ne night, in the middle of an October thunderstorm, a raindrop ripped a hole in the sky. This raindrop was different, as big as a freight train and made of silver. It dropped through the hole and fell without a sound. At one thousand feet, it froze, hanging in the air. Far below it stood a ramshackle farm house, broken shingles and cracked windows barely keeping out the rain.

From its pointed tip came a beam of blue light. The light pierced one bedroom window, then the other. The raindrop turned and sent another beam of light to the far side of the farm. The light vanished and the hole in the sky sealed shut. The raindrop hid behind a cloud, waiting.

Roscoe awoke just as the morning sun poked through the kitchen curtains. The storm had kept him up most of the night, but he didn’t want to sleep in and miss the morning excitement. The farmer’s wife always sang a little song as she put the food in his bowl, and the farmer’s daughter liked to pet him while he ate, rubbing that hard to reach spot between his ears. As for the farmer, whenever his wife wasn’t looking, he would slip him a piece of bacon or a bit of sausage. And why not? After all, in a year or two, he would be the most important animal on the farm. As a German Shepherd, it would be his job to guard the chickens from dangerous animals, like wolves or skunks or the paperboy.

With a yawn, Roscoe hopped out of his basket and trotted across the floor. His bowl was empty, as was the kitchen. He cocked his head and listened. The house was quiet. “They must still be asleep!” he thought. “I’d better wake them up, or they won’t feed me! Or the chickens, either, I suppose.”

The stairs were narrow and very steep, quite a challenge for a puppy. Usually, the farmer’s daughter would be there to give him a gentle push on the bottom to help him up. It took him almost ten minutes to make his way upstairs.

He trotted down the short hallway to the tiny room where the farmer’s daughter slept. Her bed was empty, her blankets and quilt scattered on the floor by the window. “Maybe the storm scared her and she went to sleep in her parents’ room.” But the master bedroom was empty, too. The family was gone.

“I could go to the barn,” he thought. “There’s food out there, right?” Going down the stairs was a lot easier than going up. He made his way to the kitchen and the gigantic doggy door, and out to the back porch. The barn was about five acres away, but to a puppy, it looked like miles. “I wish someone would carry me…” Sighing, he trudged across the yard.

The barn was a peeling, rusty red with a black slate roof. The two great doors had blown wide open in the storm. Inside, the walls were festooned with tools: axes, saws, shovels, and post hole diggers, and a few yokes leftover from oxen that had been sold long ago. Next to the door stood a pile of canvas bags. He took a few quick sniffs, but they didn’t smell like much of anything. He gnawed on the corner of the lowest bag, chewing the fabric until a piece tore away. An avalanche of yellow. Seed corn! “Far from my favorite, but better than nothing.” Although, it didn’t taste like it.

The hay loft creaked. A piece of straw fell to the floor. Something was up there. “Hello,” he called. “I’m Roscoe. Do you want to be friends?”

“Geronimo!” A black blur slammed into him. The thing wrapped around him like a four-armed octopus, and they rolled across the floor, crashing into the wall. A sledge hammer fell with a bang, missing them by half an inch. The thing screamed and jumped away, it’s fur standing on end.

The thing was a cat, and a large one, nearly twice his size. It was charcoal black, with the exception of its front paws, which were white. The end of its tail was permanently bent to one side, apparently from a break that hadn’t properly healed. It was also missing its left eye. Licking its lips, it extended its claws. “You’re the biggest mouse I’ve ever seen,” it said, in a voice both feminine and cruel. “I shall feast for a week.”

He gasped. “I’m not a mouse! I’m a puppy!”

“Of course you’re a mouse. Only mice eat the seed. Now come here so I can cut you into bite size chunks.”

“Do mice have collars? Can they do this?” He wagged his tail and barked.

“No, I suppose not.” The cat sighed. “So, what are you doing here, girl?”

“I’m a boy!”

“Your collar is pink.”

Roscoe wrinkled his nose. “I didn’t pick it out. The farmer’s daughter put this on me. But it doesn’t matter. She’s gone. The whole family has been missing all morning. I have nobody to feed me!”

“Oh, poor baby!” the cat laughed. “Why don’t you just get your own food? There are plenty of mice to eat. …Or, well, there used to be. Lately, they’ve been acting… strange.”

“Strange? In what way?”

“I can’t just tell you. You’d never believe it…” The cat headed for the door, but Roscoe didn’t move. “Come on, you have to see this! I need someone else to be there, so I know I’m not just imagining things.”

The cat lead him to an enormous, cylindrical building made of gray concrete. The corn silo. “The mice mostly come out at night. They creep up to the silo, when the farming machinery isn’t running, and try to get in through the south wall. I used to just hide behind a hay bale and wait for one to get too close, but now, things are different.”

“How?”

“Just wait and watch.”

As the hours passed, Roscoe discovered he could be scared and bored at the same time. He wanted to run and play, or at least have a conversation, but this cat was frightening. She knew he wasn’t a mouse, but she still might want to eat him. Better to not remind her that he was there.

Three lights appeared the distance, moving through the grass. At first, he thought they were fireflies, but these lights were too big. Besides, fireflies weren’t bright green.

The lights came closer, and Roscoe’s mouth dropped open. They were mice. Bright green and glowing, but rodents nonetheless. The mice were walking on their hind legs. They were wearing long, silver gloves, goggles, and what appeared to be tiny tool belts. The mice strolled to the south wall of the silo, where the farmer had left a wheelbarrow filled with tools. Under the wheelbarrow, the wall was covered in burn marks, and the mortar around the bricks was mostly gone.

The cat lifted Roscoe’s ear and whispered. “I keep trying to catch them, but they’re too quick now. Quick and dangerous.”

“They’re just mice in funny outfits. I can catch them! Let me try!” He leaped out from behind the hay bale, barking as ferociously as he could manage. The mice turned at the sound. The tallest one drew a tiny object from his tool belt and aimed it at the puppy. A bolt of blue light blasted through the air, flying under Roscoe’s legs. The hay bale burst into flames.

A black blur, and the cat appeared on the wheelbarrow. She yanked a metal bucket from the pile of tools and, with a mighty shove, knocked it over the mice. The cat hopped down and grabbed Roscoe by the ear. “Does this work? Can you hear?”

“Ow! Yes!”

“Then maybe you should listen to me! These things are dangerous! And you need to…” A sharp, hissing sound, and the smell of ozone. On the side of the bucket, a glowing circle the size of a silver dollar was beginning to melt. “…run.”

They ran halfway to the barn before they realized they weren’t being pursued. “They must have gone back to… wherever it is mice live,” Roscoe said. “By the way, I don’t think we ever finished our introductions. What’s your name?”

“Never mind that now. Let’s just get some sleep. We’ll have to get up pretty early tomorrow to hunt.”

The next day, Roscoe woke with a sigh. It wasn’t a dream after all. He was still laying in a pile of straw in the barn. The cat was pacing atop a hay bale, stopping every three or four turns to scratch behind an ear. “I’m hungry!” Rosco called.

The cat brushed a stray whisker back into place. “…And?”

“…And feed me?” He made his eyes as large as he could and tried to look cute, but the cat just laughed.

“I’m not your momma. If you don’t like the corn, go outside and hunt! There’s plenty of food for the taking.”

Roscoe climbed out of his straw pile and trotted over to the barn door. “Hunting, right. OK, I can do this…” The farm was huge, dozens of acres bordered by woods. Outside the barn, the trees were shivering in the wind. The whole world looked cold. “I wish the farmer’s daughter was here. I don’t know how to find food. People are supposed to feed me. Why do I have to do this alone?”

“Alone?” the cat growled. “You want to talk about alone? I’ve never even seen the farmer’s family! No one has ever come out here to feed me! You had better learn to fend for yourself, and fast. You’re a dog. Very soon, you will be put outside to work, and work will be all that matters, all that you have. The farmer took me from my mother, threw me out here, and told me to kill mice, and that was that. He never even gave me a name.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know. …Well, we might not have the farmer and his family to take care of us, but we can take care of each other. And if you want a name, I can name you.”

“No, that’s okay, you don’t–”

“A good name should suit you.” Roscoe trotted over to the cat, looking her up and down. “You’ve got a crooked tail… Maybe your name should be ‘Crook’?”

“I said you don’t have to –”

“Isn’t it a great name? I’ve never named anyone before, but I think it’s great!”

“Well, I suppose that’s okay. …If you have to call me something… Alright, I’ll take you to some food.”

Crook lead him outside, past the outhouse and the silo, to the corn field. The stalks were almost as high as the scarecrow’s waist. Their golden tassels were just poking over the fence. They ducked through a gap in the wood and headed into the field. The plants were just far enough apart that they could slip between the rows. “There are always birds flapping around in the corn field” she said. “We should be able to find a meal or two. The crows are too big, but the sparrows are small and stupid, so they’re easy pickings. Even for you!”

Roscoe ignored the insult. “I’d better not argue with her,” he thought. “What if she ran ahead and left me here? It would be easy to get lost.” Deep in the field, it could have been morning or midnight. The corn blocked most of the light, and made it impossible to see the barn or silo or other landmarks.

A tremendous buzz reverberated through the field. A line of corn suddenly bent down, as if it were being trampled by some great, invisible animal. Roscoe and Crook leaped out of the way of the collapsing plants. Through a gap in the corn, they saw strange lights atop the distant fence. Half a dozen green mice were firing their ray guns into the stalks. Apparently they could bend things as well as burn them.

“What are they -” Rosco began, but Crook put her paw over his mouth. She pulled him back behind a nearby tree stump.

“Looks like they’re writing a message in the field,” she whispered. “The only way to read it would be from the sky, so they must be signaling a bird. And what do birds and mice have in common? Eating seeds! They must be planning to launch another attack on the silo. And when they do, we need to be ready.”

That night, as the sun was setting, a dozen green lights skittered through the grass. The mice were wearing silver jumpsuits and boots. As they walked, the lead mouse scanned the area with binoculars.

Scattered in front of the silo were several small pieces of wood, about the size of a pack of playing cards. On top of the wood were piles of seed. Each piece of wood had a large, metal bar waiting to snap down on the necks of anyone foolish enough to eat the bait.

The mice laughed at the obvious traps and drew their ray guns. Beams of blue light melted the traps’ springs. The lead mouse strutted over to a trap and grabbed a handful of seed. “Ah, lightly toasted. Just the way I like ‘em!” His happiness was short-lived. Something black dropped from the roof, knocking him to the ground. A scream of horror. “The cat!”

The mice turned their guns and fired. Crook leaped over their heads. The blue beams struck the mouse on the ground, burning him to ashes.“Get her!” the others yelled, running after the black blur.

Crook darted around the silo, the mice at her heels. She bounded up some wooden boxes, and into a large, metal bin. The mice tumbled in after her, but she just bounced back out. “You think we’re stuck in here?” the mice called, shaking their fists. “We’ll just blast our way out of this bucket, too!”

“It’s not just a bucket,” Crook said. “It’s a bucket elevator.” She plucked out one of the mice, holding him tightly by the tail. “Roscoe, hit the switch!” With a shrill whir, the bucket elevator carried the remaining rodents to the top of the silo.

“What’s your deal, mouse?” Crook growled at her captive. “Why are you suddenly green and smart instead of dirty and dumb?”

The mouse reached for the holster on its belt, but it was empty. “No! I must have dropped my eek gun!” He struggled violently, but could not shake himself free of the cat’s claws. “Let me go! My brothers will be back any second, and then you’ll be sorry.”

“I don’t think so. The elevator dropped them in the silo, on top of forty tons of food. They won’t be coming back for you for quite a while. Now talk! I’ve never eaten a green mouse before, but I’m guessing you’re still tasty. Where did you get the toys?”

“We made them, of course.”

“Where did you learn to do that?”

“The blue beam of light came and gave us the machine. The machine made us smart, and being smart made us angry. Why should we mice be dependent on the humans? Why should we live off of their scraps? We are the ones who should be ruling the world! We nearly wiped out the human race during the Black Death, and that was without any technology at all! Just imagine how dangerous the machine will make us!”

“You’re about as dangerous as a chicken nugget.” The cat’s mouth opened wide. The mouse reached for the large buckle at the center of his chest and, moving swiftly, slipped out of his jumpsuit. He fell into the bucket elevator, carried away in an instant.

Back at the barn, Crook was pacing atop a bale of hay. “So, the mice found a machine that makes them smarter, like some sort of anti-television. To take them from brain dead to building weapons and wearing clothes, the machine must be powerful, and huge! Where are they keeping it? The chicken coops are too small. They could hide it in a corn field, but I doubt they would leave something that important outside, in the elements. Where would they hide it?”

Roscoe rubbed his growling stomach. “What about the old stable? We pass by it whenever the farmer takes me into town with him. The wood is rotting and some of the beams have fallen, but it’s a huge building.”

“Good thinking! But I can’t get there on my own. That’s where Sarge lives.” Crook stroked her chin. “I’ll need you to talk to him.”

The puppy gulped. “Talk to Sarge? A-about what?” Sarge was the farm’s old guard dog. He was retired, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous. He was a Great Dane the size of a horse, but with the temper of a bull. Once, when the rooster’s crowing had woken him up a little earlier than usual, he grabbed the bird by its neck and tossed it in the well. The rooster survived, but after that, it was too scared to speak above a whisper. The farmer had to buy an alarm clock.

“I don’t care,” she sighed, “just distract him long enough for me to slip by.” She grabbed his collar and pulled him towards the door. “Whatever you do, make sure you keep him occupied! If he sees me and realizes it’s a trick, he’ll probably eat us both.”

Sarge’s dog house sat at the border between the farm proper and the “back forty”, the acres of pine trees the farmer kept for firewood and Christmases. A hundred yards past the dog house stood what was technically still a stable, but was rapidly devolving into just a pile of lumber.

Sarge was pacing like a caged tiger, glaring angrily at the grass, the trees, passing birds, and anything else that happened to meet his gaze. He pounced on a leaf that fell on the roof of his house, crushing it under his enormous paws. Off in the distance, a twig snapped. Someone was approaching. “You there!” he bellowed at the small, shaking puppy. “State your business! Friend or foe?”

“F-friend!” Roscoe sputtered. “I just came to tell you, I saw a skunk lurking up by the hen house. I think he’s after the eggs!”

“The skunk, you say? He has some nerve coming back here! I’ll stomp the stink right out of him!” He rushed off, nearly trampling Roscoe under his feet.

Roscoe ran for the stable, wishing his legs were as long as the old guard dog’s. The back forty was never mowed. Every step sent insects flying. At last, he reached the stable’s south wall, where Crook was waiting.

“There you are, finally! You were right. It’s mouse headquarters.” She gestured at a crack in the wall, pushing him forward to look. Dozens of green, glowing mice were swarming over a vast, silver disk, soldering wiring and welding panels in place. Attached to the top of the disk was a gigantic version of the eek gun. At the far end of the stable stood a huge, pulsating cylinder embedded partway in the dirt. It had a screen like a television, but it was bristling with antennas, like some sort of chrome porcupine. The whole thing was emitting the same unearthly glow as the mice. Apparently, this was the mysterious machine. Every few seconds, one of the mice would rush over to the machine to study a series of diagrams on the screen.

“We have to destroy the machine,” Crook whispered. “It’s the only way to stop them.”

Roscoe threw up his paws. “How? You can dodge shots from three or four of them, but there’s at least a hundred mice in there! If they see us, they’ll kill us for sure!”

“We have to try. If their tiny eek guns can melt through the wall of the silo, the big one on the disk could destroy everything… starting with the farm. The farmer and his family have taken care of you your entire life. Now it’s your turn to take care of them.”

Roscoe’s thoughts filled with images of the farmer’s daughter, the hours he’d spent curled up in her lap, and the warmth of her touch. Wherever she was, she needed him. “You’re right. I have to do something, even if it costs me my life.”

Roscoe circled the stable to the south wall, where an old tractor was quietly rusting. Climbing up carefully, he pulled himself into the torn leather seat. The last few rays of the setting sun were glowing softly through the trees. If the mice had their way, this night might be the last the world would ever see.

He jumped to the back of the tractor and over to a rotting stack of firewood. Logs crumbled and slipped, chunks of wood and bark tumbling to the ground. At last, he made it to the edge of the roof. The loose shingles made every step a gamble. Fighting the urge to look down, he maneuvered up the steep slope to a small window missing most of its glass.

Slipping inside, he crawled to an overhead beam. Twelve feet below, the mice were busy welding the last few pieces of their silver disk. The scene was ghostly. The only light in the stable was a couple of rusty lanterns, the flash of tiny welding torches, and the soft, green glow of the mice themselves.

He crept along the beam, until he came to small, steel bolt. Grabbing it in his teeth, he twisted slowly, until it was nearly unfastened. He inched along the beam to a second bolt, repeating the process. He turned around and crawled back towards the window, stopping in the middle. Taking a deep breath, he jumped once, twice, three times. The bolts shook loose, and the lanterns crashed to the ground.

The flame devoured the dry straw on the floor, crackling across the room. Roscoe rushed across the beam and hurled himself out the window. He landed hard on a loose shingle and skidded down the roof like a sled on a snow-covered mountain. The shingle slipped off the edge, and he tumbled into the wood pile. The logs toppled over, sending him flying into the grass.

Outside, the mice were screaming. A river of burning rodents streamed from the cracks in the stable walls. The flames seemed to attack both their bodies and their minds. They dropped to all fours and ran into the darkness, where Crook’s claws and teeth were waiting.

Roscoe picked himself up, shaking the stars from his eyes. His head was pounding, and he’d scraped off some fur and skin, but he was alive. He staggered through the thick grass, heading for a pair of eyes glowing in the darkness.

Crook was busily cleaning the blood from her mouth. At her feet was a pile of half-eaten, slightly charred mice. “First hot meal I’ve had in ages,” she sighed happily.

The exhausted animals stood watching the flames. The fire’s dance was beautiful. At last, with a low groan, the stable roof collapsed, burying the disk and the anti-television under a pile of rotting lumber.

Early the next morning, Roscoe and Crook were asleep in the barn. He was using a seed bag as a makeshift bed, and she was curled up on a hay bale. A soft breeze was wafting in through the barn’s open doors.

“Roscoe? Are you in here? C’mere, boy!” A young girl in a red flannel nightgown walked into the barn, stepping carefully in her bare feet. “Where are you, Roscoe?”

Roscoe’s eyes popped open. “It’s her!” he thought. “She’s back!”

The farmer’s daughter headed for the back of the barn, unable to see her dog behind the stack of bags. “Are you here? C’mon, boy… Oh, a kitty!” Moving quickly, she scooped up Crook, squeezing the cat against her chest. “Do you want to help me look for my puppy? Let’s go see if he found his way back to the house. On the way, I’ll tell you about this weird dream I had…”

“Roscoe!” Crook called. “I’m going to the house, Roscoe! Are you coming with us?”

“Not just yet,” he whispered from his hiding place. “It’s a big world out there. I want to explore!”

She says “Yes.” So, the police call her in to take a look at the body.

When she gets to the police station, the “body” is just a severed head. But, the head has a mohawk, a glass eye, and two gold teeth.

The woman looks at the body and says “That’s not my husband.”

The police officer says, “What do you mean that’s not your husband? You said your husband had a mohawk, a glass eye, and two gold teeth, and so does this guy. How can that not be your husband?”

And the woman says, “He’s too short.”

“Oh what should I do now?” Big Boss cried with dismay.
“Computing’s confusing, though I do it each day!
Perhaps I should learn how, after all of these years;
Or just crawl under my desk and cry these sad tears.”

The Time Clock struck nine, and in trudged the commuters,
And the Corporate Board, those old three-piece-suiters,
And sycophants, suck-ups, and Big Boss saluters,
And the I.T. technician, Johnny Cahooter.

“Soon I’ll be in such trouble!” lamented Big Boss.
“If I don’t finish payroll, the staff will be cross!
I’ll have the IT guy scoot in on his scooter,
That computer wizard, that Johnny Cahooter!”

Johnny had to wrestle antique printers that jammed,
And comfort an intern evil spammers had spammed,
And retrieve vital files the receptionist tossed,
But he had to come now, or his job would be lost!

So sighing and yawning, that Johnny Cahooter
Zipped into the room on his small, silver scooter.
“Well, what do you need now?” Johnny said to the boss,
“Shall I wipe off your nose, maybe help you to floss?”

“My computing machine,” the boss said with a hiss,
“It won’t bleep and won’t bloop! There is something amiss!”
“It’s simple,” said Johnny, as he scratched at his chin,
“You’ve forgotten to plug the bleep – blooping thing in!”

Christine was in the front row again. This week, her hair was pink. Her skirt was black and silver, a starry sky wrapped around her legs. Apparently she had just come from art class. Her neck and arms were sprinkled with blue specks, the results of her frantic, almost violent painting style. It looked as if the air conditioning were on too high again. She had goosebumps down her arms, and her nipples were…

Paul gave his head a quick shake, trying to clear his thoughts. “…and if grandma’s mind starts to slip in her old age, we have a backup file on the computer ready to go. Anything she forgets can be reinserted. And, looking at the clock, I can see our time is up. I’ll tell you about restoring memories next time.”

As the rest of the students bolted for the exits, Christine hopped down the auditorium steps. “Excuse me, Teach, I have a question about the homework.”

“Oh?”

She peeked over her shoulder to make sure no one was looking in their direction, then stretched up to kiss his cheek. “I still can’t believe they made you a professor when you haven’t even finished your master’s yet. I’m dating such a smart boy!”

“Oh, stop, you flatter me. And distract me, too. When you come to my class, could you do me a favor and wear a bra?”

Laughing, Christine threw back her shoulders. “Hey, I’m going to show off the girls before gravity starts dragging me down. And speaking of being dragged down, you look tired. You need to relax more, mister. You shouldn’t be getting those frown lines at twenty-five.” She reached around his waist to give his rear end a quick squeeze. “Fortunately, parts of you are still pretty darn cute. I’ll see you tonight at the Indian place.”

A professor on a date with a young student could stir up awkward rumors, so they had chosen a restaurant across town, far from the prying eyes of the college administrators. Outside of class, Paul tried to limit how much they saw each other around campus. He didn’t even like her coming to his office.

That night, after some curry and sonti, they ended up back at Rooms With A View, a hotel by the highway. The “view” was the side of a parking garage, but the curtains were nice. While he checked in at the front desk, she nuzzled his neck and stroked the stubble on his cheek. As they strolled arm in arm to the elevator, one desk clerk whispered to another, “It’s that guy’s third time here this week. Do you think his wife knows?”

~ ~ ~

Late that night, Paul dropped Christine back at her dorm and headed home. His wife had fallen asleep on the couch. Again. She had left the projector in the coffee table running. An old detective movie was floating in the center of the room. It was one she had seen at least thirty times. She didn’t even bother seeking out new films anymore.

He walked down the hall to the den and checked his email. He had the usual messages from students requesting deadline extensions or grade adjustments, and academic journals asking him to review neuroscience papers. He logged in to his secret email account, the one he had created at the start of the previous semester. A new email from Christine.

“Hi Mom! All of my college friends are busy, so I’d like to just come home for fall break. Will you ask Dad to make his famous chicken chili? How ’bout it, toots? – C.”

Paul typed a quick reply. “Sorry, sweetie, but we’re having that trouble with termites again. Your father wants to fumigate. No one can be in the house for two weeks. Maybe you can come home next semester. Love you! – Mom.”

~ ~ ~

The following morning, Christine was sitting in the cafeteria with her friend Rachel, a pre-med student. Rachel was still wearing her scrubs from her shift at the school’s free clinic. Pediatric Medical Assistant was the only job where you could show up to work in what looked like teddy bear pajamas.

“And they’re having the house fumigated for bugs, again,” Christine moaned. “I’m so disappointed! I can’t even remember the last time I got to see Mom. It feels like forever.”

Rachel blew the steam from her coffee. “Could be worse. I wish I didn’t have to see my mom. The rich bitch drinks so much, she had to have her liver regrown last year. She used to hardly drink at all, but when I became an adult, she stopped acting like one. She’s blown so much on booze and surgeries that now she says we don’t have the money to copy my dog. The house is so lonely since he died.”

“You really miss that dog that much? What did you name him again?”

“…Bitey.” Rachel sighed. “But the copy would be just a puppy, so he wouldn’t really be able to hurt anyone for at least a year. And even then, only people I hate. By the way, did I tell you Mom still hasn’t gotten Dad a new finger?”

~ ~ ~

Christine spent fall break alone, painting a mural on the wall of her dorm room. A golden skinned goddess greeting the dawn on a crystal beach, the sun rising between her legs. After days of marathon painting sessions, she decided to dye her hair a brilliant orange. The new color was ready just in time for her to change clothes and run to her first class.

That night, she met Paul at the Indian restaurant to share some rogan josh. She tried to keep the conversation on current events, to avoid having to admit she hadn’t done anything exciting. Thankfully, she didn’t have to steer the conversation for long, as he was eager to leave for the hotel.

When they stepped into the lobby, she headed to the restroom while he checked in. “Sir,” the desk clerk sniffed, “there seems to be a problem with your account.”

“Try it again,” Paul insisted.

“I could, sir, but perhaps you would have better luck at another hotel? I know of one downtown that might suit you better. The staff there are very… understanding… of the kind of ‘arrangement’ you have with your lady friend.”

Paul rested his hands on the counter, to give them something to grab besides the clerk’s neck. “She is my girlfriend, not a damned hooker.”

The clerk attempted to force a smile, but decided the strain on his facial muscles was too great. “Of course, sir. Personally, it doesn’t matter to me either way, but the owner insists that we start cracking down on this sort of thing. Now, are you able to locate the exit by yourself, or should I have Lars in security show you the way?”

Paul swatted a jar of pens off the counter and turned to leave. Christine was heading for the elevators, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her the opposite direction. “We’re going.”

“What? But we haven’t fooled around yet!”

“Never you mind that. We just have to go.”

Pulling away, she planted her feet on the tile. “No, tell me why.”

Sighing, he explained the misunderstanding. “So, please, just behave and don’t make a scene. I don’t want anyone to get wind of this. Getting caught sleeping with a student would be bad enough. It would be far, far worse to have people think I was paying for the privilege.”

“Okay, I’ll be a good girl, but this is hysterical.” As they headed to the door, the desk clerk was busily checking in a line of customers. She called across the lobby, “ Alright, fine, we’re leaving! But you still owe me $40 for that handy!”

~ ~ ~

They found another hotel a few miles away. This room was much smaller, but the bathtub was big enough for the both of them. After some relaxation, Paul reached for his phone and ordered a pizza. When the delivery driver knocked on the door, Christine hopped out of the tub and grabbed a towel and Paul’s wallet.

“Wait!” he said. “I’ll get the door.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” She plopped the box on the nightstand and casually flipped through his wallet. Business cards, credit cards, the fortune from last week’s Chinese food, driver’s license. “Paul, why does your ID say you’re thirty-three?”

He stepped in to the room, wrapping a towel around his waist. “I can explain.”

“Why would you lie about how old you are? Do you really think I’m that shallow?”

“I… I didn’t…”

“I would have dated you anyway. I don’t care about your age, just don’t lie. Never, ever lie to me.” She flung his wallet at his face. “Go home. I want to be alone. I’ll have Rachel take me back to campus in the morning.”

Wordlessly, he finished toweling off and pulled on his clothes. On his way out, he stopped by the front desk and asked that room service send up breakfast in the morning. “French toast and orange juice, and one of those plates of fruit cut into flowers.”

“Of course, sir.”

This late at night, the streets were virtually empty, save for a few automated taxis running their endless loops from hotels to the airport and back again. He drove aimlessly for hours, waiting for his mind and stomach to settle. When he finally pulled in to his driveway, the first rays of sunlight were skimming the tops of distant trees. He slipped in to the house, feeling his way down the hall. His wife always woke up if he turned on the light. He hung his coat in the front closet, next to the cardboard boxes filled with her half-finished paintings and other art projects waiting for the “someday” they would be completed.

He crept to the bedroom, undressed in the dark, and slipped into bed. She rolled over, her arm plopping across his chest. “Oh!” she sighed. “When did you get here?”

“Ages ago, darling.”

“I didn’t feel you get in bed.”

“You don’t feel a lot of things you used to,” he thought.

~ ~ ~

The food cart rolled up to the table, chirped twice, and recited their order in its tinny voice. “Two colas, two bowls of orange chicken, and six spring rolls.”

Rachel grabbed the tray and gave the robot a pat. “Thank you, boy. Always such great service.”

“It’s nicer when there’s a person to smile at you,” Christine grumbled.

“He would smile, if he had a face!” Rachel folded a napkin into a grinning mouth and offered it to the food cart, but it didn’t accept the gift. “And what about you, Chris? Why are you such a glum bum?”

“I tried to call a friend from back home, but it was a wrong number.” She shook her head. “That’s seven of my friends who’ve changed their numbers without telling me. How did I lose touch with so many people? I only went to college. I’m not circumnavigating the globe in a balloon.”

“That’s how life is. The people you like change into something else, but the people you hate stay the same forever. If your old friends don’t want to keep in touch, you should touch someone else. Go on some dates! Mingle ’till you find that tingle!”

“Actually, I am seeing someone… a professor. I’ve been dating Paul Hudson in the neurology department since last semester. He doesn’t want anyone from school to see us together, so we have to drive all over town looking for safe places to tingle together.”

Rachel wrinkled her nose. “That’s ridiculous. They wouldn’t fire him for dating a student. It’s just frowned upon, not scowled angrily at. You’re over eighteen, for Pete’s saké. …Maybe getting fired isn’t what he’s scared of. …Maybe he’s married!”

Christine rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure, that’s probably it. He’s teaching six classes this semester. He barely has time for me, let alone a wife.” But doubt gnawed at her mind. What was Paul really afraid of? Was there something in his home he didn’t want her to see?

Paul had office hours after lunch. He would be busy meeting with students on campus, and his house would be empty. Hopefully. She stopped at her dorm room to drop off her backpack and headed for the bridge that connected the main campus to “the village”, the university’s terraced houses where graduate students and faculty members stayed.

There were bits of fence post along river, marking a hiking path that was no longer there. Over the years, the river had worn away its banks, and most of the path had collapsed into the water. Crossing the bridge, she came to a long, tree-lined cul-de-sac. As she walked, she read the plaques on the mail boxes until she found the one that said “Hudson”. Wringing her hands, she climbed the steps to the porch. “Well, here we go. It’s not snooping if I just happen to find a gap in the curtains, right?”

A woman was sitting with her back to the window, leaning over a coffee table. The table was running a game. A tiny spaceship hovered in the air, a field of asteroids rushing towards it. The woman leaned back and forth on the couch, her cascade of black hair swaying as the ship followed her movements. Just thinking about moving was enough, but some people couldn’t maintain a high enough level of concentration. She wasn’t quite fast enough, and an asteroid slammed into her ship. It shattered like a stained glass window. The woman kicked over the table, the game fizzling out.

With an exasperated grunt, she pushed herself up off the couch. As she turned to stand the table back upright, Christine caught a glimpse of her face. “Oh my god!”

~ ~ ~

“Do you know what you want to eat?” Paul asked. Christine had insisted on going to dinner early, so the restaurant would be nearly empty.

“I was thinking lamb korma, a mango lassi, and how long have you been married?”

“What?” Paul choked. “’How long have I been married?’”

She sighed. “You’re repeating the question to buy time until you can think of a lie.”

He tossed the menu on the table, nearly knocking over their water glasses. “You went to my house. Did you talk to her?”

“No, but I saw her. She looks just like me. Or I’ll look like her, in another ten years and thirty pounds. And here I thought the point of adultery was to try something new, not to have a younger version of the wife you’re sick of fucking.”

He gestured for her to lower her voice. “I swear, Christine, I’m not married. The woman you saw is an old friend who’s been visiting me for a few days. To be honest, having her here has been torture. I’ve spent half my adult life drowning in love for her, only to discover that she prefers the company of other women. So, after years of hoping, I decided to look for someone to replace her. I took her photo and used facial recognition software from a security firm to search the web for a woman who with similar features. That’s how I found you. So I applied to the master’s program here and ‘accidentally’ bumped into you at the cafeteria.”

“I don’t know how to react,” she said. “Do you even like me, or am I just the the next best thing?”

“I love you! I always -”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now. I’m going to take an autocab home.”

~ ~ ~

Christine skipped all of her classes, spending the day at home watching television. Every couple of hours, she tried to call her mom at home, but the call kept going to voice mail. Finally, she gave up on the phone and wrote her mom a long email about everything that had happened between her and Paul, omitting the part about him being one of her professors. Moments after clicking “send”, she had a reply.

“Darling, I’m so sorry I missed your call. I dropped my phone in the hot tub yesterday. As for this Paul fellow, he sounds like he really cares for you. I would just try to forgive him.”

Paul sighed and switched off his computer. “I hope that works.”

~ ~ ~

“Mom always told me that lies are sandbags holding back rising flood waters. If you hear someone lie, you should get out of there before you drown.” She reread the email, trying to imagine her mother saying the same things in person. “No, it just doesn’t make any sense. Paul tells me he loves me because I remind him of the woman he really wants, and I’m just supposed to take it as a compliment?”

“It’s not fair to let that woman go on thinking their relationship is honest and platonic. She needs to know what Paul is really like. I have to talk to her.” As she started for the village, a cold wind pushed against her. Her skirt flapped like a bird caught in a storm. When she finally reached his door, her finger refused to push the bell. “…Eventually. First, I should see if she’s home.”

She turned to the window, peering through a slit in the curtains. The other woman was sitting on the couch, her back to the window. The coffee table was projecting a movie into the air. The woman had her hair in a high ponytail, revealing a constellation of freckles on the back of her neck, a near perfect Andromeda. Christine knew almost nothing about constellations, but she would have recognized that pattern anywhere. The skin on her own neck was a perfect match.

~~ ~

“That’s impossible,” Rachel said. She pushed away her plate and rested her elbow on the table. “Clones start out as babies, just like everyone else. How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Did that woman look over twenty years older than you?”

“No. Maybe eight, ten years older.”

“See? You’d have to be in grade school! So it didn’t happen.”

Christine waved over the robot food cart and shoved their empty plates into the slot in its chest. It chirped appreciatively. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Lots of people have freckles.”

As she walked back to her dorm room, the image of the mystery woman’s skin tumbled through her mind. Was it really the same as her own? Perhaps she had seen a few dark spots and her imagination had filled in the rest. “But I’m not crazy. Paul’s the one who’s been acting strange. Maybe he has more secrets he hasn’t shared.”

She plopped on the bed, pulled her scroll from her pocket, and unrolled it. The scroll was a thin, eighteen inch square of white plastic. One corner was market with a thumb print. When she grabbed the corner and squeezed, the scroll became as stiff as a sheet of glass and began to glow.

The scroll automatically opened her web browser to her last visited page, the college library. Searching for “Paul Hudson” turned up results in dozens of academic journals. The earliest articles were about his research into Werner syndrome, a rare disease that caused premature aging. His experiments had managed to simulate the symptoms in mice, accelerating the aging process so that they were born, grew to adulthood, and reached old age in three weeks. Unfortunately, his funding had been cut off before he could actually find a cure.

She flipped back to the first page of the article. Oddly, the byline listed Paul as “Dr. Paul Hudson, PhD.” Could it have been his father? No, the picture was definitely her Paul. “The goddamn liar. But what do I do about it? Rachel would just tell me to dump the chump and move on. But what’s his motivation? I can imagine someone lying about having a doctorate, but to lie about not having one… I just need to get away from campus for a bit, clear my head. Maybe I’ll go see Mom.”

~ ~ ~

Christine awoke early the next morning, packed an overnight bag, and called an autocab. The trip home was a four hour drive through corn fields, forest, and little, bump in the road country towns. The house was a red and white Queen Anne, built nearly a century earlier by one of the wealthiest families in the state. Since then, it had been sold and split into apartments.

She hopped up the stone steps to the porch and hit the buzzer for the apartment on the top floor. “Hi, Mom! I’m here to crash for the night!”

“Hello? Who’s that, then?” It was a woman’s voice, but not her mother’s.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have pressed the wrong button. I was trying to buzz my mother in unit 3, Samantha McCoy.”

“This is unit 3, but there’s no one here by that name.”

“Are… are you sure?”

The woman laughed. “Yes, I think I would have noticed. Was she the brunette with the glasses who used to live here? Tell her to come pick up her old paint cans. They’ve been sitting in my closet for nearly a year!”

Christine suddenly felt very ill. “I was right,” she thought. “I know what he did.” Aloud, she said, “Can you call me a cab?”

~ ~ ~

Christine stepped into Paul’s office and slid into the leather chair in front of his great, oaken desk. He was busily writing notes in a scroll. “Hello, Doctor Hudson.”

“You know you’re not supposed to see me outside of class,” he said, not looking up. “You are normally so well behaved. This is rather disappointing.”

“I’m not sure I understand some of the material from earlier this semester. When you scan an elderly person’s brain to preserve their memory, the memories are copied to computer files, right? Almost like a video?”

“Yes.”

“And, after their memory starts to go, you restore it from the copy.” She picked up a letter opener from a tray on the desk and examined her reflection in the blade. “Do you have to use the whole file, or can you cut parts out?”

Paul switched off the scroll and jammed it into a drawer. “The whole point of the technology,” he snapped, “is to preserve the memories. Why would the medical team erase them?”

“I don’t know. Why would you?”

“Young lady, you are confused. Why don’t I sign you up with a tutor?”

She thrust the blade at his face. “I got a good, close look at the woman at your house. I know I’m her clone. You gave me her memories, but only part of the file. Why? Tell me everything, or I swear to god – I see you reaching for the security button under your desk. Go ahead. Push it. The guard can help pull the letter opener out of your eye.”

He placed his hands on the desk. “You have absolutely no reason to be angry. If imitation is flattery, cloning is close to worship. You, my dear, are a shrine to a goddess who is no longer worthy of her priest.”

Ignoring her threats, he pushed himself up from the chair and stepped over to the window. “I met the first Christine about eight years ago, when she was a sophomore and I was working on my master’s. Sun dress, paint splatters, and so much potential. She was going to spark a surrealist revival, open an art gallery, see the world and set it on fire. She was exciting and dangerous, everything I wasn’t.”

He sighed deeply. “A year later, I asked her to marry me. I thought she would stay the woman I fell in love with forever, like a butterfly pinned up for display. But, after college, she crawled back into her cocoon. She settled for a meaningless, nothing job and let it suck the marrow from her bones. She abandoned her art, stopped reading, stopped growing, and gave up everything that made her worthwhile. So, late one night, I took a hair from her brush and drove out to the research facility, where I grew a new Christine. Using the accelerated aging techniques I developed, it took just a couple of weeks to transform you from an infant to a young woman. I made you Christine at her prime, back when she was still a firework waiting to explode.”

“I convinced the first Christine to volunteer in the lab’s memory research. I went through a copy of her file, editing everything that had happened in the last eight years. I left the current date and who the president was, but removed everything personal, including our relationship. Even though you didn’t have your own Social Security number, as a department head at the university, I was able to change a few forms and enroll you without one. As far as her parents were concerned, their daughter had left college years ago, so I’ve been paying your tuition myself.”

“How old am I, really?”

“About nine months.”

“So, I’ve been at college for my entire life.” She slumped in her chair and let the letter opener clatter to the floor. “The closest thing I have to a parent is you. I’ve never actually met my mother. I’ve probably never even spoken to her.”

He smiled warmly. “But the need for that charade is over. I’m back with the woman I fell in love with! I can teach you her mistakes, so you don’t have to make them. You can be better than her. We can be better, together.”

She shook her head. “I’ll still become her, eventually.”

“No,” he said simply. “I won’t allow it.”

Without her own Social Security number, she couldn’t get a job, or switch to another school. She couldn’t get her own legal identity without revealing to the world that she was a clone, and a ground-breaking one at that. Everyone would want to study Paul’s creation. She would end up spending the rest of her life as a lab rat. What else could she do?

~ ~~

A few weeks later, Paul left his wife and they moved across the state. Christine didn’t want to leave, but Paul insisted that it was the only way to be sure his wife would never discover their secret. He took a position at a teaching hospital, and she stayed at home painting.

As the years flowed by, she managed to put the past out of her mind. She didn’t love Paul, not really, but there were quiet moments where she was almost content. Her painting technique improved, and she took up landscapes. Paul thought they were dull, even trite, but they gave her a kind of peace.

She poured her collection of hair dyes in the sink, taking photos of the rainbow swirling down the drain. Gradually, her hair reverted to its natural black. One impulsive afternoon, she chopped most of it off, leaving herself with a short pixie cut.

She spent an entire summer standing nude in the middle of the bedroom, working on a self-portrait. She meticulously recreated every detail of her body, from the faint beginning of crow’s feet at the corner of her eyes to the belly that had gotten a bit rounder from too many Indian buffets. The masterwork finished, she decided to reward herself with a few hours of mental oblivion in front of the television.

That night, a sound pulled her out of a deep sleep. She opened her eyes to find Paul across the hallway, standing in the bathroom, sliding her toothbrush into a glass test tube.

]]> http://www.writepop.com/science-fiction/the-more-things-change/feed 1 http://www.writepop.com/misc/house-of-1000-doors http://www.writepop.com/misc/house-of-1000-doors#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:09:31 +0000 Writepop http://www.writepop.com/?p=705 House of a Thousand Doors

This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. The ring had become a chain around his neck. She was supposed to be this grand gift from the universe, this reward to make up for a lifetime of pain, and she almost was. But now, he was being dragged somewhere he’d never intended to go.

Veronica was kind and sweet and never criticized. She was the first woman Kurt had ever dated who didn’t accuse him of having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder because he liked to keep his life running smoothly. “But she has someone else…” The words echoed in his mind as he snapped the empty ring box open and closed. How could she expect a man to share his fiancée?

They had met at a fundraiser for Saint Brendan’s Orphanage. Like him, she was adopted, and had never known her birth parents. But while he had spent eight years waiting, she had been snapped up almost immediately. It was easy to see why. What parent wouldn’t want such a gorgeous, happy daughter? Vibrant, red hair, eyes like jade, and a laugh that held back all the darkness in the world.

After that first evening together, they spent the next eight months exploring everything their city had to offer, from hole in the wall diners to jazz nightclubs to a crystal creek hidden in a stretch of forest at the edge of town. He wanted to keep exploring the world, and to share it all with her.

He took her to the museum and waited until they were standing in front of her favorite painting, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. When he dropped to one knee, she thought he had lost a contact lens. It didn’t dawn on her what was happening until he’d opened the tiny, felt box. Her lips spread into a slight smile, and then, instead of the one word he expected to hear, she said, “We need to talk.”

Veronica took his hand and led him outside to a park bench. “Kurt, I love you. I do. I want us to spend our lives together. But there’s someone else.”

“You’re cheating?”

She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek. “No, darling. We haven’t been together intimately. But we want to. I was working up the nerve to tell you, but I guess I waited too long.”

He rubbed his eyes and tried to keep the hurt from turning into tears. “Do you… do you… like him? More than me?”

“No! You’re my favorite. I like him a lot, but I love you. You will always have my heart.”

“Then why? Why do you want to be with him?”

She laughed and waved at the city around them. “Look at this place! The streets, the buildings, everything is alive and filled with stories! There is so much out there, waiting to be explored, and I want to see it all. You will always be the brightest star in my sky, but you cannot be my world. You can have me forever if you just trust that I will always love you. Can you do that? Can you trust me enough to give me my freedom?”

He swallowed hard. “What a choice!” he thought. “Ninety percent or nothing.” Aloud, he said, “I love you more than I ever thought I could love. What else can I say?”

“Hey, wake up.” Kurt suddenly realized his boss was standing over him, waving an orange binder. “Stop daydreaming and get started on the Eisenhower Expressway plans.”

Kurt was a traffic engineer, and spent most of his time drawing construction traffic control plans. He would create a path, and thousands of people would follow it, going exactly where he wanted them to go. Life was so much more orderly that way.

He placed the ring box next to his keyboard and dumped a handful of paper clips inside. He never used them, but it was better than leaving it empty.

He decided not to meet her boyfriend. The curiosity ate at him, but the risk was too great. What if they were making love, and all he could see was this stranger’s face? It was better not to know, better to ignore it altogether. He asked Veronica not to tell him the other man’s name, or even mention the fact that there was someone else. Instead, Kurt would spend Thursday nights alone while she was “at book club”. She even bought a new paperback each week to help complete the illusion.

Weeks passed, and he finally managed to push the negative thoughts out of his head. After that, he never felt neglected, or jealous, or afraid. Their lovemaking was as good as ever. Better, even. She had an amazing amount of energy, in and out of the bedroom. Everything might have gone on that way forever, if she hadn’t come home with that smile. That damned smile. Her face told of secret, forbidden joys, far beyond those offered to the rest of humanity. She was as content as a monk on a mountaintop, every desire satisfied. It was enough to make him sick.

The red dot bounced across the map, and Kurt following a few blocks behind. Earlier that week, he had installed some new software on her phone, an application for paranoid parents called “Teen Tracker.” It took the GPS data from her phone and sent it to his laptop, which was resting beside him in the passenger seat. You needed the phone password to install it, but she had given him that months ago. She trusted him.

After a few miles, city streets were replaced by narrow, gravel roads that snaked through farmer’s fields. Endless rows of wheat turned into forest, tightly-packed trees arching over the road. The setting sun spilled orange fire through the leaves.

Another curve in the road brought him to a vast, Queen Anne mansion. In the front yard stood a lone hickory tree with a faded, wooden sign hanging from the largest limb: “House of a Thousand Doors.” Odd name for a bed and breakfast, or whatever it was. He pulled into the lot and climbed the stone steps to the front porch.

Inside, a narrow lobby stretched off into the distance. The wood paneled walls were stained a deep burgundy, and the floor was black tile scattered with crisscrossing white lines. Everything was quiet. The place felt wrong somehow. It was almost like an imitation of a house, some figure in a wax museum. The echo of his footsteps was off by half a beat. He was almost certain there were more windows outside than inside. There was plenty of light, but he couldn’t see its source.

After about a hundred feet, the lobby made a series of sharp turns, seemingly at random. He came to a wide hallway with numbered doors down each side. The hall was filled with a swirling mass of people. Some were in pairs and headed for a room, others were apparently alone and searching for someone to share their evening.

A flash of red hair vanished into the crowd. He tried to follow, but a wall of people blocked his way. Despite all the couples he had seen step into their rooms, the crowd hadn’t gotten any smaller. If anything, there were even more people than before. Where were they all coming from?

A figure broke through the crowd, a small, gaunt man in a black suit. His skin was an odd, pale color, almost gray, and seemed stretched too tightly over his bones. “Why are you here?” His slight smile said he already knew the answer.

“Veronica. I’m here for Veronica.”

“To speak with her, or to satisfy your curiosity?” The man reached up to scratch his chin. His long fingernails were filed into points.

“I…”

“This way.” The man lead Kurt to a hallway that he hadn’t noticed before. Their path twisted and turned like a gnarled oak. At last, they came to a pair of doors. “You can talk to her in this room, or you can watch her in that room.”

“Will she know I’m watching?”

“Just do your best to stay out of the light.”

The second door lead to a small, dark room. In the slit of light from the hall, he could see the room was empty and featureless, save for a brass wall clock and a pair of curtains. Pulling back the curtains revealed a window into the next room. “Oh, I get it,” he thought. “This must be one of those one-way mirrors. It has to stay dark in here to keep them from seeing me. Better close the door.”

The next room was dark wood covered in azure carpet and tapestries. A queen-size bed was conveniently positioned directly across from the one-way mirror on the far wall. There were no closets or dressers. Clearly, these rooms were only for people staying a short while.

The clack of heels on tile, and door in the next room opened. Veronica entered, followed closely by a tall, well-muscled man in a leather jacket. She was laughing about something, her mouth covering her hands. The man lurched forward, slid his hands under her arms, and tossed her on the bed. She gasped, laughed, and began pulling up her skirt. The man stripped to his waist, revealing a lean, muscular frame, a Greek sculpture in blue jeans.

A tiny boat tossed by a vast and stormy sea. Salt water on her skin and lightning in her veins. Kurt’s hand gripped the curtain, his knuckles turning white, but he couldn’t find the strength to pull it closed. The smile returned to her face, that satisfied smile that he could never summon, the smile that made his stomach turn sour. Why didn’t he make her that happy? Why wasn’t he enough?

At last, he pulled himself away and stepped out the door, trying to remember the combination of turns that had lead him there, but the halls seemed to have shifted. When he finally made it outside, he rushed to the parking lot and ducked between two cars, where he could watch the door without being seen.

A few moments passed, and Veronica stepped outside. She was normally clumsy in heels, but that night, she was all but floating. A strand of hair was hanging loose down the side of her nose, but she didn’t seem to notice. She glided out to her car and her taillights faded into the night.

Another figure appeared. The other man, the new continent she was determined to explore. His face was quietly serene. If he knew Veronica was engaged, it didn’t bother him. This was a man without doubts, without fear, at peace with himself and the world. He stepped into the parking lot, and a lion sprang at his throat. “Bastard!” Kurt howled, knocking him to the ground. “Bastard! She’s my wife! My fucking wife!”

The man rolled, throwing Kurt into the side of a black sedan. “If she’s looking elsewhere for love, I can hardly be the one to blame.”

Kurt threw out his leg, catching the man in the temple. As he lay there stunned, Kurt stood, grabbing him by his shirt and dragging him towards the trees, out of the light. The man twisted, throwing a wild left at his stomach. Kurt stumbled backward, and the man sprang to his feet.

The man lurched forward, and Kurt brought up his hands to block a punch that never came. Suddenly, his enemy was sprinting back towards the hotel. Kurt gave chase, fists and legs pumping, but the sound of shouting hotel guests made him reconsider. He retreated to the parking lot.

“Where were you?” Veronica demanded. “You said you were going to be home watching a movie.”

“I was,” Kurt said, “but I went out to get some ice cream.”

She stepped into the living room. The remote control was still sitting on the entertainment center where she’d left it after the morning news. “What did you watch?”

“I…”

She took a seat on the couch and patted the cushion beside her. Ignoring her gesture, he remained standing. “Did you think he wouldn’t call me? Did you think he wouldn’t tell me what you did? Kurt, that was assault! I had to beg him not to press charges, and he only agreed when I promised that he’d never see you again.” Sighing, she rubbed her forehead. “Will you stay away from him? Can you leave him alone?”

“Veronica, I don’t know if I can handle this. How can you expect me to share you with another man? How do I know he won’t take so much of you that there will be nothing left? How can I trust you?”

“That’s something you have to figure out for yourself.”

For the next two weeks, Kurt buried himself in work. He begged for overtime, covered for coworkers on vacation, did everything to stay away from home as long as he could. Finally, he fell asleep at his desk. His boss woke him with a slap to the back of the head and ordered him to go home.

When he walked through the door, Veronica was already gone. He turned on the television, but the only thing on was daytime talk shows. Even awful television was relaxing. The guard at the gates of his mind wandered off. Dark thoughts crept in.

“She’s with him right now, isn’t she. And the next time we’re together, he’ll be with both of us. His smell in her hair, his taste on her tongue. I could scrub her skin until she’s raw and bleeding, but he’ll always be there. I’ll always know where he’s been. This has to end. Everything comes to an end eventually.”

He drove in a daze, earth and sky rolling by unnoticed, until he found himself back at the House of A Thousand Doors. The place looked different in the daylight. The windows seemed taller and narrower, and the porch had three steps instead of five. The place was made of oak, but there were no divisions between the panels. It appeared to be one continuous piece of wood, like it had been carved from a single, gigantic tree. Or perhaps the house had simply grown there, at the top of the hill.

He climbed the steps and reached for the door. The knob jumped out of his hands, the door banging open. The halls rearranged themselves like rivers flowing into new banks. They squeezed him out, spitting him into the lounge.

The lounge was long and narrow and dim, like a cave with stools. A handful of people were scattered at tables and on sofas, sitting in their own, private pools of light. At the very back of the lounge lurked the bar, a monstrosity of granite and black leather. Behind the bar stood the gray man.

As Kurt moved across the room, the air seemed to resist him, like walking through water. The gray man drummed his pointed nails on the counter and watched him approach. As soon as Kurt was in arm’s reach, the gray man produced a glass of champagne and thrust it at him.

“I think you’re supposed to say ‘what will it be?’” Kurt said.

“Funny,” the gray man said, “I thought you were going to ask me the same thing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kurt took the glass and twisted the long stem in his hand. Bubbles danced through liquid gold, rising higher until they burst.

The man’s hand dropped below the bar, returning into view with a glass of red wine. “When you were very young,” he said, taking a long sip, “your family lived at the edge of a patch of woods. Early one morning, while you were out playing, you saw something shining in the trees. Drops of morning dew had been caught in a gigantic spider’s web. The droplets were trapped, isolated on the silken strands. Each one would go through its brief existence thinking it was the entire world. But the web joined them all together, and the spiders could walk across the web and drink any drop they liked.”

Kurt put down the glass, the champagne sloshing over the sides. “How did you know about that? Are you a fortune teller?”

“Fortune tellers want to help you. I just watch, and wait. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an almost infinite number of places to be.” He stepped through a pair of swinging doors into a dark back room.

Kurt took a seat at the bar and tried to remember the sequence of twists and turns that had brought him to the lounge. He reached for what was left of the champagne. Somehow, the glass was full and the counter top was dry. Reaching out, he idly ran a finger around the rim of the glass.

A hand on his shoulder. A woman in a silver cocktail dress smiled at him, her face half-concealed by strands of wavy, black hair. “You’re new,” she said. “Are you here by yourself?”

“Yes. But I’m with someone. I mean, she’s not with me, but she’s in the building. I think.”

“You’re not sure if you’re with someone?” she laughed.

“It’s complicated. This place is confusing. This isn’t a real building, is it?” She was just a stranger, no reason she should care about him, but the words poured from his mouth. He told her about Veronica, about her boyfriend, following them to this place, everything. Finally, she silenced him with a finger on his lips.

“Maybe you should stop reacting to her choices and choose your own path.” She turned for the door. “Or my path. Whichever you like.”

She lead him to a cavernous library, endless rows of shelves interspersed with carved granite columns. Reaching back, she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards a high, octagonal table. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We won’t be interrupted. This is my secret place. Now, on your back.”

Obediently, he hopped onto the table. The woman climbed up and straddled his waist. Her fingers caressed his stomach, stroked the coutures of his chest and the side of his face, and wrapped around his throat. He tried to scream, but it came out as a chocking gag.

Her face twisted into a fanged smile. As she squeezed tighter, her skin began to bubble and drip. She melted like a wax figure, her skin sliding into a new shape: the gray man.

His vision blurring, Kurt summoned the last of his strength. He rolled on his side, heaving the man to the floor. Kurt jumped from the table and ran, the pale man’s laughter chasing him down the hall.

The building groaned as, once more, it shifted into a new shape. The wall lurched forward and forced him in a new direction. The hall tightened, threatening to crush him. His feet pounded the floor endlessly, until at last he collapsed.

The sound stopped. A glass clinked, and a woman’s voice was saying, “Oh, you’re so bad!” He opened his eyes. Somehow, he had come back to the lounge. He picked himself up off the floor and dropped into a seat near the door. At the far end of the room, Veronica was sitting at the bar. She had some pink, fruity drink in one hand, her boyfriend’s arm in the other. He pulled her closer and their lips met.

“Just get out of here,” Kurt thought. “Now, before they see you. This place – she – she is obviously driving you insane. Just… go.” He stood slowly, prying his fingers from the back of his chair, fighting the urge to throw himself across the room and break the chair across her boyfriend’s skull. The few feet to the door was the farthest he’d ever walked.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” came the boyfriend’s voice, calm and reassuring. Kurt ducked around the corner, watching as the couple left the lounge and headed out to the parking lot. He counted to fifty and followed.

Veronica’s car was under a tree at the far end of the lot. The boyfriend opened her door for her, kissed her on the cheek, and watched her drive off into the darkness. He turned on his heel and started back towards the house. Passing under the ring of light from a lamppost, he vanished, as if he had stepped through a doorway that wasn’t there.

“That man isn’t human,” Kurt thought. “None of these people are. I have to warn Veronica. Wait – I can’t say anything, or she’ll know I was here. She’ll think I’ve gone mad with jealousy. I’ll have to come back in the daytime, and find some proof.”

The next day, Kurt pretended he’d been hit by a stomach bug. He called in sick to work and waited for Veronica to leave for the day. At the sound of her locking the front door, he jumped out of bed and threw on his clothes. He slipped his camera into his jacket pocket and headed back to the House of 1,000 Doors.

The parking lot was empty, but the door was unlocked. Inside, the place was quiet. It felt as if the building were asleep, waiting for the night to return. The long hallway of numbered rooms was empty. The door to the gray man’s observation room stood open, silently beckoning. He stepped inside and found the curtains were already parted. The lights in the next room were on, but no one was inside. “I wonder when the first guests usually arrive,” he thought. “Are there even employees here? It feels like I’m the only one around.” All was silence, save for the clock on the wall.

The clock’s hands jerked backward, spinning in the wrong direction. Faster, faster, a black blur. The clock seemed to pause and catch its breath, and the hands moved forward once more.

The clack of heels on tile, and door in the next room opened. Veronica entered, followed closely by a tall, well-muscled man in a leather jacket. She was laughing about something, her mouth covering her hands. The man lurched forward, slid his hands under her arms, and tossed her on the bed. She gasped, laughed, and began pulling up her skirt.

“This must be a video screen!” Kurt gasped. “It’s not a mirror at all. But why are they playing a recording?”

If it was a recording, it wasn’t entirely accurate. As if he had heard Kurt’s words, Veronica’s boyfriend stopped and turned towards the sound. He pulled his shirt back on, climbed out of bed, and walked towards the wall. His face twisted into a smile.

“Can he… can he see me?”

The man leaned in close, closer, until his face melted through the glass. “Yes.”

Kurt ran for the door.

He found himself in his bedroom. Veronica was in his bed, screaming in pain. At the foot of the bed stood her boyfriend, squeezing her hand. She was wearing a pale blue nightgown, pulled up above her waist, revealing a round, swollen belly. “Almost done!” the man said. “Just a little more. You’re doing so good!”

Kurt’s spirit was torn in two. His future had abandoned him, and he was being forced to watch what could have been. He wanted to scream, he wanted to be sick on the floor, but what would be the point? There was nothing left. He had been plucked from the fabric of the universe, and his very existence was coming unraveled. Finally, he said, “How do I get out of here?”

The man said simply, “You have to go out the way you came in.” He gestured to a door that, moments earlier, hadn’t been there. Kurt stepped through, going back once more.

Veronica sighed, watching her baby sleeping in her arms. It was hard to enjoy the moment when she knew it wouldn’t last, that she mustn’t grow attached. She wouldn’t have him for long, and it would be half a lifetime before she would experience this again. She looked up at the man at the foot of her bed. “How many times has this happened before?”

He laughed. “You ask me that every time.”

“How many?” she insisted.

“Countless thousands.”

“How many more times will we go through this?”

“Until he learns.”

There was just one thing left to complete the cycle. He reached down and plucked the baby from her arms. Turning, he walked through the final door, back the beginning, back to Saint Brendan’s Orphanage.

• The imaginary friend I had as a child was actually a real person. Going to the park will never be fun again.
• I should just ignore the voices in my head because they aren’t real. But didn’t the voices say the same thing about him?
• The quickest way to get more self-esteem is to take it from other people.
• Maybe I have intimacy issues, but I can’t stand it when people touch me on the cornea.
• Talking to yourself doesn’t make you crazy. What makes you crazy is doing it over a walkie-talkie.
• It might seem like everyone I love is walking away from me, but that’s just how parades work.
• WHY IS THIS &@#! ICE CREAM SO &**!@ COLD?! …Sorry, my therapist says I need to work on my rocky road rage.
• I finally realized I have an eating disorder after I broke up with my girlfriend just so I could cheer myself up with ice cream.
• My therapist said I’m a chronic procrastinator with a messiah complex, but I’m not worried. I’ll save the world . . . eventually.
• I shouldn’t try to drink my problems away, even if my biggest problem is having too much booze.
• It’s pretty crazy to wear a tinfoil hat to keep aliens from reading your mind is pretty crazy. It’s really crazy to wear a tinfoil hat because your brain is a baked potato.
• My therapist says I have a condition that causes indecisiveness, and he’s naming it after me. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

]]> http://www.writepop.com/humor/things-i-learned-in-therapy/feed 2 http://www.writepop.com/humor/why-we-broke-up http://www.writepop.com/humor/why-we-broke-up#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:38:54 +0000 Writepop http://www.writepop.com/?p=693 My girlfriend and I are about to celebrate our third anniversary. It’s great to finally be in a happy, stable relationship. My last few didn’t end so well…

Lisa just couldn’t deal with the fact that I was born without a uvula.

I told Susan that I wanted two women at once: one to iron my shirts, and the other to bake pies.

Amy got angry because I was always forgetting birthdays, deodorant, pants…

Janice thought I was immature, and I thought she was a poopy head.

Marie only wanted me for my body. Or, more specifically, my healthy kidneys.

Kathy didn’t like that I wanted to “wear the pants” in our relationship. And occasionally the sun dress, but that was only on the weekends, and just because they’re comfortable, not because I’m weird or anything.

Janet and I couldn’t agree on what day to celebrate as our anniversary: our first date, our first kiss, or the first time she filed a restraining order.

I dumped Rebecca after I asked her what sex felt like from a woman’s perspective, and she just said “let me show you” and waved a cucumber at me.

I dumped Carol because she was totally obsessed with being spanked. All night long, it was “No, you can’t spank me”, or “I said don’t spank me”, or “Damn it, stop spanking me!” God, talk about something else already!

I had to dump Rachel because of her intimacy issues. Every night, she would watch me undress, and then close her windows and tell me to get out of the bushes.

“Sixteen stories to the street. That has to be enough.” David jammed the crowbar into the door frame and pulled. The wood cracked and snapped, pieces falling. Tossing the tool aside, he retrieved the wine bottle of from the top of the stairs. There were a few mouthfuls of red left. Couldn’t let it go to waste.

The rooftop was still wet from the afternoon’s rain. It was rush hour, but the thunder of engines was carried away on the wind long before it reached the rooftop. This far up, there was only the sound of birds. The words “Deimos Inc” were written in gigantic, steel letters on the side of the building. A family of pigeons was living in the “D”. Every morning, the birds flew from the sign and searched the street for scraps. If they saw something they couldn’t eat, they covered it in shit.

In a few more days, it would be six years since he had graduated from California State, six years of sitting at a desk and staring at a flickering rectangle. His father had spent his life designing office buildings like this one, grand structures like urban mountains.  “But everything I’m doing is just ones and zeros, just shifting the pattern in the pixels.  A thousand years from now, my father’s work will be unearthed by some alien archaeologist, but my entire life will be digital dust by next week.”

Not everyone felt the same way about their work. Downstairs, the other screen slaves were dancing. This was a good year for Deimos.  The wall charts in the accounting department had sprouted tall, black lines like prison bars. The boss had invited everyone to a formal cocktail party to celebrate and, hopefully, to get drunk enough to forget about asking for raises.

David threw a leg over the railing and stared at the black pavement below. He swallowed the last of the wine, wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket, and let the bottle fall over the edge. On its way down, the bottle bounced against the side of the building, exploding like fireworks.

He didn’t bother to leave a note.

When his eyes opened, the sun was cresting the top of distant hills. The edge of the roof was about ten feet above his head. Underneath him was absolutely nothing.

He screamed, but the pavement didn’t rush up to meet him. He wasn’t falling. Hours must have passed since he’d jumped, but he still had another hundred and fifty feet to go. He had landed on something hard and cold, but could see only empty air.

Struggling to his feet, he stood on nothing. A careful step sent ripples through the air, like a drop of water falling into a bath. “What is this? Am I dead or am I dreaming?” He pressed a hand to his chest. His heart was still beating. Moving his arm made his side ache. His head throbbed like a rotten tooth. Unless ghosts could have cracked ribs and hangovers, he was still alive. “Something saved my life. But what?”

If he could walk through the air, perhaps he could walk to the ground. Moving cautiously, like stepping across a sheet of glass. Did this invisible something extend across the whole city? He felt the air with his feet, tapping to make sure the path was still solid.

He came to an incline, the air sloping upward gently. Apparently even empty space could have hills and valleys. Whatever this was, it felt much smoother than a sidewalk. He had a sudden vision of slipping off the edge and falling to the street, exploding like a piñata filled with ground beef. Perhaps it would be better to just sit down at the top of the hill. Surely someone would see him eventually, and mount a rescue effort. Right?

“But why worry? So I might fall to my death. Isn’t that what I wanted? Well, I was drinking pretty heavily last night. Maybe this is god or the universe or whoever giving me a chance to reconsider things more rationally. How do I do that?”

He searched his jacket pockets. He had a golf pencil and the receipt from the tuxedo rental place. Only three square inches of paper to help him make the biggest – and possibly last – decision of his life. He scratched six words at the top of the page: The Pros and Cons of Suicide.

“Not one more day working at Deimos, not one more moment of pointless poking at a keyboard, building sandcastles while the tide is coming in. Sure, no chance of finding a meaningful job, either, but I’m starting to doubt they exist. Does anyone drive to work with a smile on their face?”

The pigeons left their home in the sign, off in search of their daily bread. It was hard not to envy birds. The wind caressed their faces, held them up, carried them through the world. Why did they have so much more freedom? Even standing fifteen stories in the air, he was still chained to the earth.

“And they have a family. At the end of the day, they have their chirping little ones to come home to. What the hell do I have? My apartment complex won’t even let me get a dog. Would I even be happy if I had someone? Do I really want to spend my life with another person? In a little while, the streets will be filled with cars and pedestrians, thousands of people, all with one thought: get the fuck out of my way.

“I could go out, I could meet people, maybe find someone wonderful. But the absolute best case scenario is I end up like my mother, fifty happy years with my soul mate, and two weeks by their bedside in the hospital. It’s like driving for hours to a funeral, in the hopes that there will be some nice scenery on the way.

“Why guarantee myself heartache when joy is so uncertain? I could make sure I’d never have any more pain. I might miss out on a few happy moments, but at least I’d have a little peace.

“Or would I? Every major religion is against suicide. They all say I’d end up in hell. But why should god get mad at me for killing myself? He created this world. He knows what a shit place it is, and he’s not doing anything to fix it. But, then, I suppose killing myself isn’t exactly doing anything to fix it, either.

“What about Buddhism? They don’t believe in hell. I’d just be reincarnated. Probably into a lower life form. I could end up a bug on someone’s windshield.

“What if none of the religions are true? What if there’s nothing? Maybe death is just floating forever in an endless, black void. Or spending forever on earth, unable to touch anything or communicate with anyone. The afterlife might even be spending eternity working at an even worse job than I have now.

“On the other hand, this might be a miracle. Maybe this proves that god exists, and he’s saved my life for something more meaningful. But it looks like I’m stuck up here. If there are angels under my feet, why won’t they set me down? The only thing I know for sure is that, if I jump, I won’t get a chance to change my mind. …Probably.”

He looked over his notes, but couldn’t see anything clearly pushing him to one side or the other. He still had plenty to think about, but not much more space to write. And it was hard to think about death objectively when the sunrise was painting the sky orange and gold.

The invisible object began to vibrate. It lurched forward, the sudden jolt knocking him on his back. The thing darted away from the office building, humming over the street. He wanted to call out for help, but it was so early in the morning, there was no one to hear him. Even if their had been, what could they have done?

The thing flew faster, buzzing like a gigantic chain saw. The wind whipped at his face, shoving him against the side of the invisible hill. Skyscrapers gave way to suburbs, then farm houses, then forest. At last, he came to rest above a clearing. The invisible object was quiet.

A ring of stones marked a smoldering camp fire. At the edge of the trees stood a dome tent, like some gigantic, neon orange turtle shell. Someone had left empty beer cans and crumpled fast food wrappers scattered about the camp site.

The air filled with a sharp whir. A cone of blue light descended from the object and surrounded the tent. In an instant, the light, and the tent, vanished. The whirring was replaced with the muffled sound of screams.

“Oh my god…” David thought. “It can’t be! I’m on a… This is a… What are they doing down there? …No, don’t panic. They obviously don’t know I’m here. I’m safe.” But the vibration returned, quickly growing into a high-pitched squeal.

The object sailed up over the trees, carrying David into the air. The forest thinned, replaced by a checkerboard of farmer’s fields, a winding snake of highway, then miles of sand. As the object rose higher, the air grew cold. He pulled his jacket collar up, but it did nothing to help. It was designed for parties, not protection.

“Soon the atmosphere will be too thin to breathe. What if the things down there want to go home? I’ll burn to death in the atmosphere. Maybe my skeleton will end up in orbit. Unless…” Fighting against the wind, he stood and peered down at the earth.

Into the blue. For a heartbeat, it almost seemed like the air was holding him in place, that he would never fall again. But it didn’t last.

His jacket flapped against him like a flag in a storm. The wind was deafening. This time, there would be no second chances. This was the end. “God, if you tried to save my life, I’m sorry. Maybe next time.” He suddenly realized he was still clutching his list. He opened his hand, and the paper fluttered away.

The wind made his eyes water. Far below, something shined like amethyst. He closed his eyes and tried to prepare himself for whatever was about to come. Maybe the afterlife would welcome him with open arms. If there was nothing on the other side, hopefully it would at least be peaceful.

Blinding pain, suddenly choking. “Water! A lake? The ocean? I need some air… I have to swim to the surface. Which way is it?” Impossible to think when everything hurt. The ribs that were cracked now felt broken. Why even try to swim? He would never make it back to shore. Even if he did, the universe clearly wanted him dead. He could just open his mouth and let the water inside, and the pain would stop.

Deep in the blue, something was moving. A strange shape was approaching, something long and gray. A dolphin? A shark? Gray scales, fins, and long, black, hair. Her smile wrapped him in a warm blanket. Her hand touched his, and he could breathe again.

Thank you all for coming. I am glad to see you all here, even though you are undoubtedly more concerned for your inheritance than for me. I’ve been a cold-hearted bastard for a lot of years, even more than you know. I can’t imagine that you’ll ever forgive me for what I’ve done, so I only ask that you judge my deeds in the proper context. That is why I have called you here – to tell you about my life and my sin, and to explain why one of you will die with me.

I grew up in a nothing town in the Arizona desert. Not even a Post Office; just a school, a diner, and the last gas station before the highway to Las Vegas. The only thing I had in the world was my friends. There wasn’t much to do, but we had so much fun that I never worried about the future.

I remember one night, desperate for anything to do besides homework, we had a game of hide-and-seek in the cemetery. On the count of ten, we flew in all directions. I ran to the back of the graveyard, past the tombs of the city fathers, to a place where time had wiped away the names of the dead. Searching for the perfect hiding place, I fell over a broken headstone, tore my leg something awful. Must have left half a gallon of blood in that grave, but they never found me.

When the final school bell rang out, my friends scattered to the wind – college, the army, anything to get out of that little town. But turning eighteen took me by surprise. I found myself working at the gas station, watching cars filled with laughing people headed to places I’d never see.

Months passed by like commercials on TV. The bell rang for the trillionth time, and I trudged out to fill up yet another car. This one was a Corvette, canary yellow, shining like candy wrapped in cellophane. Behind the wheel was a pretty, young thing in a tank top and aviator sunglasses. I scrubbed her windshield and out of habit said “Have fun in Vegas.”

She smiled, the sunlight glinting in her glasses. “Actually, Daddy and I just moved to town. I’m headed to work at the diner across the road. By the way, my name is Rosa.” She handed me a few crumpled bills and waggled her fingers goodbye. As I stared at her taillights, I realized I hadn’t told her my name.

After that, I had every meal at her table, trying to work up the nerve to introduce myself and ask her out. I ate slowly, hoping to find the words by the time I’d finished dessert. Only took me six months! Finally, she agreed to spend her next lunch break with me. Thank god she said yes. I was getting sick of rhubarb pie.

But where to take her? The only place to go in town was the damn diner! We ended up having a picnic in the field by the cemetery. That might sound morbid, but this was the desert. There weren’t that many places with nice grass.

She brought some strawberry crepes and I brought a bottle of wine. We exchanged awkward small talk and watched the grass dance in the wind until the wine spread its smile across our faces. She told me about growing up in New Mexico, her pets, her plans for college. I mostly just listened, because the only thing I wanted to say was “I’m lonely.”

We spent the next three months in each other’s arms. Her kindness and her laughter pushed away the dark that had enveloped my heart. This woman could save me. She could be my oasis.

One evening, I traded every dollar I had for a ring I hoped would make her mine. I headed to her apartment, too excited, driving too fast. The wind rose, carrying a summer storm. I drove through miles of water until the cemetery appeared, lurking in the dark. I always hated that curve.

The world exploded, blinding pain. I had slid, crashed through the fence, and the limb of an oak tree had pierced my chest. Everything was blood and broken headstones.

I would never see sweet Rosa’s face again. My joy had turned to ashes. Desperate to free myself from this fate, I cried out to whatever spirits could hear me. “Anything you want! Just save me, and let me share a long life with her.”

Silence.

Something touched me on the arm. A voice like a flock of crows. “A child will pull the wings from a fly and laugh. So much less does your suffering matter to me.”

“My god…” This was worse than dying alone. I had been found by something that was going to watch me die and smile. I said, “Spirit, don’t I have anything to offer you? Not even my soul?”

“What makes you think such a thing exists?” Hot, putrid breath assaulted my face. “I roam the earth from east to west, devouring those who hear my voice. I steal the hopeful from their lover’s grasp. Why should you see her again, when my only companion is despair?”

This was agony. I had finally found some meaning, some purpose, and one slip had stolen it from me. I had to sacrificed anything to have it back. “Take one of my grandchildren for your own.”

“You will live to 99 with your Rosa, but I shall take the grandchild you love the most. I will sign my name in their flesh, and they shall join in my endless wandering.” The thing’s shrieking laughter still haunts me. “Will you cast them into the darkness? Choose quickly! My hunger grows!”

I said yes. God damn me forever, I said yes! My vision began to fade. The twisted liar! I was dying after all! A foul, choking wind, and something like the sound of wings.

I opened my eyes in the hospital. Rosa was at my side, clutching the ring and weeping. I threw back the bedsheets and felt my chest. No wounds, but every hair had been burned from my body.

A few months later, she would demand a child. At first I refused, but I couldn’t bare to see her unhappy, couldn’t bare the thought of her leaving. One child lead to two, then three, then four.

I did my best to make sure they never found love. I locked them in their rooms, trapped them in the basement, threatened their boyfriends with a knife. They ran from me, scattered, and had children of their own. I spent years trying to deaden my heart, trying to never feel anything for you girls, but I failed.

And now, once more, the light is leaving me. Quickly, search your bodies! You will know the demon has chosen you by the mark of—