the perfect everything

The second bar we went to had red lights and portraits of angry dogs, which on some level puts people in the mood. I wasn't drunk, but it's not like I needed to be drunk to be okay in this social context. It was so loud that I couldn't have really spoken anyway. The band played another poorly derivative sad song replete with too many guitars and slightly ahead of the beat drums.

"Want to dance?" I squeaked. I pushed my glasses up my nose. Then I fidgeted, taking them off, rubbing my scarf with them, and then placed them on top of my head so he could see my eyes. I don't know if my eyes are my best feature but I think they convey the most vulnerability, which is probably my only attribute.

"No. I don't dance," he said.

I just smiled at him. Whether or not he was dancing with me, my heart was clearly dancing in my chest. He gave me a quick dimple heavy grin and looked above my head. He smiled and nodded at a friend across the bar. I reached for him, aching to be held. He rubbed my lower back with one strong confident hand absentmindedly and took a sip from his beer. I leaned into him, fitting the top of my head under his chin, and looked up. 

"Do you want to get out of here?" I asked. My voice was so high and annoying. I coughed. Think about Scarlett Johanson! I told myself. Deep and sultry. Think cleavage but for your voice.

"Joe just got here. You really want to leave?" He said.

"Um, sorry,  I meant, like no, but maybe later maybe go back to your place together..."

"Oh."

"Nevermind," I said. "I'm uh easy going."

"Because that's what easy going people say."

"Yeah. No. Sorry."

He left me at the bar for awhile and talked to a couple of his friends. I replayed different scenes from Pride and Prejudice in my head and fiddled with my hair, or in other words, was awesome. After a while, he slung his messenger bag over his shoulders and stood up. He looked at me over his shoulder and beckoned his head. His black hair slid over his eyebrows with the confident toss. He smiled a little bit with just his lips, raising one eyebrow.

I hurriedly pushed the two books I was reading into my purse, grabbed my wallet from where I had dropped it clumsily on the floor, like an adult, and hopped up to follow him. He was looking down at his phone and slowly walking out the door of the bar. I jogged to catch up at him and he didn't say anything. I reached for his hand. 

Stammering, I added, "Just-to-be-clear-I-was-inviting-myself-over-to-have-um-you-know-like-sexual-intercourse." 

"Gross! Dummy," he said. He kissed the top of my head. I loved how tall he was. He was like the perfect height, the perfect everything.

We got to the bus stop and waited in silence for a minute. I reveled in how much I liked this guy, maybe loved him. I reminded myself not to say anything like that in bed. When we got to his apartment he unlocked the door and let himself in first. I made a note that that was a thing guys who were into equality probably did. He was probably a super big feminist  I followed him in. Once inside, I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck and tried to kiss him.

"Wait here a sec. I need to go clean my room," he said.

"Buddy, I don't care if it's messy," I said, kissing his neck.

"I do. I just... I have to put some stuff away, okay? Stuff I don't need you to see..." 

He pried my arms away and went into a room, closing the door behind him. It shut hard and I jumped a little, even though I was expecting it. I walked around his living room. The shelves were filled with various stacks of books, videogames, and movies, haphazardly organized. The top shelves where I couldn't reach were lined action figures, little robots, and various toys. I pulled a book from the shelf. It was Eugene Mirman's book... not that this detail is important. I just don't want you to think I was trying to put on any airs here. Like I coulda grabbed that Dostoevsky book, but that'd be like an intellectual push up bra, right?

After about twenty minutes, the bedroom door opened. He came back out. I shut the book and hopped off the couch, twirling toward him with a giddy grin.

"Heeeeey-" I stopped short and immediately dropped the flute-like trill from my voice. "Wait what's wrong?"

He was looking over my shoulder, above me. He looked scared and confused. His eyes were wide, red rimmed, and twitching. Tiny droplets of tears streamed from the corner of his beautiful ocean blue eyes. He didn't say anything. He stared hard away from me.

I ran to him and threw my arms around him. "Oh my god what... are you okay?"

"I just... I don't know what I'm doing with ...anything..." he said, his voice high and shaky.

I stood on my tippy toes so I could try to caress his head. He stayed motionless like a really big tree. It was so hard to hold someone who was taller and didn't want to be held. "C'mere," I said. I tried to lead him to the couch and he reluctantly obliged.

"What's... what happened?" I said. I realized I was trembling. He wasn't. 

"I don't know... I can't do this." He wouldn't look at me. He started crying again.

I sat on his lap. "Can't do what?" I dragged his arms around my waist, linking his hands together.

"This... I'm sorry. I don't know. I think I just need to be alone tonight," he said.

"Wait what? I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong?" I ran my fingers gently through his hair.

He wiped tears from his eyes. "Can you go?"

"Do you um not want to um have sex first?" I asked.

"No."

"Um, maybe a little bit of kissing?" I kissed his lips but he didn't kiss me back. I wiped a tear from his cheek. He brushed my hand away.

"Please." 

"Sorry. I'm sorry if I made you mad. I'm really... sorry."

"You did nothing. I just need to be alone."
"Can I do anything?" I was crying now too. "I want to help. I'm so sorry. I feel awful." I kissed his hand.
"No."

 "You know, buddy," I said softly. "We're friends. You can talk to me about whatever is... going on. If you want to... I mean. I'm here for you. You can tell me anything."

"I don't want to."

"I know."

Morning after

The sun barreled in and woke me up from my night of empty flirtation with sleep. I rolled over in the strange bed and looked at the human being laying next to me. His long black eyelashes laid down over cheekbones, vibrating as his eyes rapidly moved like a hummingbird's heart beat. A tiny droplet of eye water leaked from his tear ducts and I gently wiped it away without waking him up. I pulled the Star Wars sheets up to my chin, closed my eyes, and sighed. I couldn't believe we were finally here after so much wistful doodling his name in notebooks and making mix cds for him that I never gave.

We laid there together, not in each other's arms, but close enough. Outside, cars drove by, and a train yelled at us from the distance. Eventually, Evan's alarm went off. He groaned and shut it off. I took this verbal exclamation of discontent as my cue to curl up and wrap my arms around him. I kissed his warm neck and snuggled into his shoulder. Evan rubbed his hand through his thick black hair. I caught his hand as it was coming down and wrapped it around my waist and then pulled it down farther. He opened his eyes and looked at me.

"Hey!" I beamed.
"Hi," he said.
I inched forward, contracting my body like I was doing a sideways worm and kissed his warm full lips. He kissed me, and then rolled onto his back.
"I can't believe we finally... um... I'm just so so happy right now," I said.

Evan's cell phone rang and the Doctor Who theme song echoed through his tiny room. I giggled, even though nothing was funny, but just because I was so full of bliss I couldn't hold it in. He reached across me and grabbed it from the nightstand along with his thick black rimmed glasses. Shoving the retro frames over his nose, he looked at the phone and  then looked over at me. His eyes looked bigger behind the lenses, like a weird anime boy character. I involuntarily looked at the screen and saw the picture of a girl blowing a kiss over her shoulder.

"It's Joanie," Evan said.
"Oh."
Evan looked at me with big blue eyes. His lips curled into a grimmace.
"I didn't realize you guys were still, um... oh, nevermind," I said.
"Yeah."

He sent the call to voicemail and put the phone down. I smiled, thinking, oh this is because he likes me more, because I was an idiot. I crawled on top of him and kissed his neck and ears. He let his hands reach up to my waist.

"You're so handsome and wonderful," I murmured.
"No. I'm not."
Do you want to...?" I whispered.

Evan pushed me gently off and sat up in bed. "I don't feel very well. Kind of hung over."
"Oh," I smiled. "Wanna go get breakfast? My treat!"
"I think I'm too hung over even for that."
"You don't regret anything crazy you did last night, do you?" I teased with a giggle. I kissed his shoulder.
"I don't know, Babs."

I looked up at him. He grabbed his phone and stared at the screen a while. Then he started texting. His face was strained and lined with worry. I liked forehead lines on guys. It made them seem like a little bit older and smarter and brooding like a hot Charlie Dickens. I'm not like attracted to bad boys, but a little bit of misery seems to make for a lot of passion.

"You, um, okay?" I asked.
"Want me to look up the bus for you?" He said.
"I.... um... I mean.... would you want to go somewhere and work together, like maybe sit on your couch and write or draw or something? You don't have to talk to me, um, it would just be uh...."
"No. I need to get some things done."

I hugged him tightly. I just wanted to be held. Why didn't he lean into me? He continued staring at his phone. His messy hair stuck up like a cockatoo.

"I... I've liked you for so long," I whispered.
He didn't say anything.

I climbed out off bed and grabbed my bra from the floor. I always felt self conscious hooking bras in front of people. I do it upside down and then flip the straps up. I don't know if that's normal. I don't watch a lot of girls put on bras. It's not on my youtube fave list yet. I pulled on my panties. It's weird how many men have told me they hate the word "panties." I think it sounds childish, not dirty. Maybe that's the problem.

"I'm falling in love with you," I said.
"Jesus, Babs." Evan pulled on a t-shirt.

I looked over at him. This was the part where the guy takes you into his arms and says it back, right? The part where he quotes Mr. Darcy and his pacman shirt gets gets drenched in your tears when he tells you you're amazing and that he's never met anyone like you? This is the part where the Wilco-esque music starts playing and it cuts to a montage of the two of you laughing on a beach and riding bicycles and kissing in a park? ....Right?

I got dressed and waited outside for the bus alone. The wind was cold and I tried to calculate if I could walk home faster than the bus would take to come and how many calories that would burn. The sun laughed at me while I checked my phone again for text messages. By the bus stop, lying against the curb was a dead wet mouse. I screeched a little when I saw it, you know, like a grown up. I started walking, my feet numb and damp from a sneaker penetrating puddle. It was kinda raining, just enough to moisten my hair and face, but not enough to make a sound. I pulled my i-pod from my purse, but it's charge was dead, as to be expected.

Airplane Story

Leaning back in my seat, I pushed my finished comic book away and closed my eyes. It was so almost impossible to sleep in the middle seat. I could sleep like a baby if I could just lean against the window. And the girl in the window seat wasn't even taking advantage of the comfy freezing cold wall right next to her! She was reading some book about science. It's hard flying to LA because all the girls on the plane are all the prettiest girl in the universe, and then they all know how to read. Like, that's supposed to be my one thing, right? Ugh, if I can't rely on my witty personality then I'm gonna have to make friends by selling my armpit juices in a sweatshop. (That's what sweatshops are for, right?)

The flight isn't long but I have three coffees and a bottle of water. I'm writhing in bladder constriction pain. I don't want to get up to use the restroom because I hate the idea of disturbing the girl in the aisle seat. She is working on something for work with grown up work papers. It seems serious.

At the end of the flight, I still haven't urinated yet, and I'm getting ridiculously anxious, which is actually my natural state so I'm kinda comfortable in it. I'm in the back of the plane so when everyone stands up and is gathering their overhead baggage, it seems like it'll take 500 years for the line to move and me to get a chance to get off the plane. I hope up and down in my double hoodie comfy flying uniform and make a executive decision.

With a couple of excuse me's on my part and corresponding dirty looks, I weave through the one row behind me to get to the back of the plane. I let myself into the restroom and hover over the seat, careful not to touch what is probably just as clean as my home bathroom toilet. I pee for about ten gallons and it almost hurts it feels so good. The liquid and toxins and coffee dump out of me like a vibrant dark yellow-orange waterfall of Amazonian glory. As I finish, I wipe, you don't need to know the details. And then I stand up, and promptly and naturally hit my forehead on the sink, and slump to the ground unconsciously.

When I wake up, maybe minutes or days later, I forget where I am. Waking up from being knocked out is not the same as waking up from a good night's sleep, it's even more anxiety inducing. I shake off the tendrils of nightmares and wipe try to wipe away my the images of bloody men who have been skinned and wear their muscles on the outside. I look around and see the white, tiny room, a little bit bigger than a coffin, and I scream.

Outside the bathroom door I look out over the empty plane. I guess no one had noticed me, which is not a novel realization. I see my backpack and ukulele sitting in my empty row, and dizzily I become aware that we are moving.

The windows are white with clouds and I can see mountains miles and miles below us. I look around for a flight attendant or a passenger or anyone, but I don't see one. I'm a bit relieved; I'm not sure what I would say anyway. That kind of "I fucked up and I'm sorry and help I'm the worst" conversation is not a comfortable one. I sit back down in my seat in the back of the plane, resigned to just get off at the next stop, explain what happened, and hopefully get a flight back home from there. Yeah, it sucks, but what else can I do? Then I decide to move to the window seat.

After an undetermined period of time sleeping against the window, my growling stomach woke me up. I hadn't eaten yet that day, which wouldn't have been a problem because I was supposed to land before ten, but now I didn't even know what time it was. I put my hand over my abdomen and cringe. I wasn't enough of a grown up to pack snacks in my backpack. I looked out over the aisle and decided there must be some crew somewhere. I walked past row and row of empty seat, that seemed to go on for hundreds of meters. At the front of the plane, a woman was sitting in a little chair wearing a flight attendant uniform. She was playing a videogame on her DS but she jumped, startled when she saw me.

"Who are  you? How did you get on this plane?" She asked. She looked up and her face was white and thin with deep cavernous eyes.
"I'm so so sorry," I said. "I was on this plane earlier from LA to Portland and then I guess I passed out in the bathroom, not like in a gross way, well maybe in a gross way, but I woke up and the plane was moving..."
"That's impossible," she said.
"Well, it's improbable and weird," I corrected. Why did I need to correct her? She wouldn't give me a peanut bag if I was a snarky know it all. Keep that crap hidden!
"No, we haven't touched down in  years."

I shrugged, knowing she was wrong. "Do you have any snacks aboard?" I asked.
"Er, yes." She rifled in a cabinet and pulled out a tiny packet of green pebbles that looked like dried wasabi pees and tasted like nothing. They filled me up though. Airplane food keeps getting weirder, am I right?

"Thank you," I sat next to her and felt instantly nutirtionalized and full from my snack. "Do you know when we touch down again?" I asked.
"We stop in an hour in Glocomm."
"Huh... Is that a big airport? What state is that in? I'm just asking to see if I can get a flight back to Portland."
"State?"
"Yeah. Are we still on the west coast?"
"I don't know or remember the states of ancient America," she said apologetically. "I know we learned them in school but I guess I forgot some of that trivial knowledge."
"Fine."

I turned on the little tv on one of the seats in front of me. I scrolled through channels. It was all two and a half men, reality tv, reality tv, two and a half men, reality tv, weird creepy alien fake news show, reality tv. I flipped back to the alien fake news show and watched for a few minutes. It was just a green humanish extra terrestrial reporting fake news stories. It wasn't even funny. I frowned, sighed, and turned off the tv.

"So  where did you say you were coming from?" the flight attendant asked.
"LA."
"I don't know it."
"Los Angeles? City of Angels? The city that people mistakenly think is the capitol of California? The place where Buffy spinoff Angel is set?"
"No, sorry."

I turned the television back on. Something felt weird, like I was in a play but I had accidentally gotten the wrong script, so I was dressed as a pumpkin when everyone else was dressed as a mouse. I looked at the flight attendant abruptly. "What's the date?"

"December 14th," she said.
"Oh my god. I was passed out for a whole day? I was sure it was only an hour. I can't believe I missed a day!" I yelled.
"Year 2195," she added with a shrug.

I felt light headed and I asked her to repeat herself. Then I threw up. "I was passed out for 183 years." She thinks I am insane at this point. Sitting there with vomit all over me, starting to cry, and babbling, I do nothing to correct her. "Everyone I know and loved is dead."

The flight attendant brings me some Kleenex, some future Kleenex, and some sort of warm drink. I sit quietly in my seat and she watches me fearfully, like I might attack her, perhaps rightfully so. I buckle up when the sign tells me to and we begin our descent.

Out the window, the city of Gloccum is brown and war torn, smoking and overrun with screaming people in tattered rags. There are people everywhere, running through the streets and fighting, hitting each other with mallets. I don't know what I was expecting, white and silver buildings, floating cars, ipads for boyfriends. We lower into a violent burning decrepit town.

"Is it like this everywhere?" I ask.
"No, some places have more acid rain," the flight attendant offers.

The fasten seat belt sign blinks off. I get out of my seat and go to exit the plane. The attendant directs me to the emergency exit, where I go down stairs onto the runway. There is no fancy airport with a hundred starbuckses and bookstores. There are just planes, lined up on flat ground, and rats running around the feet of the angry mob of pedestrians. Cockroaches squirm and look up at me expectantly.

I hop down from the last step and a tiny golf cart pulls up to us. The flight attendant nods at me and two men hop out of the golf cart and place handcuffs on my wrists. They usher me into the cart with gentle soothing voices. I look out, crying and weak, wishing I had been brave enough to pee when I had had a chance.

UFO

I sat in the living room in my pajamas, late well into the afternoon. The couch conformed under my flannelled buttocks. My laptap grew hot against my thighs and I flicked through the television. Behind me, a light glowed outside the rain splattered window, and a spaceship landed in my backyard.

At first it was an unidentified flying object, but then I identified it, using contextual clues, and thus it became a flying object identified as a spaceship.

I muted the television; I didn't need to see a rerun of How I Met Your Mother more than this. I sat up on my knees on the couch, leaning over the back and looking outside. My messy unbrushed hair clumped in a thick scarf-like hood, getting in my mouth, smelling of old shampoos and coffee.

The spaceship was larger than my mom's car, but smaller than a sad mom's car (ie: suv.) It was white but it wasn't that clean. There were no discernible windows or doors. Four metal poles propped it up on our lawn, which would probably have to be refertilized after this. A circular hole opened in the spaceship, widening until it was about four feet in radius. A pair of black shoes attached to thin long legs swung out and a person fell to the ground.

I opened the backdoor- my parents called it the kid door because when we were little we were told to go in through that door so we wouldn't get outside dirt in the front hallway, but now we were allowed to go through any door because we were adults sort of and we played in dirt less.

A few neighbor ladies were looking over the edge of their fences into our yard. A couple dogs were barking. They thought it was weird I had a mental breakdown and had to move back in with my parents, the neighbor ladies, not the dogs. The dogs were cool.

Ignoring the nosy neighbors, I walked barefoot into our yard and helped the strange man to his feet. He was wearing black pants and a long sleeved black shirt. Maybe he was an artist. His skin was green, which I thought was kind of artsy. His hair was black and curly. As he leaned against my shoulder to get up, I noticed the curve of his arm muscles and his long, elegant, flat and compact torso. My cheeks grew warmer. The green man vomited violently at my feet.

"I'm so sorry," he said. "The landing still gets me a bit spacesick."

Oh, it's okay, I thought. Then I realized I hadn't said it out loud. I hadn't been talking a lot lately and my social skills were a little worse for the lack of use. "It's okay," I said. "I can imagine the ride must be jarring."

"Do you have any... I think you humans call it sprite?" he asked.
"Yeah... well something. Maybe it's fresca, but yeah."
"Oh, lovely."
"Uh-huh." I was aware of my annoying tiny black mustache hairs that were coming in.
"May I have some?"
"Yeah, sure."

My parents were away at work. I invited the alien in. I had accidentally locked the kid door behind me when I came out to check on him so I had to make him wait while I crawled in through the dining room window and then ran to the living room to let him in. He didn't seem annoyed or awkward with that at all.

He came in and sat on a chair at the table. I poured him a glass of fresca, made myself a coffee, and ten I sliced up a tomato and put it on a plate in between us. The alien politely helped himself to a slice of tomato and chewed thoughtfully.

"Thank you so much for the soft drink and the fruit slices." he said.
"Not a problem. My mom bought them."
"Ah."

I looked around. The television was still emanating silent storylines and bright colors of pretty people doing silly things.

"So, where are you from?" I asked.
"It's called Drozquaid. You probably haven't heard of it. It's just like 30 light years outside of Frehman."
"Oh, uh-huh."
"Yeah, you know Frehman?"
"No..."
"Hmm."
"So what brings you to Earth?" I asked.
"Earth?" He looked up, alarmed.
"Yeah," I said. "Why are you here?"
"This is Earth? Galaxy 12700? The Gestarian county?"
"Um... I think? Maybe?" I said.
"Oh god. What year is this?"
"2012."
"Human years... ugh... the conversion of human years is so difficult. You'd think you guys would use the same unit as the rest of the galaxy, but no, you gotta be special."
"Sorry."
"Not your fault."

The green man pulled a tiny notepad from a pocket I hadn't noticed in his sleek outfit. He began working out a math equation. His color faded to mint and he gasped to himself.

"What's up?" I asked.
"I've already said too much," he said. He was getting up. He threw his dishes in the sink, which really wasn't necessary. "I need to go. Something terrible is going to happen to the lifeforms on this planet and I can't be here..."
"What's going to happen?"
"Nothing major, it will only affect humans and most earth animals and plants."
"I'm a human."
"Yeah. No important species to existence will be affected."
"Can you take me with you?"

He looked at me, startled by the question. "Why?"
"I don't want to die... Can we take my family and go pick up some library books for the trip too?"
"No, I don't want to disrupt the history line of time and space. You better stay here."

I grumbled and rolled my eyes but pretended like I understood. The alien rain his long thin fingers through his black hair and smiled kindly at me. "Thanks so much for the snack."

I smiled back at him. He let himself out the backdoor and climbed back up into his space ship using a little white ladder that extended downwards. I didn't walk him to his ship, but watched from inside, on my sofa. I turned the volume back up on the tv and microwaved my coffee. He gave me one last look from the opening. His smooth skin tightened up into what looked like a frown. Then the space ship was closed again, a smooth white egg. The metal legs retracted back up into it and it floated for a moment in out back yard and then it was gone.

tunnel

The rocky pathway crackled under her shoes as she walked beneath the dying trees. The noises ran away to hide in little pockets of sleeping children and snuggle with lint and discarded feelings. A few cars rolled along nearby but out of sight roads. Their roar permeated her ears and sang the song of loneliness.

Every day when she walked home, she passed the tunnel, jutting out of the old rock cliff. It was dark, overgrown, leaking smelly liquid over it's lip like black drool. The tunnel had fallen asleep over the drain pipe, comfortable, and loving, and oozing spitty drool over it's lap.

She looked at her cell phone, which was blank. The walk back from the bus stop to her mom's house lengthened each day. Her legs stretched and tingled as the brisk air whisked through her jeans. She stopped and played with her hair. Living at home was convenient and cheap, but lonely. She rubbed her aching head. The fluorescent lights in her cubicle gave her migraines. The buzzing of the elevators hurt her temples.

She reached in her purse and reached around for her pipe. She desperately craved one of those montages where the protagonist gets high and plays on bumper cars and dances in a daisy field and runs around barefoot and kisses some tall boy with blue eyes.

The movies always show those montages with the girl being quirky and the guy saying things like, "I've never met anyone like you." And it's the best montage and you cry for the protagonists. But they never show the montage a month later when the guy is saying things like, "You're an adult, get out of the bumper cars. Put on some shoes. Learn how to pay a bill and wash your feet for goodness sakes."

In the beginning the audience is like "Oh, she doesn't brush her hair and she mediates in DMVs. She's so goddamn quirky." And the plot escalates and reaches a turning point, then they're like "She doesn't brush her hair and she falls asleep in DMVs. She needs an intervention."

And then the tall boy with blue eyes invariably leaves for someone who understands him better and has her life together and "is attractive because she knows who she is." Despite the fact that the protagonist's inability to understand people and her messy life etcetera had kinda been like super hot initially.

So the protagonist starts drinking and smoking more and she loses her job and she gets a dead end worse office job and she moves out of their apartment and moves back in with her mom. And there is no happy endings or any endings.

The tunnel calls out to her, a soft whisper at first, a gentle verbal inquiry that sounds like her name. She turns and looks at the jutting pipe. Her imagination must have been playing tricks on her. Tunnels couldn't talk. Unless maybe inside the tunnel there was an animal or a person or a baby or a cassette player with a an audio tape of her name. That's ridiculous. The tape player would have run out of batteries.

At home was her bed covered with stuffed animals and her childhood pajamas and boxes of unpacked belongings from their old apartment. There is the family cat sitting in the living room, curled in front of the fire. Her mom would be up in bed, but listening for the front door. There was a bottle of half drank wine in the fridge.

The tunnel whispered, a futile song into the wind. What was the point? There was nothing in the end, just a rock wall. There couldn't have possibly been anything, no light, no air, just darkness. And the beginning was a struggle, a climb, a crawl. The middle was unknown. The ending didn't exist.

Pool

It was prematurely dark when I locked my bike up underneath the thick trees. I let my helmet fall from my head and I snapped it around my messenger bag strap, hanging like an awkward flopping canteen or melon  Inside the public pool I flashed my membership card to the guy behind the counter, with an air of confidence I lacked credence to.

Inside the girls' locker room  I undressed in a stall. It was mostly kids my age, giggling and smiling. There were a few moms, attempting to carall the girls into their clothes or suits, whichever they were changing in to. My mom didn't need to come help me get dressed. I was a star, I thought as I struggled to tuck my newly acquired wiry pubic hair up under my black one piece suit.

I rinsed off in the shower and walked out into the pool room. The smell of chlorine sucked up into my nostrils, absorbed into my brain goo, and permeated the stress of reality, comforting me. Kids screamed and ran around me, their barefoot feet slapping against the wet concrete. The lifeguard whistle blew, high and shrieking through the echoing concrete room.

I stood at the edge of the deep end. I felt all eyes on me, even though they were probably none at all. I dove in what I thought was a graceful swan swoop into the cool slurping waters. Around me kids fought with foam noodles and splashed each other. I rolled my closed eyes at that frivolity and swam forward in smooth mechanical strokes.

The cool water rushed through my subconscious, washing away the stress of chess club drama and the boy in band class who made fun of me when my underwear showed above my sagging jeans. I felt at ease, like I was sleeping. I turned my head and took a breath, my lungs filling with cleansing energy.

Kids laughed around me, their screams diluted by the water blanketing my ears. I imagined they were all jealous of my strong swimming abilities, while they played with their friends. I wondered if everyone was in awe of me, too strong of a swimmer to play with others. They teased each other and pulled on each others' suits. They climbed on each others' shoulders and jumped back off into the water, belly flopping in clumsy loud crashes. And I just swam onward in a straight line.

And these kids would have fun and play and be friends and grow up to have families and homes and jobs with coworkers and girlfriends and puppies. And I had some moderate swimming skills. These little kids screaming cannon ball would get married and grow old and hold hands and play in the falling leaves in the fall. I would practice clarinet and read a lot and work on my technique.

Soon I was one with the water, invisible, made of blue chlorine saturated liquid. I swam back and forth in repeated laps, twirling when I got to the end and shoving off the walls with my feet. I wasn't tired. I was translucent and wet and everywhere. I swam faster and faster. Was the lifeguard impressed? Was he worried I would go too quickly and explode the pool? Was he jealous? Did he see me at all?

The sea monster winked at me and I waved back. They were envious. They were oblivious. They were laughing. I was water. They were screaming. I was solitarily everywhere. At the bottom of the pool was a tiny trap door, just big enough for me. I swam towards it. I hadn't been up to breathe in a while.

The kids were getting pizza after and going to the arcade. They were packing up their bags and heading out. It was time to close the pool. They wouldn't invite me. Maybe they were intimidated. Maybe they would be in a book club. Maybe they would join a commune. I opened the door and swam through into a tiny dark room, just bigger than my body. I closed the trap door above me and sat below in the darkness.

Bookshop

Sam had always felt comfortable in a bookshop ever since he was a little boy. He felt like he could hide in there. He loved the walls of stories closing in to create a maze of corridors that could obscure someone among the stacks. He coveted libraries with ceiling high shelves. When Sam was out in open spaces for too long, he felt anxious and desperate for those stacks. He craved the confining tightness of bookshelves with thick old books, heavy with cardstock, burdened with different voices calling out silently throughout the dimly lit yellowy arenas.

The used bookshop by his childhood home was a castle. The stacks stood like guards with their swords in a salute. The shelves tunneled in, as if trumpeters were about to announce the royalty. Sam imagined that the aisles between shelves were like red carpeted pathways leading to the throne, the raised platform of the cashier, who looked over the wooden pedestal from beneath white fine hair and dusty glasses. He himself was a used character from a used book, a storybook king who had already spun his yarn and know sat waiting for the other narratives to wrap it up so he could go to sleep.

Sam had taken Denise to a bookshop as part of their first date. They had gotten coffee and it was uncomfortable and awkward and sweaty, so it had gone pretty well. Sam felt out of place as he escorted Denise down the street, until he saw a bookshop. He suggested they walk through, and she found it charming. Sam found a few things he was looking for and Denise called him the next day to ask him for drinks.

The bookshop on fifth was particularly nice and dusty. Sam loved it and went there once a week, just to browse, on his way to work. The lady behind the counter said it would close soon and that made Sam nostalgic inexplicably. The bookshop on fifth was way older and emptier and less hipster funkified than the one he had taken Denise to. Denise had never come to the one on fifth. Maybe she had without him, with a girlfriend, with her mom when they went out to brunch, but never with him.

When Abigal (he made up a name for the girl behind the counter; it seemed to fit) told him the shop was closing, Sam decided to try to patronize it more, to help them out. Abigail said it was a lost cause. She smiled at him with chapped lips and pet her cat that jumped from the top shelf to her shawled shoulders without misstepping.

Sam asked if he could buy this book he was holding and she said he could just have it.

Denise hadn't bought anything that night of their first date. She was still in the middle of reading something and didn't want to get seduced by a new story and neglect the old one. New things attracted her. She loved figuring out puzzles and riddles. As soon as the plot of a book was obvious, she would speed read through the end so she could start something new, delve into a new world, start a new adventure, struggle to surprise herself.

Sam didn't surprise Denise. He was quiet and mild mannered. They watched television together and sat at coffee shops and worked or read the paper together. They didn't go on walks in the autumn leaves like he had always wanted to, and like she had always wanted to but never told him. They watched movies in the theater. They listened to live music at bars. They filled their ears and brains with everything except the others' words.

The book Sam bought was tiny and green. There was only a black outline of a man taking off one of his shoes on the cover, no title. Sam started reading it as he walked home. He could read while walking. He had a plethora of wonderful qualities.

Denise had curly brown hair and an impish nose and wore 1920's fashion with little bucket hats and pump heeled shoes. She had librarian glasses and spoke eloquently while holding herself with perfect posture. She had used to be a dancer, but she rarely danced anymore. Sam hadn't known. Sometimes when she was home alone, she would put on music and dance until she was sweaty and panting. And then she would button back up her shirts and resume her persona.

The book was full of nonsequittors and short stories that formed a bigger idea that was huge and empty simultaneously. The structure of the writing was so that Sam found it pretentious and then he got used to it and then he liked it. It was like a long narrative poem, a sonnet, a love letter to loneliness.

His shoes grew damp, saturated in the puddles. He wasn't watching where he was going and his pant legs soaked upwards. The streets grew darker, and he squinted, pulling the pages closer to his face, blocking out the world he walked through. The book sang to him, and it was pretty enough to drown out the screaming of the wind and the angry sobbing of the trees, bawling onto the pavement with recycled rain water as tears.

Abigail watched him walk out the door and then checked her watch. She pet her cat and began to count the register. It was time to close up the shop and Sam had been the only person she had spoken to all day. Soon she would forget how to use her vocal chords. Her voice grew smaller daily as it became covered in cobwebs of disuse.

Sam opened up the door to his apartment and poured himself a big cup of milk and a beer. Denise would have found this combination disgusting had she been there, but probably not vocalized it. Sam curled up on the couch, turned on the news, and sat there absorbed in his book, behind the shelves of rain that poured around him life safe bordering walls.

into the storm

I hunckered my gym duffle bag over my shoulders, probably looking like an idiot with my backpack and purse dangling from my tottering body. I let the doors close on me before I pressed a button. I saw her face staring blankly at me for one last second. Once shut I pressed the lobby button. I felt myself floating downwards at a rapid smooth pace.

Everything I had brought to work in four years was crammed onto my body. There had been a lot of things I left there that I probably shouldn't have, but I just felt so awkward with them watching me clean out my desk drawers that I rushed through it. Whilst I beavered away at my desk drawers, she had her arms folded across her chest, staring straight at me. My eyes stayed on the floor, not making eye contact.

"Are you ready?" She asked.
"Oh," I said. "R-right now?"
"Yes."
"So no going away cake for me then?"

She didn't smile.

The elevator walls squeezed inwards, applying pressure to the air vibrating around my body. The wood panels leaned in and the ceiling pressed down, heaving heavily under some dark weight on the top of the lift. Perhaps there had been a tubby monster on top. I don't know how I was able to feel the air squeezed in, wrapping hot sticky fingers around my neck, pursing dull dentisty music into my throbbing eardrums. The doors opened and I laughed out loud manically.

The lobby of my building felt unfamiliar even after four years of passing through it multiple times per day. The bright fluorescence lights shone fuzzily as if through a filter. Everything felt softer, sleepier. The whole meeting had taken five minutes and now it was done and I was down in the lobby. Lawyers and clients I knew rushed through the gold trimmed shining hallways. They barked into their cell phones and clacked their heals on the ground. The sound resonated through a muter in my mind. Everyone looked strange and slightly different than usual, as if they were all wearing masks that had been custom designed to look similar to their faces. I didn't say hi to anyone. Hallways and shops in the building seemed unrecognizable. I felt too lost and confused to be scared.

Outside was a frothing storm of tiny blue flowers. The winds lashed against the front doors of my building. The strong winds tore the petals from the trees outside down, shook them from their home, and hurtled them angrily against the clear pane of our front doors.

Balanced uneasily under pounds of luggage and kilograms of confusion, I opened the door. A gust of sharp breeze whisked in, and several stuffy people turned to look at me. Dozens of dime sized turqoise and blue flowers intermingled with pinkie sized perfectly oval dark green leaves. The fluttering spun around my head, causing me to sneeze. I stepped out and let the door close behind me.

I turned to the left and looked down an empty long winding ally. I didn't have anywhere to be. By which I do not mean I didn't have any plans or arrangements for today. I'm not saying I have a loosely booked week or some free nap time. I'm saying I didn't have any plans for my lifetime. I didn't have any reason to go in any direction because I had no where to go. I didn't have anywhere to be, physically, ever.

I let my heavy duffle bag and backpack fall from my shoulders onto the empty dirty side walk. I wouldn't need those things anymore. I didn't need anything. I lifted my arms up above my head, reaching my hands to the clouds. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. I felt my hair swing loose from the braid, aided by the tumultrous breeze, and smack the back of my shoulders. My hair flew into my face and I laughed again. I careened my fingers, as if wiggling them in a putty. The violent storm lifted me up by my skirt, which quickly balooned into a parachute, and tugged me upwards.

I didn't scream as I soared up above the ground. I didn't even feel fear as I turned upside down and the blood rushed to my head. If I had no where to be on the earth, who's to say being up here in the sky was any worse or better? I tumbled through gales and clouds, giggling sadly in the freezing mist.

birthday

Adam sat in front of the television on the concrete floor. He tried to change the channel, but the same program was on every one. I stood behind him, leaning against the dark wall. My arms were folded across my chest and one of my legs was bent.

"...first actual baby born in four months," the broadcaster was saying. His teeth were white and huge. He smiled like his mouth was trying to get out of his skull.

As usual there were images of the bloody labor, the sweat drenched heaving mother, and crying doctors and nurses. The kid itself was a disgusting mess, covered in slimy goo from the vagina it just popped out of. Until the next one was born, this one would be worshiped and heralded as a savior. Its eyes were closed and it was screaming, which I might do too if the first sensation I knew in my existence had been dozens of cameras being pointed directly at me.

I had seen hundreds of these birthday celebration programs. They cancelled everything else, forcing us to watch the miracle of life whenever it happened. What followed on the television would be interviews with the friends, family, and anyone in that town who they could get. The president would give a speech about how we were turning around as a species, making a comeback, stronger than ever before, and the citizens would sing patriotic songs and believe that things could be better. The media would illuminate a hope, buried deep in many human beings, that maybe they could take back their planet and incite a new utopia of beauty and peaceful rule.

"This is crap," Adam said.
I put the bottom of my braid in my mouth and sighed. "It's gonna be on all day," I mumbled. "Just turn it off."

My quiet voice was almost swallowed by the sounds of chanting and singing from beyond our walls. Outside any actuals in town were drinking and celebrating. We stayed inside because the last time an actual baby was born, there were a plethora of exterminations of our kind. It wasn't called "killing" when an actual destroyed one of us. It was more like removing unwanted pests and problems. Sometimes it was like hunting. In some towns, it was hunting.

They were never even investigated or reported as murders; we weren't afforded any such rights to life. The actuals were ecstatically high on the energy from the birth, and I wanted to be happy for them but it's hard when they hate me with such uninhibited and inexplicable passion. I want to love them, but as the expression goes, I am only inhuman. They call me names at the grocery store and pull my hair as I walk to the factory for work. They grabbed at my meek brown burlap dresses that enveloped an athletic designed body. They call me soulless.

Adam turned the TV off and pulled out his book from the government issued desk drawer and handed it to me. "Read to me, please?"
I took the book from him, holding it's weathered spine in my hands. "Why don't you read?"
He shook his head, locks of perfect hair falling over his face. "Too hard."
"You have to keep practicing," I said. "Here, at home. Don't do anything like reading or drawing or writing in public ever."

We weren't supposed to have any emotions, so writing, reading, drawing, and any hobby for leisure or creative release was considered incongruous with our functions and therefore disturbing to anyone who saw. Even when other clones saw me reading they became upset by the image. Us displaying emotions is unsettling, like seeing a small child holding a gleaming sharp knife.

I watched Adam furrow his perfect brow and fumblingly flip pages in his book. His lips moved as his eyes squinted. All I wanted for him was a better life than mine.

We both jumped as there was a furtive rapid pounding on our door. I walked across the tiny dark room and placed my head against the doorway to listen. We weren't allowed windows in our apartments.

"Don't open it," Adam whispered. He had quietly crept up behind me. The lamp light fell on his perfectly constructed cheekbones.
"I don't hear anything," I whispered back, with my cheek against the wood. "I'm sure it's not an angry mob. They'd be a teensy bit louder."
"Could be a silent mob."
"What's that?" I asked
"Humans doing some sort of deceptive ruse."
"I have never heard an angry mob be this reserved and contained."
"How many angry mobs have you heard?"
"Um, five, I believe."
"I don't want you to open it."
"Just put your book away..."
"Because it is an angry mob, isn't it?"
"No. I don't know. Just in case."

Adam, the closest thing one of us could have to a brother, assumed a blank expression and a still spiritless pose. I put my hand on the doorknob, curled my fingers around the brass and turned.

together

Abby allowed her finger tips to caress the spines of the books. The bookshelves lined two of the four walls in the office, stretching from the floor to the ceiling. His desk sat along the third wall with the window, overlooking a garden. Piles of literature, mostly fiction, were stacked taller than she could reach, encasing thousands of hours of stories and adventures and escapes. She outstretched my arms and spun around in a circle singing in a high pitched offtune voice, "The hills are alive..."

"Sorry, baby," said Matt, sitting at his desk without looking up. "I just need to get this work done really quick."
"Don't be sorry," Abby said with a happy grin. "Why would you apologize, sweetheart?"

Matt typed for a minute. The bright computer glared into his eyes. His back was towards her. His strong shoulders were wrapped in a green t-shirt that Abby adored. He was hunched over his computer, which lit up his face and neck, sending a glowing glint off his glasses. The glasses framed the sparkling eyes that she had fantasized about for years before they had hooked up. She had idolized him for so long before he had ever noticed her. She had dreamed about him incessantly but she had never dreamed about the two of them together because even in her fantasies she lacked that kind of hubris. Now it was reality. Unable to contain her desire to be in his arms anymore, she gave an uncontrollable yelp and ran to him.

"You're so handsome," she said. She kissed the back of his head and hugged his shoulders.
"No, I know I'm not." He kept his back to her. She leaned into him, smelling his neck.

Abby tugged the fabric of her new dress, hoping Matt would comment on it. Her bare feet rocked back and forth on the clean carpet. She twirled around again, singing, "...with the sound of music..."

"I'm working on this new program where I design this character with two heads-" Matt started.
"That's awesome! Like two heads with separate personalities or...?" Abby jumped in abruptly and then trailed off, looking out the window. Her stomach growled and she put her hand over it. "Our robot baby is hungry."

Matt looked up at her for the first time since she'd come into the room. His eyebrows were down, narrowed over his forehead. His lips were tightly closed. His eyes were tired, but sparkled nevertheless. "Sorry, you go ahead," he said politely.
"What?" She grinned down at him. She arched her back downward and kissed his cheek.
"Go ahead and finish your thought, baby."
"Oh. Um. No, I wasn't trying to talk over you. I just thought you were done talking."
"Well, I wasn't. But you go ahead."
"Okay. Oh, I don't remember it anymore." Abby shrugged and gave a sharp laugh. Matt sighed again. Abby looked back over at him "So what's the thing you're working on?"

Matt frowned and looked back at his computer. He rubbed his eyelids beneath his glasses. He looked back at his computer and stared at the paragraph he'd been working on for the last hour. It was growing dark outside and he still had hours of work to do. He was swamped at work, and he barely got any sleep as is with Abby over every night. She had so much energy, an effervescent boundless overflow of emotions that had initially rendered her quirky and endearing, but now the hyper outbursts were the scraping of a knife against a plate that sat in his brain, unwashed and waiting for her to finally maybe think about doing a dish once in a while.

Obliviously, Abby playfully put a strand of her long messy hair in her mouth while absentmindedly picking books from the shelf. She never seemed to put them back in the right place. Through a muffled mouthful of her own hair, she sang to herself a whimsical song about kittens that she had made up. Matt cracked his neck. The shadows crowded in through the window, casting his once warmly lit office into cold empty darkness, a gloomy cave of suffocating fear.

Opening to the first page in a sci-fi horror novel, Abby spat the hair out of her mouth. "What do you want for dinner, Matt?"

"Jesus, baby! I'm trying to work!" Matt said loudly. He slammed his fist on the table and Abby jumped. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. He looked up at her, turning halfway in his swivel office chair. She took a step back. Her lip quivered. His voice quickly resumed the soft, gentle tone. "I'm sorry. I know I'm annoying. I know you hate it when I try to get work done. I'm so annoying."

"Matt, I never said that!" Her eyes bloated like an engorged drowning rat. She stepped towards him, reaching out, and he leaned back, away from her, looking down at his desk. Her hand fell to her side. The room seemed to be moving around them, as if they were on a very smoothly running train hurtling somewhere unknown in the darkness.

"Sorry, baby, I know you are disappointed and annoyed with me."
"Sweetie, no, I never said that!" Abby yelled. She waved her arms anxiously, desperately in a flourishing brandishing motion. Her voice escalated to a higher pitch and she could feel herself on the verge of tears inexplicably. She wasn't sure what was happening.
"Please stop yelling at me," he pleaded.
"Matt... I'm not yelling at you!" she screamed at top volume. "I never have! I never do!"
"Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Abby pounded her fist into her thigh, releasing a sharp pain that almost felt refreshing in her mind numbing rage induced trance. Her lips twitched and her chin wrinkled up like a pug. "Okay. I can tell you don't wanna hang out tonight. I'm just gonna leave you alone." She choked and tears poured down her cheeks and onto her chest as if running off in tiny gutters of insecurity.

"Fine. Leave me. I know you want to." Matt's eyes watered also, much quieter and more graceful than Abby's. Their mutual inner turmoil was a malicious monster that thirsted for these tears, licking it's lips expectantly.
"I'm not leaving you!" she screeched. She ground her fingernails hard into her palms. Her tears grew snotty and her voice cracked as she began to blubber like a gooey baby. Matt's neighbor's dog barked from the apartment next door. Matt winced.
He said, "It's okay. I know you don't want to be with me."

They weren't crying together. They wept separately, alone on two different islands identically floating in the same ocean.

"What? Are y-y-you breaking up with me?" Abby stammered. "Can we talk about this?"
"We are talking about this."
"Do you want t-t-to...?"
"This is all you, baby."
"Then please don't... don't break u-u-up..." she sobbed.

Abby shook violently and leaned against the wall with the door. She slid to the ground, unable to stand she was crying so hard. She bent her knees and pulled them inwards, tucked her head down and sobbed into her lap. Her skirt piled up around her waist. Snot ran through her long wavy hair, globbing it into a messy congealed nest. Tears soaked the weird dress she looked frumpy in but mistakenly thought made her look "adorkable." Chubby unshaven white thighs poked out from the dress, clapping against each other as she writhed. Her skirt rose up enough that her pink and turquoise little girl underwear flashed into view. Her sobs were loud and shrill like a child's. She cried so hard she started hicupping and rocking back and forth, struggling and gasping to breathe. Oxygen was tight and thick around her, strangling her snotty throat like a throbbing snake.

"Fine. Okay."
"Matt?"
"You win. We're staying together. Whatever you want."
"Please hold me?" Abby blubbered.

Matt sighed and walked away from his desk and knelt beside Abby on the floor. He put his arm around her trembling shoulders. His voice dropped to the gentle soothing tone. "You're okay. We're together. We're fine."
"Together?"
"Yes. Let's never talk about this again."
"Okay."

Long coffee line

The smells of roasted beans soaked into my hair and clothes like a moist fog in a swamp. I tapped my high heeled shoe on the linoleum floor, painted to look much classier than it was. My toes scraped across the floor, shiny and plastic like Mrs. Johnson my 10th grade English teacher.

I stared at the back of the head of the woman in front of me. She had gray hair up in a short bob. I could see a few inches of wrinkly neck rolling out behind her collar, like folds of dough for an unbaked hairy mole-freckled pie. She half turned, almost as though she felt me staring at her. We both looked down at our watches. I didn't have a watch so I looked at my ipod. My ipod looked back up at me with a snicker at my futile empty existence.

I had been on my ten minute break from work for twelve minutes now and I was still three people from the front of the line. The gentleman at the front of the line was getting four frappucinos which take the longest of anything to make. He watched them blend the coffee with a drooling grin while I crossed my arms and exhaled loudly.

After the frappucino glugger, the woman in front of me went up to order and asked about every question possible about the menu. Her voice was crackly like dead leaves covering the deck at my parent's house.

"What's the difference between a cappucino and a late?" she asked. "Well, what specifically is foam? Oh... Um... What's the difference between a cappucino and a late?"

I rolled my eyes. It's starbucks. How do you not know the menu yet? Like I'm the only one who's parents dropped her off at coffee shops as a child when they couldn't get a baby sitter?

Finally it was my turn at the front of the line. I made eye contact with the barista, who was a bit shorter than me. I spread my legs and centered my weight into my heals so I could stare her dead in the eyes. I said, "May I use your restroom?"

"Sure, the code to get into the door is 1234-"
"My cousin Kelly couldn't make it but he says how's your turnip field," I interrupted abruptly.
"Oh, it's you," said the barista, raising her eyebrows and curling one lip upward. Her voice dropped to a whisper, "The code is 2221."
"Thanks," I chirped.

I typed the code into the bathroom door handle and it beeped twice and then unlocked. I turned the handle and stepped inside, but instead of the mainstream starbucks bathroom I stepped through a trap door that had opened in the floor as a result of my code. The steps lead down into a dark cave. The door slammed shut above me.

Far away a glimmering light cast shadows across the cave wall and dimly lit the pathway. The walls were made of dirt and rock, with bits of roots and worms wriggling out of them. The ground was hard and solid. I folded my arms into each other, hugging my waist, shrinking between the narrow walls. Looking back, the stairs had already disappeared and there was an endless passageway that way as well. I smirked and headed towards the light.

Snakes and rats slithered and scampered respectively across the dirty earth. I took off my high heels and walked barefoot, feeling the cold solid reality beneath my feet. It felt so hard and sturdy. My toes wriggled appreciatively. "Thank you for the authenticity of existence!" yelped my toes. "Shut up, toes," I whispered back.

At the end of the long corridor was a coffin. Or maybe it was a wooden kayak that someone had hinged a lid onto. Regardless, the lid was ajar slightly, revealing a soft cushioning bedding of blankets, snuggling against each other invitingly. A lit lantern hung from the curved ceiling, casting shadows across the cave.

Beyond the coffin kayak, the cave sharpened into a cliff and overlooked a deep underground cavern below. It was so deep that I couldn't see the bottom.

"Hi," said a high pitched nasally voice.
I pivoted around and found myself face to face with a woman in business attire, wearing sensible shoes, her hair in a neat bun, manicured nails, shaved armpits, and normal classy glasses. Despite her cold expression, I could tell exactly who she was.

"Hey," I said. "You look terrible."
"I know," My grown up self responded.
"Are you okay?"
"Um.... I don't... I don't think so?"

As she stuttered this my grown up self's face began to flake in dry tufts. Some of her hair fell out. The shadows beneath her eyes deepened.

"Shit." I took a step toward her.
"No, this is... the way it should be..." Her smile was gentle and reassuring.

She stepped around me, seemingly losing weight and becoming more frail before my eyes. Her knees cracked as she stepped forward. Reflexively, I shoved my arm outward and she leaned on it. She was at least thirty pounds less than me. She used my arm to steady herself as she climbed into the kayak. She lay down in the nest of blankets and rested her head on the fluffy pillow.

"There's no going back if we do this," I said.
"Good."

She reached up and used the last of her strength to pull the lid over herself. She didn't wave or do anything dramatic. She simply slid the heavy wooden lid into place and she was gone from sight. I sighed and pushed. The coffin tumbled down off the cliff, below the ledge, and toppled down into the cavern. Gradually the dark wood faded into the blackness. The only sense I had that it had been there at all was a far away splash I heard from below. I imagined the kayak floating in a river miles below the earth surface, swinging along to the gentle rocking motion, and her looking up at the pitch darkness, with a relaxed sigh on her lips.

chocolate

(Dedicated to Ross Parsons.)

The television blared with shrill music as the group of top models floating around their oversaturated bright colored lives. They flung their beautiful hair around the camera and complained about the competition. Stephanie scrunched up her face, squinting at the screen. Whenever it said the age of the models, she was always surprised, not that she thought they were older or younger, just ageless beings. Their shiny lives glowed in the dark silence of the night. She took another bite of pizza and spilled a droplet of sauce on her bed.

She looked down at the tiny stain on the green sheet. Slowly resting her beer on the nightstand, she rose and ran her hands over the bed. Loosening the fitted sheet she tossed it unceremoniously into the laundry bin. She hugged her arms to herself and looked at the pile of dirty fabric. She hadn't done laundry since the accident. She hadn't done anything to the bedroom at all. It had been a month and now, due to her pizza clumsiness, she was obligated to wash away the last trace of Steve's smell.

Leaving the television on, Stephanie floated downstairs into the chocolate shop. In her pajamas and a pair of flip flops, she unlocked the door and surveyed the clean, quiet little room. She was no stranger to insomnia, but it was getting worse. She listened to nothing, to her quiet apartment upstairs. Now, no one woke up and noticed she was gone.

Nightly, she would haunt her chocolate shop, careful to keep the noise down as she worked, even though there was no one left to disturb.

While she chopped up cocoa beans, the cat crawled in through the crack in the window and rubbed itself against her calves. Stephanie smiled down at the black feline, and the sweetness of it stung. She poured ingredients into a pan and turned the stove on. A tiny tear ran down her cheek and fell onto her breast. Placing her palms on the tile, she leaned heavily against the counter. A low, fatigued moan escaped her chest and she looked down into the brewing pot.

Shining in the dark brown pool was a light reflection. Stephanie leaned close, furrowing her eyebrows at the glimmer. The reflection could have been a pattern of her hair shadows, or a weird light thing, but it looked exactly like him. The harder she stared, the more she was sure. He looked up at her, and just as he started to notice and realize that it was her, the chocolate started boiling and he disappeared, sucked under and drowned into the bubbles.

Knocking over a bottle of something and a can of coconut, Stephanie messed with the dials until the boiling subsided. The chocolate relaxed into a flat sheet, and he was nowhere in the shadows. She plunged her hands into the hot liquid and thrashed the pot off the stove. It clanged against the wall and fell to the floor. Screaming in rage, Stephanie slumped against the counter, collapsing down to the ground, and put her chocolate stained hands up to her face.

She stayed up crying and cleaning the shop all night. She knew that it was impossible. She hadn't seen him; she was overtired and upset and needed to refill her prescription. Light poured into the scoured and exfoliated kitchen. She opened the shop to let customers in. The reality of bright light and chattering tourists gently washed away her fevered hallucination.

Partway through the day a little boy about eleven years old entered wearing a red hockey jersey and a weird airplane pilot style hat. He ordered two cups of hot chocolate and politely sat at the counter.

Stephanie poured the two cups of hot cocoa into white ceramic mugs and there he was again, peering up at her from the brown chocolate, the reflection of her dead husband, smiling and waving straight at her in both mugs of cocoa.

"Whip cream please," said the boy.
"Wha-?" Stephanie said, turning around.
"Whip cream." The little boy looked over his shoulder at the door and smiled. Then he looked at his watch. Then he asked her what time it was. Then he looked at his watch again.

Stephanie hesitantly squirted a flower of whip cream onto one of the cups of brown liquid. But she couldn't force herself to do it twice, to cover Steve up and bury him again.

"Are you waiting for someone?" she said.
"Yep!" The little kid grinned.
"How about... I pour the second cup for your guest when they arrive so it's nice and hot for them?"
"Oh, um, okay. But they'll be here super soon so what if you're like too busy?"
Stephanie looked around at the near empty shop. "I'll be okay."
"I don't want her to wait."
"Oh. A her."
"Yep!"
"Listen, if I'm busy, grab me and I'll stop whatever I'm doing to pour a new cup, okay?"
"'Kay!"

The little boy turned back toward the door, propped his shoulders on the counter, and cupped his chin in his hands. He stared at the open doorway, waiting.

Stephanie leaned against the wall and clutched her mug of cocoa to her chest. She stared down at the beautiful reflection of her deceased husband. She could see the flop of his messy hair, his chiseled chin, his big happy smile. It was definitely him, not that it would have been anyone else. He waved gleefully up at her. She smiled and waved with one hand back down at him. For hours, she stayed like this, clutching the cup, ignoring cleaning and baking duties, selling items to customers without giving them her full attention or taking her hands off the mug.

All the while the little boy in the red jersey sat waiting and staring at the door. Tourists passed in and out of it but none a singular little girl.

When night came, the little boy wordlessly got up and left the shop. Stephanie closed up, without bothering to count the till or do anything administrative. She headed upstairs, cradling the mug of chocolate, singing to it Steve's favorite songs. She cooed and hummed and stroked the wight rim, sipping her dead husband into her lips and then kissing the cup.

After hours of pacing around her apartment murmuring into the mug, Stephanie set it down on the nightstand and grabbed her pajama pants. As soon as the bottom of the cup touched the wood, the reflection flickered and then disappeared. Stephanie leaped up and swirled the cup around, shone different lamps into it, gulped more of the cold chocolate down, but Steve didn't come back.

She knocked her cup to the floor and it shattered, spilling watery sludge into the carpet. Stephanie ran downstairs in her pajamas, barefoot. She threw open the door to her kitchen and scrambled to grasp her cooking supplies. She brewed cup after cup of cocoa, then stared deep into the brown puddle, devoid of life. She poured each cup out and frantically made more, letting out sharp throat screams as she worked.

Birds chirped outside her window and the darkness dulled to a grey. She heard the garbage trucks driving by and the thud of newspaper landing against her front door. Her eyes stung from lack of sleep. Exasperated she brewed one last cup and this time her happy reflection of a husband smirked at her as if to remind her that he'd never really go, that he'd never leave her alone here.

She opened up the shop and let customers come in, but stayed in her pajamas all day, and kept the mug close to her. The little boy came in again, this time in a black sweatshirt. He again claimed to be waiting for someone, and sat at the counter politely.

Stephanie nursed her mug the whole day, singing and humming quietly to her waving reflection of a husband. He was so cheerful, so sweet, happy and lovely in the warm milky chocolate.

At the end of the day, she closed up, letting the little boy out last. He walked off into the empty evening to nowhere at all.

Stephanie stayed up most of the night, sitting up in her bed and mumbling, whispering to Steve. Steve didn't say anything back but he laughed, which was still something from a dead guy. When she woke up, she couldn't remember falling asleep, but her lap was wet and brown from spilled cocoa.

Letting out a wail, she stormed downstairs and baked feverishly, without opening the shop all day. A few tourists peered in. The little boy knocked, and then sat outside, leaning against the shop on the sidewalk.

After an hour Stephanie let the little boy in. He sat at the counter and read a magazine while she worked.

No matter what she made, Steve wouldn't reappear. Stephanie sobbed and created chocolate delicacy after delicacy. Her trembling hands molded truffles. Her shaking arms kneaded dough. Finally, she found him again. He was in a puddle on the counter. She laughed and cried and kissed the chocolate sludge. He winked up at her and whispered something inaudible. Stephanie brought her hear close to the fudge, but she couldn't make it out.

The little boy got up to leave. Stephanie stayed awake all night talking to her chocolate husband.

The next morning she opened the shop and let in the customers. It was all tourists that day, no little boy. Her hands were shaking as she took their money. Her ears rang with sharp pain as they spoke. Everything was too bright, too much. Her heart beat faster. Her breath shortened. Her shoulders caved inwards in pain. Everything was so shrill and intense. She just wanted to be alone with him in the darkness.

"Stephanie," said a rich deep voice, smooth and soft midst the high pitched natter of tourists.
"Hmm?" She asked, turning to the chocolate puddle on the counter. It rippled with joy at her recognition.
"Can you hear me?" the soft, nurturing, gentle voice cooed.
"Yes, Steve."
"Kill them."
"What?" She moved her ear closer to the puddle.
"Kill them all."

Stephanie stood quietly in the shop. She was so still that the customers sometimes didn't notice her and just shoplifted in front of her. The tourists screeched loudly about riding on the duck shaped buses. It was so loud. Tears fell from her eyes. The room darkened as if a cloud passed over the shop.

The bell on the top of the door dinged as it swung open and a brunette girl about 12 years old walked in. She was wearing a pink t-shirt and jeans with her hair piled up in a messy bun. She looked around for a second, gently letting her fingers brush past boxes of candy. She approached the counter and leaned against it's glass case, careful not to touch the puddle of chocolate. She smiled at Stephanie, "I'm here to meet someone."

Stephanie closed her tear streaked eyes and giggled.

Goodbye

The dark sheet of liquid rippled beneath our swinging calves. Miles or feet below us there may have been fish, or perhaps just more mud, sludging about. My feet dangled off the edge of the wooden dock, free in the exhilarating juvenescence of barefootedness.

The trees ringed around us, reaching up impossibly high into the atmosphere. In the past, this attribute had given the pond a feeling of safety and enclosure, but now I was suffocated. The pond marked the center of a framed gladiator arena. Our feelings were the warriors and the crowed cheered for them to fight to the death in golden togas. I didn't even know if my feelings would look okay in a toga.

The breeze blew her thick brown hair into her eyes. She didn't bother to brush it away, and enviously I wished I had a hair mask to hide behind. My legs grew a field of goosebumps under my shorts, but I sat in the feeling of coldness, knowing that I had been so accustomed to the cold once that it had seemed like the normal tempertaure, and therefore someday soon I would be acclimated to a lack of warmth again. I welcomed that ignorance of not remembering what the sun felt like.

I reached a few inches across the dock and those inches felt like universes. I let my hand fall on top of her hand, encircling my fingers around her knuckles.

"My parents are almost ready," she said.
"I know."
"The moving truck is packed and shit."
"Yeah."

Neither of us said anything then and we both looked down into the brown and green pond behind her house. The pond was filled with childhood summers and swimming and barbecues and secret telling and slumber parties.  It smelled like a pool of youth that had been wrung from our bodies like a sponge. A bird sang a few random notes in the trees and then gave up, sinking into despondent silence.

"Look, listen," I started.
"No, don't," she said.
"I just... I can't tell you how much I've grown since you moved here. I can barely articulate how special it's been and how much you've helped me. It feels like we were just getting started. It's hard to explain."
"So don't. This isn't goodbye. We're gonna write letters. You're gonna come visit me."

I nodded. My throat tightened and I felt all of my muscles contracting forwards. I swallowed my feelings, but a tiny tear percolated in my eye ball. I hunched inwards. Seeing this, she reached out sympathetically to me. In doing so her balance tilted towards the pond beneath us. One of her legs dangled lower and her protruding toe skimmed the surface of the water.

A small purple tentacle penetrated the sheet of liquid and waved around, as if it had eyes and could see. The tentacle encircled her thin bare ankle, ensnared her leg, and gave a strong tug. She yelped loudly as she was yanked foot first off the dock. Her hands scrambled to gain hold, but the wood was too wet and slippery. I screamed in fear and surprise and grabbed her arm as she was pulled into the water. Her clothes billowed in the slimy algae as her limbs thrashed.

The sea monster poked it's head above water. It was a giant fish head with five bulbous yellow eyes. It stared at me and smiled a toothy grin and then the tentacles ensnared my friend and pulled her underwater. Still holding onto her arm, I was yanked headfirst from the dock and I belly-flopped painfully into the pond.

We were both pulled under the surface so quickly I didn't have time to close my eyes in the mud. The sea monster was swimming faster than a car, if a car had been going at a sort of moderately high speed. I wrapped my arms around my friend and held on tightly. Down we hurtled, far away from her old house, from her backyard, from the moving van out front, from her parents who were maybe looking for us, from adulthood, from responsibility, from hope and growth and emptiness and broken hearts of the future. We passed reefs and cliffs and fish and old ladies in rocking chairs.

After days or minutes of being pulled under we landed with a thud at the bottom of the pond. The sea monster cackled and led us to a little yellow house, just big enough for the two of us to stay. There was a stone walkway leading to the cheerful little sanctuary. Kelp and seaweed grew affluently in the garden. A little plaster gnome greeted us from the mud as we were led inside.

Inside there were bookshelves and a tiny table and piles of stuffed animals and crafting supplies. The sea monster clanged the door behind us, leaving us to explore it ourselves. I yelped and ran round the room excitedly. She rubbed her arms where the tentacles had squeezed her too tight. Perhaps my protective clutch hadn't helped the strangle hold. Her eyes darted around the room, moving quickly underneath a furrowed brow.

"Isn't it the most beautiful little house you've ever seen?" I exclaimed joyfully, throwing a teddy bear at her.
"No..." She let the teddy bear hit her in the chest and fall to the floor. I danced in what I was now going to call the dancing room.
"Isn't this wonderful?" I cooed. "Now you don't have to move. Or, well, we're both moving, but you don't have to go away!"
"I, um, don't know..."
"This house has everything we'll ever need," I said.
"No, it does not."
"Okay, maybe it doesn't. But you're missing the point."
"Hmm."
"You can stay with me forever!"

She tried the handle on the door and looked out the glass window. There were no stars or moon anymore, and hardly any sounds besides my singing and the occasional monster's laugh. Darkened caves ate up all the sound around our precious clearing at the bottom of the pond. Outside our home we could see sea monsters and mermaids playing checkers on a rock, but I think they were both cheating. Eternity rose up above us through the darkened lake, past fish and frog bones to the mottled surface.

Dedicated to Kristen Ginn

Waking Up

We woke up exactly simultaneously. That may have been a coincidence or a potential side effect of the transformation. If it is a side effect, I wonder how long it will last or if it will impact her waking up every night on the hour to defecate. Perhaps that would be my personality trait now? Now, I am the defecater who will awaken her? I wasn't quite sure how the transference worked.

The room was small, clean, and simple. The curtains were a mute green. The bed was twin sized and very highly elevated from the ground. Lots of machines and IVs and wires encircled the bed. I sat on a table across from it, near a television and a plant. No one paid any attention to me.

She woke up and sat up in bed with speed and vigor that body was unused to. She looked around abruptly. She looked down at her hands and arms and shrieked to herself. Running her fingers over her legs with awe, she rocked back and forth in the hospital bed, gasping as she struggled to understand what respiration is. She had it down when she was sleeping because of muscle memory, but now the shock undermined that.

"Sally," said one of the doctors. "Do you know where you are?"

She looked up quickly at the four adults standing at her bedside in dark blue scrubs and white lab coats. Two of them held clip boards. All of them wore expressions of concern and sympathy. She recoiled, pulling the bed sheet up around her. Her wide eyes stared unblinkingly and her mouth gaped open, glubbing soundlessly.

"You tried to kill yourself last night," said one of the doctors.
"God, Steve, don't be so blunt," said another. These were young doctors. The older one, the head doctor was silent.
"Well, it's true. It's a drastic horrible problem and it's not going to go away by pretending it's not there."
"But it's sensitive; we can't just spring it on her."
"We have to address the seriousness of the issue. This girl tried to end her life."

No she did not! I wanted to scream. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. Or at least no sound that they could hear. The pressure beat down on me and I felt claustrophobic. I was trapped in this tiny prison. I swam furiously around the bowl in frustration. This was ridiculous. I crossed my fins in an exasperated huff.

The older doctors sat at the foot of her bed. "Can you tell us what you were thinking... last night... when you...?"

First of all, it was me, obviously, that tried, I thought. I looked at the doctor and swam up and down emphatically. He didn't notice me, or he pretended not to, in a mistaken attempt to appear empathetic to the one in pain. The doctor's eyes were trained on the girl, watching her with gentle, worried love. Second of all, I wanted this stupid weird prank to stop.

The girl looked up at him with big, darting eyes. Her lips trembled. She knotted her fingers into the sheet and intertwined the fabric with that of her hospital gown. She let out a high pitched, squeaky stammer and then brought her hands to her larynx in surprise. She groped at the thyroid and her swollen neck with curiosity. Silently, she explored the body with wonder. I rolled my eyes.

"We tried calling your parents," said the doctor. "They seem to be unable to answer. Do you have someone else we can call?"

She said nothing and chewed on her hair, sucking hard at the ends. I wish I could say that was a habit she brought to the body and not one that the body is very used to.

Trying a new approach the doctor sighed and said, "Is this your pet goldfish?" He walked across the room, picked up my small glass bowl, and set it nearer to her bedside. She looked at me for the first time, which was pretty self centered considering that I had noticed her right away. She jumped out of the bed and pointed at me and she started screaming. The doctors tried to restrain her but she bounced up and down, pointing at me with a vehemently shaking outstretched arm.

Yeah, I know, I thought. I'm not too happy about it either, obviously.

I wasn't sure why the paramedics had brought me. I thought back to the previous night. I had been safe in my own body. I had never thought of myself as "safe" in that body before, until now. It had been a cage. I used to hate being in my skin. I used to wake up in the night with scratch marks over my arms and stomach where I had tried to claw my way out of myself in my sleep. I hated existing, hated the hard reality of my flesh. Now that I'm in this scaly, gill-breathing body, I actually miss the flabby human shell I used to abode.

Inside my old body, my real body, I had been lying in the bathtub. The fish was in the bowl in the bathroom, watching me. I wonder what she was thinking. I kept my eyes trained on the fish, staring hard, not looking at myself, as I let the knife slide into my inner forearm. I glared deeply into the fish's eyes as my fingers strove for escape, for freedom.

There hadn't been a flash of light or a musical number, just as simply as if it was always, I was in the fish's body and she was in mine. The fish looked down at her/my arm and began screaming. That had awakened the neighbors who had called 911. I think that actually, she was the one who tried to grab my bowl and insisted it come with her into the ambulance. It's hard to remember. My memory was fading already.

My body rocked back and forth with a fish inside of it.

The doctors were whispering something, while she shuddered. They called a psychiatric consult, who came down and sat on the bed to talk to the girl. He seemed kind, but hard to read.

Are you a scientist? I thought as hard as I could. Can you switch us back please? I won't do it again. I just want to be me. I won't try again. I promise I will follow the rules. I want to be in my body. Swap us back!

But it seemed unlikely that that would happen. Maybe if I got fish-Sally to try it, the same thing would happen. I began to feel slightly dizzy, so I slowed down my swimming, and began to float. I just needed a little rest. Of course I was tired out. Everything has been so stressful lately. I just need to relax. Fish-Sally's eyes flew to me. I remembered that the last time I had fed the fish was yesterday, before I tried. Fish need to be fed an annoyingly frequent amount of times. That was pretty selfish of me not to even think to arrange for someone to feed the fish if I had succeeded in my attempt. Fatigue and sickness overcame my body. The color drained from my gills. Fish-Sally frowned and scratched her head. She watched me intently with my old eyeballs.

It's okay. I thought to her. We're going to be okay. I'm going to be me again and you're going to be you and it will all be fine and normal again.

Slowly I rotated in the water and I was swimming upside down, a backstroke, with my stomach towards the surface. And slowly star coated darkness encircled reality, gradually closing in and narrowing my vision. I welcomed the relief of sleep.

dunno

The claim that he had felt more strongly for her than anyone else was meaningless now. The words were drained of life and power. The letters lay dead at her feet, shriveled and dehydrated like raisins. They reeked of decay and rot. She couldn't wrap her mind around his leaving. He couldn't explain why, mostly probably because he didn't want to hurt her. It didn't make sense to her and her mind was filled with dying phrases and words and now seemingly empty memories and lies of feelings.

A loud thump slammed her attention to the present. Someone had slammed a palm down hard on the outside of her cubicle to get her attention. The fluorescent lights made a soft buzzing sound that made her wonder if the government was trying to send them secret brain wave messages. Natasha sat at her desk typing the word "words" over and over again in an effort to appear busy whilst simultaneously mulling over, revising, and tuning her pathetic personal internal monologue.

"Ah-hem," her boss said.
"Gazuntite," Natasha responded.
"I wasn't sneezing."
I wasn't really blessing you with the power of god, thought Natasha.
"Sorry," said Natasha.
"Did you finish that filing project from yesterday?"
"You told me to work on the copying project. So I did that all day."
"Did you finish the filing project from yesterday or not?"
"I didn't have time."
"So you did not do your work. I just want you to answer the question."
"No. I was-" Natasha started to explain but her boss pursed her lips into a very tight grimace and walked away while Natasha was still speaking.

Sighing Natasha placed her elbows on her desk and rested her eyeballs in the heels of her palms. She pressed up hard into her eye sockets. A satisfying tingle spread behind her closed eyelids and through her forehead. She moaned softly. Whenever she closed her eyes, in the darkness she could see his lips smiling at her.

She half stood up and bumped her hip against her desk and sat back down.

"Sorry, excuse me," Natasha murmured softly. There was no one next to her or even within earshot. She often found herself apologizing quietly to no one at all, sometimes chairs or desks. Occasionally she would say sorry if she was in the same room as someone or if she made eye contact. Sometimes she would sadly apologize to an empty seat on the bus in which she sat too suddenly.

It was really an apology to the universe, to reality, an admission of deep guilt for existing, for possessing the audacity to take up space. On a deeper level it was an apology to herself, an attempt to express a sincere remorse and sorrow for something that she couldn't put her finger on nor name. It was an expression of regret for a crime that hadn't been committed, identified, or even conceived.

Natasha excused herself from her desk and slowly traipsed down the hallway. She stumbled haltingly and awkward, as if the giant troll controlling the marionette strings above her was a little drunk. She kept her head down and passed coworkers and strangers and went into the bathroom, locking herself in the stall.

The screaming had started again in her head, a piercing sound so loud that she worried others could hear it outside of her body. It was a high pitched yell, a wail that emoted all of the horrible crippling feelings of anxiety that were drowning her brain. She desperately needed to get it out of her. Natasha knelt in front of the toilet and tried to heave, attempted to vomit for a minute. Nothing came out because she hadn't eaten or drank all day.

She rocked back and forth on her heels and sat on the seat. She stared a foot in front of her at the closed stall door, peering out the tiny slits in the door to see the rest of the bathroom, quiet and dangerous. It was terrifying anywhere outside of this stall. The one inch thick door that didn't even reach to the floor or above her head when she stood up kept her safe.

The door to the bathroom opened and Natasha heard a rhythmic click clack of high heels, alerting her that something had entered her sanctuary. The entity, probably human, maybe person, likely woman, washed her hands and then left abrubtly.

Natasha started to cry. The boiling feeling of loathing and anxiety grew dark and violent inside of her. She choked on it in her mouth as it sealed over her esophagus, clogging her respiratory system. She desperately needed to get this feeling outside of her head before it suffocated her.

Natasha stood up and partially opened the stall door. The edge wasn't sharp but it was hard. She banged her head against it hard five times in a row. The hits were sharp and staccato. The pain was blinding and relieving. The sound rang loud and belligerently through the echoing bathroom. A sense of exhilaration washed over her. On the fifth bang, blood spilled in a trickle down her forehead. Blood poured down her nose, between her eyes, soaking her hair, catching in her lips, saturating her skin, and dripping down her neck.

The crack released something in her head. Her skull split open and two tiny green hands reached out of the crevice in her head. The small green arms propped themselves against either side of the walls of the bleeding gash. A seven inch tall monster climbed his way out.

Poking into the surface of existence, his head was large, bulbous with huge black eyes. The rest of his body was skinny. He was covered in some sort of goop, brain juice, blood and guts. He pulled himself up out of the blood and onto the top of her head. Dripping with her brain goo and ooze, the monster sat on  the crown her hair. He tried to mush the bleeding hole in her head back together but it wouldn't stick. He put his little green hand on his pointy chin and thoughtfully examined the wound. He shrugged and clambered down her neck to sit on her shoulder.

Natasha looked in the mirror, at the reflection of herself standing in her work business casual clothes, coated in her own blood. She was trembling with wide eyes and she tried to blend her bangs over her wound, but it was much too big for a hairstyle shift.

"You'll probably need like lots of stitches," said the monster. His voice was a low nightmareish growl. He placed a bit of her hair in his mouth and chewed on it with sharp white teeth.
"Oh, I don't know," Natasha replied.
"Well what are you going to do? It looks horrible," said the monster.
"What if I... I could put a jelly donut on it?"
"A jelly donut?" asked the monster.
"...Yeah..."
"That's a great idea!"

Natasha reached into her pocket and found a jelly donut. She placed its greasy sugary flabby pasty ass on her forehead with a heavy slap. She smiled and looked at herself in the mirror. The donut stayed put on her skull, sticking easily to her oily skin and bloody hair. She tilted her chin down and made pretty eyes at herself, batting her lashes. The monster gave her a jovial thumbs up.

The dive

The ripples danced beneath my feet as if invisible fairies were flying over the pond and landing on the surface for a tenth of a second, and taking flight again. My pale bare feet dangled above the water. The four dark hairs on my toes pointed up at me, wiry and thick. They were so long and black. I could have easily plucked them, but I let them grow out. What was the point of plucking them? It's not like I had a jar to keep them in.

The breeze rustled through the trees lining the pond, a gentle whispering technique that nature was attempting to deploy as a soothing ruse. It wouldn't work on me; I was much too strong of mind to fall for a trick like that. I looked over my shoulder along the wooden dock. A few splatters of bird shit stained the dark wood in a white spotting design, like a Roy Lichtenstein painting. Beyond the dock stretched my parents' gravelly backyard, full of discarded furniture and trash, used up remnants of life.

Their home loomed in the distance, the home I had grown up in, the home I had grown out of, the home I seemed to be visiting with increasing frequency as my adult life fell apart. I was coming back more and more to escape something. Visiting this small town I had lived in as a child, I took comfort not in fond memories, but in any memories at all.

The sun was disappearing behind the trees, sucking any sense of warmth out of the evening. Shivering, I knew it was time to go back. I looked at the house, waiting to be motivated to want to go in.

My hair whipped across my face and I stood up on the dock. The damp wood felt creaky and good beneath my feet. I wiggled my toes, digging myself into the dock, trying to become it. I wanted to be the rotting wood. I wanted to hover over the pond. I wanted to be a place to sit and pretend to be pensive. Teenagers would come sit on me if I was a dock and they would make out and touch each other and pretend to have deep meaningful conversations and to share their feelings and I would be under them, sitting patiently waiting for them to get it over with.

I stood at the end of the long dock with my back to my house. My posture was tall and straight. My feet dug into the dock; my toes curled over the edge. My armpits were moist. I attempted to keep my trembling to a minimum as I would need the use of my muscles and some level of agility from my limbs. My knees were loose, not bent but not locked either. I took a deep breath.

Raising my arms above my head I jumped into the air. Midair I bent my body, flipping my legs up behind me in a pointed human leg tail. My hands came together, clasped themselves automatically, and pointed down into the water. I let myself slide through the air, cutting through space and time like a pointy dagger. All sound washed away. I closed my eyes and now my entire senses were being controlled by the tactile center. I could feel everything. I could feel all the particles of moisture in the air seeping in through my shirt. I could feel the emptiness sliding away.

My pointed hands hit the freezing water and I slipped easily through, making very little splash. The water was too murky for me to open my eyes, but I didn't need to at this point. I swam down farther, kicking my toes. I was speeding away from the surface, away from my day job, away from my friends and family, away from the rent I didn't know if I could pay, away from the ex boyfriend who cut me out of his life, away from the desperation and loneliness and desire for connection, away from putting my foot in my mouth, away from everyone I loved who I ultimately hurt and broke and disappointed, away from the smell of cheese.

Thus submerged I felt safe, hidden, and free.

The pond went deeper than I thought. Without feeling tired, I swam for miles, down into caverns far below our adorable fishing pond. Soon enough I didn't need to breathe. I had escaped. Opening my eyes finally in the darkness, the water was much clearer down here, which seemed counter-intuitive. A few yards from me I could see a tiny house underwater. It was pink, the size of a child's playhouse or a shed. It was resting in a tree, that had somehow grown underwater. I swam towards it.

When I got there I opened the front door of the tree playhouse and let myself inside. No one was there, not that I really expected anyone to be, not that my expectations of how normalcy worked had any weight down here. The house was barely tall enough to fit someone of my unimpressive height and size, almost as though it had been custom built for me. The walls inside were a rich green, my favorite color. Breathing, for the first time underwater, I could smell coconut and freshness.

There was a small table set up in the center of the house. It was lined with a tea set and some plates of plastic fruit. A stack of comic books rested on the corner of the table. On the floor lay a few old barbies and action figures. In chairs sitting around the table were two porcelain dolls and a big teddy bear. The dolls had glass eyes that stared at me through  the water with piercing shining brightness. The teddy bear had black button eyes that seemed to watch me wherever I moved around the house.

There was an extra chair next to bear. An empty tea cup sat in front of it. A small lacey doiley curled up at me, like a dead dry leaf rotting on the sidewalk. I sat down next to the bear in the empty seat. I didn't help myself to tea, but rather just politely looked down at my hands in my lap, occasionally stealing glances at Bear and the dolls to make sure they were enjoying themselves. They were. They remained frozen in time forever, underwater at this tea party.