Stories by Nicole Dimitriadis

We had been walking for a while, chatting about nothing, well, not exactly nothing, so much was going on, we were just skirting around it all. Ben would go in and out of rapping random songs when we found ourselves in silence; it was hard not to join in when he did that. There was a feeling in the world, a feeling as we were walking, a feeling on that road, something was off. I couldn’t pinpoint it, but Ben could, “It feels pre-war,” he said, tying a knot in the drawstring of his hoodie. “I was just thinking something like that,” I had to say that, or else he wouldn’t think I was thinking something like that. “So what do you think’s gonna happen?” I asked him, I eased it out, I had to say it in that way, or else he wouldn’t have answered. Ben is this insane kid, in the best way. He is this tiny, Asian guy with glasses too big for his face, and he’s all face. He’s also all knowledge; I swear I’ve never heard someone say so many truths as Ben says. “Strength, mass amounts of strength,” he offered smoothly. I thought on that as Ben pulled out a verse of Gangsta’s Paradise. “Will it make a difference?” I had too much emotion in my voice here, but I thought he would let it slide; he did. “One day. And that’s all we’ve got, is one day.” He kicked a couple rocks off the road, “When the world is unsettled, the magic will appear.”