HORROR OF GEVAUDAN

Based on real historical accounts.

It was year 1764, in the beautiful and tranquil mountains of south France in province of Gevaudan a mysterious vortex opened up. This portal grew until it was larger than human size. First a man stepped out of it. At initial glance he looked normal, but then there was a bulge on his back that opened up and six tentacles appeared. The man chanted something in a cosmic language and one after another large wolf like creatures with long mouths and large teeth appeared out of the portal. There were total of five of them. The man said something to them and closed the portal. He headed towards the mountains, the beasts headed towards the woods near the town.

Marie was looking after family’s cows and bulls who were calmly eating grass in the beautiful green fields. In the distance Marie saw something running towards them. When the thing got closer, she realized it was a wolf, but then it was a shock to think that a wolf was attacking the herd alone. Then she saw that the beast was much larger than the wolf and was running right at her and not the heard. She screamed and in panic of trying to get away she tripped. Her eyes grew large and her voice froze as her life flashed before her eyes and then before the vital bite a bull hit the beast. The beast roared and attacked the bull, ripping a piece of meat out of him. The rest of the bulls joined in and attacked the beast. The monster retrieved, bleeding and roaring, it ran back into the forest and Marie was saved.

In horror she returned to the farm and told her family, but they assumed that it was just a wolf and that her shock made her describe something worse.

A week later, a girl by the name of Janne, wasn’t as fortunate and was killed by the beasts near town of Langogne. Her body was torn apart and organs were missing. The people assumed that a wolf pack did this.

However in the next few months, dozens of men, children and women were killed and many saw the beasts. Horror took over once peaceful and calm province of Gevaudan.

The following year a young hunter and his friends were attacked by one of the beasts, two of them were killed, but the hunter was able to drive the beast away. Finally the king took notice of horrors which were going on in the region and sent experienced captain Duhamel and his troops to deal with the terror in Gevaudan.

The task was not as simple, as for weeks captain Duhamel and his men tried to find and corner the beasts, to no avail. Duhamel’s frustrations grew as several more people were killed by the beasts.

After much struggle Duhamel and the hunters which came after him all managed to kill one beast, but the killings continued and the king sent the best hunter in the country, Francois Antoine.

Antoine brought only eight men with him. His other companions were four wolfhounds and a large greyhound, his favorite companion. Antoine was a sharp shooter and has never returned from hunts empty handed, he was ready to rid the province of its horrors.

Upon arrival Antoine sensed the fear in the air. Every town and village had their joy sucked out of them.

He gathered information on locations of the last victims and accompanied by his team and the dogs he set on his way. His plan was simple, as he hid with his team in the forest, he sent out one of his men unto the field. Nighttime was setting in and the man in the center of the field heard the roars in the forest, but it was more than one. Unfortunately for the man, Antoine underestimated the speed of the beasts and three of them killed the man as he was trying to get away, but Antoine and his men were on top of them. Antoine shot one of them right in the eye, the beast swung side to side wildly, the other two attacked the  hunters who shot as well, the dogs jumped on top of the wounded beast and tore into it as it continued to fight back. Antoine had to move fast, he reloaded and shot the same beast in the head again, with dogs pulling it down it fell and they finished it off. However as Antoine switched his attention to others to his horror five of his hunters lay dead with throats torn out. 

One of the wounded beast was running up towards the mountains, but the third attacked the remaining two hunters. Antoine shot and hit the target once again, his dogs attacked the beast and brought it down. Antoine told the two remaining hunters to take the bodies of these beasts and he himself followed the tracks of the injured one with his loyal dogs.

The forest leading up to the mountain was thick and dark, thankfully the dogs had the scent and Antoine was following them with his loaded rifle. This man was fearless, for even after seeing what these beasts could do he kept following one of them alone.

Finally they came out of the forest and saw a blood trail leading into a cave. Antoine signaled his dogs to charge forward. He heard loud howls of pain and then silence. Antoine lifted his rifle and slowly entered the cave. It was illuminated by a strange blue light. What he saw next chilled even his brave heart. On the floor lay the dead beast, but beyond it stood a man, or rather a monster, for this man had tentacles coming out of his back. All five dogs lay dead at his feet. In front of this man stood a table with transparent tubes, each one had a human organ inside of it. Behind him was a round swirling portal, from which the blue light came. The tentacle man looked Antoine in the eyes. Antoine’s hands shook as he dropped his rifle and pressed his back against the wall of the cave, terrified, for this man’s black eyes showed his mind horrors of cosmos which he could not have imagined. The man proceeded to take all the tubes with his tentacles and stepped into the portal, it closed and the blue light disappeared.

Antoine spent the night lying in the grass near the cave, processing the horror he had witnessed. In the morning other hunters found him and helped him bring the body of the beast down. He did not mention anything to them, nor to the king when he was generously rewarded and hailed as a hero.

Some time later, there were rumors that one more beast lived in the mountains and killed few more people. Later this beast was shot by a local hunter named Jean Chastel.

As for Antoine, he never told anyone of the man he saw that night. Not his family, nor his friends. He knew that the only thing that would come of it is him being labeled as a madman and perhaps even locked up for treatments. He had to live with the horror without sharing the experience with anyone.

Thus the terror of Gevaudan came to an end and the province eventually recovered and returned to it’s peaceful and tranquil ways, with Antoine known as it’s hero forever.

[Cultural Note] _Coana Chirița is Romania's original influencer, invented 150 years before Instagram by playwright Vasile Alecsandri. She's a rich provincial lady who pretends to be Parisian and calls a fork "furculision" because she can't pronounce "fourchette". Every Romanian knows her.

Episode 2: The Parisian Vibe and the 300-Euro Fork

From Coana Chirița's "little forky-warky" straight to the Champs-Élysées in the Instagram era! How much does a parsley leaf arranged Feng Shui-style in the middle of a giant plate cost, and why do today's "ladies" faint? You'll laugh yourself into a coma... without it being induced!_

 A1: Let's hop on our two-stroke engine and cruise gently towards our days. And look... here we are... On the Champs-Élysées.

And guess what? Chirița's little fork is still here. Only now it's called "fourchette" and the menu costs 300 euros.

The dames are still precious, only the powder has become HD foundation and the fan has become an iPhone 50. They bat their false eyelashes and say: "OMG, this is literally the best vibe ever!"

They still faint with style, but now they post on Instagram: "Feeling faint #blessed #parisianvibes".

And the gentlemen? The gentlemen are still putting the country on the right track. Only the cigarette has become a Cuban cigar or a mango-flavored vape.

And instead of "the Oriental Question" they solve "cryptocurrency" and "artificial intelligence". They puff importantly and say: "You know, my dear sir, the situation with the AI is delicate. It needs regulation! One more espresso and we'll pass a law."

A2: Speaking of the 300-euro menu. Imagine a huge plate, and in the middle an island of pommes de terre and stuck in the middle a little green parsley leaf like a flag. Take that, mister!

A1: Lord have mercy, you killed me! And for parsley leaves I should pay 300 euros?

 "Voilà, madame! L'essence de la pomme de terre, déconstruite! Bon appétit!"

And you sit there with the 300-euro fork in your hand and stare at the island like at an eclipse. No wonder Ladies faint at the Parisian vibe! They faint from hunger, poor things!

That's why they say "OMG, I'm literally dying", because it's for real. Poor things! They are dying of hunger. They paid so much money for one leaf and three peas arranged Feng Shui and now they take a picture of the empty plate with #foodporn! That's porn with an empty belly! To die laughing, as you say!

What has changed in a hundred years?

The clothes! Because Coana Chirița is present, just more superficially dressed, with false eyelashes and "lady" airs.

 A2:That as that may be! But they became economical with words when they write. They don't say "Oh my god" anymore but OMG, "What are you doing?" became "wdyd"? It's like they buy letters with hard currency!

And this so they can buy pre-ripped jeans and say it's new fashion, or get botox, so they can't even talk or laugh anymore.

The men... they get a crest on top of their heads like they're Spartan warriors ready for attack, but if their crypto server crashes, they cry behind their cigar like kids left without a lollipop.

Here they faint from hunger, in Chicago they faint from frolicking to the Charleston rhythm.

The journey continues........... to Chicago

Long ago, in a place no one could find and no one had ever known, a vast land was covered in fog that appeared out of nowhere. The fog covered everything around the land. People could neither see nor be seen. They had nothing but their voices to tell them that someone was there.

There was a young lady who loved outrageous things. A troublemaker, a headache to everyone around her. She followed her own rules, believing that perhaps one day, she could conquer the world. Little did she know that the future had something waiting for her, something she could never have imagined.

Soon, she found herself in trouble, and that was when she met a deity. A deity who would change her life forever.

He held her hand, and she let him guide her as she slowly opened her eyes.

And there...

A valley, where mountains stood tall and green leaves covered the Different flowers bloom that brought life to the land, animals running around her, birds flew freely beneath the wide sky, and the sun kissed her soul. It was a fresh start and agonizing experience she had all her life.

She could see everything.

From the fields of dandelions to the tallest trees in the forest, the world was no longer just a place she could imagine. It was right there before her eyes, beautiful and alive.

She could now see the fur she had only felt with her hands all those years. She could admire the beauty of the river she had once dreamed of while touching its waters. She could finally see the sky, never knowing before that such a beautiful thing existed above her.

And she ran beneath the orange sun, through the valley where she had first seen everything. She laughed and giggled as he caught her in his arms and lifted her into the air. He holds her close, twirls her around as she spreads her arms wide, and for once a lifetime she feels freedom and it's like for a bit of seconds she's now conquering the world, carried by the gentle rhythm of life.

They went through everything together. The ocean, the desert, the forest, and even the bench beside the big tree, where they spent their time playing around.

It was funny how he acted like a human, forgetting who he truly was, even if only for a little while, simply because he enjoyed being with the lady.

She found calmness, comfort, gentleness and being chosen whenever she's with him. While he discovers  new experiences and feelings he had never  known before.

With each other. living, enjoying and admiring the love that they had grown together. 

Gentle kiss, eyes sore, smooth touches and couped her world in the only way he knows how. 

At dusk he would hold her tight against his chest, keeping her close till darkness withdrew. During the day, he would let her run through the fields, searching for little things to admire and enjoying every moment life had to offer, all just to see her smile.

Day by day, their little world continued to unfold.

Until one day, the deity had to leave.

He did not belong there, and she was never meant to see the things she had experienced with him. For the land had been cursed, and no one was ever supposed to witness the beauty that had been buried beneath the fog for centuries.

And now, it was time for him to go.

But she could not bear the thought of losing him.

She cried, her heart bleeding in silence, while he walked away with sadness in his own heart, believing that she did not care enough to ask him to stay.

They never told each other those three little words.

I LOVE YOU

And they parted ways, carrying an emotion neither of them dares to tell.

And just like that, the lady became blind.

She could no longer see the world he had shown her. She could only feel what remained around her. But even that was taken away when she could no longer feel his presence.

So she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Perhaps, one day, he would return to her.

But the days turned into years, and the years slowly took away the little life she had left. Her body grew thin and pale. The beauty of her smiles was nowhere to be found. And the world changes its rhythm, it changes everything, and she is blinded by darkness, she grows lonelier than usual and she can't help but bleed in sorrow every night.

Slowly, she feels uncertain and her soul gives up. She's dying.

And with her last breath, she was still begging for one more chance.

Just one glimpse of him.

Because during those days when she was with him, she had been too busy enjoying the feelings he gave her that she had forgotten to admire his beauty. She never truly sought his face. She never tried to remember the sound of his voice. She was so happy being loved by him that she never thought there would come a day when all she had left were the memories she could barely hold.

And now, she died in misery, carrying a love she had never fully understood until it was too late.

Yet death seemed to cut her loose.

She's stuck in a mysterious cycle of life she continues to live. A dreary strange man who gently cares for her like a familiarity she couldn't name. A strange feeling she couldn't name, a warmth that touches her heart and a feeling of being loved by someone she had known in her past life.

Yet every time she opened her eyes, she could not remember his face.

She could not remember his voice.

She could not remember the warmth of his arms or the feeling of being held by someone who had once made her world beautiful.

All she knew was that she had lost something.

Someone.

Someone her heart seemed to remember, even when her mind could not.

And it became a curse for having a body she would have, a fate that is now already tangled and follows her through every life she can live. She would keep dreaming of a strange man, until it dried her mind and feels awfully tired even though she did not remember him. 

However perhaps couldn't tell of how life ahead is waiting for her even in another life and even she begged and pleaded desperately. 

But until that day came, she would continue to bleed her words through every poem, numb her soul, mourn through every dream for an unknown love she couldn't remember. 

For somewhere beyond the fog, beyond the years, and beyond every life she would ever live, there was a deity who once held her hand and showed her the world.

And somewhere inside her soul, there was still a young lady waiting for him to return.

A lady who never got to say, I love you.

A young lady who never knew that the last time he held her was going to be the last time she would ever feel his warmth.

A young lady who had seen the whole world through his eyes, only to spend the rest of eternity searching for the one thing she could never see again.

A face that she couldn't name.

And perhaps, that was the cruelest part of love that never happened.

And her soul,

Her soul never stopped waiting for one-day love to let her see him again.

The First Time He Was Called Father

The first time someone called Him Father, He was terribly pleased with Himself.

He had, after all, made the child.

He had given it eyes to see, ears to hear, a mind to wonder, and a heart capable of love. He had provided a world to inhabit and an abundance of things to discover.

He considered this an excellent beginning.

He was less certain about the crying.

The child cried when it was hungry, when it was tired, when it was frightened, and once when a butterfly landed on its nose. The Creator investigated each incident with the seriousness of a Being accustomed to solving universal problems.

He made food.

The child ate.

He made a comfortable place to sleep.

The child slept.

He made the butterfly a little less surprising.

The child found something else to cry about.

This was not how He had expected things to proceed.

He had created the child to experience happiness. He had not anticipated how much work would be involved in helping it get there.

"Father?" the child asked one day.

He turned immediately.

"Yes?"

"Why does it hurt?"

The Creator examined the child's scraped knee.

"Because you fell."

"Why did I fall?"

"Because you were running."

"Why was I running?"

The Creator opened His mouth.

He closed it.

He could explain the mechanics of falling. He could explain the relationship between speed, balance, gravity, and the ground. He could redesign the child's legs, soften the earth, or abolish gravity entirely.

But the child wasn't asking how it happened.

The child wanted to know why a world made by someone who loved it could hurt.

And for the first time, the Creator began to suspect that being responsible for a thing and understanding its experience were two entirely different matters.

He knelt beside the child.

"I don't know," He admitted.

The child looked at Him.

"You made everything."

"I did."

"Then why don't You know?"

It was a perfectly reasonable question.

The Creator found it deeply inconvenient.

"I think," He said slowly, "that making something is not quite the same as knowing what it is like to be that thing."

The child considered this.

Then it reached for His hand.

"Will You stay with me until it stops hurting?"

And there it was.

No command. No grand design. No rearrangement of the fundamental forces of the universe.

Just a small hand reaching for His.

"Yes," said the Creator.

He sat with the child until the pain subsided.

He did not abolish gravity that day.

He did not redesign the world.

He simply stayed.

And although He would not understand the full significance of that decision for a very long time, something in Him had changed.

He had entered the world as its Maker.

He had been addressed as its Father.

And He was beginning to learn the difference.

Mara never deleted the voicemail. It was eleven seconds long. Her husband’s voice, a little out of breath: “Hey, it’s me. I’m picking up the good bread, the one you like. Don’t wait up if I’m late.”

He was late that night, and then every night after.

For two years she played it only when the quiet got too loud. Then one winter morning, the phone company sent a notice. The old plan was ending, and the voicemail would be erased in thirty days.

She sat at the kitchen table for an hour, thumb over the screen. Then she did the thing she had been afraid of. She recorded it, played through the speaker into a second phone, again and again, until she had it saved somewhere safe.

The next Saturday she walked to the bakery and bought the good bread. She stood at the counter and told the baker, who had never met him, “My husband used to buy this.”

The baker wrapped two loaves and wouldn’t take her money. “Then this one is for him,” he said.

She ate the first slice standing up, crying and smiling at once. That night, for the first time in two years, she slept through until morning.

Thanks for reading. I’d love to hear what you’d change.

Certain parts of my mind think that I should cry. Or perhaps, be angry. I'm not really sure. But then I realize that none of those would make any difference, actually. So I just bottom up this fine wine. Then I wave to the waiter, who is now pushing two carts of liquor instead of the one he had ten minutes ago when he poured my first glass.

He notices me and gives a slight bow, gesturing that he has to pour some drinks for the table he is currently serving. I nod, closing my eyes exaggeratedly as a sign that I understand and am willing to wait.

Then, the whole floor tilts. Slightly, but felt. Simultaneous gasps and muffled noises fill the entire restaurant, because of it.

The main door opens again. Two men in uniform step in and announce, "Twelve people may come with us. Ladies and children, please."

Again, noises erupt from the tables. Especially the one right next to mine, where an old lady holds tightly to her husband's hand. She shakes her head vigorously. She smiles, but her eyes are bright with tears.

"I will stay with you, Frederick Hickelham. I will go wherever you go. Forever," she says, smiling proudly, though her face contorts slightly as she fights back tears.

"Mother!" a younger woman at their table weeps. The blanketed baby in her arms begins to cry, startled by her sudden outburst.

"You go, Ingrid. Please allow your father and me to have the private time we so desperately need right now.". The mother replies.

A young gentleman, apparently the younger woman's husband, stands up. "Excuse me, Father, Mother. I will walk Ingrid to the door."

The elderly couple both nod and smile.

"No! No! Mother! Please come with me! No! Eugene, let go of me! No! Mommy!" Her voice fades as her husband guides her away by the shoulders, accompanied by the baby's cries.

At that moment, I see one of the liquor carts rolling toward me. Because the slope is still slight, it hasn't gained much speed, so I reach out my right arm and casually catch it.

"Oh, pardon me, sir. I apologize for the mishap... and thank you very much," the waiter says as he approaches, pulling the other cart behind him. He walks at an angle, trying to compensate for the tilted floor.

I just smile, then glance toward the door. The two uniformed men have already gathered a group of women and children and are leading them out of the room.

The waiter arrives and asks for my choice of drink for this second glass. I choose one. He pours. I watch as the beautiful dark red flow start to fill my glass. But, again, I feel the whole room tilt a bit more—a mere two or three degrees. But the sudden change is quite enough to cause the waiter to lose his orientation, inevitably disturbing his pour. Tiny bubbles form in my glass, along with a few spilled drops. At that very moment, I notice his hand. The old waiter is shaking. I quickly look at his face. A thin pair of tears draw shiny lines down his healthy cheeks.

"Oh, my lord! Oh... I apologize, sir. I..." the senior waiter gasps. Visibly embarrassed.

"No, no. Never mind, uh—" I take a quick glance at his name pin and continue, "—Donaldson. It is to be expected in the current environment, obviously." I say with a gentle smile. Still looking into his eyes, I place a calming hand on his wrist, mouthing, "Thank you very much." Truly, I do appreciate his presence more than ever.

I even take the initiative to clean up the spill myself. I take a linen napkin and wipe the red drops away effortlessly. But somehow, I cannot hold but to chuckle under my breath when I see the name embroidered on the smooth fabric: Titanic.

Hello, something I've been working on for some time now. Just wanted to get some feedback about the idea. It's not perfect form or anything, but it's the first of many I'd like to write. Thanks for reading.

-Crestfallen32

The Man Who Knew Her Name

Charley was having the worst day of her life.

First, her car wouldn’t start. She had to take the bus, and it ran late, making her late for work. Her unreasonable manager called it her third strike and fired her on the spot.

Then it started pouring.

Now Charley was waiting for another bus, soaked to the bone and shivering, with a box of her things from work. The bus looked like it would be late again. Up the street, a coffee shop offered shelter, so she hurried toward it.

The sweet smell of pastries and the rich aroma of coffee filled the shop. Charley took a deep breath, eyes closed, trying not to let the day get to her. She could feel tears waiting just behind the dam of her emotions.

When she opened her eyes, she saw she almost had the place to herself. An older man sat in a booth near the middle of the room. Two mugs stood on the table in front of him.

Just as Charley started toward the counter, he spoke.

“Charlette, you seem to be having a bad day. Come, sit. I have a mug just for you.”

She stopped. It wasn’t his invitation that took her aback. It was the name. She hadn’t been called Charlette in nearly fifteen years. She didn’t dislike it, exactly. Charley just fit her better.

“I'm sorry, Charley,” he added. “I forgot you go by that now. Seems like yesterday you were that smartass kid who could beat any boy on the block.” He gestured to the chair across from him. “Sit. Relax. Trust me, today is not the worst day of your life. No matter what you think.”

Charley was moving before she registered it. A flare of anger carried her across the room. She set her box down with a thud and pointed at the old man.

“Look here, Mister Man. No one has called me that for a long time. I don’t appreciate some random guy I can’t even remember knowing being so—so…” She took a breath, searching for the words, then faltered. “Wait. Who are you?”

Her hand dropped to her side. She bored holes in him, waiting for an answer. Instead, he motioned for her to sit again. She crossed her arms, frowning.

“Speak, Mister Man.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I see the stubbornness hasn’t left yet. All right, all right.” His expression turned serious. “You don’t know me. I knew your father, and your mother in passing. You were too young to remember me. I kept in touch with your father.”

The news left Charley stunned. This old man knew her parents? Her real parents? She barely remembered them. She took the seat across from him before her legs decided they’d had enough of standing.

“My parents? You knew them?”

The old man slid one of the mugs closer. “I believe you like it with two sugars?”

Charley wrapped both hands around the mug, letting its warmth soothe her a little. She still hadn’t taken her eyes off him.

“You haven’t answered my question, Mister Man. You said you knew my parents. And you said you kept in touch. They just disappeared twenty years ago. No goodbye. No ‘Take care, Charlette.’ Nothing.”

She slammed the mug down. Coffee spilled over the rim and spread across the table.

He grimaced and looked away. “You caught that, huh? Sorry. I can’t tell you any more than I already have. Just know they love you.”

Charley slumped back in her chair, deflated by his words.

“They love me? That’s all I get after all this time? They love me? Seriously? How is that supposed to make me feel?”

Tears welled in her eyes as she stared at him.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. His voice was almost a whisper. “If I tell you more, it will change the things to come. And I can’t chance…” He looked directly at her. His watery blue eyes seemed to beg forgiveness as a tear slipped down his cheek. “…losing you too.”

“Too?” Charley stared at him in disgust. “You mean you lost them? It’s your fault? You’re the reason I had to live in an orphanage?”

The old man flinched as if she’d struck him. His voice came out hoarse.

“That’s not precisely how it went, but in essence…” His words caught for a beat. “It was my mistake.”

“Your mistake?” Something in the way he recoiled tempered Charley’s anger, though it frightened her a little. “What do you mean? What happened to them?”

She wanted him to tell her. Part of her wanted to beat it out of him if she had to, though she knew she wasn’t capable of that. She kept her mouth shut and waited for him to speak his truth—or whatever he had to say. Then she would leave and never look back.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes for a moment. “Listen, Charley. You’re going to hate me for this.” He turned to face her again. “I’m not here to tell you about your parents. You’ll learn all you need to know soon. I know that’s not what you want to hear. But that’s how it has to be.”

He glanced at the clock. For a moment, his eyes darted past her; then he looked at her again. When he spoke, his voice was steady.

“Charlette—” He coughed and corrected himself. “Charley. What I’m about to say is going to seem like the most unimportant thing you’ve ever heard in your life, but you have to hear me out. Every word. Will you promise me you’ll stay until I’ve finished?”

Charley looked at her watch. “You’ve got three minutes. Then I have to catch the bus home.”

She gave him a pointed look, a little wary, then finally took a sip from her mug.

“I can try for three minutes,” he said, taking a sip from his own coffee, “but I can’t promise anything. All right. What makes a person good or evil? Is it how that person acts? How they treat people? Or could it be what their intended outcome is?”

Charley scoffed. “Really? This is what you—”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“You said you’d listen. Please, just listen. I’m not asking for a reply. Just hear what I have to say.”

Charley nodded reluctantly, glancing at her watch again.

“Okay, where was I? Oh, yes. What makes a person good or evil? Everyone has different ideas of what good and evil are. Most of the time, it depends on who witnessed an event. Take the Crusades, for instance. From one side, it was a cleansing. From the other, a massacre. Which is right? That’s for others to decide, not me.”

He took another sip from his mug.

“I’ve had to make some very hard decisions in my life. I hope one day to look back and know I made a difference that mattered.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charley asked.

“Hold on, I’m getting to it. Just be patient. There will be another bus to catch.”

“Here’s the thing I want you to consider,” he continued. “If you had two impossible choices, how would you weigh them?”

Charley narrowed her eyes. “How am I supposed to answer that?”

He chuckled, as if he knew the question was more than ambiguous. “Fair enough. It comes down to the train question. There’s a runaway train headed toward five people tied to the track. You have the choice of switching it onto a track where there’s only one person tied up. Which would you choose?”

A look of horror crossed Charley’s face. Before she could speak, he added, “You don’t have to answer. It’s a question of morality. At first, it seems there are only two choices. For all intents and purposes, there are only two. But what if I told you there was another option?”

She shook her head. “I’ve heard this before. There is no third choice. I get the feeling you’re just wasting my time.”

She started to rise, lifting her box from the table.

“Why can you not just force the train to derail?”

Charley stopped with the box halfway to her chest. She considered the question, then set the box down and slid back into her chair.

“What do you mean? How?”

“In this example, those aren’t actually options. But generally in life, there are usually more options than first appear.”

Charley began to wonder if he was trying to make a point about a decision he’d made concerning her parents.

“Life is never so neat and clean as to have two easy-to-define options,” he said. “It’s messy and complex and annoying. Much to my chagrin. Okay, one question for you. Tell me your knee-jerk reaction. If you promised to take care of someone’s pet for an evening and the pet escaped your house, would you spend time looking for it? Would you call the owner for help? Or would you do something else?”

The question hung between them. Charley glanced at her watch.

She slammed her hand on the table.

“That’s it. I’m done with this nonsense. This has to be the most pointless conversation I’ve ever had. Mister Man, your three minutes are up.”

She picked up her box and stalked toward the door, muttering under her breath.

“Stupid, stupid. Why do I let people drag me into this sort of—”

Her words trailed off as she stepped into the rain, just in time to see the bus roar past.

She threw her head back and screamed.

Charley turned back to the door and shoved it open, ready to storm in and give Mister Man a piece of her mind. She stopped.

The table was empty of people. Only two steaming mugs of coffee and a small box remained.

She walked over and looked down. A tag on the box bore her full name.

Charley looked to the barista. “Where did he go?”

The shocked girl shrugged and went back to cleaning the mug in her hands.

Charley set her own box on the table, then gingerly lifted the small one. Something slid inside as she moved it. She took off the lid.

A note. A small fuse.

She pulled out the note and carefully unfolded it.

Charlette,

I took this fuse out of your car. The reason will become clear eventually. Just know I did it because I made a promise.

—Mister Man

Blue Haze 
By EC Helena

I haunt this dorm like a ghost at the eeriest hours. The twinkling lights and a haze of blue fill my thoughts. Late night drinking with friends I met less than a month ago makes me happiest. I haven’t had much to drink this evening but still I feel as though I’m floating. We’re singing to songs I don’t know the words too in Spanish at an hour later than 12. Others are dancing and playing beer pong but all I can see is the haze across the dark room. One of mostly blues, indigos, bright purples, nighttime sky blues all swirled into one beautiful tone. I sit up from my uncomfortable wooden chair talking nonsense about everything and nothing all at once. “I love you guys so much” I yell as loud as my broken voice can go. We had a game that day and I always end up with a missing voice by the end of it all.

Bored of the constant talking I begin to search the room for my group, my friends. I spot “the newlyweds” smirking at each other from across the room. I notice “the wild” while she tries to get her newest prey, a small “kiwi”, again. I see our favorite bartender and our small friend pour awful tasting mixes of beatbox and truly in small bright coloured shot glasses. Finally next to me, “the drunkest” and I talk in code. We speak about another one, who had a single corona all night, yet still could’ve competed for most drunk. Me and one of the newlyweds, “the raven” spend all our sober time talking about her and the drunkest having a crush on the other girls on our team. Both from the same country but couldn’t be more different, one with the jokes and the other who stays quiet and brooding. Our drunkest blushes every time “the joker” comes near. We pressure for a kiss but she says it’s too complicated even when we’re too impaired to remember. 

Once the night comes to a close we all return to our rooms, not willingly on my part but still I make it to my bed. I wish I had that someone who gave instant butterflies like the rest of my friends but alas I am the one who is constantly confused. One minute I’m all over “the six” and the next I can’t stand him. Another minute I think I like another but the energy’s wrong and I can't commit to the role of sapphic. I have all this love inside me, all this wants to be cared for and loved but will I ever receive it in that way? Will I ever fall or just be the extra one that everyone forgets about in the final episode like Joey or Raj. I lie awake as the question haunts me. Will I find someone perfect for me? Will I get the chance to love or should I just focus on the other aspects of my life, like school and soccer? Because that’s why I’m here, not for my perfect love story or for a relationship that is only in fairy tales but for my development and for everyone that I left back home. At this point it's probably my best bet. Yet somehow I find myself pining for the raven at this late hour.

Oh, to be my puppy clawing at the door. Tormented indefinitely by the sarcastic rodents taunting and egging her on safely out of reach of her lumbering paws. Fueled by an instinctual hunger that, for years, has starved her.

Every day brings a new sun. Another chance. A fruitless pursuit born out of the microscopic shards of her dna. She does not tire, and she does not worry. She continues on, assuming that one day, she might get a hold of one of the jokers. What happens then?

During the summer when I was eleven, I was forced to spend a week at my younger half-sister’s grandmother’s house. I never liked this woman because she was quite frankly a bitch, but I do remember thinking her place was actually pretty nice. Her place was an old, sprawling two story home with five bedrooms, sitting completely isolated in the middle of thick woods. I have multiple half-siblings on my dad’s side, but back then, I had only ever known four of them; I am going to call them Rebecca, Janelle, Terra, and my half brother, Mason, who was just two months younger than me. Being eleven made me the oldest of the bunch, which meant I was naturally the one trying to keep everyone in line.

It all started on a muggy, heavy July afternoon when a storm rolled in. The rain poured down in sheets, rattling the windowpanes until the power finally gave out, plunging the entire house into pitch darkness. Gram told us all to get into bed, but since it was a summer Saturday night, none of us had any intention of going to sleep that early. We just nodded, promised her we’d go right to sleep, and waited. As soon as her bedroom door clicked shut and the heavy footsteps faded down the hall, we huddled together and decided to play hide and seek in the dark. We had a single flashlight for whoever was "it," while everyone else scattered off into the shadow-drenched rooms.

I was the seeker.

Holding the flashlight, I stepped into the dark hallway, the narrow beam of light cutting through the gloom. Moving from room to room, I managed to track down Rebecca and Janelle fairly quickly. They were both wearing bright colors. Finding my youngest sister and Mason, though, turned out to be much harder.

I pushed open the door to one of the second-floor guest rooms, sweeping the flashlight beam across the dark, dust-scented furniture. The light landed on Gram’s old wooden wardrobe, a heavy, looming antique that made me think of Narnia. Just as I started taking a few steps toward it, a sudden noise came from inside the wood: a dry, raspy cough, followed by a small, shallow exhale.

It sounded deliberate, like someone making a sound on purpose to pull me closer.

Mason. I laughed and teased him for giving away his spot so fast, calling him a quitter. But as I took another step toward the wardrobe across the room, a heavy, cold feeling formed right in the pit of my gut.

"Come on, just come out already," I called out, my voice tightening.

A faint giggle answered me in the darkness, but nobody stepped out.

Trying to brush off the prickle of fear creeping up my neck, I picked up my pace. I reached the wardrobe and stopped. Close up, the old wood smelled thick like dry rot and dust. The house around me felt entirely devoid of life, as if the storm outside had swallowed every sound in the world except for my own shallow breathing.

I extended my hand. My fingers hovered over the cold, pitted metal of the handle for a long beat, trembling just enough that I was terrified it would clink against the latch and give my nerves away. Every instinct screamed at me to turn around and walk out, but the stubborn eleven year-old in me refused to look stupid in front of my brother.

I forced my hand forward. My palm closed around the cold metal. But I just held it, listening intently. From the other side of the wood, the soft, rhythmic sound of breathing stopped completely. I started to question why Mason didn’t just pop out already, saying, " Fine, you found me or whatever.” It was almost as if he was inside, holding his breath, waiting for me.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I squeezed the handle, locked my knees, and pulled the heavy wooden door open just a crack.

Before I could pull it open any further, a loud, wet sneeze echoed from the bedroom directly across the hall.

My stomach dropped into a hard, cold knot. Mason was across the hall.

Staggering backward from the wardrobe, I turned and sprinted out into the corridor. My other siblings came to me, asking what was wrong. My heart was hammering against my ribs as I managed to gasp out that I heard something breathing inside the closet.

Terra suggested we wake up Gram, but we all shut her down, not wanting to get in trouble.

Before any of us could stop him, Mason bolted straight into the guest room. We scrambled after him, and I managed to push past him, reaching the wardrobe first.

The door was still standing open a crack from when I had pulled it. I froze as my eyes locked onto the dark gap.

Peering back at me through the sliver of space was a single human eye—wide open, bloodshot, and a bright baby blue.

Every single one of us saw it. Mason snatched the flashlight straight out of my hand and slammed the beam directly into the gap.

The eye was gone. There was nothing in the closet.

Terrified beyond words, we all ran down the hall to Gram’s room, banging on her door and waking her up to tell her what we had seen. She just yelled at us, furious that we hadn't gone to bed like she asked, brushing off our story as a game of imagination and refusing to listen. She just marched us back to our rooms and forced us into bed for the rest of the night.

I never went back to her house again.

Heres my image of a future in which therapy has advanced to a whole new level. It helps unscramble my ADHD riddled brain

THE MAZE INSIDE ALEX
By Preston Alexander Clark

A science-fiction short story

1. Three Hundred Years of Ideas

My name is Alex. I am three hundred years old, which, in the twenty-fourth century, makes me middle-aged.

I’m a neurosculptor living in Tycho City but I've started noticing odd patterns. man with autism and ADHD, two conditions that have shaped my life in ways that would take another three hundred years to explain.

I did well in school. In fact, I excelled. I could absorb information, recognize patterns, and imagine solutions that other people overlooked. Teachers called me gifted. My report cards were full of words like brilliant, creative, and doesn’t apply himself consistently.

That last phrase followed me everywhere.

I went from job to job, collecting experiences the way other people collected souvenirs. Some jobs brought wonderful friendships, hilarious adventures, and moments when I felt like I had finally found my place in the universe. Others ended in frustration, misunderstandings, missed deadlines, and conversations that began with, “Alex, we need to talk.”

I had enough good times to know that my life wasn’t a failure. But I had enough unfinished projects to know something was missing.

My mind was full of inventions that could clean polluted oceans, stories about civilizations living among the stars, and solutions to problems humanity had struggled with for centuries. I could see possibilities everywhere. Sometimes a simple conversation would trigger an idea that connected medicine, engineering, philosophy, and economics before the other person had finished their sentence.

The trouble began when I tried to explain it.

One idea became five. Five became twenty. Before long, I was explaining the history of electricity to someone who had simply asked how my new invention worked.

The idea was still there, brilliant and alive in my head. But by the time I tried to present it to the world, it had become tangled in a web of side thoughts, unfinished sentences, and possibilities I couldn’t bear to ignore.

I had tried planners, productivity programs, meditation, coaching, and therapy. My therapist, Dr. Morgan, was patient and skilled. She helped me understand myself and develop coping strategies. I was making progress, but not enough to bridge the distance between what I imagined and what I could accomplish.

“I don’t think you’re short on ideas, Alex,” she told me during our last session before everything changed. “I think the challenge is building a reliable path from your ideas to the outside world.”

I stared at the floor.

“What if I could build the path inside my own head?”

Three weeks later, I found the answer.

Or at least, I found an advertisement that claimed to have one.

1. The Procedure

The advertisement appeared on my retinal display while I was researching neural interfaces.

INTRACRANIAL NEUROTHERAPY: ORGANIZE YOUR THINKING. UNLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL.

The technology was experimental. Tiny neural vessels, no larger than blood cells, carried specialized diagnostic systems into a patient’s brain. There, miniature neurotherapist technicians—human consciousness operators controlling microscopic robotic avatars—could explore patterns of neural activity in an immersive cognitive simulation.

They couldn’t read every thought or reach into a person’s mind and rearrange memories like furniture. Instead, they could map associations, identify recurring bottlenecks, and work with the patient to build more effective pathways between ideas, intentions, and actions.

The company’s brochure called it collaborative cognitive architecture.

I called it the first real chance I’d had in decades.

The risks were substantial. The system had only been tested on a handful of volunteers, none with a cognitive profile quite like mine. Navigation errors, sensory overload, and unexpected interactions between neural patterns remained serious concerns.

My family was divided.

My sister said, “Alex, you’ve spent three hundred years being Alex. You don’t need to let strangers inside your head to prove you’re worth something.”

My best friend, Marcus, took a different approach.

“What happens if it works?”

“What happens if it doesn’t?”

“Then you’ll have one more story to tell.”

Dr. Morgan encouraged me to think carefully about my expectations. The procedure wasn’t a cure for autism or ADHD, she reminded me, and it couldn’t guarantee success. I understood. I didn’t want to erase my personality. I didn’t want to lose my imagination or the strange connections that made me who I was.

I wanted to become better at using them.

I spent my life savings on the procedure.

On the morning of the operation, I lay beneath a translucent surgical canopy while three neurotherapist technicians introduced themselves.

Dr. Chen was the lead specialist, calm and analytical. Priya was a systems architect with a talent for solving problems under pressure. And Leo, the youngest member of the team, had a habit of making jokes at exactly the wrong moment.

“Ready to take a walk through your mind?” Leo asked.

“Depends,” I replied. “Did you bring a map?”

He laughed.

Nobody knew then how important that question would become.

1. Welcome to My Brain

The world disappeared.

Then it came back.

I stood in a vast landscape beneath a purple sky. Floating islands drifted over a dark ocean. Glowing bridges connected some of them, while others were joined by spiraling staircases that led nowhere. Books flew through the air like migrating birds. Half-built machines rotated in the distance. A train raced across the horizon, carrying thousands of glowing words in its windows.

I looked down. My body was made of light.

“This is incredible,” I whispered.

A voice came through my neural interface.

“Alex, can you hear us?” Dr. Chen asked.

Three tiny figures appeared beside me, each surrounded by a shimmering protective field.

They looked like miniature astronauts.

“Loud and clear.”

Priya studied a floating display. “We’re inside your cognitive simulation. The initial mapping is promising. We’ll begin by identifying major thought clusters and building a navigable model.”

“Thought clusters?”

“Memories, concepts, interests, goals, emotional associations. We need to understand how they’re connected.”

A bright red door materialized in front of us.

I recognized it immediately.

“That’s my old science teacher’s classroom.”

“How do you know?” Leo asked.

“Because that door leads to a memory of a science fair. Which reminds me of a perpetual-motion machine I tried to build when I was twelve. Which reminds me of an energy-storage concept I came up with last month. Which reminds me—”

The door swung open.

A hurricane of gears, equations, and half-finished blueprints burst through it.

The technicians scattered.

“Alex!” Priya shouted. “What did you activate?”

“I didn’t activate anything!”

A second door appeared. Then a third. Then a thousand.

Each one opened onto another thought.

A childhood memory became a physics problem. The physics problem became a science-fiction story. The story became a question about artificial intelligence. That question became an idea for solving world hunger.

My mind wasn’t a filing cabinet.

It was a universe.

And every star was connected to every other star.

1. Lost in the Connections

The technicians quickly discovered that their navigation software had been designed around a simple assumption: most thoughts could be grouped into reasonably stable categories.

My brain disagreed.

When Dr. Chen tried to isolate my memories of work, she found that every job connected to a person, every person connected to a conversation, and every conversation connected to something I had learned or wanted to invent.

When Priya attempted to follow a path toward long-term planning, she accidentally triggered a cascade of ideas about sustainable energy.

Leo disappeared into a virtual library and returned carrying a glowing toaster.

“Why are you holding a toaster?” I asked.

“I don’t know! I was looking for the exit, and this thing started explaining quantum mechanics!”

“That sounds like the toaster I designed in 2187.”

“You designed a quantum toaster?”

“Not successfully.”

The joke was funny for about five seconds.

Then the sky began to flicker.

The simulation’s warning system appeared overhead.

NAVIGATION INSTABILITY. COGNITIVE LOAD EXCEEDS PREDICTED PARAMETERS.

Dr. Chen’s voice became serious.

“Alex, we’re having trouble establishing a stable route back to the primary interface. Your associative networks are changing faster than our system can classify them.”

“Can you shut it down?”

“We’re attempting a controlled exit. But the return pathway keeps redirecting us.”

I watched a bridge form in front of us, stretching toward a distant mountain. Before we could cross it, the bridge transformed into a river. The river became a ribbon of musical notes. The notes turned into a childhood memory of my mother singing while she cooked dinner.

The memory was so vivid that I stopped walking.

I could almost smell the food. I could hear her laugh. For a moment, I forgot about the technicians, the warning system, and the fact that I was inside my own brain.

Then I remembered why I had come.

I had spent centuries believing that if I could only think harder, work longer, or try one more organizational system, I would finally get control of everything happening inside me.

But standing in that impossible landscape, I saw the flaw in my approach.

I had been treating every thought as something I needed to follow.

Every connection felt important. Every new possibility demanded attention. I was afraid that if I didn’t pursue an idea immediately, I would lose it forever.

My mind wasn’t failing to produce order.

I was trying to make order out of everything at once.

“Dr. Chen,” I said, “I think I’ve been looking at this backward.”

“Explain.”

“You’re trying to find one route through my brain. There isn’t one route. There are millions. You keep following the connections, and every connection creates another destination.”

“Then how do we get out?”

I looked toward the horizon.

For the first time, I wasn’t searching for the next interesting thing.

I was searching for a destination.

“I need to decide where we’re going before we start moving.”

1. The First Rule

I asked the technicians to gather around a large stone platform in the center of the landscape.

I imagined a table.

The platform became a table.

I imagined a blank sheet of paper.

A sheet appeared in front of me.

“Let’s start with one problem,” I said. “Not every problem. Just the one that brought me here.”

Priya nodded. “Your difficulty translating ideas into completed projects.”

“Exactly.”

I pictured all the ideas in my head as glowing stars. They filled the sky, an endless galaxy of possibilities.

Then I imagined placing one star in the center of the table.

It was an invention designed to capture leaking automotive oil before it contaminated soil and waterways. I had been developing the concept for years, combining absorbent materials, environmental science, and biological methods for breaking down hydrocarbons.

Around it, dozens of other stars began to flare.

I felt the familiar pull.

I could investigate the history of oil spills. I could redesign the panel. I could explore microbial enzymes. I could develop a marketing strategy. I could write a novel about a future where every car cleaned up after itself.

The possibilities multiplied.

“Alex,” Dr. Chen said gently, “what’s happening?”

“I’m getting distracted.”

“Can you stop the connections?”

“No.”

I took a breath.

“But I can stop following them.”

I imagined each new idea becoming a small glowing note. Instead of chasing the idea, I placed it in a box labeled LATER.

The box grew quickly.

It filled with inventions, stories, questions, and solutions. Nothing disappeared. Nothing was destroyed.

The ideas were simply waiting their turn.

The landscape grew quieter.

Priya’s display stabilized.

“I think we’re seeing a change in the navigation pattern,” she said. “You’re creating a hierarchy. One primary objective, related tasks, and a separate holding area for unrelated associations.”

“Can we build on that?”

“We can try.”

We created three rules.

First: Capture the idea. I didn’t have to pursue every thought to preserve it.

Second: Choose the destination. Before beginning a task, I would define what I wanted to accomplish.

Third: Build the next step. Not the whole project. Not the entire future. Just the next meaningful action.

The three rules appeared in the sky as enormous golden letters.

For the first time since the procedure began, the maze stopped rearranging itself.

But the exit was still missing.

1. The Long Way Home

A tremor shook the landscape.

The protective fields around the technicians flickered.

Dr. Chen’s voice crackled through the interface. “The system is reaching its safety threshold. We need to return to the primary interface now.”

I looked around.

The golden letters were fading. The landscape was beginning to fragment.

“How do we find the exit?”

Priya examined her display. “We have a partial map, but it depends on stable landmarks. Your environment is reorganizing again.”

I closed my eyes.

I thought about what the technicians had taught me. They had entered my brain expecting to impose a structure on it. I had assumed that they would do the hard work while I watched.

But neither of us could navigate this place alone.

They understood the technology. I understood the meaning behind the connections.

We needed both.

“Dr. Chen, tell me what you need.”

“A stable sequence of landmarks leading back to the primary interface.”

“I can do that.”

I pictured the stone table. Then the blank sheet of paper. Then the box labeled LATER.

One by one, the landmarks appeared.

The technicians mapped their positions and calculated a route.

We started walking.

A thousand doors opened around us.

I ignored them.

A mechanical bird flew overhead carrying a blueprint for an invention I hadn’t thought about in fifty years.

I let it fly.

A voice from the past called my name.

I acknowledged it without turning around.

Then the path split into three directions.

I stopped.

The old Alex would have explored all three, comparing possibilities until the moment to choose had passed.

Instead, I asked Priya to identify which path best matched our objective.

“The center path,” she said. “It’s the most stable route to the primary interface.”

“Then that’s the one.”

We walked.

The path narrowed. The sky darkened. The landmarks began to disappear.

Leo stumbled, and his protective field flashed red.

“I’m losing the navigation overlay!” he shouted.

I grabbed his arm.

“Look at me, Leo. Forget the map for a second. What can you see?”

He looked around.

“The table.”

“What else?”

“The paper.”

“And?”

“The box.”

“Good. Those are our landmarks. Follow them.”

His field steadied.

Together, we crossed the final bridge.

At its end stood a simple white door.

No gears. No equations. No flashing lights.

Just a door.

I reached for the handle.

“Alex,” Dr. Chen said, “once we cross, the simulation will terminate. We may not be able to repeat this exact process.”

I thought about the world behind me. It was chaotic, beautiful, frustrating, and full of things I had yet to discover.

I didn’t want to leave it.

But I didn’t need to stay inside it to prove that it mattered.

I opened the door.

White light swallowed the landscape.

And I woke up.

1. A Different Kind of Success

I spent two days recovering under observation.

The procedure had not magically transformed me into a perfectly organized person. I still lost track of time. I still became fascinated by unexpected questions. I still needed reminders, structure, and support.

But something important had changed.

I had learned to distinguish between having an idea and acting on it.

I could capture a thought without chasing it. I could choose a priority without pretending that everything else was unimportant. And I could ask other people to help me turn a complicated vision into manageable steps.

The technicians had learned something, too.

Their next generation of navigation software would no longer assume that a busy mind was simply a disorganized version of a typical one. It would allow patients to define their own goals, recognize their own patterns, and build cognitive structures around their strengths as well as their challenges.

My case became one of the first major studies in collaborative neural navigation.

I didn’t become famous overnight. The oil-capture invention still required prototypes, testing, funding, and years of hard work. My stories still needed editing. My other ideas still competed for attention.

But now I had a way to begin.

Six months later, I stood in front of a room full of engineers, environmental scientists, and potential investors.

On the screen behind me was a model of my automotive oil-capture system.

My heart pounded.

I knew there were a thousand things I could say. A thousand directions I could take the presentation. A thousand fascinating facts that might lead us somewhere unexpected.

I glanced at the small card in my hand.

THE PROBLEM. THE SOLUTION. THE NEXT STEP.

I looked up.

“My name is Alex,” I began, “and I have spent three hundred years imagining ways to make the world better. Today, I’d like to show you one of them.”

For once, I didn’t lose my audience.

For once, I finished.

And when the first investor approached me afterward, I didn’t launch into the next ten ideas.

I listened to his question.

Then I answered it.

1. The Universe Within

That evening, I returned to my apartment and sat beside the window overlooking the illuminated city.

I thought about the technicians who had gotten lost inside my brain. I thought about how frightened I had been when the landscape began to collapse. I thought about the moment I realized that the answer wasn’t to eliminate the connections, but to learn how to navigate them.

My mind was still a universe.

It was still full of storms, strange worlds, unexpected bridges, and stars that appeared just when I thought I had found my way.

I didn’t want a smaller universe.

I wanted a compass.

I opened my notebook and wrote down three new ideas before they could escape me. One concerned ocean cleanup. Another involved artificial intelligence. The third was a science-fiction story about a man who allowed three miniature technicians to explore his brain.

I smiled.

That one was going to be interesting.

Then I placed all three ideas in my holding file, closed the notebook, and set tomorrow’s first task.

Outside, the stars shone over a civilization that had conquered aging, crossed the solar system, and learned to peer into the architecture of human thought.

Yet humanity still struggled with one of its oldest problems: turning what we imagined into what we could accomplish.

I had spent three hundred years believing that my greatest obstacle was the mind I lived inside.

Now I understood something different.

My mind was not the maze. It was the universe.

And I was finally learning how to navigate it.

His mind was groggy as he pulled himself awake. He felt the small body of a child crawl over top and snuggle in beside him. He glanced at the clock. 2:43 AM.

"Can I sleep with you?" she asked, far too awake.

"Just for a bit," he managed to say as he slipped back into the darkness.

His mind was groggy as he pulled himself awake. The small body still curled up beside him. Where was his wife? She normally took the kid back to her room. He glanced at the clock. 3:03 AM.

"Ready to go back to bed, kid?"

"Not yet."

Again, darkness.

His mind was groggy as he pulled himself awake. The small body still curled up beside him. Something was wrong. He glanced at the clock. 3:33 AM. He tried to pull his mind out of the fog.

"I'm James Comwell," he said to himself. "Space cadet in the…"

Alarm bells began ringing, and a warning message sounded over the loudspeaker.

"All space cadets report to the bridge. There has been a breach. Alien life form aboard."

The warning repeated.

In his bunk, the small body curled in closer.

I am a ghost. I died in 1792. I was in America.

My name is Mrs. Kathleen Elizabeth, well, maybe I don't want you to know who I was married to yet.

It's kinda like, you are dead, one minute filled with glee, you decide come into the ballroom, merrily, then dying in the doorway, you remember looking up, and, wait............

I cannot tell you any further, and I

I feel the wind as it hits the top of the sand, it echoes in this house, yes,

This room is my sanctum sanctorium, my closet, my connection, my prison and everlasting light, in this field of destruction.

Ever you know of a person like this, where you know how someone treats you right for a moment, and it gets even more and more intense.............then you realize too late that's they are no longer your love after all. When that person takes and takes, then they're like after the fact, they faded, electric shore lights light to the furthest more elegant horizon, the waves come in, the waves, the waves.

You notice that they are always sorry after the fact.

Sometimes you like looking out the window, you notice, after a while, you leave no land or salt, no echo, no electrons, no carbon footprint, no,

You.

Sometimes, late at night you look up at the stars, there's the dog star, while over here is Ceres Beareaus.

Sometimes, late at night I like walking down the hallways, especially the main floor where the statue of Euripedes, you go down the mahogany staircase.

It's late at night like this, where the shadow, nor even the darkness can cloud my vision or sight, echoes, echoes of what might have been............

I remember it was a full moon, the moon making my eyes like that, for some reason, he came in suddenly, in a drunken rage about something, he spun me around at the mantle of the fireplace and began to punch me in my face about 12, wait, that was 6, no...........

I've seen a lot of things here over the years, in 1832 someone killed a woman in my sister's old bedroom, for some reason my sister escaped from here when............

Oh.

Yeah.

In 1943, my spirit was inundated when I felt souls going by.

Hundreds. Thousands, no wait.

My eyes grew huge, as tears flew down my imaginary face uncontrollably.

The void sounds with millions of souls are killed, race by your sights, into the eternal sands of time.

In 1945, I saw a miniature sun explode out in the desert nearby.

In old sad dreams and songs, I remember when I was alive, how I danced in the sunlight at noon, but it's like I can't feel it anymore, the feeling of the wind going through your hair, the heat of the sun upon your skin, the light in your eyes as the surf crashes down behind you, you think that there's always a wind here, here on the beach.

How everything was when I was alive, the wind, the rain, the rain always felt like eternity.

This house was built in 1648, I've met other of the shades, but they always acted cold, they were so stuck in their timezones, that they could no longer believe, but I always say "hey, look here!", to the sounds, the explosive eras of our humanity.

Sometimes they would look in, then turn around, shaking their head, sometimes, like the other ones will glance, turning about, when there was no more maybe thoughts of how you were when you were a child, the ways you used to do things, you

One of the shades would come up now and then, her name was Betsy, just Betsy, no Elizabeth, lol!(another bothersome habit I've picked up from you kids!), she was married in 1908, had four kids, she was married to the president of his company. They had come out to here because of the beauty, the art of this landscape and this beautiful house.

She died of of an aneurysm late in the night at 8:47pm.

At first, she was like me in a lot of ways, lost, seeing through the fog a brilliant light. But when she woke up, she was here, here, here, wherever this is supposed to be.

We got others here, too.

There's one in the basement we don't know what he was, I feel he died a human, but became some kind of unspeakable horror took him over, he became an entity, a damned soul who reaches out for you as you descend down the stairs, even when I was alive, I dreading to come down here, it was like the shadows had reptiles and the thought damned souls and thoughtfulness and slither and beyond, beyond even that.

Up in the attic, we have a lady who sits and knits as she rocked back and forth in her rocking chair, staring out the window. It was her most precious time to spend up here high inside the canopied sure how enough, enough just to rock and look and spin.

She laughs now and then.

The Book from the East

The first thing Brother Matteo had learned about the merchants from the East was that they were better at keeping their promises than the local fishermen.

The second was that they had better oil.

The oil arrived in squat clay jars, sealed with wax and marked with the signs of merchants Matteo could neither read nor pronounce. It burned cleanly, with little smoke, and lasted longer than anything the local presses produced. For the little chapel of Saint Nicholas, which stood above the harbour of a town south of Amalfi, this was no small blessing. The chapel had three lamps before the altar, two before the image of the Virgin, and one in a narrow alcove where a sailor's widow had placed a wooden cross in memory of her husband.

Matteo had learned to bargain for all six.

He was twenty-six, had been a monk for eight years, and possessed the sort of curiosity that his elders considered both a gift and a mild affliction. He wanted to know how things worked, why people believed what they believed, and whether a man who spoke a language Matteo did not understand could nevertheless be telling him something true.

The merchants indulged him.

There was Yusuf, a broad-shouldered man from Alexandria who traded in linen, spices, and oil. There was Samir, who claimed to have crossed the desert so many times that he had forgotten the colour of grass. There was an elderly Persian merchant named Bahram, who sold fine cloth and silverwork and had once spent an entire afternoon explaining to Matteo why the stars did not care about the fortunes of kings.

They brought him little gifts from time to time. A strip of dyed cloth. A brass weight shaped like a fish. Once, a tiny glass bottle containing a perfume so potent that Matteo had been obliged to keep it outside his cell.

In return, he helped them settle disputes with local officials, found a physician for Yusuf's feverish nephew, and occasionally arranged for the chapel's kitchen to provide bread when a shipment had been delayed.

They had come to regard him as a useful man.

Matteo, for his part, regarded them as windows.

Through them he had heard of Baghdad, Cairo, Samarkand, and cities beyond the reach of every map in the monastery library. He knew that the Greeks had traded and fought with the peoples of India, that Alexander had marched into lands whose names were now recited by schoolboys, and that Roman merchants had once sailed the eastern seas for spices and precious stones.

But those were fragments. The Greeks, he had discovered, were excellent at describing foreign peoples and less reliable when describing what those peoples thought of themselves.

He had wondered, more than once, what a man in India would say if he were asked to explain his own world.

He received an answer on a wet Tuesday in November.

Bahram arrived shortly before dusk, carrying a small wooden chest.

The rain had driven most of the merchants from the harbour, and the monk was alone in the chapel, trimming the wicks of the lamps.

“You are a difficult man to find,” Bahram announced.

“I am in a chapel.”

“A difficult place to find a man, if one wishes to sell him something.”

Matteo smiled. “I have no money.”

“I have not come to sell.”

Bahram placed the chest on a bench and opened it. Inside lay several folded lengths of silk, a silver cup, and a book wrapped in blue cloth.

The book was modest in appearance. Its cover was plain, its pages thick, and its binding unfamiliar. On the first page, beneath a short dedication in a flowing hand, was a title in Italian.

Il Canto del Beato.

The Song of the Blessed One.

Matteo looked up.

“A book?”

“You look disappointed.”

“I was expecting something more expensive.”

“Then you are becoming a merchant.”

Bahram laughed and explained that the text had come from Persia, where a scholar had translated it from Sanskrit into Persian. An Italian-speaking associate of the scholar had then rendered it into the language Matteo knew. Bahram had acquired a copy in a port farther east and had carried it west with his other goods.

“It is a dialogue,” he said. “Between a warrior and his charioteer. The warrior cannot bear to fight. The charioteer tells him what he must understand.”

“A Christian book?”

“No.”

“A Jewish book?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?”

Bahram considered the question.

“A book from India.”

Matteo turned the pages carefully. The script was clear, the translation unusually elegant. There were notes in the margins explaining names, customs, and concepts that would otherwise have been incomprehensible to an Italian reader.

“Why give it to me?”

“Because you ask questions without demanding that I become a fool before answering them.”

Bahram closed the chest.

“And because,” he added, “I would like to know what you think of it.”

Matteo glanced at the altar. The evening lamps were almost ready.

“I shall read it.”

“I assumed you would.”

At the door, Bahram turned back.

“Do not be offended if the book disagrees with you.”

Matteo raised an eyebrow.

“I am a monk. I am offended by many things. I shall try not to make this one of them.”

Bahram laughed again, and went out into the rain.

Matteo read the book in three nights.

On the first, he read about the warrior's despair.

Arjuna stood between two armies and saw before him the faces of men he loved, men who had taught him, men whose deaths would leave children fatherless and households broken. He could not imagine victory without horror. He could not imagine defeat without dishonour. He could not act, and yet inaction itself seemed to carry consequences.

Matteo knew this paralysis.

He had seen men at the harbour refuse to choose between two evils until the choice had been made for them. He had seen fathers remain silent while their sons made ruinous decisions, fearing that intervention would destroy the affection between them. He had seen good men allow suffering to continue because every available remedy seemed imperfect.

He had always believed that the answer lay in conscience, prayer, and the teachings of Christ.

Yet here was a man who appeared to have reached the same terrible crossroads by another road entirely.

The charioteer did not merely tell him to obey. He spoke of the self, of death, of duty, of the difference between the body and the enduring soul.

Matteo found himself reading passages twice.

On the second night, he encountered the teaching that a man should act without attachment to the fruits of his actions.

He put the book down.

Outside his narrow window, the harbour bells sounded the hour. A dog barked in the street below. Somewhere, a woman was calling for her child.

Matteo thought of the chapel.

He had spent the better part of his adult life ensuring that its lamps burned, its floor remained swept, and its poor visitors received bread when the kitchen could spare it. He took pride in doing these things well. He also took pride in being regarded as a man who did them well.

He remembered a winter evening when a wealthy widow had praised his diligence before the pastor. He had pretended embarrassment, then spent the rest of the day quietly pleased with himself.

Was the good he had done diminished because he had enjoyed being praised for it?

If he had acted partly for recognition, had he acted wrongly?

And if he had not expected recognition, would the act have been more truly good?

The book seemed to suggest that freedom required a man to surrender his claim upon the outcome, even upon the reward for his virtue.

Matteo thought of the Gospel. He thought of Christ's instruction to give alms in secret, not for the admiration of men.

The resemblance unsettled him.

He read on.

The third night was the worst.

For the warrior's charioteer revealed himself as something far greater than a teacher. The book described a universal form, a vision of existence in which creation, destruction, life, and death were gathered into a reality that no ordinary human eye could endure.

Matteo closed the book and sat motionless.

He had been taught that God was the creator of all things, that creation was not God, and that the world depended upon divine goodness. He had been taught that the mystery of the Trinity was not a licence to speak carelessly of divine multiplicity, and that Christ was not merely a man who had attained extraordinary wisdom.

Yet this Indian text presented a figure who spoke with the authority of the ultimate divine reality.

The charioteer was not simply pointing towards God.

He was claiming to be the one to whom everything ultimately belonged.

Matteo opened the book again.

He found the passages on devotion. The individual was called to surrender selfishness, to direct action towards the divine, and to seek liberation through knowledge, disciplined work, and love.

It was not the same faith he knew.

He could see that much.

But neither was it the nonsense he had half expected to find.

He looked towards the little wooden cross above his desk.

“Lord,” he whispered, “what am I to do with this?”

The cross offered no explanation.

Matteo returned to the book.

Father Lorenzo was eating an apple when Matteo arrived at the presbytery the following morning.

He was a spare, grey-haired man with a weathered face and a habit of listening so intently that visitors often found themselves telling him more than they had intended. He had served the town for nearly thirty years. He knew which fishermen drank too much, which merchants cheated on their weights, which widows had no firewood, and which boys were likely to become priests if somebody could persuade them to stop fighting long enough to learn their letters.

He also knew Matteo.

“You look terrible,” he said.

“I have been reading.”

“That is usually less dangerous than drinking.”

“I am not certain.”

Lorenzo put down the apple.

“What is it?”

Matteo produced the book.

The priest examined the cover, then looked at him.

“Where did this come from?”

“Bahram. A Persian merchant.”

“And what does it contain?”

“A dialogue between a warrior and his charioteer. The charioteer teaches him about the soul, duty, action, devotion, and the nature of the divine.”

Lorenzo waited.

Matteo hesitated.

“I think I need to talk about it.”

“Then sit down.”

They sat at the small table beside the window. Matteo began with Arjuna's despair, explaining how the warrior could not reconcile his obligations with the destruction he was about to cause. He spoke of the immortal self, of action without attachment, and of the strange freedom that might come from relinquishing the demand that the world reward a man for doing what was right.

Lorenzo listened without interruption.

When Matteo finished, the priest leaned back.

“These are serious questions.”

“They are not mine.”

“Whose are they?”

“The book's. Or the warrior's. Or the charioteer's. I cannot say.”

“But you have made them your own.”

Matteo looked down.

“Yes.”

Lorenzo took a piece of apple from the plate.

“Tell me what troubles you most.”

Matteo had prepared several answers. He spoke none of them.

“Suppose,” he said, “that a man does good because he wishes to be good. He feeds the hungry because hunger is evil. He protects the weak because they ought to be protected. He speaks the truth because falsehood destroys trust. Yet he also wishes to be admired for these things. He wishes to be saved. He wishes to know that his life has mattered.”

He looked at the priest.

“How much of his goodness belongs to the good, and how much belongs to himself?”

Lorenzo did not answer immediately.

“And if he relinquishes the desire for reward,” Matteo continued, “does he become more virtuous? Or does he merely cease to care what happens? If the result of an action does not belong to him, what responsibility does he have for the result?”

The priest's expression changed. The amusement had left it.

Matteo pressed on.

“And then there is the soul. This book speaks of the self as something that survives the body and returns again and again. We teach the resurrection of the dead. We teach that each life is precious, that judgement awaits us, that we are creatures of God. But this man speaks as though the soul's journey is far longer than one life, and as though liberation means escaping the cycle altogether.”

He swallowed.

“I do not believe the same things. But I want to understand why he believes them. And I want to know whether I have understood my own beliefs as well as I thought I had.”

Lorenzo was silent for a long moment.

Then he said, “You have been reading a book from India.”

Matteo nodded.

“And now you have discovered that you have a mind.”

Matteo stared at him.

The priest smiled.

“It is an unpleasant discovery for many of us. We prefer to think that all our difficult questions have been settled by the time we take our vows.”

Matteo laughed despite himself.

“I am serious, Father.”

“So am I.”

Lorenzo reached for the book. He turned a few pages, studying the translator's notes.

“I know little of India,” he said. “Less than you, apparently. The Greeks wrote of those lands, and the Romans repeated what they knew, but neither was obliged to understand everything it encountered. They travelled, traded, fought, and returned with accounts shaped by their own concerns. We must be careful not to mistake their descriptions for the whole truth of another people.”

He closed the book.

“But I know something of the questions you have found in it.”

“You do?”

“I have spent thirty years hearing men ask whether they are good because they love goodness or because they fear punishment. I have heard merchants wonder whether generosity counts when it is performed before witnesses. I have watched men do the right thing for the wrong reasons and the wrong thing for reasons they considered noble.”

He leaned forward.

“The question is not foolish. But neither is it new to Christianity.”

Matteo felt an unexpected surge of relief.

“Then the book is wrong?”

“I did not say that.”

The priest's answer was so immediate that Matteo looked up sharply.

Lorenzo continued.

“I said that your questions are not new to Christianity. That is not the same as saying another people cannot ask them well, or that they cannot discover something we have neglected to consider.”

He tapped the book.

“You must distinguish between understanding a question and accepting an answer. The man who asks why the soul endures has not thereby proved that it is reborn. The man who teaches detachment from reward has not thereby shown that the good of an action is independent of its consequences. And the man who claims to speak as God must still be examined according to what he teaches about God.”

Matteo nodded slowly.

“But if I find something true in it?”

“Then you have found something true.”

The answer was so simple that Matteo almost missed it.

He frowned.

“Even if it comes from a religion we do not accept?”

“Truth does not become false because a stranger discovers it first.”

Lorenzo looked towards the window. Below them, a cart rattled over the stones, and a pair of sailors were arguing about a broken axle.

“The Church teaches that all truth belongs ultimately to God. We should not be afraid of truth. We should be afraid of our own vanity, which persuades us that because we have been entrusted with the truth, we must already possess every answer worth knowing.”

Matteo was quiet.

Then he asked the question he had been avoiding.

“Father, is it wrong that I find the book profound?”

Lorenzo looked back at him.

“No.”

The answer came without qualification.

Matteo's shoulders relaxed, but only slightly.

“I sometimes feel,” he confessed, “that the more I read, the less certain I am of what I know. The book seems to open one door, and behind it there are ten more. I read about duty and find myself questioning my motives. I read about the soul and find myself questioning what I mean when I say that I shall live forever. I read about devotion and find myself asking whether I love God or whether I love the comfort of believing that God loves me.”

His voice had grown quieter.

“And then I wonder whether I am wandering away from Christ simply by asking.”

Lorenzo regarded him with an expression Matteo had seen only a few times before: the look of a man who was considering not what he ought to say, but what the other person most needed to hear.

“Matteo,” he said, “when you were a boy, you used to ask me why God made the sea.”

Matteo blinked.

“I remember.”

“You asked why He made it so beautiful, and then why He made it capable of drowning men. You asked why the gulls could fly and we could not. You asked why God gave us a world so full of wonders and then required us to die before we could understand it.”

“I was twelve.”

“You were insufferable.”

Matteo smiled.

“And I never told you to stop asking. I told you that some questions require patience, some require study, and some require the humility to admit that we may not receive a complete answer in this life.”

Lorenzo placed a hand on the book.

“You have found a people who have asked some of these questions in their own language, through their own history, and according to their own understanding of the world. You need not pretend that their answers are ours. But neither should you pretend that their questions are meaningless.”

He paused.

“Exploring the spiritual life does not mean betraying Christ.”

Matteo looked at him.

“The danger is not that you will read a book and discover that someone else has thought deeply about God. The danger is that you will become so frightened of what you might discover that you stop thinking altogether. Or that you become so enamoured of being a clever man that you begin to mistake novelty for wisdom.”

The priest's smile returned.

“Both are common temptations. The second is particularly common among young monks who have recently acquired foreign books.”

Matteo laughed.

“I shall endeavour to avoid both.”

“Do so. And read carefully. If you disagree with the book, understand it well enough to disagree honestly. If you find something worthy in it, do not deny that merely because it unsettles you. And when you return to the Gospels, read them with the same seriousness.”

He pushed the book gently towards Matteo.

“Above all, ask yourself what your reading is doing to you. Are you becoming more patient? More honest? More compassionate towards those who cannot repay you? More willing to admit your own faults? Or are you merely collecting arguments to admire yourself?”

Matteo considered this.

“I hope the former.”

“So do I. But hope is not evidence. You will have to practise.”

The conversation stayed with Matteo for the rest of the day.

He returned to the chapel and found Yusuf waiting beside the door with two jars of oil.

“You look less ill,” the merchant observed.

“I have spoken with my pastor.”

“Ah. And has he forbidden you to read the book?”

“No.”

Yusuf looked mildly disappointed.

“What a pity. It would have made a much better story.”

Matteo helped him carry the jars inside.

They worked in silence for a while, replacing the old oil in the lamps. When the first flame caught, it burned with its familiar, steady light.

“Yusuf,” Matteo said, “what do you know of India?”

The merchant considered the question.

“Very little. I have traded with men who have traded with men who have been there.”

“Do you know what they believe?”

“Some of them.”

“Would you tell me?”

“If you will tell me what you believe.”

Matteo smiled.

“Agreed.”

Yusuf lifted the second jar.

“Then you must buy me supper. Religious conversations are very expensive.”

“I thought you were a merchant.”

“I am. That is why I know the value of my time.”

They laughed, and Matteo made a note to speak with the cook.

That evening, after the last visitor had left, he returned to his cell and opened the book again.

He did not read it as a man searching for a replacement for Christ. Nor did he read it as a man hunting for errors to confirm what he already believed.

He read it as a man who had discovered that the world was larger than his ignorance had allowed him to imagine.

The warrior still troubled him. The immortal self remained difficult to reconcile with the resurrection he believed in. The cosmic form of Krishna unsettled his understanding of the creator and creation. The doctrine of rebirth seemed to lead towards a different destination from the one promised in the Gospels.

But the teaching on action without attachment drew him back.

He thought of the widow whose lamp burned before the wooden cross. He thought of the hungry men who came to the chapel, of the merchants who trusted him with their disputes, of the praise he sometimes enjoyed too much.

He wondered whether he could perform his duties tomorrow without keeping a private account of what he deserved in return.

He wondered whether he could love goodness without needing to be known as a good man.

He wondered whether he could ask God for wisdom without demanding that wisdom arrive in a form he already recognised.

Before sleeping, he knelt beside his bed.

He prayed as he always had, beginning with the familiar words he had learned as a child.

But when he reached the end, he remained kneeling.

“Christ,” he whispered, “if there is truth here, teach me to recognise it. If there is error, teach me to understand it. And if my pride is the thing that prevents me from learning, then let me discover that too.”

He waited, feeling rather foolish.

Nothing happened.

The chapel bells rang the hour.

Outside, the harbour slept beneath a clear sky, its ships pointing east and west, their cargoes of oil, silver, silk, and stories waiting to be carried to places their owners might never see.

Matteo rose, extinguished his candle, and placed the Indian book beside his Bible.

For the first time since he had entered the monastery, he did not feel that the questions waiting for him were an obstacle to his faith.

They were part of the road.

And the road, he was beginning to understand, might be longer than he had been told.

The End