Another Saturday Night

The red light flickering in the corner of Ted's phone indicates a message has arrived on the phone. Bruce knows this even without asking. Ted drops by the apartment once or twice each week to visit and each time lays the blackberry device on the coffee table. It could have been for effect or Ted may honestly not feel comfortable with the phone in his pocket. Bruce doesn't read minds, so he wouldn't know. If were a mind reader, hemight make mroe money. Bruce works a teller job at Franklin Street Bank. He's had the job for three weeks and the routine is beginning to settle into his brain.

--Show up on time to be let in through the back door by the manager.
--Walk to your station and unlock the drawer.
--Pull the rack of the cash from the drawer and walk back to the vault with the manager.
--Silently count out the bills as the manager counts them into each tray for each teller working that day.
--Return the filled trays to the drawer and lock the drawer.
--If he is the primary teller for the day, pull the shades up and place all of the cardboard advertisements for checking and savings accounts. Make sure the standing cut out for CDs is facing the front door.
--Make sure all of the lights are on and all of the deposit and withdrawal slips are in the correct bins and that the pens have ink to write with.

Day in and day out for three weeks, Bruce has been working without break beyond Sundays off to secure enough cash to keep the apartment and amenities to which he has become accustomed. Before this job, Bruce had worked retail at a video game store in the local strip mall until the holiday rush died out. Before that, he worked in a cardboard cutting facility outside of the city for three months before the repetitive assembly line labor drove him to quit.

For the six years Bruce lived in the neighborhood a couple miles north of downtown, he had not kept a job for longer than six months. That single job was a contract position working on a programming project for a marketing company to track projects within for gaining efficiencies. After the contact was up, Bruce found himself struggling to find another opportunity in his field of study. Programming jobs within the city did not have any need for him as a new graduate. Each position required three to five years of experience with programming languages that had only been out for four years and which Bruce had not experience with in his time in school.

His girlfriend, Tara, pushed him to get a job in the short term to avoid living in his car. Obligingly, Bruce started at Radio Shack for a few months before quitting to take a course in a new technical field opening up. After a solid week of training, Bruce found himself further in debt for the training and no more experienced than before. His employment spiral continued downward and Bruce had not found another job to the one that brought him to the city. The closest he came was a two week effort designing a website for a local company that he is now confident has been replaced with someone else's efforts.

Bruce had slowly run out of options in the city until Ted put in a word with the local Franklin Street branch. Ted works in the corporate offices of Franklin Street's parent bank, American Streets Financial, as a finance executive. He routinely walks away from gatherings with friends to take important calls and constantly scans his email on his phone while talking with friends. Bruce hated this. He would complain to shared friends of the pretentious aspect of not giving full attention to the person speaking making the person feel like they are less important than an incoming sales report on a Saturday evening. In truth, Bruce was mostly jealous.

Ted was a family man and a supportive friend if one is to get beyond the second most important thing in the room to Ted. He lived for his job. Every update in every conversation included the bank. "How's it going, Ted?" "Great. We just moved into the top ten of banks in the tri-state area thanks to some number crunching I was involved in, so I'm hoping more good things are on their way." His family came up less often. The kids were always doing cute things the kids under four years old tend to do according to his wife, Trina, but Ted was less likely to notice. He was busy being the job and making the money to support his family. Bruce envied being the job.

After approximately ten flashes, Ted returned from the kitchen with a fresh beer in his hand. Crossing to the couch, Ted grabbed the blinking device and began flipping through emails before he sat down next to Bruce.

"So how are you liking the branch so far? Think it'll take? I know you've been through quite a few jobs, but give the bank a chance. At the teller position, you get solid hours and enjoy bank holidays as well as a solid paycheck and a bottom rung start into the Street's corporate ladder. A little initiative shown in taking more responsibility will get you up that ladder in no time." Bruce glanced up from the tiny screen only for the last few words and brought his eyes back to the screen before Bruce would answer.

"It's fine." His words came with reverberating clicking from Ted's phone as Ted responded to an email in the midst of the conversation. "I like the cardboard cut outs. I may bring the one of the woman ecstatic about 15% APR on the credit cards. Might even get rid of Tara and just introduce the cut out as my new love. We'll have a fantastic life at fine restaurants for half the price. I can order kids for us from the marketing catalog and I won't even need a 19 year old when I turn 50 because she won't age. I think it's a solid plan."

Ted continued clicking letters and staring intently at the screen a minute after Bruce stopped talking. He picked up his empty bottle and shook it in front of him to see if any beer would magically appear in the empty bottle. Not surprisingly, none appeared. The clicking stopped and Ted was watching Bruce shake his bottle.

"Would your new wife be jealous whenever you walked by one of those models in cardboard form hocking beer at the corner store?" Bruce smiled at Ted's ability to do multiple tasks and still not miss the conversation. Even if it was a bit off putting.

"Nah. We have an open relationship. I may have a weekly visit from the beer wench from the St Paulie Girl signs and she can see the deodorant cutouts every so often."

Ted tilted the beer back and watched the red light o his phone begin blinking again before he finished his drink. "Whomever you end up with, do you think they prefer you as a banker?"

"I told you the job was fine. It's not stressful and the people make it less repetitive throughout the day." He stood to walk to the kitchen for another beer. "It's really the downtime that gets to me. I was training for working on computer. I paid thousands of dollars over four years to be taught how to build applications on machines that don't require me to be at an office or anyplace beyond my couch in my underwear and there I am for roughly fours hours of each day sitting on a stool staring out into the open space and wondering why my new wife's ass is a flat chunk of cardboard."

Ted moved through the open doorway into his kitchen and pulled the handle on the 20 year old white monster of a refrigerator to grab another beer. Slamming the door shut, Ted grabs the bottle opener from the door and flicks the cap off in one smooth motion. Maybe I should have been a bartender. At least then I could drink when I get bored. By the time he returned to the living room, Ted was typing again on his phone. Chances were good this had happened at least once more before Bruce could return from the kitchen.

"Like I was saying, Bruce. Initiative. If you talk to the manager when things are slow and ask what you could do that might help you move up more quickly and fill the downtime, I'm sure you wouldn't be bored. At least, not from a lack of things to do. Give it time and stay focused and we could be sending our kids to the same schools and carpooling to the corporate tower. You do plan on sending your kids to schools, right?"

"I don't know yet. My cardboard love and I are still arguing over public schooling versus private schooling versus home schooling the fake kids. I'll talk to the manager on Monday if I find myself bored for a period of time again and see how that goes. I just know myself and I don't feel the value of the job yet. I still have that piece of my brain telling me I'll find a job coding something somewhere someday and that keeps my brain from accepting the need to pay attention to the details of the job."

"Even after five years away from it?" Ted had a way of stating things in painful perspective. "I may be working in finance just like I hoped when I went through business school, but I didn't always have this. I had to work through less than proper finance positions and some non-finance ones to get where I am. I'm just saying to give it a real chance. You might find it speaks to you after all. Might even find a career in it."

Ted smiled to hide the gritted teeth. He hated being told what to do in life even by a guy who had it all worked out. Maybe he resented authority too much to accept a new opportunity when it presented itself, but he had serious doubts this job would satisfy his need to do something he felt mattered in life. He did not look down on the job itself, he looked down on himself in that role of filling a spot to live his life from day to day.

Bruce's phone began buzzing on the table the minute he set it down. "It's probably Trina. We have dinner plans tonight. Mind if I head out and we catch up some more later in the week?"

Bruce sighed deeply at the chance to not talking about work anymore. "That's fine. Tell the wife I said hello. Go back to your perfect life and leave me to my squalor. Come to think of it, you're a pretty lousy friend. Why don't I live in your house with you? You wouldn't even know I was there in all of that space."

Ted chuckled as he pressed the send button on his phone. "I'll be sure to ask Trina and get right back to you on that." With a wave and another laugh, Ted walked out the door leaving Bruce to clean up the bottles on the table.

Bruce went back to his desktop keyboard and began typing up lines of code for some home projects. He had been working on teaching himself the new technologies he had no experience with in hopes of using that as experience on his resume. Tara would be home in an hour and hated when she found beer bottles on the table. She likes Ted, but felt the time he spent at their apartment was time away from Bruce finding the job he really wanted. She was ball of stress every time she came home to find out Bruce had quit another job. After so many years together, Bruce knew she wanted to get married but also knew it was unlikely while Bruce was job hopping and finances were so unstable.

His fingers stopped tapping the logic statements for a few minutes and he found himself unwilling to continue as he thought of how Ted's success always made him feel unfocused in his life. Pondering where he had gone wrong, Bruce moved back to the couch and knew he would still be there with a beer in his hand when Tara came home. So be it.

79: Mistaken Identity

"Sammy boy, I haven't seen you in three weeks. Where have you been hiding yourself? They've been sending us some worthless snot with the morning bagels. I swear he's been bringing us two day old bagels as bad as they've been."

A man in a navy blue double breasted suit steps into the elevator. He sees me with the box of bagelsand assumes I'm the bagel delivery guy. He doesn't notice I'm wearing a finer quality suit than he is or that I've seen this Sammy before and I don't have the piercings nor the unkept hair to make the confusion valid. The only thing I have is the box of bagels I took off of Sammy this morning.

"Hey, boss. Big weekend planned?" I mimick the excited nervousness Sammy exuded when I apprached him. He would definitely use the same tone for Dave Merrit even if he doesn't know he's the CFO of the company.

"You know it, my pastry peddling friend! I've got a 90 foot yacht waiting for me on Lake Superior. It's a bit colder up there in the winter, but just as nice as anyplace else in the summer. I take a few sick days each July and just sit out there with a margarita in one hand and a fishing pole in the other. There's almost nothing like it." He laughs at his own story wide enough that I can see the gold cap in a molar in the back.

"Do they charge that much less up there for docking and storage to make it worth the drive?" I shift the box awkwardly trying to draw any attention to the fact that I'm wearing a suit. Dave doesn't notice.

Dave leans in close to me and glances at the corners of the elevator as if spies lie in every corner. "Between you, me and the fence posts, Sammy, I'm hiding it up there. There's less chance someone from the office will see me all the way up there to question me aboutthe boat. The less they know, the better my life is."

The smile I give him is genuine. "They get jealous because you make the big bucks to afford it."

"Well, I don't make quite that much, but nobody buys what they can actually afford these days, right? Granted, I'm not taking out a mortgage for my BMW or the Rolex. I have my ways of making the money I deserve here. I'm the CFO. I know what we're going to do before the market does and I have friends very appreciative of that knowledge. Over the past 10 years, I've made an extra two million dollars through investments thanks to my position here. Like Mel Brooks said, it's good to be the king."

I smile and end the game. "Is the CFO king? I thought the CEO was the big boss."

Dave laughs just condescending enough to confirm that I'm still not recognizable to him. "Well, that's an appointed position by the board. I'm CFO. I earned this role. I control the finances here and that makes me the big boss. Besides, they just appointed a new CEO this past week. Some snivelling pain in the ass from one of the oil companies. I haven't met him yet, but I don't expect him to affect how I work here."

The doors opened to the 38th floor. Debbie, the finance department's administrative assistant, looked through the doors at the two men exiting. "Oh good. Mr Philips found you, Mr Merrit. He was hoping to get on your calendar to discuss his new role as CEO."

Dave Merrit, in all of his well kept persona and fine clothing, fell apart. He stammered out a few syllables before I cut him off. "Yes, Debbie. I now know my new role. Can you post an opening at the CFO position? I believe we are about to have an opening. Bagel?"

The Line

"Whenever I see someone pull a cigarette from a pack at a party, I'm always reminded of my college days where I once ate a cigarette on a bet. Many people ask me what I got for that and I tell them that the cigarette entered my blood stream through my stomach and I becamse immune to cigarette smoke. Unfortunately, the only place I could make use of my super power was at dance clubs and, unfortunately, I wasn't immune to the ear splitting volume or willing to put up with the bullshit pretentiousness of most of the people I met there. Of course, that was back in college when everyone went places in groups and just got hammered for the sake of it. Now I find myself single and dating people that keep pushing me back to the clubs like there is anything appealing about them. The only reason people go there is to be able to feel free to dance in whatever way they please that would make them look weird at a party. It all just ends up looking like a sea of people with no personal space swinging their arms wildly and rocking their hips."

The red head in the short skirt sucking on a Marlboro exhaled loudly in plume of nicotine enriched air. Standing next to her was a man in his late thirties with a buzzcut and a faded blue t-shirt that used to hold a Cubs logo long ago lost in the pain of seasons failed. He stared wide eyed at her waiting for a response to his unsolicited soliloquy. She smiled a patronizing smile with more than a little lipstick on her front teeth before hissing, "Go away."

"Statistics state that cigarette smokers are more likely to be under-educated or high school drop outs. 20% of white women smoke and I'd say roughly 95% of the men here are not speaking to you right now. You have no ring on your finger and have been sitting alone here for the past 20 minutes. Even if someone is just around the corner coming to meet you, you should heed sage advice no matter what moment in time you find yourself in. If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

The stare the odd man received was meant to melt him to the puddle of nothingness she had already imagined him being before she dropped her gaze to her ash tray and glanced around the room at the single men not coming to see her. She turned her head to the table next to her in time to see a very attractive man in his late twenties glancing her way. She smiled and exhaled another stream of smoke as he frowned back, waved the smoke away from his head and walked away to the bar leaving his table empty. Turning back to her unwanted conversationalist, she found nothing but a hazy view of an empty space in front of the bar. When she turned back to her ash tray, she found him sitting next to her on the now abandoned stool left from the next table.

"I'm Allen. You'll want to remember my name when you call me later." Laying a business card on the table with a phone number scrawled across the front, Allen turned to the door and walked away. He managed to get to the curb before his cell phone rang. He let it go to voicemail and waved for a cab.

Not So Hidden Treasure

Thanis McGuffin presses the round plastic power button on his PC and blows the steam off of his coffee cup as the monitor lights up. He sips the cup apprehensively and swears out loud at his impatience. His lips sting with the burning sensation from the ghost of boiling coffee past that is not upsetting his stomach. As the sensation returns to his lips, he begins to taste where the scalding has now past his tongue and reaches for another packet of cream.

Dumping the small cup of cream into his mug, he spills a few drops on the keyboard as he attempts to login while attending to his coffee. He feigns a sense of confidence as if he does this sort of multi-tasking all of the time even though no one is watching him. The status bar slowly ticks towards 100% loading as he thinks to himself how much he needed a newer computer if this job pans out. He glances at the post-it note on his desk with the name Gregory Larker. A study of the last name gives him more comfort as it is not a common sounding last name and it looks American enough not to be a common name with which he is not familiar.

The speakers shriek a triumphant, high pitched tada noise causing Than to nearly knock over his coffee onto the stack of papers on his desk. The papers don't have any meaning, but the mere sight of them legitimizes him as a private detective with experience and plenty of cases to show for it. He couldn't let the man in the $1,000 suit not cut quite wide enough to conceal the bulge of what he assumed was a gun that had shown up that morning think he was a rookie. He had been fired from his job as a computer lab monitor for abusing his computer rights and ignoring his responsibilities. Coincidentally, he was caught while printing out the certificate for completing the at home private investigation online course. He had aced the forensics question and was able to correctly guess what Occam's razor indicated. The certificate was now hung in his office with a phone notary seal he made with sunflower seed impressions and a pin.

Than clicked on the small blue icon to launch a web browser. He thought about how much easier the PI business would have been 50 years back if they could have googled their suspects to find them. After the search results for Gregory Larker asked him if he meant Gregory Parker or the Gregorian Lark, a web page from an old geocities space came up. The page listed itself as the home space for Gregory Larker of Bulmot, Massachusetts. This was turning out to be easier than he had imagined. The site had no pictures, but listed a link to his facebook profile.

Than clicked the link and watched as the picture loaded showing a man in his mid-twenties with curly black hair and a day's worth of facial hair. He listed his hometown as Bulmot, but he had himself listed under the San Francisco network of contacts. Even his bio matched perfectly and then some to the story told to him be the gun toting suit he met that morning.

"Greg was a pharmaceutical lab assistant working on a breakthrough cure for various forms of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma when his lab caught fire taking all of the data and research in the lab. Luckily, Greg held onto the backups of the research, but went into hiding when he discovered the fire was set intentionally. I am currently in hiding and can not be found anymore. I will continue my research outside of the reaches of those wishing me harm. My cell is 510-833-6868 if you need to reach me."

If only every case could be this easy, Than thought to himself. Jumping onto the Southwest.com site to book a cheap flight to San Francisco, Than began mentally packing his bags and shopping for a new laptop.

Levitation

Levitation comes from the Latin word levitas meaning "lightness". It is described in Webster's dictionary as the act or process of levitating especially the rising or lifting of a person or thing by means held to be supernatural. Some heroes may use high tech devices to mimic a sort of anti-gravity or a propulsion system giving the body release from the bonds of gravity, but true levitation comes from the constant stable suspension beyond the earth's gravitational forces. Some super small objects maybe be able to be levitated by the use of the Casimir effect by equalizing the force between two plates causing no field of magnetic force. Human beings are incapable of levitation without mechanical means.

---

Tony awoke from a dream of kittens leaping from a cliff into the icy blue water of the Pacific ocean. He had fallen asleep 45 minutes earlier on the bus watching the billboards in the city go by leading him to this strange imagery. He now sees puppies chasing giant red tennis balls in an empty swimming pool. Before long he's back to the cliff watching the kittens leap only now they don't reach the water. They've begun to soar into the clouds followed by the tennis balls and followed by the chasing puppies. A psychiatrist would see a simple mind looking for the simple pleasures of childhood. A 28 year old man should not be thinking of such odd things.

This thought is still floating in his mind when he opens his eyes to a bus load of people watching him. They stare up at him confused by the 5 foot 8 inch man. Even the tall biker looking man with the severe handlebar mustache is staring up at him. His butt is not numb from the hard seat like his typical 2 hour bus ride's usual results. He looks to his shoes and sees his shoelace is untied and dangling over the back of the seat in front of him. The tips barely touch the seat back as Tony is floating four feet above his seat.

His head is pressing against the bars on the ceiling for a few seconds before he comes crashing to his seat. His left ankle lands on the seat back in front of him and his head bangs into the plexiglass window. He is still swearing under his breath when the bus slams to a halt and the bus driver demands he get off the bus.

"How do you expect me to get home? I'm in the middle of nowhere at least an hour from my stop!"

"Why should I care you freak? Fly home for all I care, just get off my damn bus." The bus driver now has the large biker guy behind him supporting the intimidation factor. Tony takes the hint and grabs his bag before walking to the rear doors and pressing his way onto the shoulder of highway 98. After an hour of walking, he arrived at a small roadside motel. After arguing with the young man behind the counter reading a comic, Tony was forced to get a room until the morning bus could arrive. His sleep would not be as sound as the bus trip.

Who doesn't love the land shark?

Annie hasn't breathed fresh air in the past 3 weeks. Not since the sirens started and not since they died out 6 days ago. She assumed the reserve batteries in the city building had gone out, but it could have been the things that used to work there and live all around her. The light had dimmed like a storm had come, but no rain fell and no wind blew. The only thing to arrive at her door were former neighbors as former human beings. She watched them bang on the Kent's door and tear inside with only screams from Martha and then silence.

She hasn't opened her door since that day. Her favorite end tables had gone to the only two windows in the place and only light from the tiny window in the bathroom managed to penetrate her cave. Her food supply was beginning to dwindle and had only lasted this long thanks to organizing the neighborhood canned food drive for the homeless. The first week was filled with meaty stews and beans followed by a week of more watery fare. The past few days had been spent rationing out four cans of creamed corn and 3 cans of french cut green beans. She was getting a bit desperate, but not desperate enough to open the door.

As if on cue, the doorbell rings. She creeps to the peep hole but can't see anything in the night. While her eye is focusing in on the house across the street still on fire, the doorbell rings again. She backed away from the door and stood in silence for a few minutes until the doorbell rang again. Out of far expired instincts, she called out. "Who is it?"

A slight pounding against the door could be heard and then a low guttural groan came as a reply. "Huh-HUH-huh-huh!" She almost thought she understood the voice even in grunt form. After a few moments, he repeated himself. "Huh-huh-huh-huuuuh!" Annie felt a sense of cabin fever build as she began to sense a translation forming in her head. A lack of human contact became more apparent as Annie answered back to her former delivery man.

"Delivery? For little old me? But I didn't order anything." She smiled flirtatiously although no one could see it but Annie. She could her scraping on the other side of the door and a frantic grunting of the same message as if that would get him in faster.

"What kind of delivery do you have for me today?" The repeated grunting stopped as if the thing outside was thinking hard about what she might want. She waited long enough to where she almost asked again when the voice came back.

"HuhhuhHUH?" She finds herself astonished to think she understands what is being groaned to her from behind the door. She could swear he said 'chocolate'.

"Chocolate? No, thank you. I don't have time for empty calories."

"HuhHUH?" He's prepared for her refusal of chocolates. He's a strategist, this one is.

"Flowers? That's sweet, but I don't get much sunlight in here and they'd fall to pieces quickly in here." She ends this statement with a slight giggle at the absurdity of the situation. The laughter seems to irritate the voice as a loud line of angry groans followed that she thought could be taken as vulgarity. After a stream of profanity, the groan impatiently tried again.

"Huh HUUH!"

"Milkman? That's just being silly, isn't it? This isn't the 50s or 60s. People go to the store for these things nowadays though the convenience of delivered milk would be nice to have."

"HuhHUHhuh?"

"Insurance! That's crazy! Who sells insurance these days door to door and who would be stupid enough to buy insurance at a time like this? There are things out in this world now that want to get in and hurt me and money from a policy won't keep them away."

"HuhHUH!"

"Oh, a zombie. That very honest of you. Come on in." Annie reaches her hand to the door and unlocks the deadbolt.

Experimental Occupations

20 seconds... Sean stares blankly at the clock through the hole in his hand. The searing sensation from 20 seconds before was fading from the nerve endings and would stop invading his brain in about 10 more. The bucket he held his hand over had filled with the gore that his childhood friend from across the street would have loved in a movie, but now lay empty of blood. Instead the piece of flesh had reabsorbed the lost blood and begun to reform into a clay like texture he would have run through a strainer to make fake silly hair for his Mr. Potato Head when he was younger.

30 seconds... He watched the lump of material in the bucket begin to bubble and shift as it doubled in size. The process of regrowth was startling to watch every time he saw it. Now at his 56th viewing as evidenced by his running diary of accidents, Sean knew what would happen if he did not intervene in the growing mass of cells formerly belonging to him. The mass would continue to grow until it reached nearly 100 pounds in weight and began reforming into another person.

45 seconds... The hole in his hand had been bubbling like the mass in the bucket and had resealed. When the sensation fully returned to his hand and the tingling like he'd been on a riding lawnmower for three hours with a bad case of the shakes, Sean would write in his hand that a 2 inch hole sealed in 45 seconds as part of his homemade instruction manual. Since he realized there was something strange going on with his body in the way of regeneration of damaged cells, Sean did not want to go into the unknown day after day, so he started tracking the details and delays in healing he experienced. He refused to go about life as if he were indestructible because he knew he was not. He could be broken and destroyed. He could be shot and would bleed like anyone else. He would not go about his life like he could not be killed because he could be. Even if he had technically been dead several times and would be rebuilt, he could not risk what he was watching at that moment.

60 seconds... He began to see the first signs of hair and facial features in the bucket as he tipped the bucket over to avoid it being destroyed when another version of himself was formed from his discarded matter. The timing had gone similar to test 48 where a wayward rock kicked up from a truck on the freeway had ripped through the fleshy section of his hand and left it bubbling on the side of the interstate. Sean had slammed on the break and skid to the side of the road before making his run backwards the quarter mile to avoid leaving a naked version of himself on the road side.

75 seconds... Sean recognized his own eye looking up at him from the blue carpet of the shooting range. Limbs had begun to take shape and Sean threw a towel over the new version of himself to give himself some privacy in case security wandered in and found them there. In a pinch, he would have to claim he and his twin brother had made a bet and would likely just get kicked out after hiding out in the building after closing. Tonight, however, would be like the last few times.

90 seconds... The limbs begin to bubble on the ends and the shape of feet and hands can be seen. If his estimates are correct, he would be standing beside himself in 30 seconds from now. In the past year since his treatments, Sean had found himself face to face with a mirror image only 7 times. His previous injuries sent Sean panicky at first. Cutting off the tip of his finger, he quickly grabbed it to put it on ice expecting to rush the the hospital and hope for a reattachment. The moment he placed the tip in the palm of his hand, it disappeared into a pool of water and muddy looking dust. When he looked at the finger he had cut, it was healed.

105 seconds... It wasn't until he cut himself over a drainage grate that Sean was forced to watch the blob grow. It quickly became too big for the drain and expanded until a mass of flesh was pressing up on the bottom of the grate. The metal cut the newly formed flesh as Sean reached down to touch the mass, a smear of blood contacted his undamaged fingertip and the mass splashed down as a puddle of water and drained away like some sick hallucination.

120 seconds... Sean puts a hand out to steady his naked doppelganger and helps him to his feet. 120 seconds? his double asks. Yes Sean thinks and is pleased to see his twin self hears it. So this is why we let a new copy form this time. I remember now. the twin thinks. That and the healing time for a bullet wound. I believe we are done here for tonight. Sean thinks. The twin nods his head and walks to the near drain in the floor before ripping a chunk of flesh up from his palm. Reaching out the damaged palm, the twin grabs Sean's healed hand and splashes to the ground. When security walks in five minutes later, Sean is sweeping the mess of mud into a broom pan and dropping it into his custodial cart's trash can.

"Good evening, sir." Sean tips his hat to the security officer and wheels his equipment out the door. The gun hidden beneath the trash can, Sean packs up his stuff and heads home. Done with his chapter on gunshot wounds, Sean will quit the job the next day.

The Traffic Controller

Ted controls the flow of the universe, but you shouldn't call him god. He's really more like middle management. He was told the company needed a strong self starter who was not afraid to make mistake in a critical impact area. Being unemployed for eight months has a way of making a man ready for any kind of job and willing to apply anywhere.



He put on his best brown corduroy pants and the brown sports coat his father passed down to him when it became "unusually snug for a normal man." The light blue striped shirt he wore on his first and last date with Lisa with the little curry spots under his right arm pit that won't be visible as long as he keeps the coat on throughout the interview.



After only five minutes in the waiting room of IUT, Ted knew he was going to have to make a decision. After watching the AC repairman walk out shaking his head in defeat, Ted was sure this was going to be another disappointment in a long line of failed job searches. He was called into a well lit room that increased the temperature to a level he could bear no more. The rest of the interview was spent trying to ignore the fact that the large pools of sweat under his arms even after removing the jacket was re-hydrating the curry and the stains began to smell of Desi Palace.



When asked for an example of an experience in which he showed keen decision making in the face of disaster, Ted's first instinct was to lie, but he could only think of the date that caused the stains. He explained how he had been on a date in the very shirt he was wearing and had reached across the table to feed his date trying to be romantic with a piece of naan and ended up sliding his armpit through his chicken tikka. Instead of panicking, he had instantly torn of a piece of naan and dipped his armpit to taste the sauce and went on to complain about the state of the interior design world in which a restaurant would stoop to using customer's clothing as dishes.

Lisa had laughed and the night had ended as well as he could have hoped. He explained that he had considered it his lucky shirt from then on despite the irreversible damage the turmeric had laid on the shirt. He didn't feel the need to explain how Lisa never called him again and he not been able to find her again after that night.

He waited in the stifling heat of the lights while one interviewer left and was replaced by a strangely familiar looking man. A grey haired man with a small mole in the center of his lip smiled and asked Ted how long he had been unemployed. Ted felt oddly drawn to be honest with the man and explained his move to the new city and his inability to find a new job with his mix of experiences.

The man looked at him seemingly through him and asked why he had not gone on to describe how his relationship with the girl from his date story was going. Ted admitted to the first date being the only date and how he felt saddened by the loss of a chance at what he thought could have been something really good. He stated unasked that he had not been on another date since that moment three months back, but he had not missed an opportunity when if presented itself again.

Another smile and Ted was asked if that was why he decided to go without the jacket when he realized the repairman would not be able to allow him to cover the stains. A light flashed in his mind and Ted now saw the new interviewer shaking his head in defeat and pictured the generic HVAC hat he had been wearing earlier as the fake repairman.

Ted willingness to go on regardless of the certain embarrassment the shirt should have caused him and his ability to turn that negative into a positive in his interview got him hired on the spot. The training was rough and quite vague. He was given test scenarios on a computer to simulate where he would lead a situation as if he were writing the script of a life.

He spent his first day causing embarrassing erections in Poughkeepsie, NY, to a young man in public situation followed by leading him to medical text books to understand what was happening to him and onto a possible future in medicine through his new found curiosity. He spent the third day letting a young girl in Stamford, CT grab a frayed vacuum cleaner cord and nearly electrocuting her before seeing her turn to her science teacher for long discussion on the science behind electricity. After two weeks of various events in the near NY metropolitan are, Ted began to tire of the vagueness of his tasks and snuck into his boss's office while his boss was in a board meeting.

He found the file cabinets bear and the computer to be a hollow shell. Only a mild hum from behind the closet door could be found in the office. Ted opened it as his boss walked in screaming for him to keep the door shut, but the blue flash of light cut through Ted like an arrow and out through the open office door before disappearing into the stairwell. Ted found himself in front of the firing squad made of the board of directors and his boss before being assigned to find the escaped thing or find a new job.

Accustomed to two weeks of employment and the paycheck he hoped to receive in the mail when he returned home that evening, Ted searched the stairwell before finding the charred blue husk like a snake skin in the shape of a tiny man. He was eerily reminded of thing one and thing two from the Dr Suess book The Cat in the Hat, but shook it off as he brought the shell to his boss. He was still terminated after much wailing and screaming by his boss about destroying to flow of the world and the oncoming apocalypse. Some people can be so dramatic, Ted thought on his way home before stopping at the library to jump online.

After an hour of searching for descriptions of the creature shell he had found, Ted reached to turn of the monitor and a spark from his finger tip rebooted the system and loaded up the program from the job he no longer had. Having no appetite for the actual tasks, he switched to shut down when he saw the log of activity for that afternoon had his name on it. The user BlueManintheRoom had logged on around the time Ted was sneaking into the office and a log showed Ted's boss was forcibly delayed from reaching the office earlier and preventing the escape. Ted jammed his finger into the power button and jogged quickly to the exit to get home.

Erasure

I awoke with a splitting headache. I had not known a headache could feel like it was splitting your skull in half before. At least, I don't think I knew that. I can't remember much of anything right now. All I know is that I've messed up some kid's chalk drawing of an airplane by landing face first on the sidewalk. Looking at the buildings around me gives me no sense of recognition. Either I was placed here or I was out for a walk someplace I've not been before. I place my hand to my forehead and feel the beginning of a solid bruise and the seeping of bloody scrapes from hitting the sidewalk.



The sensation coming from my head as I place my hand on my face helps me to pinpoint where the real point of pain is centered. Feeling behind my right ear, I feel a piece of metal protruding from deep within my skull. Gripping it tightly, I tug it quickly out and the world spins as I slam down to the pavement again. It takes a minute for my senses to return and I move my body into a seated position. I play with the metal rod in my hand for a few seconds before my sight returns enough to confirm it is a nail.

A few sidewalk squares behind where I am currently seated, I can see a stack of lumber and a partially finished staircase in front of a three story brick building. The sign welcomes me to the new development and invites me to stop on by and check out this reasonably priced four bedroom three and a half bath duplex down. It appears that the penthouse unit is already spoken for, so I am not invited up there.

Back on my feet, I peer around the staircase, but I do not see anyone working there, so I start walking towards the nearest corner to get a point of reference. A few more steps and I find myself down on one knee getting light headed from the hole left by the nail. With no medical supplies to help me, I jam my right thumb over the hole and feel a little better. I'm now slightly nauseous, but there's no guarantee that I wasn't already that way and distracted by the fainting spell.

I look upward and find myself staring at two green metal street names that could be on the moon for all I know. Wellington and Barry. Do I know these streets? Would they mean anything to me if I hadn't been mistaken for a 2x4 while someone played with a nail gun? Then, it struck me. Who am I? Thinking as if I should feel confident in who I think I am at this moment, I feel that who I am is a person that would not go wandering the streets without a wallet.

Reaching down with my left hand, I begin patting down my pockets. As luck would have it, I'm right handed and my wallet is in my right rear pocket. I forget for a moment what my right hand is doing and the world swims in its fish bowl for a moment as I let go and pull the wallet from my pocket. It's a bit thick. I should really clean this thing out when I get the chance. Luckily for me, I didn't clean it earlier. In side the bi-fold brown leather wallet, I find a pictures insert with some people I don't recognize. Three couples smile at the camera, two in wedding dresses and tuxedos, but none stand out as anyone I would know.

Flipping past the pictures I see the Illinois driver's license and pry it from the mesh canvas. The picture looks like one of the couples in the photo. Digging backwards, I find the picture of the couple with the strapless wedding gown standing near a marble pillar smiling so happily. Is this me? A dark brown mop of hair lays across my skull and somewhat larger front teeth. It all seems familiar, but I can't be sure until I walk to a van parked near the corner and twist the side mirror outwards to see my face. The hair is similar albeit a bit windblown and the face behind the blood looks to be the same shape. A smile shows the larger front teeth and I decide that I must be the man in the picture and on the ID. My name is, looking downward at the ID in hand, Joshua Gardner. I am five feet eight inches tall and I am an organ donor. Good for me. More importantly, I have an address and cash in the wallet.

At the corner I look in each direction and find some cars coming my way down what appears to be Wellington. The fourth car I see is a cab and the top light is on. Somewhere in my brain, I remember that means it is available for hire. Excited for my first memory that helps me, I flag down the driver and hop in despite his hesitant expression. I tell him I fell and I just need to go home to get cleaned up. As he asks where to go, I give him 1620 North Burling and throw a $20 up front so I can sit back and continue to hold my consciousness in my right hand.

Unreliable Third

Sam sits at a table in the coffee shop by himself. He pulls the designer sunglasses from his face as he sips his latte and savors it noticeably. The table next to him stops drinking and stares at Sam trying to place him. The couple look at each other and his wife's eyes seems to light up like she's got it. Sam smirks to himself. He always did enjoy being recognized by the public. It's the perk of being famous for highly regarded films. She leans over and taps him on the shoulder. Sam pretends he didn't see her already.

"Yes?" Sam acts perfectly like the surprised celebrity expecting he can go out in public without being seen.

"You're Sam Taylor, aren't you?" She blinks her eyes batting her eyelashes. She's flirting with him in front of her boyfriend two seconds into speaking to him for the first time. He loves his life, but plays the surprised and reluctant star.

"I am, actually. Fan or foe?" He raises his eyebrow playfully and she giggles a bit too much. She's definitely flirting with him.

"Fan. I'm a big fan." She blushes and turns away. The man at her table rolls his eyes a bit.

"How about you, sir? Do you share your lovely girlfriend's views on my work?" His compliment to the pretty girl is twisted to seem like it's really to the boyfriend. Look at you, Sam seems to say. You've got an attractive girlfriend. That must mean you've got something going for you.

The line lands perfectly and the man's eyes come back into focus as he smiles beside himself at Sam. "I enjoy your films. I may like you for different reasons than most women do. Fire Fire and Doom was pretty good."

Always one to expand on someone's compliment for him, Sam explains his feelings about the film in mixed metaphors stopping short of making the couple drift off into thought. He changes subjects to focus on them enjoying being engaged with fans. "Do you two have any big plans tonight? A nice date planned?"

"We were actually just discussing where to go for dinner. It's our 3 month dating anniversary and we can't agree on a place for a nice meal that we'll both enjoy." Sam jumps in with a suggestion.

"Have you considered Pasta Palace? The place with the ads for 'Eat like and Emperor, pay like a pauper.' It's quite excellent, if I do say so myself which I am doing. Saying so myself." Sam gives her the award winning smile and she blushes again. The boyfriend is not so sure.

"I'm not sure. I wanted to take her someplace nice and the prices there don't make me think of fancy restaurant." Sam nods as if agreeing with him, but continues on with his point.

"I can see where you might think that, but it's quite nice. I've been there many times myself. There's an authentic feel to the interior and you feel like you are in another country. The aromas are quite appetizing and you'll find yourself trying to order an appetizer before you get to your table. I've taken to asking for a calamari appetizer whenever I come in so it can be ready by the time I get to my seat and order a drink." The boyfriend still appears skeptical, so Sam continues. "What kind of food do you enjoy?"

The boyfriend stammers a bit seemingly surprised by the celebrity's interest in his preferences. "I tend to like a bit spicier meals and she likes more savory items like a nice French meal."

"well that's easy enough. I've gone in many directions depending on my taste at the time. I've had the Spicy Carbonara dish which I think you'll find quite satisfying to your spice preferences. I've also had the Chicken Marsala which takes savory to new levels with the tomato base and slow cooked flavor. If that's not enough, the tiramisu is phenomenal. Probably the best I've had anywhere and who doesn't like tiramisu."

The couple makes eye contact and seems to agree that it sounds like a place they would both enjoy. "That actually does sound really good. Would you care to join us there?" The raised eyebrows show Sam that he is in danger of making an enemy of the boyfriend and recovers quickly.

"No, I don't want to intrude on an anniversary meal between two people so in love as you two." The boyfriend seems to have taken the comment at face value as big goofy grin crosses his face and he takes the woman's hand. Together they wave from the door and walk away. As if to an invisible stranger over his right shoulder, he smiles and delivers the 'Eat like an emperor, pay like a pauper.'

"Cut!" A man rushes to Sam and clapping his hands enthusiastically. The camera crew begins pulling the cameras back and adjusting lighting.

"Great, Sam. We got that perfectly in one take. The Pasta Palace wanted to make sure I mentioned to you that they are excited about your work with their ad project and want to offer you a lifetime pass for free food for you and three others to any Pasta Palace in the country. That's very nice of them." The director smiled as if he were the one giving Sam the gift. Sam smiles back at him.

"No thanks." He tries to drop his smile at the same time as the director, but he wonders if he's left his smile up too long.

"Why would you pass on a gift like that?" The wrinkle in the director's forehead reminded Sam that he needs to get more botox next week.

"I don't eat that shit." Sam turned to his personal assistant and signals for him to come to him. "Can you freshen this up? The irish cream is running out and I'm actually able to taste the crap they serve here."

Imperative

Pull the sheet tight against the vulnerable exposed flesh of your neck. Try not to cut off the circulation of air beneath the covers or the circulation in your neck. Blink your eyes quickly until the spots form a fade causing the night to unravel and reveal the secrets in the dark beyond the haze of night. Remember to breathe deeply in through your nose and back out through your nose. Ignore the squeaking noise coming from deep in your right nostril as it will eventually pass.



Forget the way your boss praised you to the head of the company this morning and then ripped you apart in the afternoon meeting for something trivial. Try to make the image of you tightening his tie tighter and tighter until he starts to sweat the spray on hair down his temples drift away. Watch as the image of light bulb shaped head dim as it burns out in your mind. See it begin to glow again and turn into a soft, fiery sunset. Watch the beach form and the waves come in from nothingness. Hear the birds in the palm trees as you rock gently in a hammock. Realize nothing in the world can affect you here. Know that your job and your bosses are thousands of miles away here.

Feel the wind as it picks up and rocks you faster. Feel the sudden jar of your hammock as it seemingly hits nothing. Note the quiet of the waves and the absence of the birds as the hammock begins to rock normally again. Hear the waves begin to crash again and the birds return to their rhythmic chirping. Feel the jolt of your hammock stop again. Awake to your spouse mumbling to stop making that damn squeaking noise with your noise or sleep somewhere else. Realize the hammock stopped as the elbow made contact with your ribs.

Rub your side to try to avoid the bruising as you move to a seated position on the bed. Strike out with your arms as you stand on unsteady legs in the dark. Rub the tip of your kneecap from the railing you forgot was next to the hallway door. Hobble to the bathroom and reach for a tissue and the light switch. Blink away the temporary blindness from the dramatic light change. Try again to bring the tissue to your nose and blink away the sensation of your finger striking blindly into your eye. Feel the cold of the water as you wash your hands and watch as the site of your hair after three hours of sleep reminds you of a troll doll. Spend five minutes attempting a mohawk in the mirror. Spend five more wiping up the drops of water from the counter and mirror.

Welcome the darkness as you flip the light switch off and walk down the hall towards the bedroom. Draw in a deep breath and fight the urge to swear loudly as you strike the same railing with your other knee. Place your hands out to feel for the bed. Rub your nose after reaching the wrong side of the bed and receiving the business end of your spouse's wayward swatting hand. Make your was around the bed to your side and lie down beneath the sheets.


Pull the sheet tight against the vulnerable exposed flesh of your neck. Try not to cut off the circulation of air beneath the covers or the circulation in your neck. Blink your eyes quickly until the spots form a fade causing the night to unravel and reveal the secrets in the dark beyond the haze of night. Remember to breathe deeply in through your nose and back out through your nose. Ignore the squeaking noise returning to your nostril as it will eventually pass.

The Reluctant I

I nearly lost a foot, but settled for two toes. The old pier on 2nd street used to employee hundreds of local workers. The men would come down in the morning looking for work if there was more to move than the standard crew could handle and, at very least, gather up a breakfast sandwich with sausage, cheese, and eggs scrambled up with some green chiles and a piping hot cup of coffee from Sam's Steam Shack. Sam's was popular within Darby, but not enough for Sam to be able to update the restaurant to more than a run down diner on the edge of town.

Sam moved into Darby from Trenton about five years back and bought the old Mellow Times diner that had opened up in the mid-60s only to close when the drug running in the back rooms wasn't able to make up for what the lousy cuisine already failed to bring into the business. It had sat closed for 33 years only to have its front doors opened on occasion by the police coming to chase out the teenagers using the run down spot's cushy boothes for a hook up spot. Around the late 90s, the decrepit conditions became more than even the most deranged couple was interested in chancing.

With a grant from the town council and $40,000 of his own money, Sam had managed to renew the old site enough to bring the customers back in droves that no hit of acid in the back freezer had ever been able to do. Once Sam brought the customer's in, they kept coming back and brought friends. The key to Sam's food was the affordable prices. He was not deluded enough to think he made $7 worth of lunch specials and stuck with the $4-$5 range for 3 years.

Over the past 3 months, however, Sam had started bringing in carpenters and architects to renovate the place brought on by a desire to legitimize his culinary skills. With the new faces came rising prices as fuel for running his kitchen became more expensive with the rising cost of oil. The increase in price drove some frequent customers away as many lived on a budget from day to day and couldn't put up extra money one day for a meal when it meant skipping a meal the next day. The oil prices also cut the number of shipments coming in and leaving through the local docks costing many their means for paying for these meals.

Before long, Sam was no longer able to keep his current staff and pay them with the lack of return customers. The contractors and carpenters stopped showing up to quote prices when they found Sam's taste for their pricing no longer as favorable. A few days later, Sam's place was closed unexpectedly as a load of lumber appeared out back. A day after that, a set of preformed roof arches were found next to the lumber stack. Within a week, a large contingent of workers laid off from the local docks were found to be lingering around the back of Sam's place building walls and floors before erecting a new roof over the rear of Sam's diner. The smell of Sam's famous chicken tortilla soup began to linger in the air again though the restaurant stayed closed to those coming to the front entrance.

Local families began to grumble over the mystery of the closed down but still cooking diner and police were called over the suspicion of the diner becoming another drug hovel returned from the grave of the 1960s. Officer Reynolds was patrolling one night after numerous calls and found a suspicious light coming from the inside of the diner after 3am. The back of the diner had been converted by now into an enclosed shell of a large banquet hall that many believe held nothing but an open room and drug dealers.

The officer rapped loudly on the front door, but was not heard over the loud music coming from the back room. Radioing back to the station the situation, he snuck towards the back before smelling an odd smoke he instantly connected with the suspected drug rumors. The radio was louder now and barely disguised the sound of loud shots. Quickly looking to looked into the window identifying a suspect from the corner of his eyes with a large automatic weapon. With the element of surprise on his side, the officer rushed into the room gun blazing sending out one shot before holding fire.

Inside the large room was a fine tiled floor and the makings of a real authentic banquet room. Sam had made a deal with some local workers that he would supply them with enough food to feed their families to help make up for the loss of dock work if they helped him assemble an addition to his diner for renting for parties. Sam stood stunned as he held the smoldering bark of hickory he was using to smoke a large pork roast for the morning workers. The officer glanced across the room to where he had fired and found the automatic weapon had been a nail gun being used to hang the faux log cabin wall covers. The bullet had splintered the wood of the siding and taken an unlucky ricochet into the sneaker holding the panel level. It was lucky the panel did not get nailed down before the shot or the weight of the boarding hitting damaged toes on my right foot would have meant a kind gesture to a local business resulted in long term disability.

A Rough Start...

Some say it was the 7.52% drop in latte sales on 12th street, but we all know Greg wasn't cut out for a barista's life. He often was caught fake laughing at the coffee house humor from customers. Every "thanks a latte"he received, people could see a little part of him die. One day, he didn't even bother smiling at the "I don't give a frappe if you keep the change." That was the day Mr. Stenson, the regional manager was monitoring the store. Greg served the next customer an iced coffee drink with a raised eyebrow meant to indicate the strange logic in an iced coffee during the snowstorm that day.

"Greg, can I borrow you for a minute in the office?" Jim Stenson was a solidly built man of only five feet. Many believed the excessive weight lifting is to make up for the short jokes. The truth lies somewhere in the middle between self esteem and fighting the fast food he eats ever day in his travels to local franchises.

"You know we don't have an office here unless you mean the bathroom. Sam Matthews tried to convince Sarah it was an office and corporate fired him. I don't know you, but I'd hate to feel responsible for you getting fired." The delivery was dry and direct as most of Greg's conversations went. Most found it difficult to tell when he was serious and took everything as a joke. Even his odd comments about jamming the milk steamer into his eye until the sound of a whistle ends the monotony that is his job. They all thought the joke was that his skull wouldn't whistle if he went through with it.

"Let's take a walk into the back storage area for a minute. I just want to talk to you about your role in this organization." The elongation of the word role made it clear this would not be a good discussion, but Greg was unfazed.

"I'll go, but Janice just went into the employee bathroom back there and she's a little weird about her quiet time in there. One time, I walked back there to take a call from my mother and she blew a cloud of ground cinnamon in my eyes when she came back to the front and told me she hadn't washed her hands."

"Well, we'll just have to whisper." With a wave of his hand, Jim moved towards the back and disappeared through the door. With a wave of his hand, Greg swatted away the steam from a cup of coffee and continued to stand at the counter of the empty coffee shop waiting for customers.

A Walk in the Park

When Ralph awoke, the warm world blanketing his body sensation faded away and he awoke to pain in his head at the crown of his skull and an uncomfortable hard pain in his ear. The light ebbed in and out until he was able to make out the city skyline and the sound of the trickling stream down by the Japanese Tea Garden. He had been down there late at night a few times meeting less reputable men about jobs that would either help him pay the rent or give him a new place to live with irons bars. The rent would have been better but jail was a true studio unit. Even the bathroom was in the main area. Today, Ralph started praying that it was early enough he would hit the police patrol that rushes the homeless from the park each morning.

He pulled his head up from the round rock he had used as a pillow for the night and peered out from behind the bench. The only thing he saw was a jogger stopping to clean up after his golden retriever. In a strange coincidence, the jogger turned looking Ralph in the eye without seeing him and began running on with his dog. Ralph rubbed his eyes trying to clear what had to be a sleepy film distorting the images to his brain. Try as he might, he could still see the jogger running with his dog, but his eyes still said the dog was leading the man with the leash end in the dog's mouth. As if knowing he was being watched, the jogger turned back to look in Ralph's direction and, once again, Ralph saw the distorted face of the man with a set of yellow eyes. The glow seemed to be cutting the distance between them before the man's neck snapped forward by the dog pulling on the leash to keep moving on their run.

Five minutes later, Ralph still lay in the same position staring towards the empty jogging path. Now alone, he felt the pressing urge to find out where he was, but first he needed to find a restroom. Luckily, the restrooms in the park are the easiest place for shady deals and Ralph was only too familiar with their locations. His urgency to get to a restroom was so great that he did not notice he was barefoot still. As his feet hit the cold, damp floor of a public bathroom, he was frozen by the cold shock going up his legs from his feet. Turning to the mirror, he saw he was wearing the same clothes he was wearing the night before he blacked out, but now he was wearing some form of pajama pants covered in blood. Hearing a voice from outside and still frightened of other wolf faced men with yellow eyes, he ran to the nearest stall closing the door to hide. The voices outside sounded like arguing and the faces seen in the cracks kept Ralph paralyzed on the toilet seat for the next ten minutes while the room faded in and out in different hues.

The voices seemed to be wavering and Ralph swore he heard his name several times after one man shoved the other through the door of the next bathroom stall and left. Ralph focused on the silence as all noises faded before he began focusing on his heartbeat until he passed out to the soothing sounds of the man in the stall next to him vomiting.

Pantsless in the jungle

Ralph runs to the kitchen to rinse out his glass from his nightly drink. Wednesday nights he has a rum and coke while watching the latest game shows offering millions of dollars to people no smarter than he is. He runs his glass under the faucet before tossing the glass into the dishwasher. Before rushing out so as not to miss the answer to what is the square root of 4, he notices the trash is lying open by the back door and a small pool has formed of either a barbecue sauce or fudge topping from his dinner.

The next commercial wouldn't be for five minutes and the pool was beginning to gather towards the overflowing electric plug containing ratty extension cords to the refrigerator and microwave. He could sit back and watch his show while waiting for the microwave to short out and take out the rest of the building or he could chance not finding out the latest answer. He made a choice he would regret on a sound decision.



Trying to avoid freezing but unwilling to put pants back on, Ralph opens the back door to the enclosed rear stairwell and rushes the bag to his garbage shoot. Before he can get back to the door, a breeze rushes in and sucks the door closed in front of him. Pantsless and keyless, Ralph begins to shake the door on it's frame gripping the handle tight. He thinks to himself frantically searching his memory for any place where a key could be hidden. The doormat is hiding nothing and the top frame of the door holds nothing but dust and dirt.



A humming noise begins to drown out the shaking of the door in its frame. Ralph stops shaking the door as he notices his shadow on the door. There are no other apartments in the rear section of the building directly across from his door and Ralph's building isn't the type to have apartments with good lighting or undamaged doors. Tenants in his neighborhood are not the type he would want to turn his back on or have sneak up behind him.

Against his flight or flight instinct as Ralph had no fight instinct, he turned in time to see the flashes of light come up the stairwell before pain in the top of Ralph's skull too his vision leaving only the sound of his body hitting the floor and the feeling of the world wrapping around him like a warm blanket. Ralph could only hope it wasn't the blanket he spilled his dinner of buffalo wings on the night before. He saw himself awakening in the hall way coated in teriyaki before he passed out.

The Old Undead Treatment

Darryl walks the streets like everyone is a zombie. It's nothing personal. He isn't trying to take away any one's personality. He's agoraphobic,but you wouldn't be able to tell it by the way he power walks the streets. He began working with a therapist 14 months back. Fearing a panic attack from braving the streets to go to some one's office, Darryl picked Dona Gerald out of the yellow pages. Her ad was a bit more dial-in psychic hot line or local singles part line, but it was the only one offering phone services.

After the first call, Darryl began to wonder about Dona's credentials. She asked him about his youth like any psychiatrist would, but focused more on his preferences in movies and entertainment. When he admitted to be an old horror movie buff, she jumped at the chance to talk about herself. By the end of the 30 minute conversation, Darryl felt like he was working her through her lost childhood instead of getting his own help. By the third call, it all began to make more sense.

Dona explained that her theory on agoraphobia was that sufferers feared having panic attacks over nothing. Her idea was to try and validate the panic and teach people to work through it. Given Darryl's fondness of old monster movies, she asked him if he was a fan of zombie flicks. He was. She asked how he felt about the new remakes of the old Night of the Living dead series of films. Darryl said he could see how giving the zombies more intelligence and quicker movements made them a more serious threat, but he had grown up loving the idea of an never ending swarm of undead creatures that only thought about eating brains and moved at a snail's pace. The only real threat there was if you didn't move fast enough or backed yourself into a corner.

By the end of the fourth call, Dona tasked Darryl with going out to the store. She didn't want him to go with any list in mind. She only wanted him to go there and complete an exercise. The exercise was to enter the store knowing that only the cashiers, butchers and bag boys were real people, but everyone else shopping was a brainless, undead creature trying to relive past moments in life grasping at life. Darryl was to take a shopping cart and get down every aisle and back out without alerting the undead that he was living.

The goal was to mimic the people in the store and move cautiously around the store. Darryl began at the front door feeling nervous about the experiment, but once he entered the store, his fear transitioned to an imperative task of staying alive. He stood by the front doors avoiding the people entering and watching the cashiers. They greeted the oozing fleshed mother of three warmly and took the coupons from her hand as the maggots crawled to the conveyor belt. The cashier did not notice. She merely swiped each item across the scanner and helped the bag boy place the items into bags. Very little eye contact was made and, at the end of the transaction, the cashier continued on as if the last person had not even been there and the next was not shuffling along on a bloody stump of a leg.

Darryl felt slightly exhilarated by the task and went for the carts. He waited for the couple that just entered to pull their cart and tried not to notice as the wife grabbed her husband's butt with a 2 fingered hand. Once in the clear, Darryl grabbed a cart and worked his way into produce. He rushed at first nearly crashing into the meat counter and causing a number of shoppers to stare at him. Fearing he was about to become a meal, he stopped and stood still staring at the beets. No one cares about beets as much as Darryl appeared to at the moment, but it seemed to work.

He began working his way past the onions and into the busier tomato row. He followed slowly behind an elderly man picking up each vine ripened tomato as if they were precious diamonds and he was going to find the perfect one. At one point in his appraisal, the man glanced back at Darryl realizing he was being watched. Darryl rolled his eyes to the sides of his skull and began a low moan hoping to convince the old man that he too was of the not living anymore. This startled the man into taking off with his cart, but it also brought more attention onto Darryl. Don't act like a zombie, just act like a person shopping, he thought to himself.

The rest of the experience was rather uneventful. He passed by the dairy section without a second thought about the shredded cheese he needed for his nightly nachos. He passed through the candy aisle like a mine field trying his best not to bump any other shoppers and passed by the bags of sweettarts he would have loved to have for his mid-day snacks. By the end of his non-shopping shopping trip, Darryl was exhausted. It wasn't until he dropped onto his couch back home that he realized he hadn't freaked out during his trip once.

He began taking larger and larger trips into public gradually gaining confidence. Walking down the sidewalk on a busy street was more difficult than the grocery store task, but he learned to handle it. While walking behind people moving slowly, he would power walk so he could move past them gradually with a sidelong glance at the last moment before completely passing the person to make sure he wasn't about to be bitten. He kept himself from a panicked run by reminding himself that drastic actions make him stand out in a world full of cannibals and he didn't want to be the special of the day.

After 3 weeks of confident journeys on the street, Darryl called Dona to thank her for her help during her off hours and to tell her he wouldn't be needing her help anymore. She thanked him and confessed that he was her first successful test of her theory and that others had not fared so well. She told Darryl that he had renewed her confidence in ideas and that she would continue to use her new methods. She already had a new patient who used to love to jog before being trapped in an elevator when his office building caught on fire. He hadn't been comfortable in the world ever since, but she had him out running last weekend. Without a pause Darryl knew she was working with his sister's neighbor five blocks away. Darryl had seen him out for a run on Saturday. He had bulbs of garlic pinned to his t-shirt.

It's A Steal

Ed had made a habit of riding the trains at rush hour in the evenings. He liked to pluck the expensive electronics from the various pockets of the riders and rush hour in the evening made it much easier. In the mornings, people were still waking up and could barely focus on one thing. This should have played into Ed's favor, but he found that most people in the morning are playing games on their phones or listening to their iPods making these items more obvious when taken.

The first time Ed tried to pick a morning rider, he listened in for the song to stop and tried to quickly unplug the headphones from the jack to give him a buffer of time to run away before the rider realized a new song had not begun. Unfortunately, the tall man in his tweed blazer was unaware of Ed's plan, but hyper sensitive to silence. His iPod was turned up to great volumes causing the headphones to emit a loud split second buzz when unplugged. The rider reached immediately for his iPod to check what was wrong and ended up holding Ed's hand. With a weak smile, Ed apologized and claimed he had accidentally caught his arm on the headphones and pulled them out of the iPod causing it to fall into his hand. One semi-severe beating later and Ed no longer considered the morning trains profitable.


The evenings were Ed's time to shine in his mind. On any given afternoon during rush hour, Ed will come home with 5 high end phones and 4 iPods of varying styles. On this Thursday afternoon, he spotted a young man in black padding fresh off a day of bike deliveries bobbing along to his iPod oblivious to the number of times he was ramming his hips into the other riders. One rider in particular was going to enjoy this new rider regardless of how much he was shoved.


Ed took a couple of shots to the ribs before this tall kid plucked the earbuds from his ears to answer his phone. The nearby group of riders was immediately showered with the loud yet familiar sounds of Billy Idol's Mony Mony. Ed saw his opportunity to snag the mp3 player without pausing to wait for a song break, but as soon as he put his hand on the red player in this kid's coat pocket, Billy Idol broke into his chorus with "I say yeah!" Strangely, Ed and half the train all sang "Yeah!" loudly with Billy.

Ed froze with the iPod in his hand pulled from the messenger's pocket wondering where that burst came from and why everyone seemed to have caught at the same moment. His eyes met the nearest fellow passenger seated nearby. A frail woman in her 80s had wide eyed concern at where her rebel yell stemmed from or even what a Mony Mony was. That didn't stop her and most of the train from echoing with another "Yeah!" as the chorus built to the next verse.

Confused and concerned for his mental health, Ed bolted from the train through the massive crowd pushing on to the train. He was back on the street before he realized he still had the red iPod in his hand. He was surprised to find that the headphones were still attached and Mony Mony was fading in the background to the point that he could not hear the words anymore. He was still mumbling the yeahs as the song faded out and he quickly switched off the music. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth metallic face until his thumb caught on a smooth etching on the upper edge of the face above the screen. The markings appeared to be Chinese characters of some kind, but Ed knew nothing of the Chinese alphabet to decipher it.

He would have to do some research before he could sell it off in case it was a name or an insult that people would not want to own. The last thing he wanted was a piece of electronics that he couldn't sell or that would give away that he had stolen it. He would take it home and reset the playlist. Before that though, he decided to see what music was currently on it to see if he wanted to keep any of the songs already on it. He was still surprised that the owner had not followed after him to get his iPod back as he walked into traffic as Been Caught Stealin' by Jane's Addiction came in and Ed came home with the largest haul he's ever seen.

Limited Edition

Sarah Tott is used to being a slave to her iPod. Every time a new model came out, she was one of the first to pick one up. When the 1 GB turned into a 2GB, she was there. When the 30 GB iPod was trumped in popularity by a smaller and shinier 2 GB iPod nano, Sarah picked one up under the logic that she could run much better with the nano. When the tiny, screenless shuffle appeared, she jumped on it reasoning that sometimes her runs are belabored by the additional few ounces the nano adds. Through iPods and iPhones, Sarah had defined herself with a big white apple.
After spending a day with her iPod touch out in the local street market, she found herself in a small back alley blocked in by a delivery truck. When she realized she could not get around the truck, she swore under her breath and turned back to leave the alley. Dancing Queen kicked in for a second before it began to spark static into her headphones. Ripping the loud distortion from her ears, the ringing drowns out the sound of the back of the truck opening. Looking at the screen, Sarah watched as the album art appeared to melt off the screen and the back light flicker to black. Tapping furiously at the touchscreen, she received no response from the dead bundle of electronics.
"Unlucky break, huh?' The deep gravel voice resonated in her ears and crawled down her spine until her legs felt like they were shaking from the sound. "Sorry if I scared you. Timing was never my thing. Luckily for you, your little problem is my specialty."
Turning towards the truck, Sarah is greeted by a the vision of a six foot five inch man in his fifties. His silver sideburns flow too deeply down his face and connect to an excessive neck beard before rejoining his chin at a point. His hat was a homemade Seattle Supersonics hat with the logo on a tombstone with the year 2008 printed on top. The green and yellow were a near perfect match to the green of his irises and the yellowing of his teeth. The stench of pipe smoke stuck to him like a film of road tar and immediately made Sarah's eyes water.
"I happen to have a special edition iPod touch on my truck as a part of a set of ten going to Electronics Cave here on 2nd avenue. They won't miss one if you can part with $100. I can mark it as stolen off the truck during delivery and the company will just write it off anyways."
Sarah's eyes darted to the back of the truck and doubled in size at words 'special edition iPod'. She vaguely heard the amount. "What's so special about these iPods?" She tried to sound suspicious, but he could have told her Steve Jobs had touched each one with a photo of him holding a random iPod and she would shell out $1000 in a second.
"These are a limited edition iPod touch from the Chinese distributor that made the first iPods for Apple. Each one has 'Touch the World' in Chinese characters on the back and the front is a deep cherry red finish." He reached into the truck and pulled out a red package in the shape of a typical iPod Touch box with a large '#1' printed in the middle of the outline of China. Sarah was digging through her wallet before he even pulled the mp3 player out of the box.
"I must warn you, there's a reason there are only a handful of these from that shop. There was a riot in the test labs before someone torched the warehouse. This handful is about 10% of the total the made it out of the factory. I'll be taking a portion of these to locations in California, Texas and out in St. Louis. I'll be back here with a normal shipment in..." With a slam of the truck door, he turned around to find her gone. The $100 peaking from his pocket was the only proof he had been speaking to anyone other than himself. This is Stan Ernest's first memory of meeting Sarah Tott.

Time after time

Janet has a recurring nightmare about her crush from the co-ed softball team, Tim. In every dream, Tim declares his love for her and promptly dies. On the more extreme spectrum, she will see him fall from the climbing wall they decided to try together and cry even before the harness fails and his body drops to the mat from 50 feet up. On the weird spectrum, she hits a foul ball that cracks his skull. In the more whimsical ones, she watches as he crosses the street in the rain to get the car for the two of them. In the middle of an empty road, a flash of light and fire forms as a silver Delorean pierces reality and runs him down before taking off again at 88 mph back to another time. She's always wondered how the time machine from Back to the Future fame never inadvertently killed anyone upon entry to another time.


Every morning she would awake from fitful dreams as exhausted as an insomniac. She stumbled into work like an alcoholic fresh from a bender and proceeded to her desk. She spends the first hour trying to re-associate what she does at her job to the piles of papers on her desk that seemed to have such order and obvious purpose when she set them there the day before. The stapler seems to be hinting at the pile last attended to and the ring from her coffee cup indicates 3 inches from the monitor is the correct placement.


Tim sits at the desk next to Janet's and she is clearly visible each morning when she presents herself for another somber day in the office in all her disheveled glory. She can see him looking at her when she arrives each morning and, for a moment, smiles knowing her dreams were mere ridiculousness. On this particular morning, she is wearing every imaginable color in a harsh contrast to the somberness of the office. She has just dreamt of Tim stepping into an elevator shaft after telling her she shouldn't have waited so long to tell him how she felt.

With a purpose she has only known in rare occasions, Janet brushes the untamed blond hair from the her eyes and steps forward across the aisle to Tim's desk. She stands in front of Tim's desk as he types furiously into his calculator and writes a set of numbers in the ledger. When he sees her standing there, he smiles kindly and says good morning. She says she hopes it will be a very good morning indeed. She confesses that she has wanted to tell him that she dreams about him each night, but did not want to frighten him with the stalker sound of it. The dreams, she explained, are always the same message of not wasting anymore time on wanting and tell her to speak to him about her feelings.

Tim sits quietly as Janet pauses looking for words. This is when he strikes. Tim scolds her for hindering the workplace with her emotions and unwanted advances. He begins citing workplace sexual harassment codes and every way in which her comments were unprofessional and ill received. He finished with a recap of his resume of athletic achievement, IQ and extensive past relationships with women who don't dress like an ape camouflaged as a rainbow. After this attack he asks her if she will kindly leave him to his work.

Devastated, Janet disappears to the ladies' room to try and piece herself together. She looks into the mirror at her tie dye shirt that she only has for working around her home. She does not recall putting it on that morning. She notices the crazed and frizzy mangle of hair resting on her head and can picture other primates picking through it for bugs. She began working her hands between the cold water faucet and her hair to put it back in order and manages a sideways ponytail that hangs limply over her left shoulder. Attending to her makeup that has begun to run from a combination of tears and water from her hair, Janet feels content with her appearance and decides to return to her desk, put on her black suit jacket to diminish the overwhelming colors emanating from her shirt and finish out her desk never mentioning that morning again.

Feeling a little better, Janet attempts to reach her desk without making eye contact with Tim again. She hides in the break room until she sees Tim leave for the copy machine. In the doorway she is met by Frank, the temp from accounting. He mumbles something about her being unworthy of any man in the building and then offers her a banana for being such a good monkey. She walks in shock back to her desk and manages to knock Tim and a stack of 20 collated reports to the floor. She opts to return to her desk, build a wall to hide from Tim's line of sight and just ignore the giggles of the secretaries at the front desk making ape faces towards Janet's desk.

At lunch, Janet sits alone. She skips her normal table that places her at the end within sight of Tim. Jenny and Kelly do not ask her why she doesn't join them. They sit and listen as Tim whispers to Frank and Sam while stealing sidelong glances towards Janet. She knows he must be telling them about her comments to him from that morning. She sinks lower into her seat hoping that will hide her from view. Her slouching only gives her a more troll like appearance and gets mashed potatoes into her hair. She is patting her hair dry with a napkin when a shadow and a foreign accent reaches her.

Looking up from her pity, her eyes meet those of Ranjit. He works in the finance department with Sam, one of Tim's friends in the office. He asks if he may sit with Janet and she reluctantly agrees. She would prefer to wallow there and finish her meal in silence, but he is insistent. They both sit in silence eating a few bites while Janet continues to stare with disdain at the table across the way. When she turns, she catches Ranjit staring at her before nervously glancing away. She had been receiving looks of pity and disgust all day, but this look was a surprise in a day of regrets. This was a sweet look of a man who saw something he enjoyed looking at and could not help himself.

Janet began to speak when Ranjit stopped her. He told her he had already heard about that morning's fiasco at Tim's desk and how quickly the office had spread word of such a personal and simple conversation. He had initially been more reserved after hearing, but instead decided to use her day as motivation. He said if someone as quiet and sweet as she had worked up the courage to finally say what was on her mind no matter what the outcome, he too would follow her lead. That is why he asked if he could join her for lunch. He stood with his half eaten lunch and turned to go, but stopped to glance back one more time.

Janet was blushing despite herself and Ranjit smiled as he told her that he had always been taken by her and had never had the nerve to come speak to her. He said she may tell people as she wished about his comments, but he did not care. He believed she was a person who has consideration for other's feelings and he thanked her for the chance to tell her how he felt without being patronizing like other unworthy people in the office. With a quick evil glance Tim's way, he stood and left the cafeteria with tray still in hand.

The rest of the day Janet spoke to no one else. She continued working without notice of the passing smirks and snark comments from coworkers. She did not even notice Tim leave a little early to avoid their typical daily conversation as they left at the same time. Janet slept soundly that night and for weeks to come. The dreams have not changed, but, every time she sees that nostalgic silver car enter from another time period and crush Tim in the street. now she smiles in her sleep.

Some Friends Don't Judge

Many people thinks it's cute how I carry my little stuffed penguin around wherever I go. They think it's sweet that Ive become so attached to an inanimate stuffed toy. When I tell them his name is Chubsy and he loves snow cones and hot dogs and never really liked the NBA's luxury tax rule, some coo quietly about the sweetness of youth and the innocence some people manage to hold onto longer than others. My big brother, Ken, isn't one of those people.

Ken tells me to get rid of Chubsy, but Chubsy is my only real friend. I'm 12 years old and maybe a little old for stuffed animals from what I gather from the malicious heckling I get at school, but the other kids don't bother me with their "penguin boy" chants and when they call me a baby. It's not like I'm sucking on my thumbs or carrying a blanket around like Linus from the Peanuts comic strip for comfort. Chubsy is really my friend. He stays either in my desk or my backpack most of the school day and only comes out to play at recess or during lunch if I eat alone.

At least Andy isn't afraid to be heckled either. He sits and eats with me some days when he can, but he has a fragile immune system due to complications when he was born and can't always come to school. Those days I hang out with Chubsy and we play twenty questions. He never guesses what I'm thinking of, but I can usually guess what Chubsy was thinking of on any given day. He's mostly transparent about his interests, but it's the days when I can't guess what he was thinking and he won't tell me that scare me a little.

I suppose Chubsy gets tired of how the other children all tease me and I won't return fire in their verbal assaults. Chubsy is a bit libertarian and believe people should take care of themselves whenever possible. Libertarian isn't my word, but that's how Chubsy describes himself. The tiny black beads of his eyes stare straight through you at times and only the smile sewn into his faded orange beak lets me know his judgements are in my best interest.

The days when Chubsy and I eat lunch together have been increasing recently as Andy hasn't been feeling up to school for about a week now. We would go see him at home, but his parents won't ever let me in the door. They say they appreciate my concern, but that I might be bringing in additional germs. They seem to be saying it directly at Chubsy who has seen better days.

He's been with me daily for 10 years now ever since my parents died and Ken and I went to grow up with our Aunt Jackie and Uncle Sam. They're nice people and Uncle Sam likes to wear a stars and stripes top hat and white beard on the 4th of July to play on his name being Uncle Sam or so I'm told. I don't really get it. Chubsy tells me it's an old characterization of the United States from armed forces draft posters. That still doesn't explain much to me, but Chubsy just keeps going with our lunches and moves on to conversations like "if I were a snow cone, what flavor would I want to be."

Chubsy was the last gift my parents got me before they passed away and he's been there whenever times are rough and when Ken isn't around to help me out. This also means he's pretty dirty over the years and washes have become fewer and fewer as he's become a little thinner around the seams. He's well loved I always say, but Chubsy demands the occasional cleaning. He likes to feel presentable when we go out to play, but doesn't mind playing in the dirt. That's usually where we are when Chubsy and I are mocked and get dirt kicked on us. I like to pretend we are in a baseball argument like managers and umpires have on TV. Chubsy just gets quiet and starts writing in his journal.