On the dark, muggy streets walked a short teen, his hair was a mess of grease and sweat that left an oddly beautiful shine to the somber night that surrounded him. He walked with a certain air about him, you could feel his strength in the air, everyone knew not to mess with him, he may be short and skinny but you wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

 

He walked passed alley after alley, scrunched up pieces of news papers filling boxes and large dirty blobs that were the others like him, homeless. Every building he passed was abandoned, no one could afford to stay in the crumbling buildings, now to see even one warm sheet was an oddity to them.

 

The boy stopped and hurriedly made his way to one of the emptier back alleys. At the far end was a rain-weakened wooden door. The boy slipped inside and made his way down the damp and musty corridor towards another door, this time in better condition. A small flap on the door flew open revealing a set of hazel eyes to the boy.

 

“who goes there!” yelled a young boy.

“Will, you idiot now open the door!” growled Will. The door swung open to reveal an excited figure. The small child jumped up to cling at Will as he was carried down the next corridor to an large room.

 

The room was a miss-match of things from broken chairs to piles of rags stolen from the rich. There were at least five other children in the room including Will’s sister. The two smaller children jumped up from the corner and came running at Will, asking what he had managed to get for them this time, Will produced stale bread and a hunk of cheese.

 

“How are the plans Lilly?” Will murmured to his sister

 

“Fine Will, we just need to get the final part to fall into place….”  Lilly started but was cut off by Will “When will that be?” Lilly covered Will’s mouth with her hand before carrying on “....Tomorrow Will, everything will be in place tomorrow.”

 

Will sighed, he pulled out his knife from it’s place on his belt before slicing off thin pieces of bread and tiny chunks of cheese, handing each the younger children that surrounded him a serving .

 

Within the hour everyone was asleep except one lone shadow who was sat by the grimy window peering out at the fuzzy shape of the moon. He couldn’t sleep, his mind was overrun with thoughts of the plan and worry that the children will somehow get caught up in something that they weren’t supposed to.

 

The old man strolled through the muggy streets knocking people out of his way with his sturdy oak cane with a ivory handle. He despised all of the filth that crowded the streets. Why couldn’t they just get a job, or even better leave and never return! He smirked, of course that wouldn’t happen, it was just wishful thinking. He turned his head towards one of the older buildings and scowled, he hated the buildings and the people who surrounded them.

 

Will climbed back over towards the lump of rags and gradually eased himself down between the sleeping mass of squirming children. He had to be ready, alert, and completely aware of everything surrounding him.

 

The sharp rays of sunlight barely pierced through the smudged muck on the window, it was just right to hit Will in the eye and cause him to stir from his slumber. Will soon shot up realising that today was the day, they would reclaim the little city from Benedict, they would finally be free to claim a house, legally, without the worry of being caught and thrown back onto the street. Will jumped up from his position on the floor and clambered over to Lilly

 

“Wake up, wake up. Get everyone ready!” WIll pestered eagerly. Lilly swatted at her brother to shoo him away before sleepily complaining “Five more minutes Will,” before snuggling her head back into her arms and started softly snoring.  Will sighed at his sister, he couldn’t stay there, he needed to move about, to release some energy before Lilly tried to bash him over the head for not letting her sleep.

 

Will snuck over to the window and with a strong, swift shove it swung open, Will scrambled up and over the window ledge to grab onto the branch of an old tree before swinging himself up onto the branch. From there he shimmied his way down the trunk of the tree and landing heavily on the ground.

 

Will started to run he had to distract himself for at least a small amount of time, he had to.

 

He hadn’t gotten very far when he saw him, Benedict, walking towards the building that he was due to inspect today, there was no reason behind the inspections he just wanted to show that he had the power to control the building and whether people occupied it or not.

 

It was to early! Benedict shouldn’t be doing the inspection till later, no one was prepared for it yet! He had to warn them.

 

Will reached the building that contained his sister and friends in record time, but not quick enough, Benedict was already having the door pried open. This was not good! Will nimbly climbed the tree trunk before leaping onto the window ledge, knocking over a trinket that Lilly used to make the place seem more like home. This startled Lilly and she shot up from her peaceful slumber and glared at Will.

 

Before Lilly could scold Will he panted out “He’s here, Benedict is here early. We have to start the plan now!” Lilly’s glare turned into a look of shock and worry, but it was to late to do anything, the large metal door began to rattle, then thumped to the ground leaving a smirking old man peering at them from where the door once stood.

 

This couldn’t be happening. The children had all awoken and were trembling behind the older siblings.

 

“Well, well, what do we have here then!” Cackled Benedict “Boys grab them!”

 

The next few minutes were a blur, Will reached for his knife and launched himself at the guards just as the guards with Benedict pulled out their own knives, which were obviously newer, and prepared to attack the scrawny boy that had lept towards them.

 

“A fighter, huh.” Benedict boomed “Kill them!”

 

Each of Benedict’s guards sprinted towards the helpless children in the corner, ignoring Will’s attempt to stop them, and grabbed each of the children by their hair and dangled them from their large hands in front of Will and Lilly.

 

The siblings were terrified, they knew these men showed no mercy.

 

“Let them go!” Lilly cried

 

“Why?!” Benedict growled “They aren’t supposed to be here and neither are you! Kill them! Kill them now!”

 

The guards held up the first child, he was flailing and sobbing for someone to save him, Will stumbled towards the boy in an attempt to save him but before he could get far he was tackled to the ground. The boy in the guard's hand was the same boy who had watched the door the previous day. Will stared on in horror as the guard slit the child’s throat and dropped him to the ground. Lilly screamed.

 

“Shut up!” Benedict roared as the next child was killed, then the next, until only one was left sobbing uncontrollably as the guard reached out to kill her.

 

“Stop this! Please….” Will begged “..... Just stop this!” Will had given up on his plan by now and felt hollow with failure, to help the people around him, to get a better life for his sister, to save his family from the monsters in front of him.

 

“You win” Will yielded, Lilly looked at him in disbelief, he was giving up, Will was giving up! He’d never done that before!

 

The guard dropped the child, Abigail, who quickly scrambled over to Lilly. Lilly stared at her brother as he bowed his head in shame, that’s when she saw it, the mischievous smirk hidden by the shadow from his hair, Lilly braced herself for what Will would do next.

 

As Will bowed his head he noticed there was a blade next to him so he reached for it and hid it in his sleeve. The guard watched Will lower his head and loosened his grip on the boy.

 

Will saw his chance and shoved the guard back and ran to Lilly and Abigail, he grabbed Lilly’s arm that wasn’t supporting Abigail and dragged her to the window, slashing at any guards that came too close to them

 

“Run Lilly” Will cried as he pushed his sister and Abigail out of the window and onto the tree branch. Will watched as Lilly clambered down the tree followed by Abigail, glancing at Will once more before scooping up the girl and making her escape down the alley and away from the guards and her brother.

 

Will looked down the alley one more time to check that Lilly was safe before throwing the blade at Benedict, causing it to land in his shoulder and grabbing the box of matches in his pocket and struck one. Will dropped the lit match onto the wood in front of him creating a barrier between the guards and himself.

 

“You can no longer rule this city with fear Benedict! I will save it!” Will screamed as he jumped off of the window ledge to grab onto the tree and follow the alley away from the burning building.

 

Lilly was waiting behind the stone wall when she saw her brother sprinting down the alley, she could see the flames engulfing the building.

 

There was a loud explosion, Will was knocked down by the force and shielded his head from the rubble that rained down on him, he shakily stood up taking in his surroundings, everything was swaying and seemed miles away yet oddly close, faintly he could hear someone calling his name but it sounded too far away to tell who it was. Will stumbled forwards until someone caught him and pulled him away from the disaster zone that encompassed him.

 

“Will! Will! We did it, we did it Will! Benedict’s gone!” Lilly cried, Will’s world had finally begun to steady itself when he saw the remains of the building they had called home and Lilly gripping him tightly. Had he really done it, was Benedict really gone, could they finally be free of his reign over the city.

 

Within hours the remains of the building had been searched and only one guard had survived the blast, he lived long enough to clarify that no one else made it out of the building and confirm the safety and the future of the city.

 

Benedict was truly gone and the people would be free.

 

Months passed, Lilly and Will with the help of the older members of the tortured city housed all of the homeless citizens who had been evicted during Benedict's tyrannous reign and brought the city to it’s former glory.

Egg Islands

The sound of her bluidity was deafening. It was as if the universe had gathered up every dark blue water bottle cap, every fallen Oreo wrapper, every torn postcard from the lakes in Oregon and every last little clipping of the newspapers from the day of the swimming championship and mashed them up into her screams. When she yelled it was all so blue Joshua could hardly function without drowning in the streams that came from his mother’s mouth.

That was the funny thing, though. Her screams weren't what you would expect. They weren’t even screams, really, it was just the way they rushed into his ears that made him think her heavy indigo whispers, thick with I-love-yous, were actually screams.

Her words weren't choppy or violent or clipped like scraping or smashing down walls. They were so fluid. They were loud, no doubt, but their loudness, their bluidity, came from the things that built them: little fragments of life that drowned out everything else. Things like peas and potatoes touching on his dinner plate and the dust on nightstand edges that he could never wipe off. Or the paint chipping off his action figures’ feet that he tried to fill in with magic markers. All the edges of his world that he could never line up.

One day in school his teacher showed him how to make envelopes out of construction paper. Hamburger fold. He folded and refolded over and over, but he could not get the edges right. He felt them, rough and fuzzed at the same time, and it bothered him a little. Hot dog fold. Twenty-seven times. Triangle fold. Forty-three times. Over and over. Tape. He went through seven pieces before he could get it perfectly straight. Folding in the edges and then folding them across. Fifteen times. By the time he finished his envelope, all the other children were pulling their green and purple lunchboxes out and comparing the size of their carrot sticks.

"It doesn't have to be perfect, buddy." Teacher smiled warmly. He couldn't even look.

The paper and its bluidity reminded him of his mother’s screams and the whole room seemed to grow bigger and bigger around him, that was something else funny, whenever Joshua felt like the world was closing in on him, which was often, the room would grow bigger, not smaller, like he heard about in books. He would feel the walls pull away from him, the floor drift from under his sneakers, like the surfaces that made up his world were simply vast waters and everything would become oceans around him. In these moments he found himself in the middle, without anything to hold on to, wishing the clouds were more than water vapor. He thought about what it would be like to curl his fingers around the cosmic white ceilings above him.

He stood in the middle of the kitchen that afternoon, mother whispering about how much she loved him, yelling, but not really yelling, about how she didn’t care how many times he had to flip the light switch or check the door lock, and all he could think about was that day in school with the envelope, all he could see were millions of fossils of folds on the construction paper, like dark scars from a valiant battle.

He remembered thinking about those paper scars on the way home from school that day, and every time the large school bus had gone over a bump, he had imagined what it would have been like to smooth those fossils out of the blue construction paper, what it would look like for those folds to be flat again, the wounds erased.

*

Every morning when Joshua got out of bed he had to make sure his Captain America comforter was perfectly lined up at the corners. If one section was out of balance and hung too close to the floor everything in his day would go very, very badly. That morning he got up and pressed, kept pressing the on off button on off on off on off on off on off, until he was satisfied that his alarm wouldn't ring. He gathered the blanket in his small white hands, threw it up, and floated it down onto the bed frame, the four corners flickering as it fell, blue and red and white and blue, he loved watching the colors drift down onto the bed frame, like an uneven snow made out of the different colors flames can be, which he had learned all about in Boy Scouts. He pulled it perfectly even, checking three times to make sure all the edges were lined up. Then he wrapped himself up in Dad’s old robe and teetered down the hallway to the kitchen.

Everything smelled very yellow and his mother was cooking eggs. Her Friend from last night came in. There was so much light in the kitchen it was hard for him to breathe. He found his little corner, where his little blue chair and table sat, everything perfectly parallel to the linoleum lines on the floor, tucked away from the windows, all cool and nice.

"I love that chair, bud." The Friend's voice and the crackling of the eggs in butter in the pan mixed all together, and he hated it. It made his insides twist, almost as bad as when his peas and potatoes touched on his dinner plate.

The blue chair was one of his favorite things, painted all over with nursery rhymes, but mostly with the cow jumping over the moon. He liked all the brown little cows and the moon that was the color of mayonnaise, but mostly he liked the background, how it was all one smooth color. Not blue-grey like the speckled sky that stretched over Granite City. It was just a simple, even shade, like his favorite magic marker that he used to draw oceans, and whales, and eyes.

He mumbled a word of thanks to Mom's Friend and sat down on the moon. He hoped the moon wouldn’t mind but he figured its craters were big enough to hold the parts of him that were falling out sometimes. He thought about the book with the little gold spine and all the rhymes in it that he used to read, thinking always helped him not to focus so hard on all the dust in the kitchen corners or the way his robe was tied around him. He remembered that one rhyme that mom always read to him before bed.

Hey diddle diddle,

The eggs were starting to burn now, he could sense it. Mom wasn't looking at them; she just kept running her hand up and down on Friend's chest, her pink fingernails tracing the little yellow stripes on the robe he was wearing.

The cat and the fiddle,

He noticed a piece of dust under the leg of his table, and he bent down to pick it up. He felt the pulse of the floor and all the steady beats in his mother’s laugh.

The cow jumped over the moon.

He loved the mayonnaise color of the moon even though he didn't like mayonnaise at all and he liked to think that, when the cow jumped, he soared over every uneven thing in the universe and traveled over the moon with its craters, filled with the parts of people that were all broken and smushed, and landed in a place where everything existed in perfect angles and nothing was too bright.

The little dog laughed,

His mother stopped giggling and came over to scrape the eggs onto his plate. They were very, very scrambled. He started to imagine what would happen to him if he ate the messy eggs, and he became very afraid. He could see the monsters that would attack him, they were all so white and clean, the worst kind of monsters, the kind you don’t realize are monsters until they are eating you from the inside out. He looked over into the blinding bursts of light coming from the other side of the kitchen.

 

"These eggs are really mixed up, Mom."

She looked over, whispering fast apologies. She went over to the fridge and got some more eggs, and Her Friend just leaned against the wall, drowning Himself in brightness and laughing at something, Joshua didn't know what.

To see such sport,

He realized how uneven his chair legs were with the lines of the linoleum, and he repositioned it. Still not right. He tried again, and then the fifth time it finally looked okay. The eggs were taking forever and he noticed his old messy eggs were still on the plate, writhing, letting their fumes erupt all over the kitchen. He picked up the plate and opened the sliding glass door, making sure it slid at an even pace. Not too fast, not too slow. He threw the eggs into the green grass outside. The backyard was a dominion he could not control, one of those little boundaries he had for himself, so he didn't mind tossing them there.

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

"What are you doing?!" Mother asked, the sliding door closing perfectly in its little socket.

"They were so messy, Mom."

She started to get that way she would get when her screams were about to be very blue, but then she heard the egg timer and she brought him a perfectly circular sunny-side up breakfast and he forgot about some things and then poked the middle part and watched the orange ooze. Those were little messes he could allow, little explosions, like volcanoes on a tiny egg island. He didn't let the ooze go outside the white part, he scooped it all up so fast, imagining he was eating spoonfuls of sand and lava from his very own island's shore.

*

One night there was something on the television about gorillas. He was playing with his kingdom, his army of men that were all green and shiny and had very serious faces. Everything in the living room was canyons and valleys and mountains. There was a very dangerous ridge on the edge of the television set. Only the bravest of men would go there.

So that night Mom and a different Friend sat on the couch. That was a huge mountain range, but he let them sit on it sometimes, and that night there were no missions set to go out there. He gathered the men up into four lines of six and made sure no one's feet were out of line. That was the thing he loved about army men, because their little green feet were already set in a good position, and no man could put his foot out of line, even if he wanted to.

There were murmurs and other soft sounds from the couch, and the gorillas on the T.V. were making hooting sounds. It was time for the groups to prove who was bravest. He looked at the lines and held each man up to the T.V., and whoever did not shudder from the hooting sounds and all the black hair was allowed to go on the ridge mission.

But the test was interrupted a few times, because on the seventeenth man, Mom scolded him and tried to pick up the whole army and put them back in the closet. He screamed because she had stopped him on an odd number, and he noticed how blue his screams sounded, but they were more like a grey-blue, like the fuzz that came over the T.V. set when the signal got lost.

She went back to the couch, but he held the men up a little lower so that she and Her Friend could still see the gorillas tromping through the forests. Although, they didn't seem to be watching anymore, and sometimes he wasn't sure if it was his mother or the gorillas making odd noises.

Once he determined the bravest men, he crossed the room and helped them move across the huge river of blankets, over to the side of the television set, climbing up, then across the top, and then came the hardest part, the men had to fall off the side and engage their little parachutes. He watched their green figures plummet onto the carpet, and if one or two fell face down they had to go again.

His small body became a silhouette against the buzzing T.V. screen. He pressed his face up to it and he could feel the static electricity graze his cheek like a timid hand. The cable had gone out because of a storm moving through and the screen became incredibly blue, like the way he saw both of their screams. That night he imagined it was an ocean, and he wanted to let the men swim through it, but he was afraid of upsetting mother so he looked behind him. They weren't watching, but the blankets on the couch were moving very strangely. They were a light blue-grey, and he imagined that the way those quilts were writhing and swirling would be the way the sky would look at the end of the world.

So he turned back to the ocean and let the men swim. They had had a successful evening of missions, and altogether, it had been a good day.

*



There were days where all the blue in the home and in his life would converge with his mother. Instead of screams that were full of plastic shrapnel, or giggles that were yellow like eggs, everything would come together and she would fasten the Velcro straps on his tennis shoes.

He loved the sound of the Velcro coming together, the fuzzy and the hard, making a soft brushing sound. He loved how his mother would line the straps up perfectly and how, once they were stuck against each other, the only thing that could pull them apart was a very harsh ripping.

On those days they would step out of the small grey house and go to the park on the corner. It was hard for him though, because he had to count the steps, and even though he knew there were exactly six, and if he missed one he absolutely had to go back and start again. That day he got it on the first try, counting as he went down, making sure not to step on the lines in the weathered wood. He balanced on the tips of his sneakers, smiling and thinking he must’ve looked like those black birds that balance on the tall piles of trash in the city.

They walked out onto the sidewalk and everything in the air was a strange mix of speckles: the smell of the factory, the mist that came before rain, and little specks of sun that managed to cut through the clouds in spectrums. He was okay with how the air was all mixed, and his mother said she loved speckled air because it matched the freckles on his face, and that anything in the world that looked like him was something she loved.

But he got distracted as he looked down, he had been watching the ground beneath his sneakers and suddenly he realized he had stepped on a crack five squares back, and so he turned and ran to find it and start again. It was his rule.

But as he began to count again, mother and her long blue dress came trailing behind him and whispered "I have a fantastic idea."

"What?" He had a steady pace, six squares, back on track, no cracks.

"You can ride on my back, Joshua. It will be just like you are one of your army men that you love so much, or like Captain America. I'll be your fighter plane and you can pilot me all the way to the park."

Eight squares, no cracks, he decided this idea might be okay though, because she was wearing that dress and it would be just like a cape flowing behind him. He jumped on her back and muttered some important takeoff commands. Then she ran, zooming over the concrete, the world behind both of them with all its uncounted steps and stepped-on sidewalks.

He knew, somehow, deep in him, that she knew not to step on the cracks, even as they flew to the park. Her long legs were strong, and he held on to her dark hair. He loved the smell of it, like tomatoes and his Captain America comforter. He steered her towards the park and she moved in a rhythm, leaping, one square after the other, her sandals always landing right in the middle, slapping the concrete.

He found a way not to think about the sidewalks, somehow, in that moment. He cared more about how the speckled air whizzed by, he and his mother, with the cape flowing behind them, becoming one long blue scream, a streak moving fast against the static sky and the grey concrete around them.

 

 

I woke up lost, terrified, and confused, laying in the gutters on the streets. My clothes were soiled my white T was no longer white but stained with a mixture of yellow, green, and brown from my own throw up.  My body was in so much pain I could barely see. My whole body pulsed in agony. All I wanted to do was die. Please God that’s all I want, let me die.                                                                           

LET ME DIE!                                                                                                                                                                                                           

I screamed to the heavens and waited for an answer but nothing came.     I curled myself into the fetal position and tried to create a peace within myself like a baby in the womb of its mother waiting for life. But I was in the heart of despair waiting for death; there was no peace to be found. I uncurled myself and promised this would be the last time I have to pick myself up again, so I got up and took what dignity I had left and shook myself off. I reached in my pockets to see if I had any money for a cab but all I had was a crack pipe, a few dirty needles, an empty plastic baggy,  balls of lint, and not a dime to my name. I’m not really sure where I’m going so I guess cab fare wouldn’t do any good anyway. So I started walking to find the nearest store to find out where I was, and maybe get some help. Everything looked familiar but I couldn’t exactly place where I was. With every step my head pounded to the ringing in my ears. I pounded my head with my palm to try and make it stop but it didn’t. As I walked through the streets everybody all looked the same, beaten and shameful but somehow they all seemed to single me out and give me dirty looks like I was the scum of the earth. Soon after a few minute I saw a gas station up ahead, it looked abandoned but there was a light on so I decided to take a chance.  I opened the door and noticed there was no one inside so I took it upon myself to take some cigs from behind the counter, a lighter, a bottle of whiskey, bandages, and some rubbing alcohol. As I was walking out and I saw a small Chinese man running towards me out the corner of my eye screaming; 

Hey where are you going with my shit you little thieving fucker!?                                                                                                    

As soon as I heard his voice I bolted out the door and ran down the street till I found a safe place to hide behind a CVS. I sat down on the ground and sat my stuff down, my heart was beating fast and my legs and arms wouldn’t stop shaking. My body was killing me, so I took my shirt off and rolled up my pants legs, I grabbed the rubbing alcohol and poured it all over my cuts on my legs, arms, face, abs, and back. The burning was a relief from the pain I felt before. I lit a cig and wrapped my cuts in bandages. My body still hurt but I felt clean at least. I took the last hit of my cig and took a swig from my bottle of whiskey then laid on my back letting my body heal and my mind float away into a peaceful bliss. I soon fell asleep with a bottle in my hand in the back of a broke down CVS, I felt complete.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

I opened my eyes and seen a large black man  standing in front of me holding a 9mm glock in my face.                                                                                                                                                                          

Shake out your pockets or I’ll shoot you in your motherfucking face!                                                                              

I don’t have anything.                                                                                                                                                                                

I’m not playing with you! Shake em out or Ill blast you’re fucking brains out!                                                            

I told you I don’t have anything.                                                                                                                                                         

You think I’m playing with you!?                                                                                                                                                                          

He pistol-whipped me in the face, grabbed my shirt and put the gun to my temple.                                       

Imma ask you one more time. Empty your pockets!                                                                                                                     

I sat there and looked him in the eyes.                                                                                                                                         

You don’t have the balls.                                                                                                                                                                           

He stared back at me, and pressed the gun farther into my temple. I could feel the pressure of the barrel buried into my skin, but I stood my ground.                                                                                                                                     

Pull it mother fucker.                                                                                                                                                                                 

He stopped for a moment then pushed  me to the ground.                                                                                                

You aren’t worth shit anyway, I aint even wastin a bullet on yo ass.                                                                                          

He walked away in shame and I laughed in his embarrassment. I got up and felt a rush of accomplishment but I despise feeling this way, because even if he just tried to rob me, he was right I’m not worth shit, not even a goddamn bullet.  I’m not better than him I’m a heroin addict, alcoholic and crack head who woke up in the gutters and just robbed a liquor store. I don’t deserve to live, I wish that man had the balls to shoot me in the head; I’m going to die soon anyway, why not now.                                         I picked up my bottle and cigs and put them in my pocket. I walked to the closest gas station to find out where I was, I saw a Shell right ahead of me so I ran across the street. A car came flying across and almost hit me but sadly stopped just in time.                                                                                                                             

Watch where you’re going asshole!                                                                                                                                                

Sorry sir.                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Asshole!                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

I walked the rest of the way across the street to the Shell gas station and walked inside. I saw a very tall black man standing behind the counter. I asked the clerk;                                                                  

Excuse me, where am I?                                                                                                                                                                           

You’re in a gas station.                                                                                                                                                                                

He said with a laugh.                                                                                                                                                                                   

No I’m just messing with you kid, can’t you take a joke? You’re in bright moor kid, must have had a rough night huh?                                                                                                                                                                                                

Something like dat                                                                                                                                                                                         

Where you from?                                                                                                                                                                             

Southfield.                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Well what are you doing down here?                                                                                                                                               

Just on vacation.                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Oh I see well if you need some good crank  you know where to find me.                                                            

Thanks will do.                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Even the clerk could pinpoint me out as a Fein. I never tried crank but I always wanted to. I left the gas station and looked at the cars in the lot. Every time I passed one I pulled the door handle to see if anyone was stupid enough to leave it open.                                                                                                                       

Nope,                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Nope,                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Nope,                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Nope,                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Hell yeah!                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

I popped open the car door and looked inside, nothing was there but a dirty old ripped blanket. I noticed the windows were all dirty and broken. I got in and bent down to try to hotwire it but the damn thing didn’t work anyway.                                                                                                                                                                                 

Fuck.

I reclined the chair and grabbed the blanket from the back and threw it over my body. My body was so cold I didn’t care that it smelled like pee. I sat up and took a huge gulp from my bottle, I pressed my lips together from the burning sensation it gave my stomach from not eating all day. I put it back up to my mouth and took another huge gulp. I laid back and went to sleep.                                                                                                              

Tap, Tap, Tap!                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Sir?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Tap, tap, tap!                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Sir?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Excuse me sir but you can’t sleep here, go home.                                                                                                                   

I opened my eyes to the sound of his voice, I looked out the window and seen a police officer standing outside the car.                                                                                                                                                                                             

Oh I’m sorry I was just taking a quick nap. I’ll be on my way.                                                                                                                                                               

Quick nap? People reported you were out here all night                                                                                                                             

Really? I’m sorry I didn’t know I slept here that long I’ll be on my way.                                                                              

Okay kid, go home or anywhere else but here.                                                                                                                                   

Okay thank you.                                                                                                                                                                                   

                  I waited till he walked away from the car so I could get out. I grabbed my cigs and lit one and took a gulp from my bottle. I looked around thinking of what my next move should be. I decided to see if any of my friends were home so I can spot some money for a couple rocks and a cab ride. I stated walking in the direction I think there house is in. after about an hour and 30 minutes of walking, a half pack of cigs, and an empty bottle I started to notice everything looked familiar so I knew I was close. My body started to feel really heavy and I was getting really tired, I don’t even know where I would be going even if I did get cab fare, maybe my friend Justin would let me stay a few nights until I get back on my feet. After about 20 more minutes I notice my friend’s house out the corner of my eye, my face lit up with joy, I knew I would know my way around. I walked up to his house and knocked on the door.                              

Malik, Angle! Open up its Ronnie!                                                                                                                                                                 

I waited for a response but there wasn’t one, so I went to the back door and knocked on that one. 

Malik, Angel! I’m out here nigga!                                                                                                                                                             

I went to a window and looked in but there was no one. I went back to the back door to see if it was open and it was. Nigga needs to learn to lock their damn doors. I walked inside and the smell of weed and crank smacked me in the face. I looked around and the place was trashed like usual. Dirty needles and packs on the ground, crack pipes and tinfoil, rappers and trash. I stepped threw it all making my way to his room looking for something, anything, I just need to get high, I found some Reggie on his dresser with a bowl. I figured its better than nothing so I grabbed it, sat on his bed and packed it in the bowl, and lit up. I lay down and was staring up at the ceiling waiting for one of them to come. 20minutes later I heard a car pull up in the drive way and someone get out. I sat up on his bed and walked to the living room. The door opened and I saw it was Malik, he looked high as fuck like he been chain smoking crank all day.                                                      

Was sup Malik? Long time no see.                                                                                                                                                    

What the fuck are you doing in my house?                                                                                                                                        

What do you mean?  You left the door unlocked like usual so I came in to wait for you, was that not ok?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I don’t know you tell me.

He pulled out his semi-automatic and put it to my head, I looked in his eyes and Malik wasn’t there. My heart sped up with fear. I backed up closer to the back door.                                         

 I’m sorry I can leave I just though you could help me out, but I’ll just go.                                                           

Help you?  why in the fuck would I help a pig? Get the fuck out my house!                                                                

He fired at his ceiling as a warning shot.

I got the message and ran out the back door. I ran at least 2 blocks from his house and sat down on the curb. I have no cigs and no liquor no dope, nowhere to go, I’m fucked. I thought about who else I know in Bright moor but all that came to mind is a few dealers that hate my guts and Payton. Payton is a pretty chill dude, maybe I’ll go over there. I started walking to his house; I don’t think it was that far from Malik’s and Zach’s house.  But before I knew it, it was already dark. My body started to get cold from not having a shirt on and I felt helpless because didn’t have anything on me to defend myself. Maybe Payton will let me barrow a gun.  I got to his house and all of his lights were on, it was lit up like a Christmas tree, his music was blaring threw the walls I could hear it 2 houses down. I walked up to the house, with every step my heart started beating harder to the beat of the music.  Through the front door and seen people everywhere. I haven’t been to a party like this since I was 18. I walked through the crowd to see if I could find Payton.  But he was nowhere to be found down stairs. I see woman dancing on men, woman dancing on woman and I see a girl sitting by herself doing some lines and smoking a cig. She looked beautiful; she had long burgundy hair that complemented her body that was really tiny, and her light skin. I walked up to her; my heart was beating really fast. 

Hey, I was wondering if you knew where I could find Payton, do you know him by chance.                                        

She lifted her head up and gave me a blank stare, sat back in her chair and took a hit from her cig.                   

If you don’t its okay.

I looked in her eyes, no one was there. Her eyes were a light olive green, I wanted them as mine.

I do

Can you tell me where he is?

Yeah                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

She sat there and closed her eyes for a couple seconds.                                                                                                                                                                                          

She stud up and started walking away, her head was only up to my chest.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

I followed her up the stairs, and we maneuvered our way through everybody. My mind was stuck on how beautiful she was, her body swayed to the beat of the music. We walked to the end of the hallway and went in a room where everybody was snorting coke and shooting up, I saw Payton sitting in the corner on the floor, there was a brown headed girl sitting on his lap, making out with another girl, he did a line, took a hit of loud and broke the 2 girls up to make out with the brunet. I walked over to them and tapped Payton on the shoulder.

Can we talk?

Can’t it wait?

I guess but I need a place to stay or some cab fare.  

You can stay here as long as you want, party don’t stop nigga!                                                                                     

Everybody held up their drinks and cheered.         

Thanks.

I tuned  toward  the olive green eyed girl.

Thank you.

She nodded her head.

What’s your name by the way?

Melisa and yours?

Ronnie.

You wanna get high?

What you got?

Anything you want.

We sat down on the floor a guy handed her a blunt; she took a hit and passed it to me. I took a long drag and instantly my lunges burned I started coughing immediately.

Damn what is that, strong as fuck.

She started laughing and said it’s PCP. My face got really hot and my mind went completely blank.

I

You what?

Nothing I just.

Are you okay?

I looked at her in her face. My mind was filled with a thousand thoughts. Everything was moving so fast but her face stayed still, I put my hand on her face, it felt like sandpaper, it had a tint of pink. My hand was stuck on her face I couldn’t move it. Her eyes were stuck on mine, she wouldn’t blink, I wouldn’t blink, she wasn’t breathing, I wasn’t breathing, I tried to scream but nothing came out. I wanted my hand back,  give me my hand.

Give me my hand!

I blinked and she was no longer looking at me but sitting next to me cutting some lines.  She looked over at me;

You okay? Thought I lost you for a minute, guess you never did PCP before?

Um no.

Everything still looked distorted. She looked at me and asked;

You done coke before?

Yeah,  get it out.

She leaned over and snorted three lines with a rolled up dollar bill.

She passed the dollar and the mirror with 3 more lines on it. I leaned over and snorted all three, my nose burned with pleasure. I haven’t snorted coke in a while only freebase. I don’t know what her drug of choice was, and I didn’t want to scare her away with mine, but I can’t wait any longer I needed heroin.

You got any boy?

No but I know who dose.

I figured she had to use if she knew who got some. She stud up and grabbed my hand, my heart stopped and butterflies bloomed in my stomach her hands were so tiny and soft. She walked out the room and I followed. We went down the stairs, the music was much louder down here, everybody was high as a kite and dancing, they all looked like cartoons and everything was so colorful. We went to the basement where I saw Angel; he was with a bunch of other people getting high.

Yo was sup angel? Haven’t seen you in a minute.

Hey Roni-boy what’s good? I could tell he was doped up, his eyes dragged low and his speech was slurred, it made me want to use right then and there. Melisa had a confused look on her face.

You know him?

Yeah for a while now, he’s like my brother.

Oh I didn’t know you were from here.

I’m not.

Where are you from?

Southfield.

Oh.

She turned to Angel and asked;

Can we get some boy?

I knew by the look on her face she never did it before but I wasn’t going to say anything. Angel reached in his book bag and pulled out a couple rigs and a speed ball.

Yeah, sit down.

Melissa looked at me then back at Angel.

no we actually have to go we can just do it in the car.

Aight, I’ll see you around roni-boi.

Fosho.

She grabbed the speed ball and rigs and paid him. We started up the stairs the music was too loud to talk so I just followed her threw the house and out the door to her car.

Why did we come out here?

It was just way too cramped in there.

I agree, we finna shoot it in your car or not?

Actually let’s go back to my place.

I got irritated because it seemed like she was avoiding it, and I just want to get high already but I liked her so much I went along with it.

Okay, let’s go. We got in and she started to drive, she looked so pretty when her hair flowed in the wind. I just wanted to kiss her full li…

You hungry?

Uh oh yeah. I don’t have any money with me tho.

That’s okay ill pay for you, takeout?

Whatever’s okay with me.

You like Chinese food?

Yeah.

I smiled at her and she smiled back, I felt embarrassed for not having any money on me, but I was so hungry I just had to eat. We sat in awkward silence so I decided to make small talk.

Nice car you have.

Thanks just got it.

Must have cost a lot?

No I didn’t pay, when my grandpa passed he passed it down to me, I couldn’t afford that with my job. 

Oh I’m sorry for your loss. Were you guys close?

Yeah we were real close, when he died I kind of gave up, I wish I could have stayed strong for my sister. My grandpa was like my father, and my grandma was like my mother. My real mother passed away giving birth to me so I never really got a chance to meet her. And my father passed away along with my little sister from a drive by shooting. My grandma and grandpa decided to take me in and care for me like I was their own.

I looked in her olive green eyes and kissed her on her cheek; she kept her eyes on the road and smiled.

See after everything you been through you can still wear a smile on your face, you are strong.

Thank you Ronnie, but enough about me. What do you want to eat?

Man I could eat anything I’m starving.

We pulled into the parking lot of the ChineseFuu. We got out the car and walked in. I got an evil glare from the Chinese lady behind the counter when we first walked in. I walked up to the counter she was whipping,  and I glared back. Melissa smiled at her and started ordering our food.

Can I have shrimp fried rice and an egg roll?

She turned to me and grabbed my hand.

What would you like?

Um can I get egg fuuyon patty and shrimp fried rice, with soy sauce?

The Chinese lady only stared at us like we were speaking a different language.

Melissa looked at me with a confused look on her face then back at the lady.

Please?

15$ dolla

Oh course

Melissa reached in her pocket and pulled out a 20$ and handed it to the lady. The lady gave her, her change back and we sat down at one of the tables to wait for our food. The place’s aroma smelled like fish and dead corpses when they started to cook our food, I could barely breathe but I sat there in contempt for  Melissa’s sake and we waited in silence. Trying not to open our mouths from fear of being able to taste the aroma. The place looked like nobody has eaten there in years and by the smell of it I know why.

Egg fuuyon patty, shrimp fried rice, and eggroll!

The little Chinese lady yelled our order to let us know our food is ready even tho we were the only ones there. We got up and grabbed our food.

Thank you.

She blankly stared at us without saying it back. We turned around and walked out of the restaurant and back to the car. We got in and shut the doors and pulled off, after about a minute of driving the car soon smelled like fish and dead corpses. We rolled down our windows and tried to ignore it, all I could think about anyway was getting high. . After 5 minutes of dead silence in a car that smelled like dead people we finally arrived at her apartment, I was ready to get high! We got out the car and grabbed our food. Her apartment building looked old and raggedy. We went inside and the inside looked even worse, but I was used to it.  

Sorry for the mess, I haven’t had a chance to clean lately, been busy with work and what not. Want to eat?

Um not right now, the smell of it kind of killed it for me.

 I agree.

We sat on the couch and she turned towards me, so you never told me about yourself?

 What do you want to know?

Everything.

Um okay well in a short version, I’m the only child I was born In Detroit and moved to Southfield shortly after my mom and dad split up, my dad has always been abusive to me and my mom, but I always had Angle and Malik by my side which helped a lot. But I started getting depressed when I started middle school I don’t really know why and I started smoking weed and drinking, then I moved on to popping pills like Benzos, Oxy, and Vicodin, and Rita then I started doing harder drugs like coke, heroin, then crack and subs. But by that time I was long gone with relationships with my family, I didn’t know myself anymore and I lost everything and everyone I ever loved. My dad kicked me out at the age of 16 and I been living on the streets ever since. Now I really don’t know what to do with my life.

She looked me in my dirt brown eyes and kissed me on the cheek. I looked her in her olive green eyes and smiled.

See after everything you been through you can still wear a smile on your face.

I kissed her on her lips and whispered;

Thank you

She kissed me on my neck and whispered;

You’re welcome.

We sat there for a minute holding each other. She got up and sat on my lap, my heart stopped in shock. She was kissing and sucking on my neck, I put my hands on her waist, feeling every curve of her tiny body. I lifted up her shirt and over her head. I started to kiss her cheek, down to her neck, and down to her breasts. For the first time in a long time I felt loved, I was in love. We had sex that night and afterwards all I could think about was her, not using, not drinking, not anything but her. I untangled myself from her clutch and went to her bathroom to shower. When the warm water rolled over my skin, my head started to fill with thoughts of using and drinking. I was trying to let the water wash those thoughts away, but their claws remanded stuck in my skin.  I rubbed my skin dry, trying to declaw my thoughts but the more I rubbed the more they came. I quickly hopped out the shower slipped and fell face down on the floor. I lied there for a moment on the cold floor, it felt good. I got up and dried myself off with a towel. I didn’t want to put my dirty clothes back on but I had no choice, I put my boxers on and left the bathroom I looked for the speed ball in her clothes from last night. When I found it in her pants pocket I quickly got to work, my body moaned in hunger. I went to the kitchen to grab a cup of water and a spoon I went back to the bathroom and tied my arm off with one of her shirts. As soon as the needle penetrated my skin I instantly fell in love all over again. I slid down the bathroom wall and sat there in bliss. It took about three small rigs full to barely get high, I was being nice and let her have the big one. My body thanked me, I got up and walked to the bed where my beautiful Melissa was sleeping, I woke her up with a kiss on the forehead.

Good morning fool, Want to get high?

Good morning baby, and yeah but this early?

There is no early in dope baby girl.

You’re right, let me get it.

 I already got it, wait here.

I kissed her on the cheek and went to the bathroom to get another fix; I went back to the bedroom and tied her off with her shirt.  I put one of the needles in her arm and shot the speed ball in her vein, she was shanking from fear. She lays down on the bed, I went back to the bathroom to get her another fix. I shot that one up her arm and her eyes went wide.

I kissed her lips and lay next to her.  I was too high to think clearly, I didn’t know what to do but lay there. She stayed lying on the bed; I got up and went outside to go for a walk to the gas station to steal some liquor. When I got back I went to the bedroom where Melissa was sleeping. I kissed her on her lips, I didn’t feel her breathing and I instantly panicked, I shook her for her to wake up, but I got no response, I smacked he cheek a couple times and gave her CPR but still no response. Tears started to roll down my face.

Melisa, baby please, Melisa, Melisa! Wake up!

My heart started beating fast and I didn’t know what to do. I checked her pulse and I didn’t feel a thing but her cold skin agents mine. She had thrown up all over herself and her eyes were shut, my first instinct was to run. I put my pants on and took one of her night shirts. I grabbed the speedball and ran out of the house in fear. I didn’t know what to do, please, please don’t let her die, don’t let her die! Tears started rolling down my face. I ran down the street to the nearest pay phone. I was asking any and everybody  for a quarter, finally after 10 minutes of begging I got one from an old lady who looked so happy just to be alive, she made me jealous and angry inside, all I wanted to do was die so I cold be with my sweet Melissa. I put the quarter in the slot and called 911

Hello 911 what’s your emergency?

My girlfriend O.D’ed in her apartment on 5^th street, I didn’t know what to do, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

I hung up. Fell to my knees and started crying.

 

                  I got up from about a half an hour of straight crying, sitting on the curb of the gas station. I decided to walk back to Payton’s house because I had nowhere else to go and I was hoping Angle would still be there. I ran out of tears but the feeling was still there.  When I got to Payton’s house the party had died down, I walked inside and saw no one but a trail of their presents. I stepped through all of the trash on the floors to find Angel, for some crack. I called his name a few times but no one answered. I went to the basement first to look, but neither Payton nor Angle wasn’t there, I then went upstairs to the guest room to find him sitting on the floor slumped. I called his name but there wasn’t a response, I shook him but still no response.

Fuck, Angel wake up!

I shook him again and tears started to roll down my face. I felt for a pulse and their wasn’t one.

No, no, no, no! Please god! Why are you doing this!

I heard someone come through the front doors; I was in too much of a shock to move. I heard someone yell;

Put your hands up and get up slowly!

Fuck

I did what he told me.

Turn around!

I turned around; tears were still falling from my face.

Walk forward and put your hands behind your back.

He hand cuffed me and turned me back around.

You have the right to remain silence, anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have to right to a defense attorney, if you can’t afford one, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand your rights?

Yes.

He patted me down took everything out my pockets which was; a lighter, an 8ball, a couple dirty rigs, and a few lint balls. He put them in a clear baggy, dragged me to the cop car, and threw me in. I see the paramedics rush in. I couldn’t think about anything but Melissa and Angle, they didn’t deserve to die, it’s my entire fault. After about a few minutes we took off to the police station. Tears were still rolling down my face. They questioned me about the death of Angle Ferrari, and came to the conclusion I wasn’t guilty. They also tracked the phone call made to 911 about Melissa Olkmen and recognized it was me. They gave me a pee test and I showed up positive for opiates, weed, and amphetamines. The charged me for position and being under the influence.  They sentenced me to 2 years.

 

 

 

 

 

Encircle

Eliza

Eliza took a sip of her coffee. It was just the way she liked it - mild, with a hint of spice. She looked around the small coffee shop. Most of the tables were empty, but there were a few that were occupied. A couple sat at a table staring happily into each other’s eyes. One table had a young teenage girl who was staring out the window. The girl had long red hair and blue-grey eyes. She looked dreamy and peaceful, a blissful smile on her face. It was odd that she would be smiling on such a rainy day. Looking at the girl, Eliza felt a feeling of joy wash over her. She hadn’t felt happy in a long time, and somehow watching this girl who looked so blithe on such a rainy day had cheered her up.

Joyce

The cars zipped by the window splashing water up on the curb. Cabs went by, people trying to hail them down in the heavy rain. The rain made it hard to see the people running back and forth. The sudden downpour had surprised many people in New York City that morning. They were running with newspapers and umbrellas held over their heads. Joyce took a sip of her latte. Rain always made her smile, she liked the sound it made when it fell. She looked back out the window. One woman caught her eye. The woman was walking quickly and looked like she was in a hurry. The women only had one shoe. It was a black high-heeled boot. She wished she could have a pair of shoes like the woman’s. Her focus back on the woman, Joyce saw that she was almost to the next block hobbling her way. She didn’t understand how someone could walk so fast with only one shoe.

Sal

Sal was almost running now. Her meeting started in 15 minutes she hoped it would be enough time for her to get to work and get a new shoe. She was pretty sure that she had an extra pair in her office. She broke into a run taking off her other shoe so she could run faster. She made it to the office with 5 minutes to get upstairs. The meeting’s agenda flashed through her mind. Not wanting to miss the presentation that was happening first, she ran faster. Sal almost tripped on the stairs, but a new employee grabbed her arm and helped her up. She stopped for a moment and asked the man what his name was, forgetting about her meeting.

“Howard,” he answered, “I’m the new Assistant to the Policies Director.”

“Oh, I work with them sometimes. I’m Sal, see you around then.”

“I hope so,” he replied.

Sal continued up the stairs at a quick walk feeling like the simple conversation had lifted the weight of the morning’s, hurry from her shoulders.

Howard

He looked over and saw Sal, at least he thought that was her name. It was hard to keep track with so many new faces to learn. People told him that in New York City no one tried to learn everyone’s name in their office, but he felt like he should keep at least one tradition. When he was in Ohio, working in a small office building, he had always known everyone’s name. He was on his way downstairs to pick up a package that had been delivered the day before. He thought it might be a gift for his girlfriend’s birthday. He had gotten it shipped to his office so she wouldn’t see it. He walked over to the mail desk. A old woman was working it. She looked distant and exhausted. He walked up and asked her for his package.

Nancy

A young man was asking her for his package. Nancy pulled herself out of her memories, chastising herself for dwelling in the past for the fourth time that day.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that, dear?” She asked the young man.

“Hello, I’m Howard. I’m picking up a package.” She looked behind her and saw a small box with the words, Mr. Howard Marks Assistant to the Policies Director, Room 709 10th floor, printed on one side.

“Howard Marks Assistant to the Policies Director?”

“That’s me,” he replied.

She picked up the box and handed it to the man.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, as he turned and walked away.

A young woman came up and asked for a letter she was expecting. Nancy felt bad telling her that there were no letters for her that day. The young woman’,s face fell.

“Sorry dear, there hasn’t been any mail today. The postman’s late.”

The young woman turned sadly and walked away.

“Wait!” said Nancy, “Someone at the post office called and told me that they were late and would be coming by later with the mail. If you tell me your name I can have them bring whatever you’re expecting up to you when they get here.”

“Heather Malibu, thanks so much.”

“Have a good day, honey.”

Heather

He was supposed to send something. He had promised the day he left that he would send something every week. It had been two and she had gotten nothing. Heather hoped that it would come with the rest of the mail later that day. She felt sadness wash over her. It might have something to do with the rain. Rain always made her feel sad and forgotten. She walked quickly into the elevator. She saw an old man walking quickly towards her elevator. As he got closer he waved for her to stop the doors from closing. She stopped the doors. The old man hurried inside. The doors were about to close when he reached out a hand and stopped them from closing.

“You ok, girl?” he asked with a kind smile on his face.

“I- I’m fine.”

“You sure? I should walk up the stairs anyway. Would you like to join me?”

“No thanks, I got to go.”

“Bye then. If you ever need to talk to someone I work on floor 5.”

The man’s kindness made her smile. As the doors closed she wished she had gotten off with him.

Jim

When he had been younger he had always been athletic but as he got older he had become inactive. Slowly he began to climb the stairs wheezing as he went. He made it to one landing and then the next. After what felt like an hour he reached his floor. He slowly walked to his cubicle and collapsed into his desk chair.

“Hey Jim, you doing ok?”

He looked up. His old friend Jack was looking down at him with a concerned face.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Walked up the stairs.”

“Alright, see you at lunch?”

“I’ll be there.” Jim smiled and was glad that his friend had reminded him about their plan to go to lunch. He had forgotten.

Jack

Jack sometimes worried about his old friend, he forgot things so easily. He walked back to his desk and sat down and began typing his paper on the proper usage of a lawn mower. It was one of his usual how-to papers. He wished he would've gotten a more interesting thing to write about. He was always given the boring, useless topics. He closed his computer and left his cubicle to use the bathroom. He walked past another person he had been working with for the past 20 years. Her name was Lauren and she was the Foreign Relations Director.

Lauren

She walked by Jack and nodded briskly. They had both been interns at the office at the same time. She had been promoted time and time again, but Jack always chose to stay in the same position he had started in. She had never asked him why; always assuming that it was because he liked the other people he worked with. She walked into the restroom and heard a sniffling sound coming from one of the stalls. She knocked on the stall door the noise was coming from.

“You ok, sugar?” The only response was more sniffling. “It’s all right. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I lost them.” came a timid voice from the stall door.

“Lost what?”

“The papers.”

“What papers?”

“I lost the papers and I wasn’t supposed to I had to deliver them and now they’re gone.” the voice said very quickly without taking a breath.

“It’s ok. We can just print them out again.”

“No! You don’t understand!”

“Come out and I will help you find them.” The door cracked open and two brown eyes came into view. “My name’s Lauren.”

“I’m Claire. Are you sure you can help me?”

“Yes come on let’s go.” Leading Claire, Lauren walked to her office and sat her down. “Now tell me what’s wrong.”

“I was supposed to walk around and deliver papers but I set them down and now I can’t find them. I need special clearance to get more and my boss won’t give it to me.”

“Where are they?”

“Policies for the Workplace, folder 5.”

“I’ll print them and you can deliver them. No one ever needs to know.”

“Ok,” said the girl, “Thank you so much.”

“Anytime. Now get working.” Lauren said, handing Claire the papers.

Claire

Feeling gratitude towards Lauren, Claire walked down the stairs, planning to go to Floor 1 first, then work her way back up. She dropped off the first few papers and continued working. She passed another employee who was on his way out of the building. She figured he was on his way to lunch and wished she could leave too.

Mark 

He arrived at his favorite lunch time spot. It was not too far away from the office. It was a small coffee shop. He liked it because it was never full and always quiet. He saw a woman smiling as she was drinking her coffee. She looked calm. The woman was watching a teenage girl who was looking out the window...

I am the Watcher. Or at least, that is one of my titles. People call me by so many different names and titles and labels that I have quite forgotten my own. Or maybe I never had one in the first place, but keep the title Watcher because it fits me, because my task is to watch. I watch the stories flowing like a river through my guardian’s heart. I read her memories and dreams, and I contentedly curl around rosy coloured moods. I love my purpose, but the best part was the stories; the black ink somehow moving to create a symphony of feelings and desires and worlds all laid out on the page. She wrote the sky, vast and infinite and always. She used to, at least.

~

I am the Watcher, yet lately there has been little to watch. I used to have a new story every day, a fantasy with people fluxing and twisting and pulling apart just to be brought back together. Now my guardian is just a blank page, ready for use yet so, so unprepared. I call to her, ask her, plead with her for those stories that used to flow like a thunder storm full of lightning and coloured raindrops. Yet she does not hear me, does not feel me pounding on my prison doors. I cannot be felt, heard or seen. I am just the Watcher, and that is all I will ever do. Watch.

~

I am the Watcher. I used to watch, but now all is so much noise and color and density that it seems black and quiet. Not the good kind of black either, but the black of oil surrounding you, winding its snake-like arms around you till you cannot escape. The black of a starless night, when all the light has been suffocated from the world and you cry out for help but there is no one, nothing left. I didn’t even know pain could be this deep. Yet, I am still here, tasked with the duty of watching. My guardian is just having a bad day, a bad week, a bad month. She will stop, she will come to her senses and suddenly my world will come back to order and I can rest upon quilted whispers instead of poison tipped lies. She won’t leave me, she just needs some rest. Yes, she will be fine.

~

I am the Watcher. I have to be the Watcher. I cannot stray from being the Watcher. I cannot escape, even if I want to. I don’t want to escape, I want it to stop. I want my guardian to wake up and give me that ocean of sky she used to write. I don’t want this poisoned mind, this awful pit of smoke and lines of red on pale skin. I don’t want these memories of pain and wanting and a wall, always the wall, always there, always luring her to hit it and cry and scream. I didn’t know, I didn’t know. It used to be so wonderful, and I didn’t even know it could be anything else.

~

I used to be something… it was a good something; a something that watched and felt and was always, always ready. Now what am I? I am nothing but a single dying ember in a field of charred dreams. I am a being with no form, a sentient with no thoughts, a spot of light when there is nothing but darkness. Am I nothing? No, but I am not something either. I used to be a Watcher…

~

No. No. No, I can’t let this happen! I can’t just watch anymore, watch my guardian die on the side of a street, passer-by’s walking, drifting past, shying away from the prone form. “Is she dead?” they whisper. “Is she dead, or just drunk?” She isn’t dead, I yell, she is dying! And I am dying with her. I can’t let this happen, this slow decay of the magnificent; the slow rusting of what was once beautiful and strong. I can’t let the sky be torn away. I fight; I must fight harder than ever before. I must be heard, be felt, be seen and be more than just the Watcher. I used to be the Watcher, I used to watch every memory and hope and dream and story flow through my guardian’s heart. Now I must show her, I must make her remember that there is more than the chemical warmth of some fake happiness. I must be more than just an unnamed thing, something that just watches the world and does nothing to stop its downfall. I must.

…

It’s… cold. I have never felt cold. I have never felt feeling. And the world… the world is so much greyer than I remember it being. It is rough concrete and roaring monsters of metal and smoke, towering monoliths full of empty mirrored windows.  It is real. I lift my head, carefully, slowly, my wings stretched out for balance. I have never walked. I cannot move my whole at once. I must first lift one leg, then place it down firmly, then the other, and again and again until I fall. I have never been hurt, not like the scrape of pocked hardness against my side and head. My ear throbs, but I cannot stop. I take another step, another, through the noise of the city night. Shakily I stumble up to that small, prone form wrapped in dirt and sweat. All colors have faded from her, leaving behind a mask of grime and dirt blonde hair streaking her forehead. The checked coat that was once red is now brown, and the blue jeans are now black with grease and city smog. She is lost, as I am in this new, grey world. I plant a front paw on her side, balancing precariously with my tail and wings and other three legs. It is so hard to be real. She doesn’t seem to feel me, and I think that all this has been for nothing, that she is too far gone and will never come back to me.

But I need you I cry, stumbling and falling against her grunge. She shakes her head blearily, looking at me with eyes like the windows above, empty and dark and shiny. She pushes me down, gently, clumsily, like she is just learning to be real herself.

“Go away,” she says tiredly, “I have no time for hallucinations.”

But I’m not! I’m the Watcher. I’m your Watcher. You have to listen!

“Why?”

Because my guardian is lost and clumsy and has window mirrors for eyes. Because she ripped up the sky and replaced it with chemical grey. Because I have stopped being the Watcher and am now… nothing… I rear up and plant my forefeet on her shoulders, looking her in the eye. Because you are more than a speck of dirt on this spinning ball we call earth. You ripped up realms, even when I told you not to, even when they were the best in the world. You scorned me, and stopped being you and became something less. Because I want you back. Because someone needs you, Guardian.

She shakes me off again, cringes against the foggy cold of the manmade world. A tear winds across her face like a spider web, sparkling silver against her grey face. “No one needs me.” she mumbles, eyes glazed ice. “I want someone to need me so bad that my brain created a talking, winged dog of all things, just to make me feel better before I die.”

 She is so tired, so weary of this life. She has forgotten her stories. She just has to remember, that’s all.

“Well, as long as I’m hallucinating, mine as well make a day of it. What’s your name?”

I don’t have a name. I have a title, many, actually. You can call me the Watcher.

“The Watcher?  That’s not a good name. Everything needs a good name, even hallucinations.”

I don’t have a name, though.

She frowns, her mind slowly turning and clanking back to life, slowly re-igniting that small flame behind her eyes. “Who cares if you don’t have a name? I didn’t have a name either, until my parents named me. Still though, something as beautiful as you needs a name.”

And just like that, my guardian sat up, became more than just a dazed body leaning against an alleyway. “Efthemia. Ef-eth-eem-ee-ah. How do you like that?”

~

I am the Watcher. Or at least, that is one of my titles. People call me by so many different names and titles and labels that I have quite forgotten my own. Or maybe I never had one, because I was waiting; waiting for my guardian to give me a name. She gave me a jewel, a piece of the sky.

I am Efhemia. My guardian has started again, like an old truck chugging back to life. And I know that, even though she needs a bit more work and time and love than the newer, less damaged ones, my guardian is an antique, something unique and wonderful. And do you know what Efthemia means?

Hope.

I grabbed the white milk carton and a tray containing pasta coated in tomato sauce, a packet of carrots, and asparagus. I hated asparagus. Just the thought of it made me feel sick. I decided that I would dump it in the nearest trash can as soon as possible. I thought that I should find a place to sit and set down my orange backpack before I threw out the dark green wilted stalks.

I hated just the smell of the soggy lump of asparagus on my lunch tray. I would have hated the taste too, but there was no way that I was going to eat it! I had tried asparagus once at a family Thanksgiving dinner when I was nine; I wouldn’t have eaten it again if somebody paid me. I wondered if it would be easier to throw out my asparagus first and then find a seat, rather than the other way around. I decided the other way around. That meant that I had to find somewhere to sit in this dismal grey and white school cafeteria.

I looked around the cafeteria, I noticed that about half the tables were taken up by groups of noisy 6th graders. The rest of the tables were either containing 7th graders that I vaguely recognized from my first day of school here at Duwart Middle School, or empty. I was not going to sit at one of the empty tables, which were coated in a thin layer of crumbs from the previous students who ate there. Especially not on my first day.

“Get a move on!” shouted a 6th grade boy wearing a black shirt that was just a tiny bit darker than his hair, standing behind me in the line. “You gonna stand there all day? The rest of us want to buy our lunch too!”

“Yeah!” agreed another 6th grader, his light honey colored hair nearly covering his green eyes. “You’re blocking the whole line!”

“Oh,” I muttered, “sorry.”

“Whatever,” said the first boy shoving in front of me to pay.

I turned and set my tray down on the edge of an empty table because I didn’t want people to think I had nowhere to sit, especially those awful 6th grade boys who were still watching me. They were whispering, and snickering. So I bent down to tie my shoes. Both of my laces were in perfect double knots, so I painstakingly untied one of them. Then I tied another perfect double knot as slowly as I could. As I tied my shoe I strained to hear what the 6th graders were saying. I just knew it was about me!

“She must be the new girl. I think her name is Lily or something,” I heard one of them whisper obnoxiously. “She’s from Maine.”

“All the way from Maine?” the other asked incredulously. “Why did she move here?”

“No idea,” the other boy replied as he grabbed his blue and white plastic packet of carrots and ripped it open.

“You have got to be kidding me!” groaned the first as he twisted open his milk and it splashed all over him, soaking the front of his black shirt.

“I hate when that happens,” said the other boy. “I spilled soda all over my  tennis shirt last week, the yellow one, it never came out.”

Their voices faded into the constant background of conversations as they headed outside through the pea-green double doors that lead to the playground. I straightened up from my fake shoe-tying and picked up my lunch tray.

I looked at the nearest occupied table, and saw a group of 7th grade girls I vaguely recognized, with one empty seat in between two of the girls. I headed for the empty seat, but before I had taken more than five steps in that direction another 7th grade girl with curly reddish-brown hair and a sky blue backpack swooped in and sat down in that empty seat. Probably the only empty seat in the entire cafeteria next to people I knew. If you count sitting next to during math class as knowing. I stared at the now full table, at the girls sitting there, laughing and talking.

I quickly walked away from that grey circular table and headed towards the large trash can, already nearly overflowing with half eaten food. As I reached the trash, I picked up my white plastic fork and slowly scraped the drooping asparagus from my tray. The pungent aroma of cooked asparagus wafted from the trash can. I took one look at my fork, which now had bits of green plastered to it, and tossed it in the trash. Shuddering, I turned to look around the cafeteria again.

There were still some empty seats at tables occupied by other 7th graders, but I didn’t really know any of them. I didn’t want to sit with them because I had no idea what I would say if they asked who I was, or why I was sitting with them. I barely knew them, and they probably didn’t even know my name. I certainly didn’t know any of their names. I decided to sit down at one of the empty tables in the corner of the cafeteria, regardless of the gross remnants of previous meals.

I quickly walked over towards the tables, glancing around as I did so. I was searching for the eyes of other students following me. I evaded the occupied tables, and stared down at my grey sneakers with purple laces. I stepped quickly over the white tiles of the cafeteria floor. I arrived at the empty table in the corner, and sat down in a chair. I yanked on the red hair band that was keeping my hair up, finally with some painful tugging, my light brown hair came loose.

I swung my head so that the brown wavy mass swung to the side of my head, and hid my face. All the while my eyes were hurting, and beginning to fill with tears. It was my first day at a new school. My first impression on all the students here, on all the teachers, and there I was completely blowing it.

Then a tear slipped along my face, so I started crying harder. I tried to conceal it by staring at the wall, and holding my breath. Every time I came close to stopping the tears, my thoughts turned to how extremely pathetic it was to start bawling because I didn’t have anyone to sit with. Then I began to cry harder.

I peered through the strands of my hair. I saw a watery blur of 6th and 7th graders on the far side of the dreary cafeteria. I turned back to my food.

As I stared at the pasta I realized that I had thrown my fork away along with the asparagus. With my fork in the trash I couldn’t have eaten my lunch even if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to, I felt very far from being hungry. I slowly grasped the white milk carton and pulled at the edge of the flap on the top to open it. Once the carton of milk was opened, I set it back down on the table, and pushed it away.

I raised my hand to wipe away the tears on my face. Just as I finished smudging the tear tracks so that they were no longer visible, I heard the sound of somebody sitting down next to me. I turned to the girl, who was now setting down her tray in the spot next to mine. Her hair, worn in a braid, was the color of chocolate, and she had olive skin. Her dark brown eyes turned towards me.

“Hello!” she said cheerfully. “My name’s Grace.”

 

 

 

Nearly There

Rachel shoved past the students in the high school halls. She was trying to get to her locker where her best friend Devin was calling her name from across the hall.

“Hey Rachel, want to come over?” Devin yelled as a tall boy on the football team shoved him out of the way. Rachel kept walking as fast as she could to get to her friend.

“Yeah, sure. Actually, do you wanna come over? I have something to show you.” Rachel said as she opened her locker door.

“Of course. Wait, what do have to show me?” Devin said with his eyes widening.

“Just something that I've been working on,” Rachel was trying to keep what she was going to show him a secret. She had already shown it to her friends Becca, Connor, and Luke. They all loved it.

“Is it one of your new songs?” Devin’s excitement was starting to fade.

“Yeah, but this one's really gonna be my big break, I could become famous, I'm sure of it,”  Rachel said in an annoyed yet definite tone as she slammed her locker shut. Rachel and Devin pushed passed the crowded halls and made it to the door.

“You sure?” said Devin. “‘Cause that’s what you said last time, and the time before that, and the time before that, and probably several times before that. And you still are not world famous with your name up in shining lights.”

“Well OK, first, I never said that my name had to be up in shining lights, and if I did I wouldn't have said shining. Also, I didn't say world famous I just said famous. Plus, I already showed it to Connor, Becca, and Luke. They all say that it’s amazing.”

By now Rachel and Devin were on there way back to Rachel’s.

 

Meanwhile, Becca, Connor, and Luke were walking to Connor’s house.

“History class was like, sooo boring today,” said Becca.

“Tell me about it,” Connor said with a moan.

“Wait, guys isn’t Rachel’s song like amazing?” said Luke starting to change the topic. He enjoyed history class, but he didn't want his friends to think that he was weird. “She could be, like, famous.”

“I know, and we could help her with everything she needs once she’s famous!” Now Becca’s voice was louder than usual. Beca gets loud when she is excited.

“Okay, well let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, it’s not even definite that she is even posting the song, she could always make a new one that she likes more” said Conner, starting to become annoyed.

“Oh is someone jealous?” said Becca in a sarcastic tone.

“No, I’m just tired,” said Conner in an angry, low, tired sounding voice.

“OK, Oscar” said Luke starting to back away.

“Wait did you just make a sesame street reference?” Said Becca sounding amused.

“Yeah,” said Luke, his cheeks turned pink.”

“Guys,” said Connor, “do you think that I have a chance at becoming famous?” He kind of slow and quiet tone.

“Yeah,” said both Becca and Luke at the same time. They started to chuckle.

“How come?” asked  Luke in a sorry tone.

“I don’t know,” said Connor “It's just that if Rachel becomes famous famous before me I’ll owe her $500.00 because when we were, like, 6 I bet her that I would become famous before her, and she took the bet.”

“Oh,” replied Luke, “That was when you were 6, you 17 now. I’m sure she won’t make you pay the $500.00”

“Yeah, it’s Rachel you're talking about of course she won’t make you pay. Why are you so worried?” Becca added on.

“Just because,” said Connor.

Connor, Luke, and Becca finally got to Connor’s house.

“I will be in my room for a minute,” said Connor as they walked into his living room.

“K,” said Beca as Connor started to walk away.

Connor had been in his room for about 5 minutes, and Becca and Luke were starting to wonder what was going on. “Should we go check on him.” Said Luke

“I don’t know, what do you think he’s doing?”

“I have no idea. I'm gonna go check.” Luke got up and walked over to Connor’s room. He opened the door, and saw Connor sitting there on his computer. “Hey, what are doing?” Luke walks about 2 steps before he see’s that Connor is on YouTube.

“Um,” said Connor uncomfortably, “I'm just posting something on YouTube.”

“Cool, can I see?”

“Uh, maybe later.”

“I didn’t  know that you had a channel. Come on Connor just let me see it, I'm sure it's good.”

“It’s not that it’s just”-   Luke grabbed the computer before Connor could finish his sentence, and Luke hit the play button. Before he knew it he was watching the world’s 7th most popular video, no, 6th, not, 5th. More and more views and likes were coming at the fastest rate both of them had ever seen! The video was of Connor. Singing.

“Connor, your voice sounds really good, what song is this?”

“Um, it’s-” Connor was cut off was mid sentence

“Wait is this Rachel’s song? You know she’ll be, like, really mad at you. That’s not cool, you know that she worked really hard on that! Did you ask if you could post post it on youtube?”

“Um… no, not really,” replied Connor in a slow sad tone. “I feel like a complete idiot. Rachel’s gonna kill me.”

“She won’t kill you, she’ll just be pretty pissed off.”

A few seconds later someone rang the doorbell, and there was a knock on the door. “Hey guys it’s it’s just Rachel and Devin, can I let them in?” called Beca from the other room.

“Uh…” both Connor and Luke said at the same time. “Yeah, I guess,” said Connor.

“Hey, you sure about this?” asked Luke.

“Yeah.”

“Connor! You a**hole! You just posted my original song on youtube and said it was your original!” Rachel was storming into Connor’s room. “Not only that, but all the comments underneath, say that you’re an amazing songwriter, and you have one the most liked videos in the world right now! That is my song!”

“Rachel, calm down,” said Connor in a slow tone, as if he were talking to a dangerous animal.

“No! I will not calm down!”

“Rachel, I, I’m really sorry,” Connor sounded like he was about to cry. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No!” Rachel stormed out of Connor's house and sprinted down the street.

“Rachel, wait up,” Yelled Devin.  He was jogging to catch up with Rachel.

“Hey,” said Rachel, once Devin had caught up with him. She was having mixed feelings about what had happened. She wanted to scream, but she also wanted to cry. She had trusted her friend, and she did not know if she still could.

“Rachel, it’ll be ok,” said Devin. “You could write another song, better than the one that Connor posted.

“No, I won’t” tears started to fall down Rachel’s face.

“Rachel, lets get home and relax. Ok?” asked Devin. He felt super bad for Rachel, and wanted to help.

“Ok,” Rachel’s tears started to slow down. She knew that she had other friends that she could trust, and be friends with.

“Rachel, you know even if Connors being an a**, you always have me, Luke, and Becca.”

“Yeah, I guess. It, it’s just that I really trusted him, and he’s been my friend for so many years. Since we were 4, that’s like over 13 years.” The tears started to come back. “Lets just go home.”

“K.”

They were very quiet on the walk home. Rachel started to relax and her tears slowly stopped.  

“Devin, thanks for being my best friend,” Rachel said as they entered her house.

“I’ll be there for you, no matter what.”

“Thanks Devin, and I’ll be there for you too.” Rachel found her phone, buzzing on her bedroom floor. “I just got a text from- you know who.” Rachel read the text. There was a link. “He sent me link,” said Rachel. “Should we look at it?”

“Uh-” Devin was hesitant. “Yeah I guess. Why not?” Rachel clicked the link and it went to YouTube. Rachel thought that it was the video that he had posted before. But it wasn't. It was a new video, of Connor on bed playing his guitar and singing. He was singing to Rachel.

“I think Connor just wrote a song for me,” Rachel said as she listened and watched.

“Yeah I think it could be.” The music ended, and Connor put his guitar down. He then said to the camera… “I wrote this song for my friend Rachel. The last video I posted went viral because someone who has a lot of followers posted it on a lot of social media sites, but that song was not my original. It was my friend Rachel’s. She wrote that song, and it took her a long time. She worked really hard on it and I feel offal for calling my own original. I just want you to know that from the moment I started this video to the moment I die everything that I call my original will be my original. Also, Rachel, if you're  watching this I would like you to know that I'm sorry. Very sorry. Well, that's it for today. I'll see you guys later.” Then the video ended. Tears started to form around Rachel’s eyes.

“I think I should find Connor,” Rachel said as she stood up. “Do you wanna come?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Devin and Rachel walked out the door and saw Connor walking towards Rachel's house.

“Rachel!” Called Connor from down the street. “I'm sorry!” Connor got closer to the house and slowed down.

“Connor, it's okay. I forgive you.”

“Hey Rachel,” said Connor with a little smile on his face.

“Yeah,” Rachel replied.

“I think someone owes me $500.00” Rachel and Connor smile and laugh.

“Hey Connor,” said Rachel. “ I'll give you those $500.00 once I'm rich and famous and famous and you're stealing someone's music.” They start laughing again.

 

“Rachel, let's write a song.”

 

“Emma!” said my foster mom, Melissa, for the fifth time. I was ignoring her because I knew she wanted to talk about my feelings and why I had ditched school yesterday.  Meanwhile I was downstairs trying to practice my ballet, but the little ones, Gracie and Billy were running around and screaming too much. I grunted, grabbed my coat and ran outside. As the door swung open, the cool Brooklyn winter air blew my hair back.  I sighed, and a cold puff air came out of my mouth. I ran across the field in the park in front of the house, climbed up the fence and pulled myself up to the tennis court roof.

I layed there and looked at the sky that was shades of orange, yellow and cat-vomit pink. I heard the fence shaking, and someone climbing up it, but I already knew who it was.

“Hey Em,” Sky said as he pulled himself over the side of the fence.

“Hey..”

“You’re here early”

I sighed, “Had to get out of that place. How’s your home?”

“It’s alright actually. No annoying foster siblings, just a boring married couple that really don’t care what I do.”

“Lucky. I can’t wait till I’m eighteen, and I can finally be free from this stupid system. ” I said.

We sat there awkwardly for a bit until Sky broke the silence.

“Race ya to the playground, ” he said as he jumped off the roof.

“What?! You got a head start!” I laughed and raced behind him.

After running around outside for hours the sky got black, and the stars came out and we both collapsed onto the grass.  We looked up at the stars quietly for a bit. Then Sky broke the silence and said, “Aren’t you tired of being treated like an object that just gets sent away when people get bored of you.”

I thought about this for a minute and realized he was right. The longest I had been in a home for was when my parents were alive. I lived in a big apartment in Manhattan with beautiful views of the city in every room.  My parents were such great people. My mother was a beautiful ballerina, and ever since I was two my mom put me into ballet lessons. She went to Juilliard, and that was her dream for me. My father on the other hand was the funniest person I had ever met. He was also broadway actor, and I loved watching his shows. I was so happy….until the night my whole life came shattering down into tiny little pieces.

It was August 19, 2008, and I was 7 years old.  My parents, and Sky’s parents went out for a kids free night or whatever, and Sky and I were at my house with a babysitter. it was getting late, and my parents weren’t home yet. The babysitter kept trying to get me to sleep but, I refused to go to sleep without my parents. It was already 4 o’clock in the morning, and the babysitter was freaking out. Finally the doorbell rang, me and the babysitter sighed in relief, but it wasn’t who we expected. It was the police. The policeman said something quietly to the babysitter, and the expression on her face is something I never forgot.

I guess they figured I was too young to know what really happened so just told me Mommy and Daddy got into an accident. Which is true, but what they didn’t tell me is that my Dad killed them all. So after I found out that my father had gotten behind the wheel drunk and crashed. He went to jail, and that’s when I got put into the system. I guess there were no family members willing to take me in so I got sent to my first foster home. All I had was my best friend, Sky and my teddy bear Roxxie. I have had Roxxie since the day I was born, and it was my only belonging (other than my clothing) going into the system. Me and Sky refused to go anywhere without being in the same neighborhood as each other. Every time I would do something that annoyed me foster parents I would get sent to a new home. So would Sky. So yeah, I was tired of treated like an object that just gets sent off when people get bored of you.

 

“Sky, let’s runaway,” I blurted.

He gave me a yoursofreakingstupid look.

“You’re kidding right? You realize we would get caught and we would get moved to yet another foster home, and after that what are the chances we will ever be put in foster homes in the same town ever again,” he said.

“Who said anything about getting caught,” I replied.

After a long time of arguing I convinced Sky to runaway with me. Our plan was to pack our ,few, things, “borrow” some money from our foster parents and meet at the park at midnight.  I ran home, and when I came in Melissa was standing in the doorway.

“Where were you?!” she said pretending to be concerned.

“At the park,” I said as I took my shoes off.
“Please tell me where you are going before you leave.”

“Whatever” I murmured as I walked past her.

Late that night I packed my things (just a clean pair of underwear, a toothbrush, a sleeping bag that I took from the closet and Roxxie, of course). I slowly tip toed down the hall and creaked opened the door to Melissa and Mark’s room. This was my first time in their room and it wasn’t what I had expected. There were tons of colorful painting, tapestries, plants and a ton of candles. I scanned the room for Melissa’s purse and there it was in the corner, her little blue satchel on a small floral couch. I walked over to it slowly keeping on eye on Melissa and Mark, who were sleeping soundly on their king sized bed. I looked into the bag and immediately saw her black wallet. I looked at it for minute and bit my fingernail. I shouldn’t be doing this I thought. I took a deep breath and I grabbed the wallet without hesitation. I took a one hundred dollar bill and put it in my bag then I went out the door to the park.

It was only 11:58 and Sky hadn’t arrived yet. The street was so empty and quiet. All I heard was the trees swaying in the wind. Sky arrived exactly at 12:00. We got on the subway and we were the only ones there so we were climbing the poles and running around the whole time. We stayed on until the last stop and we had no idea where we were. We found a nice bench to sleep on and we fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up to find Sky still asleep and little kids on monkey bars giving us funny looks. “Sky, wake up” I whispered as I slightly shook him.

“Ugh,” he said as he rolled around in his sleeping bag.

“Other people are here, we have to leave now or we’ll get caught,” I said.

He slowly got up and looked around. His black hair was extremely knotty and flying in all different directions and there were big pink and purple bags under his big green eyes. He stared at me with his mouth wide open. He looked ridiculous and I began to laugh but then I realized I shouldn’t be because I probably look ten times worse. We both began to laugh hysterically.  Later that afternoon we walked around and bought some sandwiches for lunch and we passed by a skating rink. I looked at how the skates glided across the ice so smoothly and- “Let’s go ice skating” Sky said almost as if he were reading my mind. My face lit up but then my smile faded away.

“We don’t have enough money and we need to save for food.” I said looking down at my shoes.

“Don’t worry about food I have a huge stash from my foster home,” he replied.

I smiled. “Well I guess skating for a little bit wouldn’t hurt..”

We rented some skates and by the time I had stepped onto the ice, Sky (being a former hockey player) went straight to the ice and had already done three laps around the rink. I held onto the wall and took little baby steps. The last time I went skating was when I was five and I’ve wanted to go ever since but obviously my foster parents would never take me. Sky was coming at me really fast and I hid my head under my arms, screamed and waited to get hit, but Sky stopped right in front of me and sprayed snow at me with his blades scratching the ice. He laughed and skated circles around me. I rolled my eyes and smiled at the same time.

“Come on get off the wall,” he said. I shook my head. Suddenly he grabbed my arm and pulled me off the wall. He held my hand and helped me. I fell several times, but after a while I got used to it and Sky and I were racing around the rink.

After a long day of skating Sky and I went back to the benches. I shivered a bit and Sky took of his jacket and put it on my shoulders. I was kind of startled seeing Sky only had a T shirt under. “Thanks,” I said “but It’s fine.”

“No take it,” he insisted.

“Okay.”

The next morning I woke up to the sound of an irritating voice saying “Yup, that’s them.” I scratched my head and squinted my eyes which were being blinded by sun. I saw a police officer and a woman with a small child standing over me. I slowly got up. “Excuse me young lady, you’re coming with me.” the police officer said. He pulled me up by my arm aggressively.

“Wait, what’s going?” I asked still a bit asleep.

“Are you Emma Brookes?” he said ignoring my question. I considered lying but then realized it would just get me in more trouble in the long run.

“Yes” I responded softly.

“And is that Sky Gurner?” he said looking at Sky who was still sound a sleep in his sleeping bag.

“Yes” I mumbled. He shook Sky and told him he was the federal police of blah blah. Sky woke up and the police officer demanded silence as he put us into his police car and drove us back to our foster homes. During the car ride the police officer just went on about how we are going to be in so much trouble and we shouldn’t have done that, but I didn’t regret one second of it.

We got to my foster home and the police officer walked me to the door and rang the doorbell. Melissa opened the door and gasped. “Oh, thank god! Emma! Where have you been?!” she said as she hugged me. I fake smiled as she squeezed me. The police officer spoke with Melissa and Mark for a bit and then he left. Mark spoke on the phone with my social worker and Melissa came to talk to me.

“Hi,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I responded.

“What were you thinking?!,” she said, “You can’t just runaway like that!”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

I was starting to feel bad and I felt my eyes get watery. I bit my lip and took a took a deep breath to try to stop myself from bursting out into tears.

“It’s okay, It’s okay,” she said. She hugged me and I began to bawl my eyes out. I left a big pool of tears on Melissa’s shirt. I didn’t really understand why I was crying, but I just couldn’t stop. After I calmed down, me and Melissa ate ice cream and watched a movie. That night for the first time in seven years I felt at home.

It is July 6th, or maybe August 11th, but all that matters is that it’s summer and it’s hot. My mom decides it is a perfect day for a party, and everyone is swimming in our pool, mixing in their sweat, piss, and alcohol with the chlorinated water.

 

The tube I slip over my head is huge and hangs loosely around my pre-pubescent body like a hoop skirt. I take a deep breath, and hold my nose. I jump in, and the water that splashes me is 30 proof alcohol. I fall through the hole, and sink to the bottom of the pool like the ninety pound weight I am.

 

It is quiet and it is slow. Everyone’s legs shimmer underwater, illuminated by ancient light that provides no warmth beneath the cool, rippling chlorinated water. Some are muscular and tan, but most are chubby and pale, thick with cellulite, and rippling fat created from unhealthy diets and overdrinking. These are the people my mom associates with.

 

Someone yanks on my arm, and pulls me up.

 

“Alex, are you okay?” my mother asks, concern or annoyance fogging her hazel eyes.

 

One thing you need to know about my mother is that she is a pagan idol. Her image was worshipped for thousands of years by indigenous people. Her dark hair is the reincarnation of the soil they tilled, and her blue eyes are the same color as the night sky they looked upon in awe and fear.

 

“I’m fine,” I say, spitting hot water from my mouth. “I fell through my tube.”

 

“You sure did,” she mumbles. “How about you get out of the pool? Right now it’s adult swim.”

 

We leave the pool together, and that is the last time she holds me. I gain several pounds, filling out with a little extra “baby fat”, in preparation for puberty. On the way to the back door, I see a sliver of a girl walk into our front yard. Her hair is the color of cooling lava, flowing in rivers down the sides of a volcano. Our eyes lock, and hers are incredible. I don’t notice the color, but I notice their size. They’re massive, containing more knowledge than I would ever be able to know,  just in their onyx pupils.

 

When we go into the house, my mother wraps a towel around me, and walks briskly into the kitchen.

 

“Do you want some apple juice?” she asks me, opening the refrigerator door. She wants to go back to the party, or maybe to that guy. I saw her with him, and she was smiling. He was tall and when he talked, his eyebrows moved around like caterpillars.

 

She gives me a blue solo cup filled with apple juice, even though I never asked for it.

 

“Laurie’s kid, Sabrina, is in the front yard. Do you know her? Go play with her.”

 

She turns around before I can respond, slapping her way out the front door in her Victoria Secret flip flops.

 

On my way to the front door, I hit puberty. I sprout several proud hairs from my narrow chin, and my teeth grow into a crooked mess of metal wires and calcium. I stop pretending to be an astronaut, and start pretending to be hot shit, when in reality all I am is a typically awkward and anxious pre-teen with acne, and an emasculating fear of spiders.

 

Sabrina sits on the lawn where she braids her hair with anxious fingers. She looks marvelous, like a nymph that lives in the weeping willow tree that grows next to our mailbox.

 

“Hey,” I say. My voice is cracking, torn between staying a child and becoming a man.

 

She jumps slightly, and when she sees it’s me, she grins. Her teeth are perfect, even though they’re slightly yellow. They’re marble pillars that line the walls of an ancient Greek temple.

 

“Hey, Alex.”

 

For a moment, it is quiet, awkward even. Two buds form beneath her tank top, and her waist ebbs inward, like sand dunes in a desert. She is magical, a northern european Aphrodite, with lilac skin and steady breaths, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on our dead lawn.

 

“Can I, like, sit down?” I ask, rubbing my elbow with my hand.

 

“Oh, yeah. This is your house, after all.”

 

I sit down next to her, and we gaze at the street. The asphalt is bubbling like water boiling in a pot, threatening to spill onto the stovetop. The air above it ripples, distorting the house across the street like a funhouse mirror. We don’t talk for a little while. I watch the sun crawl across the sky like a slug in a garden, and Sabrina watches me.

 

“It’s crazy how hot it is,” she says. Her eyes are cast downward at the grass. It’s dry, and crunches whenever we shift our bodies.

 

“Global warming, I guess,” I mumble. My voice is deeper since the last time I talked. It sounds heavier and fuller now, like rocks being dropped into a pond. My braces are now a long-term feature of my face, aligning my teeth like a guard at a prison. My facial hair has grown in a little more, and I now have thin peach fuzz spreading like mold across my face.

 

“Yeah. Anyone who doesn’t believe that is, like, not smart,” she agrees. “Or maybe a scientist. I don’t know.”

 

Sabrina has changed as well. Her shoulders are broader now, stretching beyond her hips, and her waist is now no longer a gentle ebb, but a strong and defiant curve, like an arch. Her body is thin, like a waning moon, and I can see where her ribs connect at the sternum. I feel like if I hold her hand, I would snap it off her body. Her hair is bleached, and her doe-like green eyes are adorned with thick, black eyeliner that makes them sparkle, like ancient gems that belong in a crown.

 

She grabs my hand in hers with a surprisingly strong grip, and looks into my eyes. Her nails are torn and ragged, and black paint clings to their centers. Her lips are a mosaic of red, ranging from the deep garnet of scabs, to the bright crimson of freshly chewed lips.

 

“Your beard is nice.”

 

I smile, and run a hand along the noticeable dark hair that now covers my weak jawline.

 

“Why, thank you very much. I worked very hard to get it.”

 

She laughs, and it sounds like the taste of honey. She brushes her hair behind her ear, and I glimpse purple scars along her wrist, at least three. They’re deep and puckered, like cracks in the icy tundra.

 

The sun has set, and the lights of the pool party shine brighter than the stars, leaving a sort of gray sheen to the otherwise dark sky. All that is visible is the Big Dipper and the moon. In the time that I sat next to her, I grew almost a foot, and now I can see the undyed roots of her platinum hair.

 

Sabrina shivers. I wrap my arm around her, and she rests her head against my shoulder. I rest my own against her head, and breathe in the scent of her hair. It smells like roses, even though her hair is green, the same color as Oscar the Grouch.

 

“Thank you for hanging out with me,” she says. “I was kind of lonely. It’s not fun being alone at parties.”

 

“No problem,” I reply, smiling with now straight and glowing teeth. “I enjoyed every minute of it.”

 

She picks her head up, and her makeup is gone. Her eyes, though heavily framed with purple bags, sparkle. Her hair is frizzy, damaged and overworked with bleach and dye, but it still manages to shine, framing her gaunt and ghostly face and jawline cut sharper than stone.

 

Sabrina leans her head in, and rests her forehead against mine. She is wearing a prom dress. It’s the color of Windex, and it hugs her body like cling-wrap. She’s like a model: tall, thin, and dying. It matches the tie that hands around my neck, and the aqua dress shirt beneath the black jacket. Her hair is curled, falling around her shoulders in a violet waterfall, manicured and shining like the front page of a magazine.

 

“Let’s go inside. I’m cold,” she whispers. Her breath is warm and smells like mints. I wrap my arm around her shoulder, and we make our way into the house.

 

Inside, I see the man my mom talked to at the party in the kitchen. His jaw is clenched, and his hair is grayer than I remember. He’s also shorter than I thought, around my height.

 

“What the hell are you doing? Do you know what time it is!” His voice is grating. God, it’s like thunder scratching against a chalkboard through a loudspeaker.

 

My mom walks out, and she looks so tired. Her hair is up, and that is the only thing that isn’t falling on her face. “Harry, he is eighteen years old. He can do whatever he wants.” She smiles at me.  “Don’t worry, Alex. Is Sabrina staying over? It’s fine if she is, she’ll just have to sleep in the guest room.”

 

My mother turns away, and that’s when I notice her eye. It is purple, swollen slightly like a fat grape. The edges are yellow and black, like the sun rising beneath clouds on the morning of a storm.

 

“Mom, what happened to your eye?”

 

She says nothing. Her shoulders stiffen, and it is as if she really is a bronze idol, cold and solid.

 

The silence that fills the house is not deafening. It is absolute and dominating, the kind that ends a conversation much too personal and painful to be discussed.

 

“Yeah, don’t worry. She’ll sleep in the guest room.” I mumble, grabbing Sabrina’s hand and making our way down the hall. I push past my mother, who still stands unmoving, and refuse to make eye contact with the man from the party. I can barely stand hearing him breathe.

 

There are a plethora of family photos in this hall, all framed in gold and silver, hung up beneath spotlights like amazing pieces of art featuring our slightly obese family. We look at them as we walk to my room. I wonder what Sabrina thinks of them, and what they would think of her.

 

I open the door, and turn on my stereo. The tinny bass swells throughout the room, moving through the air like waves at the beach.

 

“Holy crap,” Sabrina mumbles. She sits on the ground, holding her arms in her hands. “Is your mom gonna be okay?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

I turn the volume up on the stereo, until my chest vibrates along to the song, and my ears almost hurt. I sit down across from Sabrina, and hold her hands. They’re cold, and her thin skin is translucent. The moonlight filtering between the cracks in my curtains illuminate her veins, and they are blue like pool water. The scars that run along her arms flow like ink from a pen, deep purple like her hair.

 

“Alex,” Sabrina begins. She pulls her hand out of mine, resting it on her lap. “What we saw--”

 

“We saw nothing new.” I lean in quickly, and her lips are chapped and warm. She doesn’t cringe, and she doesn’t stop me. I unzip her dress, and it peels off of Sabrina like snakeskin. Beneath, her body is all smooth plains and sharp edges.

 

In the morning, I wake up and Sabrina is next to me. She’s facing me, and her eyes are closed.

 

Everything looks so much better in natural lighting, including the concaveness of Sabrina’s cheeks, and the mascara stains trailing down them. She looks almost angelic. Almost, if it weren’t for freckles across her face, or the width of her strong jaw, or her nose that was far too prominent to be delicate. She was something less than perfection, but nonetheless beautiful.

 

Sabrina opens her eyes, and they catch the light like fish in a net.

 

“Good morning,” she mumbles. Sleep clings to her voice like a child to their mother.

 

“Hey,” I say.

 

We don’t speak again for an hour, and listen to the quiet static of the stereo. The CD has run out of songs long ago, and now the only sound it creates is the gentle whirr of its spin. The sun that fell onto Sabrina’s face has long since moved on, travelling across the sky like salmon swimming upstream.

 

Sabrina sits up in bed, and runs a hand through her hair. It looks like the ocean, dark blue and rippling. It reaches down to her waist, and hides her ribs.

 

“I like your hair,” I say.

 

“Yeah?” Sabrina asks. “I was sort of getting tired of it. I think I liked it better when it was purple. Or maybe I’ll go back to my natural color. Remember when it was natural?”

 

Sabrina smiles, and this time her teeth are white.

 

My name is Jake. I’m in 8th grade, I’m pretty short for my age, I wear Harry Potter Glasses. Overall I’m nice kid but I admit if I have a partner I do all of the work. Most of the time I wear jeans and a sports jacket, and a light blue shirt. So please don’t judge me on this, I’m a nerd. If I had a friend I won’t let them down. But I try so much and I fail so badly. If you think I’m a mommy’s boy, you’re wrong.  I truly think school is terrible because some kids bullied me but I don’t know why they do it to me since I never did anything to them. Man, I wish I had more friends because I have none. So, I decided to go somewhere that the bullies were not expecting me . Thank God I escaped from them. That never happens because they usually find me and beat me up. Today I scored, so I decided to go home without being noticed because the bullies might find me! When I do it I look like spiderman but they never notice me anyway. When I get home, I feed my best friend Razor, my guinea pig, and I do my homework, then I read, I go swimming and lastly I go  to bed. This is an example of my normal day. It happens sometimes but that’s life. I just wish I could do karate, so I could beat up the bullies for justice! In my dreams, I can do it and it feels great. Sometimes it feels that it's too much, you know my mom doesn’t even know about this. The reason why I don’t say anything to her is because I think, “she might want to have a talk.”  That's what I think, I might not be right though. The worst of the bullies is Marco.  Man, I don’t know what’s up with him because I keep trying to  avoid him, so I should not be beat up by him, right? WRONG. When I go to school, I’m always chased by Marco. I usually escape and make it to class safely. My teacher likes me but I’m not the teacher’s pet because if you are, you are screwed and they beat you up way more than me, so I'm ok.  I think so, I’m crossing my fingers. In school there's too many projects. I can finish them most of the time but it takes me a long time.  At least my work is neat. So that's that. Let me tell you that we have enormous packets of homework for every class. When you are use to it, it isn’t that bad. At least I try to make friends but it fails badly no matter how much I try, I fail more. I hate Marco. He is very popular even  though he is the baddest bully in the whole district. I hate to admit that I’m dead, but I need to try  to run for it,  that way I can finally have a break from escaping him. Every single time. I’m going to try to fake to my mom that I’m sick. It only worked one time, the rest of the times I failed at. I just want a good nice loyal friend because I’m a good boy and I feel I deserve one.

Marco always says,”You will regret this because the next time I will beat you up and you will be sorry.” Then, I was not ready for the next day. One reason is that I don’t like school. It’s boring and a bummer. Now the whole bully routine will start all over again.

Today we have a test. It’s just too easy for me no matter how much I tell the teacher. “Life is great,” I tell to myself.

Just today, Marco had made a bet with me. He said, “If you win,I will leave you alone for three months, but if you lose I get to beat you up in the alley after school and you have to pay me twenty dollars.” The bet was impossible to win because I had to become popular in thirty minutes. Thank God Mr. Smith was around there, and he sent Marco straight to the principal's office. His punishment was that he gave Marco three hour detention. You should have seen Marco’s face, his face was as red as a tomato. The rest of my day was perfectly fine because today I could finally enjoy P.E. without Marco on my case. But tomorrow everything would go bad because Marco was going to beat me up the baddest It can be. So I have to fake that I’m sick because I’m too scared to go to school tomorrow. I think I have to tell the truth to my mom but I’m not ready to tell. I just don’t what to say it to my mom. I’m too nervous but I’m up for it. The school day is going by and I’m still thinking what to do. I’m so scared of Marco because he is too freakin dangerous but it’s all in my hands.  Right now I have to go to E.L.A. to write an eighty page essay due on May twentieth, so I have to get over with but I’m going to take my time. The teacher said, “I expect As from everyone!”  That’s all I have to say for today, TOMORROW IS GOING TO BE A HARD DAY SO WISH ME LUCK!

When I got home, My mom asked me, “Are you hungry?” I responded, “no mom, I’m not hungry,” and I went straight to my room. The rest of the evening I read my favorite comics till I fell asleep. The next morning my mom came to wake me up and I responded, “no mom, I’m sick and I don’t want to go to school.” Then my mom got suspicious and started asking questions. Why I didn’t want to go to school. After a lot of asking, I responded all of her questions. So my mom said that I should not be hiding the rest of my life and she proposed me to sign up for self defense classes. I agreed to sign up that same day.

I learned a lot in self defense class. Every move that I learned I saw Marco’s face. I became so good that I went to the highest rank there is. My teacher was extremely proud of me for learning fast and he gave me a diploma for my success. Now I was ready to face Marco’s stupid face.

The next day I was on my way to school when Marco was waiting for me outside of school. The former Jake would have been afraid but this new Jake was not messing around. Marco was going to punch me in the face but I dodged, grabbed him and threw him to the ground.You should have seen Marco’s face, he was so afraid he ran away screaming for his mommy. All the other kids were cheering, clapping and laughing. After that day, Marco never bullied anyone ever again and my life changed thanks to my mother’s advice and the self defense classes. I like this new Jake.