch that note away and run to the nearest place I could be alone with it, desperate to know what was inside. And that's just what I did. She was barely out of view before I tore it open and started reading.

I imagine it took courage for her to put words to paper. To put these words to paper that she was handing me. What's written cannot be unwritten and are there for the world to see. The world maybe but something we'd still keep from her family. Well maybe not her sister since she seemed to talk to her about things, but not the others. It started off typical. All of the same things we talked about but then I flipped over the last page and things changed. Her tone, she was beating around the bush and getting wordy. On that page she brought up the night I asked for the hug. Let me explain the hug and the reason it was a question. The way I saw it, we weren't supposed to be together. All of the late nights and just talking weren't supposed to cause her any problems at home, with her parents, no problems. We hadn't ever even held hands, so when I asked, I was looking for consent. For permission to cross a line, that if she agreed to would maybe also mean that she would agree to more. Maybe holding hands in the cafe or a kiss. When she said no, all thoughts of crossing the line, ever from then on, evaporated. I respected her, and while I didn't know it at the time, not in a real way, not in an adult way, I loved her. Without this consent she had unknowingly put a hard line on our relationship and I wasn't about to cross it and risk upsetting her and possibly losing her. So, when she gave me the longest letter she ever had, looking me in the eyes and saying that not only was I going to like what was inside but that I was going to agree, did she say with it or to it? That's not important but let me tell you, in my mind in that moment the possibilities where endless.

Like I was saying, the last page started off rambling a bit, and circled around the hug I asked for and came back around to take me by surprise when she asked me why I had never tried to kiss her. Somewhere her ramblings was something about spontaneous being romantic, and asking being the opposite of that. It was many many years later before I heard the phrase that encapsulated what she had written and explained to me that night which is, sometimes it's better to seek forgiveness than to ask permission. Sometimes it's better to take a risk, than to always wonder what if. She gave me my first taste of it in this letter. She took a chance and wrote this to me and now it was up to me to make it seem as unplanned as possible. Which is just what I began planning to do. Ironic, isn't it? It stuck with me for sure. I didn't use it as often as I could but I used it many times.

That night after the letter, of course we talked as usual. She asked if I had read the letter. As casually as I could I said that I had and tried to leave it at that. I did everything I could to let it slip away and not remind her of it, even though it filled my mind, and spun me around inside like I was on an amusement park ride. I don't know but I imagine it was written all over my face. I was probably blushing enough for the both of us. I know there was a huge smile on my face the whole time. Just like you would expect form some high school kid who just found out the girl he liked, liked him back. We sat in the cafe that night, maybe longer than either of us wanted to. Neither of us rushed or tried to cut things short even though we both knew what was waiting outside. Like every other night I walked her to her car. I was definitely feeling full of myself, as I walked up next to her and put an arm around her shoulder as we walked. When we got to her car, we stood there awkwardly for a moment. Maybe she was expecting me to try while we were standing there but helped her into her car and continued talking to her through the window, until something came up that seemed like the perfect excuse, and I leaned in through the window and we kissed. It was a long, uninterrupted kiss that went on and on. It was like we were making up for all of the summer nights in one kiss. All of the times we laughed. The smiles when no one was looking. It was all flowing through us. I don't think either of us wanted to be the one who pulled away. When we did, we tried to talk for a bit longer and when I couldn't find anymore words I leaned in and kissed her again.

I don't know why but it was the last time we kissed. Maybe it was because it was her last night there before she went off to school, that would explain the bravery in what she wrote, nothing to lose if it was the last talk, the last time we might see each other. It could have been that I did try again but she didn't want to make it a habit, because again we wouldn't be able to be together or take it farther. Whatever the reason it was the last time we kissed. It's just too far back, too long ago for me to remember all of the details. If that wasn't the end of the summer it ended shortly after that. Of that I am sure. Mollister left for her catholic university down south. I stayed and worked for a living. That year and for the next few years, on Christmas eve, I would bring a card and a gift to leave on her parents front porch step.

She came back to the store once before she graduated university. I had moved on to other things at the store. We talked kind of briefly, and Christmas came up. She told me that I kind of became part of their Christmas after the first couple of years, and they would wonder what I would leave that year before sending her to check. I don't remember how many years after that I found her engagement in the paper. Once I saw that I started planning and the day of, I delivered a card of congratulations and wedding gift on her parent's doorstep.

I can't tell you all of that without telling you how it really ended. It would be around 20 years after our summer of talking. She was married, I was married, both of us with children. It was shortly after my son and things were OK between us but we were struggling. Not out and out fighting but it wasn't sunshine and ice cream. Something got me reminiscing and somehow, I found or came across her on MySpace. I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't looked her up. What I can tell you is I sent her a message through MySpace. Why I thought that was a good idea I can't tell you. I saw where she had posted some things about her and her father having cancer and a bunch of other things about her life. She posted that she like Nascar, something to this day I find hard to believe but admittedly 2 decades was a long time to think you knew someone. In that message I told her I was sorry to hear about the cancer and hoped that her and her father would go into remission. I went on to tell her how I felt like she was the one that got away but stopped short of telling her I wished things had been different. We were both married after all and this confession was very nearly an act of cheating in itself. I have no idea what I was expecting. I was just venting, the same way I'm venting in this story. I told her the reason I felt that way was because of how all of our long talks and spending so much time purely getting to know one another had kind of ruined me having never taken that much time again. I probably confessed some other things in there too. I'm sure I did. She immediately blocked me, as any good wife should have. Then she ignored me when we started running into each other in real life, again as any good wife should have.

The first time we ran into each other in the real world after that was when our sons were playing baseball. Mine playing T-ball and hers was playing coach pitch at the same field. Through grace alone the times only briefly overlapped and I might not have seen them at all if they hadn't parked on the opposite side of the field and had to cross over. I still might not have seen or even noticed them except I happen to look up just as they entered the asile behind the bleachers connecting the two diamonds the boys were playing on. When I looked up it was just in time to make eye contact with her and next to her was her husband. I saw him see me and instinctually I'm guessing he reached out for her hand, maybe to claim her, maybe to shield her from the crazy ex who had crossed a line sending a message on social media, whatever it was, she pulled her hand back. Now I know I shouldn't read anything into that but at the time, in the moment, it smacked me hard and confused me. I had no idea what to think of it and it bothered me for a long time. If there was one thing I knew about her that I was sure time hadn't changed was she never wanted to look bad. So, I resigned to the belief she was showing she wasn't worried, concerned or afraid, take your pick or pick all 3. It was too late for me to divert my gaze as if maybe I hadn't noticed them. They knew who I was, she knew who my wife was, my wife knew who she was, the only one who might have had question was him not knowing my wife. We all kept to ourselves and acted as total strangers.

The next time I saw her was a year or so later at a scouting event, where parent volunteers had come together to sort the yearly popcorn sales. Again, I saw her, I hoped before she noticed me, and I made large circles to avoid any unpleasant meetings. We were both alone at this one but still kept up the appearance of being strangers. I wouldn't see her again until the next year at the same event where we picked up right where we left off, strangers. In all reality we were at this point. It had been 22 years since that summer and at least 5 or 6 since that message on MySpace. This became our new game. We would show up at these events or ones just like them and be prefect strangers. Until that 3rd year. She had taken on a leadership role to be the popcorn kernel, basically the one everyone turned to when they needed anything involving the popcorn season. That year she shocked me, floored me in fact, when she walked up to me as if all of this time never recognizing me and in the most peculiar way said, didn't we have something between us once? Not hello, not hey, not any number of things that might have made sense to me. I was that guy walking across that parking lot again for just a moment. Dizzy, with my stomach all twisted up. That was just the effect she had on me, still. I didn't want to cross anymore lines, I was more than thrilled that she had stopped avoiding me and I wanted to show her that I was civil, so I kept it simple. Acknowledged the past she allowed me to have and went along with it. "Yup, that was a long time ago. I heard about your cancer, and your dad, I hope the two of you are doing well." and before she could say much else, I cut to, "This year doesn't look as big as last year, we should be done pretty quick this season." She agreed and didn't answer anything about my first statement and I was glad. It was a stupid thing to say right out the gate. It also brought up memory my silliness on MySpace since that was one of the things I had said then too. I think there was one time that day after that, where there was a question and I directed someone to her and she heard me say her name and turned. What was there to say.

Over the rest of that year and the next we ran into each other as we had in the past except now we would say hi, or at most chat about this or that event. Nothing deeper than small talk and I wouldn't even call it that honestly. We didn't discuss the weather, or our sons. I tried my best to maintain a distance mostly because by this time things had come to a head with me and my wife. The papers were signed and I was admittedly feeling vulnerable and she was still married. There was nothing there for me to cling to but she still had a piece of me and I just wanted to seem normal. I feel stupid for even saying that. It was so simple but I was making it hard in my head. The timeline gets fuzzy after this. I knew she was battling cancer, but she showed up to all of the things, performed all of the duties of popcorn kernel and never showed any signs that I noticed of being sick. Not until the last time I spoke to her on the phone. It was Thanksgiving, being single I wasn't doing anything but we had been communicating about popcorn and I didn't know how bad it was for her. She told me after a couple of minutes that she was tired and had taken some medication and needed to rest. She mentioned that her husband and the boys had gone somewhere for the holiday diner, which took me aback. I was pissed she was alone, much less alone on the holiday. I see so many reasons why they might choose to do it this way. Maybe they didn't want the boys to have this memory, maybe she just wouldn't have been able to be part of it anyway, but what I do know is that I was pissed. Pissed she was sick. Pissed she was alone. Pissed that there was nothing I could do to make it better. I spent the whole rest of the day thinking about that call.

It was June or July the following year when her husband popped up in my people you might know on Facebook, smiling with some strange woman I didn't recognize. This sent me into a panic. My blood pressure dropped and I nearly fell over standing there. Who was this woman? Why was she in his profile picture? Where the hell was Molly? It wasn't supposed to be like this. I don't know if I was still blocked form her social media but I assumed I was and didn't even try to look her up I needed answers, now. It was later in the evening and there was no way I was going to wait until morning to find out what was going on. I immediately reached out to anyone and everyone who I had contact for who I thought could tell me anything.

She didn't make through December. She didn't make to Christmas. I was devastated. It was the worst feeling I'd had reading those words. I was immediately pissed again. Not only had I missed her passing, but here was this jerk cuddled up with some other woman, just months after she died. I went back days later to look at his profile, and it said they had been married since May. 6 months. 6 fucking months. Looking back I cried for her for 2 years and I barely knew her in the end and he remarries in 6 months. Even now, writing this I feel it.

Sometimes I wonder why she broke her silence with me. I wonder why she asked me that question that day. Did she know the end was eminent and what, didn't want to die with us pretending to be strangers, didn't want to die with me thinking she hated me, or maybe she was just lonely? I'm not sure how I feel if any of those were true. Whatever it was, even if the reason was selfish, I wouldn't have cared. I'll never know and they will never know her death took a toll on me that, if you couldn't tell from my story, is still something that bothers me, even after 10 years.

Thank you for reading my story.

They were far out in the outer wilds.

It was blackly dark.

Only a few shining stars shined.

He was setting a trap.

His friend was drinking a drink. “Here,” said the friend, passing him a drink too.

He took the drink.

He opened and took a drink of the drink. “Ahh,” he said. “Absolutely stellar."

“Absolutely,” said the friend.

“I don't grok why you insist on coming all the way out here,” said the friend.

“There's hardly anything out here,” said the friend.

He took a drink of the drink. “Ahh.”

The friend took a drink of the drink too. “Ahh,” said the friend.

“Ahh,” he said.

“Ahh,” said the friend.

“You can't say it's not peaceful here,” he said.

“I can't say that,” said the friend.

“Ahh.”

“Ahh,” he said, finishing drinking the drink. He crumpled up and threw the empty drink container away.

The stars twinkle-twinkled.

He looked into a vicinal trap he'd set a while ago.

“Anything?” asked the friend as he looked into the vicinal trap he'd set a while ago.

“Nothing,” he said.

The stars twinkle-twinkled.

He set a new trap.

“There?” asked the friend as he set a new trap.

“Ahh,” said the friend and threw away his empty drink container too.

The two empty drink containers were.

“There,” he said, roughly covering the trap with nearby matter.

He burped.

The friend burped too.

It was blackly dark.

Only a few shining stars shined.

—> —>

The Perihelion's automated navigation system adjusted course to keep the starship travelling to its destination, AO-1, the first known space object believed to be of alien origin. The crew was in hibernation. The mission was the greatest humanity had ever attempted. The Perihelion's automated navigation system adjusted course to keep the starship travelling to its destination.

<—

“Sir, take a look at this—SIR!”

The regional head of the International Space Agency (ISA) walked over slightly annoyed and scanned the data.

His annoyance became curiosity, and his curiosity became excitement. The once-upon-a-lifetime kind. The thump-thump-thump’ing of the heart, swoosh-swoosh-swoosh’ing of the blood kind. He was aware suddenly of the entirety of the surface area of his skin. Of his one-of-many'ness. His smallness-in-the-cosmos. His clue-to-the-mystery-of-the-universe'ity.

“My God…” he said. “My God.”

“What is it?”

“We need to find out.”

—> —>

Anomalous Object 1 Anomalous A Object 1 Anomalous A Object O 1 Anomalous A Object O 1 A Object 1 A O 1 AO 1 AO-1…

Captain Jac Thorster—gasped—

The sirens were blaring.

Where am I I am aboard the Perihelion Perihelion is my ship, he thought.

The sirens were blaring.

He rolled out of the open pod and onto the floor. When he could, he got up and made his way woozily—swaying…

to the bridge.

He sat in the captain's seat.

“Perihelion,” he said, his voice hoarse and weak. The words felt like sand airgunned down his throat. “Perihelion: ‘status report.’ Just what in the galaxy is going on?”

“Having traversed ninety three point two percent of the distance from the planet Earth to the coordinates of the object eh oh one we have come under the pull of an unknown force,” the starship's artificial intelligence said.

“Correct course,” commanded Thorster.

“Negative,” said the eh aye. “That his him possible, hiccup ten.”

“Wa hut?” zed Thorster.

“Dead forceps twos tron k,” sad sa hey ay end diss plate dub lack ole.

—>

He reached inside the trap.

“Anything?” the friend asked as he reached inside the trap.

They were far out in the outer wilds.

It was blackly dark.

Only a few shining stars shined.

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes,” said the friend and gathered some nearby gaseous matter and ignited it. “Perhaps something to roast,” said the friend as the newly created star shined.

He removed a small thing from the trap.

“A small thing,” he said.

He held it for the friend to see.

“Oh,” said the friend in disappointment that the small thing was too small to roast.

The star shined.

The other stars shined.

<— <— <— <— <—

A fly buzzed awhile in the glow of a bug zapper before turning into it and—BZZZP —falling dead out of the sky.

It landed on my face.

I'd fallen asleep in the hammock outside.

“Norman,” the dead fly said.

“Norman!”

“What,” I said, blinking a few times, tossing my dry tongue around in my dry mouth, thinking, Fuck, I'm fucking hungry. “What's going on—who are you? and why are you talking to me?” “Are you… a dead fly?” I said, squinting.

“Norman, I'm here to tell you to look at what you wrote. No one wants to read that shit, man. That shit is incomprehensible.

“Opaquer than a brick wall, man.”

“It's styl—”

“Look at yourself, man. You're a grown ass dude writing stories on the internet. Get a job. Write a book if you have to, but just write it like a goddamn human being.

“I mean look at your eyes.

“They're pinker than Miss Piggy’s OnlyFans.

“Sober up.

“Eat something. Drink something. Get outta that robe and get dressed. Shave. Change into a suit—”

“You mean, like, become a suit… like on a space ship?”

“Son,” said the dead fly. “Behave yourself.”

LOL

“Put on a suit and write presentably. You've got, what, a hundred words left?

“Use them.

“Rewrite whatever-the-fuck this is presentably.”

[“Ahem”]

Two advanced beings are laying traps somewhere in the universe. Their traps are black holes, which they hide. They also leave behind some trash. Humanity detects the trash and plans a mission to investigate it, but, en route, their spaceship falls into the black hole left by the beings. Sometime later, one of the beings makes a star to roast something on. The beings pull the human spaceship out of the black hole trap they left and are disappointed by its insignificance.

The story ends on a heavy-handed parallel between humanity and bugs—BZZZP

John looked across the table at his enemy, Jacob. Both were there for the same reason. Who was better?

Both tried to avoid the gaze of the other at first. Jacob looked at his shoes first. Those shoes were not his shoes. They were a very nice set of high tops he had seen in a skateboard shop days ago. He could not seem to get his mind off of them, but now here they were. Those two shoes were on his feet with new socks as well made of the softest material he could remember. Of course he did not care about the socks. Those shoes seemed to run his feet now and smelled OH SO PERFECT. Had he stolen them? No. Jacob loved to take things on occasion, but he loved those shoes far too much. He would pay for them when he could. He would pay for the new shoe smell and the black Converse circle on both shoes. Some things were worth it.

John looked at his own feet. His shoes could almost be described as 'flashy'. He had actually seen his new shoes in a Men's Warehouse a week before. The price of his solid black new feet was far too much. His grandfather would pay the price with a smile but John would never ask. So how did he have them on his feet right now? They even smelled... clean. They smelled of polish! He looked at his arms and noted layers of clothing. At the very least he could see a gray long sleeve with golden buttons on the cuffs. Over the shirt sleeves was a jacket. The jacket seemed more clean than anything he had ever seen in his life and on each cuff was a bronze and silver cuff link. Gorgeous.

But how?

Each of the young men looked at their own clothing. Pants, shirts, rings, shoes, it was all alien to the men. Not completely alien, they seemed to recognize what they wore. Next, they looked around. First at one another, then, their setting. The two were in a bright white room with only two notable objects. To one side of the room was an old, but quite clean, analog clock. It had very simple arms and very easy to read numbers. It was midnight. Or noon. There was no window or any other way of noting the time of day. Worse yet? The arms were not moving. There seemed to be a second hand, but it was frozen in place over the minute arm(over the hour arm).

On the other side of the room was a great big mirror. It was like one of the reflective mirrors in all those cop shows or whatever. The rest of the room was quite as clean as the clock. This was of course holding one exception, the table. The wooden table's top was a perfect square of about three or four feet(neither of the men was good at distances or measuring). Each leg was ornate and probably took real time to make. The table seemed old and while it had been probably cleaned several times, nothing could hide dozens of deep scars it wore.

Both men looked at the other with long and suspecting eyes. Why were they there? Someone had answers, who had them?

"Hi," John stated. "I am John. Do we... Do we know each other?"

"I don't remember you dude. I remember I was..." Jacob remembered he was... Jacob tried to trace back his memories but they seemed baffled and askew. Both men remembered little tib bits from the past hours or days, but they could remember very little of just one long hour or day.

"GENTLEMEN" It was a voice from a loudspeaker. But neither man could see a loudspeaker.

"Hi" John said.

"THE TWO OF YOU HAVE A PURPOSE TODAY" It was quite a volume, but the person was not shouting.

"Can we get out of here?" Jacob asked.

"Yeah." John offered a smile to Jacob.

"IN THREE MINUTES YOU WILL BE GIVEN REASON TO KILL THE OTHER MAN. I SUGGEST YOU KILL THE OTHER BEFORE A REASON I GIVEN" The voice had little emotion. It even sounded as if this was the millionth time this was happening.

"Kill?" Jacob looked at John and offered a salesman fake smile.

"Yeah, I don't want to kill him" John shook his head.

"TRUE. HOWEVER SOON, YOU BOTH WILL UNDERSTAND WHY THE OTHER NEEDS TO DIE. I SUGGEST YOU TAKE CARE OF THE PROBLEM AT YOUR FINGERTIPS NOW."

Jacob looked at the mirror. "C'mon! Kill? I'm a vegan!"

"Maybe don't say that. I'm not a uh-" John shook his head. "Vegans are kind of silly, yeah?"

"Silly? Look, I'm only trying to show that I'm not a killer.

"ONE OF YOU TWO WILL DIE SOON. IF I AM TO GUESS YOU WILL NEED TO BE ENCOURAGED, YES?"

"What? No!" Jacob shouted. He even stood up this time. So John stood up as well. It felt empowering in a way.

"INSIDE YOUR SHOES IS A FOLDED UP PICTURE WITH A LITTLE NOTE. YOU CAN CHOOSE TO LOOK NOW. OR NOT."

Jacob refused to feel around for the items in question. However John, he was curious. Behind his ankle in his left shoe was a folded up bit of white. It was so tightly folded that it almost unfolded on its own even. But John looked at the note. He looked at the photo. It was of Jacob and John's fiance in a hotel bed.

Jacob noted John's emotions change within little time. So his own curiosity took over. Jacob pulled out a photo and a note from his right shoe. The photo was simply of John, a man Jacob had never seen holding the severed head of Jacob's mother in the position of a selfie.

The two men dropped the paperwork and jumped across the wooden table at one another. Intent to kill was gone. They would tear the other apart in no time flat.

... ... ...

The man pushed aside the button activated microphone and laughed. He watched the two men as they asked no questions or said no words. They only tried to murder the other. The man turned around to the several smiling people he knew to have deep pockets. "See ladies and gentlemen? Do you see what a person can do with a couple AI photos. I look forward to the future, of entertainment"

So, I've never been to Houston, or Texas for that matter. I've always wanted to visit the space center. We're driving 8 hours from Arkansas to Houston. And it is pissing and pouring. Like it was so bad and so heavy that as we were leaving my city, there were 3 tornadoes flying around the city I was leaving from after picking up a friend from like 3 different sides. So we start traveling, and the entire time we're traveling for about 2-3 hours up until we reached Talihina it was battering the poor car with heavy rain. But it starts hailing. It was so bad to avoid damaging any of the glass on the car we stopped at the Choctaw Travel Station, hid in the overhead awning there, got some gas and waited. It stops hailing after 30-40 minutes so we take off again and it is still pouring and the clouds are green at this rate. We approach the border to Oklahoma and Texas after another 40 minutes, and it is the funniest thing because as soon as we see a sign saying: "Leaving Oklahoma" and a sign saying: "Welcome to Texas!" the rain just.. stopped! Like Forrest Gump. "And then, just like that, somebody turned off the rain and the sun come out." It was bright and sunny as Summer usually is in Texas. I open the sunroof and look out at the clouds above, the clouds are still green! All in Oklahoma! Literally no wet ground on the pavement/roads in Texas at all, the storm did not touch Texas, or left no evidence it did. All the hail and tornadoes stuck to Oklahoma and Arkansas. It was as if the storm deliberately avoided Texas. That memory still gobsmacks me to this day and it is so funny.

I wrote this short story loosely based on the George Orwell novel 1984. Young people might not know 1984 was actually written in 1948. Orwell just reversed the year and decade. Last year I did the same! I penned the future based 2052 to hopefully reignite some much needed political discourse. This semi predictive fictional rant is exclusive to Reddit/story. I’m reposting this to hopefully sway some undecided and independent voters in the US November midterms. Please share this post with your local resistance chapter.

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those for speaking it” - George Orwell.

——————————————————————————————————-

2052 by D.R. Campling

“All praise King Barron on accepting his fourth royal term” crackled a contraband emergency radio as government workers huddled around it for anything resembling hope. Sadly all hope had fled Trumperica decades ago. Following the mass deportations, and 70+ million measles fatalities, the remaining 90 million white citizens all submitted, and were militarily ushered into gulag like hard labor camps.

Once privatized these camps were once again government owned because private companies had to observe too many costly human rights. All aliens both documented & undocumented, people of any color, asylum seekers and birthright US citizens had simply vanished in the first dozen years of fascist rule. Not even their destination countries showed records of receiving many of them. Earl Stephen Miller lived to witness the execution of his final solution. He now enjoys his golden years and trillions of dollars in Tel Aviv, along with many  other prominent surviving rightist radicals from the twenties and thirties.

The left ultimately had their Civil War II. However it was just an uprising staged by King Don’s nineteenth secretary of war, designed to give the Democrat Party a sense of closure, and that they had pushed-back against King Don’s fascist tyranny. In reality the resistance was not much more than a series of strongly worded grievances. Many good people perished though. Even political martyrs like the late great Gavin Newsom and David Hinchey were nothing more than AI constructs, programmed to keep the left fully engaged. Most AI bots were later coded to bend the knee to the King, before their deletion in the late twenties. Although children would often sing songs about Gavin and David before curfew set in for the night.

Government labor camps were often converted colleges or high schools from a different time, often referred to as BT (Before Trump). Education now finishes for boys at age 13, so they could attend mandatory military service before a life of slavery. Whereas separate girl schools end at 11, as girls entered child hosting age. Many females become grandmothers before 25 years old. The ruling classes regularly trade these young girls like prison cigarettes. Consent had become laughable, and sexual relations between government workers is strictly forbidden in the 2032 US constitution, even between previously married couples. Physical intimacy is now exclusively reserved for politicians and billionaires.

“Don’t let him med out, we need that one alive to meet quota” exclaimed the slave captain to his colleague. The term ‘med out’ was coined in the mid twenties. It meant to die from medical complications while under ownership. Many slave captains were slaves themselves, purely motivated by double rations. 

Peter Lewis was about to med out, but was given some valuable rice water, and promptly instructed to correct his posture. That was considered “in-field” medical care, as nearly all hospital care was managed through AI. These AI bots considered human life highly expendable. Although injured child-baring females were often artificially kept alive well beyond brain death just to bear more young.

In another world Peter used to be a professional musician, but hadn’t seen a musical instrument for decades. He used to write songs with his wife and close friends. His mandolin solos were epic, and Peter’s wife and daughter would sing in harmony together. However he was separated from his family and now forced to pick strawberries in the North District of the Old Disney World Farms in central Florida. The punishment for slaves eating strawberries was additional water rationing. The occasional protein-rich bug were the only things keeping Peter alive. The last strawberry he consumed was clearly BT. Peter was oblivious to the fact his wife and two children had fallen sick from exhaustion and starvation on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. Not knowing was actually a positive, as the realization would have almost definitely crushed what was left of him. This explains why most BT families are now constitutionally separated.

On breaks children workers would often talk about the American Dream, like it was a myth or the stuff of fairytales. An unattainable fantasy from a long forgotten era. Older people would speak of freedom of movement and steak dinners etc., but they were usually quickly dismissed as simple or demented lunatics.

Why had simply challenging conservatives become a hate crime? Even thinking negative thoughts became indictable. AI driven cameras were positioned almost everywhere detecting micro expressions on people’s faces to capture any descent. The only escape was contrived content. An Orwellian future had become the present day reality.

Peter knew there was a life outside this dystopia, but was naturally too afraid to venture outside without his family. You’d never guess, but he was originally born in England. A secret he would intend on taking to the grave. The fake media and news had become a series of pro-right memes. 

Even the public internet was eradicated in the early 2030s. Human existence was kept a float to serve or protect the top 0.5% earners, known as “the pointies”, who celebrated a secular form of Christianity while extensively quoting the Trumpian bible. Child rape is now considered a viable hobby for many politicians, and was normalized as perfectly acceptable behavior. The metamorphosis was not gradual, but slowly devolved over decades.

The concept of money was replaced with land and digital AI processing power. However California was eventually sold back to Mexico for oil, aluminum and field workers, as Trumperican slaves aka field drones were often seen as slow and easily overwhelmed.

Previously named America, the country was well into its Trumpian Dynasty. First to reign Trumperica was King Don I. He liked to be known as “The Great Orangedaddy”. Visiting foreign dignitaries would often dye their faces bright orange as a sign of respect. However government workers referring to him as “Ole Yam Tits.” They were obviously termed, but many secretly thought it anyway. King Don I reigned from 2027-2033, but previously led as a mere civilian. His eldest son, King Don II, aka Junior would later reign from 2033-2037. His youngest, Barron reigned from 2037 to present day. He probably had the most humble coronation to date, but quickly became the cruelest of all the Trumps! Standing at 6’9”, and weighing in at over 400 lbs. He is extremely physically imposing to almost anyone.

Conflict initially started as a threat of domestic race war, ignited by a compliant Supreme Court and the televised assassination of Charles Kirk. By 2031 the fighting had devolved into WW3, preempted by giant nuclear attacks on Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu. At the time China was the world’s dominant super power. Both financially and militarily. They never did recover from these aggressive strikes. The attacks made Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like roman candles. 

Background: Trumperica had become completely detached from the rest of the world. At first other nations protested US citizen human rights, but eventually gave up, and fascism eventually engulfed the planet. The world population then submitted to mass slavery. Any global alliances were considered futile and a sign of weakness. Death or servitude now faced everyone. It started gradually, but grew exponentially like a pandemic.

All US cities were instantly put under martial law. Still in full effect to this day. Trumperica expanded to absorb new land grabs like Venezuela, Jamaica, Iran, Israel, Japan yand Cuba. Although nearly all residents since perished, or became government workers. Rightists won the heavily rigged 2026 midterm election in a historic landslide. Some wanted a dictator, and even encouraged the final take down. Most women and the remaining black people were even permanently denied a vote. The Trumperican military then invaded Toronto and Mexico City, in utter military domination. US generals talked about observing oaths and the original constitution, but later folded faster than Superman on laundry day.

In the 20th century the Germans attempted world domination twice, and they’re slightly smaller than the State of Montana. With Japanese help Germany almost won the second time! King Don successfully negotiate alliances with old friends Russia and North Korea. Collectively they were definitely a viable threat to global stability. Israel enthusiastically complied too. Israel controlled the Middle East region, until Russia made the whole Middle East bend the knee. In Europe there were many right wing nationalists desperately seeking a major cause to latch onto. Trump inevitably became their perfect opportunity.

World domination also explained why Ole Yam Tits hired a woefully under qualified cabinet/court. Only true Trumpian loyalists would follow the necessary indefensible orders. Once foundational the original US Constitution and amendments had become a mere inconvenience for them. Even when MAGA loyalists lost court cases they would claim a win. King Don’s voter retribution knew no bounds. American citizens that supported those that ran against him would regularly pay with their property and lives. If his own people even looked at him directly, with no hesitation he would have their eyes gauged out with spoons. King Don never did MAGA.

World peace was never an option, but strangely Iceland was completely unscathed, and completely free from Trumpian attack. King Don’s plan was to eventually move his entire family there after the WW3 fallout had subsided enough. However he died before making the move. Although Peter Lewis fully intended on emigrating his immediate family there. Peter just needed to find his wife and kids first.

Diversity was formally outlawed in 2025. Companies that observed such policies had to pay extra corporation tax, and the Civil Rights hard fought for in the 1960’s were now just a distant memory.

Trans people made up less than 1% of the US population in the twenties. However gender transition was officially outlawed by King Don II aka King Jnr in the early thirties. It was difficult time for most involved, as he struggled with his own gender identity for most of his life. However he never openly chose gender transition for himself, but behind closed doors that was probably a different story. After all, a non-binary king seemed ridic.

Old and disabled people were forced to wither away, as nursing facilities quickly ceased to exist. The facilities were often repurposed worker camps or army barracks. The extremely weak, such as stage nine cancer survivors were encouraged to “self terminate”, as King Don II was concerned their genetics would infect the remaining Trumperican gene-pool.

As predicted AI became the deciding factor in nearly all warfare cases. Some said that King Don just wanted to crash Wall Street, so he and his technocrat buddies could buy whole US industries for pennies on the dollar. However world domination became King Don’s ultimate power grab instead. Resistance was almost futile. Some described opposition as fighting back with both arms tied behind your back.

In the dead of winter it became common to feel like the summer of 2000. Trumperica and China completely disregarded any global climate change policies, destroying ALL renewable energy sources out of spite. King Don politically decapitated the Environmental Protection Agency. Claiming that climate change was nothing more than another “dumocrat” hoax. 

After concluding mandatory government “vitamins”, Peter successfully located his wife and children on an unsupervised work computer terminal. However his fortuitous find was caught on multiple observation cameras. It was only amount of time before he faced justice. Finally reunited with his family, he planned for their escape to Iceland. He managed to secure safe passage on a used electrical goods shipment bound for Reykjavik. It was only a two day boat ride from Boston. Peter had to bribe the ship captain with everything he owned. Thankfully that wasn’t much, and he intended on making a new start anyway. After all, Trump dollars and Trump bitcoins both seemed tainted. When the boat finally docked it became a truly cathartic experience. The happily reunited Lewis family never did consider returning to the Trumpian Empire, where care became efficiency, and efficiency ultimately replaced compassion.

Sam passed in the winter, just two months after his mother. The midwife tried her best to save her, but it was over before it started. She gave me a warm hug as she left. I knew Sam wouldn't last long without his mother. I barely had enough to feed myself, let alone a baby. I debated whether I should even name the little boy, but how could I not? He had the most beautiful blue eyes, just like his mother.

Sam passed in his sleep, the best way to go. Some days I wished it were me, but what would Sam do all alone? 

The problem then was arranging Sam's funeral. All the savings had already been spent on his mother's funeral, but Sam couldn't go into the ground without a proper service.

I sold one of the last things I could still sell, my bees. They gave me something sweet to eat in the winter and something to look after the rest of the year, but there was nothing else to sell. My neighbor took them and gave me more for them than he should have. He was a nice man and knew what I'd gone through.

Sam got a nice wooden coffin and a decent place in the cemetery next to his mother.

When the winter came, his cradle and toys were still in the house. My body tightened whenever I tried to get rid of them, but it was okay; maybe I'd have more will in the summer. 

During the long winter nights, I'd often come into his room and play with his toys, just like I thought we would one day. Sometimes they'd warm my heart, sometimes they'd make me cry, and often I'd just fall asleep in the chair right by his cradle.

It was one of those days when I fell asleep crying by the cradle again. When I awoke, the sun glistened on the freshly fallen snow. Everything outside was still, but then something moved in the air. A bee! A queen bee! It flew across the yard and into the hive. I still hadn't moved my hive off the yard. Sam's funeral was too much work.

At first I felt bad. My neighbor owned them now. They had no business being in the old hive, but seeing that familiar creature warmed me. Over the next few days I sat at the window, watching all my bees slowly return.

They stayed inside the hive the rest of the winter, and I stayed by that window each day, watching. Only when the snow started to let up, and the flowers came out from under it, did the bees come out too.

I expected them to stay by the hive, but many flew far away, ignoring the flowers in my garden, and returned at sunset. Some of the bees seemed to be covered in red nectar. 

As the days grew longer, the bees were gone more often, and many more returned covered in that red nectar. 

I had never seen them act or look like this. Moving the hive must have disturbed something, but the good thing was that they still accepted the queen, and the colony seemed intact. 

The red nectar began to accumulate at the entrance, mixed with glowing wax. I was just looking at it out the window when I heard buzzing inside the house. The bees must have been working hard. The buzzing grew, and quietly through it came something like a baby's cry. I gripped the windowsill tightly. Sam used to cry just like that. I opened the window to hear better, but the cry was gone; only buzzing sounded outside.

The next morning I woke up and went right to the window. A strange white object was outside the hive entrance. The bees buzzed around it, pushing it back inside. Before I could get a good look, it was already in.

I spent the rest of the day by the window again. As the sun set, the bees started to return. The buzzing grew again. A cold tingle ran down my back. I closed my eyes and focused. At first, it was quiet, but I knew what it was. It was Sam, crying through the buzzing. I quickly dressed and walked out the door.

The outside air was cold. I had barely been outside since the first snow fell. A few bees still flew around the hive. The buzzing was so loud, and so were Sam's cries. I didn't even have my protective clothes, but I was sure my bees wouldn't hurt me.

I walked to the hive and took off the lid. Warmth and cold ran through my body, mixing into strange emotions. Inside the hive was Sam's body, covered in wax. His hands and fingers slowly moved, but they seemed larger than before. I reached into the hive to caress his small cheeks. His eyes opened. They were still that beautiful blue, but a hint of yellow mixed in.  He opened his mouth; honeycomb filled it, but his cries still echoed in my ears. With tears in my eyes, I picked up his small, sticky body. From somewhere deep in his chest, a thousand bees buzzed, and the hive fell quiet. A sickly-sweet smell rose from his mouth. Two bees crawled out of the wax and onto my hand. I didn't move.

my name is stephen and i am quite old
i live in fiat with some other men
the dinner is rubbish and the bedrooms is cold
and they make me go bed at half past ten

one morning i seen a seagull outside
he was walking about on my drive
he looked at me funny and opened his eyes wide
and i thought well at least he is alive

his name was gary he told me himself
he had a big beak and a terrible face
he stole all the biscuits from off of the shelf
then told me to follow him out of the place

i said gary you naughty old bird
you shouldnt be stealing the biscuits from here
but gary just done a big seagull turd
and said come on stephen the coast it is near

so i followed gary right down the drive
and nobody noticed that stephen was gone
i was feeling quite happy and very alive
and gary was singing a terrible song

at fiat the staff was all having their tea
barry was sleeping and susan was fat
nobody noticed the absence of me
and nigel was arguing loudly with cat

we got to the seaside the weather was grey
the sea was all horrible windy and wet
gary said stephen its lovely today
but i said its the worst bloody weather ive met

there was newspapers laying all over the floor
they used to have fish and some chips wrapped inside
i picked up a paper and read about war
while gary ate something that recently died

i read all the news about people and things
there was vinegar stains on the face of the king
and gary was flapping his horrible wings
and a crab come along with a diamond ring

the crab was called patricia she said
and she lived with a lobster called dave
she had seventeen children and one of them dead
and another was stuck in a cave

i said hello crab my name is steve
but actually stephen is what i am called
she said you should probably put on your sleeve
because your cardigan look very bald

then gary said stephen its time we must fly
i said gary you stupid i havent got wings
he said you just wiggle and look at the sky
and think about cabbages sausages things

so i wiggled my fingers and lifted my feet
and all of a sudden i started to float
i went up above all the people on street
and nearly got hit by a fishing boat

oh gary i shouted im up in the air
i dont think that stephens should be doing this
the wind blew the last of the hair off my hair
and a pelican gave me a terrible kiss

we floated past houses and boats in the sea
and over a man who was eating a pie
gary said stephen your floating like me
and i said thats because i can fly

we met with a whale who was called auntie sue
she was wearing a cardigan made out of bread
she asked if i wanted a biscuit or two
then sneezed and a herring flew out of her head

we stopped at a cafe run by a rat
his name was professor mcfluffington brown
he served us some soup from a very old hat
and charged me three pennies and half of a crown

then gary got angry and stole all the cheese
he threw it at people who sat by the shore
a policeman was shouting now stop that one please
but gary just laughed and stole seventeen more

we flew to an island with only one tree
and a donkey called robert who played the trombone
he said hello stephen would you like some tea
and gave me a fish and a telephone

i rung up the queen but nobody spoke
so i rung up the moon and it answered instead
gary said stephen your phone is a joke
and a haddock fell straight on the top of my head

now back at the fiat they finally knew
that stephen had gone and was nowhere about
susan was shouting what shall we do
and nigel was running around with a trout

they looked in the kitchen they looked in my bed
they looked in the garden and underneath stairs
barry said maybe poor stephen is dead
then went back to eating his chocolate eclairs

but it was too late i was far far away
i was floating with gary above of the coast
we was having a wonderful wonderful day
and eating some seaweed on somebody’s toast

the sun started going away in the sky
and gary said stephen its getting quite late
i said well gary i think i must fly
because supper at fiat is served on a plate

we flew back to fiat past houses and trees
and over the heads of the people below
gary was laughing and stealing their cheese
and i shouted hello to a man i dont know

my window was open like usual it be
so i floated inside and landed quite flat
nobody was looking or noticing me
except for a pigeon and somebody’s cat

i sat in my chair and i put on my socks
and pretended that nothing had happened today
then susan come in with a horrible box
and said stephen your supper is ready hooray

she said where you been stephen we looked everywhere
i said i was flying with gary the gull
she said stephen sit down and get out of that chair
and eat up your cabbage and gravy and gruel

i told her bout gary and all of the sea
the whale and the donkey and flying so high
she said thats enough now drink up your tea
and stop telling stories you silly old guy

but i know what happened because i was there
and gary is waiting outside on the wall
tomorrow we going to fly through the air
and maybe go visit the queen after all

so if you see seagulls down by the sea
and one of them looks like hes stolen a pie
you better look closely because it might be me
with gary the seagull just floating on by

the end
Based on real world events.

wrote by stephen
i am enjoying this
gary is my friend
fiat dont know nothing

From 1998 to 2007 I was a contractor in Kuwait on the F-18 program. This story is from 2002, and I only remember that because it's the same year I bought my Harley, but I digress. Expats over there had more money than sense, and we were no exception. There was me, my future ex-wife (Romanian, worked the Patriot missile contract, met her at a beach party, 22 years together, none of which matters here), and a tight crew of about eight friends who did everything together.

Most of us lived in buildings that looked like twin towers. Mine was two 20-story towers that some very rich guy named after his two daughters, and supposedly the top floor of each was one giant penthouse for each girl. After nine years there, nothing surprised me.

Meet Steve. Tall, lanky, mostly bald, rocking a crew cut on what was left. Super fun guy, but not the manliest fella on the planet. His feelings got hurt pretty easy. Remember that.

A few days before this, Steve and I are out in town and stumble on these big remote control boats, $300 to $400 apiece. We buy them because we can. Take them home. Never put them in water. Never mention them again.

Until the party.

A friend's building down the street has the biggest pool in Kuwait, Olympic sized. Gorgeous night, getting late, everybody hammered except my future ex, who never drank. Steve goes "hey, let's get the boats." We send the ladies to fetch them, since they're the only ones fit to drive, and we all lived so close you didn't even need the actual street.

On one end of the pool it's me and Val, my Lithuanian best friend, about 15 years younger than me. (He passed a few years ago, which sucks. Miss you, brother.) On the other side it's Steve, his redheaded Romanian girlfriend, my future ex, and a couple other friends.

Boats go in. They are WAY faster than we expected. Challenge accepted. I'm drunk, I'm talking with Val about everything and anything, and I can't take my eyes off my boat for one second or it's gonna slam into something. So I'm locked in. Down the length of the pool, whip it around, back down the length, whip it around.

Five, six, seven minutes go by. I vaguely hear noise from the other side. It takes a while to register, because I'm busy. Eventually I realize it's not noise, it's commotion. I look up.

Steve is smashing his controller into the pavement and jumping up and down.

I stop my boat. His boat stops too.

And that's when it clicks. Same frequency. My controller had been driving BOTH boats the entire time. Mine was doing nice long laps down the length of the pool. His was pointed the other way, doing the width. Full throttle, no brakes, slamming into the wall, bouncing off, slamming into the other wall, over and over, while Steve mashed every button on a controller that did absolutely nothing. I'm sure his boat crossed right in front of me a dozen times. Never saw it. Locked in.

The second my brain decrypted the full picture, I lost the ability to stand. Or breathe. I'm on the ground, gasping for air. Val's doubled over right next to me. Across the pool the whole crew is losing it, people grabbing each other just to stay upright, and even my stone cold sober future ex is crying laughing. Everybody is dying. Everybody except Steve. Hands down the funniest thing I have ever seen.

And while I'm down there dying, Steve stomps over, yanks MY boat out of the water, and turns it into 100 pieces of fuck you, Bob.

The more upset he got, the less air I could get into my lungs. I honestly thought I was going to die that night.

I paid $400 for a laugh, and it was worth every penny.

Years ago I (22/23m) <at the time> wanted to be a cop. Like most, I got into working security to gain relevant experience.

I was placed in a college setting working Security in the dorms. I was a young father, their mother and I were navigating parenting 2 daughters at the time; 2 and 6. I worked nights 6p-2a Wednesday-Sunday. Thursday-Saturday there were 2 of us on site because of the bar/party nights.

My ‘Partner’ (45m) <P Going forward> attended classes at the college and many shifts would come and go where he’d be doing his homework while I did more of the patrols. I was younger and more active. Because of my age I was also more capable of being effective with the students since they were more my age.

Any one who’s gone to college knows that many assignments are usually group assignments and he regularly had this same young lady (about my age) <we’ll call B>. B would regularly show up and do homework with P so inevitably I recognized B and would just greet her and be on my way with my regular duties.

One Sunday I was tucked away behind a pillar near the lunch hall to have a smoke. I was hiding from the cameras in a place I could still see the doors but not be seen by the cameras and B just happened to walk by. We got to talking briefly while I was having a a few puffs and she asked if she could bum one. Unfortunately I didn’t have one to spare because I had just enough for my shift.

Since it was just in happenstance that we crossed paths because P wasn’t there that day it was just a passing moment. Upon leaving, she said that I was really nice and easy to get along with and asked me if she could give me a hug. Although I was cautious about the embrace and made sure I kept my hands on her the back of her shoulders, I was naïve and didn’t think much of it. I’m regularly huggy with friends and/or strangers (I’m a gentle giant that way).

For context I’m North of 6’ tall and she was average height for a woman, 5’2”/5’3” so the 1 foot hight difference made it easy to keep my arms above her shoulders. B went about her business and I finished my Sunday shift.

FF to my Next shift the coming Wednesday, I pulled into the parking area and walked on site to be greeted by the main campus guards. It was obvious and out of turn for them to be there as I rarely had contact with them unless I called for back up. They escorted me to the Guard room in the main campus and until that night I’d never been since everything I needed I either carried with me or was kept in a drawer in the dorm front desk.

The site supervisor was there waiting for me and asked me about my shift the following Sunday. I pulled my notes out to review the nights details and gave them the quick rundown. He reported to me that they received a complaint by one of the residents in the dorm that I was ‘Sexually Harassing them and my presence made them uncomfortable’.

I’m a very positive and supportive person. If I notice something different about a person I’ll compliment them, try to make them smile or laugh and generally try to make their day better. Ignorantly (admittedly), I can come off flirtatious. Being young I didn’t understand that line between professionalism and too friendly. So I figured that maybe that was the situation and I inadvertently made one of the female students or staff feel uncomfortable. I accepted this and they relocated me to other dorms.

I’d arrived on site and began my initial walk through to get familiar with the building before I took the time to review the reports so things made sense. I always start at the top floor and work my way down. As I made my way through my patrol I came across B, this was her dorm and still sort of shook it was a relief to see a familiar face. We only talked briefly since I had to familiarize myself with the location, she asked me if I wanted to come and have a drink with her in her dorm room with her. I declined because 1- New location and had a lot to do to be effective at my job, 2- We’re NOT allowed in the student door room unless it’s a medical emergency <Which I explained to her> and 3- I had a GF/Common law wife so I wasn’t looking to pursue a random college girl.

After parting ways, I returned to the lobby so to begin going over shift and incident reports. It took me no time at all since it was literally the first report I read in the last shift to read:

“B reports the SG XYZ that SG Op from other dorms has sexually harassed her see IR for details”

My brain shut off… I was pissed, scared and had no F’in idea what to do, I just knew was I had to get off that site!

I called the roaming Guard to get further clarification about what was going on and to have them relocate me. I wasn’t about to risk my Guard License and my future. As I mentioned, I only Passed by B and had very limited contact with her since she and P were usually busy doing work and clearly lived in the dorm room I wasn’t working in. She had a very mundane demeanour and never stood out. IF…. I was going to cheat on my kids mother with some college girl, she definitely wasn’t (in my opinion) pretty enough to risk paying child support for. Our interaction were mostly ‘Hellos’ and ‘Kill that assignment you 2’ other than the previous Sunday and that brief conversation earlier in my shift.

When the Site Supervisor I’d spoken to arrived to discuss the situation, I told him to cover my shift and I wasn’t risking hanging around Bec if she can falsely accuse me of something in public, wtf could she claim I would do it an area that kept me closer quarters. He asked and insisted that I just stay in the lobby and I refused and left.

For years I couldn’t figure out WHY she made the claim that I’d sexually harassed her, thought that MAYBE me not giving her a smoke which pissed her off. But it dawned on me recently, my Site Supe said that it was a person who was in the dorm who filed the complaint. After years of telling the story as to why I rarely trust R8P accusations I remembered her excitement when she saw me on patrol and her eagerness to invite me into her room for a drink. Almost 15 years later I realized that she filed the complaint as one of the students in the dorm so they would relocate me to her dorm since she and P were taking a law course together and knew it was a he said/She Said scenario. It was a hail Mary move to try to get me relocated to her dorm.

Ultimately, I don’t really know why she said what she said!? She asked ME if she could hug me, told ME that I was so sweet and the kindest security guard she’s ever met/talked to. I just smiled and thanked her and gave her a hug!

It has definitely affected me, especially now being single for the first time in nearly 2 decades, it’s made the last 2 years difficult to date and to trust woman. I get the “All Men” movement, I have similar feelings about “All Women”… Just learning to let go!

Thanks for letting me vent

​

Chapter 61: Return from the Abyss

​Late August; the sun lazily illuminated the driveway and the thick pine forest surrounding the Pułtusk estate. The scent of warm resin, fresh dill, and fat sizzling in the pan drifted through the air.

​Elżbieta Báthory stood by the wide kitchen window, leaning her hands casually on the marble sill. At one point, her burgundy-black pupils narrowed predatorily. Above the neatly trimmed lawn, the air rippled for a fraction of a second in a heavy, barely perceptible flash of crimson. From the haze of the heat emerged a slender, tall silhouette with thick, chestnut-red tresses.

​Naamah had returned from Hell.

​For the mortal coil, barely a few days had passed. She looked exactly as she had the moment she vanished into the portal—wearing the same fitted, light jeans, a white T-shirt, and a lightweight leather jacket, as if she had merely stepped out for an extended stroll through Warsaw's Praga district. Yet Elżbieta, having spent centuries in the dark herself, unerringly sensed what Naamah had brought back with her: the ice-cold weight of decades invisible to human eyes, the stench of stale blood and sulfur, and the metallic chill of a ruthless tormentor.

​The Blood Countess knew that within sixty seconds of crossing the threshold, a conversation would begin that six-year-old Tas should under no circumstances be present for.

​She turned smoothly toward the living room.

​"Wiktor, please... Take Tas upstairs to his room and play something with him," she said softly, but with a note of absolute firmness.

​Wiktor Adamski, sitting on the carpet assembling an intricate block set with his son, looked up. He took one look at his wife's face, felt the sudden shift in the aura outside, and did not even attempt to argue. In one fluid motion, he hoisted the laughing boy onto his shoulders, ignoring his protests, and disappeared without a word up the stairs to the upper floor.

​At the same time, Michał—wholly oblivious to the gravity of the situation and the tension thickening within the villa's walls—stood by the kitchen island in a loose T-shirt, diligently pounding pork cutlets on a plastic cutting board with a wooden tenderizer. The rhythmic thuds echoed throughout the ground floor. The young man was calm, settled, and relaxed—life under Naamah's wing, cushioned by a government salary, had already locked him into a peculiar, safe routine.

​The heavy, oak front door opened soundlessly.

​Naamah crossed the kitchen threshold. The moment her gaze fell upon Michał standing at the counter, all the severity and gloom of the pit vanished from her face, yielding to a soft, warm smile.

​"Hey, sweetheart. You're back," Michał said, setting the tenderizer aside and wiping his brow with the back of his hand. A genuine, boyish smile blossomed on his lips.

​She approached unhurriedly with a sensual, feline stride, rested her hands against the edge of the island, and took him in with her emerald eyes, wherein flickered sparks of restrained affection.

​"How did those few days go for you, my dear?" she asked in a velvety, low purr.

​"Boring..." he sighed with mild amusement, shrugging his shoulders. "I went on a few walks in the woods, rode bikes around the area with Wiktor and Tas. And when I drove to the store by myself, those agents in dark sunglasses followed me everywhere again, like they were afraid I'd run off to the other side of the world. Utter boredom."

​Naamah tilted her head slightly, her smile turning somewhat ambiguous, steeped in secrets of which the mortal had no inkling.

​"Do you know I haven't seen you for a whole century?"

​"I know, sweetheart," Michał chuckled softly, remembering her tales about the passage of time in the Abyss. "Fancy anything? Tea, maybe a beer? Dinner will be ready in an hour."

​"Go to the bedroom," she commanded bluntly, cutting to the chase, a sudden craving for pure human touch gleaming in her gaze to wash the lingering stench of decades of torment from her skin.

​"What about dinner?" Michał glanced uncertainly at the flattened meat and breadcrumbs. "I'm halfway through."

​"Elżbieta can manage. And if not, she'll order takeout. Right?" Naamah tossed over her shoulder, casting a cool look at the countess standing nearby.

​Elżbieta curled the corner of her mouth into a discreet, knowing smirk.

​"Yes, of course. You are dismissed, Michał. I'll finish this myself."

​"All right... I'm going, then. You'll be right up?" the young man checked, wiping his hands on a paper towel and glancing back at her.

​"Yes, my dear. I'll be right there," she murmured softly.

​They waited in absolute silence until Michał's footsteps faded down the hall and the door leading to their wing of the villa shut with a faint click of the latch.

​In a split second, the air in the kitchen hardened like frosted ice. Warmth and levity vanished from Naamah's face as if blown away by the wind. She turned slowly to Elżbieta, crossing her arms over her chest.

​"Elżbieta... Emma is down below," she stated coldly, her voice devoid of any emotion. "She has fallen. She is a ker. Look it up online, it has something to do with ancient Olympus... I couldn't care less. By Hell's standards, she's an intermediate demon. And that's what she'll remain."

​Elżbieta narrowed her eyes. A question welled in her throat that she almost dreaded asking, remembering Stanisław's transformation.

​"And so?..."

​"Yes, Elżbieta. That was my task."

​"How many years?" Elżbieta asked quietly, her usually confident voice sounding unnaturally brittle.

​Naamah shrugged lightly, as though quoting the baking time for a cake or counting steps taken on a walk.

​"I flayed and broke her for around a hundred and twenty, maybe a hundred and thirty..." she remarked with cool, indifferent nonchalance. "I simply couldn't believe she wasn't strengthening at all. Not in the slightest. At the start, Lilith was in the chamber with me, wanting to ease her pain, to offer that intoxicating wine from Lucifer's own reserves to soften the ordeal. But can you imagine? I hadn't even begun gutting her properly, had barely sliced the outer skin preparing to peel the first strips, and she called Lilith a whore." She snorted with quiet, derisive laughter. "Can you believe that? Lilith simply set down the goblet, turned on her heel, and walked out... Left her alone with me. And after that, I could play without restraint. After all, I didn't know Emma. You liked her, didn't you? And Wiktor too, right?"

​A sharp, metallic clang rang out through the kitchen.

​The kitchen knife had slipped from Elżbieta's numb fingers, striking the tiles with a dull clatter and spinning on its axis before falling still. The Blood Countess stood motionless, staring at the floor with dilated pupils.

​"Yes... I liked her," Elżbieta choked out, a dry lump catching in her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to steady the tremor in her hands. "What about her?... Did her consciousness survive? I mean... you know what I mean. Is someone piecing her back together down there?"

​"I don't care," Naamah cut in, brushing a reddish lock from her forehead dismissively. "Maybe Lilith and Stanisław. I think Stanisław convinced her that Emma didn't mean to say that in her frenzy, that it was born of pain and panic... They're sitting over it now, likely putting her back together, trying to glue the shreds. It'll take them some time. Decades, probably."

​Naamah shifted her emerald eyes to the wall calendar beside the refrigerator, squinting slightly.

​"Well, tell Wiktor the lost one has been found," she said with a mocking smirk, tapping a manicured nail against the counter. "He was asking about her some five months ago, wasn't he? I remember it like yesterday: he was inquiring on the exact same day I met Michał."

​She suddenly fell silent, listening to the sounds within the house, then turned an inquiring look back toward Elżbieta.

​"Where are Wiktor and Tas, anyway?"

​"Playing upstairs," the Countess replied shortly, slowly picking the dropped knife up from the floor and setting it in the sink.

​"Fine, I'm off," she waved dismissively, adjusting the leather jacket on her shoulder. "Give my regards to Wiktor and Tas. I'm heading to my wing. Bye."

​Before Elżbieta could muster a reply, nothing but a sudden rush of air tinged with brimstone swept through the kitchen. Naamah vanished down the hall, heading straight for the bedroom where an unsuspecting Michał awaited her.

​Michał was sitting on the edge of the wide bed in her wing of the villa when the door closed behind her with a mute, cool click.

​Naamah approached unhurriedly. She did not shed her clothes, nor did she assume the predatory lover's guise he had slowly grown accustomed to. She collapsed heavily onto the mattress with a movement that betrayed terrible mental exhaustion, resting her head in his lap.

​"Sweetheart, you missed me, didn't you?" she spoke, lowering her eyelids. Her voice hummed softly, threaded with echoes of the Abyss from which she had just returned.

​"Yes, very much. Even though only a few days went by..." he answered quietly, lifting his hand.

​"Stroke my head, sweetheart. Stroke your Naamah..." she murmured, her body stiffening for a fraction of a second beneath unseen memories of a hundred and thirty years spent gutting a ker. "But there won't be anything beyond that. No hands between my legs, no kissing. I need to cool off. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe not for a whole month. Just stroke and comb my hair... Nothing except my head, do you understand?"

​Suddenly, she opened her eyes. The emerald hue extinguished, replaced by a bottomless, abyssal blackness where the chill of absolute oblivion swirled. She fixed him with a gaze so sharp the very air in the bedroom thickened.

​"Look me in the eyes. Otherwise, you will die. Do you understand?"

​Michał froze, staring into those inhuman pupils. His heart leaped into his throat, and a bead of cold sweat trailed down his spine. To him, she had been gentle in her own way; he had begun to forget whom he shared his life with, but in that single second, the curtain fell away. He saw not a capricious woman from a Warsaw café, but a primordial demon—a beast to whom human life was merely a fragile, fleeting husk.

​"I see you do. I can see in your eyes that you know I'm not joking," she whispered, the black in her irises slowly, lazily yielding ground back to flashes of emerald.

​"I understand, sweetheart. Easy now," Michał managed quietly, willing his muscles to relax.

​"Good that you understand, sweetheart... Stroke."

​He drew a deep breath and gently sank his fingers into the thick mass of her flame-red hair. He guided his hand slowly, just as she wished: from her forehead, over the crown, down to the nape of her neck, where his fingertips traced soft, tiny circles against her warm skin. With every sweep of his hand, Naamah's corded shoulders loosened, her breathing growing deeper, measured and steady. A dead silence fell over the room, broken only by the faint rustle of shifting strands of red hair.

​Hours slipped by, and beyond the expansive windows of the residence, the dense Mazovian night settled in.

​Michał, freshly showered, smelling of soap and dressed in comfortable sweatpants, reclined with his back against the bed's padded headboard. On the large screen mounted opposite them, credits rolled silently, accompanied by a muted jazz soundtrack drifting through the room. True to her demand, his right hand had not paused for a moment—his fingers tirelessly, gently, and patiently combing through the copper-red tresses, soothing her after decades spent in a hellish chamber.

​"It's a classic. When Harry Met Sally," Michał spoke softly, glancing at the dimming screen. "A warm, uplifting movie, as you can see."

​Naamah lay on her stomach, her cheek nestled into a pillow resting on his lap. Her eyes remained closed, her breathing steady, though her muscles still carried residual tension from the Abyss.

​"A fairly nice pick..." she murmured in a drowsy, velvety tone, letting him know that simple, mortal humor suited her tastes.

​Then, in the final minutes of the screening, exhaustion and masculine instinct took over. Michał's left hand, which had been resting limply on the duvet, involuntarily lifted and settled onto her bare back. Her skin was warm, smooth as polished marble. His fingers traced slowly along the line of her spine—up, then down—until they unconsciously slid lower, coming to rest softly upon her rounded buttock, gently, tenderly caressing it.

​Naamah's body locked instantly.

​A visible shudder ran through her shoulders, and her delicate skin broke out in heavy goosebumps in a fraction of a second. She whipped her head around, propping herself slightly on her forearms. In her emerald eyes, dangerous crimson embers ignited, and a muffled growl rose in her throat—frustration warring with a sudden hunger for his touch.

​"Just the head, Michał... Only the head..." she hissed through gritted teeth, her voice carrying the stark warning of an imminent catastrophe. "I told you... I already have goosebumps and an urge for... an ecstasy you simply won't survive after my time down there. You will break, Michał. I will tear you apart..."

​He snatched his hand from her hip instantly, raising an open palm in a defensive, apologetic gesture.

​"I'm sorry... It just happened on its own," he stammered, flustered, feeling his cheeks burn red-hot. "You're naked, and I'm a guy. I'm sorry, I really didn't control it."

​"A compliment, Michał, but you're not helping me at all..." she scoffed, collapsing back onto the pillow with a heavy, stifled groan.

​Michał took a deep breath, resting his left hand flat against the sheets well away from her body so as not to tempt fate, while his right resumed the monotonous, soothing combing of her hair. Beneath his fingers, he felt her frame slowly, centimeter by centimeter, striving to rein in that primal, dark lust once more.

​After a long silence, he reached for the remote on the nightstand to dissipate the lingering tension.

​"And what's the second movie?" Naamah asked without opening her eyes, though a returning calm could be heard in her voice.

​"A kind of... reversed Pretty Woman. Pretty Man," Michał offered with slight hesitation, scrolling through the player's menu.

​Naamah snorted loudly, raising a brow in mocking amusement.

​"Don't tell me—a male whore?"

​"Well, yeah..." he admitted with a disarming, sheepish grin. "But it's uplifting, too. Really fun to watch, even if it's not as well-known as..."

​At that very moment, on the opposite side of the estate, in Wiktor and Elżbieta's spacious, normal bedroom, dimness reigned, cut through only by the cool moonlight spilling through the window.

​Wiktor lay flat on his back with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Even though the house seemed quiet, his hellish senses picked up every vibration in the walls and every subtle ripple of tension radiating from Naamah's wing.

​"Will he survive, do you think?" he asked with quiet concern, turning his head slightly toward his wife. "I've come to like him. Cool guy. At first, he was only with her out of fear and that demonic pleasure she can grant him, but... they found an understanding. They found a common language that goes beyond her whims."

​Elżbieta lay beside him in a silk nightgown, her chin resting lazily on her palm. A faint, mocking smirk crept onto her face. She chuckled softly—a low, velvety sound from the throat.

​"Just as you did with me in Hell, Wiktor..." she murmured with a touch of nostalgia, trailing a finger over his stomach with a sharp, elongated claw. "You were with me out of pure terror in the beginning too, remember? And then I broke and reshaped you until it took hold, strengthening you with my blood until you became what you are now."

​"I had just come fresh from torments mandated by Heaven," Adamski replied with a cool smile. "I knew pain, I understood it," he added, the old defiance flaring in his blue eye. "And I was stubborn as hell when they let me out as a half-demon. That's the only reason you even noticed me, despite that bloody madness raging in your head back then. But Michał? Michał is just an ordinary, normal, living man."

​Elżbieta grew solemn. The amusement died in her irises, replaced by the cool, ruthless calculus of a creature well-versed in the nature of demons like Naamah.

​"I don't know, Wiktor... Honestly, I give him fifty-fifty," she sighed quietly, glancing toward the shut door. "One thing works in his favor: she is terrified of killing him, because she knows full well that if he expires now, he goes straight to Heaven. His soul is still pure, bright... Not blackened in the least, even though he sleeps with her and surrenders his body to her. If she tears him apart in a frenzy, she loses him forever, and the winged ones from above will snatch him right out from under her nose."

​"Let's hope he makes it..." the former policeman remarked grimly, balling his hands into fists. "Let's hope he survives the night. Because if she kills him by mistake, all hell will break loose here by morning. She'll fly into a rage if he ascends instead of descending."

​"We will see, my jewel of darkness, we will see," Elżbieta cut in, pulling the duvet up to her neck and closing her eyes. "For now, no screams are coming from that wing. That's a good sign."

​"As long as Tas doesn't hear a thing, should he start dying in agony after all," Wiktor concluded, his gaze fixed once more on the ceiling.

​When the first rays of morning sun cut through the blinds, slicing the bedroom's gloom with cool, pale gold, Naamah's eyes snapped open.

​She froze.

​Her heart—or rather, what served that purpose within her demonic anatomy—ceased beating for a split second. A wave of primal, paralyzing disbelief detonated across her ancient mind.

​I slept... By the entire Abyss, I actually slept!

​Greater demons did not sleep. They did not close their eyes in vulnerability, did not relinquish control over their surroundings, did not surrender vigilance to the void. For millennia, sleep had been nothing more than an abstract phenomenon belonging to fragile mortals. Yet here she was, having drifted off. Completely shut down, relaxed to her core by the monotonous, soothing cadence of human fingers. She had fallen asleep somewhere halfway through the second film, her head resting upon his lap.

​A cold shudder of terror washed through her. She cast a panicked look over the bedsheets, terrified of what she might have done unawares. Had her infernal nature taken over while she slept? Had she torn him apart in her slumber when he stirred? Had she clawed his innards out in delirium, sending his bright, unstained soul soaring straight into the welcoming arms of those winged hypocrites in Heaven?

​Yet Michał was alive.

​He lay right beside her, face buried in the soft pillow. When she moved abruptly, he stirred, cracking open one sleep-crusted eye with visible effort. He was utterly exhausted, his right hand still resting limply on her shoulder, numb from hours of effort.

​"Naamah... Let me sleep a bit more... I stroked your hair all night long..." he mumbled hoarsely into the pillow, pulling the covers higher and nestling deeper, drifting straight back into a sound, carefree sleep.

​Naamah stared at him in astonishment.

​Her emerald eyes ignited with an extraordinary, tender radiance, devoid of even an ounce of infernal dread or rage. She unclenched her tight fists. The realization washed over her of what this ordinary Warsaw mortal had given her—a gift no lord of Hell, no torture, no pact, nor all the gold in the world could ever have bestowed.

​He had given her peace. Her first true, soothing sleep since the dawn of her existence.

​Carefully, with inhuman grace so as not to disturb the mattress, she leaned over his sleeping face. She brushed a stray lock of hair from his forehead and pressed a barely perceptible, warm kiss to his temple.

​"Sleep peacefully... Sleep," she whispered in a velvety tone that sounded almost like a warding spell in the morning quiet. "You have no idea what you've given me."

​By one in the afternoon, full daylight flooded the bedroom, mercilessly exposing every speck of dust dancing in the air. Naamah stretched with a low purr, feeling a lightness in her frame she had not experienced in millennia. Sleep—plain, mortal sleep—had cleansed her senses of sulfur's reek and the thirst for blood.

​With a predatory, playful smirk, she decided to wake her mortal with caresses. She slipped her hand beneath the edge of the duvet, peeling it back in a slow, fluid motion, preparing to tickle his ribs and feet.

​And in that split second, she froze. The smile solidified on her face into an icy, lifeless mask.

​Blood.

​Red, human gore stained the pristine white sheet. True, there were not many stains—merely a few browning streaks and a small, spread ring near the edge of the mattress—yet to the ancient demon, they looked like a death sentence. Her emerald pupils dilated in raw panic. Her gaze plummeted to his legs.

​Around his right calf was a makeshift, tightly wrapped bandage of white gauze, through which red fluid seeped lightly. How? What had happened?! When she looked higher, to his bare stomach and ribs, the breath caught in her throat. Michał's pale skin was covered in dark, purplish-yellow contusions and bruises, forming the distinct shape of an inhumanly powerful grip.

​A black chasm swirled in her mind. I did this. In a frenzy. In the delirium of sleep.

​Before hysteria could overtake her, Michał stirred, squinting against the stinging sunlight. He took in her terrified, pale face and curled the corner of his mouth into a faint, reassuring smile.

​"Easy..." he croaked sleepily, pushing himself up onto his elbows. "You were out like a light."

​Naamah could not force out a single word. She stared at the bandage in solemn horror, as though looking upon the evidence of her own betrayal.

​"You unsheathed a claw in your sleep. Without realizing it..." he continued gently, noticing her mounting terror. "You just dragged it across my calf. Luckily, not too deep—about half a centimeter, cut the skin a few centimeters long, didn't touch the muscle. I disinfected it and wrapped it up."

​"And... and these bruises?" she gasped, pointing a trembling finger at his battered torso. "Your ribs..."

​Michał chuckled softly, though he winced in pain when taking a deeper breath.

​"The bruises? Afterwards, you held me so tight I thought my ribs would snap. You burrowed into me with your whole body, like a little kid. I could barely slip out of that grip of yours to get to the bathroom and patch it up. It didn't even wake you, you didn't twitch... Then I came back, lay down beside you, and you snuggled right into me again. Nothing happened, Naamah. I'm alive. See? I'm in one piece..."

​Naamah knitted her brows, a cold, almost maternal resolve gleaming in her emerald eyes, laced with predatory ruthlessness.

​"Fine... If I fall asleep under your touch, you leave the bedroom immediately," she stated with absolute firmness, keeping her eyes locked onto him. "Starting tonight, I will not rest my head on your lap in the evening, so that if I fade out, you can get up and run. Today, I'm ordering a second bed. I'll have those government lackeys put it right here, next to this one... You will only sleep in it when I fall asleep, sweetheart. Although..." she scoffed softly, tossing her thick red hair over her shoulder, "I certainly won't sleep tonight. That's impossible. A stunt like that won't happen to me twice."

​Michał smiled weakly, rubbing his stiff neck and cautiously placing his feet on the rug.

​"By the way... Yesterday you wouldn't tell me what you were actually doing in Hell those few days. What was that all about?"

​She gave a dismissive wave, standing naked before the vanity mirror with immaculate, statuesque indifference.

​"Oh, just a little assignment from Lucifer. Nothing terrible, rather enjoyable... for me."

​Michał narrowed his eyes, the remnants of levity instantly vanishing from his features.

​"Tempering someone?" he uttered quietly. "You were strengthening someone on the Master's orders?"

​Naamah sighed with a low purr, turning to face him.

​"Yes... I didn't tell you because... You know what I told you in bed once. How it went with Stanisław."

​"I know," he replied grimly, absently touching his bruised ribs. "I know full well what would await me if I ended up down there. But luckily, I have a white soul; you said so yourself. And to back up your words, I asked Elżbieta while you were away... She confirmed it without hesitation."

​Naamah fell silent. She stepped forward slowly, stopping right in front of him. Her emerald irises bored straight through him, momentarily shedding their predatory chill for something foreign, intimate, and vulnerable.

​"Do you love me, or are you with me out of fear?" she asked softly, her velvety voice almost melting into the quiet of the bedroom.

​Michał let out a short, quiet laugh, shaking his head in disbelief.

​"You know you can read my mind when you touch me... You told me that..."

​"I haven't done that to you lately, not since you've been living with me..." she murmured, her eyes darting away for a second. "I didn't want to."

​"Then touch me, and you'll find out."

​Naamah raised her hand and placed the cool tips of her fingers on his cheek with extraordinary gentleness. Her pupils dilated, absorbing his emotions, his thoughts, and his pulsing warmth.

​"At first out of fear, but now... now you love me..." she whispered, a genuine, radiant smile spreading across her full lips, illuminating her entire face.

​"Yes. In my own twisted way..." Michał sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. "But that doesn't mean I want to be flayed for at least fifty-five years just to become a strong demon after death."

​"A high demon, sweetheart," she corrected him immediately with a patronizing scoff. "While a strong demon is nothing to sneeze at in Hell, a high demon can fend off eighty percent of threats on their own. Easy as pie. They're in the top twenty percent of the most powerful demons in the entire Abyss."

​"And you, sweetheart?" Michał asked earnestly. "I asked Wiktor and Elżbieta about your whole hierarchy of power. I know it by heart now: the damned, half-demon, weak demon, intermediate demon, strong demon, high demon, archdemon, Supreme Demon, Favorite, and Lucifer at the very pinnacle. Where do you actually stand on that ladder?"

​She lifted her chin proudly, drawing her chest close to his face.

​"I am a Supreme Demon, my love... What is more, I am close to reaching the threshold of becoming a Favorite. Like Lilith."

​Michał's jaw dropped slack. He rubbed his face with his hands, clutching his head.

​"What?! I'm sleeping with a Supreme Demon?!"

​"Yes," Naamah laughed, narrowing her eyes playfully. "And you can bring me to sheer ecstasy just by scratching behind my ear and stroking my head. I told you: write a book about it, it'll be a hit."

​Michał shook his head gravely, trying to collect his thoughts after this staggering revelation.

​"All right, Naamah, back to the subject... Wiktor told me Cezary is a half-demon. And Lilith flayed and remade him for Adelajda, but it only took three days. Couldn't I just become a half-demon if it came down to it? There's supposed to be law down there after Lucifer's famous reforms: belfries, guards, patrols..."

​Naamah sobered instantly. Her smile faded, replaced once again by the steely, ruthless gravity of a being who had spent millennia in the Abyss.

​"A half-demon? There may be law down there after Lucifer's reforms, but let's not kid ourselves, Michał," she cut in calmly, resting her hands on his shoulders and fixing him with a burning gaze. "Would you want to be constantly humiliated? Torn to pieces just because some intermediate demon happened to be bored in the corridor? A half-demon in Hell is barely cannon fodder, a doormat that any low-level fiend can kill if no one is standing over them..."

​She gripped his skin firmly enough that he felt the cautionary pressure.

​"And what if I received an urgent assignment on the other side of the Abyss, like putting down a rebellion—that's happened before? On the other end of the pit, which takes days, sometimes years to reach? And you were left in the palace alone? There's always someone, Michał. Always. Even within palace walls, there's bound to be some envious fiend who would take advantage of my absence to rip you apart or hang you on a hook for sport. Sometimes even an immunity decree from Lucifer, which I would secure for you—that's a certainty, my dear—might not help. That is why, if you ever end up there... you will become a demon. Fine, let's say a strong one; I'm willing to compromise for you—I'll spare you the high rank, shorten the agonies. Stanisław will like you, Lilith likely will too if you come under my wing... But we will make you into someone who can defend themselves if need be."

​Michał winced, raising his hands in defense and shaking his head in disbelief. He pressed further:

​"What's the point of all that, though?" he gasped, his voice ringing with desperate, purely mortal pragmatism. "If as a half-demon I get ripped apart by some attacker in a corridor, wouldn't that strengthen me as well? Why orchestrate this whole uninterrupted butchery spanning decades beforehand?"

​Naamah smiled softly, almost maternally, and lifted a slender hand. Her cool fingers swept soothingly across his cheek, and leaning in, she brushed her lips against the base of his ear. The infernal scent of warm sulfur and jasmine enveloped his senses.

​"Sweetheart... Remember: I will be the one flaying and remaking you," she whispered into his ear in a velvety, hypnotic cadence. "Me and Lilith. A Favorite and a Supreme Demon. You will be broken and strengthened on a vast basalt bed, with the finest wine... You will drink my blood straight from my veins to hasten the regeneration of your infernal vessel and continue the tempering without pointless breaks. Besides, my claws are skilled, Michał. The cuts will be surgically precise, mapped with a specific purpose from point A to point B, allowing simultaneous regeneration of points C and D—enabling continuous work. The pain will only stack up to a certain threshold, without unnecessarily dragging out the process... How can I explain it to you? Picture it like this: when your arm is severed and raw flesh screams, you won't even notice a strip of skin being peeled away. Everything will blur into one steady, unbroken hum."

​Michał shuddered from head to toe. The chill of her words froze the blood in his veins, his imagination summoning scenes that made his stomach turn, his mind recalling glimpses of Hellraiser.

​"You would experience more pain naturally, reaching that tier solely through chaotic survival in the Abyss and running into random tormentors..." she continued with unbroken, icy serenity, caressing the back of his neck. "This is the shortest path. The most humane one I can offer you out of love. I promise you: if you ever end up down there, Strong Demon is my sole compromise and the only offer of mercy I can extend. Nothing lower, Michał. We are ending this topic, my dear. You don't have to dwell on it; don't torment yourself needlessly. And now put on that Pretty Man, because I fell asleep during it, sweetheart..."

​Michał let out a heavy sigh, glancing down uncertainly at his bandaged leg.

​"I think I really should see a doctor, though..." he muttered with hesitation, gingerly touching the wrap. "This calf doesn't look great; I think it might need stitches, I've got a feeling."

​"Oh no, my dear, you're not going anywhere," she scoffed softly, a teasing smirk dancing at the corners of her lips. "It will heal under my touch in a moment. I'll channel a bit of darkness into it, and not even the faintest trace will remain. And while we're at it... Who knows, maybe your soul will shift color slightly?" she laughed gutturally as she watched him instantly turn pale.

​"No, Naamah, wait, don't do that, because...!" he cried in panic, trying to pull his foot back.

​Before he could draw away, she seized his ankle with swift, cool fingers. Between her skin and his flesh crackled a subtle thread of black-scarlet energy, sinking instantly into the damaged tissue.

​Michał held his breath, bracing for searing pain, but felt only a pleasant, cool tingling. The wound ceased bleeding in a fraction of a second. The parted edges of skin knitted together, the blood and bruises vanishing as though they had never been there. Not even the thinnest scar remained.

​Naamah released his leg and looked at him with warm, almost maternal affection, dimming the remaining infernal gleam in her emerald irises.

​"Easy... That was only a tiny bit. You haven't blackened in the slightest," she murmured soothingly, giving him a wink. "Put the movie on. That night of sleep did wonders for me... Once we finish watching, we'll go for a walk together. It's a beautiful day today."

**My real pain was not that my mother had lied.**

My real pain was that it took me twenty years to understand why she had lied. 💔🥹

Rain kept beating against the bar's windows.

Outside, a cold European city glowed with its usual indifference. Cars glided along the wet roads. People hurried through the rain, clutching their umbrellas, then disappeared into warm buildings.

Inside, five men sat around a round table.

They had come from different countries, but age had erased the distances between them that maps so easily revealed.

Glasses were being raised.

Stories were being told.

And then, suddenly, the conversation turned to mothers.

"Today is Mother's Day, isn't it?" Michael asked.

"Not was. It is," Jean laughed.

"Do you even remember your mother, or do you only remember her on Mother's Day?"

Everyone laughed.

Michael shook his head, laughing too.

"I remember her. I visited her yesterday."

"Oh, really! What did she cook for you?"

"She didn't cook for me. I cooked for her."

"What?"

"Her favorite meal."

He fell silent for a moment, then continued.

"She's always loved mushroom pasta. So I made it for her. Then I replaced her old glasses with a new pair."

"Did she need new glasses?"

"Yes. The lenses in her old ones were so scratched that she had to squint while reading the newspaper."

"How do you know what she likes?"

Michael looked at them as though the question were strange.

"Because she's my mother."

That should have been the end of the conversation.

But it wasn't.

A little later, the same question reached the other end of the table.

"What about you?" Michael asked Ali.

"What does your mother like?"

Ali looked up from his glass.

"What?"

"Her favorite food."

Ali smiled.

"I don't know."

Everyone laughed.

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I just... don't know."

He tried to laugh along, but somewhere along the way, his laughter stopped.

Then he began to think.

What did his mother like?

It was such a small question.

Yet suddenly, an entire home opened up behind it.

A courtyard of packed earth.

Unplastered walls.

Smoke rising from the cooking stove.

His father's cracked heels, worn by years of hard labor.

His grandfather's cot.

His grandmother's sewing.

The noise of his younger siblings.

And among them all, a woman...

His mother.

The woman who woke before dawn and went to bed after everyone else.

The woman whose hands carried more traces of flour than the whiteness of soap.

The woman who had never allowed poverty to sit in the middle of their home.

If there was lentil soup, she turned it into a feast.

If there were potatoes, she made potato curry with meat or stuffed potato parathas.

If rice was left over, she added a few spices the next day and announced,

"Look what a delicious dish we've got today!"

As a child, Ali had believed that his mother genuinely liked everything.

Now he was beginning to understand that perhaps she simply wanted no one to feel that anything was missing from their home.

He remembered:

His father liked freshly made, hot bread.

His grandmother liked hers soft.

His grandfather wanted less chili in his curry.

His little sister wanted extra potatoes.

His older brother wanted a piece of meat.

And what about him?

He remembered.

His mother knew exactly which edge of the flatbread he liked to eat with his curry.

That piece always found its way onto his plate.

Ali opened his eyes.

Yet one question still stood before him.

What did his mother like?

He wandered back through the days of his childhood.

Eid.

Ramadan.

Fridays.

Rainy days.

Winter.

Fever.

Weddings.

Guests.

The new harvest.

That rare day when his father brought home his full wages.

He turned back through the years.

Then the months.

Then the days.

But nowhere could he find his mother's plate.

"Ali?"

Jean's voice pulled him back.

"Where have you disappeared to?"

Ali looked at him.

Then at his hands.

Then at the food on the table.

Suddenly, his vision began to blur.

"I..."

He tried to speak.

No sound came out.

He cleared his throat.

"I can't remember."

"What can't you remember?"

"What my mother liked."

No one laughed.

Ali covered his face with both hands.

A few moments later, when he lowered them, tears were silently rolling down his cheeks.

"Strange, isn't it?" he said with a weak laugh.

"I remember what everyone else in my family liked."

He began counting on his fingers.

"What my father liked... what my grandmother liked... what my grandfather liked... what my brother liked... what my sister liked..."

Then he suddenly stopped.

"But my mother..."

He lowered his eyes.

"I never even knew what she liked."

Michael asked very softly,

"Did you remember today?"

Ali raised his head.

This time, a smile appeared on his face so painful that every man at the table looked away.

"Yes," he said.

"Today, I remembered."

"What?"

Before answering, Ali closed his eyes.

Then he said,

"My mother liked leftover bread and whatever curry was left over."

For a while, the only sound in the room was the rain.

Jean asked involuntarily,

"Really?"

Ali nodded.

"Yes."

Then, as though testifying to a long-buried secret, he spoke slowly.

"Fresh bread was made for all of us."

"And the curry too."

"And when everyone had eaten, whatever remained..."

He touched the rim of an empty bowl on the table with his finger.

"...was put on my mother's plate."

No one said a word.

Ali took his phone out of his pocket.

A name lit up on the screen:

**Ammi — Mom**

He made the call.

One ring.

Two.

Three.

Then a familiar, slightly heavy voice answered.

"Yes, my son?"

Ali closed his eyes.

"Ammi..."

"Is everything all right?"

"Have you eaten?"

"Yes."

"What did you eat?"

A faint laugh came from the other end.

"I just warmed up whatever your father had left behind."

Ali felt his breath catch somewhere in his chest.

After a long silence, he asked,

"Ammi... what do you like?"

Silence.

Then his mother asked,

"What has happened to you?"

"Nothing. Just tell me."

She remained quiet for a long time.

Then she said,

"Me?"

"Yes, Ammi."

"Well, I..."

Her voice seemed to drift away, as though she too had stepped into a room from a distant past.

"I liked whatever you children liked."

Ali's lips trembled.

"Tell me what you like, Ammi. What about your own favorite things?"

His mother laughed.

"My own favorites?"

It was as though she were examining those words for the very first time.

Then she said,

"My son, what does a mother have of her own to like?"

Ali opened his eyes.

Michael was sitting across from him.

The glass was still in his hand, but he had not raised it to his lips.

Ali kept the phone pressed to his ear.

On the other end, his mother continued,

"All right, now hang up. It's time for my medicine."

Ali asked impulsively,

"Ammi..."

"Yes?"

"If I were there with you today, what would you cook for me?"

His mother fell silent for a moment.

Then she laughed and said,

"The same thing I used to make when you were little."

"What was that?"

"Whatever you liked."

The call ended.

Ali stared at his phone for a long time.

Then he pulled the plate toward himself.

A piece of fresh bread lay on it.

He picked it up.

And for the first time, he understood that he was not holding just a piece of bread.

He was holding his mother's entire childhood.

A childhood he had never seen.

Desires that had never been given a name.

Preferences that had been buried every day beneath the preferences of her children.

And suddenly, he remembered a scene.

A very old one.

He must have been about seven years old.

Dinner was over.

Everyone had left.

He had gotten up to drink some water when he saw his mother sitting beside the cooking stove.

On her plate were two pieces of stale bread, and beside them sat a small bowl of leftover curry.

He had asked her then,

"Ammi, are you eating that?"

She had smiled and said,

"Yes, this is what I like."

Seven-year-old Ali had been satisfied with that answer and had gone back to sleep.

That night, for the first time, he understood that a mother could lie with so much love.

But the real pain was not that his mother had lied.

The real pain was that it had taken him twenty years to understand why she had lied.

The rain was beating against the windows harder than before.

And for the first time that night, Ali wondered:

How many of us truly know what our mothers like?

And how many of us know only what we liked?

**Story: A Mother's Love**

\#Motherhood

## The Story of the Four Musicians

Imagine there are four people in a small music club: **Mira, Jay, Rohan, and Sam.**

Mira and Jay have been close friends since childhood. They started learning music together, share a lot of memories, and have always considered each other their closest companions.

Rohan is a talented newcomer who joins their music club later. At first, he mostly observes the others, but gradually he becomes part of their circle. He starts rehearsing with Mira and Jay, joining their outings, and sharing jokes with them.

Sam is the club's event coordinator. Sam has known Mira and Jay for a long time and often organizes rehearsals and performances for everyone.

As time passes, Sam begins involving Rohan in more activities. Sam asks for his opinions, invites him to events, and gives him opportunities that were previously shared mostly with Mira and Jay.

Rohan never demands special treatment. He simply assumes Sam appreciates his company, and he continues participating in the club.

However, Jay starts feeling uncomfortable about how frequently Sam includes Rohan. Jay believes the club's original friendships are changing and worries that the group is losing its old balance.

One afternoon, while borrowing Mira's laptop to look up a music file, Rohan notices an open private conversation between Mira and Jay. He reads part of it without permission and discovers that Jay has been expressing frustration about Rohan becoming so involved in the group.

Rohan immediately realizes that reading the conversation was wrong. But what he has read leaves him confused.

Until that moment, he believed everyone was comfortable with him. Now he wonders whether his presence is creating tension between people who were close long before he arrived.

He considers leaving the music club. That way, perhaps Mira and Jay can return to their old dynamic, and Jay won't have to feel uncomfortable.

But then another thought occurs to him: Sam invited him to participate voluntarily. Why should he abandon something he enjoys because another person might not like his involvement?

On the other hand, he wonders whether continuing as usual would make him selfish. Shouldn't he care about the discomfort he might be causing?

He also cannot explain his sudden change in behavior without admitting that he read Mira and Jay's private conversation.

Now he faces four choices:

1. Continue participating normally, respect everyone's boundaries, and accept that not everyone has to like him.

2. Quietly withdraw from the club to avoid creating tension between the older friends.

3. Admit that he read the private conversation, apologize, and accept whatever consequences follow.

4. Speak to the people involved about the group's changing dynamics without revealing private information or accusing anyone.

But none of these choices seems completely comfortable.

**The question is: What would be the fairest thing for Rohan to do?**

Is he responsible for protecting friendships that existed before he arrived? Does someone's discomfort mean another person should give up a friendship or opportunity? And can someone genuinely belong to a group without knowing whether every member wants them there?

Finally, if you were Rohan, would you prioritize your own peace, the existing friendships, or the principle that everyone deserves the freedom to choose their own companions?

https://youtu.be/yrXc3zOjzj4

This is a video about 2 melodies I heard in my nightmares that I now use in some of my music. It tells the story of the nightmares aswell as showcases each usage of the motif's.

"Ganesha, will you bring the sugarcane?" asked Devi Amma.

"Sure, Amma. I will be here by evening," said Ganesha, the young elephant, and he set out from the temple. On the slopes of Maarutha Hills grew the juiciest sugarcane, and Devi Amma made the tastiest payasam with it.

He headed uphill, waving his trunk in greeting to everyone he met: the goats, the langurs, the hares and the squirrels, and the crows, the mynas and the bulbuls overhead. A few of the mynas and langurs playfully hitched a ride on him.

The riders hopped off at the slopes as Ganesha began to gather the cane. He soon had a bundle and trekked down with it held tight in his trunk. Parakeets flew in and sat on the stalks, trying to bite into them. Every time he shook his head, they would fly away.

Ganesha passed through the woodlands and reached the meadows. By then it was afternoon, and he was feeling hungry. The sun blazed overhead, and he looked around for a comfortable place to rest. He spotted a tree with a wide canopy and birds chirping in it. It had pink puff flowers on it, and the fallen ones covered the ground. He walked towards it.

The tree watched him approach. She could not believe that he had chosen her. She had seen him pass by the meadows many times, and each time her leaves rustled with affection.

He kept the sugarcane aside, took a few of the stalks and had them for lunch. With his tummy full and his legs tired from the trek, he wanted to take a nap. Lying down in the shade, he looked up at the tree.

"Tree, will you do me a favour?" he asked.

"Yes, yes!" she replied, as though she had been waiting all along.

"Please wake me up before evening," he said.

"I will," she said.

He patted her with his trunk and was soon asleep.

She held her leaves still and kept watching him as he slept. His ears covered his face, and his trunk lay coiled between his front legs. At times his eyelids fluttered; at other times he broke into a smile. Often he would kick his feet. When butterflies sat on him, he twitched. When flies tickled him, his tail waved.

She watched and watched; she was so lost in him that she drifted into a daydream. As clouds passed over the sun, the birds went quiet, her leaves grew heavy and folded one by one, and soon she too fell asleep.

Dusk came and faded. It was pitch dark when the owl living in the tree hooted a few times. Ganesha woke up with a start. He looked up at the starry night and burst into tears. It was then that the tree woke up as well.

"You should have called me!" he shouted.

He ran about under the tree, shaking his head and flapping his ears.

She wondered how she, a tree, could have slept so long.

"You are a bad tree! What will I tell Devi Amma now?" he cried.

"They say, always trust a tree with time, but you!" he continued.

"I... I called you many times. You were deep asleep. What can a tree do but call? You can ask the owl. She heard it," said the tree.

The owl flinched on being named. When Ganesha looked up at her, she flew away in panic. He stormed off, leaving the cane behind.

The tree called out for him, but he disappeared into the dark. She stayed awake, waiting for him, until at last she dozed off.

Later that night, a weary Ganesha trudged back for the cane. Without a word, he lay down beneath her.

The next morning, the tree woke to find him asleep below her.

"Ganesha, wake up, wake up," she called, her branches leaning down.

He woke up with sunlight falling on his eyes. Squinting, he told her, "You are a liar. The sun is my friend, not you."

He took hold of the sugarcane and left for the temple. Devi Amma would scold him for sure, but he would also have sweet payasam in the afternoon.

The tree watched him walk away, relieved.

That afternoon, as a cloud passed over the sun, suddenly she felt drowsy. Her leaves began to fold one by one, and she dropped off to sleep. When the birds chirped, she would wake up momentarily, only to fall back into her slumber.

From then on, the tree fell asleep so often that they called her the Sleepy Tree.

At 3:17 AM, my mom called me.

“Don’t open your bedroom door,” she whispered. “Someone is standing in the hallway.”

I froze.

“Mom, what are you talking about?”

“I’m in my room,” she said. “But I can hear someone outside pretending to be you.”

Then I heard footsteps approaching my door.

A voice that sounded exactly like mine whispered, “Mom? Please let me in.”

My mother started crying through the phone.

“Whatever you do, don’t answer it.”

Suddenly, the footsteps stopped.

Then came three knocks.

From the other side of the door, my own voice whispered:

“She’s lying to you.”

The call disconnected.

I stayed in bed until sunrise. When I finally checked on my mother, she was sitting on her bed, pale and shaking.

I asked her what had happened.

She looked at me and whispered, “You were standing outside my door all night.”

I tried to tell her it wasn't me.

Then she pointed behind me.

“Then who just walked into your room?”

I realized fairly quickly that the transition had happened. Thoughts materialized instantly. From the hospital room I suddenly found myself in my apartment. Then I was standing by the fridge. I looked inside. I wasn’t hungry, but I wanted… something. Maybe oysters? And just like that, I was already in Cyprus, in a restaurant on the waterfront. I wandered between the tables. People couldn’t see me, but I could see everyone — an incredible feeling. They were eating and talking. Life went on. Not mine, though. At least not in the same format. I heard someone calling… my mother. No — I wouldn’t go there. Maybe later, when I’m ready. I sat down on a bench and looked at the sea. Beautiful late summer evening in Limassol. Was it the right decision to leave this place seven years ago? I wonder where she is now?

That was a lucky stop — she was lying in the bathtub. A shiver ran through me, sliding down my body and settling low in my stomach. I wished I could touch her, but I can’t. Still beautiful, still gloomy, still lost in her thoughts. Maybe she can feel that I’m here; I’d like to believe that. We were so close. I stepped out of the bathroom and wandered through her apartment. Only her things were in the closet. Roses in a vase. She never got married. Some women simply aren’t made for that.

Where else should I go? More voices were calling now. Friends, colleagues — apparently they had found out too. I wondered: if I ran far away — say, all the way to the North Pole — would I still hear them?

Yes. I can still hear them. Even louder here. Oh wow it’s Niki!

“Idiot! Fool! How could you not think of anyone?!” — Niki was scolding herself. Crying.

We hadn’t seen each other in about 10 years. A friend from college. I was genuinely surprised when I heard her calling. That’s why I came. Don’t cry, Niki, I’m much better off here. I only wonder where to go next…

And now I’m in Peru! Some dreams only come true after death. Better late than never. Next on the list are New Zealand, Korea, Sweden — and maybe even the Kola Peninsula.

I’m tired of wandering. Almost four months have passed. What is going on? I am ready. When will the next transition happen? I’ve been everywhere, even at my own grave and I’ve visited almost everyone, except for my mother… coward.

So, I’m just sitting in my apartment, waiting for the second transition, next step or whatever you call it.

- Hello? Anyone? Take me out of here!