High Urban Fantasy Jazz

The Longest Long Weekend

Honey examined the knife in her hands and glared at the door hard enough that, in a more exciting universe, it would have exploded.

“We could just kill him,” she said.

Shaun shot her a look. “We wouldn’t have to do anything if you hadn’t made me bring him back here.”

“He was knocked out. How was I supposed to know he was going to be a pain in the ass?”

Again with the look from Shaun, this time without any words. None were needed.

“Yeah, fine, he’s a hunter, that’s how, shut up.”

“Excuse me! Mr. and Ms. Captor! I’m out of Diet Coke, bring me another with that sandwich!”

She switched the grip of the knife from ‘spreading jelly’ to ‘stabby stabby’ and squeezed her fist around it. After a quick count to ten she let it go, putting it down on the counter.

“One more of day of this,” she told Shaun. “And then either his stupid little friends come get him, or we leave him here.”

Geo had spent the last four days calling Shaun and Honey his ‘captors’ despite the many, many…many…times they had reminded him he could leave whenever he wanted. The door wasn’t locked, he wasn’t shackled to the fucking couch, and they had even given him his cell phone. They weren’t the ones who had twisted his ankle, and they hadn’t given him that concussion, either. Nasty thing. Geo still needed the room dark, sounds quiet (except for his own yelling, apparently) and hadn’t yet remembered the whole ‘reading’ thing. Shaun had had to flip through the short list of contacts to find the one person Geo was willing to call. His brother, Erik.

The one they had seen running away, leaving Geo under the foot of a vampire.

“Liars,” Geo had said when they’d told him, shaking his head hard enough to make himself dizzy. “Erik would never leave me behind. He’s probably dead. You probably killed him.”

Shaun and Honey had barely tried to convince him otherwise. He wasn’t going to believe a word either of them said so why bother. And anyway, once Erik picked up the phone then Geo would know.

In four days, Erik had not picked up his phone.

“Where the hell is this guy?” Shaun asked on the second night while Geo snored heavily on the couch. “He’s the one we saw run off, right?”

Shaun didn’t really have to ask. The background to Geo’s phone was a picture of the two of them together, recently taken. Erik had been the one hightailing it, that part was for sure.

“Maybe he got grabbed after he left,” Honey suggested, shrugging. “He could have been losing a lot of blood. Maybe he passed out, got taken to the hospital…”

“Maybe…”

Neither of them liked the idea. It didn’t feel right. Erik hadn’t weakly limped his way out of the alley, he had sprinted. Like the devil himself was on his heels. Honey thought maybe she had noticed him cradling his left arm as he ran, but that was it. Unless he had panicked his way directly in front of an oncoming truck she didn’t think there had been enough wrong with him to keep him from answering a phone call from his brother.

Honey brought the sandwich and Diet Coke into the other room and dropped them onto the coffee table.

“About time,” was all Geo said as he picked himself up to sitting position. He desperately needed a shower.

“Any word from your brother?”

“He’s dead, so no,” Geo said around a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly.

“I told you, he isn’t. Are you sure he even likes you?”

Geo glared at her as he took a sip over his can of Diet. It had taken finding a hand mirror at the minimart down the street and holding it up in front of her before he would believe she wasn’t a ‘dog,’ as the hunters apparently called vampires. Which didn’t make much sense to Honey. Didn’t hunters traditionally hunt with dogs?

They still hadn’t gotten around to telling him Shaun was a ‘dog.’ They kept hoping he’d be out of their lives before it came to that. And yet here he was, ungratefully eating the sandwich Honey had made him to keep him alive while his asshole brother ignored him.

“Of course he likes me. He loves me. I’m his brother.”

The two of them had already had this argument a couple of times, and Honey didn’t feel like diving again. She took a different path.

“Don’t you have anybody else’s phone number?” she asked, sitting down on the loveseat. “Someone else you can call?”

“No.”

The skepticism on her face could have carved wood. Geo lowered his eyes, suddenly very interested in his sandwich.

“The entire hunter organization and you only have the phone number for your brother? There isn’t, like, a main office you can call or something? A supervisor?”

Geo raised an eyebrow. “Supervisor?”

“I don’t know how you people operate. For all I know you’ve got a C-suite and middle management.”

“We don’t,” he said. But then he sighed and nodded toward his phone. “But there’s another number. The emergency line.”

Honey’s jaw hit the floor, and through the door to the kitchen she heard something fall and break.

“You’ve been sitting on an emergency line this entire fucking time?”

“I’m still having trouble reading!” he shouted back at her. “I wasn’t sure-”

“You could have asked us!”

“I’m asking now!”

In lieu of knocking the plate and sandwich out of his hand, Honey shot up and stormed over to where the phone was charging on the other side of the couch.

“What’s the name?” she asked, punching through the menus.

“Don’t break it!”

“What’s…the…name?”

“Ditto Lopez.”

Honey scrolled through, clicked Ditto’s name, and put the phone on speaker before placing it on the coffee table between them. Geo shifted in his seat, a hand on his temple. It looked like nerves. But that didn’t make sense. Probably uncomfortable.

“Dave’s Mortuary,” said a voice in a California stoner drawl. “You stab ‘em, we slab ‘em.”

“Ditto, it’s me.”

“No Ditto. Who’s ‘me,’ dude?”

“It’s Geo, man…Geo White.”

A pause on the other end, following by shocked laughter.

“Oh, no, way, man. Georgie, is that really you?”

Geo looked at Honey nervously. “It’s Geo, Ditto, and yeah, it’s me.”

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit, Georgie, what the fuck. Where have you been, man?”

“I got hurt. On that last job. Four nights ago? I’m holed up with a twisted ankle and a…uh, some other stuff,” Geo said.

Honey raised an eyebrow.

Geo made a zip it motion over his mouth.

Honey sighed. She didn’t care why he didn’t want to tell Ditto. It didn’t matter anymore. He’d finally gotten a hold of the hunters. This terrible long weekend was finally over.

“Oh, this is too crazy. Little Georgie White, back from the dead.”

“I’m not…why did you think I was dead?”

“Because Erik said so.”

My Darling Emily

My Darling Emily,

I know this letter will not find you, because this letter will not find anyone. I have made a mistake.

‘Made a mistake.’ To put such a catastrophe so mildly. Truly, there should be another way to put it. To use the same phrase when referring to both putting sugar in the salt shaker and effectively destroying the universe. Ridiculous. This language we use is ineffective and cheap.

The language I use. The language you used. Interesting. It is good at conveying when things are gone.

I did it for us. It’s all I really want to say: I did it for us. When I lost you, I didn’t know how to exist anymore. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t think. I either couldn’t sleep, or could do nothing but. I’m not sure which I hated more. Sleep. Such an oddity. We (by ‘we’ I mean ‘scientists’ and by ‘scientists’ I mean ‘me’ because I’m the only one left) still don’t fully understand why creatures need it. And that each creature needs a specific amount. Too little and the body’s systems go haywire. Too much and you get a slightly different but equally disastrous result.

Ah, yes, that is it. Not ‘I have made a mistake.”

I have made a disaster.

I am sorry, my love. I have very little focus. I find myself rambling at all hours. Most times I don’t even know what about.

When I lost you, I lost myself. I know I always loved you more than you loved me, but still. Our love was written in the stars. In the very atoms of the hydrogen molecules that build those stars. We are essential. Our universe cannot exist without it.

I didn’t set out to prove that, but I suppose I did.

I just wanted to get back to one of those perfect moments. We had so many. I thought of one, over and over and over. Our first anniversary. That day in the park. You said you hated roses but I knew if they were from me you would love them, and I was right. You cried at the sight of them. We had our picnic. That moment doesn’t just live in my mind, it is my mind.

That was the moment I had to get back to. And I believed I could do it. I believed, out of every single human being on existence, I was the only one who could pull such a feat off.

It was not easy. It was not easy to figure out, nor was it easy to continue the research. I learned early to hide what I was trying to do. I either worked on something else during the day and continued my own research at night, or I lied about what my goals were, usually until I got caught. I bounced from university to university. Once they discovered what I was about they would not have me, but would not speak ill of me, either. My intellect – no, my reputation. That is what saved me. That is what saved my project.

In my weaker moments, I blame all those people who would not stop me. They should have stopped me. Then everything would be fine. Then I would not be here, the only human conscious, surrounded by the tortured, shredded remains of a universe in free fall.

I’m getting off topic again. I only wanted to tell you, Emily, of how my love for you endures. Even now. Even here. Wherever ‘here’ is. Whenever ‘now’ is. I will love you until the minute I die, which is hopefully soon.

I only wanted to go back, Emily. To those days when everything was perfect. Before I lost you. Before you packed up your bags and went back to your mother’s. Before the ridiculous restraining orders. Before all of our conversations had to go through a lawyer. You escalated so quickly, you always did! We could have talked this out, Emily. You could have given me a chance.

You never gave me a fucking chance.

I knew you were with him, the day I started my machine. I put a tracker on your car. A friend of mine hacked your phone. That’s why I called those restraining orders ‘ridiculous.’ I was able to step right through them and no one even knew. Not you. Not your lawyer. Not those worthless pigs who put me in that cell after you exaggerated what I had done.

You were with him, and stared at that little dot, your dot, on the map, hovering right over his apartment. Your apartment, I supposed. You moved in with him. You shouldn’t have done that.

If I hadn’t been so distracted I might have seen what had gone wrong. But I was staring at that dot when I entered the code, knowing I was seconds away from having you back.

And then everything went to SHIT.

I was supposed to move through time. Me. Just me. Not the whole stupid universe. I stayed in place and the universe started moving backwards around me, against the natural direction of time’s arrow. It isn’t supposed to go that way, but my machine is forcing it. Tearing it a part.

Why not just turn the machine off, you ask? Well, by the time I figured out what was going on I couldn’t. The universe is reversing. I am not. And not only that, it’s reversing fast, fast, too fast. Like rewinding a VCR. Remember those? Too fast to keep up. By the time I realized what was happening the machine had been unmade in front of me.

The moments I wanted are long gone, Emily. Reversed and shredded. You and I have never been born. It’s been, I think, two hours, and already no human has been born. I am before all that. Whatever is happening is speeding up. There are dinosaurs now. But it won’t be long before there is nothing on this planet but soup. Scientists disproved the Big Crunch theory years ago, but here I am showing them they’re wrong.

Emily, I am writing this because I must. You must know how much I love you. I still love you. I will never stop loving you, even as I and the rest of the basic pieces of the universe are shoved back into a infinitesimally small pocket and – I hope – out the other side.

Even though this is all your fault.

If you had just stayed with me, you would not have been unmade. The universe would not have been unmade.

You made me do it.

Love, Forever and Ever Yours,

The Only Man to Ever Love You Enough to Destroy Everything

Fire

“But the woods are on fire!” I said, pointing out the window in case she had somehow missed the blaze casting red shadows all around us.

“Yes,” she said, not looking up from her work, also cast in red. “The woods are on fire. Not the town.”

“But the town could catch fire. It’s right there!”

The heat from the fire was gently brushing my face, even through the window. Every single cell in my body wanted to move. My brain was barely able to follow the conversation over the clanging alarms it had set off. My feet twitched, this way and that, and my legs longed to follow. Every part of my in agreement that running was the best move. And yet I couldn’t listen.

“It won’t.” She said it with such authority for a second it didn’t sound ridiculous.

“It might!”

“A lot of things might happen.”

I took a deep breath and wished I hadn’t. Smoke from the flames. The windows were closed but still it found its way in. My clothes, my hair, the curtains and the couch. Everything smelled like a bonfire. The smell would linger for weeks. If these things were still there in weeks.

“But this probably will happen.”

“It won’t.”

“You can’t know that!”

Finally she looked up from her papers, covered in meaningless symbols that would have been just as empty to me if they were right in front of me. Every day she filled her mind with these abstract concepts, leaving no room for the flickering, melting concrete.

“You worry too much. The fire brigade is very good. They’ll stop the fire before it attaches to the town and everything will be right as rain.”

She was probably right. I couldn’t deny it. Our town’s brigade was so good other towns often sent for them when they had their own fires. Still…

“With it so close, I’m uncomfortable. I can’t concentrate. My work will be thin, and not nearly as good if I could concentrate. We should just stop. Relax. Be ready to run.”

“Not possible,” she said, her face back in her meaningless numbers and symbols. “The work must be done.”

“Why?”

“Because if it’s not the people will be unhappy.”

“What people?”

“People!”

“I’m unhappy.”

“Probably because the work’s not done.”

Outside, the sounds of the brigade doing their work. Shouting. Splashes. Digging. And beyond it, the persistence of the fire.

“I’m afraid.”

She looked up at me. “You can be afraid while you work. Look at me. I’m doing it right now.”

And then she pulled her shawl on – even in the heat – and shifted back to her work, in a way that said the conversation was finished.

I went back to my own desk, for lack of anything else to do.

The Window in the Back of The Bear

Recently, I made a post on Tumblr:

If you don’t know it, The Bear is a show on FX/Hulu about Carmen Berzatto, a Michelin star level chef who ends up taking over his brother’s Italian Beef shop after he kills himself. It is labeled as a ‘comedy’ by the Emmy’s but it is absolutely not. While there are comedic elements it’s mostly a high tension show that switches almost exclusively between people making beautiful food and those same people screaming at each other. It is very good. It deserves all the awards. But God damn do the Emmy’s need to create a new a category for shows like this because it is absolutely not a comedy, and neither is Barry or Beef for that matter.

It is not, actually, directly about the fact that Carmy and gang are participating in the gentrification of this neighborhood but that is what is happening, and I guess I wasn’t the only one who noticed because my stupid little post took off. Mostly with a lot of agreement. But also, a lot of this:

I haven’t responded on the post because honestly I don’t want to fuck with it just to respond to a bunch of people who have a bad opinion. Because it is. Bad.

So, yes, by the end of season two and at the beginning of season three, Carmy has officially changed his brother’s Italian Beef shop to The Bear, a high-falutin place with tiny ass portions and astronomical prices because they are pinning all of their hopes and dreams and aspirations and will-to-lives (wills-to-live?) on getting a Michelin star.

And yes, they still sell the Italian Beef sandwiches.

Out of a take-out window.

In the back.

Near the dumpsters.

Manned entirely by one (1) employee.

And I want to know – do people really think this is good? Actually, forget good, do people really think this is good enough?

Just imagine your favorite mom-and-pop type restaurant. Doesn’t have to be Italian Beef. Could be pizza. Other subs. Tacos. Korean. Whatever. Doesn’t matter what type of food it is because when you get down to it, all of these places share certain vibes. A little hole in the wall with an outside that is somewhere between ‘sketchy’ and ‘I am definitely going to get stabbed.’ You go in and everybody who works there is yelling at everybody else who works there and some of the other customers. You recognize that the customers who are getting yelled at are family, either literally or by virtue of being there every single day. You order food. It is reasonably priced. It is also some of the best food you’ve ever had in your life. You sit in the small dining room and listen to the yelling and maybe whatever music they have coming from the thirty-year old boombox they have on the counter or if not that then the TV they have on in the kitchen playing daytime TV in whatever the dominating language of the restaurant is. It is warm. It is bordering on cozy. Maybe you go there so often that eventually they are also yelling at you. Because you’ve become family, too.

Now that place is gone. Closed. You can see through the front window when you walk by that the interior has been completely gutted. There’s no sign that the place has been bought out and you can see the regular staff inside working on the remodel. Good for them, you think, they got the money to spruce the place up. You can’t wait to see what the inside looks like.

It opens with a new name. You search for the new website. You double check. Triple check. This can’t be the right place, can it? This isn’t the food you’ve been eating on a weekly basis. This is fine dining. You can’t identify some of the food in the pictures. They’re using words you’ve maybe only heard in passing and have a sort of vague understanding of but couldn’t define if asked. Things like reduction and crème fraiche. There’s no menu until a week before reopening. There’s no prices listed. You may not know a lot about fine dining, but you know that if the prices aren’t listed you cannot fucking afford it. There’s also a huge banner up top.

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED.

Jesus fucking Christ, reservations? Reservations?

You come around opening week, and sure enough this restaurant is no longer a home of yours. Same staff, but they’re all dressed up now. Suits. Dresses. Chef’s coats. The interior is completely changed. It doesn’t look like home. It looks like an untouched room of some actor’s mansion you see in a copy of Architectural Digest while waiting in a doctor’s office. The place is filled. You’ve never seen any of these people in your life. Their cars are in the tiny parking lot next door. A single one of these cars costs more than all of the cars that used to park there.

You complain about it to friends. Most of them are completely with you. It’s a shame. They loved that place, too. But there’s that one friend. There’s always that one friend. He perks up. He smirks at you. He does not think he’s delivering good information. He thinks he’s delivering the killing blow to prove you wrong and thus make him superior.

“Actually,” he says. “They still sell their old food. It’s at a walk up window in the back.”

Why do you even hang out with this guy again?

He may be a smug prick, but it turns out he’s right. You check the website again and there it is, in small, unassuming letters at the bottom of the main page. You get a little hopeful. And a little hungry. The food is still there. A piece of that home is still there! They didn’t abandon you. Not completely.

You go the next day, leaving work for lunch because this little window is only open for lunch hours. There is a line, just like the old days. You recognize some of these people, people from around the neighborhood. Despite everything, you are getting excited. This is it. You haven’t had this food in months. You are dreaming of your old order.

The line does not move. And does not move. People are shifting around. Getting uncomfortable standing there. You check your watch. You need to be back in front of your computer in thirty minutes. It’s already been ten, and only two people in the line have gotten anything.

While waiting, you notice the menu. It is diminished. Severely. There are three things on this menu. The core of what they used to serve, and nothing else.

You finally get to the front and discover why this line has taken so long. There is only one person working the window.

One.

You can hear a commotion from inside, beyond this man and his window. You’ve seen other employees arrive and go in through the side. But they are not here for the window. They are here for the new restaurant. The fancy one you can’t afford. They are prepping for the dinner that will be served after the window has been closed. After you and the locals have left.

One man taking the orders. One man making the orders. They have a few wooden picnic tables and you sit and wait at the edge of one. It is January in Chicago. Or it is August in Orlando. Or it some other combination that adds up to ‘No one in their right mind would be outside right now.’ Maybe the restaurant put up some space heaters, or misters and umbrellas, or something to help. Probably they didn’t, and you wait, miserably, for your food.

Finally the single man working the window with the impossible line calls your name. You get your food. It is every bit as good as it used to be. For a few minutes, you are satiated. You are satisfied. You think, maybe this will work.

But it has taken nearly half an hour just to get your food. You need to be back in front of your computer in fifteen minutes and you’re just starting to eat and then there’s the ten minute walk back. You will be late. Fine for today. But you can’t make it a habit.

Then you start to notice the ‘outside’ of it all again. The wooden bench is biting into your ass. The temperature is making you regret every clothing decision you made that day. Occasionally whiffs of the dumpsters around the corner brush gently by your nose, making you question your appetite. People are still showing up. People want the food. The line is just as long and does not go any faster. How could it? There is only one man.

You think, maybe I can just come on the weekends, but hesitate. Will they have more people working the window on the weekends? Somehow, you doubt it. And if the line is this long on a Tuesday, how bad will be it on a Saturday? The few tables are already packed with people, will it be worse on a weekend?

How much thought, really, did they put into this situation?

As you leave you stop to look at the menu of the new place. There is none. There is a sign that says they change the menu every day. You realize you have no idea what sort of food they even serve in there.

As you walk home, you become bitter.

The window in the back does not seem to be a way for these people to stay connected to the neighborhood, to the food they used to serve, to the way it used to be. No, no, the window is only one thing. A pittance. One you don’t particularly need anymore.

I’ve thought about responding to this particular criticism by reblogging the actual post, but I didn’t want to do that for a few reasons. One, the initial joke is short and snappy and I didn’t want to weigh it down with this…I don’t know if this is an essay or a y/n fanfiction at this point, honestly. Two, the original post was a hypothetical based on The Bear so it doesn’t fucking matter that they still serve the sandwiches out a back window in the show, does anyone think something like that would happen in real life? And three, I made the post the day the third season dropped, June 27^th, after my husband and I watched a single episode. We don’t binge. They only briefly kind of, sort of mention that there is a window in the back. I literally did not know there was a window. Technically, all these people have been spoiling the show for me. Jerks.

If you haven’t seen The Bear, ignore that I’ve also spoiled some stuff and go watch it, because the stuff I’ve talked about hardly counts as actual spoilers and the show is buckwild. I think the second season episode “Fishes” might have actually given me a minor heart episode.

Ghost Town

It was mid-day, either the sun at its highest point or so close it didn’t matter, when Benny rinsed and spat water and pointed out northwest.

Fel glared at him with contempt. It was the middle of the desert, in the middle of the summer, in the middle of the worst job he’d ever agreed to, and the worst partner he’d ever had the misfortune of getting paired up with had just spat out water, mostly onto his horse. The droplets that had made it to the ground were already gone, soaked up by either the dry air or the drier earth.

After a few seconds, when Benny was still staring hopelessly out into the horizon, Fel rolled his eyes with everything he had and followed Benny’s still pointing finger.

God take him, there actually was something out there.

The sun was reflecting off something. The reflection didn’t move or shimmer, so it wasn’t water. It was something hard, and solid. Unmoving. Glass window?

There were shapes. Hard to make out , what with how bright the glare in the middle was and the heat shimmering off the ground, making everything roil like boiling water. But there were definite shapes.

“Let’s check it out.”

“No way.”

Benny finally tore his eyes from the glare and the fading shapes to cut him a look.

“Don’t you want to check it out?”

Yes.

“No,” Fel said. “Damn it, Benny, it’s a hundred and four degrees and we got another two days ride. We ain’t got the time nor the supplies to be looking into what’s probably nothing more than the sun hitting still water at exactly the right time.”

Even as he said it he knew he was full of it, and Benny knew it, too. Still water? Out here?

“Might be a dried up town,” Benny said, looking back at the shapes. “Could still be a working well.”

Now that got Fel’s nerves up a little. Well water. Cold well water. If buildings were still up, a shady spot to eat something, too.

“Who knows what people left behind?” Benny said.

Well, it didn’t surprise Fel nothing that Benny was only thinking of treasure. And, heck, maybe if Fel found himself something, some old forgotten pocket watch or cash hidden under a bed, it would keep him out of the desert for a few weeks.

“Fine,” Fel said. “Don’t look too far, anyway.”

It didn’t, but neither were surprised when it took near an hour to get there. The desert and the ocean: the world’s greatest tricksters. With every step Minnie took underneath him, Fel became more certain they were making a big mistake. Every minute it took to get there was another minute to get back on track. Plus however long they lingered. They would be late getting to Cannon tonight, maybe late enough that the saloon would be full up. They’d end up sleeping with their horses on the dirt outside of town. Sleep would be patchy. They’d wake up late, eat breakfast late, head out late, get to Woodland just as late. Late, late, late.

Fel kept his trap shut. He hated Benny, but had worked with him long enough to know his quirks and pica-dillies. There was a firmness to his jaw and a sort of aliveness to his eyes that hadn’t been there the entire trip. It told Fel even if he peeled off, went back to their route, Benny would keep going forward toward that little glare on all his lonesome. Arriving in Felicidad without Benny would mean suspicions. Everyone knew how much Fel hated him. No one would believe Benny had just walked off on his own two feet. He needed Benny to keep out of a jail cell. Benny wasn’t going to turn back until he saw whatever was at the end of this chase.

And, not that he was currently admitting it to himself or would ever admit it to Benny, but there was a small part of him that was as desperate to see what could be out here in the middle of nothing as Benny was.

It was a town.

“See? Ain’t I said?” Benny asked, face split in half by a shit-filled grin. “You were nothing but doubt but as always, I knew something you didn’t.”

Fel took the quietest long breath he could and counted to twelve.

They were standing at the top of what had once been a main street. Little wooden buildings sat side by side in two rows, glaring at each other. The usual suspects. General store. Lawman’s abode. Saloon. Rival saloon. Further down they could see some houses, tiny little wooden things all bunched up together. Even further, so far they shimmered in the heat, bigger houses.

“Something ain’t right.”

Benny shot him a look and made some kind of noise that sounded more like the horse underneath him.

“You’re just upset I was right.”

This was mostly why Fel hated him. Ever since the day they had met three and half years ago, Benny had seemed to be under the impression that the two of them were rivals in some sort of never-ending contest. Whatever Fel did around Benny, Benny was sure it was to score imaginary points against him. Whatever Benny did, he was sure Fel was watching, calculating, deciding who won. In reality, Fel barely thought about Benny at all, except to get bothered and then annoyed and then downright hateful of all this stupid, non-existent competition.

“I ain’t. I don’t…Look, something is wrong here.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong except you,” Benny said. “You just letting the ghost town spook you.”

Fel bristled but kept his mouth shut as Benny dismounted his horse and tied him up in front of the nearest saloon. He’d been in three…no, four…four ghost towns over the past decade. Happened all the time out here. People build a town for a mine, mine dries up. For a trade route, trade goes south. For a river, river shifts north. You get a little jumpy in ghost towns, sure. The emptiness, the spots where folk are supposed to be ain’t, the way the wind blows through it like it ain’t even there, and, of course, the very real fear of squatters jumping out at you to protect what is now, sort of, theirs. You know, the sort of edginess you get used to.

This wasn’t that. And it wasn’t that Benny had been ‘right,’ neither. This was…this was…

Well, shit. He didn’t know what it was. But he knew it wasn’t good.

Across the way Benny entered the empty saloon and Fel had to champ back to keep from shouting at him not to.

Something is not right.

When Benny didn’t scream…when nothing jumped out…when the whole town didn’t fall out of one building, weapons in hand, Fel got off Minnie and tied her up next to Big John. Maybe he was overreacting. His brain boiled from the heat. He agreed to come because he hoped there was a well. Maybe he could still find it.

Fel walked down that used up main street carrying his two canteens. He looked between the buildings, trying to spy a stone well or a pump, but mostly kept his eyes toward the dust he was kicking up. He was afraid to look in the windows. Sure some face – human or otherwise – would be staring back.

Finally, down the other end of town, between the last few houses and the little church, he found it. A stone well, still full, bucket still attached to its little rope. He inspected it a bit, making sure nothing was floating in it, and then drank straight from the bucket. The instant that cool water hit the back of his throat he could feel the temperature in his skull come down by several notches.

Maybe it was the heat after all.

He stared at the well as he drank. Was there something off about this, too? Yes, he decided as he dropped the bucket for more. The well was too damn big. Twice as wide as well he’d ever seen. And who even made wells anymore? Why not just the pump?

“Felipe.”

Fel sputtered and choked and cough and dumped half the bucket down his shirt and only after half a minute of all that did he finally see Benny standing just a few feet away from him.

“Damn it, don’t be sneaking up on me like that.”

Fel waited for Benny to argue. I wasn’t sneaking, you’s just jumpy.

Instead Benny only stared at him. Despite the heat his face had gone pale.

“You have to come see this.”

“What now, Benny?” Fel asked before drinking more water.

“It’s just…I don’t know…please, come and see.”

Oh, sure, when I’m nervous I’m just being a baby, but now that he’s scared off his tits, it’s just dandy!

Still, Fel followed Benny back into town, down main street, not into the first saloon he’d gone into, but the second.

It was a bloodbath.

Or had been, anyway. Now it was a blood painting. Dried blood everywhere. The floor, the tables and chairs, the bar, the mirror behind it. There were even some spatters on the ceiling. Tables were on their sides. Chairs had been smashed. The mirror was cracked in three separate places. The brass bar at the bottom of the bar, the one you were supposed to rest your feet on, had been pried off, taking some of the wood with it. It was now leaned up against the back wall. One end was covered in more blood, and something dried and gray.

“What the hell is all this?” Fel asked, surprising himself. He was half scared to death, but that other half was…angry. Yeah, angry. Like it was Benny’s fault.

Benny is just a putz, as always. The putz who brought us here, but yeah, just a putz.

“I don’t know,” Benny said. Three words Fel was sure he’d never hear coming from the man’s mouth. He looked like he was ready to faint. “It looks like…well, it looks like everybody killed each other.”

“That don’t make no sense,” Fel said, his mouth running away from him. “Where are the bodies, then?”

“Dunno. This, uh…this ain’t the only place that looks like this. Blood everywhere. Stuff broken. No bodies.”

“Okay. Well. What the hell do you want me to do about it?”

Benny looked at him with a face like he’d been struck, which just made Fel angrier. How dare Benny bring him into all of this and then think Fel could do anything about it? All because of that stupid glare…

Glare.

Fel looked around to the front of the saloon. Without saying a thing to Benny he left out to the main street. Looked around at the buildings. Really looked.

“What?” Benny asked, making Fel jump.

“God damn it, I told you not to sneak up on me!”

“I didn’t.”

“The windows, Benny. How long you been wandering around this dead town and ain’t noticed the windows?”

They were all broken. Every single one. In every single building. Busted out. Broken glass scattered below.

“Yeah. Broken. Like everything else, it seems.”

“Use your fucking head. If all the glass is broken, what was that glare we chased all the way here?”

Benny’s eyes widened like it hadn’t occurred to him yet. Of course it hadn’t. Benny was a putz, and an idiot, and a liar, and a-

And now he was running out the front, avoiding the blood stains like they might catch him, hold him down, start hitting him, over and over and over and-

Fel shook his head and followed after Benny. Weird town. Weird saloon. Weird thoughts. That was all. Stuff was getting to him more than he’d like to admit.

The sun had finally entered afternoon and started climbing down, but that only seemed to make it angrier. The heat was stifling. Choking. How the hell had they even made it in heat like this? And it was bright…so bright…

“There!”

Benny had been standing in the middle of the little dirt road, whipping his head all around like some demented bird with an ear infection. His face was tomato red, his eyes two perfectly round spots.

Losing his cool. Needs water.

But Benny was already moving toward where he pointed. The well.

No, not the well.

The little church behind the well.

“Ben-”

He was hustling. Not listening. This town had gotten to him, all right. Gotten in deep.

Better cut the infection out.

The scene played out in his mind in distinct, prickling detail. Fel would chase after him. Knock him down. Keep him down with his knees. Then he would get his pocket knife out and open up the blade and ever so carefully drive it right between the ribs and-

“What is the matter with me?” he muttered to himself. And then, glowering. “Fucking Benny. All his fault.”

Fel ran after him.

To kill him?

Maybe. Maybe. It was the heat. It was this empty town. It was chasing after Benny. Always, always, fucking always chasing after Benny. Cleaning up his messes. Listening to him gloat. Watching his stupid face as he once again found a way to be better than him. Always had to be better! Couldn’t just exist! No! Had to the best! The best! The fucking best whether it killed him or not and-

Fel burst through the church’s doors. He hadn’t noticed he’d accelerated into a dead sprint. Fast enough to knock one of the doors completely off its hinges. Sunlight followed the two men halfway down the aisle between the pews. Enough of it bounced off the white painted wood to illuminate the rest.

Benny was on his knees, panting.

Screaming?

If there had once been a Jesus hanging on the far wall He was gone now. What hung there instead was some grisly abomination that could have been human. If you squint. There was something greasy about it. Greasy in his mind. No matter how much Fel looked he couldn’t make the details stick.

It was getting harder to make anything stick. The specific details of his current situation seemed to be sliding away. They had been going somewhere. And then…they weren’t there. They were here. Where was here? Who was they? Was that him? Who was him? None of it seemed to matter. Nothing mattered. Why did he think it did? Did he think? There was only one thing that mattered and he was beneath it.

Something was screaming his name.

A few feet away. Something. Someone. He once knew the name. Screaming. Constant screams. Coming from his face. Pointing. Pointing. Pointing.

Whatever remained of whoever he was looked. More blood. Painted on the walls. In designs. Pretty designs. It swam around his head. Into his head. Filled him up until there was nothing left.

He turned his eyes on Benny, still screaming. Whatever hung on the wall watched as Fel released the anger that had been building in him until what remained of Benny was unrecognizable as it was. Blood spattered on the pews, the ceiling, the walls, the pretty designs, the words written on the wall in blood.

we dropped the boddies in the well

Pink!

Sally is fifteen, a junior in high school. She’s on the field hockey team and plays viola in the school orchestra. She is a teacher’s pet. She is not well liked by her peers. She is mentally unwell. She does not know this. She thinks all the other girls think the way she does. She will not be diagnosed for another six years.

By then it will be too late.

Her favorite color is pink, and she is dressed head to toe in it. A pink ribbon in her hair, a pink sweater with darker pink triangles, a pink skirt. None of these pinks match each other. Sally doesn’t care. She, in fact, thinks the mismatching pinks makes her look ‘eclectic.’ If Sally was a different girl with a different future, in ten or twenty years she might have looked at her pictures from high school and cringed. Sally won’t be alive in eight years, let alone ten.

Her notebooks are filled with notes written in a bright pink gel pen. So pink, in fact, it’s hard to see exactly what is written. That is by design. Sally does, in fact, have some self awareness. Understands that some things about her should be kept secret. Again, she doesn’t know she isn’t quite right. She thinks all the girls her age have violent fantasies about their crushes. But she also thinks everyone keeps those fantasies to herself.

When Sally was seven she killed the neighbor boy’s puppy and when he came to her to cry about it she cried with him.

She’s sitting on one of the picnic tables outside the cafeteria now, watching that same boy toss a football around with his friends. She’s been obsessed with this boy ever since she killed his puppy. This boy – Dylan Andrew Rayfield, the most perfect name ever given to a human in the history of existence – is aware of Sally’s existence. They have, after all, been neighbors their entire lives. He thinks they are passing acquaintances. School friends at most. They chat on the bus, sometimes. They exchange notes. Once, Dylan realized he had left his pre-calculus text book in his locker when he needed it for homework. He called Sally to borrow hers for the evening and gave it back to her the next morning.

Dylan doesn’t know that Sally still has that textbook, even though that class was last semester. She claimed she lost it and gave the school sixty dollars out of her own money to replace it. It’s in the back of her closet, along with the rest of the Dylan shrine.

Dylan doesn’t know about the shrine.

Dylan doesn’t know that he’s secretly sending Sally signals all the time. Every passing glance, every ‘hey’ or ‘sup’ has a meaning that only the two of the know. Dylan doesn’t know that they are soul mates, that they are dating, that they are already planning their wedding for after graduation.

Dylan doesn’t know why his last girlfriend’s home burned to the ground with her and her parents and little brother inside.

Sally is a straight A student, never misses a day, never speaks out of turn, is on the Honor Roll and student government. She has been overheard muttering to herself by teachers. Several of them have seen the notes she was taking in their classes, seen that they weren’t notes, that the same sentence unrelated to history to To Kill a Mockingbird has been written over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over all down the page in swirly pink handwriting. They dismiss these things the way they never would have if Sally was a C student or liked to dress in black.

When Sally finally goes too far, everyone will say they never saw it coming. They never saw any hints. Some of these teachers will lose sleep over the lie. Only some.

Sally is watching Dylan out of the corner of her eye while her hand washes over the page, leaving disturbing pink swirls in its wake. If she could she’d pull all that gel ink off the wrinkled pages of her notebook and turn it into a long rope. She’d tie it around Dylan and around herself and they’d be together forever. He would look so cute in pink.

It’s what he’ll be wearing when the police find his body, but that’s not for another five years.

Her pink gel pen skips over the page without pause, without slowing, practically tearing into the white paper.

Mrs. Sally Rayfield

A Voice in the Closet

Lisa closed the door as gently as she could, not wanting to make a single sound. Today, the sounds had never stopped. Soft sounds. Gentle speaking. Hushed tones. Careful footsteps over manicured grass and earth that pressed in with every step. It was all still too much. She never wanted to hear a sound again.

Her room was exactly as she had left it twenty years ago. Her mother had always threatened to turn it into a crafting room, her father an exercise room. They never had. Laziness? Or something more?

The twin bed wasn’t quite how she remembered it. Too hard. Hadn’t it been the dreamiest place in the whole world when she was a child? Maybe things get harder when you get older. Maybe she was misremembering. It was actually a positive, her back was still all messed up from tripping down the stairs five years ago. She’d set her Sleep Number bed to ninety-eight ever since. Her husband refused to have sex on her side of the bed. Said it was like fucking on roof.

Her husband. She should really call before going to sleep. But a glance at the little alarm clock – still ticking after all these years – told her he and the kids would probably already be asleep. And anyway, she didn’t have the strength for that. To hear another sound, even if it was the sound of her husband’s voice. She sent him a text – glad that’s over with, see you tomorrow, love you – and plugged her phone in before rolling over and trying to sleep.

Coming home for a funeral was pretty much the worst, but there were some unexpected comforts. The twin bed was a spit of blanket and pillow compared the king bed waiting at home – Don had probably adjusted her half to his usual thirty and was sleeping in the dead center of the bed spread eagle, lucky jerk – but there was still something oddly comforting about it. The smell. A little musty, but otherwise just as she had remembered. The softness of the comforter. Her mother had washed it. Or had been washing it. Either way, she hadn’t let it get stiff with age. The sounds of the room. Yes, she was pretty much done with the sounds, but these sounds were practically nothing. Welcome. The air rushing through the vents. Wind through the trees outside. Her father’s snoring, audible throughout the whole house. These were the sort of sounds she could take right now. The sort of sounds that could rock her to sleep.

“…lisa…”

She sat upright in bed. She had heard something. No, she hadn’t. Yes, she did. No, she didn’t. Where did it come from? Nowhere, that’s where, because she hadn’t heard anything at all. Except she knew where it came from, except she didn’t because there was nothing to hear go back to sleep.

As soon as her head hit the pillow again she heard a new sound. A creak.

Knowing what she would see, contemplating not bothering to look, she looked anyway.

The closet door was now ajar. She was sure it had been closed. It had been the first place her eyes had gone when she had come in.

“Lisa.”

She knew that voice. She had heard that voice her entire childhood. All the way through high school, until she’d finally left. It wasn’t supposed to be real. It wasn’t supposed to still be here. Boogeymen don’t follow you into adulthood.

“Lisa…Lisa!…I’mmm sssooo glad you’re hommmme, Lisssssssaaaaaaaa-”

“Oh, my God,” Lisa said.

“You cammmme back to plllayyyyyy.”

“Mr. Freckles.”

“Commmmme plllaaayyyyy, Llllliiiiissssaaaa.”

“Mr. Freckles!”

The hissing finally stopped. There was a sort of wounded air to the quality of the silence. She’d never yelled at Mr. Freckles before. Never spoken to him at all.

“I did not come back to play. I came back for my Nana’s funeral. Which was today. And not fun. So if you could please shut the fuck up I am trying to sleep off the world’s worst emotional hangover.”

Lisa laid back down without waiting for a reply, pulling the blankets over her head.

I always knew that fucker was real.

Is he real? Or is this, I don’t know, audio hallucinations brought on by exhaustion and grief.

“Lllllissssaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

Lisa sighed. He was real.

“Llllllissssaaaaaaaaa.”

“What?” Lisa barked, not bothering to get up.

“Plllllaaayyyyyyy?”

“No, Mr. Freckles. No play. Sleep. Go to sleep.”

“You’re not Lisa.”

“I am. I’m just not afraid of you anymore.”

“…why?”

With an eyeroll, Lisa sat up on the side of the bed, facing the still half-open closet door.

“I don’t know, man. I guess because I’m thirty-eight with three kids and a mortgage? I’m a grown woman. I have a tweaked back and a trick knee. I’m afraid that leaving for a week is going to hurt my chances for a promotion next month. I’m afraid the noises the water heater has been making are going to be expensive to fix. I’m…fuck, I’m afraid the planet is going to be all fucked up before my kids can even have their kids. I don’t know. I’ve got a lot on my plate. I can’t really be scared of a voice in my closet anymore, you know?”

A pause. She’d never spoken to Mr. Freckles like this. She’d never spoken to Mr. Freckles at all. Mostly she had cowered in fear, trying to decide if it was worse to face the closet or away, while Mr. Freckles whispered terrible, awful things. Had she angered him? Would he finally come out of there?

“…sssorrrry about Essstellllle.”

Lisa blinked. “You knew Nana?”

“…this room…was hersssss…”

Lisa had never once thought of that. This house had been in the family for generations. Others had slept here as children, people she knew. She’d never thought to ask anyone else about Mr. Freckles. You’re not supposed to talk about childhood monsters.

“…she…is dead?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“…you will die?”

Lisa snorted. “Yeah. I mean, hopefully for not another thirty or forty years, but yeah. Happens to all of us.”

“Not to…me…”

“Well, ain’t you lucky.”

“Come play…play with me…forever…”

It took Lisa a second to understand it wasn’t a threat. It was an offer. A promise.

She sighed again, and got back into bed.

“No, thank you, Mr. Freckles. I got too much on my plate to become a disembodied voice in a closet.”

“…you will die…”

“Them’s the breaks.”

A pause, long enough for Lisa to actually begin falling asleep.

“Lisa…”

“What!” she snorted out, jerking back awake.

“…can I come with you…lonely…”

“Mr. Freckles, you can do whatever you want as long as you shut up and let me sleep.”

Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest move to tell an unknown entity living in the closet it could do whatever it wanted, but Lisa was exhausted and grieving and willing to say anything for some quiet. Which, at the very least, she got. Mr. Freckles stopped his talking, and Lisa fell into a deep, unsatisfying sleep.

It wasn’t until the next day, when she was on the plane, watching a very concerned six year old stare at one of the overhead storage bins, that it occurred to her she was going to have to explain to her husband why there was a voice in their closet.

Mint

When they told her not to plant mint in her garden she thought they were overreacting.

“It’s mint,” she had said with a laugh. “What could it possible do?”

It’s a bully.

It’ll overrun your garden.

It’ll escape.

It will take over.

It will spread.

But how could any of that be possible? Mint was just mint! Refreshing, cool, perfect for mojitos. She had needed the mint.

“It’s mint,” she muttered to herself, staring out her window. Her face was painted green by the sunlight coming through mint. It had consumed her garden in little more than two years. A year after that her and her little house was now covered. The mint rose up from the ground to impossible heights, taller than the sunflowers the mint had attacked, destroyed, pushed out.

It was growing from everything. The breaks in the pavement in her driveway. The dirt between the flagstones of the walk. The lawn is completely gone, replaced by mint that spreads out, up, reaches for the house and for the sidewalk. The neighbors have complained but what can she do?

It began to grow inside. She found it sprouting from drains, corners, under sinks and around toilets. Her house has never smelled fresher. It burned her nostrils, gave her weird dreams where she was lost in a never ending maze of mint, sipping from a violently green drink.

Her friends reached out to her the night before.

Didn’t we tell you this would happen?

As a matter of fact, they didn’t.

Everything is fine! I’ve got the mint in control. I’m thinking of planting begonias!

She lied to them. She had to. The mint was in the house. It was watching her through the window. If she told them the truth, who knew what it would do.

And anyway, they wouldn’t believe her.

It whispers to me at night is what she had wanted to write. Her fingers had been poised, hovering over the keyboard. Maybe if she had written and sent it fast enough, the mint would have missed it.

It was a chance she couldn’t take.

She finally gave up, logged off and shut down her computer. Got ready for bed. Brushed her teeth with strawberry toothpaste. Washed it down with water from the tap. Minty. Everything was minty. Went to bed. And listened.

sssssssssssssss

sssssssssss-ssssp-ssssspread

spread

Cats had been disappearing from the neighborhood.

The next door neighbor had taken a torch to the mint trying to grow on his side of the fence.

She hadn’t seen him in a few days.

spread

Even in the darkness, the whole room looked green. She pulled the covers over her head, trying to block the smell, the sound. The mint stopped speaking. But she could still hear it. Growing. Spreading.

And The Ground Below?

“Did you know,” she started, shaking her drink in her hand. She liked the feeling of the ice clinking against the glass. It grounded her. ‘Grounded.’ What a funny word. Especially considering the circumstances.

They were in the living room. Actually, an open floor plan meant they were in the large space that was, at once, a living room, dining room, kitchen, and wet bar. But she was standing in the living room section, next to the window on the far side of the sofa. It was all windows, really, like every other apartment in this block and the next, and the next, and the next. Any time of day you could look outside and see the sun reflecting sharply off one building or another. Right now, early evening, it was reflecting off the Blue Gardens block.

Look above, see the tattered remnants of the atmosphere only a short miles below where the empty nothingness of space began.

Look out, a sea of silver and glass spears poking up and out, higher and higher, threatening to fill that empty nothingness.

Look below, a sea of clouds. Today, anyway. On most days you could see a little further down. On perfectly clear days, you could see all the way down to the ground fog that hid the planet that was down there, holding them all up. Supposedly.

“Did you know,” she said, even though she was sure she’d already said it. “Did you know I have never seen the ground? Not even once?”

She took a sip of her drink before going on.

“Oh, I know what you’ll say. Of course you have! You’ve seen pictures! You’ve seen footage on the tube! And yes, of course I have, we’ve all seen that haven’t we? But have I seen, with my own two eyes, with nothing between me and it, the actual, factual ground? I tell you I haven’t. Sometimes…sometimes I wonder…”

She put her drink down on the coffee table, dangerously close to the edge, and stepped up to the window until her slippered toes were touching the glass. Careful to keep her fingers from the glass lest things get smudgy, she carefully leaned forward until her forehead was leaning on the window. Cold, but only for a second, then easy to ignore. Soon, the glare of the glass was gone, too, and there was nothing but her and the air around her and the clouds passing dreamily below. She could pretend there was no building around. Her own little sky island, sitting on top of the world, forever sailing.

“Sometimes I wonder if the ground is even there at all. I haven’t seen it. I don’t know anyone who has. Have you? Seen it?”

Only when she got no reply did she pull herself away from her window and her clouds.

Across the room her son was still standing. Still staring. Still, she supposed, waiting for an answer. Although perhaps not. His face had changed. Oh, the angles were still sharp enough to cut through the glass behind her, but they went in different directions. Left meant angry. Right and up meant confused.

“Yes, of course you haven’t. If I haven’t done something, then-”

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

She picked up her drink. Shook it. Sipped. “Of course I have. I have heard every single thing you have said, starting with the gulping, heaving scream inches away from my ear inside the surgical suite. Pity none of it has ever mattered.”

“I will not-”

“You will. Of course you will. Do you think you ever had a choice?”

“You can’t-”

“I can. And I must. Don’t you understand, everything I have ever done I’ve done for you?”

Historically that had been enough to end this, but today her son only drew himself up taller, strode toward her a few paces until he was looming over her.

“You do what you for you, and then use me as the excuse,” he said, his voice barely more than a low murmur. “I am done being your shield.”

“No, you’re not. As long as I’m around-”

It was the truth. As long as she was around, there was nothing he could do to change his circumstances. He was trapped, as were they all, in glass and silver and barely enough oxygen.

Ahh, she thought, as he cut her off by squeezing her shoulders and lifting her off the ground. He knew. Thank goodness. I thought I’d raised a simpleton.

The glass of the window should not have shattered behind her. It shouldn’t have even cracked. Sabotage, she thought as she passed through the field of glass chips and into the open, freezing air.

And then she was falling, falling, too fast for thoughts to stay inside her head. All she had was the water from the clouds covering her hair and face, the roar of air in her ears as she rushed past, and a simple instinct to turn her body until she was facing down so she could finally see.

Ah, there it is, she thought a fraction of a second before meeting it.

I Will Return Your Memories

I arrive early in the morning, having travelled through the night. It’s quite true that the roads are dangerous after dark. But a secret of the road – even bandits have to sleep. The darkest hours of the early morning are safe, as long as you don’t trip into one of their camps. Which I have done, yes, but not in a couple of years.

Getting to town first thing is imperative. If I can be in the process of setting up in the middle of the public square as the locals are beginning their day it’s effectively free advertising. I used to try to be set up even earlier, sitting and waiting for customers before most of them had finished their breakfast. Terrible business, those days, and I couldn’t figure out why until finally a mechanic in a Amarillo with the correct combination of boldness and ineptitude told me straight.

“It’s fucking creepy is what it is. You ain’t there the night before, and then you is the next day? Ain’t nobody see you arrive and settin’ up its like you just appeared outta the void.”

And he was exactly right. God, how I chastised myself the entire day for not noticing sooner! It hasn’t been long since the end of the it all. People are still nervous. Suspicious. You can’t show up in town unexpected-like and get people to cotton to you any more than you can trip over a sturdy branch face first into a sleeping bandit camp and expect to keep the coin on you.

Now I wait. Even if I get to a town early, as I did this morning, I wait just outside, smoke a bit, watch the sky light up, give it some more time, and when I start hearing some bustle from inside then I head in. Ask directions to the public square, whether I need them or not. Chat a bit. Pick a spot, park my bicycle, ask anyone around if this spot is okay. It always is. Public squares are first come, first serve, but people like it when you ask permission anyway. Makes ‘em feel like they invited you, somehow.

My entire life is in the wagon trailing behind my bicycle. It’s a wooden thing, couldn’t tell you what kind, made for me by a grateful customer early in my post-end of it all career. He made me promise I would stick around Fayetteville for at least a week. That was five and a half years ago and the thing is still as strong as it was on the first day. It’s four feet tall, three feet wide, five feet long, and sits on sturdy wheels. It’s got a center wall, three shelves on each side, covered by wooden doors that swing out and up like that old car from the eighties, the one that was in those movies. I cried when I first saw it, having been carrying everything in a faded Jansport backpack and hell, weren’t my shoulders tired? That man cried right there with me.

“It’s nothing. Not compared with what you gave me.”

I think of him, as I always do, as I open up one side of the wagon and start taking things out. My little folding table. My little folding chair. My little sign, folded into thirds. My whole life, folded. Back before the end of it all, I lived in three bed, three bath house, rooms and rooms filled with stuff. I loved some of that stuff. I liked more of it. I’d say about half it I never interacted with at all. I keep thinking about the China cabinet in the dining room, filled with plates and bowls and silverware. We were supposed to use them during special occasions. Nothing ever felt special enough to warrant the risk of breaking or scratching them. So they sat there, collecting dust, in a dining room we hardly used. Never even looked at them. I keep thinking, why did we buy them? Why were they made?

Now my space is limited and I use everything I have. It feels better this way, somehow. Easier. Cleaner. Lighter.

That house burned along with a lot of other houses. Can’t say I miss much of it.

I take out my little sign but I do not put it up until I am ready. Another thing I have learned the hard way. Put the sign out first, I’m liable to have a line before I’m even ready for the first person, and nobody likes a line. Once I pull out my bright orange extension cord I don’t even have to ask. A local walking by carrying a couple of chickens in cages doesn’t even stop as he gestures with his head toward a nearby brick building.

“Grab it while you can,” he says.

Another reason to get to town early. Limited plug-ins.

Sometimes towns don’t have power at all. Depends on how badly the infrastructure was damaged, back then. I have a decent-sized battery at the bottom of my wagon, hidden under my blanket and pillow. When I find a town with a surviving power system I usually fill up the battery at the end of the day. After my services, people are grateful enough to let me.

I plug into an outdoor junction box at the back of this brick building that looks like it was once part of a strip mall. Half of it is squashed. The other half, the half with the plugs, has been turned into a cafeteria of sorts. Plenty of people inside getting some breakfast being going off to do whatever they do with their day. A couple of old fogeys sit next to the plugs, monitoring them. They stop gossiping long enough to get a good look at me. Remember my face. Make sure no one else tries to take my cord. Make sure I don’t try to take anyone else’s.

“Mighty appreciated,” I say. They don’t seem to hear me.

Extension cord runs to my own power bar, sitting on my table. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to function. Out of my wagon I grab my tool bag and, after some hesitation, my umbrella. It’s not exactly hot, but it is sunny, and this far up the mountains I fear sunburn. Better safe than peeling and itchy, my mom always said.

Finally, everything just where I want it, other travelling merchants filling in the square around me, I unfold my sign and put it front and center on my table. I used to have one that said something rather flowery: I Will Return Your Memories. Took too long to explain. Now my sign is to the point.

COMPUTER REPAIR

I don’t have the sign up for more than a couple of minutes before a woman approaches with soft, wavering steps. She’s staring at the sign more than me. I know that look on her face. She thinks it’s a trap. She thinks it’s a lie. She thinks it’s a dream, and if she looks away from the sign and then looks back it will say something else.

“Good morning!” I say brightly.

“Watchu mean, computer repair?” she asks. I am not offended. She is in the dream state. She is afraid if she gets off topic she will lose it.

“Exactly that!” I say, keeping my voice calm and friendly. You can’t be too friendly, or people think you’re selling snake oil. “If you have a broken computer, I can try to get it fixed. Probably succeed, too.”

She pauses. Blinks a few times. Finally looks away from the sign, at me. Studying me. It’s the ‘probably’ that does it, every time. The dream state is broken. It can’t be a dream if I can only probably fix it.

“Any computer?” she asks.

“Yes, ma’am. Well, just about. Before the end of it all, I worked at a place called Circuit City. You remember them?”

She gives me a single nod. “They went out of business way before, though.”

“They did, but I didn’t stop. I worked for a bit with the Geek Squad – remember them? – and then I opened my own shop. That was back in Toledo, doubt you would have seen it. But I worked on everything. PCs. Macs. Android and Apple phones, too.”

“Phones?”

Ahh, yes, I can see it in her eyes. I’ve answered her most important question before she can even ask it.

“Again, ma’am – probably. But I can take a look.”

She doesn’t say another thing to me, just takes off across the square. Again, I am not offended. Others are starting to stare in my direction, will probably approach with the same questions. But she was there first, and now she has to bring me whatever device she wants fixed first. It’s only fair. But it’ll only happen if she’s quick.

I’m still answering questions for others when she comes running back, face red, sweat beaded around her hair, out of breath. She muscles her way through the small crowd and shoves something in my face.

It’s an iPhone, the last generation before the end of it all. The screen isn’t just cracked, it’s smashed. It almost looks like it was shot with a BB, a circle toward the top of the screen and then a web of cracks radiating out.

I take it from her gently. The screen is a complete loss, yes, but from a quick look it doesn’t appear the damage went much farther. I tell her I’ll start on it right away, she can go about what she has to do and come back. But she doesn’t leave. Of course she doesn’t. Neither do the five other people who have been asking questions.

It’s time to see if I’m the real deal.

I open up my tool bag and get to work. A lot of people hesitate giving me these newer phones. Those old companies made such a fuss about having to bring everything in to them, that no one else could fix it, well, people believed it. And sure, the newer things can be a little harder what with all the proprietary tech in there. But only a little.

Twenty minutes later I’m affixing a new screen to the front of the phone while a breathless crowd of six hovers over me, leaving me with just enough sun to see what I’m doing. Once it’s on I pull the appropriate cable out of my bag and plug it in.

These long dead things always take a few seconds to get enough charge to even start coming back to life. I know this. Most people don’t. So when I plug it in and it doesn’t immediately start glowing the crowd starts backing off, trying to keep the disappointment off their faces.

“Now, now,” I saw, holding it so we can all see the screen. “This thing has been asleep a long time, I reckon. It just needs a few…there we are!”

The little empty battery comes up on screen, blinking as it sucks hungrily on the juice. I give it another couple of seconds and then press the power button.

A lock screen. A much younger version of the woman stares up at us, surrounded by three kids and a man her age. I hand it to her gently.

“Don’t unplug it,” I say as she takes it. “It doesn’t have enough charge yet to stay on by itself.”

She nods as she takes it from me, cradling it as though I’ve just handed her a bird’s nest filled with eggs. The whole public square is quiet. There are more than six people now, a little ways back. The only words are whispered. What’s going? Computer repair. He’s fixing something for Asha. Did he do it? I don’t know, I can’t see.

Asha hesitates, and then brings the phone up to her face.

Nothing happens.

“I think the camera might be permanently damage,” I say before she can panic. “Face ID won’t work.”

Her eyes are watery, her hands now trembling. I’ve already brought this picture back, it’s staring her in the face, but it’s not enough. There’s something else on this phone she’s desperate for, and this won’t be considered a success until she can get to it.

Like she never stopped using it, her thumbs fly over the screen, putting in a password she likely never forgot. I can’t see the screen anymore, but I can see her face.

She’s in.

Faster, somehow faster, her fingers fly over the screen, moving on muscle memory, searching for whatever it is she’s been dreaming of.

And then, a tinny voice comes out of the speaker. It’s scratched all to hell, but we can still hear it.

“Asha baby, why do you insist on the newest phone if you’re never around to answer it!” It’s a man’s voice, perhaps the man on the lock screen. The man keeps talking. We can’t hear it over Asha’s keening. She’s fallen to her knees, tears freed and dripping off her chin, trying to stifle her wails so she can hear above them, still holding the phone ever so gently in front of her.

The crowd disperses. Not for Asha. For themselves. I have done it. I have proven myself. Now they’ll all be running home, running for that computer tower full of pictures they haven’t seen in years, the laptop with the thesis they never got to finish, and, yes, some of them will have more phones with more voice mail they haven’t gotten to listen to.

As I work I want for nothing. The people bring me sandwiches and lemonade from the cafeteria. They find a bigger umbrella to keep me in the shade. I have multiple offers of rooms for the night, which is good because I quickly realize I will be here for a few days. They ask over and over about payment, but I tell them I only want one thing: any electronic parts they don’t want to keep. Phones, computers, speakers, monitors, whatever they still have that does nothing but gather dust. They ask why.

“I only had another screen on hand for Asha’s phone because the last town gave me one,” I say.

They understand, and before long next to my table is an embarrassment of riches, more spare parts than I can possibly carry. Once I’m done for the day I’ll sort through it all, see what’s worth taking.

But for now I carry on. These people have memories with them, locked inside some plastic case or another, and my aim, as always, is to return them.