The Fable Online Issue 22

The Fable Online Issue 22 September 2017

Sarah Kedar Executive Editor Heather White Associate Editor Readers Benjamin DeValve Chris Champe Fiona Ryle Hannah Lawrence Heather White Memphis Trace Sarah Kedar Tim Tanko

Cover illustrated by Luke Spooner

Š2015-2017 The Fable Online|Contributing Authors

Foreword

by Heather White As autumn comes, we see the balance of life and death, the balance of change.

Sometimes it comes hard and violent, like the storms currently raging in India and Southern USA. Sometimes it comes soft and still, like the first cry of a baby and the last breath of the elderly as they sleep. Sometimes it's a little death, as we slip between waking and sleeping, between one life and another.

This stories and poems in this issue take a look at that balance between one period and the next, the changes that create those little conflicts that make up our lives. From the changing social scene that changes how we grow to the meeting of new people that change how we see ourselves and others, from dreaming to being awake to dreaming again, the force of change -- the force of life and death -- shape the stories of our world.

Table of Contents POETRY Defeated

by Sergio Ortiz........................................................................................................................6 Haiku (No title)

by Denny Marshall..................................................................................................................7 In Search of an Apostrophe

by Tope Ogundare..................................................................................................................8 Like Smoke

by Natalie Crick.......................................................................................................................9 When the Seagull Arises

by Joel Schueler....................................................................................................................10 PROSE Cyclic

by Jacque Miller....................................................................................................................12 Digital Pulse

by Alex Rezdan......................................................................................................................15 Foggy

by Anthony Engebretson......................................................................................................17 Thanatopsis

by Ken Wetherington............................................................................................................28 The Insurance Policy

by June Graham....................................................................................................................43 About the Authors.......................................................................................................................54

POETRY

Defeated

by Sergio Ortiz

A body wants to be sea and choose shades of turquoise, of tempest, of calm. A body wants to be tree, have inhabited branches, roots feeding off the ground, and decide modes of density, leaf shapes, ways to burn.

How to explain this era of dry seas spitting dust, smoke, ashes a peck of salt.

How to explain acres of burned stumps, droughts, the collapse

of a drifting horizon.

Haiku (No title)

by Denny Marshall

enjoy wife's garden think the plants are beautiful wish they wouldn't bite

In Search of an Apostrophe

by Tope Ogundare We part with a comma Every time, never a period.

Sometimes with an ellipsis Allowing our thoughts trail Leaving golden drops of Silent wishes and wants In the spaces where our laughter Formed a wall closing out the world.

When you put friendship in Parenthesis (and this does remind me Of the excruciating torment in algebra class) It becomes the first order of function.

I wonder what the formula for us would be But I know what the solution would be: an Indeterminate number.

I am in search of an apostrophe When finally, I can make you mine.

Like Smoke

by Natalie Crick

November curled itself around my Spine like cigarette smoke,

Seeping into me.

December froze in her grey web.

I want to wake from the dark, Sleep naked in moon-cooled dirt,

Deep in the night where graves Spread like black pollen.

I am where the wind Snuffs out candles,

Can touch a curtain like a ghost, Like a bell.

Like the dead I escort Sap to want.

When the Seagull Arises

by Joel Schueler

When the seagull arises at near enough dawn, The pillow is scratched as if a car is trying to start Or a match is being lit. This view of cliffs I luckily behold Could well boast waterfalls liquid in gold.

Ramshackle garages of a tame disposition Coolly collide with cars dressed for work.

Tabernacular leanings arouse this place Many go by with lowly case, Bed awaits: the away from

comfort zone almighty the seagull has arisen

traffic drone

PROSE

Cyclic

by Jacque Miller

Your senses and memories will abandon you. Then, over time, darkness and silence will morph into the dim, red glow and heat of a cartoonish hell. You’ll be imprisoned in a round chamber with slimy walls, your skin feeling like the inside of a popped blister: not ready to feel the world yet, slightly numb. Sounds of streams will trickle nearby, out of reach, accompanied by a caustic, low ticking.

Then, muffled, but unmistakable, you’ll hear someone sing “Fly Me to the Moon,” and a memory will bubble to the surface of you playing connect the dots with your sister, Evelyn’s, freckles as she hastily plopped your clothes in a backpack.

She said, “Not now” and pointed to the near-empty bookshelf. “Why don’t you help me and pick out your favorite book?”

You picked out The Very Hungry Caterpillar and handed it to her, then exclaimed, “There’s an owie on your face. I’ll kiss it better.” You held her face in your little hands and planted a kiss on her cheek.

Thanks, sweetpea” she said, tousling your hair.

Did Mommy do that?”

Her jaw tightened and she swiftly looked away and placed the book in the bag.

An hour later, after getting on and off several buses, you dozed off on the last long bus ride to somewhere far away from there as she softly hummed “Fly Me to the Moon.”

More memories will boil into to your consciousness. You’ll remember the nightmare you had that your teddy bear was full of excrement. You’ll remember the splotches of bruises your mother left on you and Evelyn. You’ll remember your new neighbor giving you your first chocolate bunny for Easter. You’ll remember the day your sister got a library card so that you could read something besides The Very Hungry Caterpillar all those days you spent mostly alone, with your sister or neighbor checking in on you occasionally. You’ll remember the last time you saw Evelyn.

You asked her, “Why are we hiding in the closet?”

“We’re just playing, sweetpea. Playing hide and seek.”

“But who’s seeking?”

She whimpered, “You have to be quiet, okay?”

A few noiseless minutes later, you heard the floorboards groan as slow, steady footsteps drew nearer. “I know you’re hiding.” Your chest felt like a boulder had been dropped on it as you recognized the voice of your mother. “Just come out now. It’ll make this easier for both of us.”

Evelyn embraced you and you buried your face in her black curls. You heard the closet door swing open.

“Mom, please don’t,” you heard your sister plead, “No one needs to get hurt.”

“It’s okay,” your mother whispered, “It won’t hurt.” A shot rang and the world was a burst of white. Then a black smoke encompassed you and pulled you into the dark, silent chamber.

You’ll recall every memory of your little life, then realize someone is still singing “Fly Me to the Moon,” just like Evelyn used to. You’ll thrash out at the chamber walls with all of your might and scream for your sister and in your screaming, you’ll barely notice that the singing has stopped and been replaced with muffled groans and cries. Eventually, a circle of white light will emerge, small at first but growing in circumference. You’ll laugh in spite of yourself and your urgency because the light will remind you of the moon that Evelyn sings about. You’ll wriggle toward the light and launch yourself onto something comparatively dry and cold, stained burnt umber.

Celebration for your victory will be short-lived as you gasp for breath. A hazy, giant figure will lunge toward you.

To your surprise, the beast will gently graze fingers over your hands and feet. As your blurry vision comes into focus, you’ll realize that the giant looks to be a normal young woman with curly, black hair. You’ll just make out a constellation of freckles on her cheeks.

She’ll sprinkle you with her tears and sob, “It’s okay, please, you’ll be okay... I was clean, I’ve been clean, I just caved once, I messed up once, I’m sorry, please, you can make it, you have to make it… ” Somehow, though coldness will pierce you and old air will linger in your lungs, you’ll

almost believe her.

Off-key, she’ll hum “Fly Me to the Moon.”

Overcome with an oddly blissful sleepiness, the little vision you have will begin to fade to bright white.

“I’m sorry, sweetpea,” she’ll cry, “I love you. Mommy loves you.”

You’ll take one last wheezing attempt at breath, then the white will consume you. Black smoke will encircle you, pull you elsewhere.

Your senses and memories will abandon you. Then, over time, darkness and silence will morph into the dim, red glow and heat of a cartoonish hell. You’ll be imprisoned in a round chamber with slimy walls, your skin feeling like the inside of a popped blister: not ready to feel the world yet, slightly numb. Sounds of streams trickling nearby, but out of reach, will be accompanied by the caustic, low ticking of your new mother’s heart.

Digital Pulse

by Alex Rezdan

Black smoke rose in the distance. Nathan looked up over the dilapidated houses and continued forward, only to freeze in place when he heard the digital beep. He knew without looking that he had stepped on a pulse mine and mentally cursed himself for being so reckless.

Careful not to release any pressure from his foot, he crouched down and slid open the panel on the side of the mine. A red light flickered between five tiny LED buttons, bouncing back and forth like a silent metronome. A puff of fog escaped his lips as he sighed and regretted not having more experience with explosives.

He raised his head and surveyed the area. Three of them were still alive out there, and now they were hunting him, too. The mine was proof of that. He had already eliminated two of them, but he hadn’t anticipated that the other three would band together to retaliate. Usually, it was every man for himself.

None of that mattered, though, if he didn’t take care of the pulse mine situation first. His eyes bounced with the light as he counted to four to try to find the rhythm. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. On each two, he noticed a slight extra moment. He held his breath and emphasized the two with each count. On the fourth repetition, he pressed his lips together and stabbed his finger into the button.

A white flash engulfed his vision as the sound of the explosion reverberated inside his skull.

“Boom!” shouted a young voice. “Got you!”

Klaxons sounded off as Nathan’s vision returned. The three survivors surrounded him.

Derek, the one who had shouted before, said, “That’s five extra points for me.” He did a little dance. “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.”

Sara shook her head. “Taken out by a mine. What a noob.”

Green text flashed into their goggles to show the scoreboard.

“I got him, so I’m it next,” said Derek, “and I’m going to take you all out.” He laughed.

Nathan took the goggles off and rubbed his eyes. The war zone was replaced with a

paintball-style arena, the dilapidated houses now a padded maze of obstructions. He looked past the fence and saw the two he had eliminated before eating pizza under a banner that read ‘Happy Birthday!’ Beside them, Nathan’s mother waved to get his attention.

“Time to open the presents!” she shouted.

Foggy

by Anthony Engebretson

The bloated yellow mouth protruded from the murky water. Its jagged purple teeth pointed to a mesh bottom throat, inviting some witless prey to willingly hop in. So the large, circular inner tube appeared to Alexandra. She sat in the boat’s driver’s seat, her heart pounding and her palms fisted and sweaty. She leaned away from the tube as if keeping her distance could somehow delay her riding in it.

Alexandra hated deep water; she couldn’t even close her eyes in the shower without being assaulted by images of plesiosaurs, kelpies or giant tadpoles. But in the comfort of the boat, she was fine. It had barriers, a motor, and a steering wheel, so there was control, and it had dad.

Alexandra often stayed with her dad, Owen, in the summer, as it was a busy time of year for her mom. They frequently took trips to Fog Lake, a private mid-sized reservoir a few miles out of town. Owen’s former boss and one of his only friends, Barry, had a membership and would let Owen take his little blue motorboat for a spin.

One morning, Owen surprised Alexandra by bringing home the inner tube in the bed of his pickup. It proceeded to spend most of its days losing air and collecting dust in the closet of Owen’s bedroom. The idea of being exposed over those dark and untamable waters in an oversized donut was too much for Alexandra. Sure, she’d seen other kids ride inner tubes, but she never shared her age group’s idea of fun. Her idea of a good time was hanging out at home, watching a movie, helping mom or dad cook or playing with a pet.

However, today was the day of reckoning. She had finally promised to ride in it.

“Alright, good enough.” Owen finished tying the yellow rope of the inner tube to the thing they called a “metal thingy” on the back of the boat.

He lifted his red cap to wipe sweat off his tan, clean-bald head. It was a painfully humid day with only a slight breeze for relief. It was nearly cloudless, but coming their way from the western horizon was a white mass of cream puff clouds building toward a massive anvil-headed top. According to the Weather Channel App Alexandra obsessively checked, a nasty thunderstorm could be on its way. Usually, Alexandra would be zombified all day from dread about this, but right now the inner tube dominated her thoughts.

His task complete, Owen turned to her. “Y'all ready for this?”

Alexandra quietly nodded. It felt like any words would come up as vomit. She wished she could whip around in her seat and drive the boat back to shore. But even if she had the gall to do so, the keys were buried in the cluttered pockets of Owen’s khaki shorts.

Owen sighed through his nose. He turned and kneeled to Alexandra, still planted firmly in the driver’s seat, his bulky form eclipsed the sun from her. “You alright, Al?” Alexandra usually avoided eye contact but she couldn’t help but look into his piercing blue eyes. They always stared wide and firm with unflinching confidence, though lately, they were developing a slight unhealthy sunken look.

For most people, she would just nod in response, even if it weren’t the truth. But she was more open with her dad, so she attempted to mutter a playfully sarcastic, “Whaddya think?”

Owen nodded understandingly. “Well, I’m really proud of you. You’re overcoming your fear! ” Alexandra sluggishly shrugged. There was only one reason she was doing this. Her dad constantly searched for tactics and incentives to get her in that inner tube so she could have “fun”. However, promised ice cream treats didn’t do it, nor the promise of taking her to a movie; they always did that anyway. He once tried to get her to ride it by telling her that she could pick where they would eat that night, but if she didn’t, he would. The flaw with this is that they both liked all the same restaurants, usually Chinese.

However, this time he finally hit the right mark. If Alexandra rode the inner tube, he’d buy her a new turtle. They used to have a turtle named Gamera, a four-inch red-eared slider.

He became an obsession of Alexandra’s; she loved watching him bask on his log or scramble against the glass wall of his tank, as if it would open up if he pushed hard enough.

She also loved observing the black and green patterns of his shell. However, the shell gradually became discolored with white spots of shell rot. Alexandra religiously practiced the vet-recommended treatment of brushing him with an iodine solution and keeping him confined in the narrow kitchen sink for most of the day so he could dry. Owen continued the practice whenever Alexandra was at her mom’s.

One day Owen found Gamera half retracted over the drain, stiff as a plastic toy. His death was the first heart-twisting loss Alexandra suffered. Eventually, the pain wore off, but she longed to again fill that empty tank in the corner of Owen’s living room.

The evening before this boat ride, Owen brilliantly promised Alexandra that if she rode in the inner tube, they would go to the city and buy a new turtle. He had to pull out this acein-the-hole, because this was the last chance he would ever get to see his daughter experience this. Soon, Barry was going to end his membership and sell off the boat, but not before letting his friend go for one last ride.

Out of utter excitement at the prospect of a new pet, Alexandra agreed. Now, sitting in the boat, with an entire butterfly pavilion in her stomach, she regretted her decision. She was particularly disturbed because, when they had arrived, they saw an abandoned black inner tube gently floating along, bouncing against the dock. But there was no backing out of her bargain.

Alexandra sighed and stood up, making her about the same height as her still-kneeling father.

"Okay,” she mumbled.

She scanned the lake around her. The chocolaty water was calm with only tiny waves to gently rock the boat. The lake was completely empty today. Though it was never bustling, there would usually be some activity here and there. Not even the elderly couple, who were often seen strolling along the sandbox sized beach, were there today.

Alexandra recalled something Barry once told her when he came along on a trip. She was resting along the stern of the boat, watching the wake of the boat, Owen drove while Barry chatted with him.

“Say Al, you ever hear of Foggy?!” Barry shouted to her above the roar of the engine.

Alexandra shook her head without turning around. She was irritated, as only her dad could call her Al. Knowing this, Owen tried to diffuse the situation by jesting “Barry, don’t tell my daughter one of your creepy patron stories!”

Barry downed his third can of beer, some of it

dribbled onto his massive gut. After a refreshed sigh he grinned, “Nah, Nah, it’s what they call the monster that lives in this lake.” Alexandra’s heart dropped into her stomach.

Monster?

“B.S., Barry,” Owen boomed, cracking open his second can of Diet Coke.

“No, it’s true. It don’t come out much, they say it likes to stay around the bottom. But once in a while, it comes up to play. Y’know Vince? Mr. Bloody Mary. He came out here once, and it was the last time too because…”

As Barry spoke, Alexandra backed away from the water and leaned towards Owen.

Sensing his daughter’s distress, Owen quickly diverted Barry’s tangent, “Say, what’s going on with Vince anyway? I haven’t seen him at the bar for a while.”

Barry chortled, “You haven’t heard? Sandy gave him an ultimatum, quit the booze or I quit you…”

Barry went on about Vince’s domestic life. But now, Alexandra could only think of the creature that lay in Fog Lake. The foamy wake began to look like a reptilian hump.

Alexandra no longer believed Barry’s story. Still, her imagination was using what it could as she prepared to ride the tube. Her heart pounded faster and her lungs turned to lead.

Owen noticed her erratic breath, so he gently placed his massive hands on her thin shoulders.

In the most soothing tone his bombastic voice could muster, he said. “Hey, hey, Al. It’s okay. Listen, it’ll only be for one minute, one lousy minute. Then I’ll stop the boat and bring you in? All right? If you’re having fun and want to keep going, that’s fine. But I won’t go for more than a minute. Trust me.”

Alexandra calmed down; nobody but her father could do this for her. He was too big for bad guys to mess with, yet even in the worst situations he was too calm to be intimidated by forces of nature, and he had too many quips to let serious things get him down.

She wasn’t the only person who liked him; he had been a favorite bartender down at Barry’s bar. He was always friendly and also trying to please everyone. One night, he pleased a few college kids by giving them alcohol without carding them. They turned out to be high schoolers. It was the only mistake he’d made in all his years there. But he lost his job, his license and the respect of a lot of people. Even his friendship with Barry was no longer what it used to be.

Alexandra was the only one who loved, if not idolized him. He lost his job and couldn’t find another, his situation was tight and he feared for his custody. Yet, he still carried himself like it was all just part of a plan. He convinced Alexandra everything was okay.

She took a deep breath. Just one minute, she thought to herself. Just one minute, then it’s over. Then came the elated notion, and I get a new turtle!

Alexandra went to the side of the boat. Without even thinking about it she climbed over the edge and sat cross-legged into the squishy floor of the inner tube. She gripped the black handles on both sides as tightly as her sweaty hands could.

“Alright, Guinness World Record for shortest inner tube ride, here we come!” Owen

beamed at her with a wink as he gently pushed the inner tube outward.

Alexandra’s heartbeat began to pick up again as she drifted out into the lake, the little blue boat and the large man on it growing smaller and smaller. She took a deep breath and kept clenching the handles for dear life. “One minute. One minute,” she repeated to herself out loud.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a brief flash of a dark mass moving along the surface of the water. She jolted and looked in the direction: nothing. She sighed, frustrated with her brain playing tricks on her.

Owen shouted to Alexandra, his voice echoing through the whole lake: “You ready?”

In lieu of trying to shout back, Alexandra just gave a big Roman thumbs up. Owen returned the gesture and sat at the driver’s seat.

“Let’s go already,” she softly sing-songed to herself, as it seemed like her dad was taking forever to start the boat. She just wanted to get into motion already. Gently bouncing along the water and trying to keep the inner tube from slowly spinning around, she felt like a careening duck. The mass slid by out of the corner of her eye. She jerked her head again but saw nothing.

“God damn it!” she hissed, quoting her father.

Finally, the motor’s noisy hum began and the boat started moving forward. At first, it seemed like it was leaving her behind, but the rope finally caught up and the tube was jerked along.

The tube whipped along behind the boat, bouncing Alexandra up and down along the choppy waves left by the wake. The boat zoomed in a clockwise motion around the interior of the lake. Alexandra could hardly think clearly with her brain rattling around, the noise of the motor and splashing water ringing through her ears and her curly hair whipping into her face. The sensory overload had already made the short experience utterly draining.

Out of the corner of her wind and mist-squinted eye she caught a glimpse of the mass again. Alexandra turned her head and this time it was still there. It was a boat-sized mass, submarine shaped. If there were clouds, one could have mistaken it for a shadow. But this was beneath the water and it was perpetually moving alongside the inner tube.

Her breath stopped and her stomach sank. She turned ahead, screaming for her dad.

Unfortunately her soft voice, even in the loudest and shrillest level it could achieve, couldn’t get through to him.

Fortunately, the boat slowed down and halted. The motor’s roar died, leaving Alexandra’s hoarse cry the only noise. Owen, noticing his daughter’s panic, immediately began to pull the tube in.

“Hey, it’s alright! You did it, baby! It’s okay!” he shouted to her.

The shadow moved toward the space between the boat and the tube. Alexandra pointed a trembling hand to it.

“Look!” she shrieked.

Owen, noticing the shadow, leaped back. The shadow was directly beneath the tussle of rope that floated on the water. Part of the rope slipped underneath. When the yellow rope resurfaced, it was shredded in two.

Alexandra was silent as she and Owen stared dumbfounded at the broken rope.

The boat rocked back and forth, as something pushed it from underneath. It caused Owen to fall forward against the seat of the bow. He carefully got back on his feet.

All Alexandra could do was watch, petrified as this thing went after her dad. Her blood felt like lead.

The boat rocked again so violently that the bottom became visible. Owen grabbed onto the driver’s windshield to keep upright.

The boat rocked one more time. Owen held on all the way as it capsized.

“Dad!” Alexandra tried to shout, but it came out as more of a broken gasp. She could hardly breathe. The water stood still, the boat flipped like a turtle, with no sign of Owen.

Numb tears started to stream from Alexandra’s eyes.

Finally, Owen’s glistening head emerged from the water between the boat and the tube.

Alexandra was able to give a slight sigh, but her dad wasn’t safe yet. Sure enough, the shadow was circling them.

She couldn’t shriek for him to hurry, instead, she erratically beat against the tube like they were bongo drums.

He started to doggy paddle to the tube. Despite his athletic appearance, he had never been the best swimmer. The shadow kept its distance, as if it was allowing Owen to safely swim across.

Owen reached the inner tube and scrambled on board, nearly sinking and flipping over the tube in the process. He managed to awkwardly squeeze himself in, covering up so

much space that Alexandra was essentially sitting in his soaked lap.

Alexandra trembled like a tiny dog. Owen wrapped his massive arms around her.

“It’ll be okay,” he said to her between heavy breaths. Alexandra could feel his pulse, pounding as intensely as hers.

Owen jerkily cocked his head about, observing the land around them. The white rocky dam in the north, the tiny slither of beach in the east, and the woods all around were about the same distance from them, too far. They were smack dab in the middle of the lake.

“Okay, okay,” he began to chant in a frazzled murmur. Owen stuck his massive hands into the murky water and used them as paddles to push the tube. A breeze was beginning to pick up with the approaching storm from the west so he pushed them towards the beach in the opposite direction. Alexandra remained squashed against her dad, too petrified to put her hands in the water and help. She looked back to watch the shadow, it continued to linger around the surface of the upturned boat.

Owen paddled for what felt like an hour. The inner tube with its dangling rope rocked with the increasingly choppy waters. His breaths turned into exasperated grunts and every now and then he had to pause to shake his aching arms. Progress was being made, with every fifth push the white sliver of beach and the green cottonwoods behind it grew a little larger and more pronounced.

Owen’s eyes bulged as he concentrated on the task ahead, as if thinking of anything else right now would completely break his flow. Sweat drenched his face and mixed with the filthy dried lake water in his clothes. Meanwhile, Alexandra, whose hands were possibly now permanently locked to the handles, rapidly surveyed the water around them. She couldn’t see the shadow.

The grunting and rowing continued for another lifetime. The shore was closer and closer.

Safety was ever near. Owen and Alexandra’s cloudy minds didn’t notice the slight tug.

The tube started moving backwards, as if a force field began to pull them from behind.

Despite Owen’s continued efforts, he couldn’t fight it and keep them moving forward.

“What!? What!?” He began to shout in a near manic rage.

The tube was whipped around, facing them toward the western sky, which was now covered by the grey, ever-approaching anvil cloud. The yellow rope was now straight and tight, leading to an underwater end-point where the shadow lay, pulling the tube forward.

“God damn it! No!” Owen hollered with the hoarse rage of a madman but the desperation of a child. He frightened Alexandra, she could hardly recognize the man in the tube with her.

The shadow pulled them along at a medium pace, dragging them back to the center of the lake.

“No! No!” Owen yelled over and over. His screams pounded into Alexandra’s ears. She wanted to shout for him to stop, but her throat felt shut tight.

Owen’s screams began to fade into gasps. He started hyperventilating, his heaves pushing against Alexandra’s head. She felt like he had to be joking. Maybe it was a ruse to trick the shadow, a Plan B. She didn’t know how the hunched, sobbing and heaving man she was stuck against was the same man who never even cried when he burned his hand while making monkey bread.

In his heaves, there was a faint wheeze, like air escaping a balloon, which was somehow familiar to Alexandra. On the night Owen lost his job, she had heard this wheeze coming from behind the closed doors of her dad’s bedroom. A wheeze so chilling she never dared to investigate. She’d simply watched a movie and waited for it to disappear. Sure enough, the noise vanished and Owen came out with his face stretched in a grin and then tickled her feet until she was in hysterics.

Owen clenched his eyes and puckered his lips, sucking air in and out. He put his fingers around a curly fry-shaped strand of Alexandra’s hair and started kneading it almost ritualistically. At first, he did it so hard it stung Alexandra a little. But gradually his grip relaxed and the heaves started to vanish.

With the episode finished, his hand gently tussled Alexandra’s hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered through heavy breathing.

The words passed over Alexandra; she felt outside of her body. The one person in her life who she thought could protect her through anything had now just proven that not to be true. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed in him, even though, deep down, she knew she shouldn’t. But whether in the tube or not, the world was successfully destroying this man; all he could do before was pretend everything was okay. But now he didn’t even have that.

It was all because of this thing lingering around the inner tube. Why did Foggy feel the need to destroy this dad and daughter who never hurt anybody and wanted nothing more than to live their lives? They were never so cocky and arrogant that they deserved

to be shown just how weak and powerless they really are.

Alexandra released her grip from the handles and let her aching hands drop into her lap.

There didn’t feel like much of a point in gripping it anymore.

The day passed slowly. The hot sun was eventually blotted out by the massive anvil head but not before doing its damage. Owen’s tanned head turned cherry red. Alexandra’s pale face, arms and legs also reddened, but she was mostly spared from the rays by Owen’s shadow.

However, her stomach panged with hunger and her throat and lips were stinging and parched. The capsized boat was gradually drifting away, but the inner tube remained captive in the desolate lake’s center. Owen had attempted multiple other times to paddle off again, only to be pulled back by the shadow. With each attempt, Owen’s rowing was more sluggish and strenuous. By the last attempt, the shadow barely even let him go a few feet before jerking him back, as if it felt like this was just getting sad. But Owen felt obliged to try to do something, even if it was the same futile exercise.

Alexandra numbly sat in the rocking tube. In her exhaustion, she heard faint voices, like one does when they are beginning to fall asleep. One voice she recognized was her mom’s. Even though mom always made her go to bed at 10 and never let her watch movies above a PG rating and was always worrying, Alexandra wanted her now, badly.

She wanted to be snuggled safely in her embrace.

As mid-afternoon became evening the anvil head stretched eastward, the blue sky being gradually captured by the grey mass. Everything darkened: the lake turned from brown to dark grey and the waters grew ever choppier with the wind. The shadow’s form could still be made out, making its unfailing circles around the inner tube. From the storm’s billowy dark patch, there were slightly distant grumbles of thunder.

Owen watched the drifting hull of the boat, which was now several yards away from them. He weakly chuckled, “She was always a fixer upper. Maybe Barry can flip her for a nice profit.”

This was Owen’s final attempt of heroism; if he couldn’t do anything to save them, he could at least make her smile. And while Alexandra didn’t, she felt safe and relaxed for one tiny moment. Her dad wasn’t the ultimate hero she had made herself believe, but he was, at least, her warm blanket through whatever might happen. This dumb joke reminded her of that.

By what must have been nearly nine p.m., the rumbling thunder persisted as the dark

storm clouds now dominated most of the sky. Along the shore, the harsh whispers of the cicadas accompanied the thunder. Rain sprinkled down and lightning bolts streaked in the west. It was probably already storming back in town. Alexandra numbly watched the shadow, it appeared to be erratically moving back and forth, as if anxiously pacing. A loud, angry thunder crack shook the earth, sky, and sea, prompting it to retreat from the surface, disappearing under the grey murk.

The rain picked up, the thunder roared and lightning was uncomfortably close, illuminating the darkened world. The wind pushed them further and further away from the center, and both Owen and Alexandra noticed that nothing was pulling them back.

The shadow may have had power over them but in the face of nature, it, too, was small and helpless; all it could do was retreat to the depths of its domain.

“I think it’s gone,” Alexandra weakly murmured.

Owen immediately ceased the opportunity by paddling again.

He grunted as he pushed through the choppy waters. The intensity of the wind and the weakness of his arms ensured they were making very little progress. Alexandra could no longer let her dad struggle on his own; they were in this together. She hunched over, and with as much strength as possible she stuck her arms in the water and began to paddle.

They moved the tube along, fighting the storm’s intensity; the strong winds were now whirling them around and whipping them back and forth. They couldn’t keep control, no matter how hard they desperately tried.

Owen stopped paddling. Alexandra kept trying to push until Owen tightly wrapped himself around her, as if acting as a protective cocoon.

Alexandra turned toward her dad and wrapped her arms around his waist. Owen hunched to protect her. He gripped the handles. All they could do was ride with the storm.

They knew now they needed to use their strength not to fight against it, but to simply survive. *** The next afternoon, an elderly man and woman ambled along the muddy beach holding hands, like they had done nearly every day. The man noticed something strange near the shore and pointed his bony finger toward it.

It was an empty inner tube, yellow with jagged purple patterns. It floated across the

surface. Because it was nearly airless, its wide center opened and closed as it floated, giving the appearance of a gasping mouth.

Thanatopsis

by Ken Wetherington

I slipped into the chapel after the service began, like always.

A knot of mourners,

clustered together, occupied the first half-dozen rows. A couple of pews behind them a lone woman sat, her head bowed. I slid into my customary spot on the back row.

Despite the uncomfortable seating, I luxuriated in the hushed reverence only a funeral ritual can provide. The soft tones of the organ, the thickly scented flowers, and familiar rhythm of the eulogy colluded to yield a peaceful haven free from the clutter and chaos of daily life.

My thoughts drifted along, touching on questions both profound and

mundane. Though no revelations came, I felt my mind cleansed. Eventually, I turned my attention back to the podium.

The Reverend droned on and on. The deceased sounded like a nice guy. They usually do.

What a dilemma it must pose when the minister knows the recently departed was a royal shit. How many falsehoods are told out of politeness and decorum?

I listened for the slips which would reveal the true nature of the “guest of honor.”

Generalities without specifics are the best clues. “He was a good family man” is one of my favorites, but when no examples follow you can be sure something is being swept under the rug. Lies are for the living. The dead can’t be hurt by the truth.

The proceedings fell into the usual religious framework though in recent years I’ve noticed an increase in secular ceremonies. I wondered if the late Mr. Brown was a believer.

The program took an interesting direction when the musical selection turned out to be a recording of the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. Was it a favorite of his, or chosen by a loved one? The aching sadness of the piece says more about the nature of death and grief than mere words can convey.

When the service ended, I intended to make a swift getaway, but a loose shoelace caused me to stumble. An alert funeral home attendant seized my elbow, steered me to a chair, and bent down to retie the rebellious lace, all the while gazing at me with an air of practiced sympathy. By the time I escaped his benevolence several black-clad mourners stood chatting in the foyer, blocking my path to the exit.

I shook a few hands, muttered vague words of sorrow, and edged past two couples already making plans for dinner that evening.

Finally, I reached the door, stepped

outside, and headed toward the parking lot.

“Wait a minute,” called a voice from behind. I turned. A petite woman with long, black hair approached. “Good service, don’t you think?”

“Uh, I think… I mean yes.”

“I could use a drink. How about you?”

I had planned on a quick departure, but something about her caused me to hesitate. It could have been her looks.

Her dark, intense eyes, delicate features, and dusky

Mediterranean tan compelled me to accept. I guessed her to be a few years younger than me–in her late twenties, maybe.

“Come on. I’ll drive.” She gestured toward a late-model, burgundy BMW. “My name’s Olive, Olive Moretti.”

“Matt Sinclair,” I replied.

I watched her as she drove. The easy grace with which she steered the car only increased her appeal. Her elegant, black dress whisked lightly on the seat. It looked expensive.

“So, Matt, how long did you know Tony?”

“Uh... it’s been quite a while,” I lied.

“How long? You must have been pretty close at one time.”

“Maybe fifteen or twenty years,” I said, hoping she would cease the interrogation.

“You were childhood friends?”

“Uh, I guess I’m a little mixed up.” Caught in my lie, I needed time to think. “It was a shock.”

“Well, we’re here.” She steered the BMW into the parking lot of the El Salvador, an upscale bistro located a few blocks from the funeral home.

The place was nearly deserted at three on a weekday afternoon. Only one other couple, having a late lunch, dined there. The hostess called Olive by name and showed us to a corner table. When the waiter approached, Olive waved off the menu and ordered a glass of Chardonnay. I nodded in agreement. When he withdrew, Olive narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t lie to me, Matt. You didn’t know him at all, did you?”

“Well, I do… I mean, I did.” I coughed and picked at the corner of my napkin. “Like I said, it’s been a long time. What about you? How long did you know him?”

“Don’t try to wriggle out of it, Matt. Look, you’re caught so you might as well admit it. I’m just curious. Why were you there? Come on. Confess. I won’t out you.”

Before I could answer the waiter arrived with our wine. A moment of silence passed until he retreated. I hoped the pause would deflect her questions, but her raised eyebrows insisted on a response.

“Well, I like funerals,” I said slowly. “They’re peaceful. I like to contemplate.”

“Ha, that’s a new one. You can ‘contemplate’ anywhere, anytime.”

“Not me. The world’s too loud. I like to get away from the noise. For my sanity, you know.”

“You that close to going crazy, Matt?”

I laughed. “I guess not, but the serenity makes me feel better.”

“There are other ways to feel better.”

“I suppose.”

“Like drinking.” She raised her glass with a flourish.

“Oh, I don’t drink much, just every now and then.”

“Okay, but there are other vices.”

In my mind, I ran through several possible vices involving Olive. “Yes, I know. So, what do you do?” I asked, in an effort to change the subject.

“Me? I do nothing. Not a damned thing. Angelo, my late husband, left me a bundle.”

“Really? How did he come by his money?”

“His family had it, and he invested wisely. It’s easy to make money if you’ve got it.”

“How did he… uh, die?” My question seemed to come of its own accord. I wanted to withdraw it, but she took it in stride.

“Heart attack, a few years ago. Too young.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’mover it.” She checked her watch. “Look Matt, I’ve got to run. Give me your number, and I’ll call you sometime.”

After she dropped me off at the funeral home, I sat in my car for a few minutes replaying the odd encounter. An attractive woman with lots of money and time on her hands–that could be either heaven or hell.

As I headed home, I realized I had not offered condolences for… Come to think of it, I didn't know how she knew the deceased. Was he a relative or a friend? She had said nothing about herself, except she claimed to be a rich widow. She could be lying or exaggerating, but her BMW and fashionable dress backed up her words. Would she call?

Maybe. She did ask for my phone number; I didn't force it on her.

Back at my townhouse apartment, I searched the internet for information on her and came up with over four hundred thousand hits, mostly sites selling olive oil. I gave up and opened the market research questionnaire I had been creating. With the deadline still two weeks away, I had plenty of time. I made good progress for a couple of hours.

Around six-thirty, I decided to break for dinner. The doorbell rang.

“Hi, Barbara. Didn’t expect to see you.” She looked good, dressed in a green t-shirt and jeans.

“That’s not much of a greeting, Matt.”

“Oh, sorry. What can I do for you?”

“Just came by for a few things. There’re a couple of boxes of my stuff upstairs in the closet. That is, if you haven’t tossed them.”

“Don’t start, Barbara. They’re still there. I haven’t done much cleaning lately.”

“What else is new?”

I held my tongue, knowing once begun the argument would escalate into a bitter, unpleasant scene though I did manage an indifferent shrug. While she rummaged in the bedroom, I cobbled together a dinner of leftovers. Thank God for microwaves. Barbara reappeared with a small cardboard box in her arms as I was washing up. She gave me an insincere smile.

“Matt, could you be a darling and help me take the other box to the car?”

I lugged a large, unwieldy box down the stairs and deposited it in the trunk of her car.

“You’ll need some help unloading that,” I pointed out.

“That’s okay. Todd will help me when I get home.”

Todd had moved into her life as rapidly as she moved out of mine. It irritated me that she had landed a new man so soon. I wasn't ready to connect with anyone.

I hoped she had claimed all her possessions. Our romance had started well. I guess they all do. After a few years, the hours I spent working began to increase. I became more reflective and less outgoing while her social drive only seemed to grow stronger.

I

couldn’t blame her, but our differences brought out the spite in her. The ending of a relationship is always sad though we were better off apart. It was as much my fault as hers. Now that she had claimed the last of her belongings, I didn’t expect to see her again.

I relegated Barbara to the past and spent my days working from home, thankful my job didn’t require me to show up at the office. Commuting is such a hassle. After dinner, I stayed in, listening to music and reading. The solitude suited me. On a Wednesday, I attended another funeral. Thoughts of Olive came rushing back, crowding my mind, and preventing me from finding the serenity I sought. I looked for her among the mourners, half-expecting to see her there in her elegant, black dress.

She occupied my mind

throughout the evening. I spent a restless night thinking of her. The following morning, as if summoned from my dreams, she called.

“Hello, Matt. It’s Olive. How are you?”

“Okay.” I paused, unsure of how to continue.

“I’m going to a funeral today. Do you want to come?”

“Well… I don’t know. Is it a relative or close friend? I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“For God sakes, Matt, just go with me. I’ll do the talking. You can nod and say ‘I’m sorry’ or something.”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Great. Give me your address and I’ll pick you up at two.”

At the stroke of two, her burgundy BMW cruised into the lot. I watched her through the curtains. She surveyed the faded glory of the Greenwhistle Townhouse Apartments. The neatly compact rows had seen better days though traces of an earlier elegance lingered.

I met her at the front door.

“Hello, Matt. The service starts at two-thirty.”

“Who’s the… uh, deceased?” I asked as we got in her car.

“Winifred Blakely,” I expected more information, so I followed up. “Was she a relative or friend?”

“Don’t be dense, Matt. I didn’t know her.”

“Then how… I mean, was she a friend of a friend, or something?”

Olive exhaled an exasperated sigh. “Look Matt, I have no idea who she was, other than what I read in her obituary. I go to funerals for the same reason you do. They’re exciting.”

“But I don’t find them exciting. They’re peaceful.

Uh, you mean you go to random

funerals?”

“Same as you, Matt. Don’t you find the ephemeral line between life and death exhilarating? What could be more dramatic?”

I didn’t know what to say. When she didn’t continue, I sat back and wondered what I had gotten myself into. The boundary between life and death is a mystery though I had never thought of it as “exhilarating.” Perhaps it is momentarily compelling to one who is crossing over, but I preferred to put off thinking about it. It took about fifteen minutes to reach the funeral home.

“Well, here we are,” she said. “Let’s go in and have a good time.”

“We should wait until the service starts.”

“That’ll take all the fun out of it. Come on, we’ll mingle.”

She lost no time in approaching a fiftyish couple and introducing herself and me.

“I’m Mildred West,” the woman said. “Winifred was my sister, and this is my husband, Edgar.”

I shook Edgar’s hand and nodded sympathetically to Mildred. At a loss for words, I turned to Olive, who leapt into the breach.

“Winifred’s daughter, Suzy, was my partner when we were just out of college. I only liked girls until Matt straightened me out.”

She said gave my arm a squeeze.

Her

inappropriate remarks horrified me, but not nearly so much as they appalled Mildred.

She sputtered and coughed, reaching into her pocketbook for a handkerchief.

“Come, Olive.We should really speak to… uh, Mr. Jones.” I took her arm and pulled her away, leaving Mildred wiping spittle from her chin.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered.

“I’m playing the game.”

“What game? What are you talking about? And who the hell is Suzy?”

Olive knitted her brow and looked me over. “It’s my game and my rules, but I’ll take pity on you this time. Let’s find a seat.”

I tried to usher her into the back row, but she took my hand, led me down the aisle, and we squeezed into the fourth row among the family members. We acknowledged the puzzled looks with murmured expressions of sympathy.

My uneasiness diminished

when the service started, but my relief didn’t last long.

Olive began to sob loudly,

attracting numerous sidelong glances.

When the proceedings concluded, I hoped for a quick exit, but Olive had other ideas. I dragged her from a conversation where she was lecturing a bewildered couple on embalming techniques. We drove away with tears of laughter rolling down her face.

We ended up at the El Salvador. She bubbled with giddy delight until our wine arrived.

After a couple of sips, she sobered up. A look of sadness swept over her face.

“I know you think I’m crazy,” she said slowly. That may have been an understatement.

“But I find the ritual so stimulating. It brings out the creativity in me, but there’s always a letdown after it’s over. I don't know what to do next.” She swirled her wine glass absentmindedly.

“Was any of it true?” I asked. “I mean about Suzy. How did you know her name?”

“Don’t be silly, Matt. It’s all in the obit.” She sighed. “Don’t you research funerals before you go?”

“So, you didn’t know Suzy?”

“Of course not. The obit said she lived in Australia, so I knew she wouldn’t likely be here. I could have said anything about her. Did you see the expression on her aunt’s face? It was priceless. Anyway, that old bag shouldn’t have those prejudices these days.” After a pause, she added wistfully, “I wish we could have stayed longer.”

For a couple of minutes, she sat there gazing across the empty bistro, her eyes seeing something far away, and perhaps long ago. Finally, she regained her focus and downed the remainder of her wine.

“Want to see my place?” she asked.

Curiosity got the best of my better judgment.

We drove in silence. I can’t say why I found Olive appealing. Her behavior disturbed me and disrupted the peace I sought. Her looks, of course, were a factor, and it felt good to have someone with whom I could share my odd habit of attending funerals. You can’t find a woman like that every day. Anyway, I told myself I could stop seeing her if things got too crazy.

Twenty minutes later we wound through an exclusive neighborhood with massive homes on large lots. She punched in a security code at a gated driveway. Its path swung in a wide arc for fifty yards or so, lined on each side by a procession of stately oaks. The house, nestled among the trees, appeared to be of modest size at first, but when we got out of the car, I had to step back to take it in. The elegant, two-story structure presented a neatly geometric facade of weathered brick. The gravel of the drive crunched softly beneath our feet. To say the grounds were well-kept would be an understatement. A young, dark-haired woman in a traditional maid’s outfit met us in the foyer.

“Velma, this is Matt.” She nodded, and I returned the gesture. “Velma, bring a bottle of the Chardonnay up to my bedroom.”

It didn’t take much imagination to see where

things were headed.

Her spacious bedroom made the king-sized bed appear small. A large window ran the length of the room. The nearness of the trees gave the impression we were in an extravagant tree house. The tips of their branches scraped gently against the glass. The analogy of Tarzan and Jane flashed in my mind. My physique, while trim, failed to match that of cinematic Tarzans. However, the appearance of my “Jane” more than satisfied me.

The afternoon passed in a blissful blur of wine and sex. We threw ourselves into the lovemaking with abandon, leaving us both breathless. Afterwards, we dozed in each other’s embrace. When I awoke, the sadness had come upon Olive again. She reached for me under the sheets, and we wrestled through another round.

I hadn’t realized how much I missed sex after Barbara moved out. Our last few months together had been devoid of physical affections. Though Olive reawakened my desires, I didn’t see how our affair could develop into a long-term relationship. For the time being, I put my analysis on hold and decided to live in the moment. After all, I had no idea what Olive’s ultimate designs were.

We fell into a pattern of meeting two or three times a week, always in the late mornings or early afternoons. I never stayed overnight. Whenever she called, I drove directly to

her home armed with the security code for her gate, which changed weekly. Occasionally we attended funerals together. She clearly put more thought than I into which ones to attend.

In an effort to find common ground she toned down her outlandish antics, her “game” as she called it, and I tolerated some of her inappropriate remarks. Neither of us found complete satisfaction, but for the time being, we were making it work. We both knew finding another who shared our peculiar interest would be difficult if not impossible.

One morning a few weeks later I lay in bed with Olive after an especially rowdy session.

She buzzed Velma and ordered an early lunch. We had not arisen when Velma rolled the cart into the room. Olive slipped on a robe and dismissed her. I pulled on my trousers and joined her at the little table which stood against the far wall. She nibbled at her sandwich without appetite.

Her mood lapsed into the usual funk that came on when no prospect for excitement presented itself. I felt an extra degree of fondness for her during these moments when I could comfort her with a touch or a hug.

It occurred to me our relationship had taken on some of the same issues I had with Barbra. Was the problem with me or the women I chose? I guess I didn’t choose Olive; she picked me. Come to think of it, Barbara also chose me. Why was I so passive when it came to my love life? I resolved to think about it later. Olive broke my reverie with a nudge. A sparkle had returned to her eyes.

“Matt, it’s time to spice up things a bit. We’re in too much of a rut. Come with me.”

With some trepidation, I followed her downstairs to a little room, which served as an office. She opened a door I assumed to be a closet. To my surprise, a long stairway led downward, ending in front of a heavy wooden door. She produced a key, and we entered a dark room. The soft, red glow of a digital alarm clock sitting on a shelf provided the only illumination. She locked the door behind us.

“What’s this?” I whispered.

“Shhh… I’ll light a candle.”

She stepped away and a few seconds later candlelight flickered into existence, revealing a bare room. Olive returned to my side with the candle, took my hand, and led me to an alcove I had failed to notice. The recess was much larger than it first appeared. There, on a raised platform, rested the largest coffin I had ever seen. Olive’s delight in my

astonishment was palpable. Her body positively vibrated with pleasure.

“It’s not a real coffin.” She lifted the lid and held the candle closer. “I had it specially made.”

Inside lay a queen-sized mattress. She sat the candle on a nearby shelf and produced a short step ladder from a corner. Her robe slid to the floor, and she climbed in.

“Come on, Matt. Make love to me here.”

My bewilderment rooted me to the floor until she called my name again. Slowly, as if in a trance, I removed my trousers and joined her. The lid slammed shut above us. I panicked and pushed upward. The lid refused to budge.

“Don’t worry Matt, it’ll open again,” Olive cooed. “You’ll see.”

“Show me now!” I gasped.

She laughed, and I heard a faint click. I pushed and it opened. Panting heavily, I tried to scramble out, but she held me tightly.

“Easy, Matt. It’s okay. Calm down. It’s a bed, like upstairs. We can leave it open if you wish. Come on. Love me. Play the game with me.”

I allowed her to pull me back. My heart wasn’t in it, but Olive applied her considerable skills to arouse me. We struggled through a laborious session. Her hunger bordered on desperation as I strove to please her.

Afterwards, she rested in my arms, her usual post-coital sadness absent for once. I lay there exhausted, but unable to doze.

My brain failed to sort out the multitude of

thoughts and feelings radiating through my mind. Finally, she stirred and we rose. She kissed me with unusual tenderness and I departed.

At home, I tried to work, without success. I couldn’t shake the image of that coffin in Olive’s basement. I sat in front of my computer staring blankly at the screen. Nighttime brought no relief. Visions of being enclosed in a small, dark space haunted my thoughts.

I lay awake until dawn.

Desperate for rest, I drove to the nearest drugstore and bought some sleeping pills. That did the trick. When I awoke around six that evening I saw Olive had left a message on my phone. I didn’t listen to it. After attempting to get some work done, I took another pill and went back to bed.

The strangeness of the encounter in Olive’s basement unsettled me. Cutting off the relationship seemed like a good idea, but I couldn’t bring myself to erase Olive’s message.

It lingered unheard on my phone and on the fringe of my consciousness.

On a Thursday, I trekked over to the mall to get a battery for my watch. While I stood at the counter someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Oh, Barbara. I didn’t see you.”

“You must be losing it, Matt.”

She smiled sweetly and turned to the tall, ruggedly

handsome man next to her. “This is Todd. Todd, my… uh, ex.”

“Good to meet, Matt,” he rumbled in a deep baritone. “Barbara’s told me about you.”

I wondered what that meant. And why the hell was he so handsome? And Barbara, she appeared to have lost some weight. She looked too damn fine.

“Seeing anyone, Matt?” she asked.

“Yeah.” I hoped she wouldn’t notice the tone of retaliation in my voice. “For a few weeks, now.”

“Good for you, Matt. I wish you the best. We’ve got to dash. I hope there’re no hard feelings. Okay?”

“Sure,” I lied. “No hard feelings.” Easy for her to say, walking around with a hunk like Todd. Maybe if she saw Olive she would be jealous, too.

Normally I preferred solitude, but the encounter with Barbara left me feeling lonely. I found a seat at the food court and checked my phone. A second message from Olive had appeared. I overcame my reluctance and listened to them. The first asked if I wanted to attend a funeral. The date had passed. The other simply gave her phone number.

When I got home, I gave her a call.

“Hi, Olive. It’s Matt.” Silence. For a few seconds, I thought my call had been dropped, or she had hung up.

“Well hey, Matt. I was afraid I’d scared you off. I’ve been missing you.”

“I miss you, too.” That wasn’t exactly true, but it seemed like the best thing to say.

“Come over. We’ll talk.” She gave me the current gate code.

Velma answered the doorbell and silently led me to a sitting room on the first floor where Olive waited.

“Thanks, Velma,” Olive said. “You may take the rest of the day off, and the weekend, too.”

Velma withdrew without a word. I don’t think I ever heard her speak. “Sit down, Matt. I have things to tell you.” I took a seat beside her and hoped some good answers were forthcoming. “You see, I’m not well, really. I’m in therapy.” That seemed like a step in the right direction. “Before Angelo died, he cheated on me many times.” I opened my mouth to express sympathy, but she shushed me and continued. “It was hard to take. But once he died, he couldn’t reject me anymore, couldn’t cheat on me, or lie to me. I like you, Matt. You’re nice. You’d never cheat on me.”

I hardly knew how to respond. She sat back while I processed it. Maybe I should have felt like running away, but her venerability aroused my pity. The desire to comfort her obliterated all other considerations. Perhaps I had the need to be needed.

“I think you should have told me about… uh, your issues, sooner, Olive.”

“I know, but I thought you might have left me. I can see now you understand. You do, don’t you?”

“I guess. I mean, I partly understand.”

“Make love to me again, Matt.” Her voice quaked. “I want you.”

“Where?” I asked, cautiously.

“Downstairs would be nice.” Sadness and hope managed to coexist in her voice. “It’ll be easier this time. It won’t be such a surprise.”

She had a point. The coffin wasn’t really a coffin. It was a bed with a bizarre frame built around it. “Okay, as long as we keep the lid open.”

“Sure, if that’ll help. I’ll go and freshen up a bit.”

I strolled down to the little office and waited. Her framed wedding picture sat on the desk. She exuded happiness standing next to Angelo, a tall, handsome Italian with a neat, little moustache. A rich, good-looking man like him would have many opportunities to cheat. Olive must still have feelings for him, otherwise, she would have rid herself of any reminders of her unfaithful husband. While I stood there, I heard Velma’s steps in the hall and the faint sound of the back door.

Ten minutes later Olive appeared, looking relaxed, and wearing nothing but her robe.

She reached for my belt buckle. “Take your clothes off here,” she urged. She slipped off her robe, and we descended the staircase. Once inside her sanctuary, she locked the door behind us as before and lit a couple of candles. We climbed into the “coffin.” When

she started to close the lid, I stopped her and shook my head. She shrugged, left it open, and pulled me closer.

Our previous lovemaking had been vigorous affairs, but this time we found tenderness.

Afterwards, she lay very still in my arms.

“You know, Matt, I could die happy right now.”

I gave a little laugh. “You’re not going to die.”

“Yes, I am.”

“We all will one day, but not anytime soon,” “I will. You see, I took some pills.”

“You don’t mean it.” Was she serious, or was she “playing her game?”

“You’ll see in a few minutes. I’m getting sleepy. It’s my endgame.”

Suddenly I became aware that her body felt heavy against mine. I sat up, panic surging inside me. I grabbed her shoulders and shook.

“How many pills, Olive?” I barked. “How many pills?”

She smiled and closed her eyes. “Enough,” she murmured.

I scrambled from the ersatz coffin and stumbled to the door.

“Where’s the key?” I

shouted. “What did you do with the key?” I returned to Olive and slapped her face in an attempt to rouse her, but she gave a reflexive frown and didn’t open her eyes.

The key had to be somewhere. The room was devoid of anything except a couple of candles, the coffin, and the clock. It shouldn’t have been too hard to find the key. I searched under Olive’s unmoving body and reached beneath the mattress where she may have hidden it. No luck. With a candle in hand, I crawled about the floor examining every inch of the surface. I checked the empty shelves, to no avail. Desperation seized me, and I repeated my search. One of the candles flickered and went out. The other grew short. Soon I would be in the dark, except for that damned clock.

I pounded on the door and yelled. Even if Velma came back, she couldn’t hear me. The thick, wooden door and long staircase prevented communication with the outside world.

I thought of my cell phone in my trousers, upstairs in the office. Perhaps when Velma returned and discovered Olive missing, a search would be conducted. Someone would find my clothes and eventually figure it out. But time was running short for Olive. She needed help. Even now it might be too late.

I approached the coffin. Olive’s breathing had become faint. I climbed in and lay there holding her. It was all I could do. She expired shortly after the last candle burned out.

I got up and paced the floor, glancing occasionally at the clock. Was it there to torture me, counting the minutes of my life slipping away? I resisted the urge to unplug it, considering it provided the only light.

The air grew chilly, and I wished for my clothes. The coffin offered the warmest spot. At least there I could escape the cold floor, but I couldn’t bring myself to get in with her.

However, I did retrieve one of the pillows, curled up on it, and waited.

Did she mean to take me with her? I didn’t think so, all evidence to the contrary. Hours passed. No sounds reached my ears. I began to contemplate the possibility of dying in that room.

Unexpectedly the alarm clock sounded. It's buzzing echoed loudly in the bare room. I moved to silence it, and my hand touched a small metallic object which lay on its top. It was the key. Shaking with the prospect of escape, I hurried to the door and inserted the key. The lock turned. I felt weak with relief but managed to stagger up the stairs, dress, and drive away without considering consequences.

Upon arriving home, exhaustion overwhelmed me. I fell into bed and slept soundly.

When I awoke, I groggily began to mull over my options.

Getting mixed up in a

sensational suicide was the last thing I wanted. I began to consider what would happen if I didn’t call the police. It could be several days or longer before Velma realized Olive was missing. By then they might not be able to determine the date of death. But Velma would identify me as Olive’s lover and DNA would confirm it. I could say that I left Olive alive and in good health, but lying didn’t come easily to me. Sometimes I envied those who had a talent for it. If the cops placed me at the scene at the time of death, they might initiate a homicide investigation. I could claim shock and denial contributed to poor decision making on my part. Would that be enough? I didn’t know.

The more I thought about it, the harder it became to contact the police. I decided to keep quiet and hope I could explain things to the authorities when they came calling, which they surely would. Perhaps my plan wasn’t moral, or even rational, but that was the path I chose.

It didn’t take them long. Several days later, two police detectives showed up at my door and asked me to accompany them to the station. Once there, panic set in, and I blurted out the whole story, leaving no sordid detail untold. They recorded everything, often

glancing at each other with raised eyebrows and an occasional sly grin. At the conclusion of the interrogation, they informed me a suicide note had been found in her upstairs bedroom. They released me, and I never heard from them again.

A week later her obituary appeared in the newspaper, stating only that she died at home.

Ironically the announcement mentioned no funeral plans.

Barbara called about a year later. She and Todd had broken up. I patiently listened to her complaints and got the impression she wanted to rekindle our relationship. I wished her luck but did not invite her back into my life.

I think about Olive all the time and the “game” she played. Did her suicide count as a win or a loss? I suppose she got what she desired, but I certainly didn’t feel like a winner, even though she allowed me to escape her “endgame.” Maybe there were no winners or losers. When you don’t know the rules, how can you tell?

The Insurance Policy

by June Graham

We argued over the insurance policy for months. Even when it wasn’t mentioned, it lay between us in the tight set of my daughter's lips and the pointed way in which she asked if I was taking my pills.

I had a slight fall, just a slip on the autumn leaves, but it resulted in a fractured ankle and a sprained wrist. “I'm afraid that you are suffering from osteoporosis, Mrs. Schmidt,” a doctor told me.

It was just another sign that my crumbling body would not last forever. However, Anya was distraught. She left a meeting at work to join me at the hospital. Her dark eyebrows, plucked into a permanent question mark, were held a little higher than usual. “I got so worried, Mom.” “I was just clumsy. I should have worn my boots.”

“You must be more careful. You might not be so lucky next time, and with your heart trouble ...” She bit her lip on the thought.

I placed my hand over hers. “I'm getting old, darling. There's a bit of life in me, yet, but we all have to go sometime.”

“No you don't,” her voice was unexpectedly loud. “You can afford alternatives. I’ve spoken to my boss at HHP. They’re interested in the skills you gained on the Mars mission. They might help pay for the insurance. It’s selfish to not at least consider it.”

No mother likes to be called selfish. Before I returned home, with my right leg in a cast, I had agreed to consider the insurance.

An official from the Human Heritage Project visited my home near DC. He studied my degree certificates and asked questions about the work I did at NASA Goddard. He shifted his glasses higher on his nose and said, “Mrs. Schmidt, your experience with sustainable living environments is quite extensive. I’m going to recommend that we sponsor your insurance.”

When my mother suffered from lung cancer, painful medical interventions only prolonged her agony. “I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s better to let nature take its course.”

His face, until now unctuous and respectful, hardened. “You have to do your duty, Mrs.

Schmidt. The birth rate has reached critical levels. We don’t have enough young people training as scientists so we have to keep the old generation going.”

Anya turned up a week later with two burly men in nurses’ uniform. She was brisk and cheerful. “Mom, we’re taking you to an appointment. Nothing to worry about. They need to fit some implants.”

“What’s this about?”

“Just something to monitor your heart function and blood oxygen levels,” one of them said. “It will send a signal to our medical unit if there’s any problems.”

“I’m fine. Maybe you should just leave things as they are.”

One of the nurses lifted me into a wheelchair and took me out to a waiting ambulance.

They gave me anaesthetic at the clinic, and I woke up to find out that implants had been fitted in my neck and chest. My body was no longer my own.

When my ankle had healed, I took my usual trip to the coast. I’ve given up driving because of my heart condition, and so I boarded a bus. We had gone a few miles down the freeway when the driver took a side exit and drew up beside a white van with a blue flashing light. A young man in navy blue uniform boarded the bus. “Long-life Insurance,” he said. “I'm looking for a Mrs. Schmidt.”

My legs trembled as he helped me into the van. It was filled with hideous-looking medical technology: bottles of gas, monitors, and gleaming metal machines. He informed me that I had been heading outside the range in which Long-life operated. “If something should happen, and we can't reach you within five minutes, ten at most, then it's too late,” he said. “But you could add a supplement to your annual fee, and get the services of a specialist nurse for trips out of town. Up to four times a month. We’ll even do the driving for you.”

“I can't leave the town without a nurse?”

“That is not advisable, Ma'am, given your heart condition.” He glanced at his colleague, a pretty young lady in a pony tail. “Our nurses are highly qualified. They carry specialist equipment and can take all the steps necessary to oxygenate your brain until our team is able to reach you.”

I capitulated. The next time I took a trip to the coast, I was accompanied by the nurse with the pony tail. She followed me down the beach with a heavy pack on her back. ***

It shouldn’t really be called an insurance policy. You can insure against things which might happen: fire or flood or theft, but you can’t insure against death. When I was young, death was a certainty, but for Anya’s generation, it is a lifestyle choice. Those with enough money can pay for a procedure which will extend their life indefinitely. The poor have no choices. They die, and if they die young with their bodies intact, they will be used to keep the rich alive.

I find myself thinking about the process of dying, those moments, or hours or days of pain when the lungs struggle to draw in a complete breath, and when the channels of the body become clogged and sluggish. I look at the veins in my hands, raised and purplish like the hands of my grandmother, and marvel at the fragility of my body, all pipes, and chemical processes.

Sometimes I wake in the night in a blank terror, unable to recognize the shapes of the furniture in my bedroom lit only by the slit of light coming under the door. I experience the certain, bleak knowledge that this body of mine, this breakable vessel which has carried me through seventy-six years, will soon lie still and empty, the chemistry of decay replacing the chemistry of life. The memory of the fear clings to me throughout the next day, like an unpleasant smell or a bad taste.

I fear dying, but far more than that, I fear not dying. In the small hours of the night, I worry about what is going to happen. My mind curls away in terror from the thought of my consciousness being trapped in a broken body while the technicians begin the gruesome process of resurrection.

If my blood stops flowing suddenly due to a fatal accident or cardiovascular failure, the implant at the back of my neck will send a distress signal to the nearest medical unit.

They have a response time of four to seven minutes in most urban areas, which is, of course, too long to prevent brain death. However, the implant will inject chemicals into the veins of my neck which will temporarily preserve my brain. I do not know how this will feel. No-one has ever told me. I wonder if I will be conscious or in pain, an observer at my own death until the morticians inject me into oblivion. They are called resuscitation technicians, but I think of them as morticians.

My head will be detached from my body; Longlife Insurance are careful always to talk about detachment rather than beheading. It will be kept alive in a life support unit until a suitable donor body is found. This usually takes several weeks and in some cases can take months. Even after I have been matched to the body, to use Longlife’s euphemism, the recovery and physiotherapy can take up to year.

When she was trying to convince me to sign up for the insurance, Anya took me to numerous Longlife symposia where transplant recipients talk about how young and healthy they feel in their new bodies. I will give them this: they look amazingly good.

When the head is nourished by a younger body, even an elderly person, with a little help from serums and injections, can expect to appear many years younger. One woman, who should have died of a heart attack at the age of eighty-three, looked as if she was a youthful forty. She ended her talk by twisting her body into some impressive yoga poses.

I joined the crowd of people pressing around her afterwards. People were eager to ask questions and compliment her on her looks. “What about your love life?” asked a balding man in his fifties. She laughed coyly and wagged a finger at him, “That’s classified.” The skin on her hands was smooth and golden brown, whilst her face was pinky-white. Her donor body probably came from one of the poorer Asian or South American countries.

I hung back until everyone else had drifted away. “How was it?” I asked. “When, you know, you should have died, but …”

She looked shocked by my question. “It was awful.” Her voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. “Everything goes still, but you can still hear, and see and feel pain. It’s like one of these nightmares when you wake in the night terrified and try to move, but your body’s pinned down, only much, much worse, because you can’t even breathe.”

“Were you unconscious when …”

Her hand flew up to her neck where a scarf hid her scar. “Of course. The medics gave me something to knock me out. But I woke up afterwards in the machine that kept me alive until the donor body came. I couldn’t speak. I had no way of telling them I was conscious.

It was awful. Eventually, a technician noticed my eyelid flickering and gave me something to put me under.”

Behind her I saw two Lifelong staff approaching us, their pace quick and even and their faces grim.

The woman raised her voice, “Of course, it’s all worth it in the end. No pain, no gain, as they say. Think of it like a marathon or climbing a mountain. Not easy, but you’ll be glad you did it.”

She turned away with a careless twist of her hand, and the Lifelong staff closed in. The theme on their T-shirts read, “I’m gonna live forever.”

When I asked Anya to help me find some way out of the insurance policy, she dropped her head into her hands. Her breath came in gasps and shivers. Even after I promised

not to change anything, she shook and cried like a baby.

She is unable to face another loss. *** She was only four when her father died. We met when we were working on the Mars mission. He specialized in turning Martian regolith into healthy soil. I worked on water and air filtration systems for the spacecraft. We expected to travel to Mars together until I discovered that I was expecting twins. Werner offered to stay, but I urged him not to give up on his dream even though it meant a long separation. The mission was successful, but when they were three months away from earth on the return trip his ship was hit by a meteor shower. The oxygen tanks were peppered with holes and it was impossible to repair the damage. The air which kept them alive slowly leaked into space.

Anya’s last memory of her father is from a large screen in the spaceflight centre. Werner, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep and already weak and dizzy from the reduced oxygen levels, smiled and raised his hand. She and her sister Maia opened and shut their hands like tiny, twinkling stars, not knowing that it was different from any other goodbye. My mother led them away, and I stayed until the very end, my hand up against the huge screen, telling Werner to be brave and not worry because we would always love him.

In these last moments with my husband, I felt no fear. The vast distance between us no longer mattered because I was utterly concentrated on sending him love and reassurance. Even though he was too weak to speak, I felt his love and the bond between us. After all these long, lonely years, if I calm my mind and concentrate, I sometimes feel his presence. In some way, he hasn’t left us.

Anya, of course, does not know this. She remembers him as a flat image on a television link, a cartoon-like figure who could float and do somersaults and throw globules of water into the air and catch them in his mouth. At the end of every session, he pressed his hand to his screen and she and Maia held their hands up to the screen on our side, a poor substitute for touch.

Anya and Maia grew up without their father, but they were very close to one another. In the morning I often found them entwined in the same bed, Maia’s blonde curls falling over Anya’s dark hair. They were sixteen when their school offered a choice of two trips, one to Europe in the spring, and the other to Alaska in the summer. They couldn’t decide and it was Anya who suggested that they each go on a different trip. They threw a coin and Maia got Europe. Each night we followed the diary she put up on the internet and

enjoyed photos of her smiling next to the Eiffel Tower and the Colosseum.

On a grey, chilly day in April, we went to the airport to meet her. When the plane didn’t arrive on schedule, we drank coffee from paper cups and grumbled about the delay with other families. No-one was worried until an announcement came over the tannoy telling us to go to the airline desk. We were herded into a quiet side room where people normally went to hook onto the internet between flights. A woman in the airline’s uniform told us that radio contact had been lost with the plane mid-Atlantic. She said that it was probably just a communications problem, but from the way that she gripped her folder and wouldn’t make eye contact, I knew that it was bad.

They brought us food and blankets, and we stretched out between the chairs, but no-one really slept. After twenty-four hours, I knew everything about that room: the navy carpet which snagged my nylons, the prints of European cities hanging on the walls, and the tiny plaque in the corner with the historic detail that this had once been the airport chapel.

Grey-faced airline officials gave us updates which contained no real news. On the second day, they suggested that it might be better if we waited at home. It was only when we left the airport, that Anya realized there really was no hope.

The wreckage was located three days later. A few bodies were recovered, but Maia’s was not among them. For a long time, we thought that it was a terrorist attack. We had someone, an unnamed shadowy figure, to hate, somewhere to direct our anger. Months later the report into the accident revealed that the ground staff at the airport in Paris had made an error when refuelling the plane. It ran out of fuel mid-Atlantic. No-one in the company ever accepted responsibility for the accident.

I don’t know how we overcame Maia’s death. I feared for Anya’s sanity, when she wouldn’t eat or sleep, sitting glassy-eyed and still through long days and even longer nights.

However, she came through, apparently strong, with a lust for life and a desire to try every new experience.

She majored in chemistry at William and Mary, keeping herself so busy with sports clubs and music rehearsals and weekend trips that I worried she would exhaust herself. It seemed as if she was trying to live two lives: one for herself and one for Maia.

After graduating, she started work as a biochemist. She was part of the team which cloned Monty the mammoth from tissue samples preserved in permafrost. She married John, her college sweetheart, and supported him through medical school. He rose to become a consultant oncologist. They both worked long hours, and I was surprised and

delighted when Anya announced that she was pregnant. However, I couldn’t shake off a vague apprehension.

In the seventh month, John phoned to say she had gone into premature labour. There were complications. Anya almost bled to death. When she regained consciousness, we were told that her baby had been stillborn and that she would never be able to have another child.

There are those who coast through life whilst others suffer almost more, no, I would say, more, than they can bear.

I sat with Anya day and night while she rocked back and forth making small, keening sounds. John grew impatient when she didn’t respond to his soft words. Within a week he had retreated to the high-pressure world of the hospital, more able to deal with others’ suffering in short timetabled chunks, than his wife’s prolonged agony.

I stayed with her, trying to coax her to eat and sleep. By the time Anya began to show tiny signs of recovery, sipping a cup of tea and picking at a meal, John had moved in with his secretary, a slim blonde who has borne him two, perfect fair-haired children. He has it all, and Anya has only her work.

She’s passionate about what she does and very good at it. She now works for the Human Heritage Project. They are trying to clone deceased scientists and artists so that their talents can be recovered. All the love she might have given a child is channeled into teasing life out of samples of tissue. *** I have given up on stairs. They put too much strain on my heart, causing tightness in my chest and black dizziness and rushing in my ears. I have had the downstairs dining area turned into a bedroom and study area. Dust gathers in the office and the two upstairs bedrooms, but I am past caring. In what used to be the normal course of things, I would die. My belongings would be given away, the house would be sold and another family would fill it with noise and laughter.

What passes as normal has changed. The birth rate has fallen to critical levels and the Human Heritage Project are spending colossal sums of money trying to bring dead scientists back to life. They will do everything they can to stop me dying. Even if I had the courage to try to take my own life, I would simply activate the implant in my neck which prevents brain death for up to ten minutes. That’s enough time for the Longlife fast response team to reach me.

I cannot imagine returning to this house with a new body and shifting through the junk and debris in the upstairs bedrooms as I prepare to start a new career. The Longlife psychologist said that these feelings are normal. It’s like approaching any other huge change in life, such as the birth of a child or retirement: you can’t imagine what lies beyond, but you keep going and find that you cope a lot better than you expected.

“I can speak from personal experience.” She rested her hands on her rounded stomach, and I noticed for the first time that they were a slightly lighter shade than her face. “I am ninety-one years old and I am expecting my first baby.”

Perhaps I am just afraid of change. However, my whole self recoils from the thought of learning to feel, use and look after a foreign body, knowing that when it wears out, the next step may be implantation in a robotic body. I live in a different age from my grandmother who slipped away in her home in Cape Breton after receiving the last rites.

I grew up in Toronto and visited her every summer when I was a child. She was one of the last Scottish Gaelic speakers left in Nova Scotia. She wouldn’t let me start my food until she had muttered a Gaelic grace over it. I collected Gaelic words from her. Each one was beautiful and shiny, like the colourful pebbles I picked up on the beach, but I didn’t know how to connect them together.

In Gaelic, you do not say that someone has died. You say that they have traveled, shiubhal e, or that they have changed form, chaochail e. For my grandmother, death was more than just the word which ends the story; it was the word which leads on to something else. Whether I die what used to be called a natural death, or am sewn into one of Longlife’s Frankenstein creations, I will change form. It’s just a question of how.

I have to find a way out of this situation, or at least some way to make peace with it. *** Ernest Lopez passes through DC on his way back from a trip to the Amazon. He’s an old colleague from the days when Werner and I worked on the Mars project. His wife Annie twenty years ago. Her breast cancer metastasized to the brain and so a body transplant was not an option. Ernest has dealt with loss by traveling and experiencing as much of life as he possibly can.

We meet in a downtown restaurant and he greets me with a hug. Neither of us say anything, but I am thinking of Annie and I know that he is thinking of Werner.

He tells me about his trip over a bottle of wine and some tapas. “We were roughing it on an open boat, stopping at places that you couldn’t reach by road. It just blew my mind.

They have none of our technology, and yet they have something we lack. It’s like another layer of consciousness. I was at this ceremony where they were lighting fires for the dead. The air was thick with smoke and something else. Just for a moment, I thought that I felt Annie’s fingers brush my cheek.

“Do you think that there might be life after death?”

“I don’t think. I feel it here.” He puts down his fork and presses his chest. “I still talk to Annie every day.”

“Anya wants me to have a body transplant.”

He shakes his head. “A strange kind of afterlife. It’s not for me. I just want to join Annie.

HHP are putting pressure on scientists to sign up, but I keep changing address so they won’t catch up with me.”

I feel restless after meeting Ernest. My health won’t allow me to take a trip down the Amazon, but I don’t want to just wait here until my heart gives out. I go to the beach and speak softly into the salt-sharp air. I hope that Werner is listening, but the only sounds are the lapping of the waves and the cries of the gulls. I look over the Atlantic and remember that Scotland lies on the other side, the country my folk came from. Perhaps that is my answer.

A modest increase in the insurance premium allows me to join other ageing Americans on a guided tour of Scotland. We troop through castles and museums and wander around battlefields, accompanied by Karen, a nurse who is also a qualified Longlife mortician.

We stop at a town with a whiskey distillery. I don’t drink Scotch and so I decide to have a look around on my own. Karen synchronizes my transponder to set off an alarm if I wander too far from the rest of the group. If my heart fails, she has to reach me before the implant in my neck runs out of oxygen.

Rain falls on the grey stone buildings. I pass the arched entrance of a church and decide to have a peek inside. At home the availability of body transplants allows us to dodge death and the afterlife, and most churches have been converted into something else.

When I push open the wooden door, I expect to see a museum or a café. I am not prepared for the stillness, the dizzy smell of incense, the single candle burning in the dimness like a red eye, and the vivid colours of the stained glass windows. I feel as if I have pushed through an invisible barrier into a space where this world grazes against another. I sit down on a pew, close my eyes and breath in peace.

My heart lurches when a side door opens and a man enters. He wears a white collar and a dark shirt and is surprisingly young, half my age. He busies by the altar and before approaching me and asking how I am.

“I’m just passing through. I’m from the States.”

We chat about countries and cultural differences until I have the courage to talk about what’s on my mind. “You’re meant to be an expert on the afterlife, aren’t you?”

He laughs. “I’d hardly call myself an expert.”

“Doesn’t your job depend on other people believing in an after-life. Otherwise, why would they go to church.”

“Faith isn’t just about the after-life. It’s about acknowledging God’s gift of life in this moment and living it to the full.”

“Even when we have difficulties.”

“Especially when we have difficulties.”

“I can’t face what lies ahead of me. My daughter persuaded me to sign up for a body transplant. She’s lost her father and her sister and her husband and her baby and I’m the only person she’s got left. I don’t know if I can do it, but I can’t get out of it.” I feel tears backing up against my eyes. “I’m tired. I just want to rest.”

The priest hands me a clean cotton handkerchief and says, “Losing an elderly mother, who is part of your past, is not the same as losing a sister, who is your present, or a child, who is your future. Do what you can, then let go and rest in God.” “I’m from the post-religion generation. I’m not sure I believe in God.” “Believe in love,” he said. “That will be enough.”

I check the time. “I’ve got to get back to my bus.”

The priest’s eyes are bright with compassion. “When the time comes, you’ll know what to do.”

I’m still clutching the damp handkerchief when I take my seat on the bus. Mountains and lochs slip past through a veil of rain, and I settle into a deep sense of peace.

We stop for the night in a hotel right beneath the mountains. After dinner, a band plays ceilidh dance music to raise money for a local charity. The accordion player says, “Everyone up for Strip the Willow”, and an elderly gentleman in a kilt holds out his hand.

“Not with your heart condition,” Karen warns but a young man pulls her to her feet and

whisks her into the dance.

My partner and I whirl and birl down the line of whooping, clapping dancers. I am connected to the dance of the universe, the eternal now. Pressure builds in my chest, a tight bubble of happiness.

The dance ends and I sit down to catch my breath. Karen stays up for a Gay Gordon’s, her red hair escaping from her business-like bun.

This is my moment. I slip out of the hotel and set off up the dark hillside at a fast pace until I run out of breath. I drop to my knees and feel the dampness of the grass soak through my trousers.

My heart is thumping, straining against my chest. Perhaps it’s just my body reacting to the exercise. I don’t know if I want it to be something more.

My breathing eases, but my chest still feels tight and my pulse races. Sweat springs hot and prickly on my skin. I don’t have long.The transponder in my neck is transmitting my data to Longlife’s headquarters in DC. They’ll alert Karen if they notice an irregular heartbeat or even a deviation in my GPS coordinates.

Down at the hotel, a door opens letting out music and light. I hear voices, sharp and concerned. I had a head start, but Karen can easily catch up with me. If my heart fails, the implant will keep my brain alive for another ten minutes. I have to go further. I force myself to my feet and stagger forward unsteadily. Pain surges in my chest and I feel dizzy and sick.

Werner settles beside me, unseen. On my other side, I feel the quiet, steady presence of my grandmother. Together they give me the strength to step up the steep, uneven slope.

Behind me, a dog barks and someone yells, “Mrs. Schmi..idt!”.

A cold thought stops me. Who will help Anya if I die?

I feel the love of Werner and my grandmother flow towards Anya. The warmth of their love drives out fear. I sense the love of someone else, a man. He hasn’t yet had the courage to tell her, but he will comfort her after my death. In a brief vision, I see him standing behind Anya with his arms around her. Two boys run past kicking a ball, and Anya laughs with delight. They are his children, but she loves them too.

I let Anya go, peacefully and gently, and struggle forward up the dark hillside. My chest pains and a liquid pulse throbs in my ears, but I am light and peaceful. I accept what comes. It is out of my hands.

About the Authors Alex Rezdan is an American writer currently living in Phnom Penh. His short stories have previously appeared in Popshot, The Fiction Pool, Viewfinder Literary Magazine, and Penny Shorts, among others. In addition to writing short stories, Alex is working on completing an interactive fantasy novel.

Anthony Engebretson lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. However, he does not care for corn or football.

Denny E. Marshall has had art, poetry, and fiction published. One recent credit is poetry in Star*line 40.2 Summer 2017. See more at www.dennymarshall.com.

Jacque Miller is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in English from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. Xe grew up in the Chicagoland area and has a love of horror and queer literature.

Joel Schueler lives in Wiltshire, England. He has a BA(Hons) degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Eleven works of his have been accepted in nine publications including Atlantean Publishing, The Dawntreader, Inclement Publishing & The Bangalore Review. He is working on his first novel.

June Graham worked as a scientist in several different countries before returning to live in Scotland. The stories she writes are influenced by her scientific background as well as her Highland roots. She has been writing stories since she was a kid and currently juggles writing with studying, working and looking after her family.

Ken Wetherington is a writer and avid reader who appreciates a wide variety of fiction and biography. He is also a film buff who teaches film appreciation course for the OLLI program at Duke University.

Natalie Crick, from the UK, has poetry published or forthcoming in a range of journals and magazines including Interpreters House, The Chiron Review, Rust and Moth, Ink in Thirds and The Penwood Review. Her work also features or is forthcoming in a number of anthologies, including Lehigh Valley Vanguard Collections 13. This year her poem, 'Sunday School' was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Sergio A. Ortiz is a two-time Pushcart nominee, a four-time Best of the Web nominee, and 2016 Best of the Net nominee. 2nd place in the 2016 RamĂƒÂłn Ataz Annual Poetry Competition sponsored by Alaire publishing house. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in FRIGG, Tipton Poetry Journal, Drunk Monkeys, and Bitterzeot Magazine.

He is currently working on his first full-length collection of poems, Elephant Graveyard.

Tope Ogundare is a Nigerian poet, short story writer and shrink, in love with words and finds writing a cathartic process. He blogs at www.zaphnathpaaaneah.com

Another great issue (if we say so ourselves) comes to an end. We hope you had a fun read.

Enjoyed picking these pieces out which could not have been possible without our team. So a big thank you to our staff readers. And of course, thank you for those wonderful submissions.

Till next time!

P.S. Keep an eye out for a 'Special Issue' call soon.