By David Accampo

Today my name is Leopold Atari. My father, a bronze ambassador from Nigeria, carries the same wide cheek bones and square set jaw. My eyes will be my mother’s. She is Bao Jiaosheng, a Chinese diplomat who met my father at a political conference in Geneva. Her smooth, lighter complexion turns my skin into creamy coffee. They are strong, cultured parents. We drink tea in the balmy Paris afternoons and discuss political affairs. My father laughs and tousles my hair, the silky black mane I received from my mother.

Freeze that moment on the balcony of our apartment, caught in the dappled sunlight and the mild breeze. Ambassador Atari’s head is thrown back, wide mouth agape. Bao Jiaosheng remains calm as she lifts a porcelain cup of steaming plum tea to her lips. But there is laughter in her almond eyes as she crinkles her tiny nose at me.

This is the photograph of Leopold Atari’s life.

Staring at the string of protein sequences scrolling down the screen, I can almost see Leopold’s life unfold in the strange array of glowing letters. I can hear my father’s rich laughter, rising in his throat like a hunting lion.

Leopold, my African prince.

Leopold is happy.

Leopold is a winner, not like poor Skip Trace.

What a disappointment he turned out to be. Despite the wonderfully bushy single line of eyebrow and the aquiline nose. Skip’s eyes were beady and sunken. I lean forward on the edge of the examination bed and look at the face in staring back at me in the small circular mirror on the wall.

Coward, I say to Skip’s reflection. Loser.

How could I not have noticed that when I selected Skip’s traits? I look terrible with squinty little dots for eyes. And Skip’s alabaster skin sounded better than it looked — fluorescent lights are not complimentary.

I push my fingers up against the soft skin of my face, stretch the flesh tight across Skip’s sullen cheekbones.

“I am a Nubian god,” I tell Dr. Max while he pulls up the appropriate code sequences, “I am a bronzed warrior with the ageless fluidity of a Chinese courtesan.”

“Male or female?” asks Dr. Max as he checks off a series of codes, his perfectly tanned hands skimming across the screen. “Both?”

I flash him a sinister glare, but I’m afraid it’s lost under Skip’s squinting gaze. Oh, to be rid of these beady little things! Dr. Max simply must remember the hermaphrodite fiasco. The underwear never fit quite right, and nothing looked good in a mini-dress. The anatomy didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.

Maybe if everything had been positioned just a bit different, and I could have tucked myself into myself…but I suppose I never would have left the house that way. I stifle a giggle as Dr. Max programs the nannites with Leopold’s genetic sequence.

I lie back on the bed and relax, one last deep breath through Skip’s wonderfully angular nose. “Make me Leopold Atari,” I say, “I’ve got a party to attend.”

There is a sharp sting as the syringe breaks the skin, a chill as the cold solution enters my bloodstream and begins to change me.

Make me as I never was.

I close my eyes and focus on the picture of Leopold’s father and mother shadow-flecked in the afternoon sun. What was the joke? I wonder as my skin flushes and the tiny robots inside me begin to work. A savvy political skewering of one of my father’s rivals? How urbane, my mother seems to intonate with a soft flutter of long black lashes. The slight arch of a delicate eyebrow. The tiny machines turn off my nerve endings as skin stretches to accommodate the new bone structure. I drift off a bit, dreaming of Paris and tea and my father’s rich laughter and a joke I will never know…

+ + + + +

Leopold makes his debut at The Club. Midnight. Not too early, not too late. I slide into the club like a panther, almond eyes slipping around the room, checking out the competition.

Heavy drum and bass throbs, hammering my chiseled physique. But these are the beats of my ancestors, early African drums filtered and synthesized, just like me. Leopold Atari: African prince, Nubian god, sleek cocoa-skinned panther. I am equally at home in this club or chatting with politicos on the terrace of some grand hotel. I chuckle at my own imagined joke, a throaty growl like my imagined father, and I slowly cruise across the dance floor, eyes peeled for familiar faces that I will never recognize.

I hit the bar, head moving imperceptibly to the drums in my head and heart and signal to the bartender, a Low man sporting a soft chin and acne-scarred cheeks. He smiles at me, and I noticed he has perfect teeth; orthodontics, no doubt, or some other form of barbarism. He’ll get behind the bar, but he’s not fooling anyone.

“Nice smile,” I say. He blushes and looks down; I see the faint white scar at his hairline. A face lift? Won’t they ever learn? He probably had some exquisite jowls that would have at least been a conversation starter.

The Low Towners never get it; they imagine the body can be carved and shaped to fit some ideal standard of perfect beauty. But beauty isn’t perfect; there’s no blueprint for the ultimate form. Beauty is in the change, the evolution, the reworking of genetic codes to bring out the eyes, the lips, the shell of the ears. Beauty is about the new. The unfamiliar. I wish I could tell them, don’t get those implants, baby, or your breasts will look like that for years. And who wants that?

I am drinking vodka doused in something thick and pink with a slightly chemical aftertaste. I don’t know what it is, but I like the way the bright pink stands out against my dark skin under the dull glow of the dance floor lights. I sip the pink and scan the floor, a strobe flash of writhing bodies, perfect skeletons animated by perfect muscles. White teeth glow. Tanned skin shines. And then I see Franklin Dynamo, still wearing that colossal grotesque that was so popular last year. Is he following the trend or trying to start it again. I stifle a laugh that brings the pink back up into my throat.

You’re not fooling anyone, darling. No one has the nerve to tell you that your twisted skeletal frame is so outstyled.

His brick-like hands sweep past his thighs as his bulging arms flirt against the driving drum and bass. Anatomically proportioned bodies sweep away, keeping their distance. I had a body like Franklin’s once; I remember cruising down the Avenue, my enormous square forehead jutting out like a road sign. It was fun for a time, our foray into the grotesquerie of body attributes that had long since fallen away. I found an old digital video archive about sideshow freaks—such wonderful diversity! The bearded lady, the lobster boy, the pinheads. Such strange and marvelous bodies, twisted by nature without the luxury of body-type engineering. I longed to be a bearded woman, a pinheaded boy…I would get their attention, turn their heads…

You’ll never believe what I have become.

You’ve never seen a thing like me before.

I finally chose the body of a giant man-child, his dumb expression of wonderment was my coat of armor. I was Reinhold Denmark, Boy Giant, and for a few brief moments I was free.

And then everyone wanted to be a freak, and it just became overbearing. Yes, yes, you’re a wolf-faced albino with webbed fingers and a fin on your head. We get it. It’s so tired, baby. Be true to yourself. I now had long blonde hair and a thin, lanky body with perfect upturned breasts, and an incredible pear-shaped ass. Wanda Lithesome was born out of that grotesquerie, and she was a star.

Until that got old, too.

It becomes tiresome at times, to keep yourself fresh and new for the world. But what’s the other option? Settle down in some nice shape for the rest of your life? Just like your parents did? I wouldn’t be caught dead in the same body for more than a year. I mean you are you kidding? You’d be laughed out of The Club.

Then you’d really be alone.

Just like Franklin.

Franklin brushes by me on the way to the bar, thick wrists swaying as he ambles up to the counter. The thick muscles of his jaw stretch and contract as he speaks, that huge underbite slamming open and shut like some sort of animal trap. As he orders his drink from the bartender I begin to wonder if the body form hasn’t finally begun to warp his mind.

You hear about those things, about perceptions finally changing and other citizens leaving the club scene to live outside the City limits in small shacks made from dried mud and straw. At least that’s what I hear. We call it shifting into Low gear; it’s a simple form of regression that takes over when you can’t hack the scene anymore. It’s sad really.

I picture Franklin in the forest, huddled in the brush, snatching small birds from the air with his long fingers and tossing them into his gaping maw, blood and feathers on stuck to the tiny pearl teeth jutting from his enormous lower jaw.

The bartender slides him a tall drink that glows green, and Franklin smiles, his leathery white skin creasing at horrid angles. He rakes his fingers through the tuft of orange hair on top of his head, and the move looks suddenly familiar.

Oh my god.

I think I slept with Franklin.

Once. Before. We met at the club. I was Rita Torpedo, she of the dimpled cheeks and forty-four DD breasts. Like cannons, they were. Keeping the dance floor at bay. Torpedoes away! They even made a song about me. I had to fade away quickly after that. Rita became a character all her own. She began to slip away from me, I was shedding her like a skin. She was no longer mine.

Rita Torpedo was public domain.

And Franklin was…what was he–? A tanned blonde with razor teeth and baby smooth skin…Danny Diamond, I think he called himself. I remember that smooth stroke of the hair, hey baby, where you sleeping tonight?

That sparkling row of teeth!

No, it couldn’t be him. Couldn’t be.

Understand, I don’t like to kiss and tell. I’m a one person person, if you know what I mean. It may only be for a night or three, but when I’m yours, I am all yours…forty-four DDs and all—if those happen to come with the trait-package, that is.

Sign up now for the delicious deluxe package: Standing tall at six feet, 7 inches, the bronze warrior, Leopold Atari, will be the king of your jungle, baby. Rowrrr. I am man, hear me purr like a happy cat.

Time to move on the dance floor. Under the strobes, my sleek body begins to sway. I am a panther, a lion, a tawny jungle cat. Politician by day, animal by night. I am Leopold Atari. I invent a new dance for myself. If anyone asks, it is the dance of my native tribesmen in Nigeria. Or was it Nairobi? I wonder if they have tribes in Nairobi. It sounds more tribal. Yes. Nairobi.

I am Leopold Atari, my father is the ambassador. I was raised in a strict private school, but I used to sneak past the security and head down town to the red light districts.

Yes, I’m sure they have those. In Nairobi. Doesn’t everyone? Don’t ruin my story, honey. It’s as real as I say it is.

Anyway, young Leopold hangs out in these speakeasies in Bwanatown, a large city in Nairobi, and he listens to jazz and smokes very fine weed and drinks whiskey. He loses his virginity there, to a large woman named Marie St. Claire, who moved from the Caribbean to Africa to rediscover her roots. She began singing at one of these speakeasies. Her room is draped in red because it’s the color of love. She smells like patchouli and her pendulous breast swing hypnotically as she rides me to climax after climax. Her pubic hair is thick and kinky, forming a perfect arrow point that ends at her navel. We smoke another joint, and head back to the speakeasy, a ramshackle house made from cheap wood and corrugated iron. It leaks when it rains, and it leans sharply on one side.

Oh yeah, and there are speakeasies in Nairobi because this was when alcohol and drugs were illegal. Before Armand Disco led the revolution and made all the narcotics legal, and invented the weather modulation machines that allowed the arid plains to become rich and fertile.

Don’t ruin my story. What do you know of Nairobi? Exactly, just like this little blonde thing. I’m making eye contact now, my hips moving in circles, in time to the music…our eyes meet, and we match rhythm, moving slowly closer and closer…

Later in the bathroom, she unzips my fly, strokes my erection, and studies my skin.

“This is nice. This is nice.”

“Mmmm,” I say.

“Did you write this sequence yourself?”

“Little of this, little of that,” I say. Her small hands move softly up and down. Leopold approves. I’m about to roar like a jungle cat. I growl and bare my fangs.

“Oooh. You like that, huh?”

“What’s your name, baby?”

“Marguerita Ghostly,” she says, and then stops talking as she takes me into her mouth, softly, softly, her tongue flitting like a phantom. Marguerita. My little ghost.

My breath catches.

And I open my eyes. She is gone. Just another night at the club.

+ + + + +

I go home alone. Club music blares from the speakers; I forgot I had downlinked from the Club music database. I tell the stereo to shut the hell up and hit the bed, still drunk on pink vodka. The room spins. Chemicals burn my throat.

Maybe Leopold is not a drinker. Maybe he’s an alcoholic. The doctors aren’t supposed to do that, but mistakes happen. You hear these things. The girl who fell in love with a Low man. Her parents took her to a back alley doctor. I hear it was a rusty syringe full of outdated nannites running on an old Operating System that can’t read the fine sequence adjustments of modern Rewrite software. They fucked up her head, filled up with feelings and emotions she never knew—just to drown out the love.

They say she killed her parents by loading their drinks with an illegal nannite virus at a cocktail party. They unraveled in front of everyone. Just turned into goo. That’s what they say in the bathrooms, at the cafes, behind closed doors when you meet a partner and you need something to say.

What’s you sequence? Who’s your doctor? Did you hear about the girl with the fucked up brain patterns…?

I heard it was a boy. A lovely boy with a shock of black hair that stood up like a wire brush.

Could be. Could be. Could have been both.

These are the stories we tell.

Like the one about the detective who came to the clubs searching for clues to a murder. A Low girl killed by a Citizen. Some say he was the same Low man who loved the Girl With The Fucked-Up Brain Genes. I don’t know. Seems like a stretch to me.

Like, I said, these are stories…the things we tell each other after orgasm, before we can leave and go home again. Return to nothing.

I sit up and instantly need to vomit. I rush to the toilet and spew pink liquid into the bowl. Leopold. Maybe he’s allergic to alcohol.

Maybe I need to get rid of Leopold.

“Goodnight Leopold,” I say, and the lights fade to black. The volume on the stereo fades up some gentle, almost imperceptible jazz music. I lay back on my bed, head still wobbling slightly from the nausea and the lack of noise. I close my eyes and listen to faint whisper of the music. I can’t sleep in silence. I like to pretend that someone else is here. Maybe in the living room. Maybe it’s my mother and father, paying a brief visit on their way to the mountains for a weekend in the family cabin. My father smiles, tilts his head to listen to the sound from my room. I lay still, pretending to sleep. He glances down at my mother, who is watching a talk show hosted by a chimpanzee with a voice simulator. My mother enjoys the animal hosted shows—she thinks they are good for the animals’ esteem issues. She rests her small head across my father’s broad chest, a wave of sleek black hair fanned about her. She looks up at his dark features in the blue light of the video screens. She smiles slightly, her emotions as indiscernible as ever, and turns back to the show. My father closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose.

Eventually, I fall asleep for real.

+ + + + +

Dr. Max prepares the syringe. He taps it, an invisible swirl of tiny robots buzz around inside. The display monitor scrolls a seemingly endless series of codes, adenine, guanine, cytosine…letters and numbers that describe me and who I am, and who I will be.

“What do you want to be today?” asks Dr. Max.

“I want to be happy.”

“What will make you happy?”

“I’m hoping you can tell me, doctor.”

He rubs his squared jaw and thinks for a moment.

“Well,” says Dr. Max, fingers rifling across the keyboard and pulling up reference files. They flash onto the monitor in short bursts of pale light. “We can add some smile lines. Dimples, maybe. Widen the cheek bones. Maybe a slight overbite that allows the teeth to extrude a bit. Those are very nice teeth.”

“Thank you. You made them.”

“God made them. I just gave them to you.”

“I don’t believe in God.”

“Maybe that’s why you’re not happy.”

“Oh, theology. Please. This is tiresome, Dr. Max.”

“What would make you happy?”

“Change my mind.”

Dr. Max leans back in his chair and shifts his legs. “You know I can’t do that.”

“Haven’t you ever wondered…haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to see the world through someone else’s eyes?”

“As a matter of fact, I haven’t, Leopold.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Okay. Jonathan.”

“I don’t know a Jonathan.”

Dr. Max smiles. He chuckles to himself. “Okay,” he says, “Okay. Who are you today?”

I close my eyes, and I see….I see a man with no face at all. Smooth and perfect, a rolling contour of flesh.

“I want you to take away my face.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” says Dr. Max staring into his display screen.

“I don’t want to be anyone today.”

Dr. Max grabs my wrist. I haven’t been touched since my little ghost put me in her mouth and sucked me into her. He swings around in his chair, leaning in close to my face. “Listen,” he says, and I can smell synthetic onion spice on his breath. “I can make you anybody you want to be. You have every opportunity in the world. Who are you going to be? Who are you?”

I pull my wrist away, shocked at the Leopold’s strength. I push Dr. Max away, his chair sliding back and catching on the thick black mat by his computer. The chair falls over, and Max tumbles to the ground, hitting his head against the sequencing station.

“Hey, hey–!” shouts Dr. Max, rubbing his sandy blonde hair, just beginning to streak with a patriarchal gray.

But I’m already gone.

+ + + + +

I ride the tube for hours after that. I lean from my plush seat and look down through the clear shaft as we bullet over Low Town. The city is dark and low, like a sunken black cancer hiding from the light of the Spires. I can’t see them from up here, but I imagine the Low men huddling for warmth around trash can fires in trash strewn alleyways.

I’ve never been to Low Town, but I’ve heard stories.

You know how stories are.

I imagine them, their dirty, frozen faces, and I wonder how they can possibly come to terms with just one form. In Low Town, you are who you are from the moment you are born. Maybe it’s easier, maybe it’s better just to know.

I look down at my dark hands, the thick muscles pushing wormlike veins to the surface of my skin. Leopold is falling away from me, slipping away…

He’s just a mask.

I try to hold onto the picture of his father, head thrown back, laughing…but the picture is fading, fading slowly in the afternoon sun…I can barely see his face anymore. His skin is all but ashen now. The laughter has long since died away.

Eventually, the tube circles me back to The Spires, back to The Avenue. I exit the tube and wander the street, afraid to be noticed. Everyone saw Leopold last night. The Club was spilling over. Leopold exists; he’s somebody. At least to them. I’m trying to hide in his body and it feels large and awkward and difficult to position. This is not who I am. I hunch over and pull my coat around me.

I want to melt away.

Leopold’s legs give way underneath me and I tumble to the sidewalk.

He’s gone.

This is not my body anymore.

Cross the name from the list.

Leopold is dead.

I look at the dead hands in front of me. A gentle rain begins to fall, a preprogrammed mist designed to clean the streets. That means it’s Thursday, and I’m caught with out my umbrella. The rain hangs in the air, catching the light of the holographic signs displays, creating halos of fluorescent green, blue, and purple. Lights flicker on down the Avenue, and I watch as Citizens duck into storefronts, escaping the gentle mist. Leopold’s face is wet, rain water sliding down the firm contours of his cheeks, but I can hardly feel it.

Citizens scurry, making careful circles around my slumped body as if I am some Low Town man who made it up to the Spires.

I want to turn to dust and be carried away on the rain. Down into the gutters and the sewage ducts. Pumped down into Low Town.

A large black boot lands by my head. I strain and to look up, my vision clouded be the rain filling in the sockets of my eyes. A large shape stands over me. It bends, blocking out the sky, and I see the hideous features of Franklin Dynamo, his tiny pearl teeth jutting from the lower jaw, chewing on the upper lip. His long fingers clutch at my coat, and he pulls me up into a sitting position. He looks into my eyes and hauls me to my feet.

I can’t even keep my eyes open any longer.

Leopold.

Leopold.

Where have you gone?

Why have you forsaken me?

And everything fades to black.

+ + + + +

I wake up in a lovely forest, a gentle breeze tickling my forehead and nose. Birds twitter and chirp in the distance and bright sunlight cascades across my body, absorbing into my dark skin and warming my weary muscles.

And a thought crosses my mind. Who are you? But it drifts gently away, unanswered.

Forgotten.

I relax and stare up at the little puffs of white cloud, creeping slowly across the blue sky.

But then the ceiling flickers; I realize I’m in someone else’s loft, under a holographic nature display. The birds stop singing, and there is the mechanical hum of a door sliding back.

Franklin Dynamo steps into the field. I think of bloody feathers, but I don’t know why.

“Ah, you’re awake,” he says. “I was worried.”

And the first thing I think is: I can’t let anyone know he took me home.

I sit up, looking down at my body. Leopold. You bastard.

“I know you,” I say. “Franklin Dynamo. I’ve seen you around.”

Franklin laughs, a gruff little snort. His sunken eyes twinkle as he sets them on me.

“How are you feeling?” He asks. “Do you need a doctor?”

“I think these genes are dirty.” I wring my hands at him, these great brown paws.

“I know the feeling.”

I look at him, raise a single dark brow like my nonexistent Asian mother would have.

“That’s an…interesting form.”

“A little out of date, don’t you think?” He knows he’s being taunted. What is he after?

“I wasn’t going to say it, but…”

He raises his head and laughs, a long, rumbling laugh that makes me think of a lion hunter from Nairobi that I will never know.

“I’ve been watching you.”

I stand up, stretching out my tall frame, flexing my rippling muscles. I can feel his eyes on me.

“Oh, have you?” I don’t mean to flirt. It’s automatic. I don’t even usually do the same-sex thing. It’s a parts thing.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Just from The Club. The last few months. You haven’t changed.”

He pauses to look at his gargantuan white hands, the long fingers curling slowly like spider legs. He has six fingers on each hand. I didn’t notice that before. He looks up again, runs his eyes down my frame. “You have,” he says.

This is it, I think. He remembers Rita. He is Danny Diamond, and he’s going to remember it all…our night together.

“Do you remember me, Jonathan?” He says, cocking his head and whistling at the sky. The room hums and the forest flickers and dissolves. Soft lights flow from the screen in gentle waves as the room comes back into focus.

“Johnathan,” he repeats.

“Where did you hear that name?” I ask, sitting up.

“You told me,” he says. His eyes do not waver. He sits calmly, watching me.

Waiting.

And I can’t believe I forgot this.

This was before Leopold. Before Skip. Before Rita and Reinhold and Wanda and Courtney Delacroix.

This was lifetimes ago.

And Franklin was little red headed number named Melissa Dahl.

She loved me. What a dirty word love is. It’s the bandage over the cancer of dependency and need, of every little jealousy and betrayal. It’ just a cover up, a little foundation to smooth the skin and bring out the cheekbones. But it’s a killer, don’t ever let it fool you.

We did away with love so long ago, it’s just a fable told at the Club when the music lulls and the conversation runs out. Killing love was the best thing we ever did. Better than curing cancer, even. And not nearly as expensive. We just ignored the fucker and it went away.

What is love, anyway?

You show me the genetic sequence for love, and I’ll show you a crackpot who’s been using his own nano-tech for too long.

But there was Melissa. Sweet, fawning Melissa.

She called me Roger. Roger Orbit. Until the night I told her otherwise.

Roger was tall and lean and perfectly tanned. He had a chiseled body and piercing blue eyes. Classic good looks, nothing too fancy or exotic, just a solid frat boy cocktail. His body went well with all my clothes. A hit at The Club. Of course. It was easy to be Roger. I may have kept on being Roger if it wasn’t for Melissa.

Melissa, Melissa…let me paint the picture:

A night at the club, bebop jazz was back in style that week, so the lighting was dim, a single spotlight on the stage where a Low Towner was blowing the horn. For authenticity, you know. Those Low men know how to play the blues. The only other light was from the flicker holographic candles set atop each of the small circular tables that littered the dance floor. Occasionally, someone would walk in with disco attire and an Asian body type, stopping short when they found themselves in a dimly lit lounge. Someone who recognized them would greet them and politely whisper. The rest of us would sneer and turn back to the stage.

Asian Disco was last month.

Melissa was a kinky redhead with dark skin and green eyes. It was an interesting mix, timeless, a little of this, a little of that. But it wasn’t so much the body or the face or the hair. It was the smile. I wanted that smile. I wanted to unlock that code…was it the faint smile lines, the dimples, the perfectly white teeth? That smile dazzled me. It wasn’t any of those things, was it? I tried them all later. Nothing worked.

Melissa was happy.

I sat down at out table. I watched her quietly as she listened to the music. Occasionally, she would turn, nod ever so slightly, and then smile. I almost couldn’t stand it. I had to know.

“What’s your code, baby?” It wasn’t the best line in the world, but I had to start somewhere. Roger Orbit was just that type of guy.

She blushed, warm red spots on her soft cheeks. The smile remained but her eyes dropped. “All natural,” she said.

“Factory specs?” I said.

Her lips parted in a tiny laugh. She said something, but it was lost in the sudden applause as the trumpeter finished his improvisational solo.

I couldn’t take my eyes off her, but I didn’t know what else to say. Say something, Roger. Say something.

“I’ve got to get a DNA sample.” The words slipped from me amidst the murmur of conversation around us. I tried to stop it, but Roger has already spoken. I was mortified.

Melissa laughed and ran her fingers down her long neck.

Later, in bed, I curled up against her, tracing my square fingers along the delicate curve of her spine. Her skin was soft, silky smooth. She tensed at my touch. I loved the way she moved, so comfortable in her own skin.

“Ticklish,” she murmured sleepily from beneath the tousled red flame of her hair.

Our hands met, sitting together. I looked at Roger’s hands. Something didn’t feel quite right. That was the first time I really noticed the distance. For several seconds I couldn’t move my hand. My fingers lay dead against her palm, clasping her as if rigor mortis had set in. I couldn’t feel her touch.

She opened her eyes. “Roger? You’re trembling.”

I blinked and looked at her. The sensation returned. I returned.

“Is something wrong, Roger?”

“Jonathan,” I said suddenly. I blurted it really. I couldn’t stop myself. “My name is Jonathan.”

She leaned back on her hands, the sheet sliding away from her to expose her pale chest and firm breasts, the pink nipples upturned in the carefully modulated moonlight.

“Jonathan,” she purred, her green eyes setting on mine. I couldn’t look away. “You’ll have to tell me what happened to Roger. I’m beginning to feel like I’ve been ditched.”

I laughed, but it was nervous and quick, too quick. She caught me, reached over, stroked my cheek. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jonathan. I’m Melissa. And while Roger was pretty…satisfying, I think I might need you to…finish the job, Jonathan. If you know what I mean.”

I grinned and pulled the remaining corner of the sheet away from her. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” I said.

Oh god. I hope I have better lines than that now. That was just horrid. It must have been Roger. What a tramp he was.

Staring at Franklin Dynamo now, I can see only the faintest trace of Melissa. Even the smile is gone.

Melissa was the closest thing I ever had to that dreaded “L” word that we all try to avoid. But I couldn’t get enough of her. Usually, I get bored after a couple of nights.

At first I thought I was just jealous of her genetic code. I mean, that smile! That smile!

I wish I could say the relationship ended well, but you know how it is. The longer you stay with someone the messier it gets. That’s why we opt for furtive gropings in the dark corners of the dance floor. Much healthier. And more fun.

But we were spending so much time together. I began to get restless. I wanted to wipe that smile off her face, replace it with something else. She looked good with Roger, they complemented each other like all attractive couples, but now that I was a hairless albino named Xerxes Prime, Melissa Dahl just didn’t quite fit. Like leopard-spotted, crushed velvet bell-bottoms with a plastic tartan rain slicker. You just can’t pull that off. I kept suggesting different gene traits, you know, just to try something different. It’s still you, I would say. But variety is the spice of life. Who would wear the same pair of shoes every day of their life? Especially if they don’t match your frame size and skin color.

Baby, I’ve changed body types just to wear a killer set of neon blue stiletto heels.

Wrong complexion and the neon just wipes you out.

Now…here she is. Franklin Dynamo. A horribly twisted monster who has been out of fashion for nearly a year. I’m longing for that smile, that grade-A, one hundred percent, all-natural smile—that Melissa smile—but all I get is the twinkling pearls of teeth flashing out from that massive lower jaw. Slamming open and shut and he speaks.

And all I can do is lie.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I drop my gaze to the floor, study the dim white shimmer of the plastic tile while I listen to Franklin exhale slowly.

“Perhaps…” starts the low, growling voice, “perhaps…you had better go now.”

I look up, across the small room, into the creature’s eyes. They are moist. They shine in the soft yellow mood lighting that began when Franklin’s room sensed the change in our respiration, heart rate, and voice tone. For a moment, for a moment, I recall the night I left Melissa Dahl behind. By then I was Velvet Godsend, a latin seductress with a cascade of dark curls and a full, pear-shaped ass. Melissa had become Brentwood Harbinger, a thin blonde man with piercing blue eyes and a wide, angular face. Brentwood tried to smile, but it was never the same. It wasn’t the dimples, it wasn’t the smile lines, the straight row of square teeth.

It wasn’t anything, but it was everything.

Melissa had become Brentwood and forgotten how to smile.

It was easy to leave Brentwood. I disappeared across the dance floor, lost behind the writhing bodies of the retro pop dance scene…black light, strobe light, spotlight…gone.

I traded in the ass and the curls the next day and didn’t look back.

I am watching Franklin Dynamo, looking for some trace of that smile, but when the corners of Franklin mouth turn up, his skin creases and folds in sharp, asymmetric angles.

I can’t help thinking: I did this to you.

So, I put on my shirt and leave. No strobe, no black light, no spotlight. No music. Just slide out the door and be on your way.

“Goodbye, Jonathan,” I hear Franklin whisper as I leave. I turn back, an awkward spin on one clumsy leg (damn your lameness, Leopold Atari), but the metal door slides into place with a hiss. The elevator drops me down quickly, and as I pass the one-hundred-twelfth floor, I realize I never even saw the apartment number.

On the tube I pull my minicomputer from my pocket, place the display lens over my eye, and tap my finger to activate the virtual keyboard. I trawl webspace for new gene traits. I’ve got an image in my head; I need a new body and I need it now. I begin to assemble a new sequence. A new me. I place an order to Dr. Max and see if he can fit me in this afternoon.

+ + + + +

Dr. Max looks at me and shakes his head. My mouth is hanging open, but I don’t know if that’s Leopold or just my own astonishment.

“This body isn’t working, Dr. Max,” my voice sounds slightly shrill and it puts me out of phase with Leopold for a moment. I struggle to make my jaw work while Dr. Max stares at me.

“You see? You see? These genes are dirty.”

Dr. Max shakes his head. “Your parents have frozen your account.”

“My parents are in Geneva.” No, they aren’t.

“When was the last time you spoke with them?”

I look at Dr. Max and pretend that my mouth has stopped working again. I don’t want him to know I can’t even remember my father’s name right now. “I don’t need their permission,” I finally say.

“Actually, you do. It’s their money, Jonathan—“

“Stop calling me that! What is it with you people? You don’t know who I am! You don’t know me!”

“I think the time for games is over, son.”

There is genuine concern in Dr. Max’s clear blue eyes. Periwinkle. His eyes are periwinkle. It’s a very nice shade. Dr. Max has been the one constant in my life, as long as I can remember. Like a father.

“Maybe, maybe you can use your own DNA…write me a new code, Dr. Max. Maybe…maybe…”

He’s just shaking his head again. He reaches over, touches Leopold’s shoulder. I flinch at the contact, but Leopold doesn’t waver; he tenses.

Dr. Max says he’s sorry, says he just can’t help me anymore. These things happen sometimes, he says. I can recommend a good resequencing therapist, he adds, right before I punch him in the face.

Or, right before Leopold did. Showing his true colors at last. The bastard. For all his upbringing, for all his nobility, Leopold is just another nasty street thug.

There is blood on my dark knuckles and somewhere in my head Bao Jiaosheng bows her head in disappointment. Her black hair falls across her face as she slowly backs away from the sun-dappled terrace that has grown so faint and dim in my mind. She disappears into the shadows.

Dr. Max is unconscious, lying like a rag doll, half inside his office door. Dark red blood trickles from his nose and lips, sliding slowly down his tanned cheek. I reach down and touch the blood with my fingers. Are you in there, tiny robots? Can you make me like him? Can you make me the son of Archibald Max? That would make it all okay, wouldn’t it?

Every son hits his father, once in his life.

And suddenly, I remember this:

My father’s name is Kent. He has brown eyes and a dimple in his chin. I slapped him across the face once. When I was ten. When I was Jonathan. I don’t even remember why. I just remember the rough scratch of his salt and pepper stubble. My hand was stung with the impact. He was shocked. His brown eyes lucid and unwavering as I withdrew my hand and stared up at him. I remember bright white light and the sharp slap as his open hand smacked across my face. Who do you think you are? he said. You’re no son of mine.

I’m standing over Dr. Max with his blood on my hands.

I am not Ambassador M’butu Atari’s son.

I am not the dishonorable offspring of Bao Jiaosheng.

Archibald Max has no children.

Kent Thomas disowned his firstborn son when he was ten years old.

I have no genes to call my own. I have no body. I am nobody.

I am the bastard son of empty space. A gaping black hole.

Below me, Dr. Max begins to stir.

I am nobody, and I disappear.

+ + + + +

Low Town is dark; it crawls with shadows, hides from the glaring lights of The Spires above. The air is hot, stale; a thick haze of pollution hangs over everything, coating us all. I can hardly breathe.

This is where I belong.

I’m standing in the middle of the street, dirty black asphalt beneath my shiny silver boots. I’ve covered myself with an old blanket, but the shoes give me away. I kick them off and set them gently next to a white bearded man sleeping against a brick wall, wrapped in stained newspapers.

I’ve never been this far down before.

I’m a fallen angel.

I walk down the dimly lit street, my arms outstretched, the blanket draped across my head and shoulders. They stare at me from alleys and doorways. I can feel their eyes on me. I walk among you, I think, I have been cast from heaven. Do not worship me, for I am one of you now.

I am Saint Nobody of Nowhere.

I will lay my genetically perfect hands upon you and take away your pain.

Oh, stop with the martyr complex already, you complete ass.

The truth is, no one cares. I’m just another Citizen, slumming in Low Town.

If they only knew. If they could only see past Leopold’s perfect face. If only they could see how ugly I am on the inside. Maybe they would understand how much like them I am. I can feel it. Is this shifting into Low gear? I just want to curl up into a ball and never touch anyone again. I just want to disappear.

I guess that’s why I am here. This is oblivion. The shadow of the world.

There I go again, talking like a prophet. I’m just a poor little rich boy with no where to go. No one to be.

You know what you’re looking for, don’t you Leopold? You know what we’re after. They’ve forced us into this life, Leopold. Frozen our accounts. Taken our money. Left us alone. Disowned us. And now we’re stuck together Leopold. Stuck together like this.

“I don’t want your goddamn life anymore.”

I think I am talking out loud. Low men stare at me from the corners of their eyes, as they jostle down the street, moving into and out of storefronts and buildings.

Stay away from the madman. I look at the mottled gray sky and laugh.

A man shambles up to me, his face sallow under the burning yellow street lamps that feebly attempt fight off the darkness. His face is rough and worn. He opens his mouth, and says something to me. But I don’t hear it. I want to touch his face. Careworn, lined, dirty, pitted. This is a face that has been lived in. He has stories, this one does. His nose is bulbous and disjointed at the bridge. Was it broken as a boy? A young sailor in a drunken bar brawl? Did he steal someone’s girlfriend?

I cannot hear what he is saying, but my outstretched hand is running down his face. My fingers glide gently across the leathery skin, those lumps of flesh creased and folded. It’s lovely.

The man jerks back, his face twisting with astonishment, then rage. He pushes away, hobbles off, back into the darkness of Low Town, shouting something that makes the spittle spray from his loose, rubbery lips.

And I drift on until I find the thing I am looking for

+ + + + +

I remember one more thing:

This was After Xerxes Prime but before Velvet Godsend.

This was after Melissa Dahl but before Brentwood Harbinger and the end of it all.

This was after Melissa’s first gene alteration.

When Melissa finally agreed to try it. Something simple, I told her, just a slight alteration to the color and skin tone. Haven’t you ever wanted to be taller? You can be anyone.

Anyone? There was a certain sadness in her eyes as she spoke. I didn’t see it then, didn’t want to see it, too busy thinking what sort of pigment her irises should contain.

Anyone.

I just want to be with you, she said.

And I just grinned. How about blonde hair?

She was trying to hold on to me, trying to make herself what I wanted her to be, but all I wanted was the new.

Change yourself.

Become beautiful again.

All I did was ruin that smile.

We went to see Dr. Max together. We selected a complementary palette, skin tones, height, bone structure; we made ourselves a perfect couple. She shuddered as Dr. Max held her arm and injected the nano-tech solution into her. She grabbed my hand and looked into Xerxes Prime’s smoldering gaze.

See you on the other side, Jonathan.

I can’t wait.

We left Dr. Max’s office and returned to her apartment. The sex was great, my pale hands tracing down her caramel skin. We looked into each other’s eyes as we never had before, as my fingers studied the curve of her ribs, the way they angled more sharply now. Her breasts, high and firm as before, but slightly larger, the nipples longer and darker. We kissed and she tasted different. We both pulled back. She giggled.

It’s so different, she said. I didn’t think it would be so different.

We became Aleister Lovecraft and Coco Ramone, light and dark, dark and light. We looked good, dressed well, danced well together.

Everything was good.

For a couple of weeks, anyway.

I couldn’t tell what it was at first. I thought it was something about the flare of her nostrils, the shape of her eyes. Maybe this wasn’t the right trait-package for her. Maybe we needed to go back to Dr. Max and build another couple.

That was it. Just mix up the genes a little, get the sequence right. It’s a whole process. That’s what I was thinking, watching her carefully as she moved on the dance floor. She was beautiful, but she wasn’t finished.

She was a rough draft.

We went back to Dr. Max for a few adjustments, nothing major, just a little twist of the DNA, brought out a couple of features, lost a few others. I got a little work done myself, just to make her feel like we were doing it together.

Same as before, we left the office, took the tube back to her apartment, and had sex. But it wasn’t like that first time. It Something was wrong. She was pulling away. After we had finished, she turned away from me. Her body was closed, arms tight around her.

What’s wrong, baby? I asked, rubbing her shoulders. Her muscles tensed.

Don’t.

Why?

Not in the mood.

Is it the sequence? You don’t like it? Just give it a chance.

But she was right. I could see it too, while I was on top of her, thrusting into her (I had increased my penis size thinking she might be surprised, but she didn’t even seem to notice). I had tried to fix it, but the face was still wrong.

I closed my eyes and kept on thrusting until I came.

I leaned over and whispered in her ear. We can change the sequence, darling. We can do whatever you want. I’ll do anything you want. Is it me? Aleister?

She turned over then, shot a glare at me. Aleister? Aleister? Jonathan, it’s me. Can’t we just be, you know, us?

We’ll always be us, Coco—

Don’t.

What?

Call me that.

OK, if you want a new name, just pick one out. It’s so easy.

Can you leave, please?

What?

I want to sleep now.

I’m sorry baby, I’ll do whatever—

Just leave. Please.

So I did. I took the tube back to my apartment on Spire-27, took some sleeping pills, and didn’t go to the club for the first time in I can’t remember how long.

I had weird nightmares that night. I don’t remember what they were anymore. But I woke up feeling strange and disoriented.

I wanted to talk to Melissa. Coco. Whatever.

I called her, but she didn’t answer. Her video message service picked up the call. The recording was still Melissa. Before the alteration. She smiled and asked me to leave a message.

And I knew what was missing.

That smile.

I took the tube back to her apartment. I figured she must still be in. I needed to see her, to tell her.

The front door slid open to let me in. I called to her. I called her Melissa. She didn’t answer. I almost called her Coco, then thought better of it.

I walked through her living room, which flickered with pale blue light. The display wall was playing an old video download, something pre-digital cinema from the looks of it. The sound was down. Pale ghosts stuttered across the wall in a series of rapid-fire images. I activated the lights and shut down the media player.

Melissa was in the bedroom, lying on her bed and staring at the ceiling. She was perfectly still, her arms folded across her chest. She did not answer me as I walked into the room.

She had shaved all of Coco’s blonde hair from her head. The blonde hair was fanned about her on the pillow. A dotted black line had been drawn around her forehead. It looked like it had been made with eyeliner.

You’ve cut your beautiful hair, I said.

I want you to give me a lobotomy.

Why?

Why not? It’s not my body. It’s just a pile of gray gelatin and I don’t want it there anymore.

I like your mind.

Why? It’s my most unattractive feature.

I’m taking you to see Dr. Max. You’re shifting, aren’t you? You’re shifting.

She didn’t say anything after that.

We went to Dr. Max again, and she became Brentwood Harbinger. But the smile was gone, the face was wrong, and the look in her eyes just said, you may as well have destroyed my brain. I’m just not here anymore.

She couldn’t hack the scene.

+ + + + +

I’m shifting.

I’m shifting down and it’s nothing like the stories they tell. My body is slowly becoming a useless accessory, a mismatched ensemble of leather skin, hard bone and spongy organs.

I stumble about the streets of Low Town, catching the stares of strangers in dirty, birth-locked bodies. Gene coffins. And right now I envy them. I wring my hands to keep them moving, to prove that I am in control. This is not like the stories. My own body is slipping away from me. I’m mercury, I’m quicksilver, and I’m slipping and sliding inside this shambling flesh cage.

Leopold has withdrawn himself.

Leopold is exiting the club.

Black light, strobe light, spotlight…gone.

Leopold is a fictional character brought to life; I built him and animated him like some mad scientist from the old cinema-streams.

And now he’s leaving me.

I can’t destroy him. He’s stolen my life. He’s stealing my body.

And I just don’t care anymore.

The stories we tell, some of them are true. No one really cares. What is truth, anyway? It doesn’t exist on the dance floor, at the bar, in the restrooms. But the stories are there for a reason, and sometimes when you look, you can find the truth.

For instance: The Clinic is real.

It’s a real place, and here I am. I’ve found it.

The Clinic turns out to be a small house with a dead lawn and a collapsed picket fence. There is no abandoned warehouse, like they tell you at The Club. There are no rabid dogs chained in front, wild with hunger and rage. And I haven’t seen any sign of the overgrown cemetery strewn with the blank tombstones of failed Citizens. I think I would have noticed that.

No, there is just a dirty wooden porch with shot through with strips of peeling paint that expose old, splintered wood. A broken swing that hangs on one rusty chain. Plastic letters revealing a name on the worn front door. Simms. Dr. Simms. A simple name for a simple man. I have to lean my shoulder against the wall to knock on the door. I’m trying to stand but my knees won’t lock.

Dr. Simms answers the door himself. He’s a short, sandy-haired man with stooped shoulders and a kind smile. He ushers me in with a wave of his stubby hand. Dr. Simms peers up at me behind thick eyeglasses that magnify his bloodshot pupils in ghastly proportions. The grotesquerie trend in The Spires had nothing on this. His sandy mustache twitches as he speaks. We walk past his kitchen, down the hallway, and into a small examination room with a couch and a tiled floor, harshly lit by fluorescents. It’s a dismal little box, but relatively clean by Low standards.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” asks Simms, arching one enormous eyebrow.

I pull cash from the pocket of my neon blue shimmer jeans. They may have frozen my accounts, but I still have the few thousand I usually carry on me.

“Is this enough?”

“Yes.” He looks at me and purses his lips. “Are you sure?”

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“What will happen?”

Simms pulls up a small metal stool and sits down on it. “It’s different with everyone. We don’t know until you wake up. When we’re done here, my assistant will take you to a hotel. Do you understand? We will put you there and leave you. Sometimes you will remember, sometimes you won’t. That’s not my concern.”

“Did you ever have a patient named Melissa Dahl?”

“No.”

“Brentwood Harbinger?”

“I don’t ask for names. What does a name mean up there, anyway? It’s just costume jewelry to you kids. Right? Am I right?”

I don’t answer.

“Now, are you sure?”

“Yes, Doctor. Take away my mind.”

The doctor shuffles over to an old computer terminal on a metal table. He types for awhile, and then activates the nannite solution, which hums in its tank. He draws the syringe. It looks the same as Dr. Max’s. I don’t know what I was expecting. Rusty needles. An old buzzsaw. I don’t know. Something.

Dr. Simms holds my arm and swabs me with alcohol. Close to him like this, I can smell musty leather and tobacco. And something faintly sweet, like mint.

I don’t want Simms to be my last memory.

I close my eyes and try to imagine Ambassador Atari throwing his head back in rich, growling laughter. What was that joke? My mother touches her fingers to her lips. My father rustles his newspaper and glances at my mother. She giggles; it’s something I’ve never heard her do before.

I think they are laughing at me.

Fade out the Atari family and fade into the image of Melissa Dahl. Looking up at Melissa in the pale moonlight, her head back, eyes closed, mouth open. My mouth glides across the bare flesh of her belly; she raises her head, looks down at me and smiles. But it’s not Melissa’s smile, it’s Brentwood Harbinger’s smile, and it’s wrong. The corners, the edges, the shadows. The eyes.

Fade the image quickly. Fade to black. To nothing. To nobody.

But the black turns to blue with a dim light from the back of my brain, and I’m fading in again. Another image, another scene, another picture from somewhere in my mind.

Kent Thomas glares with fire in his brown eyes: you’re no son of mine. He turns his head and looks away from me.

The scene winds forward, and now we’re in my in my room. Later that night. He sits on my bed while I am watching videos and strokes my hair. Hey, sport, he says. I’m sorry about all that before. I’ve just…had a lot of stress at the office lately. I just—can we…just forgive and forget? I turn from my videos and look up at my father. Brown eyes. That crest of blonde hair that sweeps across his forehead. Those perfect teeth when he smiles. I hate him. Whatever. I turn back to my video and forget him altogether. He sits quietly for a minute, then stands and walks out the door.

The needle breaks my skin and the cold liquid fills my veins.

Wait. Wait. Go back.

Go back to the moment of my father sitting on the edge of my bed. He strokes my hair and I turn and he smiles. Not the perfect white teeth. Not the chiseled jaw. Not the brown eyes or the blonde hair. The crinkled skin at the edges of his eyes. The contoured shadow of his cheeks as they lift and tighten.

Freeze that moment: a young boy turning to look up at his father. A father looking down into his son’s eyes. A father reaching out to gently stroke his son’s hair. A father smiling.

I hold onto that image, that single still frame in time. That moment.

And eventually, everything goes dark.

By David Accampo

Leroy leaning on the black iron gate, Leroy owes me forty dollars. He’s thin as a lamppost, bent over, brown skin faded. Shit, I mean look at me. I’m black, white, everything, all mixed up, he tells me, thin arms outstretched, scant black hair curling up his forearms. Why did Leroy tell me that? When he asked me for ten dollars yesterday. Didn’t have any milk. No milk for the kids. His breath was sharp and hot, the metal tang of malt liquor. Hey, can I come in for a minute? I want to ask you something. I’ll pay you back as soon as I get my check. Disability check only comes once a month. Leroy scratches the brown weave of his hair under his baseball cap. Once a month marijuana smoke drifts across the cement courtyard. Leroy’s blue eyes waver when he talks about his newborn baby in the hospital, Her…her heart can’t beat on its own, they got her hooked all up with tubes and wires and shit. But I asked the doctor, you know, ‘cause me and Debra smoke a little pot on occasion, but that’s okay, the doctor was saying that it ain’t ‘cause of that. Can I use your phone to call the hospital? We don’t got a phone right now.

In the courtyard, Pablo paints the door to the apartment next to mine. Bright blue. The police busted it open when they arrested the last tenants, a swarm of black-and-yellow jackets buzzing through. I heard the shouts through the paper-thin walls, heard the stomping boots, heard the door frame splinter. I turned the volume on the television down and listened to the voices, sometimes loud and raw, sometimes low and firm. Pablo’s shiny skin is striped in blue. You let Leroy into your place. I wouldn’t do that, man. He and Debra got a problem with the crack, if you know what I mean. Pablo likes me because I pay my rent, even though its always late. A fading shaft of daylight plunges down the center of the courtyard, down past the iron railing of the second floor, illuminating gray concrete, an overturned tricycle. I think he’s checking your place out, I think he’s casing it. Robert, in #16, got robbed when he was out of town. I think it might have been Leroy. I mean, I heard about the baby, but I never seen it. I didn’t even know she was pregnant, did you? The Washing Woman carries a wicker basket across the court. I’ve never learned her name, but she is always doing laundry, jeans and shirts and socks draped across the railing, drying in the column of sun. The chubby white girl in a plain yellow dress smacks a soccer ball against the mud-streaked walls until her mother cracks open her door. Get in here! Now, you little shit! If you don’t get in here right now, you’re going to be SO fucking dead! The gate creaks on its hinges as Milo walks in, home from work, his coveralls smeared with paint and primer and plaster and dirt. He hums a tune, jingles his keys, and opens his mailbox. Pablo says, Hey, and Milo tips his hat to us and climbs slowly up the stairs.

Pablo shakes his head, telling me the trouble with Leroy. Leroy hasn’t paid the rent. He keeps calling the Health Department about the mildew on the walls, so Pablo can’t evict him. Leroy sold the furniture, the children’s toys. I was in there, man. It’s empty. Pablo shakes his head, and I nod mine; he stops talking, but I don’t start. I don’t know what to say. Leroy’s two younger children, Pookie and Nonnie, sit on the stoop or dig in the dirt by the gate. They are pale, faded like Leroy. They cling tightly to the poles and railings and stare at me, at people walking by. They do not speak. Arthur speaks. Arthur, with the king’s name; Arthur the shining boy. Dark-skinned like his mother, luminous eyes that light amber in the sun. He stands always in the spearhead of sunlight, his wide smile bright, like a sickle-shaped Excalibur. Arthur plays my video games, Oh man, that’s tight. The X-men’s cool. They’s all that. Pablo wipes his forehead with his arm, smearing the paint. He tells me, Be careful. Oh yeah, he adds, I’m going to fix that knob in your shower real soon. I tell him not to hurry, I’ve gotten used to using pliers.

The light fades from the center of the building. Washing Woman nods as she carries her laundry past me, calling over her shoulder in a hoarse flutter of Spanish. Her son, Bebop, the special boy with the hooded eyes and loose, thick-lipped smile, walks behind her and waves at me with one jangling wrist. He likes to do the girls’ hair, his sister’s, Nonnie’s, the chubby white girl’s, tamed into braids and pony tails and fastened with plastic beads and clips. Milo pulls his kitchen chair out onto the second floor landing. He sits his heavy body down and rests his guitar across his lap. He pushes his thick glasses up on his nose and smiles to me. He begins the strum his fingers across the guitar, playing the blues and tapping his foot. He plays every week at Blake’s, but I’ve never gone to see him.

Arthur slips out from across the court, out from blue door #9. He grins at me as he passes, catching the last of the daylight, then runs out the gate, clanging it behind him. The door opens again, Leroy slides out, watching his feet as he shuffles toward my door. Hey, can I come in for a minute? Leroy in the living room, staring at the ceiling, rubbing his lips with the palm of his hand. The baby died. I tell him I’m sorry, that I’m sorry, really, that’s just terrible, and then I pause, and add, is there anything I can do? I got to get Arthur some dinner. You know, macaroni and cheese or something. I don’t know. I can’t even think. I just need a drink. A little something to drink. He drops his long arms straight down his sides, his blue eyes meet mine and don’t look away. Leroy, who owes me forty dollars, but how can I say no?

Above me, Milo’s fingers glide. He’s really feeling those blues tonight; he’s tapping his foot and swinging his head side-to-side, side-to-side. His lips are silent, he isn’t singing, but that’s okay, I already know the words.

Marc and Annette lie on the bed, staring up at the tiny white topographical map of ceiling above the bed. A single sheet stretches between them, covering the odd angles of their naked bodies.

“I don’t know how you can say I’m being selfish,” says Annette.

“Bullshit.”

“Fuck you, you prick.”

“Cunt.”

Annette drags on her cigarette, taps the ash into the small dish between them on the bed. “Yeah, “ she says. “I’m a cunt. That’s what I am, right? Just a cunt for you to fuck. Now that’s selfish.”

“You can’t even understand. Don’t even try. I’m so…fucking sick and tired of…explaining…”

“Maybe you’re not doing a good job of it, then. Because, I don’t know…I think I get it.”

“Oh, you get it. You get it. Fuck. Yeah. You’re not the one taking the pills so you don’t get sick while you take the other pills.”

“Ha. You get the irony of that, right?”

“Don’t condescend to me.”

She lifts up, the sheet falling away from her breasts. Marc watches the pale breast, the thick red nipple as it hangs. He wants to bite it.

“Shut up…stop whining like a little…think about it. Think about it. Think about what I have to do.”

“I’ll be there,” she says. He doesn’t want her to talk anymore. He’s rubbing his temples. He wants to take a shower and forget he ever brought it up.

“For what? The nine months? You’ll help me get fat and do those stupid breathing exercises and say ‘you can’t do it honey, push!’ and then when I’ve got a two year old child and I have to say, this is why you don’t have a daddy—“

“What do you want from me? Isn’t it…isn’t it better to have something…to leave something…? Don’t you want that for us? You say you love me, right? Well. I want there to be something of us…I won’t have anything. I have nothing else to give.”

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t even make it seem like something noble, you fucking nimrod.”

“I’m not even supposed to be alive.”

“Whatever.” He’s told her about the plane crash many times. She’s seen the burns, the scars on his arms and legs. The two-year old who lived as a plane crashed into a cornfield in Buttfuck, Kansas. His mom had shown her the news clippings.

“I hate you. I goddamn hate you.”

“I guess that’s why you broke up with me, then. Except, here we are fucking, and then you ask me that.”

“I can’t make you understand.”

“Try a little fucking harder then.”

Marc sighs. She leans back, and he’s still staring at the nipple, the flesh of the breast the way it slides against her ribcage. He feels himself growing harder and shifts his legs under the remainder of the sheet.

“My parents will help, you know.”

She laughs and rolls back. “Christ on a stick. Yeah…oh, that’s good. Your parents hate me. They fucking HATE me, Marc. And what do you think they’ll say when I go to them with little Marc Jr. asking for a hand-out?”

She turns away, pushing forward with her arms. Going to get up. He wants to turn it back. Undo this. The room is washed out, pale in the sun. He reaches out grabs her upper arm. She yelps. “Get the fuck off of me!” she turns to slap at his arm with her other hand. He can’t help it; he likes the way her breasts move. He tries to focus on that while the blood rushes up into his head. He feels the pinprick pressure at the back of the skull, now it’s blossoming outward. He freezes, hand still tight on her arm.

“Fuck.”

“Marc? What? Are you OK?”

“Yeah…” his voice trails off. They sit there in the quiet. Neither speaking. He can hear her breathing. She doesn’t move, but he can feel the pulse of her heat, beating rapidly, pumping blood through her veins.

“Marc?” she says again. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he breathes in deep and smells something sharp and musty. Neither of them had noticed that the ashtray had tipped over into the cotton sheets. Smoke is rising from the bed.

“Oh Jesus, oh shit,” says Annette, suddenly rising up and back, away from Marc’s grip. “Fuck,” she says, “Fuck.” She’s trying to pat it out with a shirt now, his shirt, stopping the slow brown creep of the singing flame. “God fucking damn it,” she says, leaning back. “I just washed these, too.”

The fog in his head begins to clear. Color bleeds back in to the room little by little as he watches her, leaning back on her knees, afternoon sunlight filtering through the blinds across her pale breasts and big nipples. She’s panting a little, her ribcage rising and falling, and he wants to capture that moment and paint it and live in it for as long as he can.

Charlie sets the notebook computer down on his lap, slides the clasp, opens it. Presses the power button. The machine grinds gently to life as Charlie sips from the steaming cup of green tea on the bench beside him.

As the computer screen runs its epic start up screens, Charlie sighs through his nose impatiently, as a child would, in that way that would have caused Gina to roll her eyes and say in that motherly tone she had, oh ok what’s wrong now?

“Nothing,” replies Charlie, “nothing.” And nothing has brought him here, on a Monday, just a Monday.

He leans back on the bench, the thick wooden plank firm against his back, cold seeping through his too light for weather jacket, a simple polyester windbreaker, but it’s the one that looks cool and just a little hip – dressed to impress. He just has to make sure he doesn’t raise his left arm over his head. The stitching under the arm has come loose just under the armpit; Charlie can’t sew, tried maybe once or twice but his clothes ending up unraveling after three and a half hours or, on the other extreme, looking like the inhuman creation of a mad scientist bent on created a glorious new jacket from the remnants of great old jackets, thick stitching, patchwork, crazy quilt, multi-colored thread when the black spool runs out. So, don’t raise the arm.

The air is cold and sharp and dry, it’s like inhaling glass, like icicles, it cuts but the lungs tingle and release and breathe. Charlie hasn’t breathed like this. White cotton ball clouds sink across a bright blue canvas sky.

Unseen, a car rumbles up and a hand brake is thrown back. A car door opens, then closes. There is movement, heavy, slow steps on wooden stairs, up to the front door of the old stone structure.

It’s the post office; had been for as long as Charlie had lived there. Now, on his return arrival, he’s delighted to find it still there, still the same, though strip malls and sprawling complexes have turned up where empty fields once lay, the changes to not interest him. They are the same stores that have appeared like crop circles in cities and town across the nation, signs of an imminent invasion.

And so Charlie revels in the post office, the oversized granite block with a portrait of the town’s founder carved into the second story. It reminds him of Mrs. Berry, the librarian who ran the adjoining public library here, boarded up now, books moved off, redistributed or sold. Charlie wonders if Mrs. Berry died and no one else wanted the job.

He’s avoiding the truth. It isn’t the library that brought him here. It wasn’t even the post office.

The footsteps stop. Charlie turns.

A slightly heavyset blonde woman fumbles through a large burgundy handbag. Charlie hears the sound of pill bottles chattering. She pulls out a ring of keys, opens the door to the post office. Only then does she look at Charlie.

“Hi,” she says with a weak and weary smile.

Then she pauses. Charlie scratches his bald head. He searches her eyes. She’s stopped now, keys still in the door, body frozen in half-motion, routine interrupted. She’s thinking something. She blinks.

“Mailing something?”

And Charlie searches her narrowed eyes, the furrow of her brow. Her eyebrows are neatly waxed, her eyeliner thick and black. Her face had widened, lines dissect, the eyes sunken, the chin gone. If she recognizes him, she doesn’t let him know.

“Just give me a minute to…just give me a minute to open everything up.”

“OK,” says Charlie, “sure.” And he turns back to his computer and his tea, and he doesn’t know why he’s here, why he came back, why he wanted to see what she looked like now, the object of such fantasy when he was 10, 11, 12, when he was so excited to dance with her in the school gym, in her big pink dress, his palms sweaty and his heart beating, and now here he is, once again unable to talk. He shuts the lid to his computer and looks to find a way to slip away as she walks into the dim post office and begins to turn on the lights.

Midsummer oily heat haze on the black asphalt roads when the devil came to Rockville, and Henry was the only one who noticed, out of breath, pushing his black-and-chrome silver Huffy bicycle across the sidewalk and into the flat gray parking lot of the Savings Corner Market. Out of breath, pumping up and down the gentle wave of Snipes Road, hot air scorching his mouth and lungs, watching the shimmering obsidian heat mirage in rhythmic time, foot down, breathe in, foot down breathe out and finally, the Exxon station comes into view, then Harmony’s ice cream stand, then the post office, and then the Savings Corner market.

Henry eyed the devil carefully. He was sitting on the old wooden bench just outside the market, He looked like a pack of chamois stitched together and slung over a pile of wire clothes hangars. The angles of his face were wide and plentiful, and the skin was almond leather stretch tight almost to breaking. The devil was eating a banana, slowly peeling down the yellow strips of skin. His jaw, jutting out sharply, was moving like he was talking to the banana. Henry pushed his bike up against he wall on the opposite side of the automatic double doors. He jammed his hands into his pockets, fumbling for the two quarters there. Enough to get The Mighty Avengers comic book where the Black Panther fought the Man-Ape, the book he read on the stand last week while his mother was picking up eggs for quiche night. And twenty-five cents left over for a blue cream soda to dampen the dry stickiness in his mouth.

The devil looked up at Henry and stopped peeling his banana.

Howdy, said the devil.

Hi, said Henry.

Hot enough for yeh, said the devil, like it wasn’t a question at all.

I guess, said Henry.

Yep, said the Devil. Cooler in there. He nodded to the glass doors.

Henry’s fist clenched around the quarters in his pocket. He liked the way it felt, squeezing as hard as he can.

Y’look thirsty, said the devil.

An overweight woman with a wide brown perm and a formless blue and brown housedress pushed past Henry to walk into the market. She didn’t pay mind to the devil; which surprised Henry. He looked at the devil, at the small, white bone bumps protruding from the skin there.

I know who y’are, said Henry in a quiet voice that surprised him a little.

Oh, do yeh? The devil’s face stretched into something that looked like a smile made by a a person who had only ever heard the description of a smile. This time it was actually a question the devil was asking.

Yeh, said Henry.

Then the devil did something that really surprised Henry. He reached out a thin hand, his fingers quick to slip around Henry’s wrist like a noose. He lifted Henry’s hand, pulling his arm toward him. Henry didn’t move. The devil examined Henry’s arm, his pale blue eyes scanning from wrist to elbow, turning over the freckled brown bits to inspect the pale underneath. And where it purpled and yellow up near the bicep. The devil looked up at Henry. Henry tried to swallow, but his mouth was too sticky now and his tongue just clicked and he made an odd mewling sound.

He did that to you, did he? Last night?

Henry didn’t move.

I could hear, yeh know. When my porch is quiet and the summer night is still. Yeh aren’t that far away. Just up past that ring of oak trees where you like to play, right?

Henry managed a nod.

I could hear him screaming something awful, said the devil, and then he let go of Henry’s arm. He leaned back on the bench, his head lolling back against the wooden paneling of the storefront. He regarded Henry. His eyes never seemed to blink. They were full of liquid.

Well go on and get y’r comic book, said the devil.

Henry dropped his hand back to his side. The quarters still pressing into this flesh. Stinging . He stepped to the side and pulled open the door. The cool blast of air conditioning washing over his face. He could feel the sweat on his brow start to dry. He entered the store and walked slowly over to the rack of comics just past the three lanes of checkstands. He thought he’d get The Mighty Avengers, and maybe a Master of Kung-Fu, too. Or a Legion of Super-heroes. He’d have to flip through to see which one had more fighting, but he wasn’t in a rush.

When there is nothing left between two people, the physics of the room appear to change. A stillness overcomes the space between them, lazy dust motes trapped in a shaft of light.  There is movement, of course — the nervous fidget of fingers, the swaying of legs, the tilt of the head to a slightly sharper angle.  A yawn.  But these movements become infinitesimal in the void between the occupants of the room.

Also, there is silence.  Not true silence, of course.  Conversation occurs in small, precise rounds, ticking in time to an invisible clock.  In these moments the dialogue doesn’t falter; it simply ends, resets, begins anew.  But beneath these mechanical sounds, one can hear the silence. It doesn’t come from the speaker — it emanates from the listener. This silence is deep; it is the practice of hiding oneself completely from a conversation so as to eliminate any echo or reverberation.

Eventually, one of them will leave.  The woman will stand, leisurely, and stretch.  She will reach for her purse.  She will do this neither too slowly nor too quickly, yet the timing will still be incorrect, vastly noticeable, and completely ignored.

“Well,” she will say, “I should go.”  Her tone is as flat as the statement.

He will glance up, taking one more sip of coffee to give himself an extra moment.  He will set down the mug, arrange the newspaper so it aligns to the edge of the table.  He will — in this order — look her in the eyes and then smile.  But these two acts will not align; they come one after the other, eliminating the warmth from either.

He will say something, but the words are irrelevant; in this space, words undergo an alchemical transformation, are rendered inert.  They become meaningless.  In this space the silence has deafened her.

Allen talks, a little too loud, a little too fast. A little too much. He’s telling Dawn something, and she’s listening, really she is, but more to the rhythm and cadence, wondering if he’s going to stop and take a breath. It may sound annoying, but Dawn doesn’t mind; she doesn’t really want to contribute to the conversation, and Allen doesn’t appear to require any collaboration.

Allen leans forward on the couch. He’s trying to lean closer to Dawn, but she’s in another chair, separated by a glass end table containing a lamp. He’s peeking around the shade. He sips his vodka, the vodka he brought, and he sweeps back a sheaf of longish hair that Dawn doesn’t quite understand because Allen is balding, and who at the age of 39 in 2009 attempts a comb-over? She smiles a little at this, not because she doesn’t like the baldness but because she can’t fathom why he doesn’t just shave his head. It wouldn”t make him attractive, but it would make him less of a caricature. Allen catches her smile and increases the speed at which he’s telling his story. He thinks he’s got her hooked.

Dawn knows Allen likes her. She knows he won’t leave until he’s asked to leave. It’s already after one in the morning, but he’ll keep talking until she says she needs to sleep, and he’ll either pretend he’s had too much vodka, wait a few seconds to see if she offers him the couch, or — if he’s really optimistic — her bed. She knows this because Allen is a nice guy, and he does that thing that nice guys do when they’re trying to get laid: they persist. They stay as long as they can in the hope that when she’s drunk enough or tired enough, that one moment will present itself, that one moment that — in their eyes — will change everything. She’s gone to bed with a few of these nice guys. It never works out. She feels bad about it, but right now Allen’s telling her something about the different kinds of high definition video, and that’s just fine with her.

Her phone rings, hopping slightly on the glass table as it pelts out “Your Heart is an Empty Room‚” by Death Cab For Cutie. Allen notices it mid-stream, tries to work it into his conversation with barely a breath, shifting suddenly from his insight into HDMI cables to noting, “…and oh hey someone’s phone is ringing, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.” He even laughs like a child firing a machine gun.

“Yeah‚” says Dawn. She doesn’t look down at the phone, just stares straight ahead, “I’m not going to answer it.”

Allen pauses for a moment, glancing down at the phone, then back to Dawn. He smiles. His front teeth are crooked, but it’s not a bad smile. “Okey-dokey‚” he says, and then resumes his conversation.

Dawn takes a long drag on her cigarette, watches the tip flare orange. The phone goes silent, but Allen does not, and she lets the sound wash over her as she exhales.

By David Accampo

May 24th

Dearest Emily,

Forgive me for not having written sooner. Your father has me up at all hours of the night, running the strangest of errands! Last night, we had to convey a large steamer trunk from the docks to the ramshackle hut in which our dear Admiral has taken refuge. Not so odd, I suppose, except for the ungodly hour and the nature of the contents of the trunk. I shall not inflict the gruesome details upon you darling, as they are not fit for man, let alone the delicate constitution of a woman. Suffice it to say, the trunk reeked of offal; and Hendricks and I were forced to wear kerchiefs over our noses to stifle the acrid stench.

Still, I should not complain. Your father is a good man, and my induction into the Order is necessary for us to live as man and wife, a dream well worth the unusual regulations placed upon it.

Yours,

Stephen

***

June 7th

Dearest Emily,

You can’t know how I’ve cherished your most recent letter! Days on this infernal island have begun to wear upon me. It is only the strength of your love — displayed so proudly in your letters — which keeps me moving forward. Wearing the uniform in this oppressive tropical climate is rather less than bearable, but with every step I take through the sand, my saber rattling in its scabbard, the stiff wool chaffing my sides, brings me closer to you.

Sadly, I’ve nothing to report on your father. The Admiral sees no one now, and delivers his messages through stained parchment letters slid beneath the door of his make-shift cottage. He claims the ritual is well underway. My induction into the Order is nearly complete. I have been given the Ostrich feather to carry on my personage at all times. I’m told this is a symbol of both good omen and grave import; I endeavor to keep it close to me at all times lest the Admiral believe I’ve strayed from his words.

Hendricks has taken ill. He rarely rises from his cot. His skin is clammy, his features jaundiced. I awoke one night to the sound of wheezing and a hacking cough. I don’t suspect he will finish out his stay on the island. The Admiral informed us, via letter, that another ship would soon arrive. Hendricks and Tennyson are expected to depart on it.

They have been deemed unworthy of the Order. That leaves only myself and Albertson as the newest inductees. A part of me wishes I could hop on that steamer with him and find my way back to you. But we both know that would only be folly.

Yours,

Stephen

***

June 19th

Dear Emily,

Forgive the tardiness of my reply, my love. The Admiral has kept me quite busy, making arrangements with the natives for the final feast and induction ceremony. I have completed the Serpent’s Path, and the Admiral, who I confess has grown rather bloated on this strange island diet he keeps, has emerged from his isolation. He told me today that he is proud to call me a son of the Order. I take that to have two meanings, my dear, and they both bode well for our bright future!

I was rather surprised to read the revelation in your last letter. You must heed these words: Hendricks is not to be trusted! Your father has informed me that Hendricks betrayed the Admiral’s good name. I realize it must have seemed good fortune for the fellow to seek you out at your family estate, but you mustn’t believe his agenda was purely sociable. Hendricks is a jealous man, and despite what he claims, his infirmity was not brought on by unnatural forces. His illness is mere human weakness.

I beseech you — stay away from Hendricks. The man only wishes ill upon your father and his presence brings nothing good to your family.

Yours,

Stephen

***

June 30th

Emily,

We are on the eve of the final ceremony. Oh, the wonders I have seen! Your father has opened my eyes to the world, opened the inner eye, if you will, to all manner of spectacle unseen by mortal man. This new world is a thing of complex beauty, of radiant light, shape and colour. I cannot wait to introduce you to this heaven on earth.

Alas, this is not the reason for my letter. I was shocked and a bit betrayed by your recent confession, my dear. I asked you to steer yourself clear of the madman Hendricks, and yet it appears you haven’t heeded my words. I am sorry the old fellow met his untimely end, and in such a ghastly fashion. I did once call him friend, and his passing does fill me with melancholy. Surely, his illness was one of untoward carnal activity, and not due to, as he so claimed, some malignancy brought on by the Order and our ritual. I assure you, the Order seeks an end to all misery, all war! Your father has only the most benevolent intentions.

I confess, the means to this end are unusual — and often repugnant — but as the night gives in to the inevitability of the sunrise, so to is the beauty of the Order revealed.

We shall live in eternal bliss. This is my promise to you. Please, put Hendricks and his final, twisted visage from your mind. We shall brook no further talk of the putrefaction of flesh.

Soon,

Stephen

***

July 6th

Emily,

I have not received reply. Please, I am worried. I received my sash as a full-fledged member of the Order. Your father beamed with pride as if I were his own son!

Unfortunately, any festivity was cut short by a terrible native uprising. Apparently, these ragged savages have lost several of their womenfolk, and they believe the Order is responsible. Clearly, they do not have the blessed insight of Those Beyond The Sky.

The Admiral has called for swords to be drawn.

I go to my duty.

Love always,

Stephen

***

July 16th

Dearest Emily,

I haven’t the words.

Our battle was hard-fought and won. Arrow and spear are no match for sword and rifle and good old English strategy, you see.

There is more to say, and I do so now with heavy heart.

Your father, our good Admiral Wellington, has passed on. The old man fought bravely, as best he could in his engorged state, but the cunning tribesmen brought him low with a cowardly arrow’s shaft. For a moment, all seemed lost, as the Admiral dropped to his knees in the dust, his jacket stained with crimson.

However, we in the Order have been prepared for the moment of transmogrification. What a glory to behold! It must have seemed a terrible thing to these dim savages as the Admiral’s skin split, as his true personage was revealed, sloughing off his old fleshy casing as though it were nothing more than a long coat taken off on a spring day. The tentacles burst forth, crimson and sea-green. His vengeance was swift and terrible.

I am proud to say that we passed the final test. The Order, brothers all, rallied behind this fearsome new leader, this great king descended down from beyond the sky as our ages-old prophecies have foretold.

Your father will be missed, but his passing brings about a new understanding. A new world! We are not alone. A time of great prosperity is at hand, dearest Emily, and it begins on this small island. We must prepare the way of the Others. The time has come for you to join me, my love. On this island, we shall be married, in honour of your father. I have sent a man named Hickory to fetch you. He should be there shortly after you receive this letter.

I tremble with anticipation to think we shall finally be together! We will finally begin our life! What will you think when you see me, I wonder? I have begun the slow transformation already. My skin is softening, loosening. It loses some of its colour and resolve. I will have no use of it before long. I am larger than you will recall, but it’s the steady diet of meat I must consume. I admit, I didn’t think my tastes would change quite so drastically, but I can already feel the delicate flutter of tendrils within my body. It is a marvelous sensation, and one I am sure you will quite enjoy.

Be courteous to our man Hickory.  I have instructed him to treat you firmly and ensure your passage to the island. I realize you didn’t expect our new life to begin in quite this fashion, but I know you’ll soon come to understand the beauty of this life.

I count the days to your arrival, my love.

Yours in eternity,

Stephen

By David Accampo

Finding no further answers, I called Mrs. Macready. Phone picked up on the second ring.

“Oh, Bill — I was just thinking about you.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Macready–”

“Please, call me Helen, Bill. No one except the kids at school call me Missus. Haven’t felt like a Missus since Tom died anyway, really…”

“Helen…sorry…listen…I found something at the house today. I’m…I’m not sure what to make of it.”

“You know old houses. They do tend to collect little histories, don’t they? If they could talk, I wonder what they’d say.”

“There was something…buried…in the backyard.‚”

“Ah. I see‚” She stopped then. I could hear rustling. After a moment, she spoke again, “Well I’m sure it’s nothing, Bill. Just old buried treasures, you know? One man’s junk, all that.”

“Listen, Helen…would you…would you maybe like to have tea? Over here?” It was a dirty trick, but I knew it would work.

“Oh, well. Yes, of course, Bill! When…when…do you mean now…? I mean, I could, I just have to, well, sure, I mean…”

“Now would be great, Helen. I’ll put on a kettle.”

“Oh! Yes. Yes, sure Bill. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you in a few!”

I rummaged through the boxes, still packed. Wasn’t even sure I had a pot for tea. It was dusk; long shadows crawling across the cluttered living room, still dim from the lack of electrical lighting. A brisk wind rattled the old windows, blew open the flimsy screen door to the back yard. I wasn’t used to it all, the space, the wind, the shadow. Nothing’s every truly dark in the city. Someone shines a light on everything. Here, lights are just dim stars on a black canvas. A mirror to the night. Somewhere, a dog barked three times and was quiet again.

I was still fidgeting with the gas stove when Helen came rumbling up her her dead husband’s old Chevy. The bald tires slid across the dirt and gravel as the truck clanked to a stop. It was already a sound I was beginning to hate.

We sat. Drank tea. Helen did most of the talking. She asked a lot of questions. About the city. About what it was like working on Wall Street. About how I liked the country now. My answers were brief. I spent the rest of the time fiddling with the old coffee mug I was using for the tea. She wasn’t going to say anything unless I brought it up. You could see it in the way she’d watch my face as I answered, and then, when I was done, look away quickly, trying to form a new question before I could say anything else. It was awkward and a little sad.

“Your daughter lived here before me, isn’t that right?” I asked.

“Yes, yes…‚” she said, “our little Becky, bless her heart. Grew up in our little neck of the woods, and never left it. She and her husband bought this house just a mile up the road.”

“Must have been nice.”

“Oh yes…well, you know the boys went off to school and such. But Becky…she…this was always her home, was always going to be. Boys so often run off, you know, but girls — we do like to settle, don’t we?” She looked at me and smiled as she said this. She was wearing red lipstick. A little was smeared across her yellow teeth.

“She was happy here, then?”

“Even as a little girl, she’d spend all her days out in the woods. We’d have to holler for an hour to get her to come on home for supper! More at peace there than anywhere else at all.”

“Why’d she leave, Helen?”

Helen pats her hair, looks away. She puts her hands in her pockets, the motion of a smoker looking for her pack. She catches my stare and stops. She smiles in defense.

“Oh, Bill…” she sighs. “You know how it always happens. Alex, that was her husband, he got himself a job upstate a ways and they just had to move is all. Believe me…it wasn’t easy for her to leave.”

“Can I show you what I found?”

The smile doesn’t drop on the widow’s face, but I can see the light’s gone out of her eyes. She’s frozen still, one hand still in the pocket of her purple sweater, one hand still holding the tea cup I found in one of the boxes.
Quietly, I rise from the sofa, walk into the kitchen, and grab the box. I return to the living room, carrying it in front of me. Helen is no longer staring at me. She had slumped in her chair. She stares now at her tea cup, tracing one finger slowly around the chipped rim.I tell her I was mending the fence, the one she said was “torn up real good in the last storm.”

The post-hole digger I was using struck something solid. I thought maybe it was a gas line or water pipe. It wasn’t. It was the box.

“It’s old and rusted but I don’t think it was down there for a very long time,” I say.

“You never know in these parts.”

“Had a lock on it, too. Thought that was a bit odd. I was able to snap it off with the post-holer.”

As I say this line, Helen’s tea cup clatters to the ground and shatters. The warm liquid pools on the worn floor, seeps into the cracks in the wood. She apologizes profusely; I wave it off, grab the nearest towel from a box — a bath towel — and throw it over the mess.

“I’ll clean it up later‚” I say. And then I open the box and set it down on the  coffee table.

Helen doesn’t look inside, so I keep talking. It’s my turn for the questions.

“I wasn’t sure what I was looking at at first, Helen. It looks a little like a small animal. But here…these bones…the skeleton here…this is a baby.”

Helen stifles a little gasp.

“Except…it’s not, is it? Look…is this…what was this…? A tail? Is this a barb at the end? This tiny bone? What are these…these…fibrous tumors twisted all the way through the rib cage? And then…and then…the shape of the skull. That’s not a baby. Look at the length of the incisors. And the way it opens…the way it folds out.”

“Some kind of monster,” says Helen.

“Some kind of joke‚” I say. “But who would play such a horrible prank? College students? The local boys? The type who make up crop circles for fame and fortune?”

“Nobody ‘round here would do that,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper now. She twists her hands together.

I reach into the box, pull out something metal.

“And then I found this in the box‚” I say. I hold up the spoon.
“A little baby spoon, right? Is that what this is? I’ve…I don’t have any kids, Helen, so I don’t know.”
“Yes‚” she says, tears welling in her eyes. She coughs as she speaks, “Yes, yes. That’s what it is, it’s a silver spoon. An ornament.”

“The kind of thing that someone engraves, is that right? A message to the baby. This was covered in filth. the box must have leaked. I cleaned it up, though. I cleaned it up. There’s an engraving there.”

”Yes‚” says Helen.

“It says: ‘To my precious little one, love Grandma.’”

“She was so precious,” says Helen, “I didn’t even see the forked tongue or the tentacles. She was just my little grandbaby, Bill. How could we have known? Becky, little  Becky…she loved those damned woods so much. How could we have known the trouble they would cause?”

Helen begins to cry then, the old widow, alone in the night in the dim light of my house. I look at the terrible thing in the box, I try to imagine its inhuman, mewling cries. We are  silent for a long time, Mrs. Macready and I, until the wind kick up again and slams the screen door against the wood siding, startling us both. In the distance, in the dark, the woods loom.

Jude’s ability was — in the larger scheme of the universe — rather unimpressive. And yet, he took pride in his ability, as he felt it was something that was solely his, to grow and shape.Jude didn’t tell anyone of his ability. They wouldn’t understand. “Time travel,” they would say, “Bah.”

The way it worked was this: by closing his eyes very firmly, so that he could see nothing at all, Jude could travel into the future. He couldn’t travel very far, of course. A short blink could only get him one, maybe two seconds into the future. But as he became a teenager, Jude realized that longer blinks, with a great deal of concentration, could move him three, sometimes even five seconds into the future. It was at this juncture that he decided two things:

One: he should continue to train and hone this unique power.

Two: he should not abuse this power.

The latter principle came not from his parents, who cared nothing for moral dilemmas (they were cat burglars by profession, Jude would later discover when the police arrived at his doorstep on Christmas Eve while Jude was trying to stay awake for Santa Claus’ imminent arrival — an arrival that never happened and was, in fact, cruelly reversed as the uniformed officers seized his existing toys as evidence and even ate the cookies that Jude had personally baked for the truant Saint Nick). But while his parents had failed to prepare him for this ethical dilemma, Jude had found the answers he sought in the comic books that he read so lovingly. In these magazines, men with powers learned to use them justly and only in appropriate situations. The men who chose not to do so wore dark colors and sinister masks. They often shouted, raising their fists in the air. Jude appreciated this worldview, as he had never suspected his parents of being cat burglars — simply fond of black clothing and expensive paintings and jewelry that seemed to come into the house and quickly disappear.

These colorful comic book stories served him well until adulthood, when he found himself in plots far more complicated than those in which Clark Kent had become embroiled.

His first girlfriend in college slept with his roommate because she “just got high and things happened.” Jude didn’t understand this, but he didn’t like it either. He blinked for a long time, and when he opened his eyes, his girlfriend had left the room. He was still in college, but it seemed different now. His jump in time had given him a new perspective.

Later, when he was fired because his department at the software company was downsized, Jude made his longest jump yet. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, five whole minutes had passed by. And in this strange future, the old maze of cubicles didn’t seem as familiar or as important as it had once been. It was much easier to leave.

His wife left him when his unemployment ran out.  Jude went to sleep and a whole day passed. He realized that he no longer loved Emma; the future was wide open.

And on he went, closing his eyes and letting the days pass him by, moving forward into a distant future where he could start all over again.

This happened when, some four and half days into the future, he met a woman named Sarah at the Laundromat. She was folding pink blouses. She appeared to have at least six of them. Future fashion. Pink was in, it appeared. She wore her blonde hair pulled loosely back. She caught his gaze and smiled. Her front tooth was chipped, but her smile was very warm and he liked the deep angular folds it created in her cheeks. He thought she was a work of art. It made him bold.

“I’ve come a long way to find you,‚” he said, a pair of dirty khakis balled in his fist. She laughed.

“What’s that from?” she asked.

“What?‚” said Jude.

“That’s from a movie, isn’t it?” she said.Jude didn’t answer. He didn’t know how. He paused for a moment, lowering the pants.

“My name’s Jude,‚” he said finally.

“Sarah‚” said Sarah, “Nice to meet you, Jude.”

When he didn’t answer she stopped folding her laundry and looked at him, biting her lower lip quizzically. “What is it, Jude? Is something wrong?” she asked.

Jude trembled as he smiled, “No, it’s nothing‚ It’s just… I’m… trying not to blink.”

“Why not?” She said, breaking into a high-pitched flutter of a laugh.

“I just really don’t want to miss this moment. I feel it might be important,” said Jude.

“Now that‚” she said as she returned to her laundry, “is definitely from a movie. Something…I can’t think of what. But it’ll come to me.”

Jude let her think on it for a while.