Break From Reality. Daily.
“Happy birthday, dear Petunia…”
I listened to Mom and Dad sing the high parts a little too high and the low parts a little too low.
“Happy birthday to you!”
This was the eighth time they’d sung this song to me and the second time they’d sung it without Skylar. Skylar had been my best friend ever since I’d started living with her.
Four days before Dad’s funeral, the mortuary’s number flashed on my phone as I rummaged through my closet, pretending it mattered to find a work-appropriate outfit that didn’t need ironing. A bass voice rumbled: “Ms. Silva? Howard Greenwood calling from Greenwood Memorial Gardens. Are you available this morning? It’s urgent that we speak in person.”
Urgent? In person? Traffic would gridlock on the Bay Bridge to the mortuary in Oakland. Hopefully, my 9 a.m. townhouse tour could be rescheduled—I needed that commission. Purchasing the “Golden Memorial Services” package had maxed my credit limit.
“All right,” I sighed into the phone, “I’ll be there.”
An hour later, I sat in the softly lit office, praying this wasn’t about my credit card.
Steel meets steel momentarily and silence consumes the forest. The final robber falls, gasping for breath, hands bound. Birds scatter, then settle again as my heartbeat steadied.
Another day saved. Another hollow victory.
As far back as I can remember, everyone has called me Alex, the local hero of Eras. It’s all I’ve ever known, though, sometimes, I wonder if this is all there truly is to life.
Everyone always said Grandma was a serial killer.
So naturally, I’m standing at her door with the rain stabbing me in the back like tiny knives. The brandy from the reception burns through my blood, keeping me warm in this raging storm. I take out the key to my late Grandma Lettie’s house and stumble in.
Smells assault me. Not the fresh-baked cookie scent of old-lady houses—but of Pine-Sol, bleach, and something new yet familiar. Acrid. Metallic.
Elias Vance, in his fifty-seventh year, was defined by the dry, precise comfort of the archive. Air was messy, full of humidity, pollen, and unpredictable scents. Archives were dry, labeled, and governed by the immutable laws of evidence. That preference made his current location—Blackwood Manor—not just a chore, but a profound insult to his meticulous nature.
The manor was a colossal, decaying Victorian house, huddled against the relentless coast of Maine. It was less a home and more a coastal fortress, its gables sharp and its windows empty, perpetually scarred by the salt spray and winter gales. The dense, old forest pressed in from three sides, its massive, silent pines seeming to judge the rot. Elias, dressed in a practical charcoal suit and white cotton gloves, had returned here after his estranged father’s death to do what he did best: inventory and liquidate. His father, Arthur Vance, hadn’t been a man of history, but a man of accumulation—a hoarder who used baroque furniture and obsolete knowledge as a heavy, physical insulation against reality.
“A shame,” Elias murmured, the word echoing in the cavernous, dust-choked entry hall. The house was not history; it was a memorial to a petty, solitary life, and Elias was determined to dismantle it piece by clinical piece.
Cengiz’s father had no idea his son was dead.
Naqisha hadn’t meant to kill the heir to the throne. But when Cengiz mocked her son Utku as less capable of coherent thought than a donkey, something inside her snapped. Before she realized it, she’d grabbed Cengiz’s dagger and thrust it into his heart.
An hour later, she fixed a smile on her face and joined Emperor Vural and two relatives for dinner. Hoping the emperor was oblivious that his son lay dead.
The silence was tense, a layer of thin ice stretched over a dark, restless feeling. A hawk’s screech pierced the air, its cacophonous sound cutting through the quiet like a knife. My muscles tensed before I even had a chance to process it, and a chill of memory rushed back.
I looked through a kitchen window at the frozen lake and the bare trees that reflected the hollow ache in my chest. The hawk’s cry hadn’t just broken the silence; it had torn open the past, merging a child’s scream with the hawk’s shriek into a single, unbearable sound.
“Make it stop!” I whispered, pressing my palms so hard against my ears that white static danced behind my eyes.
I should never have looked in that box.
Had I ignored my curiosity, I’d be enjoying one last peaceful morning in the backyard before the movers arrive.
Relatively peaceful if you ignore Mrs. Campbell’s dog baying in the yard next door. At least when he’s barking you know he’s where he’s supposed to be. Roscoe’s talent for escape is
legendary.
Bright rays of the winter sun poured through the family room window and into the den, casting a welcoming sunspot across the carpet. Peaches nuzzled her yellow fur into the warm fabric and basked in the sunshine. It was that time again, when The Providers brought a tree inside and hung a bunch of weird stuff on it. Time for the house to smell like the forest, for those lovely faint jingles, and for happy voices to bounce off the walls.
Fred lumbered into the room and crashed down next to Peaches, the impact sending a roll across his plump, black fur. Peaches’ eyes flopped open as Fred pressed his back into hers, slid her to the edge of the sunspot, and drew a groan.
Peaches pushed back, the two jockeying for ownership, the sunspot big enough for just one Labrador. They wrestled until Fred abruptly buried his nose into his butt, ending the battle. Peaches huffed and rolled her eyes.
Maya Angelou once said, “To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power.”
A mother’s love is nothing to scoff at; I’ve read articles about mothers lifting thousand-pound cars to save their children. Fighting off attackers, scaring off bears in the forest, anything to protect their children. There is absolutely nothing stronger in this world than a mother’s love for her child.
My daughter is sixteen now, and I will do anything, give anything, to keep this little girl safe from harm. Social media is terrible for a young girl’s mind in her formative years. It forces unnecessary comparisons, causes body dysmorphia, and can destroy a woman psychologically until she doesn’t know who she is anymore when she looks in the mirror. This is exactly why she doesn’t have a phone.
They said it was an accident. Ugly, burned beyond recognition. No casket, no body, only this box.
I peeled the flaps open. Old photos of us, his warm eyes glowing, sat among a collection of books and hats.
Mom rubbed her hand over my back. “That’s nice. Look at this stuff. Anytime you miss him, you can pull this stuff out.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I muttered.
You can’t hide forever, I tried to motivate myself as the funeral home loomed across the parking lot. I watched as old, familiar faces, draped in black, greeted each other and filtered inside, everyone here to pay their last respects to my father.
Long painted as the wayward daughter, I took a deep breath, swung the car door open, and dragged myself across the parking lot. The usher opened the large wooden door with a slight nod, and the murmur of guests spilled out as I took tentative steps down the red-carpeted hallway leading to the viewing room.
“Well, well.” My brother Shawn’s piercing green eyes burned through me, as they always did. I nodded but kept walking.
Dad always called it the wild.
I never really understood why. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t much about him I understood, and he probably felt the same about me.
“Justin, I know fourteen is a tough age. I’ve been there. Not sure where you belong, how you fit in.” Dad’s words carried on the morning Vermont breeze, mingling with the familiar wintergreen scent of budding birch trees surrounding the trailhead parking area. My eyes rolled.
“There is no future, there is only now,” Sarah announced to Brian and me.
I glanced upward and read the Chinese lettering sprawled across the frayed cloth canopy adorned with dragons.
“I told you this place was exotic.” Her words were excited, but I couldn’t help the eye roll and the familiar sneer that stretched across my face.
When I was young, the road ahead was an adventure, full of twists and turns that could lead anywhere. But now? Decades later, I knew better. Life had become a straight shot, and all those dreams I once had continued to shrink in the distance.
The cool morning air whipped across Wade’s face, carrying the fresh scents of misshapen, vibrant tomatoes, jars of honey, and bundles of herbs. He breathed deep, carefully inspecting each cucumber while keeping a close eye on his son, Cole.
“Can we get these for Casper?”
Wade turned and found Cole pointing at the dog biscuits he had discovered. Pausing for only a moment, Wade sighed, took a peach from his basket, and returned it to the stand. “Yes, get some biscuits for Casper.”
My grip tightened around the edges of my algebra textbook, my knee jumping up and down as my fingers brushed the wrinkled corner of the envelope peeking out between the pages. Toby burst through the doorway and my heart jumped against my chest as he made his way over with his typical strut.
“Chris, what’s happening, bro?” he casually asked, but I caught the shift of his gaze to my desk.
“Not much,” I offered with a noncommittal shrug.
Toby studied me for a moment as he settled into his seat. “You didn’t do it yet.”
“You used to believe in the truth.”
The memory of Emily’s words whispered through the dense swamp fog, causing me to yank my jacket tighter as rain trickled down my shivering neck. I crept forward, peering through the brush, the frigid water seeping into my boots as the humid air clung to my face.
Three weeks after her disappearance and I was close. I could feel it.
The dry Nevada wind burned against my face as I stared at the orange painted door that led to my childhood home.
For a moment, the memory of its bright hue and brilliant color stood in all its glory, like it once had.
A familiar muffled shout broke through the closed windows, and the door was once again the fading and peeling entryway of the present.
Mark is gone.
Another day in my tomb. The dark corner of this musty cave shielding me from the outside world. I spend my days surrounded by trash and stale food, basking in the constant stream of nothingness emanating from the television, dying one day at a time.
I hate my life.
A loud knock echoed through the muffled quiet, jolting me off the couch.
The harsh rap came again, and I weaved through the piles of dirty laundry, reached the door, and turned the knob. My face wrinkled as sunlight poured through the crack and a familiar silhouette greeted me.
Maybe if you keep your feet planted, nobody will notice the hole stretching at your heel.
Nice going dumbass. Why’d I have to pick these socks?
You definitely feel very, very awkward. You’re not like the other boys. Your family’s just plain off. People sense it. You’re poor. A charity case. And those damn socks let everybody know it!
“You Tinkers are said to be so obsessed with your craft that no one in the land can match your expertise!” The large man towered over the plump inventor, who was barely taller than a young girl. His voice rose as he continued, “Yet your contraption has failed, once again, to catch the vermin stealing from the kitchen storehouses!”
Holding up a heavy object wrapped in burlap, he continued his rant. “You asked for another part to fix your trap, but the one you described was thrown out with the rubbish weeks ago. So, make do with whatever this is.” He shoved the item into the Tinker’s hands. “And know this—one more failure, and I’ll revoke my patronage, strip you of my protection, and leave you without access to the gears, gadgets, and gizmos you so desperately need to survive. I’ll return at dawn, and your contraption had better work!” He thrust a thick, gloved sausage of a finger in the air. “Final warning!” he barked, slamming the hovel door shut.
It was true: the sole purpose of a Tinker was their obsession, and every Tinker was a master of their craft. You might assume this leaves a few Tinkers waddling about, but rest assured, there are countless subjects in which Tinkers possess infallible knowledge. This particular Tinker was a master contraptor—designing, building, testing, and launching contraptions was as vital to her as breathing. Perhaps even more so, given the events of this particular morning.
“In a hole, in a pond, on a log, beneath a flea, lay a frog.”
I belted the song quite loudly but the boy and his dad did not turn.
I tried again. “At the edge of a pond, in a hole, on a log, sat a frog and above it, a flea.”
When you obsess over one thing your life narrows to a pin prick.
Right then, my tunnel vision was locked onto the payphone in front of me. The same payphone I’d been coming to for the last seven years. At the same time. Every night. Without fail.
The payphone was my gateway to put things right, even if things could never go back to the way they were. All I had to do was wait.
I abandoned my three-year-old son a few weeks before Christmas. Now a teenager, Tristan was the first person I saw upon entering the funeral parlor. He’s so grown up, so tall. I can still hear my departing words to him: “Daddy loves you, buddy. So much. I need to figure out myself. I’ll make you proud of our name.” It’s been thirteen years since we were last in the same room, and I haven’t lived up to that promise.
My joy is short-lived when I hear Tristan refer to his stepfather as ‘my dad’ in the eulogy. My hands curled into fists as I glared at the large portrait of Lt. Colonel Ezra Almond at the front of the room. I hope the heart attack killed him slowly. Painfully.
A commanding officer should look out for their men, but instead, Almond stabbed me in the back. Then stole my wife and child.
A creature with scarlet skin, a skull adorned with twisted horns, wielding a pitch fork. A cloven hoofed satyr, a possessed child, or a mythical trickster. All depictions of devils across the globe but the only demon Cassandra had known possessed the unearthly beauty of a morning star.
In two lifetimes, he haunted her, and in her previous life, she’d lost everything to his insatiable lust. But this was the twenty-first century, and millions no longer believed in the sun god, Apollo. His temples lay in ruins and no acolytes prostrated themselves before his effigy. Still, Cassandra knew, weakened as he might be, he was still a god. Immortal and more powerful than she could dream. There would be no room for error today.
The setting sun, filtered through a canopy of green, illuminated the cottage, and Cassandra’s eyes fell on the chess table tucked into an alcove that overlooked the mountain forest beyond. Eventually, her gaze turned to the golden-haired man lazing across her lap.
“Shall we play a game?” Cassandra asked.
Grit slid beneath my fingernails as I pushed hard soil off my face. Cracking open a coffin was one thing. Digging six feet below the surface was another thing altogether.. Each press of my palm brought another layer of dirt on my face making it more difficult to see in the dark space. The dirt was more compact the further down I was but began to muddy toward my exit. Hands slipped and struggled to find purchase.
That damn witch really did put a hex on me.
I shook my head, searching my pockets for anything useful. They should have buried me with a damn candle. Or at least a lighter. What was the point of dying from lung cancer if I didn’t have one in my pocket?
Six months after my mother-in-law’s death, Sara and I spent Christmas alone. In our desire for normalcy, we put up a last-minute Charlie Brown tree and sung along to holiday classics. But a weighty emptiness filled the room, and everything felt forced.
Even drinking coquito and eating Ma’s traditional Christmas meal of pasteles with arroz and gandules tasted bland.
After dinner, Sara plopped into Ma’s recliner and closed her eyes. “I can still smell her.”
“I miss her, too.”
GASP
The Last Gasp Motel will have you
Thinking on your feet,
If you like mystery books to read,
This might be up your street.
August 14th, 1997
Dr. Anderson suggested I write it all down–that it would be helpful to get the story on paper and out of my head. A day hasn’t gone by that I haven’t thought about it, but I’m not sure this will help at all. And it happened so long ago that I’m not sure how much of it is real and how much is just part of the nightmares that began afterward.
But I’ll do it because Dr. Anderson suggested it. He’s been so helpful in getting me to talk about it, especially since my parents never would.
So, here’s my story. I’m Violet Cooper and this is my journal entry. Everything you are about to read is true to the best of my recollection.
TOAST
The boy stood on the burning deck,
But he’d no room to boast,
His slice of bread and butter,
Had become a piece of toast!
It wasn’t the pram wheels that got stuck when they crossed the trainline, although that was what she worried about. The iron wheel rims always wedged in ruts. You can’t carry a baby everywhere, not when you have another child as well. The three-year-old liked to be out. Even as a baby, he’d worm an arm free from the blanket and wave his fist to the world. You couldn’t swaddle his independence, not the way she wrapped the baby girl’s sweet, paddling limbs. He ran so fast, flying his wooden train engine on invisible tracks of imagination, catching her own heart up into flights of joy, and fear. She couldn’t tell where he might run. She watched him, but not like the hawk that wheeled above the railway crossing. A hawk only had to watch one thing at once, to track its prey, whereas she had both the boy and the baby. Today the babe was fussing, a broken hiccupping snuffle, after a broken night’s sleep. The mother swatted at the fly sticking to the baby’s mouth. The walk would send the child to sleep soon, she knew it would. And it would keep the boy busy, so he wouldn’t poke his sister with his toy… Where was the boy?
From atop the towering gallows, the hooded hangman inhaled the mingled scents of damp dirt and fresh-cut timbers and smiled. It was a crisp, beautiful morning, perfect for a hanging, and no one deserved the punishment more than the notorious outlaw Henry Slade.
The manacled prisoner danced a carefree jig in the muddy street below. No one ever hurried to ascend the stairs leading to their execution, but Slade was the first to sashay up the foreboding thirteen steps.
The townsfolk gladly constructed the gallows overnight in a downpour, to rid the territory of the evil plague embodied by Henry Slade. They expected him to tremble with fear and beg for mercy, but the outlaw did not oblige. Instead, he cackled with glee from the elevated platform.
I’ve heard voices for as long as I can remember. To start with, they just told me what to do. Let’s change your nappy, Susie. Time for beddy-byes. They seemed kind, so I went along with them. As I got older, the voices took on a sterner tone. Don’t touch the fire.
At school, the pattern continued. No running in the corridor. Detention for you, young lady. As a teenager, I had a social life, but voices tried to control that too. You’re not going out looking like that, are you? Make sure you’re home by ten-thirty.
At Edinburgh University, no voices told me where to go or when or with whom. I was expected to attend lectures and tutorials. Don’t forget to hand in your assignment, Miss James. Luckily, there weren’t too many assignments.
Fred lays back in his favourite recliner two weeks after heart surgery. A cooking show is on the television and his mouth waters as the chef digs into a burger. The juices drip down the chef’s chin as he chews on the beefy goodness.
The clatter of his wife’s cooking comes from the kitchen next to the lounge. Fred’s pulled out of his dream state as a sulfury stench comes wafting into the lounge. “Fwah, what the hell’s that?”
“Your dinner. You’ll love it,” says Ivy as she stirs the cabbage on the stove.
Patricia glared in annoyance at the frumpy reflection glaring back from her full-length mirror. Who are you and what have you done with my body? she mocked. Today was her 60th birthday, and her mood was turning sour. Dismayed at her sagging figure, Patricia mourned her youth. Gone were the lacy ‘barely there’ panties and sexy demi bras. Nowadays, she squeezed her rolls and dimples into spandex briefs and underwire that poked and pinched but did little to lift her drooping cleavage. Maybe Stanley can invent a bra with a built-in wooden shelf. She laughed sardonically at the vision. Aging could certainly be a bitter pill to swallow, and today, Patricia felt as though she was choking on hers.
Stanley would arrive soon. She tried on dress after dress and one by one they pooled into a heap at her feet. Too tight. Too short. This one amplified her heavy chest and the next one suctioned to her ample backside. Finally, peeved, and glistening with perspiration, Patricia sighed, gave her damp armpits the sniff test, and reached for the one dress she was comfortable in; a shapeless black frock with full sleeves and a modest neckline. It was not flattering, but, she chided, Stanley liked her just as she was.
A moment later Stanley’s car squealed into her driveway, rock music thumping through his open window. Patricia raised an eyebrow at the racket, then hurried to put on lipstick. It was sweet of him to take her out for her birthday. She would do her best to smile, even if she had to paint it on.
The email lands in my inbox with a thud, and I stare at my computer as if I’ve found a spaceship in my cornfield. It’s the first time a literary agent has read my entire manuscript. My eyes scan her words for a quick clue as to her intention: is it good, bad?
Does she come in peace?
“You are a terrific writer,” I read. Terrific is in italics, and I feel elated. I imagine the extra two seconds it took to press command + i, and I count them as mounting evidence that this email might change my life. I skip across the following sentences in search of more clues until my eyes tangle at the most unfortunate coordinating conjunction.
But.
It was five minutes to the hour and the couple sitting in Alan’s therapy office were in a tail spin. To stay grounded, Alan gripped a small, smooth piece of granite, with colors evenly split between speckled white and creamy black. He found the stone on a trip to the Oregon coast with his wife and daughter during happier times. When he picked it up, his wife said it looked like a yin and yang symbol. Alan sometimes used it as a tool to keep him centered during tense sessions, but today it wasn’t working. He had been reaching for it a lot lately. He loosened his grip on the stone along with the thoughts of his own marriage and refocused his attention to the couple on the couch in front of him.
“I can’t do this anymore” Carol sobbed into her hands.
”Carol, I love you. We can figure this out.” Ted reached his hand to Carol but his voice was flat, void of emotion.
Ernie hated breakfast in general, and he hated muesli in particular. Yet here he was, munching away at a full bowl, just as every morning, because ARG-U5, his health insurance’s AI, had decided in all its wisdom this was what he needed. This and a glass of freshly replicated orange juice. No sugar, of course.
When Ernie had finished, he put on his coat and went to the Blitz, just as every morning. These things run at 450 km/h, he thought, one comes along every 8.5 minutes and yet, they somehow manage to be 28 minutes late on a ten minute ride.
35 minutes later, Ernie entered his company’s 55-story building. It was one of the smaller ones in the area. A nice cozy hut, former ACCE boss Dan Acreman had called it. Then, Acreman resigned and became CEO of GFY, a company with a 122-story building.
Ernie sat down at his desk and paired his neuralink with his workstation. He’d been away two days, and now had 342 new tickets. That’s what you got for taking off a long weekend.
So, the job had gone left.
“Don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking.”
Stars sprinkled throughout the darkening skies and the moon grew in size as Mick made his way back to his colony of family and friends that lived in the hollows and caverns nestled in the mountains of the Irish countryside. Thirty-three leprechauns and their extended families had lived there for centuries and most were related to him.
He tapped his walking stick against small rocks and hummed to himself, lost in the tranquility and peace of his surroundings.
A voice cried out, “Help”, and he startled, stopped and looked around. He waited and listened, but the only sound was that of the wind as it whispered through the trees and brushed against his face. “Sure ‘twas nothing,” he muttered under his breath and continued onward.
The voice grew louder. “Please help me.”