Child of Ash

Author: Juanita Wooley

Like shadows I dance,

Flickering into black dust.

Leaving you ash footsteps. 

The Chosen One

Author: Juanita Wooley

“I love you,” he says again, this time he doesn’t bother looking at me. He already knows the answer. I don’t know why he doesn’t just give up. All his words do is cause me pain. I’m pretty sure that is not a good sign for someone who is not supposed to become attached. I love you, too.

I sigh, running my fingers through my newly cut bangs.  I can’t look him in the eyes either. “Why do you do this to yourself?” Why are you doing this to me?

“You don’t get it, do you?” his brown eyes flash gold. “If not you, then there is no one else.” You are the only one for me, too.

We both know this won’t convince me.  I have shot down Mark so many times that if this had been a war, I would have been standing in the middle of a massacre of my own creation. Yeah, with a bullet through my own heart.

“Mark, I am not a good person. Find yourself a nice girl and live happily ever after with her. Forget about me.” I close my eyes, leaning my head against the brick column of the Five and Dine where we have both been working this summer, him a cook and me a waitress. You are going to have to…

“You are such a liar. You are a good person and we both know it,” his face goes adorably red from sheer indignation. He always looks this way when he is angry, but I like it the most when he smiles.  When he smiles, I remember that the world isn’t always a bad place. It makes me warm on the inside. It reminds me that I’m alive. I wish I could stay.

“Give up on me, Mark,” I open my eyes, turning to look into his. In them, I see my reflection. Someone who looks like me. Someone almost beautiful. It hurts. Don’t look at me that way…just forget me.

“Please, don’t do this to me,” I plead. “Feelings will only make this harder. You need someone who can be there. I am going to disappear from your life just as quickly as I came into it and I cannot tell you why. You will forget about me. You will be happy.”  Even saying this, my heart is still breaking.

“I just don’t understand,” he slams into the wall. “Why can’t you stay? Don’t you know wherever you go, I will look for you. For me, it’s you. Isn’t there supposed to be a slice of happiness for everyone at least for a little while?” That’s not true. Some people don’t have happy endings. I will always be outside of your reach.

I don’t say that to him though. I would cry if I could, but this is really for the best, his best. You are the bullet piercing my heart. 

“Saying those words, don’t change what is. No matter how painful this is, you must go on,” he glares at me as the words leave my mouth. I wish with all my heart that was true

I turn to him and give him one of my rare genuine smiles.” I’ve got to go.”  Remember me this way. 

“Jina,” his voice rings in the distance, “You will always be the best thing to ever happen to me”. 

No, I am going to break your heart into a million pieces. You will resent me. Tomorrow, you will awake to a world without me.

I turn around one last time, memorizing the way he looks; it will have to be enough to last a lifetime. There will never be another connection, an attachment, of this strength for me. I know it, just as I know the truth. I cannot stay here. I don’t think about all the “I will nevers” just as I don’t regret not telling him I love him. Saying the words wouldn’t make a happily ever after real, but it would make the pain gnawing at the inside of my stomach more real. It would be burning a heart that is already ash. I needed to keep some part of me to myself.  I turn around, determined not to look back once. I throw my hand in the air and give a small backwards wave.

“I will see you again,” his voice echoes behind me with an unshakeable determination that makes my lips quiver. I want to shake my head in denial, but I won’t give him that satisfaction. No, really you won’t. Not Ever. 

A life of loneliness seemed unbearable now, but the choice was never mine to make. Mark will get married. Mark will have kids. More importantly, Mark won’t remember you exist. 

 Even as the tears I knew would come begin to fall from my eyes and my vision blurs, they still face forward.  You will forget him, too. 

The Tigress

Author: Susannah Ritchey

The steaming ground soothes and agitates me. Breathing in its stench, my body trembles in anticipation. The air is wet and thick and all around me I hear the unified echo- the caw of thousands all around me, in the same torment, in the same delightful anticipation. My jowls ache with the need to cry out, but I am no jungle bird. I do not get to cry out. They mock me, their beating wings motivation to keep going, creeping along the jungle floor, their waste and filth my Damascene path. 

    The echo halts, and so do I. It has started. The hunters come, tromping through the Jungle disrupting the natural order. The all-consuming echo turns into a silence that is no more than a vacuum. The hunters come, and we listen.  They preach with their guns, firing knowledge out of barrels pointed at our minds. 

    BAM!

    Their bullets hit my ears, and I fall. I fall into the kneeling position for I am nothing but a supplicant for their wrath. They impart their wisdom, and I bleed. They gather around, one at a time, sticking their fingers into my wound, spelling evermore lessons with my blood. They teach me how to live, they teach me how to die. 

    Not satisfied, one throws a rope around my flank and pulls it taught. Now I am wounded before their feet, tied to their punishments; I cannot escape. Another rope around my front paw, then another, then another. Even my head is the noose of their lecturing. The jeering that never stops. From one gaping maw to another I hear their voices. The wretched voices in so many languages, they make me understand. For the bullet is already in my ear, it has already torn through my brain. I have been ripped open, laid as an offering to their wisdom. 

    Finally, my instincts prevail, and I cry out. The jungle has become my pain roaring out at the sky. Why? Why must this be my pain? The hunters laugh and as one sycophantic voice of reason say, “This is how you survive.”

    As one they come to me, I prostrate on the ground. They hold knives and I fear them. They tear into me chanting as they do, seven voices that sound like trumpets in my ears. Seven horns they call learning. I bow and I am disemboweled. I give them my kidneys and my liver and my spleen. My stomach is gone and now I have no courage. My heart is gone and now I have no spirit. I give them the rest freely as to make it stop, but it will not stop until they have the ultimate prize. They want more, those greedy mouths, to partake of what I can give them. So I do. I lean forward as if I were being pulled by a devilish force and bow my head to them. What they see as a respectful offering I know is my last breath. With clawed hands they break my skull, and my brain is gone, into their mouths. 

    The sweet tigress droops to the ground, nothing but an empty vessel. They fill this vessel with their regurgitated thoughts, spitting into me the vanquished dreams, they call correctness. Sowing me back up, my dismembered flesh closing, changing shape until the tigress is unrecognizable from a bird. I open my mouth to wail, but I hear no growl of anguish and pain, merely a caw. The voices have started again, that endless drone of the echo. My body does not feel, just rises taking flight in the wind, leaving the path of filth and decay. No longer do I walk a path to somewhere, now I fly in a circling arc, adding filth to the path, excreting the words that have filled me up, sewn in tight where they cannot escape.

    Glancing down we see a tiger. We quiet signaling the hunters to their prey. They will not escape.

Skeletons Are Assholes

Author: Garrett Roth

Marcus lay on his untidy bed, staring at the familiar sight of his bedroom ceiling. The house, much like his life, was enveloped in a disappointing silence. He had been forgotten again, at least by people who mattered to him. He had only just begun to close his eyes when his phone’s lock screen came to and the LED on its top right corner began to glow blue.

He sighed and turned to face it, half-heartedly tapping its screen, to reveal that his aunt had just wished him a happy birthday.  It was 4PM and she was the only one who had. They also hadn’t seen each other in some twelve years.  He looked out to the setting sun through his window as he grimaced and rolled back over, holding back a depressing, melodramatic sob. 

***

    Amaius ducked out of sight of the window, fearing the boy had made them.

    “Fuck, man,” he whispered loudly as he looked down to his fellow sneaky skeleton, Jackus. He looked around briefly and peered back in to the window, the tip of his skull just barely crowning the bottom of the frame.

    “What?” Jackus replied, holding steady on the branch of a rather large tree just outside of Marcus’s window. He held Amaius up on his shoulders, the two forming a sort of dire skeleton. “He spot you?”

    “I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway,” Amaius rolled his jaw slowly, providing a brief relief from his achy jaw while avoiding the usual ear-shattering popping that accompanies a skeleton resetting broken or uncomfortable joints. 

    “Well hurry up, man.  Humans creep me the hell out. All that skin and shit,” Jackus shifted uncomfortably before turning his head and spitting out a loose tooth, pinging it off of the kitchen window.

***

    The pair waited intently, Amaius watching Marcus’s stomach and chest for the fateful moment when Marcus began using his diaphragm to breathe instead of his chest – a sign that the youth was asleep. It wasn’t before too long that the moment came and each of the boney compatriots began moving with purpose. Amaius carefully lifted the window, making the greatest care not to disturb Marcus’s slumber. The two scuttered across the floor, quietly clacking their bones as they tied each of Marcus’s limbs to the posts of his bedframe. Jackus skeleton sneaked through the rest of the empty, depressing home, and within minutes had acquired the family’s stupid fucking loud yappy dog and brought a sharpened femur (not his, he’s insistent on that) in to the dog’s throat over and over, splashing blood along the floors and wall, staining the shag carpet. He lazily dragged its corpse to the room and began writing in their ancient skellyman tongue over all of the walls using its blood, covering it with all of the incantations he learned in skellyman school for skeletons. They would need them for the ritual.

*** 

    Marcus slowly opened his eyes and upon realizing his predicament, contorted his face in horror as his eyes darted across the room. After catching the visage of the boney interlopers he tried to scream, but his fear held his tongue. He began to violently pull on his limbs only to find that they were bound by rope to the bedposts. His jerking caught the attention of his captors almost immediately.

    “Dude, shit, Amaius,” Jackus rattled and pointed to the boy on the bed. Amaius let out a loud sigh and ran his hands over his skull as though it still held hair.

    “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. Marcus swore he could see the skeleton’s face form a sort of frown, but he realized that the face was but mere bone and couldn’t possible emote in such a fashion. Marcus gasped attempting a shriek as the skeleton crept to his bedside and leaned down to meet his gaze, its face sitting only inches from his nose. “Alright, kid,” he began. His eyes, or his un-eyes, looked awkwardly off to the side as he began fumbling his words. “Well, uh, we have to do this thing-“

“A thing?” Marcus yelped, catching the surprise of his captors.

“Yes, a thing,” Jackus interjected, leaning backward in to Marcus’s view for a solitary moment before returning to his preparations. “We’ll be ready to go here in a sec’. Just dottin’ some ‘I’s and crossin’ some ‘t’s and we’ll be good to go.”

    “Hell yeah,” Amaius held out his hand in a balled fist towards Jackus who responded by smacking the top of it with his own fist and having the same done to him by Amaius before the two of them shook their fists while reeling backwards, making obnoxiously loud rattling noises all the while. Amaius snapped back to attention and returned to Marcus, who had begun to weep uncontrollably. “SoI know you’ve got some questions, and that’s okay, I got you. Y’see, my compatriot here an’ I are on our way to a celebratory shindig of a kind,” the skeleton began attempting to console Marcus in a mock-informative tone, the syllables for the longer words seemingly colliding in his mouth before falling off of his un-tongue in a dreadful cacophony of derision. Marcus couldn’t tell if the skeleton was actually intelligent and mocking him, or merely stupid and attempting to appear to be intelligent and mocking him. He didn’t concern himself with the thought for longer than a breath before returning to the horrifying as fuck circumstance he found himself in.

    “It’s gonna’ be pretty rad,” Jackus chimed in again, tossing the open torso of the dog over his shoulder. “We’re lookin’ to get totally fucking wrecked, but we need a DD before we head out. We’re going to pull Jeff’s soul from the immaterium and bind it to the skeleton inside of you. You’re not gonna’ make it but try not to think about it for too long or else this shit gets tragic.”

    Marcus could barely utter a brief ‘Wait, wh-‘ before his bones began to contract in his body. His fingers and wrist began to bulge against his skin. The bones began to violently shake, breaking themselves free of his muscles and tendons. Marcus’s screams pierced the uncomfortable, melodramatic silence of his home shortly before turning to gurgles, which in turn became exhausted gasps and groans. His endoskeleton began using his binds to find purchase against his skin, writhing freely though the living body now that it had shed itself of the muscles that bound it to its fleshy form. Marcus let out a single, solitary gurgle just before erupting in to fleshy gibs, his blood painting the walls and splattering across the window. Standing in the hazy, bloody mist was a new third skeletal fright. This new figure picked over his new body, removing chunks of nervous system and leftover muscle tissue.

    “What’s up motha’ fucka’!” he shouted enthusiastically, raising his arms above his head and waving them excitedly. The other two paid him no attention. At this point Jackus was thumbing through Marcus’s phone, his face lighting up with amusement.

    “Wow, this guy was a fucking nerd. It was his birthday and nobody gave a shit,” he chuckled. He scanned through a few texts, some poorly hidden fetish porn and his abysmally short list of contacts before tossing it back on the nightstand and looking to their new comrade. “You drive.”

    “Aww, man, how come I always have to drive? I never get to have fun with you guys and do all the cool stuff!” its lowered its shoulders and appeared to pout as it stepped down from the bloody bed. Its gaze wandered down to the floor in general dismay.

    “It’s ‘cause you keep getting’ put in dweebs, ya’ dingdong, now scoot or we’re gonna’ be fuckin’ late again, like always,” Amaius slid the window fully open and slipped out of the room. Jackus followed, sitting on the window sill and falling out backwards. Jeff lazily dragged his feet to the window before exiting through it and closing it behind him, letting out a sad, heavy and melodramatic sigh.

Frozen Bubbles

Author: Abigail Betts

“You shouldn’t climb that high.” he watched her place a hesitant foot on a suspiciously thin branch.

    “If we don’t get the lights to the top branches, it’s going to look like there are sparkling wine glasses all over their front lawn instead of trees.” She took both hands off the tree trunk to toss the strand of white lights onto a branch over her head. 

    “That doesn’t sound like such a bad alternative to me.” He looked around at the darkening sky. “The rest can wait until tomorrow, at least. If you’re hell-bent on defying death for the sake of fairy lights, you could do with some help from sunlight.”

    “I could do with some help from my spotter.” She smiled impishly down at him. “You know, seeing as you’re the only thing standing between me and my attempts to ‘defy death’.”

    He shook his head with a laugh, but took a step closer to the base of the bare bones of the dogwood tree wrapped in her lights. “I’m just saying that this could wait until tomorrow. We could go inside where it’s warm and cozy...”

    “That’s not going to work!” she called down in a taunting sing-song voice that was strangely tolerable. “You know I prefer the cold.” She tossed her scarf down at him with a flourish, and it smacked him across the face. “You, however, are free to go into the ‘warm and cozy’. I’m perfectly fine. Heat rises, you know.”

    He wrapped the mismatched, knit scarf around his neck. It was made from dozens of different colors, with no apparent pattern to its length, or to the recurrence of the colors. “What’s this scarf supposed to be?”

    “Everything,” she said simply. 

    He grinned into the warm wool and pressed her further. “Your grandmother- who I’m convinced has wandered straight off the set of some Disney film- will undoubtedly have caramel hot chocolate on the stove for you...”

    She paused for a moment. “No, she won’t... She made it for us after that unfortunate exchange of friendly fire during the first snow fall yesterday.”

    “And I’m fully confident that she’ll have made it again. She’s been watching us from the dining room window, anxiously waiting for the moment she gets to brush snow off your precious shoulders and wrap you in a warm, cozy blanket...” 

    She shook a branch over his head and showered him in snow. “Come off it, already! I’m nearly finished.”

    “It can wait a day.”

    The playfulness melted out of her voice. “No, it can’t.”

    “We’ve got a whole day-...”

     She interrupted him forcefully. “Yes, but I’d rather spend that day inside- in the ‘warm and cozy’- watching movies, playing darts, cards, and all the other silly games with you and everyone else in there,” she took her hands off of the tree to gesture to the picturesque, ginger-bread-house-come-to-life behind them. Icicles clung around windows that were hung with red ribbons and outlined with white fairy lights. Holding onto her legs while she had crawled around the second story windows hanging lights had been equally stressful. 

    “I’d rather spend the day like that, drinking gallons of caramel hot chocolate.” Her voice broke at the end of her diatribe. “And.... they won’t be able finish decorating out here for Christmas when I leave... it’s too cold for them to be out here.”

    He felt the imaginary warm that had surrounded them freeze in the air. “One more day,” he said quietly.

    She kept her back to him as she fastened the final strand of lights in their place. “One day.”

    “You shouldn’t go outside.”

    She considered that with dark amusement. “Shouldn’t I?” 

    Her laughter hardened the edge of his voice. “It’s below freezing. You’ve got to make your flight in six hours from now. It might make getting through security a little bit difficult if you’re hypothermic. I mean, I would certainly feel clumsier when I’m holding up a line of impatient businessmen because my fingers are too numb to undo my shoelaces, but hey, I guess that’s not really my concern.”

    The chiming of the grandfather clock in the foyer made them both jump. Neither of them enjoyed looking frightened at the moment. “How the hell do they sleep through that?” she hissed. Everything around them looked like it was glowing with a horrible blue light. As she gazed out at the growing cover of powder in the back yard, the falling flakes cast eerie shadows into the dark kitchen as they passed over the porch light. The snowflakes threw shadows all around them that seemed to make the dark waves of her hair ripple like water. 

    After a heavy pause, her voice startled him again. “You don’t have to come outside with me.”

    “No, I really don’t.” the acid in his voice was uncontrollable. The night just felt too heavy for peace. He felt the constant need to look over his shoulder. In the kitchen of a house full of people in the dead of night, it was only a matter of time... even if the living room was their “bedroom.” He muttered to himself, “I really shouldn’t be here at all, I suppose... but where else should I be?” He spoke to her back. “Should I not be here?” 

    He was met with silence. In his periphery, an array of knives caught the eerie winter light like icicles. White bones retracted like claws into his palms. “Six more hours... You should get some rest. It’s a long trip.”

    “It’s not that long. It will only be about a day spent traveling, including the train. It was worse when I had to drive out to Whangarei after I landed in Auckland.”

    “Beg pardon?” he asked through a sigh. 

    “New Zealand.”

    He couldn’t help but laugh. There was never a prologue to her presentation of information, large or small. “New Zealand?”

    She shrugged and turned on her heel toward the kitchen sink. She rifled around in a cabinet, and produced a bottle of dish soap. She poured a generous measure into a bowl, and then added a trickle of water from the faucet. 

    “What are you doing?” he watched her pull open drawer after unfamiliar drawer full of cookie cutters, stationery, and fossilized strawberry candies.

    “I’m going outside.” Her voice cracked, and he turned his face to hide the mask of anger that suddenly and violently pulled at his features.  He left her to her crazed search for a moment, and searched around their nest of bed sheets. He came back with his leather jacket, taken from the armchair next to the fold out couch. It felt like a particularly wretched armchair at the moment. It was her grandmother’s, and it was upholstered in a faded denim hue that seemed to dissolve in the air around them. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep away from “bed” tonight. He didn’t want to have to sleep there, either.

    “Damn it all.” Her voice rang out in the peace-less midnight. She was looking down at a small funnel with contempt. She plunged the funnel into her bowl, swirled it around, and then seemed satisfied. As she blew past him toward the back porch, he tossed the jacket around her shoulders. She froze in motion, and sloshed some of her mixture onto the floor in surprise. She stared down at the puddle on the dark tile floor for a moment. “It looks like ice,” she said in a small voice, as she continued onto the back porch.

    When he looked down at the glowing blue mess, he saw a rainbow caught in the light on its surface. It looked like the suspension of oil on top of water, though this was much cleaner, and wouldn’t result in the demise of pathetically sympathetic ducklings. It would have been nice to be suspended in simple distractions like that for a while.

    He stood in the doorway, perched between the warm, cozy carpet of the living room and the unforgiving stone walkway outside. She stood on the edge of the stone pathway. “Come back inside.” His facial muscles were clenching in response to the chill seeping into his marrow. “Come on-...”

    “It’s so pretty out here. I wish I’d taken more pictures during the day. Look at the sundial over there. You can just see the gnomon through the cap of snow,” she giggled in a burst of steam. “It looks like the tin man’s face is buried under a snow bank... 

    “What the hell’s a gnomon?” he asked while he tried to avoid getting his tongue caught between his teeth.

    “It would be the tin man’s nose.” She continued on. “And the birds... We never see cardinals back home. I’ve loved watching them in the morning over coffee. I suppose you’re used to them. Then again, you drink tea. But when they’re out the snow’s fresh, smooth and so...clean. Then they fly around and stir it up like blood spatters on skin...”

    “Hey-...”

    She kept going, unfazed. “It’s so violently pretty here. It’s the kind of pretty that hurts, don’t you think? I’m really going to miss that.” She looked at him and flashed a painful smile. “And I’m going to miss midnight dart competitions in the basement. Consequentially, I’ll miss the madness of doing shots while trying to throw sharp metal objects at a very small target.... Why did we do that?” she stared down at her bowl with a suspended grin.

    He couldn’t quite meet her gaze as he said, “I’ll miss the street market in Youngstown.” Her eyes were frozen on the bowl, and his eyes were frozen on her bare feet. “It was the first day.” In his memory, he saw swirling patterns of blue and white that blended into the reality of the world around them in royal colors. “You lent me your scarf, and called me a baby for getting cold. We walked around the stalls, and you were shaking. You had goose-bumps on your arms, so you walked around with your arms crossed... so I wouldn’t see.”

    She let out a derisive snort. “I wasn’t cold. You’re worse than Home Depot.”

    “What?” He pinched the bridge of his nose at the arrival of yet another abrupt shift in her tone and conversation. “If you just wanted to run circles around my head with- admittedly entertaining, nonsensical ramblings, that’s fine. But we could at least do it inside, under blankets, with thick wool socks on!”

    She ignored him and twisted her arm away from the hand he’d reached toward her. “You know, I can cut anything out of a band saw, and I can cut the same shape out using a reciprocating saw and manage perfectly smooth edges. I love the smell of wood, dust, and metal, and I don’t mind getting dirty. But when I went in the Home Depot here, those ass-hats in their horrid orange vests followed me around the store with, ‘What are you looking for, miss?’, ‘Do you need some help, honey?’, or ‘The garden center is that way.’ It’s bullshit, and I really don’t care to take it from you, too.” 

    He hazarded a guess. “I’m not trying to condescend to you-...”

    “No, you’re not. But I’m trying to distract you!” her anger seemed to crack in the air. She held his eyes with a sharp heat, but her lips were trembling.

    “Your feet-...”

    “My, how orange you’ve gotten!” she trilled manically as she swirled a finger in her bowl and splashed at him with choreographed nonchalance.

    “Just admit that you’re cold!” His shout came out in a visceral cloud of heat.

    She cocked her head to the side and said simply, “It looks like you’re smoking. Do you suppose that if you love a smoker, you could literally become addicted to a person? Second hand smoke has been proven to be just as dangerous as smoking first hand, so it makes sense that second hand smoke could be just as addictive as smoking first hand. Sure, the addiction isn’t actually bound to a person’s essence, presence, or whatever… But the brain would form the association that the gratification for its addiction comes from the person who smoked. So, your body would chemically crave someone. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not just waxing poetic here, it’s a scientific fact that-…”

    “You’re cold!” He screamed over her smoky words.

    He felt a painful chill as she abruptly lay down in the snow. His jacket was abandoned on the stone pathway. She placed the bowl on her chest, and dunked the broad end of the funnel in the liquid. “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick. Everything will freeze over in the bowl within minutes out here anyway, and clearly, you’re terribly chilly.” She held the tapered end of the funnel to her pale lips, and carefully blew a large bubble. Rainbows bounced off its surface from the harsh light overhead. She balanced the bubble for a moment on the funnel’s rim, watching it with a detached focus. Her features were harshly drained of color. 

    “It froze,” she finally said with a weak smile.

    She met his eyes, and all the blue in the world began to waver. He walked over the slick stones on bare feet and pulled her out of the snow. After retrieving his jacket, he ushered her back inside while she held the funnel in shaking hands. She clumsily sat down on the thick carpet the moment they were inside, and he forcefully shut the door behind them. The snow was already melting in her hair, and lank strands clung around her face. 

    She held a finger to her little orb, and pulled it off in a complete, solid piece. Blue eyes peered up at him from underneath wet lashes. “Watch.” She burst the delicately frozen bubble between her fingers, and it fell apart- not into shards, but into ethereal, disconnected wisps of gray.

    “It looks like burned paper.” He said quietly.

    “Strange, isn’t it?” her smile was gone, but her color was coming back in hectic roses. 

    “Why did you want to do that?” he asked quietly.

    Her eyes drifted toward the makeshift nest of furniture covered in bed sheets in the living room. “Six more hours....” when she looked at him, all the stubborn, frustrating madness had faded away. He glanced at her bowl of dish soap, and saw a thin, cracked film of ice on its colorful surface. The clock started screaming again. She cursed through gritted teeth and moaned, “What else are we going to do if we aren’t going to sleep?”

Saturnine Complex: Chapter 1: The Lonely Luminary

Author: Ryan Covington

Josephine introduced a match to the profound darkness with a flourish, carving a lonely sphere in the black.  The darkness remained at bay as she rifled through her knapsack for the candle that would tenure the light.  She felt the silver inlay of its base and pulled it free, lighting the wick as the flame reached her fingertips.  With a puff of breath and a flick of her wrist, she sacrificed what was left of the matchstick to the darkness it had insulated her from.

    “Only seven left,” she muttered to the darkness.  “I hope she’s coming.”

    “Don’t worry dear” it said.  “I’m sure she is.”

    Its words comforted her.  How many weeks had she spent cooped up in this attic before the void had grown a mouth?  Who cared?  She appreciated the company.  The darkness knew things about her no one else could, things she couldn’t even remember.  After all, it had watched over her every night since she was born.  But it didn’t know where she had thrown the chest, and so she turned to the light.  That was scarcer, more precious: a dearth of unstruck lucifers and surplus of boards covering the dormer window guaranteed that.  She had ventured a glance outside only once since the first wave of them had washed over the village, and that only on accident as she tried to shoo away the crow.

    Josephine’s reluctance to see Therin as it was stemmed not only from a fear of being spotted, but a desire to retain in her mind a stock image of the village as it had looked every other year as winter came on—bustling with traders making their last stops before heading for the Pearls, skirted by icy mists that kissed the rooftops before climbing Mt. Krall to overlook the vale—beautiful.  The smells and sounds had made it hard enough to maintain the image.  But then Robert had come.  Suddenly doubting her sanity, she reached into her pocket and produced the letter, relieved to find it was real.  She unfolded it:

Dear Hugh and Madeleine,

I hope this letter finds you well!  It’s been too long since I’ve seen you or little Josephine.  Please express to her how sorry I am for missing her birthday.  I was promoted to head archaeologist at the excavation site in the Seran after the previous head passed, and I couldn’t get away.  I have a gift for her that I hope will compensate.  Thirteen is a special year; I can’t wait to hear how she did in her assessment.  In any case, I’m now on my way.  The research has proven fruitful, but the magisters insist on reviewing our expenses before agreeing to further funding—pedants, the lot.  But I relish the opportunity for a visit!  Winds willing, I’ll arrive in three days’ time and should be able to winter in Therin with the three of you.  Please feed Robert (the crow) a meal, if you would.  He has flown a long way.  Cheese is his favorite, but he’s not picky.  See you soon.

    Love,

    Dinah

    Josephine refolded the letter and placed it back in her pocket.  She smelled anew the stench wafting up through the floor boards, as if she had yet to grow accustomed to it.  Her stomach had hardened.  Or perhaps it was just too empty.  Either way, she felt no need to contribute to the dried vomit littering the corner where she had given up dumping the chamber pot.  The pile of biscuit tins picked clean and that corner were all that remained of a modest mountain of foodstuffs.  Robert had gotten his cheese.  She made sure he ate his fill, scrounging for whatever scraps and crumbs she could muster.  Three hours he had spent pecking at her window to deliver hope, and he had hazarded entry through it when she removed a board, even as she aimed to beat him to death with it.  That was reason enough to make him a meal of her meager supplies; delivery of her response was merely the prayer that accompanied it.  She hardly blamed Robert for corrupting the last vestige of her memory of Therin.  One mustn’t shoot the messenger.  The other crows, however, the ones that preferred to make meals of the countless bodies piled up rather than cheese, she was going to kill.  Their ubiquitous presence may have been, and likely was, the only reason the roving bands of arkads hadn’t noticed her or Robert.  But it didn’t matter.  She was going to kill the whole murder, even if she had to do it as a vengeful spirit.  The letter she attached to Robert’s leg contained only the essentials:

Dinah

Arkad attack. In attic.  Help.

    Jo

Those words cost her twelve matches’ worth of ashes to write.  She didn’t care.  It was her only hope.  Light had proven a fickle friend anyway, the sun failing Therin just as the arkads were beginning their assault.

    “I’ll never leave you.”  The first thing the darkness ever told her.

    Before Robert, Josephine’s only notions of escape had been suicidal fantasies—making a run for the wilderness while fending off pursuers, or sneaking past the sentries during one of their drunken revels.  Either plan, followed to its ideal conclusion, left her to trek alone nearly forty miles through the frozen Ipsith forest and Cairn mountains, sustained only by what she could forage.  At this time of year, nothing and mushrooms would be her most common discoveries.  The thoughts of actually surviving that the letter fomented ignited her psyche, and sitting still, waiting on a response she knew might never come did nothing to extinguish it.  By the time Robert returned the next day with

    Jo,

    I’ll be there late tomorrow night.  Can you get to the roof?

    -Dinah

Josephine felt as exhausted as if she had scaled the peak of every mountain surrounding the vale.  She barely managing to scrawl yes on the recycled note and reattach it to the crow’s leg before joining the darkness in its slumber.  She hadn’t had any food to give Robert this time, and when she awoke hours later, it was with a stifled scream, the image of a bloody beak corrupting her dreams of floating away with Aunt Dinah.

    Josephine took the tarnished pocket watch out of the pouch she had sewn to her shift and checked the time.  From her estimation, she only had a couple of hours before she needed to be on top of the house.  She had considered her options many times, but the only feasible route required descending from the attic into her home and sneaking to the backdoor.  If she were to go out the window, she would have to wrench free several boards and expose herself to the main thoroughfare; it was not a choice, but a death sentence.  From the backdoor, however, she could enter the alleyway, climb the lattice of the stables next door, and leap to the arch of her roof.  Willem and Dana—the blacksmith’s children—and she had made the ascent many summer evenings to watch the sun fall into the maw of the mountains.  But there had been no snow or ice then.  She would have to be careful.

    The timing had to be just right: she could neither miss Aunt Dinah, nor expose herself too long to the elements or the potential of discovery. She gave herself an hour to find the little chest. It had been over a week since she had thrown it into the wasteland, but if she was never going to see her house or her parents again, she had to at least look for it. Josephine kicked herself for having lost her temper in the first place.  The dim orb of light she held hardly made a dent in the void, but her memory compensated.  The layout of her necessities was simple: the little of her supplies that remained, she kept in the knapsack next to her scant bedding (a thick but moth-eaten blanket and a couple of bundled up petticoats).  Both were kept as far from the corner of excrement as possible, which served as a repulsive beacon, guiding her by scent if she became disoriented.  Lucky for Josephine, the smell of putrefying shit was nothing novel for arkads, so it blended right in with the smell of the corpses.  There were three leaks in the ceiling that she had mapped routes to, the biscuit tins she had placed underneath them collecting up to half a pint on good days.  Would the mists that heralded winter grace her rooftop less if they knew they were keeping her alive?  She asked the darkness once.

    “Darling, don’t think like that,” it said.

    The rest of the attic was a treacherous waste.  She seldom dared to navigate it for fear of making too much noise, but she was going to have to brave the chaos if she was to find the chest.  For the first couple weeks, the slightest creak had sent her heart racing.  Calm only came when she acknowledged death as a neutral alternative to life in her state.  Still, she preferred it remain her decision to live or not rather than the arkads, and so she took precautions: chewing and defecating she would reserve until she hadn’t heard a sound in hours or the arkads’ festivities grew so raucous that she felt assured she wouldn’t be detected.  On a few occasions, exceptions had to be made, the terror of the exercise doing much to facilitate the process.  The arkads that had taken up residence in her home seemed blessedly obtuse—maybe all arkads were—but every time Josephine considered testing the limits, she thought about the crows.  She had come to know her tenants, which horrified her.  She recognized their voices.  They had names for each other: Molt, Crotchett, Tork, sometimes guests.  Mostly they spoke in a grotesque, guttural tongue, but occasionally a word or phrase in Torvellan would make the rounds, each of them trying it out.  They would fight often, but their tone gave little indication of when a blow might land or a window might shatter.  Every conversation was a shouting match to Josephine’s ears.  She started to think of them as a mockery of her own family, herself the monster in the attic.

    What would the arkads think of her? she wondered, beginning to tiptoe into the wasteland, candlestick held low to consult with her feet on their placement.  They wouldn’t be afraid.  She recalled the sounds she had heard coming from the smithy across the street that first night.  Anything that could make Willem and his father scream like that would lose no sleep over the idea of Josephine bumping into things at night.  She lifted an overturned box and sifted through its scattered contents—books her parents had read to her before bed (Legends from Beyond Torvell, The Good Child, Secrets of the Magisters, etc.)—nothing she would take with her.  She had to pack light.   She saw something glint a few yards away and moved toward it.  

What did the arkads think of each other?  Did Tork consider Molt and Crotchett good parents?  Sure, Molt beat them, but he hadn’t killed either of them.  In fact, Josephine had only heard him kill one arkad, and that one sounded like it was trying to rape Crotchett.  Did that make him peaceful by arkad standards?  Was peaceful good?  She thought of her own parents. If they had beaten her like Molt and Crotchett did Tork, she might have been better prepared.  Had she been able to prove she was as cruel as them, maybe they would have even accepted her; then, she wouldn’t be starving in this attic, sustained only by the slim chance that her estranged aunt might descend in a balloon and whisk her away.  But Josephine couldn’t say.  She wasn’t even sure Tork was their child, or which of them, if either, were female.  Tork’s voice just sounded younger, and they only called its name in anger, never during sex.

The glint materialized.  It was a piece of the bottle she had broken.  “I think I’m close,” she told the darkness, careful to step over the shards.

    “How would you know?” it asked. “You were drunk.”

    “Because both of them hit the same rafter,” she said.  “I remember that.”

    The little chest had been her prized possession, the first item she had thought to grab when packing her knapsack.  It contained letters and poems—a particularly funny ballad from Aunt Dinah—but those weren’t what Josephine was hazarding the wasteland for.  She was after the brass locket.  All she needed, was that, Aunt Dinah, and her balloon.  Hang the rest.

Sweatpants

Author: Jessica Brooks

There was so much blood.

She knew there would be, in theory. But since horror films terrified her, she didn’t know just how much of it there would be.

There was blood all over her sweatpants.

Her favorite-- absolute favorite-- pair of sweatpants.

Why had she done it?

That answer had seemed clear to her before the handle of the knife made its home in her palm. Now she couldn't remember it.

There was her wedding night, lying on the kitchen floor. There was the night she became Mrs. Connor. Those cold hands were lying face-up, open and taunting her from the linoleum. In them were all the minutes spent in the marriage bed. There was the passionate, furious lovemaking followed by the calm caresses. There were the years of mediocre, obligatory, scheduled sex. There were the hands, that after two years of marriage, forgot the location of her clit. There were the hands that never dared to journey for it again.

There lying on the floor was the past seven years. She now could not remember why she had decided seven years was more than enough.

There was so much blood.

He had stopped caring. He had stopped treasuring her.

So much blood. All over her favorite sweatpants.

But he had tried. Hadn’t he? He had. He had tried. He hadn’t forgotten her birthday.

She’d never be able to wear these pants again. Then she remembered that he had, in fact, forgotten their anniversary. Were the sobs that overtook her heroin-wracked frame for the spouse she'd murdered? Or were they for the clothing she'd sullied?

The floor rose to meet her, and her face landed in warm red, which provoked her to cry more. Her first instinct was to drop the knife and wipe her face, but there was more blood on her hands. The poison leaked to her lashes, then to her eyes.

Fumbling, still weeping, she rose, feeling her way for the sink, until-- fuck! fuck fuck fuck! the knife! It bit her heel, and she limped the rest of the way to the kitchen sink in frustration and pain.

As the sound of the rushing water mingling with her gasps and wails overtook her ears, she thought how easily she could drown herself in that sink. She second-guessed her decision almost immediately--drowning seemed too harsh a way to go.

But at least there’s no blood.

When she finally rose and recovered the use of her eyes, she saw the snow falling in such a smooth, lilting pattern onto the balcony, a kind of beauty that seemed so out of place in the horrid mess her life had become. Walking heavy on her left foot, tiptoeing on her right to keep pressure off her still-bleeding heel, she opened the glass doors with a reverence she’d never known. 

She stood still for a moment, allowing the cold air to assault her exposed arms. The violence felt like love. As she looked over her shoulder, she cringed to see the patterned trail of crimson that she’d tracked all over the brand-new plush carpet.

Shivers replaced her sobs as the crying subsided. The upper half of her body was so cold, but the lower half of it was so warm she felt she’d burn. The blood should have grown cold by now but she felt it getting hotter...and hotter...and hotter…

She stepped out of the stained cocoon and tossed it over the balcony. She thought she heard herself laugh as she did so.

The more flakes of powdered sugar fell from the sky, the more she realized that love it or hate it, her whole life was lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen they’d shared, dead by her hand.

The front door opened.

“Marni?”

There was her shitty fucking excuse for a lover. He was only two doors down, of course he had heard the screams. He hadn’t seen yet.

There was a pause so long, it could have lasted seven years.

“Marni.”

Now, he’d seen it.

He was calling to her, but the pile of fabric on the sidewalk far below was calling as well.

She chose to follow the sweatpants.

red rum and a shining carcass

Author: Jessica Brooks

There is no room 237 in Ramsay Hall.

I checked.

Several times, in fact. I guess each time, I was scared it would suddenly have appeared out of thin fucking air.

They say these hallways change at night.

They want to believe this place is enchanted, 

and though I would enjoy such a sanitized way of looking at this place,

I know better.

And though I live in one of the few rooms with a bathtub

in this hotel-turned-dormitory,

which puts me at risk for seduction by a creepy half-drowned spectre,

at least I’m someplace where you can’t reach me.

Not that you even want to reach me.

You with the Djarum Blacks you finally stopped smoking--

you were happy enough without me that you stopped smoking.

That knowledge alone was worse than any harsh words at the typewriter.

You with that face, those eyes that always looked half-empty or more,

the endless, endless consumption of alcohol, complete with snide words to the bartender.

With the ex far prettier and more talented that I can ever hope to be,

and the Advocaat and blood staining the hands that held my waist.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say

that you were Jack Torrance 

and that I was Wendy,

but the fact remains

that one of us got out in the end

and the other one didn’t.

The hard part is-- I can’t tell who is who.

One of us looks like a caricature, a Neanderthal

with eyelashes frozen over,

but the foil doesn’t stop long,

gathering the traumatized remnants of those two short months

and getting the fuck out of dodge.

One of us is descending the mountain,

safe from the elevator that threatens to drown its patrons in crimson.

But the other has had their brains bashed in, 

right the fuck in,

and I think it’s me that the Overlook Hotel has claimed for the last hundred years.

How is your Dad?

Author: Emerson Fremming

Voices would interrogate

       Then assign alienation leaving me,

        Hollow.

He is gone….

The Man.

The Teacher.

The leader.

What shreads were left were for your eyes

        Not Mine.

He is now a creature of basic needs

My dad died a long time ago,

         But as he clawed at the grave,

I slid into a deep

Dark

Blue

Cave

        You idiots, should have considered my side

Thought how was I?

That could have set the clocks forward.

I was nothing, trapped in an empty cage.

The middleman for today’s gossip.

Go ahead ask,

                  “How is your Dad?”

Wayward Starlight

Author: Elizabeth Shelnutt

My light and shining angel has gone again,

down to those darker depths.

In those depths light cannot penetrate,

it merely pools at the bottom.

I sit and wait at the other edge of oblivion;

I wait for my angel to return again.

With a smile warm as sunshine

and wings radiating with warmth,

this memory of my angel is all that keeps my patience.

Inside oblivion monsters crawl.

I can hear them screeching for fresh blood.

It’s why I can never follow my lovely angel.

I wait for the day those wings wrap around and warm my cold soul.

I will wait as oblivion is long for my angel to return.

“Colors”

Blue is the water its shades moved by the tides-

Clear and white are the icicles hanging above.

Red is the spice popping on your tongue,

Mixing with orange and yellow to be the heat of the sun.

Tan is the touch of a camel hide,

the grittiness of sand as the warm colors:

Red, orange, and yellow warmed it dark.

Black is the hottest void, sucking all light,

the sign that no life can survive there.

“Love is a Feeling”

There’s no way to start a sentence with you,

there’s much too much ground to cover.

Picking a starting place is impossible-

Do I begin with your voice?

Your little ticks and quirks?

The way you look at me I only wish I could?

Maybe I should start with the way you love me-

Through words chosen just for me,

Through kisses on places closed off to everyone else.

It’s indescribable how you make me feel,

I light up inside and out when you’re there.

Love, in this way, is the best feeling in the world,

Especially when I’m with you.

Lost in the Ocean

Author: Jessica Russell

You’re playing around

Acting out

The spotlight is on you 

The world is big

And your dreams are too

So what you gonna do?

You jump right in

Ready for a swim

And soon you’re lost in the ocean

You’re floundering now

The light is going out

So what you gonna do?

So what you gonna do?

You don’t call for help

You won’t reach out

You’re letting it drag you down

Why do you let it drag you down?

But you jumped right in 

Ready for a swim

Now you’re lost in the ocean

The current pulls you out

The waves are crashing in

You’re lost in the ocean

Are you drowning now? 

Please cry out!

Oh the waves abound

Why aren’t you reaching out?

You’re lost in the ocean

Caliban

Author: Abigail Betts

Aye, terror, scream.

Rage and dance with me.

Let the heaviness

Of your literate sky

Feed off our Tempest.

That fire keeps the beat

Of that wretched horizon.

Faerie drums sound out

And shock the heart.

Spin me out 

And in again

In Aerial frights.

I will not fight,

But let your smile strike

And dance with my shrieks.

Delight, violent heart

In the cold fingers

That grasp and scratch.

Come sway with me.

Prosper my dear,

And flood again this earth

That we alone survive

To bathe in the dark

That presses us near.

Candy Corn

Author: Ryann Taylor

There is no candy more disgusting than candy corn. Not only does it not actually resemble corn, it also has a sandy texture that makes it crumble in my mouth like a piece of dirt. Yes, I have put dirt into my mouth before like any normal almost-five-year-old would, and in case you are wondering, no, it isn’t good.

    So today on this most horrible of days, the principal of my preschool has decided to bribe me to risk my life with none other than, you guessed it, candy corn.

    “Ryann, if you flush the toilet I’ll let you have a piece of candy corn.”

    She sounds nonthreatening if you don’t look at her pursed lips and her beady, black eyes, but I do. She stays perched in her big, cushy blue chair behind her desk. Her hands are folded on top near scattered papers I couldn’t read, even if I could see the tops of them, and near one solitary picture frame. The most hideous thing of all is the clear jar on the corner of her desk that contains the candy corn; it’s still only half-way filled like it was the past two months I’ve used the bathroom in her office.

    “Ryann…?”

    My fingers reach for my left pigtail, and they give it a slight tug. I let my fingers slide through the hair my mom brushed out this morning and put into two separate ponytails—pigtails.

    “No thank you;” I smile like my mom tells me to when I say no to something I don’t want to do. The principal’s lips are still in a tight line. Maybe she didn’t see me smile since her desk is so tall.

    I’ve used the bathroom. I said “no thank you.” That’s all there is to do. My new Velcro shoes flash as I take a few steps to the door, but a blue-jean clad thigh blocks me. Farther up from that thigh is a plaid shirt and the sympathetic face of my pre-school teacher.

    “Excuse me.”

    She doesn’t budge. I don’t get it. I said “excuse me.” 

    “Now, Ryann, you can either flush the toilet or I’ll have to call your mom.”

This is coming from behind me—from behind a tall desk.

“We’ll still give you candy corn,” my teacher croaks, smiling at me like candy corn is going to convince me to risk my life. I swivel and my shoes flash again to look at the principal.

Principal beady-eyes makes a “cheese” face at me. Her fingers are still tapping on her desk. The door to her bathroom is cracked how I left it a minute ago, and the neon, skittle-yellow light pierces my eyes. 

“Will one of you go in with me?” I beg, feeling my fingers reach again for my pigtail.

Beady-eyes shakes her head. Her “cheese” face is gone. The line is back on her face.

“What if something happens to me?” My feet begin to shake as they think about what they’re going to have to do.

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” beady-eyes sighs and stops tapping her fingers to motion towards the bathroom door.

“I’ll wait here,” my teacher promises behind me. Like she cares. She’s the one who wouldn’t let me out of this stinking room.

If they were to call my mom would she defend my precious life? Who would do the dusting for her if I didn’t survive? Who would take my toys? Then again, my mom makes me flush at home. The toilet at our house isn’t as—

“Ryann? Do we need to call your mom?”

I shake my head and take the wobbly, flashing steps it takes to get into the blindingly bright bathroom. I push the door further open just in case I get sucked in; one of them will see me and pull me out. I hope.

The stool I had just used a minute ago sits beside the toilet, waiting for the toilet to take its next victim. Maybe I’m being dramatic. That’s what my mom always says. I would think I was being dramatic too if I hadn’t witnessed the toilet’s loud roar and how it spits water while eating my pee and toilet paper.

Why does it like toilet paper anyway? I’ve tried it before. It’s not so great. It just tastes like dusty paper.

    My hands press against the chilly, brick wall as I place one foot on the stool carefully. I don’t want to wobble and fall in. Then I’ll definitely be a goner. 

    Inside the toilet there’s still pee with a now soggy string of toilet paper sitting on top. I’m going to have to set my hand on the seat to reach the lever. 

    “Can you see me?!” I yell outside before I take the risk.

    “Yes.”

    That’s all? They’re not concerned?!

    I set my hand on top of the shiny, silver lever and push down.

    I jump back as it roars and swirls and spits at me. 

    I land on the tile floor with my body in a bridge; hands on the floor, feet on the floor, tummy in the air.

    I walk out of the bathroom, not looking at the principal.

    My teacher smiles down at me. She places her hands on her thighs so she can bend down; “good job! Now you get candy corn!”

    Before I can even protest, the principal has left her desk and is by my side with the clear jar half-way filled with old candy corn.

    “You can take three pieces,” the principal shoves the jar in my face, and I don’t know what to do—other than take three pieces of candy corn. I count them out. One, two, three. They sit in my hand, cool and hard. 

    I look over at my teacher and her face is beaming. She nods at me. 

    I’ll let her have the satisfaction. I place all three pieces in my mouth and take a cautious bite down. It’s just as sandy as I remember.

Those We Never Remember

Author: Audrey Bearss

Were we special? No, oh no. We were forgotten, in the backwoods of the South doomed to community colleges and thrift store jeans. Yet we were perfect to each other. We drew on our eyeliner way too thick in dirty mirrors with an image of Joan Jett pulled up on somebody's cracked iPod in the corner to compare; as we crowded the tiny church bathroom well past maximum capacity. Pictures of some summer romance tucked in CD cases hidden in our book bags to trade. Dollar Tree lunches shoved down before the football smacks someone in the face. Amoung the dead of the cemetery we sit. Telling them our stories and imaging who they were. Homecoming queens, nerds, and rockers. Sprawled out on hot hoods as The Rolling Stones invade the parking lot and three chicks pound the diesel truck's hood in rhythm cause we're too young to drive and too bored to go inside. Ripped away by the month of May, only to be remember when a leg from a wreck goes numb, an Algebra I formula appears, or a tattered old guitar magazine is found in the depths of a closet.

Wishing Well

Author: Lauren Roland

She laughed.

    “Come on, you can’t catch me!” she teased, racing further through the woods, her blue dress flouncing with each step.

    He was panting as he chased her, following the trail of swinging branches and leaves. “Won’t you slow down and enjoy the day?” he called after her.

    Eventually, she did slow down. Stopped, even, right on the edge of the woods, the daylight dripping through the leaves and putting small bright spots all over her skin. “There’s always time to enjoy the day, Robert,” she sang. “Not always time to mess with you.”

    He put his arm around her and laughed as they walked back towards town.

    Marina busied herself with wiping her walls down. It was how she started every morning – wiped down the walls in preparation for the day’s wishes. Since paper and water didn’t mix, she couldn’t have a notebook to keep track in, so she used the walls instead. If you scratched hard enough with whatever coin they threw, you could make a pretty decent mark on the wall. Which would be wiped clean the following morning, unless they hadn’t come true yet. In that case, she would move them to a special section of the wall so she could work on them when she got ideas as to how to grant them.

    She was still working on the whole coming-true part. Some things she could grant right away. Others, not so much. 

    Marina settled down on her perch in the wall. It had taken ages to move enough of the stones so there would be a slight dip for her to sit in, but it worked beautifully now. She decided that she’d wait until she heard the bells for ten, and if nobody had thrown a coin in by then, she’d go up to the top and see what was going on. Otherwise, it was gathering both wishes and coins until she had a lull.

    She didn’t have long to wait at all.

    The sun was now high in the sky and they had left the coolness of the woods far behind them. Just on the outskirts of the town, they came to the old well. The stones may have been more round than square with the passing of years, but it still held cool water.

    “D’you want to stop and get some?” Robert asked. 

    Her breath was coming in short spurts now. “I don’t see why not.” 

    Robert removed the well cover, drew up the bucket and gave her the cup first. She settled down on the edge of the well to drink.

    “Don’t you think it’s a beautiful day, though?” she asked, tilting her head back to stare at the sky. “One of those days where the clouds aren’t too thick and aren’t too thin. Where you can see the sky, but not the sky. Don’t you understand?” She brought her head back down to look at Robert, who had settled down beside her. He laughed and tried to wrap his arm around her waist, but misjudged and she found herself slipping.

    It was a little girl who was first this morning. Margie, Marina thought. She’d been here a few times with friends, but never by herself. And never in such a state.

    Margie gripped her piggy bank tightly as she peered over the rail into the well. “Please let Kissums come back. I didn’t mean to get mad at her, I really didn’t.” She dropped the entire piggy bank into the well. It splashed heavily.

    Marina leaped from her perch and snagged the bank before it could hit the bottom of the well and shatter. It was surprisingly heavy. She looked back up at the sobbing girl and her watery heart broke. 

    Kissums. The name was familiar. It was Margie’s new kitten. Apparently, she was missing. Marina took a coin from the bank and scratched KISSUMS into the wall. Then she closed her eyes and reached out with her mind. 

    The kitten was easily located, napping behind the trashcans by the butcher’s back door. She had a full belly of scraps. Satisfied, Marina floated to the top of the well and whispered in Margie’s ear.

    Have you tried the butcher shop?

    Margie’s crying ceased and she looked around. She’d heard how the well sometimes spoke to people, but she’d always been skeptical. This, though – this she’d heard.

    “The butcher shop?”

    The butcher shop. Scared little kitten, hungry, she’d probably go to somewhere she smells food. 

    Margie clambered to her feet and looked around. She couldn’t see Marina, of course, nobody could. But she took off running towards the shop. Marina smiled and settled back onto her perch, picking up the piggy bank and rolling it in her hands. The coins inside jingled.

    Not twenty minutes later, little Margie was back at the well, lost kitten in arms. “Thank you,” she called down. Marina looked up at the small silhouette on the edge of the well. 

    You’re welcome.

    She toppled backwards with a squeak. Robert leaned over the well and grabbed for her, catching her by the left arm. Her booted feet tried for a hold on the slick stones of the well, but ended up just dangling uselessly, reflected in the water far below, and her right hand clutched desperately at the arms that were beginning to lose their grip.

    “C-come on, now, Robert,” she managed. “You got me. Pull me back up.”

    “Sorry about that.” He looked down at her with a mixture of relief and worry. “Good thing I’ve got–”     

    She smiled up at him, expecting him to set her safely back on the side and then continue on their way back. A different story played out: his hands slipped from hers and she reached for them again, but she was just a little too far gone for him to catch. She plummeted the rest of the way down the well, her billowy dress doing nothing to slow her descent, and landed with a splash and a small shriek in the water at the bottom, some thirty feet down. She sank quickly, but forced herself back to the surface.

    “Robert,” she cried, coughing up a mouthful of liquid. She was treading water frantically in the small space that she had. “Please, you have to help.” Her hand touched the smooth walls of the well, worn to an incredible slickness by the decades. “Get the bucket.”

    Robert had gone as white as a sheet. She looked so frail from such a lofty height. He panicked. He slammed the covering over the well, muffling her screams, and ran in the other direction, heading as far away from the town as he could.

    The scene repeated itself throughout the day. Someone would throw in a coin, make a wish, and Marina would scratch their wish into the wall with the coin. Then she’d use a little ghostly magic and attempt to fix whatever was ailing the wishers.

    Day turned into months, which turned into years, which turned into decades. Still Marina scratched wishes into the wall and tried her best to answer them. Days got busier as more and more people heard about the “real” wishing well. She could no longer instantly grant requests, and her lists on the wall would sometimes take three to four hours to remedy at the end of the night. There was one column on the wall that she didn’t touch, though: the wishes she had been unable to grant. They languished, sometimes for years before she was able to give the wisher what they were looking for. Many were looking for miracles.

    Fifty years passed, and the day of what would have been her seventieth birthday arrived. She was still stuck in the shell of a twenty-year-old, still stuck at the bottom of the well she’d expired in, and still granting wishes as best she could. She’d celebrated with a walk through the town the night before, marveling at how large it had grown and how few people she recognized were still there. There were more recognizable names in the cemetery, but no flowers on her grave yet. She looked forward to seeing if anybody remembered her day.

    By anybody, though, she hadn’t expected him. 

    Marina’s fingers were bloody and her toes were scraped to hell and back. She’d long ago kicked off her boots to keep them from weighing her down. Her socks had come off soon after. She braced herself against the sides again and attempted her seventeenth shuffle up the wall to freedom. It didn’t work, and as she slid back towards the water she knew she didn’t have the strength to hold on much longer. Her voice was already gone, from all the laughing she’d done earlier in the woods with Robert – where was he? – and from screaming for someone to “Help! Help, please!”

    She held on to the two slightly jutting bricks that were right above the water level. It conserved a bit of energy just hanging there instead of trying to tread water. She closed her eyes. “It can’t be that bad, to die,” she whispered. “People do it all the time.”

    She was organizing the previous days’ coin collection, sorting it into denominations (somebody had thrown in a fifty-cent piece!) when a large shadow blocked out the sun. She looked up, surprised. Nobody leaned over the well when tossing in their wish; it was a superstition left over from the days when people had still talked about her. 

    The profile was familiar. That made her smile, considering how few people were still around that had known her in life. She decided to leave her coins and drift closer to see who it was. 

    Robert McAffey stood staring back at her.    

    Marina’s arms were stiff. Judging from the weak light coming in from the minuscule cracks in the well covering, she’d been in the water for several hours. She no longer had enough in her to cry, and she was sure her entire body was blue with cold. Robert wasn’t coming back. Nobody was.

    She let go of the wall.

    He was old. That was a shock. She had seen others grow old, but she’d never imagined that Robert would have, too. His brown hair was white, his green eyes more gray, and his face was a lot droopier than she remembered.

    His hand shook as he fished in his pocket and came up with a handful of silver dollars. There were twenty of them, all dating from the year she had died. He stood over the well and held out his hand. 

    “This is for you, Marina. I wish that I could say that I’m sorry. Fifty years and then some of regretting what I did to you. Who knows why I did what I did? I sure as hell don’t.” He turned his hand over and let the coins fall. They plinked merrily into the water below, unlike Marina’s fatal splash all those years ago. His eyes began to drip.

    Marina picked one coin up and scratched ME into the wall. 

    Robert stood looking into the well for a long time afterward. The feel of the air changed, and tourists looking to toss a coin were deterred by the sight of the old man sobbing by the wishing well. She floated just below, watching him, working up the courage to make the connection. Finally, she did it.

    Hello, Robert.

    She floated for a while, because every time she started to sink she’d panic and wave her arms and bring herself back to the surface. Eventually, she could no longer feel her arms, and the well was pitch-dark. 

    She sank. The water closed above her head with a kiss. Her first breath of water caused her to cough, to sputter, to rethink the whole dying thing and try one more time to get up the walls. The second breath was easier, and the third, and then she could feel the bottom of the well scrape against her back. She closed her eyes and sighed.

    His head snapped up. “Not funny,” he growled. 

    I don’t really have much of a sense of humor any more.

    He looked around, fury billowing out of his eyes. “What sort of coward would dare–”

    That’s a curious question, coming from you, of all people. What sort of coward would leave his fiancé to drown in a well?

    By now, Robert was checking around the frame of the well’s little gazebo for hidden wires or speakers. He found none, because there were none to find. “Who are you?”

    That’s a pretty stupid question.

    “Oh, God.” Robert’s face took on a sickly green tinge. “The well. You’re the well.”

    Ding-ding-ding. Give the man his prize.

    “You’re the reason all these things come true. Makes sense, though. You were always helping anybody you came across.” A smile crossed the old man’s face. “Even those of them that didn’t deserve it.”

    Like you?

    He scowled. “That’s not fair.”

    They found her the next morning when an elderly gentleman went to the well to get some water on his way back from an early morning walk. She was an ethereal beauty in death, her blonde curls unfurled and drifting across the water, her face as blue as the dress she was wearing. She was peaceful.

    The old man was not.

    Within twenty minutes of the discovery, the sheriff dragged his macabre prize from the depths of the well. She was limp and water streamed off her clothing. She wasn’t wearing any shoes. They were fished out later, two scuffed black boots, along with her white lace socks.  

    What do you want to say?

    “I spent twenty years in prison for running away.” He passed a hand over his thinning hair and sighed. “I was a coward. I panicked and I left you behind.”

    I saw you come to my funeral.

    He nodded. “I was a wreck.”

    What changed you?

    Robert gave a small laugh. “The obvious answer is prison. Several people in there couldn’t believe what I’d done. I was beaten more times than I can count. And I broke. Got out early for good behavior.” His fingers gripped the well’s railing so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “And I’ve hated myself ever since.”

    She looked at his arms and noticed the scars. She put her hands on them and he shuddered at the sudden chill. 

    “Yes, I tried to kill myself. Took me thirty years to get up the courage to come back.”

    I forgive you.

    He looked up, eyes still red from weeping. “What? Why?”

    If you hadn’t, there would be a lot more unhappy people around here. Have you noticed? Fifty years of granting wishes. Everything from finding lost pets to healing broken hearts. I’ve only had twenty-three wishes I’ve been unable to grant. She smiled, even though she knew he couldn’t see her.

    “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “We should have spent the last half-century together. Instead, you’ve spent it at the bottom of a well and I’ve spent it in regret.”

    I’m not angry. Not any more. I’ve been able to help so many more people in death. Hundreds and thousands of wishes.

    “Thank you.” He relaxed his grip on the railing and straightened up. “What – what do you do with the coins?”

    Homeless shelters and people on the street. She paused. A little like a modern Robin Hood. But the rich freely part with their money.

    “I’ve got to go.” Robert put out his hand, and he could feel the shiver of her touching him.

    I’ll see you around.

    The town grew. Marina faded from most memories, but the well was never used for drinking again. The story of the girl in the well was brought up from time to time, but nobody paid attention. Soon, tourists began visiting, and some decided to throw coins into the disused well and make a wish.

    It wasn’t long before they realized that their wishes were coming true.

    Years passed. More people made wishes, more people found what they wanted. And still Marina worked, and her list of unanswerable wishes gradually dwindled to zero as she figured out how to grant them.

    The day she wiped her wall completely clean, someone arrived at the well after midnight.

    Marina? It was Robert.

    Still here.

    A light drifted down to her, and the Robert of old was standing there – her Robert, the twenty-three-year-old wonder she’d fallen in love with all those years ago.

    She was suddenly very aware of how she looked – exactly like a drowned girl. Just the way she’d been found.

    You’re beautiful, he said. He held out his hand. This time, I’m not leaving you behind. Let’s get out of this well and go home.

    She looked around at the blank stones and dark water. She felt the chill and the damp for the first time in decades. She took his hand and her appearance changed. Gone were the limp hair, soggy dress, and bare feet. Her golden curls shone in the moonlight, her dress swayed happily in the wind, and her boot heels clicked softly against the wall of the well.

    She smiled, a big smile, one that made her whole face hurt. 

    Let’s go home.

The Accidental Slut

Author: Keshia Mcclantoc

Her porcelain face smiled at me, an assurance I neither needed nor wanted. I scoffed at her and wiped the drool from my lips. I'm sorry, I thought, for vomiting on you. She didn't answer, of course, because she was the toilet. Instead I was greeted with a gargled cry and an urging echo as she took my lunch and everything else with her. Anxiety came in many flavors, each with its own unique form of small terrors. This one, of course, had the usual ingredients of shaking hands and sweat parading across the forehead. The vomiting had been a surprise, something to throw a bit of extra spice in there. It was brought on by my heart beating in a furious crescendo and my breath getting caught in every beat. Oh my old friends, you would think by now I would know what to expect from you. Outside, through the paper thin walls of my safe haven there was a ringing crash, followed by a string of expletives. This is the reminder, it said, get back out there. Some hapless soul had taken to branding the mirror in black marker, saying solemnly in wide curving letters "I don't know who I am but maybe this will help." In a singular space, unoccupied by the marked transgression was a sticker, advertising some local band. The person who didn't know themselves must have put the sticker there, as some pretentious gamble, my music makes me who I am man. Maybe I didn't want to hear the angsty cacophony of your garage band, maybe a bitch just wanted to check her reflection. 

If you look up the word slut on Urban Dictionary, it tells you a slut is a girl who will sleep with anyone. Of course, when looking up the definition for anything, I turn to the true lawmaker, the Oxford English Dictionary. Slut, a woman of dirty, slovenly, or untidy habits. Slut, four letters, one syllable--two in the mouths of the right people. In its one syllable form it's delivered in a sharp swift cut, or the twisting of the knife in a previous injury. In its two syllable form it starts off tight to begin with, falls fat and round at the end. It's like that first heavy raindrop that hits your face right before the rain falls. Why not say both versions to yourself, practice them a bit. Do you hear that, the weight of those words as they leave your lips? 

Coming out of the restroom, I was hit with the cold slap of my anxiety all over again. The bathroom was behind the stage and I had to scoot along between the edge and the graffitied wall, while the band, tuning up and dragging equipment around for their set, stared me down. I didn’t see them seeing me, of course, but I felt the pull of their gaze as I rounded the corner and plunged myself back into the crowd. The people had separated themselves into groups of tall hunching figures draped in flannel shirts, girls whose thighs were accentuated by torn tights, and conversations building and rising in chaotic dissonance. Then, alone, a single lingering figure with hands shoved in pockets. 

Type: mediocre white boy, mid-twenties and still dressing like his sixteen year old self. Expression: monotone--and have fun trying to shake that look into anything else besides boredom. If you asked him what he thought of some nameless pop star's new video, then maybe his face would contort in disgust, and he’d tell you with great indignation, eyebrows raised, what real music was. Not too tall, not too skinny, a lot of greasy hair, shoved under a sagging gray beanie. His face was indistinguishable, only made unique by the sharpness of his jaw, the straight edge of his nose. Looking in the crowd I could see twenty or so more versions of him. It was almost like their soft suburban mothers got them all on wholesale at the Gap, and deposited them with lipstick smiles saying, “Make good choices.” The correct answer would be the rolling of the eyes, the pierced lip saying “shut the hell up.” This one, though, unlike his counterparts, belonged to me. Or maybe not belonged, he was attached, like a leech I had placed on myself. It wasn’t the first time I wondered again about why I had invited him. 

    “Hey,” I said, approaching. His response was immediate, a quick smile and a brief glance at me before settling his eyes on my chest. No, by some strange magic, my tits didn’t fall off in the bathroom, thanks for noticing. 

    “So, do you know if this place is kind to smokers?” he asked, flipping his pack out of his pocket, lighter twirling in his other hand. 

    “Well, I mean, people go outside,” I said, nodding vaguely towards the door. I crossed my arms over my chest, and he answered by letting his gaze follow mine outside. 

    “Well then,” he said, taking out a cigarette with surprising deftness and sticking it between his front teeth, “You cool?”

It’s okay Julia, it’s just me, we’re cool.

    “Yeah,” I said with a dry nod, “I’m cool.”

When he opened the door, a cold rush of biting winter air swept in and he caught the glare of a few naysayers. The venue was entirely too small for this massive crowd. What it lacked in width and length, though, it made up in depth. The ceiling rose into some dark shadowy abyss, segmented by an interlocking labyrinth of rusted pipes. Honestly, it had to be shit for acoustics. Even in their individual groups, the people had been tightly packed. This type of crowd, though, liked the bumping shoulders and bouncing music. Once the band started playing they would have their own little pocket of chaos, and, like a pack of wolves, they would devour it. It was the guy, though, and not the crowd, that had stirred my anxiety. With him gone it was easier to breathe. You could to tell, within fifteen minutes of talking to any guy, whether they wanted to take you home or leave you at the curb. Every impression he had given me so far had been that of former. He hadn’t even wanted to come here, instead he suggested we hang out back at his place. For what, I thought, Netflix and chill? I had been insistent, though, “No, really, my friend invited me and I can’t let her down.” 

    It was the truth, Xandra had invited me. I didn’t let him know, though, that Xandra didn’t want me to invite him. She was across the room know, surrounded, per usual by a flock of guys. Her smile circled around all of them as she giggled, made witty comments, and everything else a nice young lady was supposed to do when entertaining a group of young gentlemen. Her eyes caught mine and her smile stretched deeper, sinking into her dimples. I approached them and became Moses, a shambling opening form that allowed me into the circle.

“You okay Julia?” she asked and I nodded vaguely in response. It was hard for them to resist her, I knew. She was just the type of fine packaging they all dreamed of; small and petite but curvy as well, with big blue eyes, and a pouting bottom lip that she would bite lightly, a signal here, to let know she had other plans for those lips. 

“Your date seems kind of…” she let herself trail off here. 

I needed to tell her believe me, Xandra, I know my date isn’t up to your standards, but instead I said, “He’s not my date, he’s just a guy.”

“Well, if you wanna come over after this tonight, you can,” she said, casting me a sly grin. I returned it weakly and let myself fade away from the circle. One of these guys would end up the lucky one, the one Xandra would pull back into her apartment, kissing and giggling as she fumbled with the the keys. Perhaps she would turn on the light, let them see her as she pulled off her shirt. Soft skin, luminescent in the fluorescents, and her breasts two perky mountains, cupped in the lace of her bra. Or maybe she would keep the lights off, guiding them through the mess of her living room and pushing them unto the bed. If I did go there tonight, then of course I would join them, because Xandra always made me join them. 

The first time it had happened, she hadn’t asked me before, but instead took my hand and pulled me into her room. I was too caught up in the logistics of it, of what to pay attention to. There was so much going on and too much effort to be put into everything. And didn’t it bother them too, that the bed was squeaking too loudly, that we were all sweating too much, that I hadn’t even said once, “Yes, this is what I want.”  It had been the first time since the last time, and when I cried afterwards she apologized and told me, she had just wanted to make me feel good. She knew it was wrong, after what happened, but that she wanted me to feel good about sex again. I told her it didn’t matter, and when it happened again I let it take me away, like one of those lazy river rides at one of the ten thousand water parks parents dragged their kids to. i just let it pull me along and I didn’t make much effort to get out. 

“Hey,” someone said, grabbing my wrist. He was one of Xandra’s followers, casting a sudden line out to me. I noticed immediately that he was ideal for her, generic enough to fit in with the faceless others, but distinguished enough to catch her attention. His hand, lightly gripping at my wrist, was made of long, cold fingers. 

Julia, you’re freezing, let me warm you up.

“Xandra told me your name was Julia, I like that name,” he said, quick to the point, casting me a glance from my head to my toes. 

“Yeah, it is,” I said, pulling my wrist from his grip. “And you’ll have to tell Xandra I won’t be coming to her house tonight.”

His disappointment washed over his face in quick succession and he shrugged before joining Xandra and the rest of her zoo. Behind me there was a gust of cold air, and my anxiety joined me back at my side, the fresh smell of cigarettes on his breath and the red chilled cheeks pulling up along his smile. Just as he reached me, sound spread out across the mike, silencing the crowd. Finally, the band was ready. 

Almost immediately I noticed the guitar player, because it was the thing I always noticed. It was hard to detach the music from the person; it must be integral to their persona. But this music, loud and overwrought, sharpened like a knife against the oppressiveness of society was nothing like the person. The crowd ate it up, bobbing their heads in perfect unison, all along to a rhythm I couldn’t catch. He was soft, with limp blond hair that fell over his bending head. His posture, it seemed, was guided purely by how his instrument moved him. The line, from his shoulder and down the light muscles of his arm and into his fingers, it was a balance, a whole. My companion beside me didn’t notice me noticing someone who was not him. But when I looked back again, I didn’t see the guitar player standing there. Instead I saw the other guy I knew, the one who was a guitar player as well. Hadn’t he too, had that line of balance? Hadn’t he too, let his instrument guide him? Hadn’t he said, Hey, I’m not hurting you, am I? Julia, why are you crying? Don’t cry baby, you wanted this. It’s almost over, now, okay. 

Later on, in the car, I went through the motions of making out with the guy who was my date and not my date. I had told him, right after the first song, “You should drive me home.” What he heard was, “Do you want to fuck me in your car?” 

This part was easy, to put myself through each individual step. Step one, get the boy in the car. Step Two, mash your lips against his. Step Three, moan like you’re enjoying yourself when his hands find your way into your pants. Usually I was really good at step three, some might even say my performances were award Oscar worthy. This time I didn’t even get a bid.  

    “What’s up?” he asked, his cheeks flushed, breath catching at the end of every syllable. 

    “I don’t want to,” I said, short and succinct. 

    “Don’t want to?”

    “Come on,” I said, turning away from him. The anxiety found its way back again, in sudden, shuddering waves that slapped me coldly against the face. It was the scariest thing, saying no. “Don’t pretend you didn’t come with me tonight just to get into my pants.”

    “Well,” he said, “That may have been part of my agenda.”

    I scoffed and sank closer to the window, feeling his fingers run themselves with creeping tingles up my thigh. The words I said fell back into my stomach, hitting the ocean floor like heavy rocks, ‘I don’t want to’. The seaweed wrapped around them, locking them in place--useless. 

    “You know,” I told him, “I don’t even remember your name.”

    “Whose room is this?” he asked. His arms, around me, wrapped tighter. Too tight, I noticed, for me to wriggle my way out of. I moved my head around, seeing only the dark shapes and outlines. 

    “I don’t know, someone whose name I probably can’t remember,” I said and then his hot breath was at my neck, balancing suddenly at the edge of him pressing his lips against it. When I dragged myself into this room, I hadn’t expected anyone to follow me. My head had been pounding, and I knew Xandra would have at least another hour of lap hopping before I dragged her drunk ass home. Certified DD services in form of a friend, that’s me. But then Nathan, Nathan from my history lecture, who always sighed loudly, and audibly, every time Professor Richardson went off on tangents about Rasputin. I always noticed, he always looked over at me with an expression that said, ‘not this again.’ Nathan, whose band had played at the party that night, his fingers moving deftly over the strings. Nathan who had come up to me after they were done playing and asked ‘Julia, have you accepted Rasputin as your Lord and Savior yet?” I hadn’t told him to follow me, I had only said I was finding a place to lay down up stairs. I probably should’ve told him I was finding a place alone. 

    Behind me he pushed forward, finally kissed the back of my neck. For a brief second his arms loosened, and I understood, this is the part where I was supposed to turn around him and kiss him, and so I did. Perhaps after a minute, maybe more or maybe less, he started reaching down and I was aware of pressure, those fingers there, strong and insistent.

“No,” I said, and I knew even then, that he wasn’t going to listen. 

“But you’ll like it, relax,” he said and his fingers were there again, pressing. 

“I can’t, please, don’t.”

“Julia, shhh,” his lips were brushing over my ear, “you know you want this.”

“I don’t want to. Please, Nathan, stop.”

“It will be over in a minute, come on,” he told me, gripping me with those arms again, moving his fingers down again. I was trapped, and suddenly, I felt suffocated. I couldn’t stop him, because surely if I tried, he would never let me have air again.

Would it have been better if I had fought back? Would he have known to stop? Would you be able to say, now’s there’s a girl to believe when she tells us, she’s not a slut. I didn’t, though, and it was easier that way. I laid there, I let him wash over me. The lazy river ride, pulling you along. And when I started crying, he didn’t stop then. He told me afterwards I should have told him I had never done it before, he would have been easier. He thought I was crying because it was my first time. And then there was the girl, who belonged to the room, who found us in her bed and denounced me as a slut to the entire party. There was Nathan who said nothing, Nathan who had chuckled proudly with the rest, “Yeah, yeah that’s the stupid slut I just fucked.”

I walked home because I couldn’t stand be in his car another second afterwards. He didn’t matter and I wouldn’t see him again. But it didn’t matter, because he was just one of the many nameless dozen or so that came after Nathan. I never really knew my rapist was a rapist, at least not until he told me so. I hated that you had were supposed to say it that way, my rapist—like he belonged to me. The truth was, I would always belong to him. He would always have my answer, the no, the stop, the please don’t—those words were his now. He took them and locked them away, somewhere, seemingly, where only I could hear them. When Nathan called me, weeks afterwards, and told me, crying that he was sorry for what he had done, I didn’t know what to say. He relayed me the story, he had been with a girl and he couldn’t get it up, for his mind was too caught on what had happened with me. I laughed then, because it was so ridiculous, my rapist, apologizing to be and giving me a sob story about not being able to get laid. I knew immediately the laughter, loud and bitter with tears rolling down my cheeks, was wrong. I had offended him, he had tried to make the situation right and here I was, belittling him with laughter. “Well, maybe you are a slut,” he told me. “Yeah,” I answered, still laughing, “I probably am.”

 You have to believe me when I say I didn’t mean to be that girl, the one walking home at three am with the taste of some guy’s last score in her mouth. I didn’t mean to be the girl who let her friend pull her into sexual encounters that she didn’t really understand. I didn’t mean to become the girl who became the slut because that’s what people told her she was and sex was all people wanted of her. I was an accident, really, not what I meant to be. The accidental slut on her accidental walk of shame. That’s how life works though, what the person who scrawled on the mirror really needs to know, life is so much easier if you just become what people expect of you. It takes someone brave to defy expectations, and I am not a brave person.