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  • Fiction: Elica Underwater

    Static has been buzzing chronically in Elica’s head lately. Whenever her sister, Carol, asks about her wedding in two months, Elica doesn’t know what to say, despite having dreamed of this since she was a little girl. Today she chooses to escape her responsibilities and go kayaking on a lake over an hour away from the house where her fiance, Lewis, expects her to cook, clean, bring him anything he needs, and so on. As she drives, she ruminates on the words they had thrown at each other last night, wondering who was right about what they owed to each other. 

    Elica lugs her kayak off the top of her car and over to the lake’s edge. Once on the water, the rhythm of her paddle eases her into a therapeutic trance. The sun’s warmth melts the tension in her neck and shoulders. As the blue expanse cradles her, she wishes she never had to leave. 

    Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of white seizes Elica’s attention. A large white fish with pink eyes floats just below the surface, staring intently at Elica. She leans towards it, entranced by this strange fish, much larger than any fish she had ever seen. For an intimate moment, Elica and the fish hold each other’s gaze. Then, the fish abruptly flips around and descends hurriedly into the depths of the lake. Like a leash attached to Elica’s heart, without thinking she dives after the fish, stretching her arms in front of her face to break the water. 

    The fish’s tail fin is a distant white flicker in the darkness. As Elica swims deeper into the cold water, her surroundings begin to change. Kitchen cabinets like the ones from her childhood home appear around her as a tunnel. Elica reaches out her fingers to brush against a smooth knob and realizes that she is no longer swimming, but falling. The white fish is nowhere in sight. 

    Suddenly, Elica lands on a plush stool at a table much like the black jack table where she had spent most of her time at her bachelorette party. Across from her in the dealer’s seat sits a huge octopus, eyeing her in the same way the dealer at the casino had when Elica was still glued to the table well into the early hours of the morning. Automatically, she slides a chip forward. The octopus deals out the cards. Elica receives a six of clubs and seven of diamonds. Adrenaline begins to tickle her nervous system. Instead of playing it safe, she pushes another chip forward and holds up her index finger to signal that she wants to double down. The octopus slides her the Queen of Hearts. 

    “You bust,” the octopus says in a deep voice. 

    A swarm of bubbles erupts from Elica’s mouth as she throws up her cards. The octopus stares at her indifferently. Elica feels a strange sense of deja vu, like she had thrown this tantrum before, likely at her own bachelorette party after enough alcohol blocked new memories from forming. A drink spontaneously appears on the table with “Drink Me” written neatly beneath the rim. Elica does not remember anything being written on the other half dozen vodka cranberries she had consumed that night. Still, she downs it in three gulps.

    Instead of being dragged out of the building by security like how her night had ended at her bachelorette party, Elica begins shrinking rapidly. She is now barely big enough to cover the button at the center of the stool. The octopus hovers over her and says, “It’s time for you to see her now.”

    “See who?” Elica demands, her voice high pitched and squeaky. 

    “The Queen,” the octopus answers.

    The white fish with pink eyes swoops out from behind the octopus and swiftly scoops Elica up in its mouth. The darkness is so brief that Elica barely has a moment to register her disorientation before she is tumbling into the light again. 

    Mahogany railings bordering the area indicate some kind of courtroom. There are no walls, only the murky bottom of the lake stretching out into darkness. A school of bass floats in the jury box. Behind Elica, the spectating area is half filled with an audience of fish and turtles. There are no tables for lawyers, only Elica standing at the center of it all, fighting feelings of intimidation from her towering surroundings. The white fish swims to the front of the room next to where the Queen sits upon a large throne with her red hair floating around her head like an aura. Her black robes are covered in bright red hearts. Her feline eyes measure Elica with slit-shaped pupils, the only part of her that does not appear human.

    “Where am I?” Elica asks.

    “Stop!” the Queen bellows. “You will speak when spoken to in this Court of Hearts.”

    Well that answers my question, Elica thinks.

    “You are accused of concealing your heart from your fiance. How do you plead?” the Queen announces. 

    “Not guilty!” Elica insists.

    The Queen’s smile is unnaturally wide and devoid of warmth.

    “Bring forth the prosecution,” the Queen declares.

    The white fish opens its mouth and releases a large bubble. Within the bubble there is a projection of black and white TV static for a moment before an image comes into focus. Elica recognizes it instantly. It’s her first date with Lewis in their college dining hall. She hadn’t been too impressed with him, but he was persistent. The scene fades to a montage of their first six months together, when Lewis had charmed her with chivalry and romance. After their first big fight, Lewis told her he loved her for the first time, erasing all of the tension from their disagreement. Elica watches her joyful younger self and feels an ache in her heart. The rest of their first year together had been bliss. The bubble flashes through their various adventures; meeting his family, theme park dates, camping under the stars. Elica wants to pause and relish the nostalgia. Instead, the montage plays on.

    In their second year of dating, Lewis began to more frequently snap and criticize Elica. Then he would apologize, blame it on the stress of school and things would be fine for a few days. Until he did it again. Soon it became normal for Lewis to exude negativity around Elica. Nothing she did could cheer him up, like he was committed to his bad mood. She couldn’t understand why a man who claimed to love her seemed so unhappy in her company. Elica blamed herself, especially when she watched him sharing warmth with everyone else the way he used to do with her. 

    Elica looks down.  

    “Pay attention!” the Queen snaps. 

    Elica looks up again, bracing herself for what she knows she’s about to watch.

    In the bubble, Elica confides in one of her close friends that she is considering breaking things off with Lewis. She was so sure it was the right thing to do. However, as if sensing he was about to lose her, Lewis proposed in the most romantic way, with rose petals and candles and wine. Tears glimmered in his eyes when he asked the question, and Elica was so overcome with emotion that she couldn’t imagine saying no. She convinced herself that she was wrong and everything would be different now. 

    Shortly after the engagement, Lewis bought a house. Not the one with the cute attic in the city that Elica had liked, rather he chose the cookie-cutter new-build in a suburb far away from anyone she knew. Once in that house, Elica felt more like an indentured servant than Lewis’s equal partner. He constantly reminded her that since his contribution was financial stability, her role was to maintain the home. Elica had always hated cleaning, but she didn’t know how to argue with Lewis’s logic. He never seemed to understand her point of view. 

    The final scene in the bubble is from their most recent interaction, last night when Lewis yelled at Elica for leaving dirty dishes in the sink. She claimed she was too tired after cooking and promised to finish the dishes in the morning. Lewis began the rant about her role as his future wife that Elica had heard a dozen times now. This time however, Elica didn’t let him finish telling her how she was supposed to cook and clean for him. When she cut him off saying that she wasn’t going to wash the damn dishes tonight, Lewis exploded. He called her ungrateful and lazy, then stormed upstairs and slammed the bedroom door. Elica slept on the couch. 

    The bubble pops, leaving Elica with a heavy knot in her stomach.

    “What do you have to say?” the Queen asks Elica.

    “This is ridiculous,” Elica says. “Why are you judging my relationship?”

    “I am not judging your relationship, I am judging you. The issue here is that you do not seem to fully accept being treated so low,” the Queen explains.

    “Well of course not! That’s crazy,” Elica counters.

    “Is it? Because you’ve accepted it for a long time. Now if you are to be betrothed to this man, you can’t go changing your mind about how you are to be treated.”

    “I’ve never accepted being treated low,” Elica insists in a squeaky voice.

    “Oh really?” the Queen’s eyes light up and her smile stretches to her ears. “It’s time for your final trial then.”

    The Queen stands up and begins to grow in size. The court room fades away, everything disappearing except for Elica and the Queen. Walls appear around them, with carpet and furniture filling the room. It’s all vaguely familiar to Elica, as everything falls into place she realizes she is in the living room of her mom’s house. The furniture is proportionate to the Queen, whose robes have transformed to jeans and a t-shirt. Elica is still small, barely reaching the Queen’s ankle, and she watches with horror as the Queen’s face morphs to that of her estranged mother. 

    Elica’s heart is beating fast. Carol, seven years old in this current situation, trudges into the room, looking anxiously down at Elica and then at their mother. 

    “Let’s play the messy game,” the Queen/her mom suggests in her mother’s shrill voice.

    Elica’s stomach drops. Her mother’s ‘games’ were always a form of punishment for a mistake too slight for young Elica to comprehend. She looks up as her gigantic mother starts knocking picture frames off the fireplace mantle. Elica dives out of the way, her small size putting her at risk for being smashed by the falling items, not at all different from how it had been in her childhood. Her mother makes her way to the bookcase and pulls out a whole row of books, cackling manically. She finds toys in a bin and tosses them on the floor, screaming “Clean up time!”

    Carol is crying, as she usually was, because she, like Elica, truly felt that she had done something to deserve this. As Elica continues to duck for cover, she looks up at her mother and notices the Queen’s cat eyes. She remembers what the Queen had said about accepting being treated low, and realizes that this is where it had all started. At twenty years old, Elica recognizes that the way her mother treated her when she was five was not a reflection of her own merit. She had always deserved better.

    As a glass vase shatters on the floor, Elica screams in her squeaky voice, “Stop! Enough!”

    Her mother stops and turns, glaring at Elica. 

    “What did you say?” she growls.

    “You need to stop, Mom,” Elica declares. As the words leave her mouth, she begins to grow bigger.

    “How dare you! You have no idea what it’s like to be your mother, now clean up this room this instant!” her mother howls.

    “We don’t have to clean up your mess,” Elica continues, her voice settling at her regular octave as she takes Carol’s small hand.

    Carol watches with awe. Elica stands eye to eye with her mother. 

    “This is not love and we are not playing your games anymore,” Elica asserts.

    Her mother’s face flashes the Queen’s too wide smile. From behind her, the white fish bursts out and barrels towards Elica. It hits her square in the chest and everything goes black.

    Lake water explodes out of Elica’s mouth. She coughs violently and gasps for air, curling onto her side.

    “There you go,” someone says. 

    Elica blinks in the daylight as she catches her breath. Three people are looking worriedly at her, one of them appears to be a park ranger, the other two seem to be fishermen.

    “What happened?” Elica croaks as she sits up.

    “Take it nice and slow,” the park rangers advises. “You were unconscious for a few minutes. You’re lucky you weren’t far from shore and these gentlemen saw you go under.”

    “You saved my life?” Elica asks, noticing that the fishermen are dripping wet. “Wow, thank you.”

    “No problem, kid. We’re glad you’re ok,” one of the fishermen says with a nod.

    “Is there anyone we can call? You need to visit a hospital right away,” the park ranger says. 

    Lewis is the first person to pop in Elica’s mind, followed by an immediate feeling of revulsion. 

    “I’ll call my sister,” Elica says.

    The next few hours are a blur. Elica rides in an ambulance to the hospital, where Carol meets her as soon as she can. 

    “Oh my god, Elica, are you ok?” Carol cries as she hugs her sister tight.

    “Yeah, I’m ok,” Elica sighs. 

    “Where is Lewis?” Carol asks.

    Elica shakes her head.

    “I think I’m done with Lewis,” Elica admits.

    Carol smiles with relief. 

    “How did you decide that?” Carol asks.

    Elica shrugs.

    “I realized I’ve been asleep for a long time, not fully living in my life,” Elica explains.

    Carol hugs Elica again and says, “Well I’m glad you woke up.”

    August 18, 2025
    alice in wonderland, creative writing, fantasy, Fiction, love, magical-realism, original writing, short story, women

  • Fiction: Bloom

    Orange flames danced atop thirteen candles, illuminating Mac and her mother against the dark, empty kitchen. Mac honored the ceremony’s expectations by pausing above her birthday cake to contemplate a wish. Across the table, her mother’s face glowed ghoulish in the shadows, a trick of the light hiding her stretched smile to favor the intensity burning in her eyes. The heat of the flames warmed Mac’s cheeks as she bent down to blow them out, releasing herself from her mother’s piercing gaze. For a moment after darkness engulfed the rest of the room, mother and daughter sat motionless in the abrupt nothingness. Then Mac’s mother hopped up to flick on the kitchen light, tutting her tongue as she did. 

    “Did you talk to your dad today, Mackenzie?” Mac’s mother asked as she became very interested in cutting a piece of cake. 

    “Yeah,” Mac answered. She didn’t even like cake that much, she preferred pie.

    “Do you want to open your present?” her mother chirped, handing Mac a neatly wrapped box with a curly ribbon.

    With the elegance of a hurricane, Mac tore off the wrapping paper and smothered the urge to smirk when her mother’s jaw muscle tensed. Beneath the wrapping paper was a department store white box. It wasn’t going to be what Mac wanted. In the moment of hesitation, her mother lifted the lid to reveal a pink cardigan.

    “It’s cashmere,” her mother said, smiling wide. She took Mac’s fingers and brushed them over the soft material. “Very expensive!”

    Mac forced a smile. She wanted to ask why her mother didn’t spend the money on the naturalist encyclopedia Mac had asked for, the only thing she had asked for. She didn’t ask for a cake, or a pink sweater, or to be alone with her mother on her birthday. 

    “Thanks Mom,” Mac said. Her throat felt tight. 

    Her mother nodded and busied herself with putting away the cake. Mac excused herself and took the sweater up to her room. She hated pink. How did her mom not know that?

    Before her mother could notice, Mac slipped out the front door. Fresh air calmed her nerves, as it always did when she was suffocating. Open blue sky poured a warm breeze over her head as her feet moved down the sidewalk. With each step, the heavy fog clouding her mind cleared. In the house, it was impossible to feel anything. Her mother expanded into every space like water pulling its way through threads of a cloth. 

    Mac needed to think about her dad now, not her mom, because the only time she ever heard from him was on her birthday. During this yearly call he always asked what she was into these days, how she was doing in school, and what books she was reading. He never said where he was or what he was doing. Some years he asked about her mother, and some years he didn’t. This year he didn’t.

    July’s end stretched each sun drenched day longer by a couple precious minutes. Mac hadn’t done anything all summer except get out of her house and circle her neighborhood like a planet avoiding a black hole. Nearby was the trailhead for the last of the city’s protected open space, four square miles of wild, sacred canyon. Mac felt safe there, because her mother was thoroughly repulsed by nature. Amongst the trees was the only place Mac felt anything like herself.

    With the trail head’s sagging wooden gate in view, Mac’s worries drifted away like seed pods of an expired dandelion. At the end of the street, a moving truck blocked the sidewalk. From the open cargo body, a girl with a mane of curly brown hair hopped out carrying a large box. When her feet touched the ground, she lost her balance and fell back against the steel step, dropping the box. Mac rushed down the block to her.

    “Are you ok?” Mac called as she approached.

    The girl smiled crookedly like she wasn’t ok but thought it was funny. Up close, she looked the same age as Mac. Her cinnamon face was dotted with dark brown freckles. 

    “Let me help you,” Mac offered, dropping to her knees to pick up the spilled contents of the box. 

    “Oh no, it’s ok,” the girl insisted, fluttering her hands to her fallen possessions.

    Scattered down the driveway were field notebooks, laminated pressed flowers and feathers, and several small plastic boxes of animal bones. Mac picked up a laminated pressed flower with long yellow petals and a thick black center labeled  “Black Eyed Susan”. 

    “This is really cool,” Mac commented. 

    “Thank you,” the girl said as she threw everything into the box.

    “I’m Mac. Are you moving in here?” 

    “Yeah, me and my dad moved from West Virginia. My name is Caroline.”

    “Are you by chance a naturalist?” 

    “I sure am! I’m excited to explore the landscapes of the West Coast.”

    “What about this landscape?” Mac asked, pointing at the canyon.

    “I’m very excited to explore there,” Caroline agreed. “What a serendipitous coincidence to move in right next to it.”

    Caroline gazed dreamily at the canyon. Mac stared at Caroline in wonder.

    “How about I help you move in the rest of your stuff and after I can show you around?” Mac offered.

    “You don’t have to help me,” Caroline protested but Mac was already inside the truck.

    Without a word, Mac carried in two boxes labeled “Caroline”. At the front door, she realized she was alone and waited until Caroline caught up. Caroline opened the door and led the way, dragging a yellow suitcase behind her.

    “This is going to be my room,” Caroline said. 

    The room was small with a large window facing a grove of cottonwood trees. The sun was just high enough to scatter soft shadows of heart shaped leaves around the room like a disco ball. In the corner, a bare twin size mattress sat on the floor.

    “How much more stuff do you need to carry in?” Mac asked as she set the boxes down gently beside the others.

    “This is it,” Caroline answered. Their voices echoed around the empty room like loose spirits.

    They sat down on the mattress, facing the dancing shadows. 

    “Do you need help unpacking?” Mac offered.

    “I’ll just put my clothes in the closet tonight. Everything else stays in boxes,” Caroline said.

    “Do you move a lot?” Mac asked.

    Caroline shrugged, “I’m always ready to go.”

    Outside, the two girls walked side by side down the dusty path. The Central California sun beat down intensely for the first hundred feet of dirt and dead grass, only to then sweeten the trees’ shady relief. Mac explained the different types of trees, all of which she knew in the first part of the trail. Deeper in the canyon, she had marked which trees she was unsure of so that she could come back later to identify them when she had the right encyclopedia. At this point in the day, though, Mac had forgotten all about the encyclopedia. 

    After about a quarter mile, Mac veered off on a bunny path, so faint one could easily miss it. The two girls trotted along until they reached a thicket of manzanita bushes with long green leaves and little white flowers.

    Mac got down on her hands and knees to crawl under the bushes. Caroline followed Mac’s example, her big brown hair collecting small twigs and leaves as she did. Fifteen feet later, the thicket opened into a small clearing of soft green grass intersected by a fallen oak tree. Colorful wildflowers accompanied the grass, and Mac was careful to step around them as she made her way to the tree. Caroline followed her exact footsteps. 

    “This is a California scrub oak,” Mac said, taking a seat on the tree. Caroline did the same.

    “You come here a lot?” Caroline asked.

    “Almost every day. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of the house.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “When my mom has nothing else to do she focuses on me, and then I can’t get away,” Mac explained, shifting her weight back and forth over the tree trunk. 

    “My dad can get that way,” Caroline said. “Ever since my mom died he gets so angry and I don’t know what to do.”

    Mac watched Caroline closely, waiting for her to say more but she didn’t. 

    “Oh look!” Caroline said suddenly, leaping off the tree and into the grass. Mac joined her in squatting over a small black caterpillar sitting on a white flower.

    “I love caterpillars! I just love them,” Caroline said, her voice lifting to an almost song-like chime, like she was about to burst out laughing. “Do you think they know what they are going to become?”

    Mac paused and considered the question carefully. The caterpillar inched across the flower petals until it reached the bright green leaf. 

    “I don’t think they notice what they are and aren’t. I think they just exist,” Mac answered.

    “But where do the wings come from? Does this guy have wings inside him right now?” Caroline pressed, leaning in closer over the flower. 

    “Of course he does,” Mac said, surprising herself with her confidence. She didn’t realize she had any thoughts on caterpillars at all until that moment. Suddenly she wanted to be able to say everything in the world about caterpillars and butterflies just to satisfy Caroline’s curiosity. 

    Caroline didn’t ask any more questions because the caterpillar had started eating the leaf in tiny bites. 

    “Chomp,” Caroline whispered when the caterpillar took a bite.

    “Chomp,” Mac whispered after the caterpillar’s next bite. 

    Caroline looked up at Mac and smiled like they had a secret. A rush of orange warmth flooded Mac’s shoulders and neck, spreading to her face, her cheeks, her eyes. All at once, her heart burst in bloom, like for the first time in her life, she was seen exactly as the person she wanted to be. 

    Some time after the caterpillar finished his meal, Mac and Caroline agreed to head home. They said goodbye at Caroline’s front door, and Caroline asked Mac to come by again tomorrow. Mac said she would. As Mac walked back to her house, she remembered it was her birthday. The realization dropped like a stone in her stomach, but she was grateful for the hours of relief she’d had. Only a few hours left until it was just another day. 

    In the kitchen, Mac’s mother was furiously cooking lasagna. Flour and tomato paste were splattered every surface. Mac cautiously stepped onto the tile floor and greeted her mother. 

    Without turning around, her mother said in an agitated tone, “Would be nice if you helped with dinner instead of leaving it all for me. I’m not your maid.”

    “I didn’t ask for lasagna, Mom,” Mac whispered.

    “Well what would you have then?” her mother erupted, turning around to face Mac and slapping a floured handprint on the counter. “Do you even want dinner? Or would you rather eat nothing? It makes no difference to me!”

    “No, lasagna is good,” Mac said barely above a whisper.

    “Great. It will be ready in two hours. Hope you don’t mind waiting. Or going to bed hungry. Those are your options.”

    Mac looked down at her Converse, dusty from the canyon.

    “Thank you,” she murmured. 

    Her mother scoffed and turned back to the lasagna pan, muttering under her breath. Mac sat down, unsure if it would make things worse for her to stay or leave. Her mother complained irritably as she cooked. Mac sat at the table and took all of it. After her mother put the lasagna in the oven, she glared at Mac for half a moment before untying her apron and tossing it on the counter.

    “Would be nice if you cleaned,” she called over her shoulder. 

    Mac went to the sink and started washing the dishes, her tears splashing in the dishwater.

    By the time the lasagna was ready, everything was fine again. Mac’s mother put a lit birthday candle in the melted cheese and had Mac blow it out before they ate. Afterwards they watched a movie and didn’t talk. Her mother went to bed when the movie was over and Mac cleaned the remaining dishes.

    The next day, immediately after breakfast, Mac hurried to Caroline’s house. She didn’t realize she was out of breath until her chest started squeezing. Caroline was waiting out front when Mac arrived, beaming like the newly risen sun. They ventured into the canyon with Caroline leading the way.

    In the secret clearing, Mac and Caroline laid on their backs and watched the clouds pass by overhead. Caroline named each one by it’s scientific name, and Mac pointed out when a cloud had a familiar shape. When they’d had their fill of the sky, they rolled over on their stomachs and peered through the lanky grass to spy on the universe of bugs below. They watched a line of ants carry small pieces of food in a single file line. 

    “What are the names of these ants?” Mac asked, meaning the scientific name.

    “Well that one is Erica,” Caroline answered. “And that one is Bruce. Those two are clearly in love.”

    Caroline pointed at two ants huddled together off from the line. 

    “How can you tell?” Mac asked, already forgetting her initial question to indulge in the universe inside Caroline’s mind.

    “Look how they’re away from everything, nothing else matters to them,” Caroline said. 

    Mac and Caroline spent the whole day in the clearing, talking and joking followed by long spells of easy silence. Neither girl noticed the sun pass through the sky or the long shadows stretch across the ground. It wasn’t until it was too dark for Mac to see Caroline’s expression that she realized the day had passed. 

    “It’s night!” Mac pointed out, to which Caroline gasped.

    “Oh no! I thought only a few hours had passed.”

    “How did we not even notice?”

    “My dad is going to kill me.”

    “My mom is going to kill me.” 

    Mac and Caroline crawled to the edge of the clearing as their eyes adjusted to the dimming world. At the edge of the manzanita bush, a loud squeak shocked them.

    “What was that?” Mac yelled.

    “I don’t know!” Caroline faltered. 

    The manzanita bush cried out again, a trill of quick barks followed by a shrill yelp. 

    “That’s a fox,” Caroline whispered. 

    Another bark, softer than the first, rang out.

    “It’s a fox, I’m sure of it,” Caroline said. “It sounds young. Maybe it’s lost.”

    Caroline crept toward the noise slowly on her hands and knees. Mac watched in astonishment for a moment before following. Their eyes adjusted enough to make out a small something hiding beneath the bush. There, blinking like stars in the darkness, were two round black eyes. 

    “I’m going to pick it up,” Caroline whispered. 

    “No, don’t!” Mac hissed. “It could bite you! What if it has a disease?”

    “It could be hurt!” Caroline insisted, her voice heavy like a bowl filled to the brim.  

    Cautiously, Caroline reached into the darkness. Mac held her breath. There was a soft growl. Mac tensed, but Caroline remained calm. As the moon rose in the east, Mac watched Caroline pick up a baby fox. Caroline sucked in air through her teeth slowly. 

    “It’s so small,” Caroline whispered, her voice cracking.

    “What can we do?”

    “It doesn’t seem to be bleeding, from what I can see, but I won’t be able to examine it properly until the morning.”

    “We should leave him here. He’ll be safe.”

    “I think you’re right.”

    Mac made a bed of leaves and grass, and Carolie carefully lowered the kit. The fox’s eyes stared up at them, no longer yelping or whimpering. Caroline hesitated when Mac started to walk away, so Mac took Caroline’s hand and led her through the thicket.

    The girls walked down the moonlit trail in silence. There was nothing to say, really. Neither knew how their parents were about to react when they walked through their doors, or if the kit was going to make it through the night. Only the morning could tell. 

    In front of Caroline’s house, they hugged and said goodbye, but Mac waited until Caroline was inside. She heard Caroline’s dad’s voice before the door even closed, and used every last ounce of her strength to walk back to her own home. 

    Mac’s mother was watching TV in the dark, sitting on the floor in front of the couch with her knees at her chest. She didn’t look over. 

    Mac waited a beat before walking past her to the kitchen. Her mother was silent as Mac reheated the dinner plate that was left in the fridge. Mac sat down at the kitchen table and ate her dinner with only the blue light of the TV to see with and the laugh track to numb her thoughts. 

    Her mother didn’t turn her head when she said, “Where were you?”

    “I was with a friend,” Mac answered.

    “What friend? You don’t have any friends.”

    “It’s a new friend.”

    “Don’t stay out past dark again.”

    “Yes Mom,” Mac said quietly. 

    *

      In the morning, Mac found Caroline waiting at the trailhead with a backpack. She started bouncing on her toes when she saw Mac. Mac quickened her step.

    “I found some medical supplies around the house,” Caroline said when the bunny trail ended at the edge of the bushes. “I looked up what baby foxes eat. Mostly nuts and fruits, but we’re going to have to find some raw meat too.”

    “Any kind of meat will probably be fine. The most important thing is to keep it hydrated,” Mac added. She had done some research too.

    They were stalling. Both feared the fox would not be as they left it. After a moment, Caroline crawled into the clearing. A delighted sigh alerted Mac it was still there.

    In the light they could clearly see the kit’s little ears and pointed face. It’s fur was light gray with brushes of orange along her neck and underbelly. The black tipped tail flicked attentively.

    “It’s a girl,” Caroline commented, lowering herself to her knees. Mac did the same.

    Caroline stayed crouched at the edge of the clearing. The kit’s ankle was swollen to the size of a clementine, its paw limply twisted back. 

    “I need to get closer,” Caroline whispered. Mac knew better than to argue, instead she looked for a stick in case she needed to pry the fox’s jaws off from around Caroline’s throat. 

    The kit made a low growling sound as Caroline approached, but the tail stayed flicking curiously. Caroline moved slowly and stopped two feet away. Mac’s fingers wrapped around a sharp branch. Caroline and the fox stared into each other’s eyes. After several minutes, the kit lowered it’s head to the ground and looked up at Caroline. As if in a trance, Caroline reached her hand out and delicately placed her fingers on it’s head. The kit beat it’s tail on the ground rhythmically as Caroline carefully added pressure and then began to stroke the kit’s head. The kit closed its eyes, tail still thumping. Caroline slowly pulled her hand back and looked at Mac. 

    “Come here,” she whispered.

    Mac approached slowly. The kit’s eyes darted from Caroline to Mac. Mac sat perfectly still. Caroline petted the kit’s head again, this time with more confidence. The kit wagged her tail. After a few minutes, Mac untucked her hand from under her arm and reached towards the kit. Caroline retracted her hand. The kit growled lightly. Mac pulled her hand away. Caroline replaced her hand on the kit’s head. They stayed like that, with Caroline petting the fox and Mac sitting like a statue until Mac’s feet began to fall asleep. 

    “Everything else looks fine, I think only it’s leg is hurt,” Caroline observed, moving like honey as she retrieved a water bottle and metal bowl from her backpack. 

    Caroline poured the water into the bowl and held it below the kit’s nose. The kit sniffed the water and extended her pink tongue to take long laps. The white fur around the kit’s mouth stuck together in tiny mountains as water dripped from her chin.

    “What’s her name?” Mac asked.

    Caroline’s golden gaze lifted from the kit to Mac. For a moment, Mac forgot how to breathe. Every muscle in her body relaxed. She forgot where she was. 

    “She’s our baby,” Caroline said. “What do you want to name her?”

    “I think you’re a better parent than me. I’m not doing anything. I can’t even touch her.”

    “You’re here. That’s enough.”

    Mac nodded and looked at the kit, who was looking up at Caroline like a flower to the sun.  

    “Black Eyed Susan!” Mac exclaimed. 

    “Yes!” Caroline agreed. “Black Eyed Susan is the perfect name. She looks just like one!”

    Black Eyed Susan yipped playfully at Caroline. Caroline smiled at Black Eyed Susan and Mac felt something heavy in her chest. 

     Caroline produced a handful of strawberries, roasted turkey and a few slices of cheddar cheese. Black Eyed Susan sniffed the items carefully as Caroline set them on the ground in a line. After a few minutes, the fox nibbled on the turkey, eventually devouring all of the food. 

    “That’s all I have for you,” Caroline said to the fox. “I have to examine your foot now.”

    As lightly as a bee landing on a bud, Caroline brought her hand to the bottom of Black Eyed Susan’s foot. The fox was unmoved. Caroline brought her hand closer to the ankle. Black Eyed Susan whimpered. Caroline lightly touched the swollen ankle. The fox screamed. 

    Caroline jerked away, tears filling her eyes instantly. 

    “We have to take her to the vet,” Mac said, standing up. 

    “No! She can’t leave. This is her home,” Caroline insisted.

    Mac sat down. 

    “Caroline,” Mac said. “We don’t know how to fix this.”

    “We have to try!” Tears poured down Caroline’s soft cheeks. “If we take her away, she will never find her mom. If we stay, her mom might come back. Moms know what to do.”

    Mac’s chest squeezed watching Caroline cry.

    “Ok, ok,” Mac agreed. “We’ll take care of her until her mom gets back.”

    With the sun directly overhead, they packed up their belongings and hurried back to their homes to scavenge for more fox food. Mac started running after she dropped Caroline off at her house. Her mother wasn’t home, so Mac was able to ravage the cool tile kitchen of its provisions. She met Caroline back at the trailhead exactly fifteen minutes later. In the clearing, they presented Black Eyed Susan with a feast of meats and berries. Even when they tried to give her the same thing at the same time, Black Eyed Susan only ate what Caroline offered. 

    When Black Eyed Susan finished eating, Mac and Caroline sat against the fallen tree and admired little details on the kit; her pink ears, her tiny paws, the black spot on her cheek, how her fur faded from orange to gray.

    All day every day for the next week was spent in the clearing with Black Eyed Susan. In the morning Caroline pressed bags of ice to the swollen ankle until the ice melted to water. The kit still only accepted food from Caroline, but tolerated Mac’s presence more each day. Under the passing clouds, Mac and Caroline talked about bugs and birds, planets and stars, thunder and rain. Their conversations flowed like thread on a loom. Thirty minutes before sundown each day, Mac and Caroline made sure to leave Black Eyed Susan with a bowl of water before reluctantly returning to their respective houses. At night, Mac’s mind was unable to stop spinning. Her subconscious was heavy with lavender hued dreams of Caroline. In the mornings, Caroline’s puffy eyes mirrored Mac’s, but they always smiled at each other like what they were doing was far more important than sleep. 

    At the end of the week, Caroline and Mac entered the clearing to find Black Eyed Susan propped up on her front legs, wagging her tail triumphantly. Delighted, the girls praised her like a toddler taking its first steps. The kit sang with excitement, her tail whipping faster as she barked. 

    Caroline noted that Black Eyed Susan’s ankle was almost back to normal. The three of them nibbled on bacon and blueberries, savoring the salty and sweet flavors mixing with the scent of dew as the rising sun warmed their oasis. For a hours the only sound was the symphony of wind strumming tall grass like a harp. Black Eyed Susan lay her head down and closed her velvet eyelids. 

    Like wading into water, Caroline asked softly, “Where’s your dad?”

    Mac knew the question would surface eventually. It was simple enough. Still, she hesitated and focused on the dirt on her shoe. Caroline looked at her hands in her lap. Black Eyed Susan whimpered from a dream.

    “Oregon, I think,” Mac answered. “I’m not sure. He didn’t say where he was going when he left.”

    “Why did he leave?”

    Mac scrunched her face at the sky. 

    “My parents used to fight a lot. I used to run downstairs and try to stop them. It worked a few times when I was little, but eventually it didn’t.”

    Mac paused. She had never told anyone more than that, but sitting beside Caroline and Black Eyed Susan with the sunshine and breeze, crickets humming distantly, she felt the truth rise up her throat.

    “They got into a huge fight one night when I was seven. In the middle of it he left and never came back. Didn’t even take his clothes or anything. Just got in the car and drove away. We didn’t hear from him until he sent me a postcard from Oregon. 

    “We used to have this great labrador, Muir. My dad would take me and the dog to the mountains sometimes. We could go deep in the forest and never get lost because Muir would always know where to go. For weeks after my dad left, Muir wandered around the house, going room to room, looking for him. My mom barely acknowledged that he was gone. I wouldn’t have known what to think if it wasn’t for Muir. He was as lost as I was.”

    Silence pooled in the clearing, opening space to hold all that was released.

    After a few minutes, Caroline said, “Before my mom got sick, my dad was a lot different. I remember him being so happy, always doing something. Pancakes on weekends, family adventures, painting my room a different color whenever I wanted. I don’t think he knew how to stop when my mom died. He moved us to a new city the day after her funeral. We keep moving, for different reasons every time. I thought he was running away, but maybe he’s searching for something.”

    “It’s weird how when one is gone, the other changes so much,” Mac commented.

    “That’s the other side of love, the ugly side,” Caroline said.  

    Black Eyed Susan whimpered from her sleep, twitching her front paws. The girls sat in silence, thinking about how love can hold a person down like gravity, and without it a person becomes endlessly unsettled, wandering forever, never quite satisfied with what they find. Mac and Caroline knew they were young enough to grow despite their loss, but for their left-behind parents, it was like losing a limb. Catastrophic. They had to learn to live around the tragedy. There was less space for their daughters there, wherever it was that heartbroken people drift off to. 

    “Do you ever feel sorry for her?” Caroline asked, surfacing from the silence.

    “Sometimes, but mostly I feel mad,” Mac realized.

    “Why?”

    “Because…” Mac faltered. Why am I mad? She lost him too. “Because I don’t know what she cares about. I don’t know what she feels, or what she thinks. I don’t even know if she misses him at all. It makes me feel like I’m going insane, like I imagined ever having a dad.”

    Her words fled into the world, leaving Mac gutted and clean. She looked down and saw her fingers intertwined around Caroline’s over Black Eyed Susan’s soft sleeping body. She had no idea when this started or who had initiated it, but she was both elated to be holding Caroline’s hand and terrified that Black Eyed Susan would wake up and bite her. Adrenaline and serotonin coursed through Mac’s nervous system, so she took deep breaths and focused on the white butterfly that had landed amongst the purple daisies. When Black Eyed Susan started to stir, Mac jerked her hand. Caroline laughed and it was magic. 

    *

    The next day, Caroline was not waiting in front of her house. It was almost six am, twenty minutes after sunrise. Mac had never arrived earlier than Caroline, but unsure what else to do, she made her way to the clearing. 

    Black Eyed Susan was dreaming vividly when Mac arrived covered in dew from the bushes. Mac watched Black Eyed Susan kick and growl in her sleep. The wildflowers’ eyes blinked open a greeting to the sun. Flies rose from the grass and hovered in place. Mac carefully adjusted the rock Black Eyed Susan’s foot was resting on. As the sun traveled behind the oak trees, a whirlpool boiled in Mac’s stomach. Black Eyed Susan was awake and whining. Mac only had one bottle of water. She poured some into the bowl, but Black Eyed Susan wouldn’t drink it. 

    By the time the sun passed the trees on the west side, Mac was paralyzed by anxiety. She was frozen beside Black Eyed Susan as the kit released endless high pitched complaints. Mac’s gaze was fixed on the flower patch, petals bright and wide like they were screaming at the sky. Sweat dripped from Mac’s temple. After the sun went down, Mac and Black Eyed Susan started crying. 

    As night brought it’s chill, Mac tried to scoot closer to Black Eyed Susan, but the fox growled. Faint stars twinkled distantly. A yellow moon rose like a lantern from the tall grass. The flowers closed in surrender. Mac’s stomach ached, and she could almost feel Black Eyed Susan’s aching too. She knew Caroline knew they needed her. The crickets screeched in rhythm with the wind. Mac didn’t sleep, and every time she looked over, she saw the white moon reflected like a teardrop in Black Eyed Susan’s black eyes. 

    Suddenly, a sound pierced through the crickets’ symphony, and at first, Mac thought it was a siren. Instinctively, she called back in a long wail. The sound got louder, and Mac returned it as loud as she could. Black Eyed Susan started howling. The earth vibrated beneath her feet. Manzanita bushes split apart in one violent crashing wave, and there, covered in dirt and twigs, was Mac’s mother. 

    For a moment, Mac was stunned to silence as she stared at her mother dripping sweat in her dress pants and blouse. In the full moon light, her mother collapsed to the ground with an exhausted sigh. Mac got up and hugged her. 

    “Is this where you’ve been all this time?” her mother asked. 

    “Yes.”

    “Why didn’t you come home?”

    “Because I don’t know where Caroline is.”

    “Who is Caroline?”

    “My friend.”

    “Your friend? It’s a girl?”

    “Yes. She feeds Black Eyed Susan every day but she didn’t show up today.”

    “What’s Black Eyed Susan?”

    Mac pointed to Black Eyed Susan.

    “She has a twisted ankle, we’re taking care of her until she gets better.”

    “That’s not very safe, Mackenzie.”

    “I know.”

    “What happened to Caroline?”

    “I don’t know.”

    “Do you know where she lives?”

    With much reluctance, Mac left Black Eyed Susan and led her mother to Caroline’s house. 

    Every window was bright. Mac couldn’t hear anything. She saw the light from Caroline’s bedroom shining on the oak trees. 

    “You should knock on the door,” Mac’s mother urged.

    “And say what?” 

    “Ask where Caroline is!”

    Mac’s chest squeezed. The front door and the lights in the house were getting closer. Mac felt her mother following right behind her. Mac knocked on the front door. Everything was buzzing. The light was yellow and she was too. 

    Caroline’s father was huge. The top of his head and the sides of his body all ended beyond the doorway. His eyes were empty and Mac understood why Caroline didn’t show up that day. 

    “I know who you are,” he said in a voice so low Mac could barely hear it over the blood pounding in her ears.

    “Where is Caroline?” Mac asked.  

    “My daughter is not going to hang out with some dyke,” he spat.

    Mac’s mother gasped deep like a trombone and in one swift movement stepped in front of her daughter.

    “How dare you say that to my child!” Mac’s mother roared.

    “She’s taking Caroline away from me and I won’t have it!” Caroline’s father thundered. “These delusions are only hurting them!”

    Mac felt small and scared, but then she thought about Caroline and Black Eyed Susan, so she ran between the bellowing giants and screamed with tears in her eyes, “You have to let her go because she’s the only one who can feed Black Eyed Susan!” 

    “What?” Caroline’s dad yelled, caught off guard. 

    “Please! I promise I won’t keep her away from you! Just let her feed Black Eyed Susan,” Mac begged. 

    “What is she talking about?” Caroline’s father asked Mac’s mother.

    “The fox you moron!” Mac’s mother said.

    “You two are insane,” Caroline’s father said. “Get off my property. I don’t want to ever see you again.”

    Both Mac and her mother erupted into protest, but everyone was silenced at once by the sound of breaking glass from the side of the house. Mac knew what they would find before they got there. Caroline had thrown her boxes of artifacts through her window and by the time her father, Mac and Mac’s mother ran over, Caroline had disappeared into the canyon. The yellow light of her bedroom stretched deep into the trees. 

    “Where did she go?” Caroline’s father demanded.

    Mac and her mother were silent. They looked into each other’s eyes, locked in a mutual understanding. 

    “Tell me now! That’s my daughter!” Caroline’s father ordered.

    “She’s fine!” Mac insisted.

    “What kind of mother are you?” Caroline’s father demanded.

    Mac’s mother scoffed. 

    The three of them stared at each other for a moment, dumbfounded.

    “She’s this way,” Mac’s mother admitted.

    “Mom!” Mac protested.

    “Thank you,” Caroline’s father said, calming down now. 

    In the clearing, Caroline was cradling Black Eyed Susan and feeding her strips of meat. She looked calmly at them as they arrived.

    “I had to feed her,” Caroline started. “I tried to tell you.”

    “Caroline,” her dad said.

    “I can save this one, Dad. I really can.”

    “You need to let go,” her dad said softly.

    Caroline shook her head. 

    “She’s getting better. She’s going to be all better soon if I help her.”

    “It’s time to go home now, Caroline,” her dad said.

    Caroline placed Black Eyed Susan back on the patch of grass and stood up to follow her Dad home. She looked at Mac only once, when she was putting Black Eyed Susan down. The rest of the time she looked at the ground. 

    *

    The next morning, Caroline was waiting for Mac on the curb just after sunrise.

    “Are you ok?” Mac asked. 

    Caroline nodded and looked straight ahead as they walked to the clearing. 

    “Are you ok?” she asked.

    “Yeah,” Mac said. 

    After they went home last night, Mac and her mother watched a movie. They talked through the whole thing, mostly about the movie itself, but sometimes her mother asked her a question about the fox, like how it got injured, was it getting better, is this why you’ve been so distant lately? 

    As they walked down the bunny path, Caroline said, “My dad cares a lot. He doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

    “I’m not going to hurt you.”

    “I meant with Black Eyed Susan.”

    “Oh yeah. Well she won’t hurt you either.”

    “No, I mean, he doesn’t want me to get my heart broken if she doesn’t make it.”

    As they approached, they saw that the trampled manzanita bushes left a wide opening into the clearing. Black Eyed Susan was nowhere in sight.

    “There’s no sign of blood or fur,” Caroline murmured as they approached the tree. 

    “Maybe her mom was able to find her now that the bushes were out of the way.”

    “Yeah maybe.”
    Mac and Caroline sat down in the clearing next to the oak tree. Caroline sat still for a minute before she got up and started searching for clues. Mac didn’t help her. She felt a little relieved, and then guilty for it. Just as she was about to get up and join where Caroline was squatting in a patch of wildflowers, Caroline shouted out, “Aha!”

    With a smile like a sunflower Caroline announced, “Fox poop! Big fox poop! Adult fox poop!”

    “Another fox was here?” Mac clarified.

    “Yes! I think you’re right about the bushes,” Caroline said. 

    She sat down next to Mac and went quiet for a minute. Then she said, “I thought I was protecting her, but really I was holding her prisoner.”

    “You were trying your best,” Mac said. 

    “I think I’m cursed,” Caroline admitted.

    “Why?”

    “The wounded come to me. There were other animals at the old houses, and none of them made it.”

    “You’re not cursed. You helped me, Caroline.”

    Caroline smiled. “I heard you yell at our parents.”

    “I was so scared.”

    “You did it anyway.”

    “You put a box through your window.”

    “My dad boarded it up with cardboard last night. He said I’m grounded.”

    “But you’re here.”

    “Cardboard doesn’t make a sound when you break it.” 

    Mac laughed.

    “What do you think your dad is going to say when you get home?”

    “Just because he’s mad doesn’t mean he’s right.” Caroline said it like it was something she had told herself before. “He’ll come around.”

    The oak tree held their heads as they settled against its trunk. 

    “Would you ever want to go farther into the canyon?” Caroline asked suddenly.

    “Yeah, definitely,” Mac said, feeling her settled heartbeat quicken.

    “I got this new wildlife encyclopedia. We could learn the names of the trees,” Caroline offered. 

    Mac smiled at Caroline as she realized the rest of her life would be a grand adventure, like exploring a forest she could never get lost in.

    July 13, 2025
    coming of age, Fiction, magic, nature, pride, rainbow, short story

  • Fiction: Passengers

    Melanie was secretly relieved when her father’s pick up truck broke down in the middle of Main street, because last time it was in the shop, about three weeks ago, the mechanic had said one more break down would be the end of it. The cold December air nipped at her nose as she sat patiently on a bench, holding her five year old twin brothers, Arlo and Eli. She whispered promises of hot cocoa and Christmas movies, which were slightly beyond her powers at eleven years old, but worked to distract the hyperactive little boys tugging on her arms. Eventually, the tow truck arrived and carried them all home. Melanie listened as her parents planned to visit the car dealership the following day, and felt another wave of relief wash over her. 

    For her entire life, her family had only owned a rickety red truck with questionable brakes and strained steering. The seat belts had long lacked any retractable qualities and were about as useful as noodles for keeping a person secure. On one rainy day a year ago, Melanie had clutched her limp seat belt in the back seat as the car slid into a muddy ditch, narrowly missing a tree. Other times, she had watched out the back window and waved her hands frantically at the oncoming car who couldn’t tell they were slowing down because the back brake lights were out. She’d sat on the side of the road countless times as the engine vomited smoke and her father tried for hours to find the problem. It was prime time for the family to upgrade to a nice, reliable vehicle that would be neither an embarrassment nor safety hazard. 

    The next day, Melanie watched with horror from the front window as a bulky, boxy monstrosity of a car lurched into her driveway. She bolted outside, desperate to deny that her parents would blow their one chance to upgrade their lives to something responsible and normal. 

    “What is that?” she demanded frantically.

    “We got a great deal,” her father assured her, wrapping his arm around her mother, who looked quite pleased. 

    It was unlike anything Melanie had ever seen: angular and squat with a flimsy antennae reaching to heaven above. The black paint shone free of scratches or dents, which was the only positive Melanie could glean from the exterior. The stench of motor oil was thick like a fog and was only slightly dulled within the car by the aroma of cheap leather. The ancient dashboard was complete with an analog clock and cassette player. The seat belts all seemed to function, but the narrow back seat promised a lifetime of squishing between her brothers. Melanie’s hopes of a sleek SUV or minivan faded away as her parents admired their new purchase with satisfaction. 

    The family piled in their new automobile for a joyride. The brakes squealed sharply but functioned decently, even with the road being slippery with snow. Her mother tried to find a radio station, but every turn of the knob produced a steady stream of static. Arlo and Eli wiggled endlessly on either side of Melanie, eventually causing their seat belts to lock. As Melanie practiced the box breathing technique the school counselor had taught her, she began to taste leather on her tongue.

    When the family home finally came into view through the windshield, Melanie was squirming almost as much as her little brothers. Just before the tires touched the driveway, a little boy appeared before the bumper. Her father didn’t seem to see him as he rolled forward, causing Melanie to scream at the top of her lungs. A horrible screech erupted as her father slammed on the brakes and everyone began shouting. Melanie climbed over Arlo and burst out of the vehicle. When her feet hit the pavement, the driveway was empty. There was no one in sight.

    “Melanie, don’t ever do that!” her mother started as her parents leapt out of the car.

    “What on earth were you yelling about?” her father roared. 

    “There was a little boy in the driveway, didn’t you see him?” Melanie insisted, tears building in her eyes.

    Her parents exchanged concerned glances and softened.

    “There was no one in the driveway, honey,” her father said.

    “Yes there was, I saw him!” Melanie continued.

    “Were you looking at your brother, perhaps?” her mother suggested.

    “No, it wasn’t anyone I had seen before,” Melanie said, realizing she was not being believed.

    “Let’s go inside, maybe you are tired and need some quiet time,” her mother said.

    That night, Melanie dreamed she was in the backseat of the car again, with her brother’s on either side. The car was speeding down the road, but it took a moment for her to realize there was no one driving. In a panic, she scrambled towards the front seat, which stretched farther away from her as she reached for it. Eventually she managed to land in the driver’s seat, but then her feet couldn’t reach the pedals and she could barely see over the dashboard. With oncoming traffic barreling towards her, she desperately jerked the wheel left and right, but the car refused to turn. Melanie woke up with her heart pounding and her throat tight like she’d been crying. She waited to see if someone would come check on her, but the silent house absorbed the nightmare into the darkness, like it never existed.

    In the morning, Melanie refused to get in the car for school. Her parents allowed her to walk to school since it was only a mile away and that’s what she did in the warmer months anyway. As the stinky black clunker barreled past her, Arlo and Eli stuck their tongues out at her through the window. She stuck out her tongue back at them, but they were already gone. The cold air devoured the car’s odor, and Melanie felt triumphant as she navigated the icy sidewalk. 

    Glittering snow clinging to the bare tree branches dazzled against the bright blue sky. It always made her think of a coral reef when the trees were like that, and since she was alone, she pretended she was a fish in an aquarium. Like a freestyle swimmer, Melanie rotated her arms through the air. She pushed off one foot and flew through the air for a moment, before landing on a piece of ice, twisting her ankle, hitting her head and losing consciousness.

    Before she opened her eyes, she could smell the pungent leather and wanted to cry. Heavy pain throbbed in her foot and head. Melanie slowly opened her eyes as she realized she was laying down in the backseat. Her father must have dropped her brothers off at school and saw her on his way back. She felt incredibly sad, until she focused her eyes towards the roof of the car and saw the little boy who had been in the driveway staring at her. 

    He floated up against the roof, bobbing along with the movements of the car. He was slightly transparent and sepia toned, wearing brown overalls and a white shirt, no shoes. Melanie guessed he was about seven or eight. A strange feeling of comfort settled over her, washing away the anxiety that stuck to her always like dirt. When was the last time she had been truly relaxed? The little boy stayed with her for the whole drive to the hospital. 

    Her ankle was x-rayed and deemed a hairline fracture. The doctor advised that she rest and use crutches if she needed to walk. The little boy was not in the car on the way home from the hospital. Melanie spent the rest of the day in a dreamless sleep. 

    Her parents decided to keep her out of school for the rest of the week. Melanie didn’t mind. She wanted to like school, but had difficulty making friends. The school counselor told her that kids would like her more if she didn’t try to boss them around all the time, but who would keep them from acting like total barbarians if not for her? 

    During the day, as her father worked from home in his office, Melanie played on her iPad until her eyes hurt. It wasn’t even time for lunch yet. She practiced walking with her crutches up and down the hallway. Eventually, she flopped on the couch and gazed out the window facing the street. The bright winter sun bounced off the snow, illuminating it to a blinding shine. Suddenly, two figures on the sidewalk appeared out of nowhere, snapping Melanie’s attention back to focus. 

    They appeared to be a mother and daughter pair, both wearing old fashioned dresses, walking with purpose down the sidewalk. Melanie gawked as they approached her family’s car in the driveway, and then leapt up, forgetting her injury completely. Like a watchdog, she ran out the front door to defend her home.

    “Hey! What are you doing?” Melanie shouted as the mother’s hand reached for the car door.

    The mother and daughter stared blankly at her as the pain in her ankle caught up to her and Melanie crumbled to the ground. She winced and clutched her foot, breathing hard through her teeth. The duo silently waited for her to be done. After a minute the piercing pain receded and Melanie looked up to notice that the woman and child were slightly transparent, like the little boy. 

    “Why are you here?” she gasped, struggling to her feet. She grabbed the rim of the car to pull herself up, surprised by the warmth of it. 

    The mother cocked her head, seemingly amused. 

    “Is it the car? You want to go in the car?” Melanie asked.

    The mother and daughter turned away from Melanie towards the car, as if waiting patiently. Melanie hobbled over and opened the door to the backseat. Without hesitation, they climbed in. Melanie shut the door behind them and climbed in the driver’s seat.

    “Who are you?” she asked, twisting around to look at her passengers. 

    When they continued staring at her blankly, Melanie said  “I can’t actually drive.” 

    The mother glanced at her pocketwatch. Melanie noticed it wasn’t ticking.

    “Alright, well, let’s see here,” Melanie sighed, facing forward and putting her hands on the steering wheel. “Mother and daughter, I’m guessing? I have a mother too, obviously, everyone has a mother. I don’t think my mother meant to be one, at least not for me. My parents had just graduated high school when I was born. They got lucky with me, though, I’m a good daughter to them. Last month, my mom was trying to make us pizza for dinner, and my little brothers would not stop screaming at her. I think they wanted to watch TV or something. I don’t even remember now.”

    As she spoke, Melanie’s memory filled her vision, like it was the road she was driving down. She explained how her mother’s face always crumpled like tissue paper before she started crying. The frozen pizza had crashed to the floor out of her mother’s hands, and Melanie wasn’t sure if it was on purpose or accident. Eli and Arlo had stopped screaming then, stunned and suddenly bored. Her mother left the room crying. Melanie had swept up the frozen pepperoni and shredded cheese bits before checking on her mother.

    “I just gave her a big hug and offered to make macaroni and cheese,” Melanie said. “My brothers can be such jerks, but they’re only five, so what do they know?” 

    Melanie glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the pair smiling at her. She’d never told anyone about that, not that she had anyone to tell in the first place. The day after it happened, her teacher had sent her to the counselor’s office because Melanie would not stop directing her classmates, and when they didn’t listen to her, she’d burst into tears. In the counselor’s office, she refused to talk about it, as if it were her secret to protect that her mother was human.

    “Everyone has bad days, that’s what the counselor said,” Melanie said as she focused away from the rearview mirror. When she looked back a moment later, the passengers were gone. Only then did she realize the car didn’t reek of old leather, instead she smelled whiffs of cinnamon, like Christmas. It felt light. 

    The next morning, Melanie skipped her iPad time and watched out the front window. Sure enough, a transparent sepia toned man waltzed down the sidewalk towards the car. Melanie grabbed one of her crutches and hobbled outside.

    “Hello, sir,” she greeted him.

    He wore dark pants with suspenders over a simple button up shirt. The man was quite large around the middle, with a friendly handle bar mustache on his round face. He nodded to her and let her open the door to the backseat. Once he was situated, Melanie climbed in the front.

    “How are you today?” Melanie asked, adjusting the rearview mirror to get a full view of her passenger. 

    The man smiled and nodded, but of course, said nothing.

    “Did this car used to be yours? Or was it a taxi?” Melanie asked as she placed her hands on the steering wheel.

    The man didn’t respond, but continued smiling pleasantly with a twinkle in his eye.

    “I suppose it says something good about this car, that people are returning to it from wherever you’re from. I would never go back to the car we had before this one. It was such an awful car. I never felt safe in it,” Melanie admitted, realizing that was the first time she’d spoken it out loud.

    “It was obvious though, right? I didn’t have to say it for everyone to know it was true. Kids shouldn’t be in a car like that. My dad should’ve known better,” Melanie continued, squeezing the steeringwheel until her knuckles turned white. 

    She checked the rearview mirror. The man’s face softened sympathetically. 

    “But I never told anyone. I just put up with it, until it was over,” Melanie sighed, relaxing against her seat. “I never saw the point in being honest about how I felt. The one time I was, it didn’t go well.

    “I was seven, it was summer,” Melanie started as her memory filled the windshield. “My dad had promised to take me to the lake that day, but he got busy and forgot. I kept telling him how badly I wanted to go, but he didn’t think it was a big deal.” 

    As she recounted the memory, she felt the tension build in her stomach the same as it had been that day, the powerless feeling of time passing. She’d wanted a summer like she saw in the movies, splashing in the water with friends laughing all around. Even when her father took her to the lake later in the summer, the experience didn’t live up to what Melanie had envisioned. She locked her disappointment away, embarrassed to have wanted something so unattainable.

    “It sounds silly now,” Melanie said. “But I never talked about it. I just thought that no one would care how I felt, so there was no point in bringing it up ever again.”

    The man met her gaze her in the mirror, his expression netural.

    “You’re not going to tell me I’m wrong, are you?” Melanie asked. “You’re not going to say I’m a brat or I should get over it? I always thought if I held down my feelings, they would just go away.” 

    For the first time, Melanie realized that no one had actually ever said those things to her. She had been telling it to herself all along. Letting go of the steering wheel, her hands fell heavily to her lap. Tears silently landed in her palms and the knots in her stomach melted away. When she looked in the backseat, her passenger was gone, leaving behind the smell of vanilla and tobacco. Melanie let herself cry some more. 

    The next day, when Melanie checked out the front window, she saw a line of transparent visitors on the sidewalk heading towards the car. She rushed out as quickly as she could. One by one, she opened the door for them, hopped in the driver’s seat, and unloaded stories she had never told anyone. As Melanie confessed to her nonjudgemental audience, she felt safer than she ever had in her life. 

    She told one passenger about watching her grandpa fall right in front of her when she was five. Blood had poured out his face and she had no idea what to do, so she just sat there and cried until her parents found them. She told the next passenger about the only friend she’d ever had, a neighbor girl her same age. Melanie refused to cry when the girl moved away, even though she really wanted to. The girl hadn’t said goodbye, so why should Melanie be sad about someone who doesn’t say goodbye? She told the next passenger about all the things her brothers did that drove her crazy, and how she tried not to complain because she was their older sister and she was supposed to take care of them, but sometimes she thought her life would be easier without them. 

    With each new guest, Melanie dug up a new story from her life. She didn’t realize how much she had buried within her. Some of the things she told didn’t sound so bad after they were said out loud, like her dislike of the brussel sprout casserole her mother always made or how she wished she were better at math but was afraid to ask for help because she didn’t want to seem dumb. These things had been shoved down out of habit. As the stories flowed out, the emotions they carried evaporated effortlessly, like the passengers passing through the seat behind her. Melanie never realized how tightly she’d been holding on to her pain until she let it all go. 

    By sunset, the line on the sidewalk had dwindled to one last girl. 

    “Just you? No adult?” Melanie asked. 

    The girl hopped in the backseat without responding.

    “You look like my age,” Melanie commented as she resumed her post in the driver’s seat. “I’ve been talking about myself all this time, and I have to admit, it’s been nice, but I should probably ask you some questions too, right?” 

    Melanie turned around and leaned towards the girl, noticing her dimples like crescent moons.

    “Does everyone know something I don’t?” Melanie whispered. “I’ve been afraid to ask, but I’m just pretending all the time. I really don’t know what’s going on, and I’m scared that if I tell someone, they’ll think awful things about me.”

    Melanie found herself climbing into the backseat next to the girl, who watched her with a soft smile. 

    “I just want people to like me,” Melanie admitted quietly. “And I want someone to protect me, so I’ve tried to be that for other people, but no one seems to appreciate it.” 

    The little girl reached out her hand across the seat. Melanie slid her hand over, embracing the cool sensation as their fingers crossed. It felt like mist in the early morning, like the freshness of a new day.

    Melanie woke up to her father tapping on the window. She didn’t realize she had fallen asleep in the backseat.

    “Honey, I’ve been looking for you,” her father said as he opened the car door. 

    “Sorry,” Melanie mumbled groggily.

    “It’s ok. I’m glad you’re enjoying the car, finally,” her father said, picking her up in his arms. Melanie couldn’t remember the last time her father carried her like that, so she leaned into his chest and inhaled his comforting scent of laundry soap and pine. 

    Melanie’s doctor allowed her to return to school the following week as long as her foot was in a cast and she used her crutches.

    “What happened to your foot?” one boy in her class asked her. 

    This classmate had never spoken to Melanie before, except to tell her to buzz off when she tried to boss him around.

    “I slipped on some ice,” Melanie said.

    “Cool! Can I sign your cast?” he asked.

    “Sure,” Melanie agreed with pleasant surprise.

    Other classmates clustered towards her curiously, asking questions about her injury. Melanie had never received so much positive attention from her peers, a stark contrast to the usual interactions of orders and refusals. They marveled at her ability to use the crutches and asked to try for themselves. Melanie allowed it, and they returned her crutches without her having to ask. A few girls complimented the royal blue color of the cast, and signed their names with hearts and smiley faces. 

    At recess, Melanie was unsure what to do with herself. Usually she stalked around the playground, hunting for someone to scold. However, now her movements were limited, and she didn’t feel like yelling at anyone. 

    “Hey, Melanie! Do you want to come sit in the grass with us? We’re making daisy chains,” a girl in her class offered. 

    “Sure,” Melanie agreed with a smile. 

    The girl helped Melanie over to where her friends were sitting in the grass. The three other girls welcomed her with big smiles as she approached. As they taught her how to tie the stems together, Melanie asked them questions about themselves. She learned that two of them liked the same iPad games that she did, and they talked and joked about it until the bell rang. On the walk back to the school building, the girls slowed their pace and linked arms so as not to leave Melanie behind. 

    January 8, 2025
    coming of age, creative writing, elementary, family, Fiction, growth, kids, love, magic, magical realism, original writing, short story

  • Fiction: The Burning

    [originally published in decomp journal] [revised 2024]

    As she crammed her lunchbox amongst the others in the teacher’s lounge refrigerator, Lauret thought about how today was Jacob’s last day. As she walked past walls decorated with colorful paper wolves made by first graders, she thought about how, in the beginning of the year, Jacob had run away from her down that same hallway. When she heard “Miss A!” from small voices and “Good morning” from her coworkers, she wanted to respond with “Who is going to help him?” and “Why not wait until the end of the school year, at least?”, but instead she distributed the expected hugs and smiles.

    On the playground, the early morning air nipped at her nose. As usual, several kids huddled near her; everyone shivering together. The playground slowly filled with life as the children trickled into school, many still half asleep with bed heads, others already screaming and racing like meteors. Lauret watched them all passively, one eye focused on whichever child had managed to win her attention for that moment. Everything was a balancing act. Lauret juggled her thoughts about Jacob in the back of her mind, covering them with an easy smile. At her elbow, seven-year-old Violet appeared wordlessly, eyes down. Lauret placed her hand on her shoulder and the two began shuffling away from the group. Some of the kids tried to follow, but Lauret shooed them away. 

    “How are you?” Lauret asked.

    Violet pointed her thumb down.

    “Yeah, I get that,” Lauret sighed.

    “It’s Jacob’s last day,” Violet said, looking up at Lauret with big brown eyes.

    “I know. How do you think he’s going to be?” Lauret asked.

    “Not good,” Violet said, shaking her head and swishing her thick ponytail. 

    “I know,” Lauret agreed. 

    The bell screeched over their heads, but they didn’t flinch. Lauret squeezed Violet’s shoulders and walked with her to line up with the rest of her second grade class.

    An hour and a half later, Lauret’s reading intervention group was interrupted by a call from the office summoning her to the front of the school. The Special Education teacher, to whom Lauret was an aide, stepped up from her desk to continue the lesson. 

    As Lauret approached the main entrance to school, she saw the principal holding the door open, Jacob’s mother standing in the doorway, and the school secretary chasing Jacob around the front lawn. The principal’s and Jacob’s mother’s faces lit up in relief when they spotted Lauret approaching. Already smiling, Lauret stepped between them and called out in one melodious note, “Jacob!” 

    Jacob continued to soar like an eagle, arms out, head low. He swooped in one victory arc before gliding to her side and calmly following her into school. 

    “How are you?” Lauret asked as they passed the colorful wolves.

    “Bad,” Jacob answered, bobbing his head as he walked.

    “We’re going to have a great last day, alright?” Lauret tried.

    Jacob shrugged, “Maybe.”

    Lauret delivered him to his classroom, exchanging a knowing glance with his teacher, Mrs. Davidson, as she closed the door. Jacob slid silently into his seat next to Violet, who smiled at him over her shoulder. Jacob smiled back, not because he felt like smiling, but because he was always happy to see Violet. As their teacher droned on at the front of the class, Jacob secretly poked Violet with whatever he could find. Violet was always patient with Jacob, and today she savored his ability to pull her away from the boring moments. She had a lot of friends, but none like Jacob, none who made her feel like there was another world to escape into. 

    At recess, Jacob wanted to play tag. Most kids were tired of the old game, but almost every day Jacob tried to elect someone to chase him around the playground. Most days his peers said no and Jacob abandoned his efforts altogether, but everyone knew that today was his last day. Violet’s tennis shoes bit into the pavement as she raced after Jacob, reaching out to him, the hood of his coat just beyond her fingertips. Jacob hid behind Lauret, who stood in the middle of the field, expressionless behind black sunglasses.

    “Miss A! Miss A!” Jacob sang, tugging on her arm to break her poker face. 

    “Jacob! Jacob!” Lauret responded, unable to resist a smile. 

    Jacob tossed his head back and cackled. Lauret beamed down at him as Violet skidded to a stop, followed by several of her classmates.

    “Ok! Go play!” Lauret commanded, gently pushing Jacob towards the swarm of second graders.

    Jacob took off with Violet at his side.

    “Why is today your last day, Jacob?” a classmate named Kyler asked. He was smaller than the rest of his classmates, but never let that slow him down.

    Jacob scrunched his face, stuck out his tongue and then ran away. 

    “He’s going to live with his dad. His mom lost the custody battle,” Violet explained before taking off after Jacob.

    Jacob’s breath pounded through him as he ran. Everything was going to change, and he hated change. He thought about how his dad treated him like he was normal, even though his mom never did. Things his mother let him get away with, like his tantrums or hyperactivity, his dad refused to tolerate. The caseworker said the same thing in the courtroom, as if it was his mom’s fault that Jacob never felt like he belonged anywhere he went. Sometimes when he was with Violet he felt better, like someone actually understood him, or at the least didn’t mind if they couldn’t. 

    “I don’t want to go,” Jacob said to Violet as she approached him. 

    “We can still get married, when we’re older,” Violet offered.

    “I know. We will. I don’t like my dad, though.”

    “Yes you do. You miss him all the time.”

    “But now I’m never going to see my mom!” 

    Behind them, Lauret blew her whistle and all the second graders rushed back to her. Kyler had captured Lauret’s attention for a rare moment. She smiled warmly down at him, nodding along. Kyler was a kid she worked with often, but since he was in the same class as Jacob, a lot of Kyler’s support was sacrificed for Jacob’s needs. Lauret thought about this often. Mrs. Davidson told her not to feel guilty about it, but she couldn’t help it. Lauret was young enough to believe she could still save them all. 

    When Jacob saw Lauret talking with Kyler, he broke into a run. 

    “My Miss A! Mine!” he screamed as he ran into Kyler as hard as he could, pushing him to the ground. 

    Lauret gasped and checked to see if Kyler was hurt. Jacob’s fists shook at his sides as his face filled pink. Then he turned and sprinted across the field. Lauret inhaled deeply. She instructed Violet to stay with the dazed Kyler and took off after Jacob.

    Across the field, Jacob paced. He knew better than to push Kyler, he knew Miss A knew it too. No one seemed to care what he wanted; no one was looking out for him, why should he? So what if he got in trouble? Hot energy pulsed through him, making his hands and face itch. 

    “Jacob! Come tear out grass!” Lauret called.

    He turned around and saw Miss A sitting in the middle of the field. He rushed to her side and dove to the ground, gripping fistfuls of grass and sending clumps of dirt into the air like fireworks. In the past, when Jacob’s emotions were beyond his control, ripping grass calmed him. But today, Lauret watched his hands race to the ground faster and faster, like he didn’t know how to stop. It wasn’t enough. He wanted to rip the whole world apart just so he could put it back together in a way that made sense.

    “Jacob!” he heard Miss A shout.

    “What?” he snapped, turning to her, noticing a fracture in her usually calm expression.

    “I’ve been saying your name,” Lauret said. “Let’s do some deep breaths.”

    “No!” Jacob shouted, throwing the last handful of grass towards the sky. “I don’t want to take deep breaths! I can’t do it! I can’t!” 

    “Jacob-” 

    “NO!” he screamed, slamming his fists into the ground so hard the earth rippled beneath them. 

    Jacob pounded into the ground, shaking the whole field like waves in the ocean. From his red face, he released a scream so intense that Lauret had to cover her ears. She was fully aware that the power of this kid’s emotions was nothing short of extraordinary. 

    “Jacob, please,” Lauret tried. “It’s going to be ok. I promise you.”

    “Oh I’ve heard that one before!” Jacob shrieked, eyes wide. “And you know what? It’s never true. It’s never ok! Bad things always happen, just when things start to get good. So don’t promise me anything!” 

    “Jacob-”

    “Go away!”

    Lauret glanced at the grass around Jacob’s feet. Smoke rose from his soles. She smelled the beginning of the burning. 

    “Jacob…”

    A thin ring of fire spread from beneath him. A black circle of grew outwards from his feet as flames ate up the dry grass. 

    “Deep breath, Jacob, please,” Lauret tried, inhaling deeply.

    “Panic!” Jacob screeched.

    He sprinted across the field, leaving a trail of black foot prints outlined in livid red sparks. Flames erupted from every step as he ran across the field. The torched patches of his footprints merged together into a low line of orange, devouring the dry grass. Jacob collapsed with wails of agony as the fire closed around him. With each cry, the fire flared taller, reaching for the sky like a tower. He was barely aware of the smoke and heat, it was nothing compared to the meltdown in his mind. His world was ending either way, and he would take down everything with him. 

    With her jacket pressed to ground, Lauret chased after Jacob, smothering the smoldering grass as quickly as she could. The de-escalation trainings provided by the school didn’t prepare her for this, because in real life, when all hell breaks loose and a child is caged in their own blaze, all that’s left is one’s own human instinct. Lauret’s instinct screamed at her to save the child, no matter if she got hurt in the process.

    Without hesitation, Lauret wrapped her jacket around her face, tying the arms tightly behind her head, preparing to barrel through the fire and come out the other side with Jacob. She pressed her feet into the earth, ready to leap, when she heard someone screaming her name. 

    Out of the school burst Mrs. Davidson waving a fire extinguisher. 

    “Cover your face!” Mrs. Davidson shouted. 

    Lauret’s fingers had barely crossed her eyes when she smelled the chemical powder. White foam doused the flames until the field resembled a fresh layer of snow.

    “Are you alright?” Mrs. Davidson gasped.

    Lauret nodded and hurried over to Jacob.

    At the center of the now white circle, almost six feet across, Jacob held himself in fetal poistion. He was untouched by his disaster, unlike Lauret whose face was powdered with ash and her hair singed. As he cried into his knees, Lauret and Mrs. Davidson put their hands on his back. Slowly he lifted his face to them, rosy cheeks glowing with tears. 

    “I’m sorry,” Jacob whispered.

    “It’s ok, Jacob,” Mrs. Davidson promised.

    “It’s ok,” Lauret agreed. 

    “Can I stay with Miss A for a bit?” Jacob asked.

    “Jacob! Jacob! Are you alright?” Violet called as she ran up behind them, holding a bottle of water in her hand.

    “Violet, I told you to stay in class!” Mrs. Davidson scolded.

    Violet ignored her and went up to Jacob. They looked at each other and then to Lauret.

    “I told the teacher there was a fire,” Violet said.

    “How did you know?” Lauret asked.

    “I smelled the smoke,” Violet explained. “I know what it means.”

    Mrs. Davidson nodded wearily.

    “I’ll go call Jacob’s mom. C’mon Violet,” Mrs. Davidson said. “Let’s let them cool off.”

    Lauret released an involuntary laugh and Mrs. Davidson winked. Violet followed after her teacher, looking back at her friends before reentering the school.

    “It looks like a lollipop,” Lauret said, pointing at the long trail of burnt grass that led to the burnt circle.

    “Lollipop burnt flavor,” Jacob laughed.

    “Uh oh, someone burned my lollipop,” joked Lauret.

    “Hey, why did you burn my lollipop?” Jacob squealed.

    The two continued bantering as they walked away and sat on a bench under a large tree, out of sight of the field. A large yellow school bus pulled into the parking lot, prematurely ready to fill with children. Birds chirped above them, flitting from branch to branch. Jacob looked up at the tree. An airplane cut through the blue sky, grumbling distantly. Calm cascaded around them.

    “It sounds like summer,” Jacob observed.

    Of all the things to say, Lauret thought. 

    She watched him gaze into the distance with clear eyes, still expecting him to burst into tears and cling to her. His face was contemplative now, causing him to look older than his seven years of age. Lauret tried to think of something to say to bring closure to their journey together, but she was too exhausted to think. They sat in silence, letting the sounds of summer twinkle around them, a reminder that the world kept turning through it all.

    December 18, 2024
    autism, creative writing, elementary, kids, love, magic, magical realism, neurodivergent, original writing, short story, special education

  • Fiction: Miss A

    [originally published in The Grey Rock Review] [revised 2024]

    The concrete warmed the soles of my bare feet as I stood on the sidewalk, staring with wonder. We were all playing outside that day, so we all saw when the police cruiser pulled up silently to Miss A’s house. 

    “Where is she going, Janie?” my six-year-old brother, Clyde, asked me.

    “She won’t be far,” I replied.

     Six of us gathered in my driveway, barefoot and squinting in the sunlight, chapped lips hanging open with mouths of missing teeth, skinny limbs sticking out of t-shirts and shorts. Miss A walked out with her head up, a police officer holding both her arms behind her back with one hand. It was inevitable that someone would be arrested, with the way the summer heat cooked everyone’s brains. 

    It all started with the street we lived on. The road was marked with potholes that we kids had learned to dodge while chasing each other like swallows diving through the air. There were six of us who were kids at the same time. My little brother and I lived in the only house with a tree in the front yard. Next door lived the seven year old twins, Annalise and Jason, at the only house with a basketball hoop. Across the street was little five year old Philip Jr., who had nothing material to offer, but always did what we dared him to do. Lastly, at the end of the block, was curly-haired, ever sunburned Sanders Kurt, who was ten years old like me and led us all through grand imaginary adventures in places far away from our decrepit neighborhood. As the oldest girl in the bunch, I looked after these kids the way their mothers should have but didn’t.

     Things hadn’t changed in a long time. Each and every house hid darkness behind its doors. People mostly knew the truth about their neighbors, but everyone was too busy concealing their own secrets to worry about anyone else, trusting each other like a bad habit. It was like every neighbor had a loaded gun pointed at another, if one went down, the entire neighborhood would go down with them. That’s why no one said anything when Philip Jr.’s front tooth rotted out; or when Clyde and I would sit on the curb in front of our house as our parents screamed at each other inside; or when Sanders showed up to school with a busted lip, or a black eye, or both. There should’ve been a line when it came to the children. 

    Miss A moved in across the street on the hottest day of July. We kids watched from the safety of the oak tree in my front yard as she unloaded her moving truck without any help. Never once did she show signs of strain or fatigue. Her calm was enchanting. However, we stayed behind the oak tree. Being wary of adults was our means to survival. 

    It was Sanders who suggested we go to meet her. Logically, I was reluctant to stray too close to a stranger, but I too felt the urge to be near her. The other kids seemed drawn to her as well. For no apparent reason, throughout the days after she moved in, each of us kept checking over our shoulder at her house. Every time one kid stopped to look over at it, a wave of heads turned. Our expansive imaginations fueled our ravenous curiosity. Philip Jr. said she must be a witch or an angel. The twins thought she was from a far off country, because why else would she move into a neighborhood like this except by accident? Sanders thought she seemed harmless. I thought she seemed lonely. 

    After eight days of sitting around, stealing glances and inventing legends, my curiosity got the best of me. I decided to cross the street. The summer heat pelted me the moment I stepped out from underneath the shade of the oak tree. Sanders crossed with me, bouncing with excitement in each step. He was always the more optimistic one. The four remaining children waited a few seconds before scurrying after us, not wanting to miss any of the action. For a moment, the six of us just stood together on her small porch step. The cement was so cool compared to the river of asphalt we had just crossed. Finally, I pressed my pointer finger into the doorbell. 

    The door flew open like a gust of wind blew through it. Our new neighbor stood before us, wearing a white kimono and no shoes. She held out her arms, not asking for a physical embrace, but like a preacher before a sermon. We were speechless. Later when the six of us would be questioned by the police, we would each remember her face differently. For me, I thought her face was young and soft, like a sweet older sister. Sanders said she was very old, like his grandma who had passed years ago. Clyde thought she looked like our mom, back before Dad left and her eyes grew heavy. Philip Jr. said she looked just like his teacher, who had caramel-colored skin, but the rest of us were sure her skin was as pale as our own. Annalise and Jason both agreed that she looked like me, with light freckles and dark brown hair. However, when we were meeting her, I don’t think any of us were really paying attention to her face. 

    “Hello little ones,” she said with a voice like a bird’s song. “My name is Miss A. What are your names?”

    And because we were not afraid, we told her. 

    “Would you like to play in my front yard?” she asked. 

    The one thing we could all agree on about her appearance was the way her soft gray eyes sparkled every time she spoke. 

    In the front yard, she brought out buckets of soapy water and strings tied in loops. She bent forward like a swan and showed us how to dip the strings in the buckets so that the circles shimmered. Then she ran with the wind to birth the bubbles. I watched as the faces of the little kids lit with joy. Sander’s ocean blue eyes glazed with hope before he winked at me and dove into the bubbly fun.

     Miss A brought out shining brass bells and gave us each one. They were so big that little Philip Jr. needed two hands to hold them as Miss A taught us how to swoop our fist in a low arc to produce a chime. Sanders and I danced in carefree circles as the kids played their bell song and Miss A sang in a high clear voice. The sky began to spin above my head, so I collapsed onto the soft grass, pushing my chest and stomach to the clouds as I laughed. 

    All day we frolicked on her front lawn. The sounds of our delight attracted the neighbors to their windows like moths. Through the strips between curtains where the sunlight broke into dark houses, adults watched with anxious eyes. The parents especially would remember that day in Miss A’s front yard with the bubbles and the bells and the absolute elation of it all. Later, the parents would be sure to tell the police that Miss A dared to feed us sliced peaches and strawberries. The police would use all of this to build their case against Miss A, because who would be kind without an ulterior motive? 

    The following morning, when the six of us reported to the oak tree, every child had food in their bellies. For the first time in a long time, everyone’s parents had made breakfast. Usually, Sanders and I could make ourselves breakfast, and Annalise and Jason could work together to get milk and cereal. However, Philip Jr.’s stomach almost always growled so loudly in the morning that the other five of us would split off to hunt down some food for him. This morning, however, Clyde and I woke up to a plate of bacon and eggs for each of us. Our mother sat at the table with us, smoking her cigarette and drinking orange juice. We didn’t ask why as we gobbled down the deliciously warm food, but every time I looked up, our mom had a dreamy twinkle in her eye. Before she left for the day, she kissed us on the crown of our heads. I focused on the way the spot tingled for as long as I could. 

    Annalise and Jason reported that their mother made them toasted white bread and jam, complete with a kiss on the cheek each. Sanders’ eyes shimmered when he said his mom gave him a hug and his dad patted his back before work. What surprised us most was Philp Jr., who not only ate waffles for breakfast but received both a hug and a kiss from his mother. The little kids weren’t interested in questioning why this had all happened to us at the same time, but I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. 

    Later, during a game of hide and go seek, Sanders and I hid in a sweetly scented jasmine bush together. The spotted shadows from the flowers and leaves painted our faces.

    “I had a dream last night,” I whispered to Sanders. He was the only person who ever got to hear about my dreams.

    “Me too,” he whispered back. “It was about Miss A.”

    “Mine too.”

    “Did she fly in yours too?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Did she say anything to you?”

    “Yeah.”

    “What did she say?”

    “She said it’s going to be alright, I think.”

    “But how could she know that?” I asked. “It’s not up to her.”

    *

    In between the long hot days and endless evenings, the black asphalt road was off-limits because of all the cars returning to their houses. During this time, my mom and Sanders’ mom would stand in front of my house, with glasses of white wine balanced between their fingers, whispering to each other. They were upset about Miss A but didn’t have much to be really upset about so they invented gossip. Sanders and I listened as we pretended to build castles in the dirt.

    “I keep dreaming about that woman,” my mom muttered to Sanders’ mom. 

    “Sometimes when I’m alone in my house, I swear I’ll see her out of the corner of my eye, but it’s just my own reflection,” Sanders’ mom replied. 

    One night, when Clyde accidentally spilled orange juice all over the kitchen floor, our mom opened her mouth to scream as she normally would, but no noise came out. The veins in her neck bulged ripe and red as she strained to make a sound. Finally, she gave up and looked down at the juice pooling at her feet. Clyde and I stared at her, unsure what to do. Our mom surrendered and helped us clean up the mess in silence. Her voice returned with the rising sun. 

    A few days later, Annalise and Jason said that their mom, who sometimes stayed up all night ranting about demons or making them clean the entire house, had been falling into a deep sleep directly after dinner each night. They said they were able to sleep the whole night undisturbed, a rare event since their mother stopped taking her medication.

    The next day was as hot as the one before, like the sun wanted to show us her full power. Sanders played basketball with Clyde and Jason in the driveway. I laid in the grass and taught Annalise and Philip Jr. how to make dandelion crowns. By the end of the day, the sun had sufficiently zapped our energy, making us delirious and lethargic. Clyde missed a shot at the hoop, sending the basketball into the street. Without thinking, he chased after it, not noticing the SUV barrelling around the turn. I stood up and screamed as Clyde crouched down in the middle of the street. I wasn’t going to be fast enough. Just as the front bumper came within inches of my little brother’s head, the car stopped, as if crashing into an invisible wall. It flipped over my little brother’s head, who stared up at it with his jaw open wide. Landing several yards away, the car rolled three times before landing face up. Then the battered car sped away so fast it burned black streaks into the road. 

    I collapsed in the middle of the street and embraced my brother. Sanders was by my side. Clyde was wailing now, with snot and saliva running down his face. I squeezed him into my shoulder. Over the top of his head, I saw Miss A standing in her doorway. Her chest was heaving like she was crying too. I hugged Clyde closer. 

    My heart pounded for days after the phantom crash. I couldn’t stop seeing Clyde’s face, terror overtaking his innocence. Annalise and Jason confirmed after that Miss A had been standing in her front yard the whole time. Clyde was too young to understand how close his fate almost was to becoming another nameless hit and run in a neighborhood no one cared about. This was a miracle, and we were smart enough to keep it to ourselves. 

    Additional neighbors began to join my mom and Sanders’ mom for their evening sessions on the front porch to glare at Miss A’s house, like a flock of vultures waiting for an animal to die. The majority of the adults had never met Miss A, which only added to their suspicion. One old man accused Miss A of digging through his trash, but it was more likely raccoons. Philip Jr.’s dad claimed Miss A was staring at him through his window. He said that every time he ran outside to yell at her, she was nowhere to be found, but when he went inside again, she was back on the sidewalk, staring at him like a ghost. Philip Jr. later confirmed the story as true but claimed he wasn’t scared. The rest of the neighbors disregarded the story on the basis that Philip Sr. was a severe alcoholic. Regardless, confusion was swiftly channeled into a panic and consequently, a deep fear emerged. The drunken adults spread rumors amongst each other like a disease. Everyone worried about what would happen if their sins were brought to light. Her compassion equaled impending doom for these morally bankrupt souls. I wanted to protect Miss A, because I understood the danger of fools in agreement.

    Two days later, everything ended. In the morning, Sanders was the first one at the oak tree. When I asked him if he was ok, he looked up at me sadly to show me the dark purple bruise around his brilliant blue eye. I hugged him tight like I was trying to hold all the pain in one place. 

    “This isn’t the worst part,” Sanders whispered.

    We walked over to the worst part, which was Sanders’ dad’s truck. Every window was completely shattered. Not a single shard of glass remained attached to the car. The glittering fragments spread out around the car like a perfect halo. 

    “My dad called the police and said he saw Miss A break all his windows with a golf club,” Sanders told me. 

    “What really happened?” I asked. 

    Sanders sighed.

    “Dad came home, drunk or something,” Sanders started. “He started yelling at me, pushing me around. I ran to the front room, trying to escape, and that’s when he socked me.”

    I squeezed his hand. 

    “But the strangest thing,” Sanders continued. “With my good eye, I was looking through the front window. Right as he punched me, every window in his car exploded.”

    I shook my head. 

    “She’s strong,” I said. 

    That was when Annalise and Jason ran down the street yelling that a police car pulled up to Miss A’s house. 

    Days later, our mom hung up the phone and cussed at the ceiling. Somehow Miss A disappeared from her cell without a trace. An officer came to my house and asked if we knew where she might have escaped to or who might have helped her. Clyde and I just smiled sweetly and shook our heads, like the good children we were.

    December 5, 2024
    creative writing, Fiction, kids, magic, magical realism, original writing, short story

  • Fiction: The Girl in the Willow Tree

    The Girl in the Willow Tree

    The sound of the rushing water filled Jayla’s ears as she awoke by the river. Misty air tickled her skin, welcoming her to the day. As she sat up, several small pebbles fell off her cheek, leaving indents on her skin from the night spent snuggling the dirt. Weeds tangled in her hair tugged at her head, like the earth didn’t want to let her go.

    Across the river watched the willow tree, majestic as a god. Its lanky branches dipped low, brushing against cool water. The last delicate drops of morning dew fell with the gentle breeze, splashing like tears. Jayla gazed up at the lush green canopy, mystified by the sunlight peeking through, winking at her. The willow whispered its secrets, hidden beneath the wind. Anyone else would have lost the meaning in nature’s symphony, but Jayla heard the message crystal clear, as she always had. 

    The soft crunch of pebbles crept up from behind. Over her shoulder, Jayla recognized the familiar sight of her mother carefully stepping around the wildflowers and carrying the soft blue blanket. Without a word, her mother wrapped her in the blanket and scooped her up. Even though she was almost ten, Jayla was still much lighter than what her doctors said she should be, allowing for her mother to carry her with ease. With her arms around her mother’s neck, Jayla waved goodbye to the girl in the willow tree.

     Every morning since she was five years old, Jayla has woken up beside the river to the sight of the willow tree. Her first steps were in the direction of the river. The sound of the water was as familiar as her own heartbeat. It calmed her when she couldn’t remember anything from before she was born. This has been a crisis since Jayla’s birth, because she felt the lost memories scratching at the edges of her consciousness, a secret she felt incomplete without. Gazing at the willow tree gave her hope that she might remember the things that happened before her first breath. 

    Every night, Jayla’s mother tucked her in and bolted the bedroom door from the outside, but regardless, Jayla found her way out. In the beginning, her mother was furious with concern and confusion. She pushed heavy furniture in front of the door, bought more locks, tried pleading with her daughter, but to no avail. Doctors attributed it to sleepwalking, because it was much easier to believe that a single mother forgot to secure a door over the impossibility that such a small child could escape a locked room. Over time, her mother adapted and accepted this pattern on account that she never found a single scratch on her daughter. 

    From the warmth of the cabin, Jayla watched the morning light trickle in through the kitchen window as her mother set down a hot bowl of oatmeal. Then, clutching a steaming mug of coffee, her mother sat at the wooden table with her daughter and enjoyed the silence. Soon Jayla would be off on the bus to school, where she would be misunderstood by teachers and peers as she escaped into her daydreams, and her mother would tie an apron around her waist to serve the noisy trucker crowd at the greasy diner down the road. But for now all was quiet and calm and right. 

    ***

    Under fluorescent lights, Jayla and her mother sat across from Mrs. Strid at the C-shaped table for Jayla’s annual IEP meeting. Mrs. Strid, the Special Education teacher, worked with Jayla since she was in kindergarten. Each year, Jayla spent less time in the general ed classroom and more time with Mrs. Strid. 

    Mrs. Strid presented Jayla’s mother with numerous examples of Jayla’s work. Every paper was covered in sketches of a willow tree with a girl in the trunk. 

    “As you know, this has happened since we taught Jayla how to hold a pencil,” Mrs. Strid sighed, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I have tried every motivator in my tool belt. This is an extremely dysfunctional hyperfixation.”

    Jayla’s mother looked tired. Mrs. Strid looked tired. Jayla gazed up at them, squinting in the artificial brightness. 

    “Is she still sleeping by the river?” Mrs. Strid asked.

    “Yes, nothing I do can stop her.”

    Mrs. Strid leaned forward, “Michelle, it is imperative that you keep your daughter from going to that river. It is not safe.”

    Emotion rose in her mother’s eyes, but was interrupted as Jayla said, “This isn’t real.”

    Her mom and Mrs. Strid looked at her curiously.

    “This is a dream. Or a memory,” Jayla continued. 

    The two women rarely heard Jayla speak. Her mom’s eyes filled with more tears. Mrs. Strid scrunched her eyebrows together sternly.

    “What do you mean by that?” Mrs. Strid asked. 

    But Jayla was done talking. She grabbed a pencil and began sketching at the corner of one of the papers on the desk, starting with the trunk, then the long branches like arms trying to welcome her home. 

    ***

    A week later, as Jayla’s mother cooked dinner, a knock sounded at the front door. She opened it to find two middle aged women wearing slacks and blazers, each holding a clipboard. The shorter one had frizzy red hair and horn rimmed glasses, while the taller one had graying brown hair and round glasses. They both looked Jayla’s mother up and down and jotted something down before speaking.

    “Hello Ms. Sallow, we are with Child Protective Services. I’m Miss Madow and this is Miss Prickler. May we come in?” the taller one asked. 

    Mute from shock, Jayla’s mother stepped aside and opened the door wider. The CPS women inspected their surroundings critically, noting the dirty dishes in the sink and shoes piled by the front door. 

    “We are here because there are concerns for your daughter’s safety and well being. Where is she now?” Miss Prickler began.

    “Jayla is down by the river,” Jayla’s mother croaked.

    The CPS women exchanged a judgemental glance and scribbled in their binders. 

    “Is it true that Jayla sleeps outside every night?” Miss Prickler asked.

    Jayla’s mother closed her eyes and inhaled, gathering strength for the rest of the conversation. 

    “Yes. Jayla likes to sleep by the river. I lock her door from the outside every single night, but somehow she always escapes. The river is really not far. You can see it from the driveway. It’s very important to her, to be by the river. I don’t know why but it is, and it’s not doing her any harm, so this is how we live.”

    The CPS women scribbled furiously in their binders, noting that Ms. Sallow was both ‘earnest’ and ‘helpless’.

    “Being a single mother can be very challenging,” Ms. Madow sighed as she closed her binder. 

    “I’m doing my best.”

    “I am sure you are, but the truth is that you can’t let your child sleep outside every night. That is considered neglect,” Ms. Madow explained..

    “The river is important to her!” Jayla’s mother insisted. 

    “Then take her to the river during the day. The bottom line is this: if you are not able to keep your daughter safe then we will have to look into relocating her. We will check in again soon,” Ms. Prickler declared.

    Jayla’s mother was speechless as the two women walked out the door.

    Outside, Jayla stood in the bushes and watched the CPS women get in their car and drive away. She launched a rock from each fist in the direction of their car, but neither stone hit. She found her mother sobbing at the kitchen table, so she got the blue blanket and draped it over her.

    ***

    That night, her mother decided to sleep in Jayla’s room. It was the only option she had never thought to try. Now that the true consequence for unusual behavior had come barging through her front door, protecting her daughter was all that mattered. 

    Jayla was unphased as her mother dragged a mattress next to her bed. After securing the deadbolt with the key, her mother kissed Jayla goodnight and fell asleep. 

    At midnight, her mother awoke to an insistent tapping on glass. Jayla was sitting straight up, staring at the window. As shadow filled the frame, her mother stifled a gasp. It was formless and dark, moving past the window pane into the room. Even in the colorless dead of night, the shadow’s inky black depth was distinct from the darkness around it. Jayla dropped her bare feet to the floor and padded over to the door. The shadow followed at her heels. Her mother stumbled to block the door, but the shadow slipped beneath and the door creaked ajar. Jayla’s eyes were closed as she pushed past her mother.

    “Jayla! Jayla, stop!” her mother screamed, but Jayla did not respond as she swiftly descended the stairs.

    Moving as quickly as she could, her mother embraced Jayla before she could reach the door. Jayla jerked and thrashed wildly, wrestling them to the floor. Jayla bit her mother’s arms and scratched at her face, but her mother held tight as blood dripped from her skin. Then Jayla began to howl, a horrible haunting sound, more like a storm than a human noise. Rain pounded on the window as a heavy wind burst through the front door, even though the skies had been clear just a moment ago. Her mother was losing her grip in the chaos. With strength impossible for a person of her size, Jayla ripped her mother’s arms off her own body. As Jayla lunged for the door, her mother grabbed her around the waist and sunk back into her heels. She was a stout woman, but her feet slid as Jayla gripped the door frame and pulled herself towards it, screaming out at the sky desperately. With a hard kick to her mother’s stomach, Jayla used the momentum to break away and disappear into the night.

    Her mother landed hard on her back, knocking the breath out of her, so it took her a moment to notice that the torrential rain had stopped. She scrambled to her feet and took off running barefoot out the open door. 

    Of course, she found Jayla sitting by the river. 

    “Jayla! Jayla, honey!” her mother gasped as she approached her crossed legged daughter. Jayla’s eyes were open, gazing softly ahead, unphased by her mother kneeling beside her. 

    Jayla’s mother followed her daughter’s gaze and saw the shadow floating on the trunk of the willow tree. 

    “What are you looking at?” her mother whispered.

    “The girl,” Jayla replied.

    “What girl?”

    Jayla didn’t respond as she met her mother’s gaze. A cold chill raced up her mother’s spine, like she was staring into a stranger’s eyes. 

    “You have to go back to bed,” Jayla’s mother begged. “Please, honey. You can’t sleep out here anymore.”

    “I have to stay.”

    Knowing better than to try to grab her daughter again, her mother settled into the river bank. 

    As the first pink and purple shades tinted the sky, Jayla’s mother blinked open her eyes to see her daughter sitting up. Jayla swayed gently, with her arms floating out the side. Across the river, the willow tree’s branches swayed in rhythm. The river was as still as glass. Jayla’s eyes were closed as she danced in slow motion with the willow tree. Her mother watched with amazement until dawn became day and Jayla laid back down.

    ***

    Night after night, Jayla’s mother peacefully followed her daughter from the bedroom to lay beside the river. At dawn, she watched Jayla sway with the willow tree through sleep heavy eyes. When light blue crowned the sky, she carried her daughter back to the house and fed her breakfast. For a few days, she almost forgot about the CPS women, until they visited Jayla at school.

    As they sat in the counselor’s office, Jayla didn’t respond to a single question these strange women asked her. With her mother sleeping next to her lately, Jayla felt closer than ever to remembering what happened before she was born. A fresh sense of strength to reach for the missing memories had grown within her the past few days. Her hope consumed her thoughts so intensely that she didn’t tune into what the CPS women were saying until Miss Madow repeated herself, “Do you understand? You could be taken away from your mother. Why are you sleeping in the dirt every night?”

    “You can’t take me,” Jayla said, startling the women. 

    “Is there something wrong in your house? Does your mother lock you out?” Miss Prickler asked in the high pitched voice adults use with children.

    “No,” Jayla replied.

    “Is there anything going on that you want to tell us about? We’re here to help you,” Miss Madow offered.

    Jayla stared at them blankly until they allowed her to return to class.

    ***

    After school, Jayla dropped off her backpack at her house, kissed her mother on the cheek, and hurried down to the river, like always. The willow greeted her with the usual subtle lifting of branches that could have easily been mistaken for the wind. Jayla waved back and stood at the edge of the water. She usually didn’t want to get wet as she didn’t know how to swim, but today she dipped her finger in the clear cold current. The willow lifted its branches a second time, as if sensing Jayla’s melancholy. 

    “They’re going to take me away,” Jayla mumbled.

    The willow’s whisper, the same two words as always, was carried by the wind to Jayla, “Come home.”

     Jayla submerged her hand, feeling the sting of cold snap her awake, like the opening of a gate. Suddenly. she remembered something new, a bright white light like the sun. She knew what she had to do. It was time to come home. 

    The water was freezing as Jayla stepped into the river for the first time in her life. The willows whispers were louder now, “Come home. Come home. Come home.” The girl in the willow tree waited eagerly. Jayla’s feet ached as the slippery rocks pressed into her arches. The water rose to her knees, and then her waist as she reached the middle of the river. Her audience cheered with silent joy as Jayla neared. But the current was strong, and with her next step she stubbed her toe on a rock and lost her balance. Just before the water closed over her head, Jayla looked up at the willow tree and remembered, for the first time, how it felt when the wind tickled the leaves. Then, without a sound, she was swallowed by the river. 

    For a moment nothing happened, then a form of pure white light the size of a small girl rose from the place where Jayla took her last breath. It floated over to the shadow and together they melted into the willow tree.

    With relief, the willow tree welcomed her home, and all was complete again. Out of all the lives, this one came closest to understanding. However, the end is always the same. There is healing, there is growth, and eventually, all is renewed. 

    December 4, 2024
    creative writing, Fiction, horror, magic, original writing, short story, thriller

  • Fiction: Pardon the Inconvenience

    A piercing ray of sunshine poked Leon’s eyelids, evaporating the easy haze of sleep. Rising like a weed, he blinked through the unwelcome illumination. Leon didn’t need to be anywhere at a certain time, as was the benefit of inheriting a made-up role in his father’s corporate empire. Smacking his dry lips, he shuffled to the kitchen but was shocked to not smell coffee and bacon wafting through his penthouse apartment. Much to his aggravation, his housekeeper was nowhere to be found.

    Leon’s grogginess amplified his desperation for a convenient warm breakfast, so he wrapped himself in a trenchcoat and shoved his feet into slippers to visit a coffee shop down the block. In the hall, the elevator doors displayed a fresh ‘out of order’ sign. Given that the world had always revolved around him, this inconvenience was inevitably personal. He vowed to get the maintenance staff fired as he tripped over his feet down the twenty-five flights of stairs. 

    By the time Leon arrived on the ground floor, he was livid with knee pain and indignation. Almost immediately after stepping out into the world, a car speeding by splashed him with a wall of sewer water. Leon screamed the dirtiest words he knew, something he had heard his father say once when a barista made his latte with too much foam. He briefly considered going back to change, but then remembered the broken elevator and decided to get coffee first.

    The coffee shop was only a few hundred feet away, but his path was blocked by a construction crew digging out the sidewalk. A man in an orange hardhat was indifferent to Leon’s request for an escort around the construction. Leon would either have to step into oncoming traffic or endeavor a scenic route around the block. It was highly unlikely that the man in the hardhat would even allow an attempt at the risky shortcut, so Leon grumbled as he stomped away in his soggy slippers. 

    A chilling wind pounded Leon’s torso as he rounded the corner. Papers and trash torpedoed towards his face like a war zone. As he tried to dodge the flying assailants, he smashed his knee into the unforgiving side of a tin trash can. Leon howled and thrashed about as a geyser of blood soaked through his pajama pants and dripped down his shin, staining the fabric like a crimson badge of ineptitude. His rage blinded him from an oncoming elderly woman who was also struggling against the tyrannical wind. In his fit, he collided with her shoulder and sent her crashing to the concrete. Unable to summon a drop of empathy, Leon spat out a derogatory remark about her gender and age as she grimaced in pain and clutched her hip. Someone nearby quickly kneeled to help the woman, not even glancing at Leon, which irritated him further, so he cussed out that person too.

    Leon fled the scene with an exaggerated limp, hoping that any onlookers would note that he too was a wounded victim. Finally, the coffee shop came into view like the pearly gates of Heaven. Leon forgot to feel self-conscious of his derelict appearance as he staggered inside. With his credit card in his outstretched hand, he floated to the counter and ordered a large coffee and a bagel. The cashier didn’t blink as she informed Leon that his card was declined. Instinctively, he denied the possibility, but the cashier’s face was a brick wall. The barista interrupted his protestations by greeting the customer behind him, so Leon stormed out of the shop vowing to never grant them the pleasure of his business again.

    Outside, the towering skyscrapers absorbed Leon’s exasperated roar. He wondered if this day was a cruel cosmic joke on him. What could he have done to deserve this? He had never hurt anyone, although he had helped his dad determine that firing all the lowest-tier employees would save the company millions. That happened all the time, it’s just the way things went, at least, that was what Leon had told himself.

    His bank wasn’t far and they had always been accommodating, so Leon clung to the hope that a quick trip would solve all his problems. On his way, Leon encountered a crosswalk light that seemed to be frozen on the continuum of time and space. To make matters worse, nobody else waiting contained a wisp of urgency. Leon complained loudly, but the city folk were immune to his grievances, as if they were in on the torturous game the streetlights were playing. Just when Leon was moments away from erupting, the light changed and the flow of the crowd carried him across the street. 

    At the bank, the security guard sprang to his feet as Leon limped across the lobby, leaving puddles of blood and dirty water in his wake. The banker reached for the emergency button under his desk as Leon approached the glass with a deranged glare in his eye. A thick vein in Leon’s neck pulsed as he waved his credit card and demanded a withdrawal. The banker clicked a few buttons on his computer and then calmly informed Leon that his card had been canceled. It appeared that the card’s owner, Leon’s father, had cut him off. 

    The last thread of composure snapped in Leon’s brain. He slammed his fists on the desk like a wild animal and shouted that the banker was a liar. He ripped a pen off the chain and brandished it above his head as if he had any life experience for how to use a weapon. As the security guard tackled Leon to the ground, the banker’s index finger pressed the emergency button. Nothing in Leon’s life had prepared him to handle this avalanche of stress, so he screamed at the top of his lungs as hot tears stung his eyes.

    By the time the police arrived, the security guard was on his feet, and everyone in the bank was staring towards the middle of the room. The only noise was a high pitched cry. Sitting in a dirty trench coat was a wailing baby, no more than a year old. When a police officer carefully placed a hand on the baby’s back, Leon stopped crying and looked around, like he was ready to start everything over again.

    August 19, 2024
    creative writing, Fiction, original writing, satire, short story

  • Fiction: Moon Kids

    Moon Kids

    Moshe knew that he was different from the rest of his fourth grade class, but he never understood why. For the first five years of his life, he didn’t speak. His parents frantically took him to doctors and speech specialists, but Moshe just stared at them blankly as they begged him to produce sounds. When he finally did speak, he walked into the kitchen where his mother was chopping vegetables, and asked where his The Little Mermaid DVD was. The cutting board crashed to the ground before his mother turned around and realized it was her own son speaking to her in perfect sentences, as if he had done so every day of his life. From then on, he spoke as normally as any other five year old. 

    In school Moshe wondered how everyone else in his class already knew how to read and write, or to raise their hand when they needed help. Usually, Moshe sat quietly at his desk and thought about mermaids or dresses until his teacher realized he hadn’t started the assignment with the rest of the class. Over time, Moshe’s teachers and classmates realized that he wouldn’t start unless someone helped him. Whoever was sitting nearby would try to help, but when Moshe wouldn’t pick up the pencil, his classmate ended up writing the work out for him. Moshe didn’t really see the point of school. He wanted to be a mermaid anyway, and mermaids didn’t need to read or write. All they did was sing, and Moshe’s mother assured him he had a lovely singing voice. 

    Even though Moshe’s classmates were all nice to him, no one wanted to play with him on the playground or have playdates on the weekend. None of Moshe’s classmates particularly interested him either, but sometimes when he saw them laughing he felt like he had no idea how to be like them. There was a whole world in his head, but everyone else seemed to exist somewhere else. 

    During the second week of fourth grade, on perhaps the hottest day of the entire year, the door to Moshe’s classroom burst open, awakening the fourth graders from their sleepy midday haze. A kid with spiky blonde hair, bright blue eyes and a big smile waltzed in with the school secretary trudging behind him. Before the secretary could open her mouth, the kid announced, “I am Egan. I am nine years old and I hate school.”

    “Thank you for sharing, Egan,” the teacher said, exchanging a knowing look with the school secretary. 

    Moshe had never heard someone say they hated school. He didn’t know he was allowed to hate school. 

    Egan wasted no time in transforming the once peaceful class into his stage. At first, the kids thought it was funny when he called out in the middle of a lesson that he was bored. Eventually, the rest of the class joined the teacher in scolding him. Egan enjoyed the attention, the way everyone’s face spun to him, all those eyes like spotlights. He liked the way his name chorused through the classroom, and even though everyone thought they were responsible for stopping him, only Egan decided when he was ready to quit. Moshe observed Egan in awe. All Moshe knew was that he didn’t like being at school all day, he never understood how his classmates did it so easily, but he had no clue what he would rather do instead. Egan always seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do, and he did it no matter what. 

    Some days all Egan wanted to do was read his book, but his classmates called him out the second he started flipping the pages under his desk. Things he saw his classmates let each other get away with, like sneaking snacks out of their backpack or doodling when they were supposed to be paying attention, were no exception for Egan. Egan realized he was losing control. His entire class hated him. That wasn’t what he had meant to do at all.

    There was only one person in the whole class who never shouted Egan’s name, never told him to do his work or stop messing around, never tattled on him or watched for him to break a rule. Moshe hadn’t said a word to Egan, but Egan felt drawn to him, the way gravity pulls everything in the universe into its proper place.

    “What book are you reading?” Egan asked Moshe one day during independent reading time. 

    “I can’t read,” Moshe replied, staring at his shoes.

    “Oh! I love reading. Books are great,” Egan said.

    Moshe shrugged.

    “Well, I could read to you if you want,” Egan offered. “This book is about pirates and ghosts. It’s really good. I can tell you what’s happened so far.”

    Moshe looked up at Egan’s pale round face beaming at him with blue eyes so bright they shone like gemstones. Egan sat down next to Moshe, pressing his shoulder against him. Moshe was surprised by how warm Egan’s arm was against his. He wasn’t used to anyone besides his family touching him, even though he saw his classmates hug each other all the time. Like they were sharing a secret, Egan told Moshe the story so far, about Jack Sparrow and the curse of the Black Pearl. Moshe was immediately entranced. He asked Egan what kind of dress Elizabeth Swan would wear, and they spent several minutes sketching out various ideas for her royal gowns. Then, in a quiet voice, Egan read into Moshe’s ear. For once, Moshe didn’t float away into his day dreams. He watched the entire story unfold in Egan’s words, as vivid in his mind as if he were watching it happen in front of him. 

    The rest of the week, Egan seized every opportunity to sit next to Moshe. He still disrupted the class and irritated his classmates, as if it were a series of bad habits he couldn’t break, but when he was with Moshe, he was almost always calm. Egan made Moshe giggle, a noise most of his classmates had never heard before. Egan brought in his favorite comic books, and Moshe loved how he could see a whole story from pictures. It was Egan’s idea to make their own comic book together. Egan wrote the words and Moshe drew the pictures. On the playground, whenever Egan fell down, Moshe was there holding out his hand. When they needed to partner up in class, neither boy had to look around the room helplessly to see which classmate would tolerate them that day. For the first time in his life, Moshe didn’t feel like he was alone on his own planet. 

    “Moshe, do you want to be my best friend?” Egan asked one day on the playground.

    Moshe’s face lit up.

    “Yes! I’ve never had a best friend before,” Moshe said.

    “Me neither,” Egan said. “Maybe we can have a sleepover at my place sometime.”

    Some students nearby overheard the conversation and the news spread like wildfire. Their teacher rearranged the seating chart so that they could sit together, which benefited the entire class as Egan more often only needed Moshe’s attention. Moshe began looking forward to his days alongside his wild best friend instead of dreading the boring grind of school. 

    Even though Egan’s behavior calmed down somewhat, his classmates did not forgive nor forget what he was capable of. While the girls ignored Egan most of the time, the coldest thing they could think to do, the boys intentionally taunted him as much as they could get away with. They hid his books and claimed they were trying to help him focus better in class. They started arguments that raised Egan’s voice to a screech and resulted in the teacher sending him out of the room. Everyone watched Egan like a hawk hunting a mouse, waiting for him to slip up so they could punish him. Their disdain did nothing to discourage Egan, something Moshe admired. 

    One day, when the warm air was just beginning to fade to fall’s crisp chill, Egan had an idea to climb the fence on the corner of the playground so that he could grab a tree branch for him and Moshe. 

    “We could build our own clubhouse! Then no one will find us. We just need some wood,” Egan said.

    Moshe knew it was against the rules to climb the fence, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he dutifully stood guard as Egan shoved his toes into the gaps of the chain link. 

    Egan was halfway up the fence when one of the more popular fourth grade boys, Ryan, ran over. 

    “You can’t do that!” Ryan exclaimed.

    “Mind your business!” Egan hollered back.

    “You have to get down, that’s not allowed,” Ryan insisted, crossing his arms. 

    Moshe glanced nervously at the recess teacher talking with a group of girls across the field. 

    “Leave me alone,” Egan spat, reaching his hand up for the next link.

    “Get off the fence, Egan,” Ryan commanded.

    Moshe barely turned around in time to see Egan leaping off the fence and landing on top of Ryan, gripping his neck. Ryan screamed and tried to push Egan away. A group of kids circled around them, chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Others were yelling at them to stop. Moshe saw Egan’s eyes open wide and unblinking. His mouth was stretched into something like a smile, baring his teeth like a dog before the bite. The teacher ran over and screamed at them to stop but everyone knew Egan wouldn’t listen. Moshe didn’t know that if the teacher restrained Egan it could result in a lawsuit, all he knew was that the teacher wasn’t going to do anything, so he reached in and put his arms around his best friend. Egan flailed until he realized it was Moshe who was holding him. 

    Ryan sprinted away, surrounded by a crowd of kids all wanting to know what happened. Moshe held Egan, who was still wearing that crazed look on his face and breathing hard. Egan struggled to break free again, reaching his arms out in Ryan’s direction until the teacher grabbed his arm and led him to the principal’s office, leaving Moshe alone on the playground. Moshe didn’t realize he was sitting by himself in the grass, slowly rocking back and forth, until his teacher placed a hand on his back and led him inside. 

    Moshe didn’t see Egan until it was almost the end of the day, when Moshe was pulled from class to work with the Learning Center teacher on his reading. As he walked down the hallway, Egan and the principal were walking back to class. Moshe hung his head, unable to look at Egan.

    “Moshe? Are we still friends?” Egan asked carefully as they passed by each other with their respective adults.

    Moshe shook his head and kept walking. Egan’s shoulders fell and he hung his head too. The Learning Center teacher asked Moshe if he wanted to talk about it, but Moshe shook his head again. He just wanted the day to be over. After the lesson, Egan was waiting expectantly for him in class. On Moshe’s desk was a picture of two boys, one with spiky blonde hair and blue eyes, the other with curly brown hair and glasses. The letters “BFF” were written at the top, which Egan had once told Moshe meant “best friends forever.” 

    “I’m sorry Moshe. I really am,” Egan said in a low voice, searching Moshe’s face. “I just go crazy sometimes. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m really, really sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

    Moshe traced the letters in the picture. Egan was the only real friend he’d ever had. 

    “Do you forgive me Moshe? Can we still be friends, please?” Egan begged.

    Moshe nodded. Egan squeezed him tight until Moshe released a tiny smile. 

    “Thank you Moshe. You’re the best friend ever,” Egan said. 

    The rest of the class was working on a computer program that Moshe never got the hang of, so he watched over Egan’s shoulder as Egan played the game his own way. The pair were quiet so the teacher didn’t snap at them to get on task, and Moshe felt relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, giggling at Egan’s jokes in their secret corner of the universe.

    After the fight, the fourth grade class decided that Egan was their enemy. No one knew when a normal day would turn into a nightmare, except Moshe. Some days were calm and passed with little more than Egan’s usual disruptive defiance. Some days there were storm clouds circling Egan’s head, and Moshe seemed to be the only one who could see them. On those days, Moshe chose to walk back and forth along the back of the playground by himself as Egan chased and attacked his classmates. Moshe didn’t try to get involved anymore, even though he knew he was the only one who could stop Egan. The storm clouds were becoming a permanent fixture above Egan’s head, some days darker than others. On a day when the clouds weren’t so dark, Egan sat next to Moshe on the edge of the playground.

    “The principal said I’m going to get kicked out of school soon,” Egan said quietly.

    “Why?” Moshe asked.

    “I don’t know. Everyone here hates me, they want me gone,” Egan explained.

    “I don’t hate you,” Moshe said.

    “We need to get out of here, Moshe. You and me, we don’t belong in a place like this. It’s no good for us,” Egan said.

    “Where could we go?” Moshe asked.

    Egan looked up into the clear blue sky. Moshe followed his gaze up to the faint white moon, like a faded dime at the top of the sky. 

    “I read a book about the moon,” Egan said. “We should go there. That’s where we belong.”

    “There’s no air on the moon. We’ll die,” Moshe responded, looking back down at the earth. 

    Egan kept his neck craned up. 

    “There’s a secret door that lets you inside the moon. That’s where all the kids like us live. We can go there and be happy and never have to see any of these dumb people again,” Egan explained. 

    Moshe thought about this idea. The moon seemed like a nice place if everyone there was like him.

    “How will we get there?” Moshe asked.

    “Leave that to me. I’ve been wishing on a star every night for weeks,” Egan assured him. “We’re going to get out of here, Moshe.”

    That night, as Moshe sat on his bed holding his favorite doll, the one with long red hair and a green dress, he heard a tap at his window. Wearing his teddy bear footie pajamas, Moshe crept towards the window and peeked out of the curtain. He was shocked to see his best friend’s face smiling ear to ear. Moshe pushed his window open and realized Egan was inside a small spaceship, no bigger than his mom’s minivan. 

    “I told you! Didn’t I tell you!” Egan cheered.

    “What is this?” Moshe asked, clutching his doll.

    “It’s a spaceship from the moon kids. They heard my wish! Get in, we’re going to the moon!” Egan said, holding out his hand.

    Moshe glanced warily at the spaceship. Everything looked clean and new, with two seats at the front facing a huge windshield. A TV hung on one of the padded walls with two kid sized space suits hanging below it. 

    “Let me grab some things,” Moshe said. 

    He emptied his school backpack on the floor and filled it with his favorite doll, his treasured The Little Mermaid DVD, and his glasses case. Egan helped him climb through the window and into the spaceship. 

    The door to the spaceship closed behind him, but nothing else happened. 

    “How do we get it to go?” Moshe asked.

    “I don’t know. When I got in it just went to your house, I didn’t have to do anything,” Egan said. 

    Suddenly the TV flickered on, displaying a sentence in bright orange letters.

    “What does it say?” Moshe asked.

    “‘What makes you special will take you far,’” Egan read. “What does that mean?”

    Moshe repeated the phrase to himself. 

    “Oh! I know!” Moshe exclaimed and then belted out the chorus of “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid movie. 

    Immediately, the spaceship jolted and shuddered, lifting away from Moshe’s bedroom window. Egan, who had never heard Moshe sing before, gaped in awe.

    “Keep singing!” Egan shouted.

    “Wanderin’ free, wish I could be,” Moshe sang at the top of his lungs. “Part of your wooorrrld!”

    “Yes! Yes!” Egan shouted as the spaceship soared over the neighborhoods towards the deep black sky. 

    The message on the TV transformed into a new phrase with green letters.

    “It says to take a seat and enjoy the ride,” Egan said. “We did it!”

    Smiling ear to ear, Egan and Moshe sank into the plush chairs facing the enormous windshield. They watched home disappear below them, felt their stomachs float as they fled gravity’s grasp. The windshield washed white and gray as they soared through the clouds until all they could see was black emptiness and a perfect white circle in the distance. Moshe dozed off with the gentle rocking of the spaceship. He dreamed he was emerging from the ocean with legs for the first time. On the shore he kept trying to stand up but couldn’t. He awoke to Egan reading a message on the TV screen.

    “It says we should put on our space suits,” Egan said. 

    Egan and Moshe helped each other put the heavy suits over their pajamas. Miraculously, both suits were a perfect fit. The TV blinked again.

    “It says to prepare for landing!” Egan squealed. Moshe slid his backpack onto his shoulders and clipped the chest strap securely.

    Hardly able to contain their excitement, the boys vibrated with anticipation in their chairs. Moshe had never left his hometown, and now he was on the moon with his best friend! They squeezed their eyes shut as the cratered surface of the moon approached, but the spaceship landed delicately with little more than a shake. Moshe was afraid to open his eyes until he felt Egan squeezing his hand.

    “We’re here Moshe. We’re on the moon,” Egan whispered, handing Moshe his helmet. 

    Moshe screwed his helmet onto his suit and followed Egan out the open doors. As soon as Egan stepped out of the spaceship, he leapt like he had wings. He soared several yards away from the ship, whooping and laughing the whole way.

    “You gotta try this Moshe!” he yelled. 

    Egan’s voice exploded in Moshe’s ear through a small speaker in his helmet.

    “I can hear you! You’re too loud!” Moshe yelled back.

    “Now you’re too loud!” Egan yelled back. “Just jump!”

    “Ok! Stop yelling,” Moshe said before stepping his foot out of the spaceship. For some reason, he still expected to be pulled down to the ground. He had been the exception for everything he had ever known, why would gravity be any different? 

    Instead, Moshe floated. With a delighted giggle, he flailed his limbs and made his way towards Egan. As light as a feather, Moshe landed next to his best friend. The two chased each other in slow motion along the craters, bouncing with exaggerated leaps. They had never felt so free, like outer space was welcoming them. Neither boy could stop smiling. Eventually, they exhausted themselves and rested beside the spaceship.

    “So what now?” Moshe asked.

    “I read in a book there’s a trap door somewhere out here,” Egan explained. “It will lead us to the moon kids.”

    “Well where is it?” Moshe asked, looking around.

    “It’s on the dark side,” Egan said. 

    Moshe gulped. 

    “C’mon, let’s go together,” Egan said, getting up. Moshe followed.

    The boys leapt over craters until they could no longer see Earth or their spaceship looming over their shoulder. The dark side of the moon wasn’t dark at all, except for the endless blackness opening all around them. It was eerily quiet and suspiciously peaceful. Moshe couldn’t imagine children living in a place like this, surely he would have heard them by now. Suddenly, the silence was broken when Egan landed with a thud. The boys barely registered the perfect square door on the ground before it flew open. Out of the hatch popped a little girl who looked just like any girl on Earth except her skin was electric blue and her eyes glowed like neon lights. Her silver jumpsuit sparkled despite the lack of light. 

    “Heroes from Earth, are you able to understand my language?” she asked. 

    “Yes,” Egan said.

    “Follow me,” she instructed. 

    Without hesitation, Egan and Moshe followed the girl through the square hatch. Beneath the surface of the moon, they no longer enjoyed the perks of antigravity. The girl began explaining how her people had created artificial gravity, but the boys were too busy taking in their surroundings. At first they couldn’t see anything, but as their eyes adjusted they realized they were standing at the top of a staircase high above a thriving city of blue people. Cone shaped buildings arranged in four rings guided the flow of the city in perfect circles. The inside of the moon domed overhead, glowing bright on one side so there was no centralized light source, just one big wall of ethereal white. 

    “This is awesome,” Egan whispered. 

    “You can take your helmets off. There is oxygen in here,” the girl said. 

    Reluctantly, Moshe and Egan removed their helmets, but to their relief, found they could breathe. The three kids descended the long staircase towards the city. 

    “Where are we going?” Egan asked.

    “We call it the Chamber of Infinite Wisdom, but on Earth I believe it’s called a library,” the girl said.

    Egan and Moshe smiled at each other. The library was the only part of school where they ever felt peace. 

    “What’s your name?” Moshe asked.

    “You may call me Orisa,” she answered. “I know your names already. We’ve been watching you for a long time.”

    “Why?” both boys asked in unison.

    Orisa stopped and turned around. Her green eyes shone like stars.

    “We have been studying the Earth kids for a very long time and found that you two see the world differently from them all. When we discovered that you two were best friends, we knew you could help us,” Orisa explained.

    “Help you with what?” Egan asked.

    “I can’t say out here. Everything will be explained in the Chamber of Infinite Wisdom.”

    The staircase ended at the base of a huge amethyst cone building. Orisa placed her hand on the smooth surface and a door opened. She led the boys down a dark narrow hallway to a huge room with more books than Egan or Moshe could have ever fathomed to exist. Neat shelves of books curved with the walls of the building and stretched all the way up to the pointed ceiling, creating a circular labyrinth. 

    “This is amazing,” Egan whispered under his breath. Moshe could only nod. For the first time in his life, he wished he knew how to read. 

    At the center of the maze of bookshelves was a round table at which sat three more blue kids. They wore silver robes made out of the same material as Orisa’s jumpsuit. The blue boy in the middle had orange eyes so bright it was hard to look directly at him. 

    “Egan and Moshe, I am Terzar. This is Octavo and Geldie. We are The Counsel,” the blue kid with orange eyes boomed in a surprisingly deep voice. “Welcome to the Moon. We are in desperate need of your assistance.”

    “Our portal has closed,” Octavo said. Three pink crystals glittered on his forehead matching his glowing pink eyes. 

    “Without the portal, we are unable to venture to other planets within the galaxy to gather our necessary provisions,” Geldie said. Thin silver lines moved and sparkled across his blue face like comet trails. His eyes glimmered silver when he talked and faded to gray when he was silent. 

    “The portal is necessary for maintaining intergalactic relationships, but more importantly our Moon Ambassadors will not be able to return until the portal is reopened,” Terzar explained. “If anyone enters a portal on another planet in an attempt to re enter through this one, they will be caught in the void of the space time continuum, and without swift action, they could be lost forever.”

    Egan and Moshe didn’t understand most of the vocabulary being used, but they understood the gist: this was an emergency. 

    “How did the portal close?” Egan asked.

    “It is a very rare occurrence that a portal closes, so few understand the phenomenon,” Geldie said. “This portal closed right before my eyes, and this was left in its place.”

    Geldie lifted his hand and the center of the table opened in a perfect circle. From the circle rose hundreds of crystals levitating in the air in a tight pattern like a chandelier.

    “These crystals are from the planet Neptune. We believe it to be some sort of code. Every mathematician, scientist, philosopher, teacher and scholar on the moon has attempted to crack this code but no one has succeeded. Our resources are very limited and dwindling quickly. You are our last hope,” Geldie explained.

    “How are we supposed to crack a code of crystals? Isn’t a code supposed to be something written down with symbols and numbers or something?” Egan asked.

    “Egan, when you were five years old, you escaped from your school classroom a total of eleven times. When most of your peers were learning how to write their names, you memorized the schedules of the employees at your school and strategized multiple escape routes. You have outsmarted dozens of trained adults on your planet before you have even lived a decade,” Terzar said.

    “I’ve never done anything like that. I can’t even read,” Moshe huffed.

    “I have read every book in this Chamber of Infinite Wisdom, but none of them enabled me to master aesthetics the way you have, Moshe. The importance of beautiful things is being quickly forgotten on your planet, but it is the beautiful things that connect the heart to the soul. Your understanding of colors, shapes and patterns will allow you to create much needed loveliness in the universe,” Terzar said. 

    Moshe puffed up his chest, even though he didn’t know what the word ‘aesthetics’ meant, no one had ever given him such a high compliment. He had always loved pretty things, but he never knew it was so necessary. 

    “We will crack this code and get your portal open,” Egan promised.

    “We will leave you to your work,” Terzar said. Everyone left and Egan and Moshe were alone with the levitating crystals. 

    “How are we going to crack this code?” Moshe wondered.

    “I don’t know. Have you ever cracked a code before?” Egan asked.

    Moshe shook his head.

    “Me neither,” Egan said. “Let’s get started.”

     The crystals were more dazzling than anything either boy had seen on earth. All different shapes and sizes, each emanating a soft rainbow aura.  Egan and Moshe circled around the table, trying to see if different viewpoints would enlighten them. 

    “I don’t know what this is supposed to mean. Do you have any idea?” Egan asked.

    “I can’t even read a regular book, I don’t know how I’m supposed to crack this code,” Moshe muttered. He was annoyed at the aliens for dragging him all this way just to do something he couldn’t do. 

    Egan squatted on top of the table squinting at the crystal configuration. Moshe crossed his arms and scoffed.

    “What?” Egan asked.

    “They expect us to read it when the crystals aren’t even in the right order,” Moshe answered, even more annoyed now.

    “What do you mean? What order?” 

    Moshe threw his hands up, exasperated. 

    “Well if they would just put them right!” he huffed, climbing onto the table.

    Moshe reached his hands into the helix and began rearranging the sparkling rocks. The crystals hung mid-air as if secured in an invisible spider web, but when Moshe’s fingers touched the crystals, blue sparks ignited and the crystal held onto him like velcro. Wherever Moshe placed a crystal, it stayed and shone rainbow prisms in every direction. 

    “There! See, that looks way better,” Moshe said.

    Egan gaped at the new configuration before him. Moshe had laid all of the crystals on a flat plane in a Fibonacci-sequence mandala, the pattern repeating itself outwards in perfect symmetry. The rainbow prisms overlapped creating concentrated pools of perfect color.

    No sooner had Egan recovered from his rare loss of words that the entire mandala filled with incredibly bright rainbow light, pulsing with an intense heat. Egan and Moshe felt a physical tug towards the light and each took an involuntary step forward. 

    “What’s happening?” Egan screamed.

    “I don’t know! What’s the code? What’s the code!” Moshe screeched as the boys tumbled after each other into the open pool of light swirling at the center of the table. 

    For a moment, they were blinded and the air left their lungs. Every sense was overwhelmed beyond interpretation. It took several moments before they realized they weren’t standing on anything. They fought to regain their sense of vision, and as their eyes adjusted, they saw dark shapes approaching them.

    “Are you ok?” one of the shapes asked.

    Egan was the first to realize that these shapes were moon kids like Orisa. Four blue kids blinked their bright eyes at Egan and Moshe. 

    “Where are we?” Egan asked.

    “You’re in between,” one of the kids said. 

    Moshe looked around. Everything was hazy, like they were standing in a cloud. There were no distinct features of the area around them, not even a flat surface to stand on or a horizon between ground and sky. Colors changed fluidly, like they were inside a rainbow. Moshe couldn’t even pinpoint what color he was surrounded by before the next one began to leak into the space around him. 

    “Why are you all here?” Moshe asked.

    “We were trying to go through the portal but we got stuck here,” the same kid answered. 

    “How do we get out?” Moshe asked, an edge of panic creeping into his voice.

    The kids all shrugged.

    “Can we look around?” Egan asked.

    “It’s all like this, there is nowhere to go,” another kid said. 

    Egan shook his head. 

    “No, there has to be something. Let’s all split up and look in different directions,” Egan declared. 

    Moshe and Egan moved their feet like they were walking, even though they weren’t standing on a solid surface. They felt a tug similar to the one emitted by the crystal code. Eventually, the kids disappeared behind them into the pink and orange haze. After some time, perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, an incredibly bright glowing orb appeared, the size of a hula-hoop, so luminous the boys held up their hands and squinted between their fingers. Around the orb were all the moon kids. 

    “What is this?” one moon kid asked. 

    No one could answer. The orb flickered suddenly and then shrunk inwards slightly. As Moshe stared into the light, he felt something warm in his chest and he saw his mother’s face in the orb. An overwhelming sense of longing washed over him as he realized how far away he was from his family. Moshe looked to Egan. Egan was staring at the orb, mesmerized.

    “What do you see?” Moshe whispered to him.

    “I see myself, laughing, happy, free,” Egan murmured.

    The orb shrunk inwards again. With every contraction, all the kids were pulled towards it a little more. 

    “I don’t think it’s supposed to be shrinking,” Egan said finally.

    The other kids broke their gaze away from the orb to look at Egan.

    “I think it needs something,” Egan continued.

    “We don’t have anything,” one kid said.

    The orb shuddered and shrunk again. Moshe unzipped his backpack and pulled out his favorite doll, the one with the red hair and emerald green dress. He kissed the doll’s face and then without hesitation, tossed it into the light. All of the kids, including Egan, gasped.

    The orb swallowed the doll and then grew brighter, stretching beams of light out like eager hands. Elation and satisfaction filled Moshe, the same feeling as when he first unboxes a doll, as if he hadn’t just given one away. Just as soon as the sensation filled him completely, the orb contracted once more and the feeling evaporated.

    “What was that?” Egan asked. “That was incredible. Did anyone else feel that?” 

    The other kids nodded. 

    “Why? Why did we all feel like that when the light got bright?” one of the moon kids asked.

    The orb now showed him a vision of pages in a book. However, the incoherent scribbles didn’t infuriate him, instead he could visualize the meaning conveyed by the words. 

    “Because it wants something really good, I think,” Moshe said. “Something important.”

    “Something important?” Egan said, grinning from ear to ear.

    Moshe turned to look at him and recognized the mischievous expression with horror.

    “Egan, no. That’s not what I meant,” Moshe pleaded.

    “No, I think you’re right. That would make sense, whatever this is, my guess is that it needs something pretty awesome to eat,” Egan reasoned, his blue eyes shining. “Wherever this takes me, it’s where I belong, I’m sure of that.”

    Before Moshe or any of the moon kids could stop him, Egan flung himself into the light. The orb swallowed him and then burst with a blinding bright wave of heat. Every cell in Moshe’s body felt compressed through a needle, then for a fraction of a moment, there was nothing at all. With a smack painful enough to remind him of his own existence, Moshe landed hard on his face on a flat surface. He had never been so grateful to taste his blood.

    “Moshe! Moshe! Where’s Egan? What happened? Are you ok?” 

    Moshe heard Orisa’s voice before he was able to open his eyes and focus. Eventually, he lifted his throbbing head and looked around. He was back in the Chamber of Infinite Wisdom, laying on the table where the crystals had been, except now the table was one solid surface without the opening in the middle. The four other moon kids lay on the table around him, slowly waking up. Orisa’s glowing green eyes watched over him. Egan was nowhere to be found.

    “Moshe! You’re ok! You’re safe, it’s ok!” Orisa cried. 

    Moshe didn’t realize he was rocking his body wildly until he felt Orisa’s warm arms around him. He relaxed into her embrace and started to cry. One by one, each of the moon kids joined the hug. Despite his confused grief, Moshe had never felt so safe. 

    After the Counsel heard Moshe’s full story, they flew around the library, pulling heavy books off the shelves and bringing them back to the table to pour through the pages. Moshe sat very still next to Orisa as the Counsel murmured softly to each other and pointed at various pages in their books. Eventually, Terzar came over to Moshe and placed a small blue hand on his shoulder.

    “Egan’s sacrifice was not in vain,” Terzar said.

    “What happened to him? Where is he?” Moshe asked.

    “That light orb you described was, to the best of our knowledge, the Entropic Source for our breadth of the Universe,” Terzar explained.

    Moshe blinked at him blankly.

    “Our Universe runs on chaos, randomness, entropy,” Terzar tried again. “But that energy is not infinite, in fact, had Egan not sacrificed himself at the very moment he did, the entire Universe could have contracted into itself. Time would have reversed backwards until the very beginning, and everything we’ve ever known would disappear as if it never existed.”

    “So he’s gone?” 

    “Not necessarily. As you may have guessed, not just anyone could have satisfied the needs of the Entropic Source, but the magnitude of energy that your friend provided has not been absorbed in such a great quantity in a very long time.”

    “So where is he?” 

    “He’s here, with us,” Terzar said. “He is the light that shines through the moon. He is the feeling in your chest before you do something brave. He is the flow of time through the Universe itself.”

    “I don’t understand.”

    “Moshe, what I think Terzar is trying to say is that Egan may not be here in the same way as before, but he’s still here,” Orisa tried. 

    Moshe nodded. He wanted to scream and cry, deny everything Terzar said and demand he find a way for Egan to come back, but instead he said, “I’m ready to go home now.”

    “Moshe,” Geldie said, stepping forward, his silver eyes soft. “Thank you. You have saved us all.”

    Orisa prepared the return rocket, an egg shaped vessel with only enough space inside for a bean bag seat. Moshe curled into a ball in the seat. The four moon kids, the Counsel and Orisa crowded around the entrance to the rocket. Sixteen glowing eyes of all different colors gazed at him with dazzling luminescence, seemingly brighter than before but Moshe was too tired to be sure. Afraid if he opened his mouth he would never be able to stop whatever wail might escape, Moshe raised his hand and waved. The eight moon kids waved back. Then the door of the rocket closed, and in less than sixty seconds, Moshe was soaring through space. He drifted off into a deep dreamless sleep.

    In the morning, Moshe awoke in his bed, in his footie pajamas, tucked in with the covers to his chin. He didn’t remember arriving home the night before. His mother poked her head in his bedroom to make sure he was awake and told him breakfast was ready downstairs. Moshe was usually quiet, so no one thought to ask if anything was wrong. At school, the entire fourth grade was buzzing with the news that Egan had transferred to another elementary school. No one asked Moshe how he felt about it, and Moshe didn’t say anything to anyone. For a whole week he didn’t speak at all. His teacher noticed his silence, but under the circumstances, didn’t push him. 

    When Moshe finally spoke, it was to a classmate he had known since kindergarten, who had always been a bit odd. The girl sat on the edge of the playground, playing with leaves and sticks on the ground. 

    “Look at the moon,” Moshe said, pointing up at the clean crescent, as clear as if it were a white curve of paint on a blue canvas.  

    “I love the moon,” she said, smiling. “The moon makes me feel less alone.”

    “Me too,” Moshe said.

    “Do you want to play with me? I’m making fairy houses,” she offered.

    “Fairy houses? With sticks and leaves? The fairies need more than that,” Moshe scoffed, smiling. “We need something pretty for them, like flowers.”

    “Ooo good idea!” the girl agreed. 

    Together they set off to pick flowers along the fence, and Moshe began to feel a little bit better. 

    April 25, 2023
    autism, creative writing, Fiction, kids, magic, original writing, short story

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