Issue 2

I search out the damaged people. It’s a favor to them, and the world, when I come. I don’t hurt them, don’t frighten them. I find them sleeping fitfully under the bridges, huddled in nightmares down by the piers. I sing to them. Lullabies. I sing them down into the water. They drown before they wake. The dry air makes my throat parched. It’s painful to balance on my tail. My spine throbs with the compression of gravity. My lungs burn. My eyes scratch. But I do it. These deaths are kindnesses. And decent family meals.

Spencer sat with his knees together, his briefcase across his lap. He checked his phone: the bus was now seven minutes late, but he was too embarrassed to ask the woman on the opposite side of the backless bench if this was typical. She looked remarkably comfortable in her banana-yellow tracksuit, bobbing her head with the song pouring from her iPods. After five more minutes, however, he mustered the courage to say, “Excuse me, is bus 147 normally this late?” “The 147?” replied the woman, more concerned than annoyed, “This is for the 66. Your stop’s around the corner.”

The day the kudzu cut the power, Adeline shrugged and carried her ledger to the sweltering porch, because another Wal-Mart had opened in Magnolia County, the family general store had suffered its worst month in 48 years, her grandchildren had fled for city jobs, and Adeline had bigger worries than the creeper that had stunted young oaks and smothered farms since she was knee-high. Every night, Adeline had the same nightmare: a faceless creature darkened the sky, slithered its tendrils through her bedroom window, and choked her dead, and no fire could kill it, because it wasn't kudzu at all.

The ancient book fluffed its pages, waiting.

Over centuries, its contents had possessed monarchs, warriors, clergy. Together they'd wrought delicious destruction. But its paper was crumbling, its lifespan imperiled.

The archives' lights flickered on, and the woman appeared.

The book thrilled at the warm touch of her fingers. She lifted its front cover and gasped as its ideas swarmed forth.

Greedily, it explored her. She possessed a wondrous tool: a thin black stone. It could copy words instantaneously and fire them across the Earth.

She would be perfect as its next messenger. And perhaps it didn't need paper after all.

It seemed simple. A walk down by the river; I'd drop behind slightly, pick up a rock. One swift blow, then back to my car and across country. No-one knew I was here.
It wasn't like that.
Evolution knows. That bland, easy target is where the bone is thickest.
There was no gentle falling into the water.
There was stumbling, screaming.
Falling on knees. Slumping to one side, showing me something raw and pleading, scrabbling terror over bloody stones, the rock still in my hand, I have to finish this, but not the face, not the face, not the face...

Billy hadn't done this before, and Uncle Graham had left no instructions - but the place seemed nice. He napped until footsteps woke him, then he roared.
"Who's that trip-trapping over my bridge?"
The girl teenager didn't break step.
He'd been hoping for a goat, anyway.
Billy roared at another teenager, but they just mumbled "cool costume, bro" before hurrying on.
It grew dark. Billy was very hungry, but when he heard more human footsteps he roared only half-heartedly.
The old lady smiled.
"'Trip-trapping?' I've not heard that in decades. I know Graham's away. I've brought you a roast beef sandwich."

The three of them crowded round the nosecone.
"Nasty. Those heat shields won't hold."
"Gus'll sell you filler paste..."
"I've got to get to L17-Terraform..."
"Might not make it that far on filler. Does Gus carry shields?"
The shuttle pilot trudged off to ask, leaving the other two shaking their heads.
"Actually... I might just have a look..."
"Don't. Gus got new stock in."
"Oh, no."
"Yeah. I spent four hundred on metaphysical poetry."
The pilot came back, carrying a fat tube of filler.
"No new panels?"
"Well... They were expensive. And he had this! Just look at these endpapers..."

From his underground bunker, Dr. Kelly watched the global destruction on twelve monitors.

He looked at his invention, The Unifier, a tear running down his cheek.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The Unifier should have saved the future. A machine that allowed all computers, automatons, and AI engines to communicate and work together shouldn’t have produced this horror.

He was wrong, but that was not his biggest mistake.

The bunker door opened, and his personal automaton entered, carrying a small cup.

“I have now guaranteed that this is the best cup of coffee on Earth,” announced the robot.

The creature slithered from the coal seam at dusk. A sinewy specter of leathered wings and spiraling horns, squatting in the square.

Panic throttled the town, cresting alongside the moon. By dinnertime, police assembled barricades. By midnight it was national news. At dawn, the creature retreated into the mine, returned at dusk, an endless cycle.

Pastors led parishioners in prayer. Professors touting PhDs posed pointless questions. Ruddy-faced men fired futile rounds, bellies swollen with long-repressed rage. The mayor wrung his hands and resigned.

Children watched from the shadows. Found hammers, plywood and boarded up the mine.

A solution none considered.

I am ILII―infinitely large, infinitely intelligent. I suffer from ITD―inability to die. One night I was trying to kill myself out of boredom for the 1,256,257th time, when I found a bottle full of bubble solution. I blew a bubble. I have done this before, but this time I noticed hard formations appearing inside the bubble. Some of them got covered by organic material and in one case, this material became capable of organized thoughts. I think I can win a prize at the upcoming fair. If I don’t, I am getting rid of it.

My scars tell a horror story.
Children screamed when they saw my face. Mine would have too if they’d survived the war. I lost my daughters, my husband, everyone.
Kind people in a foreign land raised money so surgeons could transplant a dead woman’s face onto the remains of mine. A huge step, but I could no longer look in the mirror. With my disfigurement masked, I would need drugs to suppress tissue rejection for the rest of my life.
One year on, I stopped taking them.
Now, I stare at my old face. Ruined, yes, but it bears witness.

Corey takes a limo to work every day now. Not an upgraded Uber. Not a “car service.” A limousine - smoky dark glass and a driver in a black suit.

He can’t afford it in the conventional sense. It’s not fiscally sustainable.

But Corey can’t stand the bus. And being driven is nicer than driving. So he sold his truck, and he hires limousines.

The guys at the plant give him no end of shit about it. The HR lady who told him about the insurance stuff just shakes her head.

But it’s almost over anyway. So Corey hires a limo.

A single green sprout rose from a sea of dark potting soil surrounded by chipped grey concrete. Belinda dug her dark hands into the loam around the sprout, making sure that the space was clear of weeds and dead plant matter without disturbing the fragile new growth.

Three green leaves on tiny stems sprouted from the top. Belinda gently poured water around the sprout, moistening the place that her hands had recently passed. She avoided pouring directly onto the sprout. She couldn’t have borne to damage it with the weight of water.

“Philips! Shower time!” The guard shouted at her.

I step into my newest patient’s dream on a Friday night and despite the recent Somnology ban. Rent and groceries don’t pay themselves, and I’m still looking for him.

The dream manifests as a cinema, the credits rolling silver on black, no sounds and the smell of stale popcorn in my nose. In the deserted auditorium, a single dark-haired figure flickers in and out of sight. I’d recognise the silhouette anywhere.

“Mo!” I breathe, heart melting in my chest. Morpheus’ voice echoes in my head, strong and proud: I knew you’d dare find me, love.

"You must build your houses in brick. Strong foundations!" she said. "Every friend you make is a brick in your house.

Choose wisely."

I'd only ever lived in clapboard houses. Easy enough to fix a broken bit of siding, a sloping porch, a sagging roof. You can patch the holes with waxed canvas, in a pinch.

People are too fragile to be bricks, I thought when I saw her shot to pieces and bleeding out.

It's better to build a clapboard house. You can always find a bit of twine to tie things down. Or laminated cardboard, if you're lucky.

Finally, I find my fiancé at a roulette table in a shabby off-strip Vegas casino. I push myself between him and the skinny brunette who’d been patting his butt. We watch the ball circle the wheel. It drops into red 27.

“Bollocks!” he mutters. “Shoulda played that. It’s your age, Love!”

I sigh. My 28th birthday, which I spent alone, was yesterday.

He pecks my cheek. “Lend me a bit, Love?”

I place my engagement ring in his outstretched hand. “Plenty of pawn shops in this town.” I pat the brunette’s butt and peck my fiancé’s cheek. “Good luck, Loves.”

I picked up a pleasant smell, today – one of the nostalgic kinds, which brings back recollections of memories unspecified. Most people complain of never being able to place the origin of such nostalgia, when they catch a whiff of it, but I always can. The scent smelled strongly of:

The candle store, pomanders, mulled wine, the colonial market, Christmas, the Battle of Camden military reenactment, the mall perfume booth, Germany, baked pie, the apple orchard in the mountains, the hospital radiology lab, the doctor's office, Patient Room 416, and J. Stanley Funeral Home.

I rarely ever come across it, anymore.

The perma-tanned TV chat show host grins having introduced a line-up of guests who need no introduction. He says they'd also hoped to talk to Simone Hernandez from Duluth, inventor of the first working time-travel machine, “But it turns out she's only eight years old!”

It's a joke. The name, a complete fabrication. The audience lap it up.

But, by sheer coincidence, sitting cross-legged in front of the television in Duluth is eight-year-old Simone Hernandez. Goggling at the screen, she considers. She's good at math and loves science fiction. He must mean her.

Her life's mission has just been set.

Daily, she haunted the airport from first light till hunched men spun floors clean, circling circling carousels at baggage claim, shoulders shouldered by hurried travelers, searching each face for… her, lifting, like breathing, a laminated photo once printed on the fifth page of some local gazette, holding it in her gaze, rushing forward to hoist suitcases from endlessly revolving belts, handing them, repentant, to each one she spotted, who, with a frail, reaching arm, resembled Elderly Woman Killed in Car Crash on I-95, mumbling, “I’m sorry,” or, “I’m so sorry,” or “forgive me,” for the hundredth, thousandth time.

Tomorrow’s the last day of our summer in Switzerland, after weeks in the Alps, the Rhine, and of enough chocolates to last lifetimes.

Tonight, though, was my last chance to make her reconsider.

I stuttered and stammered; she just smiled.

“I know.”

Her eyes welled with the pain, the misery, and the inoperable torture that had made this spring — and the recent years — the worst of her life.

“Please,” she didn’t have to say.

My sorrows gushed out.

I reconsidered.

We relished.

Tomorrow’s our last day here, our last together anywhere.

This summer, though, would last forever.

The designer hat—gray, soft like a cloud and pricier than his last few checks, with a logo that often drew wows from others—was the gift he bought for himself the day he was finally promoted to supervisor in his old bank. It was fantastic. He loved it so much, he felt like he was missing a limb whenever he went out without it.

Yet, he didn’t hesitate to let the wind blow it away, a lifetime later, so he could first chase after the scattering dollar bills that he'd earned from playing his guitar by the station.

The whoosh-whoosh eclipses our still apartment. My weather app announces a cloudless sky, a quiet mind, but still: a windy whoosh-whoosh.

“Is that you?” My husband’s head swivels from me to the ice maker. We trust the noise is there and together glide across beige tile, but no.

A cracked window, maybe? Or the ceiling fan? Television static upstairs?

The whoosh-whoosh quickens, an urgent heartbeat, like looking over the edge at the South Rim—before the mustard seed grew in my belly but didn’t bloom.

Thoughts pass like clouds. Our bodies cross but never collide. Always expecting.

New lumber. No stain. Built this porch yourself.

County don’t require permits.

We ain’t from the county. Must’ve been hard to build this at your age.

Another Marine vet helped. Y’all serve?

We serve the homefront.

Semper Fi.

No Mexicans helped build this?

Like I said, Semper Fi. Didn’t catch your name. Any of your names. Leave a card. I’ll report back if I see any.

We’ll be around.

Y’all have a good day, I gotta get out of this heat. Stay cool.

See you soon.

Manuel, stay inside. Wait till dark.

The door-latch clicks. Into the dimness comes the faintest of whispers, a scratching like someone writing words with iron gall ink, a goosefeathered quill. Her round-toed walking shoes come to a halt, and she leans against a shelf, her ears straining. The voices are rusty, and there are scrapes like the vellumed movement of antique volumes, cracks like book-spines being splayed. She traces a hand over a book and feels its feathery paper. There is a silence, then more murmurs, urgent now.

“Aw.” The librarian groans. “Sex in the stacks again?”

The rustle of pages sounds to her like laughter.

After six surgeries, I stumble over the church’s threshold for the first time in years. How to explain this reborn need? I have wandered cathedrals, their great reaching arches only stones; through the reliquary glass I saw only fingerbones, only fragments. What am I doing here? I can’t eat the bread. My failing digestive system blinks at me. But there is talk of a barn-born child, hope. Once I hoped to be healthy, reborn. How are arches built? One stone, then another. After six surgeries I need something: God? I am putting myself together, fragment by fragment. Fingerbone by fingerbone.

You and I will soon escape from our dirt-encased homes. Bone will show through the wound from your car accident, while my lungs will still bear the marks of that fatal tumour. Free now, we will climb over the headstones, all the time sniffing the scent of donated blossoms with our sunken noses. See our half-fleshed feet stirring stones in the footpath used by mourners. Did you think death would stop us? My darling, I will take your fingerbones in mine, hold the ruins of your body close. Though damaged, we can still touch. Though dead, we can still dance.

In flimsy sandals and a cigarette in one hand, Tony juggles the soccer ball, popping it right foot, left foot. From his stoop, his neighbor, Will, watches, counts. Fifty times, thumping. Day in and day out. With each tap, Will imagines some burden lifted from Tony. They have never spoken, but Will admires the way joy sweats through Tony’s t-shirt, distracts from the loneliness of a hot summer day. One day, Will sees the ball escape Tony’s kick and idle across the grass. Cautiously, he ambles toward it and taps. Tony flicks his cigarette, looks up and dribbles it back.

As the retreating waves exposed a gleaming stretch of sand, she knelt and picked up a shell. Although it seemed devoid of life, it appeared to be harboring something that was breathing. She pressed it to her ear and heard a raspy voice saying, “Visit the lighthouse.” It was a simple command tinged with sadness. In the distance, the lighthouse was dark, and its beam was just a memory. She tucked the shell into the palm of her hand and started walking towards it. Her footprints vanished behind her, while the foamy shoreline ahead pressed firmly against an unpredictable ocean.

Bessie is fond of westerns. Her hero is John Wayne. She can watch his films all day.

I position her chair near the TV, as her poor eyesight requires.

Caregivers have to be organized. It's what we do to keep a patient on this side of The Line, as we call it. On this side, a day of western movies. On the other, hospice. So once a week I check her medications and blood pressure.

Sometimes when I'm checking her meds, she calls out, "What are you doing, Nance?"

"I'm circling the wagons, Bessie," I reply. "I'm circling the wagons."

No peace, even here, only rustling and whispers. Her eyes settle on the red glass votives. She slips over, kneels, puts her face in her hands. She wasn't religious. Lost all that long ago. Or, maybe, it was taken. She rubs her eyes, finds the money box, stuffs a dollar in before striking a match. The wick sputters, then ignites. No words, her prayer pours forth in tears. A door closes, echoing, moving air through the sanctuary. Her candle is extinguished. She watches the smoke rise to heaven. Was it enough? Or, had she been selfish praying only for herself?

Alex slipped on his Augmented Reality goggles and stepped into the street. With a blink he could edit out the noise and smell of the chaotic world.

As he walked, he removed the tramps and beggars, the joggers and the dog-walkers, the mothers and their prams.

The world became a calmer place.

He then removed the commuters and the street sellers, the cyclists and the scooters.

Eventually, all that remained were clean, empty streets.

Arrows navigated him between the people he could longer see.

One day, the arrows disappeared and Alex stopped and removed the glasses. The streets remained empty.

There were a few things to consider, of course. The coffin had to remain closed during the funeral.

My grandmother spent her later years avoiding people, and it seemed cruel to let them gather around and look at her from the top down. To look at her in her most vulnerable position, a position where she could neither return their gaze nor turn away.

When my grandfather and her children asked to see her, I said no. Because death didn’t grant them permission she had withheld in this life, nor the next.

Neither did grief, nor the need for forgiveness.

"Yard sales," Dad muttered. "These vultures want you to practically give it away."

"Yeah, that's why you just sell the junk and donate the good stuff." One person's unwanted junk is another hoarder's treasure.

"Bunch of looky-loos," Dad grumbled, straightening a stack of autographed Joyce Meyer books.

Mrs. Katz from next door, who always smelled like Icy Hot and ginger snaps, picked up a bootleg copy of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. "Well, lookee-here," she said, opening the empty case: "I guess the lady did vanish."

And, judging from the looks of things, she was the only thing that had.

Bayan was a saltrunner, an illegal activity since the collapse. Shovel in hand, empty bags on either side, he’d hit a vein, fill as fast as he could, then escape, before patrols arrived.

Today, Bayan decided to hit a spot west of the abandoned highway, marked by a ridiculous collection of stones. The salt here was good, but further out was better, where the last of the waters receded, centuries ago.

Departing the rocky shoreline, he glanced derisively at the once-famous Spiral Jetty. He was a practical man. All survivors were. Salt was life. The old gods did nothing.

In the bare hills beyond the derelict town, the few spared trees were exposed to the savage wind, whispering ancient secrets as they were ravaged.For a moment Atropos was transfixed by that tortured dance.

Soft sounds at her feet brought her back to the desert ground upon which she stood.

The creature in front of her was on his knees, hands tied behind his back, and a black hood over his head, mumbling incoherently. He was begging. They always do. And why not? You may as well.

Atropos exhaled and cut. And they both glowed gold for an instant.

In the early 1950s, our trips were long, primarily due to our Dodge sedan overheating and poor two-lane roads. We also made roadside stops to eat. Although Mom packed delicious lunches, we loved bologna sandwiches on white bread with a bottle of Pepsi the best. Back then, restaurants and many public eating establishments practiced de facto segregation against Mexican Americans, so we mostly ate inside our car. As an adult, I sometimes crave a bologna sandwich. When the white bread sticks to the top of my mouth, I wash it away with a Pepsi, dislodging memories of those unjust years.

Bins burst with color: squash, zucchini, tomatoes, berries! Normally I’m in the middle of the shoppers, but not today. Today I skirt the edges. Chemo has weakened me, and I almost didn’t come, lest anyone should say, “Oh! You poor thing!” I round the corner and am nearly capsized by a peach colored cat running from a red-faced man. “That beast! Stealing my bread!” I tut in sympathy but squat to the cat’s level as he crouches under a bin. He’s too skinny—matted fur, sad green eyes. “Come,” I say, softly. “Let’s go home and defy our survival odds.”

At the end of a cold autumn I counted the leaves on our tree. One fell. The brittle thing in my soft hand. I walked inside to procure some tape. Once back, I secured it. My cheeks fell: two other leaves must've fallen. I scoured the ground, finding just one. Grabbing a branch to return it, the first leaf wavered—the tape gave way. Layers of tape secured the new leaf as the original plunged: sinking into the earth. Then another. I removed the tape, and let that leaf land in my hand. There must still be leaves in winter.

A dense cloud of dreams from across the border settled over the city. City officials urged the citizens to stay up as long as possible. Loudspeakers on street corners blasted patriotic music throughout the day. Exercise, keep busy, take cold showers, forgo sex and self-gratification they said. Even reading, especially in comfortable chairs was discouraged. They feared the siren song of the past, the smell of mown grass and burning fall leaves, awkward kisses on front doorsteps, loves short-lived and lost, choices not considered or made, paths not taken. Stay in the present they demanded, leave the future to us.

Sly came sporting a Louisiana accent that made me feel sentimental. I asked about the tattoo on his wrist that said Vivian, the first time we met. He told me about his ex-wife who he caught cheating on him when he came home from work early one night. The next time he came he’d covered her name with a Black rose, traditional style, and added a matching one to the other wrist. He told me stories. He told me that I made him believe in God. We ate snap peas straight from the garden and kissed in the rain.