Nameless

I have been many people before. John Hodgins. Trent Gerry. Harry Renquist. The list goes on. I have been none of them for long, shedding them their shrouds as quickly as I don them. I die and am reborn on a regular basis. This is not the life for any sane person, but alas, it is out of necessity that remain a chameleon. There are people who want me dead and I would just as soon not oblige them. So I change identities often, move from city to city, meet new people, never making friends, picking up the odd job to keep food in my stomach and clothes on my back. Maybe one day I can stop being a nomad, but it will not come until they are dead. Or I am.

Fever

The digital thermometer beeped three times and I looked at the readout. 99.7 it said. It felt like 120. World War Three was waging inside my skull. I could feel gunpowder scorching me. I popped two Tylenol and went to sleep, hoping it would dissipate by morning. I grab the box of tissues and gave one last good blow, popped a menthol cough drop and closed my eyes. If my throat wasn't so sore, I'd moan.

The Midnight Route

For anyone else, the assignment was a chore, something to be avoided at all costs. They traded it away, paid people to take it. But Phil liked the graveyard shift. He liked the quiet. He liked driving the bus at night when no one else was on the street. In the solitude, the city belonged to him and his hulking bus. There were hardly ever any fares and that was fine with him. He felt sorry for the drivers that get the day shifts. They had rush hour to deal with. They had obnoxious drivers that cut you off, double-parked cars to maneuver around, the smell of a crowded bus of people, depressed and angry riders. Night time was perfect. It was just him, the bus, and the stars up above.

Tailgating Doc Brown

Kim had been in traffic for hours, and the person in the ancient Delorean ahead of her was so slow! What is he, reading a book in there? She inched her car closer to it, bumper inches away from the Delorean's poor excuse for one. Maybe he would get the message. She swayed a little outside of her lane and saw empty space ahead of them, at least four car lengths worth. She honked.

The Delorean grumbled into action and sped ahead at a powerful ten miles an hr. It made sounds like Kim's old coughing grandfather. For no reason at all, it stopped again.

Kim honked.

And then she saw something amazing. The Delorean coughed again, but this time instead of going forward, it looked like it was going...up. With what sounded like a sigh, it rose a few inches off the ground, then a foot, then it was clear above all the other traffic.

Kim sat in her car, hands on the wheel, mouth agaped. The car behind her was clearly staring too, because it tapped her from behind. Kim was too busy to turn around because the Delorean was now glowing. And like a jet, it flew away, leaving trails of fire hanging mid-air, finally disappearing in a flash and a loud pop.

My Pal Garmin

I grew tired and listless during my drive back to New York for the holidays. The highway route was monotonous and slow; I was just one among many and the pace was languorous. I tried different things to stay awake, screamed to shock myself awake forcing adrenaline into my body, blinked my tired eyes, sang badly to Christmas songs on the radio. Nothing worked. I focused on the road--or tried to--and merged onto the next stretch of highway.

"Continue five miles and exit right," said the stilted voice from my Garmin GPS device. Even though its voice was a combination of sound files, there was something human sounding about it.

"So, Garmin," I said, "Have you been doing this long? You know, giving directions and all that?"

Of course there was no response, but I continued my side of the conversation.

"Man, I am really sleepy. I really hate these long drives, don't you? They exhaust me. And for what? Just to get together with family. It's the holidays. Blah, blah, blah. To be honest, sometimes I'd just rather stay home where it's warm. Maybe with some cocoa. Or a book! There's book I've been trying to finish. I brought it with me too, but--"

"Exit right in two miles."

"Oh, thanks. Anyway, I don't think I'll get much reading done. Mom is going to want me to fix this and that. Dad's going to spend the day trying to get me to take some new job at the company. I'll be seeing some family I guess, which is nice when they aren't pestering me with really personal questions. Oh! And the food. Actually the food is pretty good. Mom makes this chicken and it is so--"

"Exit right in point five miles."

"Oh, right. Hey, anybody ever tell you you're a good listener? I'm really glad I brought you along."

"Exit right."

"Right-o."

At this point I was so drawn into my one-sided conversation that I hadn't bothered checking the exit number. There were two exits very close together, no more than thirty feet apart, one heading east, and the other west. I took the first one, realizing my error too late.

"Recalculating."

Lie To Me

Michael Addison was a supervisor in title only, as he had no subordinates. As time went on, he became more and more reluctant to say so. He told people he had ten people under him, then it was fifteen, and as lying became easier and easier, it became fifty. The ability to create a new persona became a drug and his tales became more grandiose. He made up a family, a loving wife, cute kids, a collie. In his stories, he got promoted time and time again. Eventually, he said he quit and joined the CIA and demanded people call him Special Agent Addison. Soon the time he spent covering his tracks became time consuming. He recorded new outgoing messages on his answering machine to include his new family. He bought a fake badge and gun complete with shoulder holster. He was like a chicken with his head cut off, scampering all over just to keep up appearances and maintain his fantasy life. But he would have all the time he would need for fabricating stories when he was let go from his non-supervising supervisor job.

A Boy's Hero

When Jackie Tremont was a child, he would often daydream of becoming a hero. Not a superhero, just a hero, no super powers, no costume. He just wanted to be a hero, adored for his bravery and heroism. He would imagine intricately devised scenarios that would invariably end with his triumph over adversity.

When he walked down a street and saw a mother walking a stroller across a busy street, he'd imagine an out of control car hurtling toward them. They would be frozen in place and he would rush in just in time to push them away, but he would be struck. In the dream, he would end up in the hospital because that's what happens to people who get hit by cars--a realistic and pragmatic side of him that existed in both his imagined and real lives. But even as he would need recovery, he would be hailed as a hero, garnering accolades from the mayor, appearing in a hospital bed with a cast on the front page of the newpaper, talked about with wonder and reverence on newscast. There would be bystanders being interviewed on television who are awed by his act of bravery. The baby who was saved would be given Jackie as a middle name.

In his fantasy word, he was ever the optimist, that he could save anyone and everyone even when putting himself in harm's way. Some say that was the start of his career as a police officer and that it is a testament to his life, one that is full of actual citations of bravery from the city as well as a few pictures in the newspapers.

Warning: Adult Content

"Have you gone through your dailies?" Rich asks.

"Almost. Just about," Roxy replies.

It's another day at the offices of Viviotube, a growing video sharing website. Roxy is one of their quality assurance staff and one of her duties every day was to go through her assigned number of dailies. To first understand dailies, one has to understand the website. Thousands of videos are uploaded onto Viviotube every day by all sorts of users, old and young, real and imagined, male and female. One thing that can be said for the web community--and by extension, the Viviotube community--is that they are an eclectic bunch possessing their own ideas of what is right and wrong.

Roxy and her cohorts can't possibly see every video that is uploaded to the website, so they generally take a random sampling and weed out any violate Viviotube's terms and agreements. These include videos with pornography, extreme violence, and copyright violations. Sometimes they are contacted by foreign countries with less democratic values. Sometimes it's television networks or record labels.

Then there are the ones that fall through the cracks. These are picked up by the users themselves. Fastidiously diligent users comb through videos and flag ones they find inappropriate. These flagged submissions are consolidated daily and split up equally among Roxy's group. They go through each one and decide whether or not to ban them, attach a warning tag, or leave it alone. Most of these are easy. A Democrat might be complaining because they find a video mocking his candidate. Annoying for him, sure, but not a violation. A video of a man pleasuring an animal? Roxy can delete that video without a bat of an eye. A video of a man falling off a ladder and breaking an arm or a video blog that has a few words of profanity? A warning tag will probably do. But there are gray areas. There might be a racist video that is morally reprehensible, but even as it promote bigotry and ignorance, it does not promote violence. Roxy dislikes it, but she might not have any grounds to remove it. At most, she might be able to put a warning tag on it, but even that is questionable.

When the gray areas prove to be too gray, the group meets and decides by majority vote. And this is why Rich is asking Roxy if she is done yet. When she is, she joins the rest of them in the conference room. Rich is at the head of the room.

"Roxy, do you mind starting us off?"

"Sure."

She walks to the front and logs onto the computer, pulls up her videos that require deliberation. The first one is cued to start on the wall display.

"Okay," she says, "This first one is sort of strange. It's a guy setting fire to a kangaroo. But I think it might just be a stuffed one."

Unwrapped

Christmas day begins at the stroke of midnight at the Morgan residence. The signal comes from an antique grandfather's clock in the den, a resonating ding-dong that stirs the children from their beds. They haven't been sleeping because they're full of anticipation, ready to tear into gifts large and small.

When they hear clock, it is like a gunshot at a foot face. They storm down the stairs like a pair of elephants, stampeding toward an oasis of gifts under a sparkling tree. There are two of them, ages five and seven, both boys. Their parents watch in good humor, close enough to be part of the festivities, far enough to keep clear of flailing arms and shredded wrapping paper. It is the one night of the year the boys are allowed to be up this late, but it is tradition and they enjoy it.

When the boys are done admiring their new toys, they turn their attention to the pile of wrapping paper in the middle of the living room. They take turns diving into it, wallowing through it like seals in a pool. They have paper ball fights. It is a riotous good time and even their parents join in.

Around 1:30, the boys are tuckered out. The adrenaline of Christmas day wears off and they sleep in the pile of holiday debris as if it was bedding. Their parents carry them to bed and kiss them good night. The boys murmur something intelligible in return and go to sleep, dreaming of their Christmas night.

Animal Lover

I catch sight of him when I enter the pet store. Like me, I think he is just another mall shopper lured in by the sight of puppies. But I can tell something about him right away. He looks like a jerk. I don't know what it is about him. He just looks like one.

As soon as I make that conclusion that was based on nothing but intuition, I see him make his way to the pen of a husky. Its sleeping, like a lot of the other puppies at the store. The ones that are awake seem playful. Birds are chirping and rabbits huddle around the water dispenser.

He pets the dog and it doesn't respond. It's sleeping after all. It's a baby stuck in this glass pen in a mall and it wants this human to go away. There's a sign on each of the pens that say a staff member was be called over before picking the dogs up, but the man pays no heed. His love for animals will not be stopped by a mere unenthusiastic puppy. He picks it up, gives it a playful shake (at least I think he thought it was playful), and lets go. The dog flickers its eyes and slumps back onto the floor of the pen.

This enrages the animal lover, so he raps the side of the pen. Whap whap whap! He does this and speaks in a cutesy voice that is supposed to make this puppy jump up and lick his face. But the dog pays no mind. It just wants to sleep.

I make the rounds, looking at all the animals. They are very cute and also expensive. I'd probably never buy one. If I ever felt I was up to the task of caring for a dog, I'd like to think I would get a shelter dog. As I leave, I hear the animal lover still rapping on the glass. And I hope the husky wakes up and bites him.

Leaving His Mark

He thought about his time at the company while he sat in the human resources waiting for his exit interview. It was hellish, to be sure. There was nothing remotely good about it. His soon to be ex-boss was a simpleton who never worked and passed the buck to him on numerous occasions. He got screwed out of a week of vacation time because of administrative error. His co-workers were gossiping braggarts and couldn't stop long enough between chatting sessions to do anything productive. And he got paid like an intern.

At least he had left his mark, he thought, by which he meant the shoe sized hole in the office wall that he made one frustrating day. In keeping with tradition, the maintenance crew was just an inept, and the hole was still there two months after it was made.

Meeting with the Trimbles

She tapped the cigarette on her finger, depositing ash onto the snow-covered cemetery grounds. It had been a long time since she last smoked, but she often resorted to it in times of stress and old habits died hard. She looked at her watch. They were late.

The headstone in front of her was worn from years of inclement weather. It marked the grave of an Arthur Trimble. Next to the late Mr. Trimble was the grave of Lucy Trimble on one side and Timothy Trimble on the other. The dates of death were identical for all three.

How sad, thought Sarah. She wondered how they died. Probably an accident of some sort. A car crash maybe.

She brushed snow off the headstone of the son, Timothy. Sounds of movement, although quiet, were picked up by her trained ear.

"You're late," she said without turning around.

"You know how traffic can be."

She turned around to see an impish man in a drab down jacket and baseball cap. Warning alarms went off in her head.

"Who are you? I deal with Harry only."

"You deal with me now. Harry's indisposed."

"I don't deal with strangers. Contact me when Harry's not indisposed," she said and walked away.

She would've continued to walk away, committed to leaving this unforeseen scenario, but she heard the sound of a round being chambered.

"That wouldn't be smart. Harry won't be available. Permanently indisposed if you like," the man said with his gun pointed at her. "Now if you'd like to end up like your buddy Harry, keep on walking. Be my guest."

Sarah remained with her back facing him. She laughed. "What did Harry tell you? You have no idea who I am, do you?"

The man was not impressed with her laughing, the mocking tone. "The fuck do I care? You give me the information, the CD, whatever it is, and I give you money. That's how it works. Actually, you're pissing me off now, so how about we forget about the money? You can leave with your life. How's that? Hey! Turn around when I'm talking to you!"

This would be the last thing he ever said because Sarah obliged him and turn around, sending a knife flying toward him with a flick of the wrist, sticking him in the neck. He struggled briefly, wobbled, then fell to the ground. A trickle of blood streamed from the wound and marred the pristine white surface of the Trimble family plot.

Mister Green Thumb

"I don't believe you," Laura said. "I've never seen you plant a thing, even those mung bean plants they had us take care of in biology class."

Jerry paced up and down the path at the Botanical Garden. It was late in the afternoon near closing time and there were few visitors left.

"What are we even doing here? It's freezing."

"I know, I know. Sorry. But I had to show you this."

She was developing a small tick above her left eye that he had come to notice. And with good reason. It was an early warning sign.

"Then show me already so I can go home."

"Ok. Watch."

Jerry rubbed his fingers nervously, reached down and touched a rose bush. Nothing happened.

"I'm waiting."

"Just hold on," he said, hoped something would happen. It worked on the head of lettuce last night. It had developed roots that intertwines all over his refrigerator. It had taken him three hours to clean up the mess.

Then the rose bush shivered slightly, which could have been attributed to a gust of wind by most people, but Jerry knew better. Then it shivered again more violently and Laura gripped his arm.

"What's happening?"

"I don't know," he said. Because he didn't.

Unopened buds slowly flowered and new buds appeared where there were previously none.

"How did you do that?" she whispered. "Is this a trick?"

"No. And I don't know."

The next day, visitors to the Botanical Garden found a fifteen foot high rose clinging to the side of an elm tree. Its flowers were the size of an open palm and its leaves as large as palm fronds.

One Week Later

So this is what a desolate landscape looks like. We've been without power for a week now. The lines snapped under the weight of falling ice-encrusted branches and we were plunged into darkness. They've been trying to get it back online, but there have been setbacks. We've adapted though. Some supermarkets are still open in the daytime and some in the night with generators. People buy canned goods and water to get by until we are reintroduced into the twenty first century.

Most gas stations are out of power too, but hopefully they will get them back up soon. They usually prioritize their efforts, give power to critical needs like hospitals and fire departments. I get into my car and drive, hoping to find fuel. I have a quarter of a tank left and hope maybe there is enough to drive far enough that I will hit the edge of the power outage and find an open gas station. I have nowhere else to go so I don't necessarily need the gas, but there is no heat in the house. At least in the car, I can stay warm without having to wear three sweaters.

It is a strange sight on the road, feels like I'm in a post-apocalyptic movie like Mad Max, but without my leather jacket, a cool car, or guns in the trunk. The roads have yet to be completely cleared. It's an obstacle course so filled with debris that I have to squeeze my way through on most small roads or drive over the small branches if I can.

There is hardly a person in sight, especially none out walking. Once in a while, there are a few cars that pass, but most of the time it's quiet. It is an eerie feeling. None of the street lights are working. All the stores are closed even though I'm in the busy downtown area and it's the middle of the day on a Tuesday. I almost expect to see a tumbleweed to blow across the road or a pack of stray dogs to run up along side the car.

Almost as if on cue, a deer appears in the middle of the intersection in front of me. It studies me for a moment and then bounds off into a side street. I weave around a fallen street sign and keep driving, sporadically checking the rear view mirror for signs of marauders in disheveled dress on gas-guzzling ATVs.

First Draft

There was a seed of an idea in your head one morning. It took root, grew, spread until it invaded each of your thoughts. By noontime, your head is an overflowing dam of ideas, threatening to burst if no outlet was provided. So you sat at your laptop, opened up your word processor program, and started tapping keys.

You were excited. It was the best idea you had ever had and you are filled with euphoria with this release of creativity. You imagined yourself actually finally finishing a novel and getting published to editorial accolades. You began to wonder if you would do a book tour even though you aren't good at public speaking.

The words flowed easily--especially at the beginning--because the plot points and scenes had been fermenting and unfolding in your brain for hours already. All you were doing was opening up the release valve. Soon though, it turns into a Jackson Pollack-like smattering of prose and dialog. Your mind was working on overdrive, plotting out an entire novel-length story faster than you can type. You had already finished the entire narrative including snappy character dialog and quirky characters by the time you are halfway through writing the starting chapter.

You soon gave up trying to write with any eloquence, producing run on sentences with limited vocabulary and structure. There was no style to speak of. All you wanted to do was throw all your ideas on the page before it was lost in your short term memory. You congratulated yourself as thought of more and more interesting and funny ideas. You imagined a great comeback line for your character. You thought of a thrilling car chase with a unique twist. A thousand thoughts are flying through your head, creating and linking up a story that will surely take months to complete. After a while, you stopped writing altogether and just started writing down an outline of scenes in a stream of consciousness.

When were done with the outline, you resume your writing, but this time it was of a higher quality because you were focused on the craft and you had the outline, not a brain swirling with disrupting scenes.

A month went by and you kept writing every day, even if it becomes less and less everything, until one day you stop because you've lost interest, fallen out of love. Excitement in the story was gone. A few more weeks went by before you opened up that first draft again. You read through the first few chapters and are appalled. You couldn't believe you actually wrote this, thought it was good. It was uninspired and unoriginal. The dialog was flat and the situations trite. The style was pedestrian and the characters shallow. So you shelved it, only existing in a deep nested folder on your hard drive, most likely never to be seen again.

Later that day after the literary execution, you were watching a movie when a spark of synapses flickered in your head. A new seed was planted and started to grow.

Winter Wonderland

Pictuesque was the word to describe it. Another would be state disaster. Across the state, trees were beautifully adorned with translucent decorations, ice droplets accumulating on pine needles, telephone poles, power lines, cars, and mailboxes alike. Matt looked outside at this winter wonderland of drab gray, still under the assault of freezing rain. Power was out in many towns, his being one of them. No power meant no heat and no stove and the refrigerator would need to be cleared soon. Trees were down, blocking numerous streets and power lines hung down perilously next to them. He thought about driving into work for no more than three seconds before he bundled himself in another sweater, lit a candle, and slipped back into bed with a book.

Ceramic Stylings (Revised)

Sharon couldn't remember how long she had been watching Antiques Roadshow or how she even ended up on the channel. She was mesmerized by the multitude of people bringing their finds to appraisers, most coming out of it with the realization of being thousands of dollars richer. There was an old creaky dresser that was bought for twenty five dollars and worth two thousand because it was made in the 1920s by a rare furniture maker that made only twenty of that model. There was a man who spent two dollars on a box of coins and found out that one of them was worth five hundred because of an imperfection in its ridge.

Days later, the show still stayed with her. The promise of accidental wealth was too great a temptation. Sharon became one of the treasure-finding hopeful. She looked through her attic, prowled through garage and yard sales. Most people at the sales were just sniffing out deals or curious passersby, but she recognized the ones who were like herself. They methodically perused paintings, tea sets, plates, furniture, and anything else that looked old. They all looked like they were researching for investments. Some even brought notepads and calculators.

Even as a novice, most yard and garage sale items didn't pass her scrutiny. They were generally trivial knick-knacks that had no value other than sentimental. Sharon was about to give up when she happened upon one sale that was organized by a man who was clearing out the house of his recently deceased grandmother. A pair of glossy white ceramic kittens caught her eye in the middle of tables and tables of the old woman's lifetime of possessions.

The grandson came over when he saw her looking at the figurines.

"My grandma had those for as long as I can remember."

"They're beautiful," said Sharon.

"All this can be hard to part with, but I need to move them all pretty fast. I can give you a good price for that."

"I don't know. I'm really just looking."

"I can give them to you for ten. She used to collect anything and everything as you can see. You know, you might be able to get more for them later. I just don't have the time to check each one. It would take me well over a year."

"They do look pretty nice."

"Well, in her day, she used take anything she could get. Even if it was in horrible condition, she would take it and clean it up, refurbish it. She was always the relentless optimist," he said, smiling at the memory.

The cats were the most promising pieces Sharon had seen so far. She still didn't know what to make of them, but she haggled for a lower price and hoped that they might be worth something more down the line.

She made her purchase just in time for the Roadshow's stop in town. The event was swarming with people waiting for their appraisals, ready for the scrutiny. Some chattered excitedly to one another, describing their family treasures and bargain shopping gems. Some guarded their prized possessions closely. One woman in particular stared at Sharon suspiciously and clutched her rabbit etched plates to her chest, as if she would snatch them away.

It was four hours before she was seen and it wasn't in front of a camera. The appraiser had a bushy mustache that twitched when he spoke and thick brown glasses framing tired eyes.

"What do we have here today?"

Sharon presented the ceramic kittens.

"I see..." said the man, holding the white ceramic figurines in the air. He turned them this way and that, examining them with great care.

"May I ask how much you paid for these?"

"Five dollars," Sharon replied, her anticipation rising. Would she be one of the lucky ones? How much would they be worth? A hundred? Six thousand?

"Mm hmm, mm hmm. Would you be surprised to find out that these were made in China?"

"Oh really?" She was getting more excited now. She had thought she recognized an Asian influence in the design. Would that increase their value?

"And when would you guess that these were produced?"

"Well," she said, doing a little mental arithmetic, estimating the grandson's age and how old the cats had to be if they belonged to his grandmother. "The thirties maybe? "

"Not quite," the appraiser said. "It's probably closer to the nineties."

"1890s?" she said with a catch in her voice. She had secretly hoped they were older. She wondered what kind of history they had, what hands had touched them.

"No." There was a sense of finality in his voice.

She looked at him with a puzzled expression, so he flipped over one of the cats and showed her its white bottom that lacked the clean glossy finish the rest of the figurine possessed. He scratched the center with a fingernail. White pieces that might have been paint or correction fluid started flaking off to reveal three words: Made In China.

CSI Speak: Miami Style

It's Dolan's first week out of uniform, having recently been promoted to detective. He is behind schedule and arrives late to the crime scene. The carnival is swarming with blue, as patrolmen, detectives, and forensics mill about under the glare of the midday sun.

He walks past the tape and gets his first glimpse of the body. It is sticking head first into a cotton candy machine. It appears to be a man, but he can't see see much else because the upper half of his body which is inside the vat is completely smothered and encased inside cotton candy like a fluffy pink cocoon. A detective is already on scene, and he is scrutinizing the the body with great intensity. It looks like he was studying an autostereogram, one of those pictures that you have to focus behind it to uncover the image.

"What do we have?" Dolan asks him.

The man says nothing. Apparently he is in deep thought.

Dolan looks at a couple of uniforms that are standing nearby. They look back at him with equally puzzled looks.

As if coming out of a trance, the man says, "It looks like like...," and stops. He is wearing shades and he looks up at the sun as if it was a suspect. Then he takes off the shades and looks directly at Dolan.

"...things got a little sticky," he continues with great dramatic flair, the last word punctuated by a musical flourish that comes out of nowhere and then fades out just as quickly.

Just Pretend

During that afternoon, Danny was a warrior elf. His ears were made pointy in elfin fashion by masking tape, a colander was his helmet, and pillows tied to his chest with jump rope was armor. He originally wore his dad's work boots, but soon found them too encumbering for quick warrior movement.

He held the pot cover shield close to his body and pulled his sword from his waistband. It was the cardboard center of a used roll of paper towel. Letting out a scream, he ran across the lawn at his nemesis Lord Rotten, also known as Rocky, a golden retriever with construction paper horns rubberbanded to the top of his head.

Lord Rotten barked and ran away, thrilled with the chance to play. Danny charged on, playfully batting Rocky's hind quarters with his sword. When Rocky was tired of being chased, he turned the tables, and it was the warrior elf's turn to flee across the yard. When he caught up to Danny, Lord Rotten vanquished the giggling warrior elf with savage slobbering licks.

Fidelity

The message was on his desk when he came back from lunch, stuck to his mouse, written in bold black marker on a sticky note: SHE'S WITH HIM NOW. GO HOME.

He stuck his head outside of his cube, checking to see if anyone was watching him but saw no one. He looked at the note again, his worst fear realized. There had been hints of an affair, but he never brought himself to believe it, thinking it was just the green-eyed monster, that he was paranoid. There was the musk of cologne that he'd never smelled before, the pair of earrings he inadvertently found while looking for dress socks. She claimed that he had given them to her years ago. He didn't argue it and convinced himself that it was his failing memory and nothing else.

And the working out. She hadn't been on an exercise bike in years until recently. She said it was because she needed it, had for a long time now. In a sense he supposed it was true--not that she was unattractive, she was--but it struck him strange at the time.

He considered his own body for a moment. He could certainly go a few laps in the pool.

But now the note. Could it be a hoax? Could someone be playing with his fears? But he hadn't voiced his concerns to anyone, not even his closest friends. He convinced himself they were a product of an idle mind, that it was because marriage was full of hills and valleys and they were just going through a slow patch, that it was normal. Marriage wasn't always passion and fireworks. He had come to accept that. But now the note. He couldn't stop thinking about it. He had to know.

He tried thinking of other things during the drive, but nothing could distract him. He stuck the sticky note onto the dash. The words burned into his head, a multitude of scenarios unfolding in his mind. What would he do if he caught her in the act? What if she wasn't there? What if she was, but she was just home early for something? What would he say the reason was that he was home early? Had she mentioned she would be home? Was today her short work day? He couldn't think straight anymore.

When he pulled into the driveway, her car was already there and an unfamiliar blue car was parked on the street two doors from their house. A lump formed in his throat. He had trouble breathing.

There was no one in sight when he went in, but there was music coming from upstairs, sounded like it was from the master bedroom. Oh God, he thought. Were they in his own bed? Then he saw the jacket hanging on the stairway banister. His memory may be failing, but he was sure it didn't belong to him.

Despair gave way to anger. He stepped onto the first step and it creaked. He carefully took the next few steps. He needed to catch them in the act. He needed to actually see it to believe it, that his sixteen year marriage was over. The music grew louder. Then he heard her voice, or more specifically, a moan. Maybe it was part of the music, he thought, even as he scolded himself for being so weak. He would know that voice anywhere. He felt his anger ebb, relenting to despair again. It was the sound of squeaking springs that finally did him in. He stopped, couldn't move anymore. He didn't want to catch them anymore, couldn't bear the image of it.

He went back downstairs and considered just leaving. He was drenched in sweat though, and there was a shower on the first floor. As much as he hated staying another minute in the house, he couldn't go back to work in this state, as if he could get any more work done today.
There was a fresh load of clean laundry folded neatly by the washer. He grabbed some clothes.

The water felt good. Hot. Cleansing. But it didn't wash anything away, not really. He stood under the shower head, not moving, and before he knew it he was crying. He couldn't remember the last time he had cried or how it had felt. He could still hear the music over the water, or at least he thought he did. He couldn't tell.

It was an old house and the pipes rattled whenever water was used. Surely she must have heard it. He heard what he thought was footsteps on the stairs and the front door close.

"Hon, is that you?"

The voice surprised him. He wanted to call her a whore, a harlot. He wanted to her how badly she betrayed him, how disgusted he was with her. But he didn't.

"Yeah." His voice was hoarse. He hoped she didn't hear the catch in his voice.

Out of the shower, all evidence of tears erased by it, he saw her sitting in the living room with the newspaper, nonchalantly.

"You're home," he said. It wasn't a question.

She smiled broadly, the kind that he hadn't seen in a long while, the kind that hid deceit.

"Short day today," she said.

"Oh."

"You? How come you're back so early?"

"I forgot something. Had to come back for it. I was tired too. Needed that shower to wake me up."

He smiled his plastic smile too, but wasn't sure it went over. He had less practice with it. He could tell she wanted to ask him why he didn't use the shower upstairs, or what it was that he forgot, but it would've opened her up for other questions. He wondered if she knew that he knew. So neither one of them said anything else. He was at very edge of knowing the truth, but was too afraid to confront it. To confront it was to acknowledge it as a reality. It was a stalemate.

"Well, I'm off to work again. Dinner at 7?"

"I'm going out with Darlene."

Darlene, he thought. Sure.

"Okay."

She got up and gave him a peck on the cheek that barely grazed his skin. It was the farthest away from him that she could be while it still technically being a kiss. He smelled that unfamiliar scent again when she was close.

When he left, he saw that the jacket was gone from the banister. As he started the car, he noticed that the blue car was gone. He took the sticky note off the dash and crumpled it as if he was squeezing her. He sat there for a couple of minutes, letting the car warm up while he thought. He considered the note in his hand, smoothed it out, and then put it on her windshield.

"Goodbye," he said and drove off.

A Conditional Yes

"Greg wants to know if we want to go to a movie with him and Jill tomorrow," he asks her.

"Sure."

"You don't care what movie?"

She shrugs. He's caught her looking at Greg a few times, not that he minded all that much. He knows she loves him, trusts him. And Greg is attractive, in a strictly objective sense of the word. So he jokes about it.

"It's just so you can be the one to sit next to him in the theater, huh?"

"What?" she says, taken aback. She clearly doesn't realize that he is teasing her. "No, of course not! Why would you say that?"

He laughs and kisses her on the forehead. "Relax. I've seen you stealing glances. He's a good looking guy. I don't mind."

"Really?"

"Let me ask you something. Do you love me?

"Of course. You know that."

"Do you love him?"

"No."

"So what do I care? It's just a natural thing. I'm secure enough in our relationship to trust you. Besides, I have a thing for Jessica Alba. You don't care about that right?"

"Well, no. But that's different. She's unattainable."

"Gee, thanks."

She kisses him on the the cheek this time.

"What was that for?"

"For being the best boyfriend a girl could ask for."

He is still, pondering.

"What are you thinking?" she asks.

"I was thinking that Rachel is pretty hot too. She's more attainable."

She gasps and playfully slaps his shoulder. "She's my best friend!"

"Still hot."

"So should we stop seeing her?"

"No. She's a five. You're a ten. Why would I be thinking of just a pretty picture when I have the Mona Lisa?"

"Thanks, I think."

"Then again, let's say you were in a horrible accident, and we were at the hospital and you needed an emergency transfusion. If both Rachel and I were there and only her blood was a match, and if she said that she was secretly harboring a flame for me, that if I would make mad, passionate love to her in a hospital supply closet, she would do the transfusion, I might have to do it because I love you and I would only pretend to enjoy it."

"Do you think about this a lot?"

"Or then, God forbid, you actually died, and she was there to comfort me in my time of despair, who knows what might happen?"

Bermuda or Bust

"So you know how I need to get those two weeks off for the trip to Bermuda with Emily?"

"Right."

"And how I don't have any vacation time left?"

"Right again. Is there a point to this?"

"I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to use my sick time."

"You're not sick and you can't use that for two straight weeks."

"Yes, but it's the way I'm going to use it. I'm going to call in gay."

"Come again?"

"It's brilliant! Check this out. I'm going to say I'm gay, and that
I've been told it's a sickness, and I need to spend time at a retreat to cure myself. And if they don't let me use, I'll sue for discrimination."

"You're not gay."

"Right! That's where you come in. You're going to be my pretend-boyfriend."

"I've lost track of all the inappropriate things you've said."

Suspension 4.0

Terry Pratt may have been the first valedictorian to ever be suspended at Grover High, two weeks from graduation no less, and for doing well on a test.

It started with the test, of course, which was proving to be most difficult and last task of Terry's high school career. He crammed and crammed and crammed two nights in a row, getting far less sleep than a person should.

The day of the test, he was walking like one of the undead, but once he got behind the desk and put the pencil in his hand, he was operating on adrenaline. All the hours of memorizing and reciting, poured out of him through the pen. Synapses fired in his brain, adrenaline coursed through his veins. In the end--and half an hour before anyone else--he was done and confident that his GPA would stand intact.

The funny thing about adrenaline is that once it's gone, it's debilitating. Terry had maybe ten percent of his awareness left going into the test, and the test had used up that remaining balance. Walking down the hall, he was euphoric, practically whistling. Then he hit the wall, both figuratively and literally. He tripped (on nothing) and had no strength left in his body to correct himself, so he came crashing down. His hands grabbed instinctively at anything close by which was Jenny Mitchcomb's dress, which came down, which cause her to fall, and him to land face down, snoring, on her white cotton panties. This led to screaming and accusations while Terry was unable to defend or explain himself, for he was unconscious, and would be for the next twelve hours.

A Fair Trade

"I'm happy to see you today, Malcolm."

"You are?" says Malcolm, doubtful of such a thing.

"I am. It's true," says the man. "Where is it?"

"Sir?"

"You look at me as if a moron. Surely you are not as dumb as you appear. Where is my damn money."

"Yes. About that." He took out a fistful of bills.

The man snatched it from his hand and counted it.

"This is half, a little less even. Explain yourself."

Malcolm simpers. "I don't have it yet. I will. I swear it."

The man taps the stack of bills on his hand. "Alright. We still have a problem don't we? I can wait for the rest, but to let you go just like this. It makes me look bad, you see. Just bad."

"Sir. I-I-I..."

"Oh quit mumbling Malcolm. Ahh! I know!"

Malcolm looks at him.

"A finger."

Malcolm's eyes widen.

"You pick. We can take the smallest one if you like. A pinky for the delay."

"But I can't. I don't--"

"Don't be a coward. You came here with half of it. Did you expect to just leave here just like that?"

Malcolm looks at his hand, considers it. Shaking he holds out his left hand, pinky extended.

Wrecked

Torrential rain fell like a swarm of diving hornets. In the storm, a freight train of twenty-three cars carrying lumber sliced through the water, a relentless metal beast with a blackened steel grill. Rain water slicked off its sides--almost horizontally from the unmitigated speed. During the course of the trip, the wipers at the head of the train had stopped working and the constant cascade of rain produced a blurry sheen of water on the windshield that made visibility nigh impossible. The train operator had stuck his head out the side but retreated when he was soaked through in less than a minute. He maintained speed. They were on a track. What was there to see anyway?

Five miles up the track at a railroad crossing, Tammy Greely was having her own wiper problems. Things were fine and dandy until the storm had picked up. When she switched her wiper speed to its fastest setting, the already fraying rubber from the blades committed suicide and ripped completely away from the wipers and flew off into the storm, leaving her with a squeak-squeak scratching noise but no visibility. Maybe if she could see, or hear over the thundering rain, or pulled over like a rational person, she would have noticed the ringing of the bell or seen the lowering of the railroad crossing arm that was adorned with a red X, universally understood as a sign that further forward motion was inadvisable. But she was oblivious to such things, that is until her car sneaked under the descending arm and crossed halfway over the tracks, a sensation that one does not need to see nor hear to realize its implications.

Halfway over the tracks is where the laboring Ford Focus died, coughed its last lung-full of exhaust. It was then that she lowered her window to examine her situation and it was then that she heard the tell-tale ding-ding sound of impending doom. Through the rain, she could see the source of it heading straight for her, tons and tons of it. She put the car in neutral and went outside to push. But the assaulting rain prevented her from getting a good footing and without it, she couldn't roll the wheels over the tracks no matter how much she tried to rock the car.

The train operator noticed a white, glowing orb of light appear on his windshield growing larger. It was unexpected enough that he stuck his head out the side again. He blew the horn again and again but the car wouldn't move. He braked but there wouldn't be enough track to stop the hulk of a train. As the train came closer, he could see a figure trying to push the car across. Frantically blowing the horn, he waved at the person, hoping whoever it was would have the sense to get out of the way, sacrifice the car.

The train had seemed so slow when it was far away. But now it couldn't be more than a hundred yards away and every time she blinked, it seemed like it was moving faster despite the sparks coming from the wheels indicating otherwise. She could see a man in the head car waving at her and the horn blasts were becoming deafening. Defeated and drenched, she ran back from her car of eleven years and watched, cold, shivering and grabbing at her arms.

The next instant in time was not like you'd expect, not like the movies. There was no explosion, no dramatic music playing inside her head. One moment the car was there. The next, half of it was gone. Maybe it was the rain or maybe she was in shock, but didn't remember hearing the actual sound of the crash, the metal smashing metal, the contorting and ripping of steel. She stood there watching the many cars of the freight train run through and over the debris like a battering ram composed of lumber and coal. She remained standing there for many minutes until the train operator who had finally managed to stop the train ran back to check on her.

Vroom-vroom!

"This is amazing!" he screamed into her ear as they flicked in and out of another highway lane on her Kawasaki.

She smiled but didn't turn around to show it to him. He hadn't been so keen on riding earlier. How things changed. Besides, she had to keep her eyes on the road. They were inching towards eighty miles an hour.

She leaned again to the left and he--already in tune with her movements--did the same and they sped past a slow moving white pickup to unveil an obstacle-free stretch of straight highway that went for miles.

"Hold on tight," she said in a whisper and chuckled.

She opened it up, the powerful rocket under them snorted, revved, and then sent them shooting forward. He clutched onto her waist for dear life.

Twirl and Whirl

The pen flipped and twirled through and around her fingers like they were attached with invisible strings, manipulating it into acrobatics. Whirling around like a windmill, propelled by muscle memory, the pen was a blur. It was a habit of hers--doing this--while thinking, and she was racking her brain for the answer to the last question on the exam. The pen acted like a gear, jump-starting her memory, pulling out the answer. She flipped it up on in the air and snatched it, scribbled down the answer and walked out of the examination room.

Streak

A flash in the sky formed a white streak in the dark of the night sky. Karen gazed upward from the slit of her tent, her view composed of stars that twinkled and the tail of the comet. The comet's tail reflected in the lake, an image that rippled with the undulating currents on the water.

She nudged Bill to try to wake him, for him to share the moment. But like the flash, it was gone and he gave a snort and went back to sleep.

Off the Land

It all started with a downsizing. They let go five hundred people that day, me being one of them. It didn't matter that I had worked there for eight years, that I counted on that paycheck every two weeks. We were disposable in their goal of becoming more efficient, more reflective of the current economic conditions.

Even then, I was not worried. I had money saved up, as hard as it was on my salary. There was enough for six months of expenses while I found work. It wouldn't be too hard I thought. Six months was a long time and at worst I would take a job for lower pay to make ends meet.

But one month became two, then three, and before you knew it, it was six months and two interviews later, still unemployed. I had run out of money at the bank--at least not enough for the next month's rent. I stayed with friends for a while, but I could tell that I was wearing out my welcome. I don't see them anymore. I wonder how they are.

I packed up my belongings, pawned what I could, and put the rest in the car. I've lived in the car for two months now, getting gas money where I could, eating at soup kitchens, and getting some warm clothes for the winter from the thrift store. It will be getting cold soon and a car is no place to spend the winter. Even I don't know how long I can keep the car. Eventually I will have to sell that too I think. It's old, but maybe I can get enough for it for a few weeks in a cheap motel.

I still look for work, but it gets harder when I no longer look like a reputable potential employee. There is constant stubble on my face and my clothes are rumpled and unclean most of the time. Tonight, I staked out a restaurant's dumpster until they brought out fresh bags. I found what I could and brought it back to the car, which I can no longer afford the gas for. I think I will have to sell it.

Crazy Pete

Crazy Pete wasn't really crazy--not that we would have held it against him. The reason behind his moniker was that he was prone to making outlandish declarations, and before he would make them, he would say, "Call me crazy, but..." He would say things like, "Call me crazy, but I really think that an all mayonnaise diet is the way to go!" or "Call me crazy, but emu meat is going to replace beef in supermarkets in ten years!"

He also had all the emotional complexity of a toddler--no, an infant, given their shared affinity for suckling on breasts, albeit for entirely different reasons.

Impotent Rage

The guy in the truck in front of me is starting to piss me off. He's driving sixty miles an hour in a sixty-five mile an hour zone in the left lane. It wouldn't bother me as much if he was just slow and had no idea of the etiquette of the road. If you're in the leftmost lane, you're supposed to go fast, and if you don't, you move over so someone can. But this guy has gone fast. I've seen it. He was just going eighty before, back when I was happy, when he wasn't slowing down my five hour drive.

But now he's slowed down to sixty for no apparent reason, so I'm not annoyed or angry. I am pissed.

I tailgate him and my headlights flood his cabin. I figure that should send the message, but he doesn't budge. I am powerless because I'm boxed in by another car directly to my right.

Finally, there is an opening, and I gun the engine, hoping to pass him on the right, but another car in the rightmost lane cuts me off because he's passing somebody slower than him on his right. I apply my brakes until he's back in his slower right lane.

I press down on the gas pedal and my tachometer whirs upward. I am about to pass the truck--my front bumper is parallel with his rear bumper--when he cuts me off. This time I slam my brakes because that's the only way to avoid the accident. Up until this point, I just had assumed he was oblivious, but now I think he's just messing with me.

When I have the opportunity, I slip into the stream of cars on the left that are speeding by the truck. As I pass him, I hurl a series of obscenities at him that I would never repeat in polite company. I give him the finger for good measure.

It's dark and my windows are closed, so he doesn't hear or see me. It doesn't matter. I feel better already.

Overheard

"That guy was a tall motherfucker."

"Now, that's just a stereotype. Not all of us tall guys do that sort of thing. First of all, it was my sister. Secondly, it was just the tip."

Making Friends

Caleb was deep in thought; had been for minutes now. Then his eyes lit up like he had an epiphany. I imagined a light bulb illuminating above his head.

"I think I need a black friend," he said to me, as if he had come to a weighty conclusion after much deliberation. He might as well have declared that he needed to move more of his investments into bonds or that he needed a new toaster. He said it calmly, seemingly after much deliberation.

"Why?" I said, because I couldn't think of a better response.

"I was just thinking. I have you and you're Asian, well Chinese to be exact."

I nodded. No argument there.

"There's Sarah, who's Jewish. Then there's Jorge--"

"Jorge's your landscaper."

"We go out for a beer once in a while," he said, which apparently made them good friends. "The fact is, I have no black friends. Why is that?"

"Because you live in New Hampshire. You're lucky you have me as a friend. You're ahead of the curve."

"I'm just not trying hard enough. Diversity. That's where it's at. I need a black friend."

He seemed resolute in this statement.

"So you have an affirmative action friend-making system now?"

"Sure, why not?"

"You're one crazy cracker."

Cat Skinning and Other Hobbies

Joe had spent nearly an hour digging at the cold hard ground with his hoe in a doomed attempt to remove the tree stump. He was drenched in sweat and tired and sore, but all he had managed to accomplish was clear the soil around the foot wide trunk.

He wiped the sweat from his brow and threw the hoe down onto the lawn.

"You gonna give me a hand or what?" he asked Ben, who laughed.

"Who, me? No way." He swatted away some dirt that had clung onto his shirt from Joe's last swing.

Joe grunted and picked up a pickaxe and swung it at the stump near it's base. He wedged it under a large root and using a rock as leverage, tried to wedge the trunk loose a bit more. But it was useless. Futile.

"Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat," he said as he threw the pickax into the large pile of garden tools, none of which have had any success.

"What cat?" asked Ben.

"Huh?" Joe started walking to the shed. Ben followed.

"What cat are you skinning? You making a hat? A scarf?"

"You realize you're an idiot right?"

"Seriously, that must be one of the most nonsensical sayings around. I mean, on any given day, what person would be faced with not only the task of skinning a cat, but also the conundrum of finding alternates methods for it."

"Mmhmm." He was used to Ben's ranting and was already rummaging through the shed for current problem. Meanwhile, Ben continued his tirade against idioms in the English language outside on the grass.

"I mean, why not 'There's more than one way to murder a hobo'? Or, milk a spider monkey? Or--"

He was interrupted by the loud revving sound that was emitting from the chainsaw Joe brought out of the shed.

"You keep thinking about that while I take care of this stump."

Creation

It was the last gift in the pile, small and wrapped neatly in brown paper with a neat bow made of twine. Chelsea's mother handed it to her.

"It's from Grandpa Gary."

Chelsea had opened many great gifts before this: a bike, her very first computer, tickets to the taping of her favorite show on Disney. There was little chance that this small modestly packaged present could top anything that came before it.

She pulled apart the packaging to find a small box inside. Opening that, she found the strangest gift that she had ever received in her nine years. It was a red crayon, under which was a small card that said, "Use with care. It will open up new worlds for you. Love, Grandpa."

"What is that honey?" asked Chelsea's father, who had been recording the unwrapping for posterity.

"I dunno." She gave the crayon to him to inspect.

He furrowed his brow, examining the ordinary-looking red stick.

"Why did your dad give her a crayon?" he asked his wife.

"Beats me. You know how eccentric he is."

He handed the crayon back to Chelsea who shrugged and put it into her pocket before rushing to her room to use her new laptop to chat with friends. She played around with the computer for a little while and then heard her mother call from downstairs.

"Chelsea?"

"Yeah?"

"Why don't you make a thank you card for Grandpa? I think he would really like that."

"Okay," Chelsea called back.

"Why don't you use that crayon he gave you?" her father chimed in.

Chelsea took out a piece of construction paper from her drawer, folded it in half into a rudimentary card, and thought of what to draw on the cover. She decided on drawing a picture of a crayon.

She started outlining the picture of a crayon with the one she received. When she was done, she sat back and held the card in front of her, scrutinizing her artistic talents. It was red crayon on green paper, and it was a slightly squiggly, but it wasn't half bad.

Then, to her shock, the drawing started to glimmer. Her eyes went wide and she rubbed them to make sure she wasn't seeing things. A spark of light appeared on the crayon drawing and it traced the outline she drew like a fuse on a wick of dynamite. When the tracing completed, a quick flash of light emanated from the page that blinded her momentarily.

When she opened her eyes, the red crayon was on the paper, but the drawing itself was gone. But then she noticed the crayon was still gripped in her fist. But that meant now there were two. Two crayons! She looked at the tip of the crayon she had used. The tip was rounded from drawing the picture, but before her very eyes, it reformed into a perfect point.

"Mom!"

"What?" she called from downstairs.

"This crayon just appeared out of nowhere and--"

Then she remembered the card that came with the present. She ran back downstairs into the living room and pulled it out of the mess of wrapping paper and empty boxes. She read it over and over.

Chelsea's mom came into the living room.

"Chelsea? Everything okay?"

She looked up from the card. "Uh. Yeah. Nevermind."

Chelsea looked at the card again after she left the room. She said the words out loud. "It will open up new worlds for you."

She stared at the crayon, her mind racing with a hundred images a second. What else should she draw?

Red-Blooded American

"Why do people call themselves 'Red-Blooded Americans'?"

"What do you mean?"

"I just don't know what it means."

"It's just an expression. I think it means you're average. I don't know."

"I kinda understand that part, but all blood is red if you're a human. It makes no sense. I can't say it's any other color. I can't be a blue-blooded American. Or green or yellow or black."

"I guess."

"Hm.."

"Well the red part could maybe stand for something, like vigor, strength, down-to-earth."

"I think it means you need to learn more adjectives."

Prepping

"You're gonna put what in where?" he asked.

"It's really the only way to screen for colon cancer," said the doctor.

He considered not having it done, living in blissful ignorance, but what if he had something? It would be pretty stupid not to have undergone a routine, if uncomfortable, procedure just because it might feel embarrassing. He agreed and they set up an appointment.

A few days later, he got his prep instructions in the mail.

Clear fluids? Fine.

A large glass of water every hour? Damn.

Uncontrollable diarrhea. Oh boy...

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

A week out of police academy, Henry had finished celebrating his first day walking the beat with friends. They had gone on bar hopping, but he had to get home, it being a work night and all. It was too early in his career to be hungover on the job.

He walked home, a new bounce to his stride, as if imbued with new power. Then he heard three shots. Pop, pop, pop! He instinctively reached to his waist, but he didn't have an off-duty piece yet. Still, he ran towards the noise.

In the alley way, a figure laid on the grown, still. His footsteps made splashing noises in the puddle as he came to the man. His shirt was bloodstained and the crimson was spreading quickly. He was dead.

Next to the man was a crumpled paper bag. Henry peered inside. In the light of the street lamps, he saw stacks of bills held together with rubberbands. The money was in small denominations--ones, fives, tens and twenties--and old. They were frayed at the sides, creased and worn. Even though they were small bills, there was enough in the bag that there must have been at least a thousand dollars.

"Put the bag down," a voice commanded.

He turned around and looked at the barrel of a gun.

"Put the bag down and step away from the body," the woman said.

"I'm a cop."

She shrugged. "Makes no difference to me."

"I've already called for backup. They'll be here soon."

"No, you didn't."

He was going to argue, but he didn't think she could be convinced. He put the money down and backed away.

"It's a shame," she said. "Why did you have to be here? Now what will I do with you?"

"Why don't you give me your gun--"

His words were cut off by two blasts of a pistol. The woman collected the shells, picked up the paper bag, and left.

Be Like Mike

When I'm on that schoolyard asphalt, crossing over, playing that basketball like a yo-yo, I feel like I can do anything. I can take off from faded yellow free throw line and throw the rock down. I can take twenty five foot three pointers with a flick of the wrist. They sail through the air and go through the hoop, not touching the sides, rattling the chain net.

It doesn't matter who guards me because there is no defense for my offense, just as there is no offense for my defense. I pick their pockets, stealing the ball before they know they've lost it. I swat ill-advised shot attempts into adjacent ball courts as I let out primal screams. I grab boards like no one's business. Any free ball isn't free for long.

My passes are so precise they can thread needles. There is no defense I can't pick apart, throwing dimes behind my back, from my off-hand. I can break your ankles with a stutter move and toss up a no-look alley-oop from half court.

When the game is on the line, I wave away others because there is only one way it will end: in my hands, then in the hoop. I look calmly at the defender, staring him down, daring him to stop me. I dribble slowly, then change direction with a burst of speed and lose him only to be met by a double team. I spin away, fifteen feet away from the basket, and jump. Fading away in the air, I feel hands grabbing me wildly but no foul is called. It is playground ball after all. I'm in the air for what feels like an eternity. My hands feels the seams on the ball, so intimately as if we are one thing. When it comes away from my fingertips, I don't even need to look. It just feels right.

The game is over.

Among the Insane

When the teen film star came onto the slapped-together mall stage, the girls amassed in the audience went nuts. They screamed and spasmed, as if they needed exorcisms.

Frank shook his head. What was he doing here? He was wrapped around his little girl's finger. Sarah wants an autograph, she gets one. He sighed and looked down at the rolled up poster she gave him to get signed. He had put his foot down; she wasn't going to miss school too come here, so he promised to stop by early after work to get the autograph.

He should've expected this, he thought. He had thought he would be in and out. Fifteen minutes tops.

The guy on stage was dressed normally, looked normal, but there was obviously something he didn't see. Over a hundred girls swarmed the stage to get their ten seconds with him. Frank held the poster up above his head to prevent it from getting crushed.

He called home. It was going to be a long night.

Red Versus Blue

Blue raised his sword and dashed towards Red like a dart, slicing furiously. Red guarded with his wrist guard, sparks flying like fireworks. He jumped back while Blue held the advance, both of them hopping in harmony until Red finally shoved Blue back.

Red brandished his automatic pistol released a fury of bullets toward Blue, who flitted behind boulders. Shards of stone flew into the air in puffs. Then came the tell-tale clicking sound of an empty magazine.

Blue emerged from his hiding place, took one step on a boulder, and launched himself, leaping into the air and slashed down with his blade. The sword tasted flesh fleetingly as Red barely dodged the fatal blow. He wiped blood from his cheek and threw away the pistol. He reached into the folds of his billowing trench coat and pulled out a sub machine gun. It spit fire.

Blue deflected a few rounds with his sword until it shattered. He took one in the side and retreated behind another boulder. Fingering the dagger in his belt, he planned his next move.

Leaving Nebraska

"I'll be good," he said. "I promise."

She cried, but she had to do it. She didn't know what else to do. She knew that this time would come, through the long drive from Miami, deceiving her boy for all those miles. But what could she do? There was no more money. She had no job, could no longer provide for him. He would be better this way, she convinced herself.

"You'll be better off this way," she said, blinking away tears.

"No," he protested, his small arms wrapped tightly around her like tentacles.

"I'll find out where you are and I'll come for you when things get better."

She wasn't sure if she could. She was abandoning her child. What court would give her custody again? But she didn't know what else to say. If it was a delusion, at least it was enough for now.

"Momma!" he cried as she tore away from him.

An orderly gently restrained him while she left. She walked out the automatic doors and began the lonely drive back home--if it could be called that anymore--crying so hard that she could hardly see.

Flying Under the Big Top

She snuggled herself deep into the cannon. It was quite dark in there. All that was visible was the small opening in front of her, the view partially obstructed by the big red clown nose she wore. She mentally prepared herself, it being her first time. She imagined herself flying through the air, landing in the hay, ambling away unscathed.

She heard the tap on the side of the cannon. They were about to light it.

Then.

BOOM!

She was out like a dart, hearing oohs and ahhs as she soared, air whipping at her face. She held her arms out to her sides, unfurling the wings sewn into the arms of her clown suit. So this is what it felt like. Exhilaration.

Adventures in Grocery Shopping

"Simon, stop that," said the woman.

I could see Simon, a child of approximately four in a too-small t-shirt, leaning halfway outside of the child seat in the shopping cart. He was reaching with his tiny fingers to a display of bananas while his mother was picking through the apples.

I was done with my shopping, but I couldn't help but stick around. It looked like an accident waiting to happen. I followed the pair as they moved through the other aisles.

"Simon!" He was reaching for some packages of beef. I thought he was going to fall into the freezer.

"Simon. Please behave."

I followed them again as they walked down the chips and soda aisle and I knew something was going to happen. It was inevitable. The woman pushed the cart, inexplicably oblivious to her child's actions, especially with his incorrigible behavior. I saw his grubby little hands reach for a bottle of Coke. The cart was drifting too close to the sides of the aisle, making the sodas within his reach.

"Si--"

I saw the bottle fall and heard the sloshing sound as it emptied itself.

"Clean up. Aisle 5!" said the voice over the loudspeaker.

Jumped

Detective Ricks was having a bad day and didn't need any more trouble. Cases were piling up, his partner was on vacation, and the last thing he needed was another busy-work case that wasted his time.

Henry Gillies, 29, was found dead on the sidewalk outside his apartment yesterday. From the looks of it, he had jumped from the roof, but there was no suicide note, no history of depression or mental illness. He was--by all accounts--normal.

The thing with normal people was that they aren't, not really. They hide parts of themselves away from others. Ricks figured that Gillies did his fair share of hiding and one day he couldn't hide any more, so he jumped. But because things weren't clear cut, he had to right a report on it, use due diligence and all that. Make sure it was really a suicide. Basically, a waste of his time.

His captain came over to his desk. He was portly man of forty-two. He had been breathing down Ricks's neck all week to clear his caseload.

"Medical examiner's report on Mr. Gillies," he said.

"I'm sure it will be a revelation." He took the report and threw it on the desk.

"Aren't you going to look at it?"

"Why? I know what the cause of death is."

"What?"

"Concrete poisoning. A full mouthful of it."

Slip of the Blade

It was almost too easy. The cabbie picked me up at the corner and all I had to do was signal for him. It was unfortunate for him, being picked by chance, but who was I to deny him the honor?

I got in the cab and took the seat behind him; it would be the most convenient for what needed to be done. I gave him a fake address and he started driving, talking about his kids as if I cared. I put on my mask though, the one I use when I am around normal people. I tell him about my Johnny and Natalie, the children that don't exist.

In my jacket pocket I can feel the knife that I bought at the military surplus store. From World War I, the man had said. It was five inches long, sturdy, but sharp after an afternoon of honing it.

I felt unease right before I was to make my move--not out of any sense of moral ambiguity--but of my own ignorance. You see I didn't know why I did the things I did, but the thrill of it sustained me, gave me life. Without it, I surely would perish, all the while knowing that I would be caught one day.

I shook these thoughts away because he had arrived at a stop light. The intersection was quiet, not a man or vehicle in sight. I slipped the knife from my pocket and in one quick precise motion, grabbed his neck with one hand and pulled back while sliding the blade deep into his side with the other. The blade had no resistance and I could feel blood run through my fingers as he struggled. He couldn't scream with my hand crushing his windpipe, but I suspect he might not be able to even given the option. His life drained away like leaf blown by the wind. I wiped the knife on his clothes and exited the cab.

I walked away like a normal person would. When things go right, even if someone was there they wouldn't know what happened until they approached the car. There was little commotion.

I resisted the temptation to flag down another cab, even if the hunger was growing. My excitement built before the kill, but like each other time, it plummeted afterwards. Only the thought of another cab ride excited me.

Meeting Ms. Stern

There are two types of parents at parent-teacher conferences: the calms ones and the nervous ones. Kim and I are polar opposites. She is most definitely the calm one.

That night, parents converged on Hillside Elementary to find out how their kids were doing in class. Now, we consider ourselves well-informed parents who stay involved with their children, so deep down I knew that we would find that Ethan was exemplary, no different from any other teacher meeting we've been to. But I was pacing. I looked at projects posted along the hallway without paying attention to them. I stared at my shoes. I examined the tiles on the floor.

They had brought out chairs from inside the classroom for the waiting parents. A volunteer student from the honor society sat by the door to take down names. Kim sat in one of the chairs, patient, content as can be; she was the rational one. Once in the while, she would smile at me. She had long given up trying to talk to me during these times. Instead, she talked to the parents of one of Ethan's classmates.

I wondered if Ethan was doing well in class. All his homework was done correctly--we made sure of that, but was he participating in class? Was he well-behaved? He was a great son, but you never knew how kids were away from their parents sometimes. All sorts of irrational thoughts floated in my head, from potential boarding schools to tutoring services. I admit it. I can be neurotic.

It was when I was imagining Ethan in school gang that Ms. Stern appeared at the door and checked the sign-in sheet.

"Mr. and Mrs. Chang?"

We smiled, shook hands, and walked inside.

Lost in Words

The pages flip by so fast I hardly remember them go by. All there is, is the story. It enraptures me, holds me so close that I feel I know the characters, smell aromas, see vistas, hear conversations. Sometimes I lose myself in the prose, but this is the time that I treasure most. All track of time is lost and remains so until the last page.

Hummingbird Mechanics

I watched the hummingbird flit from one flower to another, hovering from stamen to stamen while it collected its breakfast. I wondered how its wings could possibly move so fast, as if they would be flung off from sheer forces. They are a blur.

I wonder what the bird would look like if it was a constant x-ray. What if I had a machine like that, watching it fly about with furious determination. Would I see its skeleton? Its body would be stationary while its wings would be gray, a mix of black and white that never stopped moving.

Spark of Genius

He rolled onto his stomach and pressed his palms to the floor. Up on his knees, he carefully balanced himself then supported his small frame with one hand on the coffee table to fully stand up. Teetering slightly, he took his first step.

His balance shifted forward and felt as if he was about to be thrown forward and land on his face, but at the last second, his other foot came forward and stuck, then the other, and over and over again. He was walking, almost running, and never fully balanced. But he was doing it. He was walking and he felt free.

He ran and stumbled into his mother's arms and they smiled and giggled while his father taped it for posterity.

Generational Speak

We're talking about the movie we just came back from. You thought it was kind of boring, lacked drama, lackluster. I say that it was smart and funny, that I know that you like the serious thrillers, but that there's always room for silly stupid comedies.

Then a voice pipes up.

"That movie is so gay," says my nephew who was eavesdropping on our conversation while playing his video game.

"What do you mean," you ask him.

"So gay," he repeats and turns his attention back to the game.

You're about to ask him something else when I stop you. I shake my head and roll my eyes.

"Don't mind him," I say as we walk into the kitchen. "That's just how he is. Anything mildly disagreeable is gay. It doesn't mean anything. He just likes to talk."

You shrug and take a sip of your drink. In the living room, my nephew eviscerates another alien in a hail of bullets.

A Dream to Remember

She was swimming in a vat of Jello, surprised that it wasn't sticky at all. She glided through the lime green goodness, a sea full of it. It was Jello as far as the eye could see and deeper than one could fathom.

Sudden, she felt something touch her feet and then she saw something yellow with black spots skim the surface. Sticking her head into the Jello, she could see--albeit in a green tinge--a figure swimming below her in circles at great speed. Then it jumped up into the air and flipped ten times before falling back down.

In the air, flecks of green flicked off its body. It had the head of a dolphin, the tail of a monkey, and the body of a cheetah. After it dove back into the Jello, it came back to the surface and talked to her.

"Wake up," it said, "Beep, beep, beep!"

Last Stand

There is a time and place for all things. George Hemlock knew this, knew that he shouldn't go to his boss right not to ask for a raise. He knew that it was the wrong time. Randtree was in a bad mood, had been all morning.

But even as George knew all this, he also was at his wits' end. Pushed to the limit, he needed to push back. He needed to do something--anything at all--if only to feel better about it. He was underappreciated and overworked. Already saddled with five different projects, he was given an additional one today. It originally belonged to Evan, but he took a vacation on short notice. The project was barely in its beginning stages and the deadline was fast approaching. They gave it to George because he was a good worker and they took advantage of his good nature.

George also knew all these things and he had to draw a line in the sand to let them know that this was it. The last straw. They were either going to pay him what he deserved, or he would quit, right there on the spot.

He stood in front of Randtree's door for a few seconds and then took a breath. He knocked.

History in the Making

"You know, today is a real special day."

"Why's that?"

"Look around you. Look at all the people voting. There's going to be record turnouts and we're probably electing the first black president."

"True."

"It's history in the making..."

"How's that?"

"I mean--it's historical. First black president. It's a huge precedent for the country. We're making history."

"I don't get that expression. Everything is history in the making. I kick this rock today. Tomorrow, it's history. I've made history."

"Well, it's more of an expression--"

"Like what you just said, just the act of saying something, that's making history. Because tomorrow or next week, you can say 'Remember when I said so and so?'"

"It's an expression. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall. That day, history was being made--"

"And that. What you just said. History just made."

"Or the assassination of JFK."

"And that."

"There's no talking to you."

Lazy Mondays

I wake up every Monday late. I hit the snooze button approximately eight times before I get my tired ass out of bed. It serves me right for going to sleep so late on Sundays.

But I do get out of bed, because I'm a grownup now and I have responsibilities. I have a job. The job pays the bills. The bills keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach.

So I quickly clean up and rush to my car. I drive faster than I should and I still get to work twenty minutes late. It is a good thing no one cares when I come in. That's the good news.

The bad news: It's another Monday.

Virgin

It had seemed like a great idea at first: a business trip to Hawaii on the company's dime. Jonah saw sandy beaches, bikinis, surfboards, hikes to volcanoes, and waterfalls secreted away in tropical forests. And he did see some of these things--out the window of the plane, through the taxi window, and in brochures at the hotel. Three days into the trip and there was still nothing of note worthy of a picture. No memories to capture. Unless one had a penchant for conference room feng shui or hotel room interior design.

Jonah had figured that the business part of the business trip would be minimal given the choice in location. Sure there was a big corporate office there, but someone must have planned it with pleasant tropical activities in mind. He could not have been more wrong. What he thought would be five-hour work days followed by afternoons in the sun were actually mind-numbing twelve-hour days in a humid room with fellow malcontents followed by a quick dinner and his head hitting the pillow from sheer mental fatigue.

The meetings consisted of thirty mid-level managers trying to come up with a comprehensive strategy to prepare quality assessment reports. That's right. To prepare them. Jonah didn't want to think about how long it took them to decide on the actual quality assessment process itself. As far as he was concerned, all the report needed was a concise retelling of the quality assessment findings in a way that was easy to understand with clear problems, solutions, and goals. What most of the committee members argued over were more important things like the number of charts to include (regardless of data obtained), font size of the title of said charts, the order in which appendices should appear, and the color of the cover. They were sure to be earth-shattering, ground-breaking innovations.

As he lumbered into the hotel lobby after another long day of decision making (or lack thereof), he had a sudden desire for a drink. The front desk girl, a cheerful native Hawaiian, had recommended he visit their bar, as did the equally amiable bellhop. Even the hotel channel on his television had invited him to refresh himself at their well-stocked bar. It seemed like there was a hotel-wide conspiracy to get him drunk. However, he did feel the need to refresh himself, or at least drown out all conference-related information from his mind.

There were helpful signs directing him to the bar, leading him out to a patio and past a pool he had given up hope of using. Just beyond it stood the bar stand, built of what looked like driftwood and adorned with touristy knick-knacks. Jonah sat on a stool among the other unused ones.

The bartender was an affable man, similar to the rest of the hotel staff. He had tied-back hair and was so large that he filled the area behind the bar.

"Aloha. What can I get you?"

"How about a gin and tonic?"

"Sorry. No can do."

This was hard to believe, but Jonah wasn't in a picky mood. Anything would do. "How about a beer then?" he asked. "What do you have on tap?"

"You're at the wrong place if you want a beer, friend," the bartender said with a chuckle.

Jonah was dumbfounded.

The bartender stepped aside and motioned behind him with his head while he wiped some glasses. On the wall behind him was a sign. It had a watercolor-drawn cartoon octopus encumbered with a variety of fruits in his suctioned arms. Under the sea creature was a large festive banner: JUICE BAR.

"Damn. What do you have then? What's good here?"

The man shrugged. "People seem to like the pineapple tropical cocktail"

It turned out to be pretty good. He finished half of it in two gulps and sighed with satisfaction.

"Mahalo. Can I take this up to my room? I'll bring the glass back."

"Don't worry about it. Just leave it out. The maids will pick it up," the bartender said with a smile.

Jonah thanked him again and made his way back to his room, where he emptied a mini-bottle of vodka into the glass.

Pineapple tropical cocktail, indeed.

Midnight at Penn

Midnight at Penn Station on Halloween is a sight to behold. John sat waiting for his train while revelers passed by his field of vision. His night was winding down; theirs was just beginning. Women were dressed in all sorts of revealing costumes that they would never normally wear. Men, drunk and silly, acted out as their alter-egos. Nearby a homeless man snored in his claimed corner of the waiting area. A couple of men in business suits slept on and off with newspapers in their laps. A woman read a novel with a shirtless man on the paperback cover. John heard an excited gasp and turned to see a girl in a Sarah Palin outfit rush towards the bathroom. She doesn't make it and ended up throwing up in a trash can. Her date was slumped up against the wall in a frog suit.

Trick

The reporters called it the grisliest scene of the night. Up there on the third floor of the haunted house, next to fake bodies and blood made of food coloring and corn starch, was a real murder.

The house was an abandoned building that a play production company took over for Halloween. They brought in props, pyrotechnics, actors, and scripts. They charged fifteen dollars a head and it was the hit of the holiday. People came from all over to get the crap scared out of them.

Police said that someone was killed during one of the horror skits in one of the themed haunted rooms. They speculate that the man was stabbed to death during a particularly loud mock murder when several actors were screaming in the darkened room. The victim was placed in the corner. In the dark and amongst the fake corpses, it wasn't until the next day that the proprietors found the body and called police.

They were on TV asking the public for help identifying the killer. I know they are also still looking for the murder weapon, but I also know that it is located in a dumpster five miles from the haunted house blood-free and wiped clean.

Yet Another Self-Proclaimed Expert

Jenna had cracked the top 1000 reviewer list on Amazon.com not two days ago, only to see her rank get knocked down to 1200. She had no idea what was going on until she went back and looked at some of her review ratings.

Someone had gone and gave her low marks on all over reviews. It made no sense and was not based on substance. Humility aside, she knew her reviews were top-notch. They were thorough and well edited, balanced and reasoned. She took great pride in them.

Sabotage! It must be she thought. Someone was trying to climb over her into the rankings board. It was enough for her to throw out her integrity and start torpedoing other reviewers' reputations to get back on top.

Then she remembered there was a separated ranking board. This one was for review ratings, but there was another one for number of reviews, where quantity ruled over quality.

She looked at her computer screen. The product was a vacuum cleaner she had never used before, but it sure looked like it was hard to use. No ergonomic features. Low horsepower.

Her fingers clickety-clacked on the keyboard.

The Sound of Water

He could hear several things from his supine position on the sand. There was the cry of gulls, the sloshing of the ocean water. He couldn't actually see the whole waves, but he could see their crests from his vantage point.

He was tied to the ground, his head only able to lift up mere inches from the ground. Rope and stakes driven deep in the sand secured his neck, wrists, waist, and ankles. He wondered if anyone would find him in time. It would not be low tide for much longer. The sky grew dark and his voice was hoarse from calling out for help.

He imagined how it would happen, the water slowly creeping toward him, advancing and retreating inches at a time. What he dreaded was the time it would take. The water would wash to his feet first, then his thighs, back, and eventually, this head. And the water would eventually swell over his head, but it would wash back after seconds of suffocation, only to give him hope--a breath of air--before the natural ebb and flow would overtake him again. With time, the water would engulf him and he would not resurface until the next low tide.

From where he lay, he could no longer see the water's encroachment. It was two hours ago when the shoreline disappeared past the tips of his toes. Not being able to raise his head up any further, there was no telling where it was now, save for the increasing volume of the surf.

His only hope was someone would find him soon. Then he felt a new sensation, the curious and cool caress of the ocean at his toes.

Ceramic Stylings

Sharon had been watching Antiques Roadshow too much. She saw a multitude of people bringing their finds to appraisers, most coming out of it with the realization of being thousands of dollars richer. There was an old creaky dresser that was bought for twenty five dollars and worth two thousand because it was made in the 1920s by a rare furniture maker that made only twenty of that model. There was a man that spent two dollars on a box of coins and found out that one of them was worth five hundred because of an imperfection in its ridge.

So Sharon became a treasure-finding hopeful. She looked through her attic, prowled through garage and yard sales. Then she found the closest city the Roadshow was going to and made the trip.

The event was swarming with people waiting for their appraisals. A woman stared at her suspiciously and clutched her rabbit etched plates closer to her chest, as if Sharon would snatch them away.

It was an hour before she was seen and it wasn't in front of a camera. The appraiser had a bushy mustache that twitched when he spoke and thick brown rimmed glasses.

"What do we have here today?"

Sharon presented her item, a pair of ceramic kittens. She had bought them at a local yard sale. The man who sold it had said they were passed down from his grandmother. She didn't know what to make of them but they had looked like they might be worth something.

"I see..." said the man, holding the white ceramic felines in the air. He turned them this way and that, examining them with great scrutiny.

"How much did you pay for these?" he asked.

"Five dollars," Sharon replied, filled with great anticipation. She was going to be one of those people she saw on TV. How much would they be worth? A hundred? Six thousand?

"Mm hmm, mm hmm. Would you be surprised to find out that these were made in China?"

"Oh really?" She was getting more excited now. She had thought that the design had an Asian influence. Would that increase their value?

"And when would you guess that these were produced?"

"Well," she said, doing a little mental arithmetic, guessing the seller's age and how old the cats had to be if they belonged to his grandmother. "The thirties maybe? "

"Not quite," the appraiser said. "It's probably closer to the nineties."

"1890s?" she said with a catch in her voice. She had secretly hoped they were older, since that usually seemed to raise appraisals.

"No."

She looked at him with a puzzled expression, so he flipped over one of the cats and showed her their white bottoms and began scratching the center with a fingernail. White pieces that might have been paint or correction fluid started flaking off to finally reveal three conclusive words: Made In China.

Kissing the Sky

He's suspended from the mountain by just three fingers on one hand. If his tired digits let go, he falls ten feet until the next anchor catches him and smashes him into the wall of rock. His legs flail looking for footholds as he manages to swing and contort his body to grab a sliver of cratered rock in an otherwise smooth formation.

The area where he is on the mountain is jutted outward at a forty five degree angle. His legs still bicycle in mid air until one climbing shoe finally finds leverage. As words of encouragement are shouted from below, his tired leg muscles push and propels his body up a few feet. With an animal grunt, he pulls with his arms in unison, veins bulging, and he launches himself over the rock face. He lies on his back, panting, sweating, at the precipice of the mountain.

He stairs up at the sky, triumphant.

Will, Conviction, Motivation, Discipline

Harry stared at his belly in the gym locker room mirror. God, I'm fat, he thought. He wondered what people would think of him when he walked into the gym area. He should have brought sweats. This T-shirt was less than flattering.

He didn't know if this attempt at weight loss would take. It was the next one in a succession of many. They weren't all failures. He lost ten pounds on the vegan diet, but he couldn't take the blandness and gave up. He gained back the ten soon after the initial transgression of visiting a Wendy's.

Harry's goal was to lose fifteen this time. It was modest, considering that he would need to lose thirty more to truly fall out of the obese range. But he was tired of feeling like dirt, tired of feeling guilty after having an ice cream, tired of being ignored by women, tired of needing to catch his breath after a flight of stairs.

Harry exhaled and walked out of the locker room and into the gym. Somewhere in that expanse of exercise equipment was a treadmill with his name on it.

A Full House

Fiona smoothed out her dress while she waited in the elevator. The interior was covered with mirrors into which she gazed pensively at her reflection while caressing her stomach. She would start to show soon, but for now, she looked ravishing and she knew it. She exited on the penthouse floor, walked down the corridor and up to the man in the pinstriped suit. He opened the door for her after she supplied the correct code word.

Heads turned and eyes stared upon her entrance. Three poker tables with ten seats each were set up in the center of the room and lit by a large crystal chandelier. The otherwise dimly lit room was adorned with supple Italian leather furniture and crimson silk drapes that climbed the tall, narrow windows. A lone woman in a throng of men, she strode across the room and slid into an unoccupied chair.

Fiona knew she wasn't the most skilled player there, but when it came to poker, skill didn't always determine the victor. She, for one, was in it to win. She felt pairs of wandering, skittish eyes catching glimpses of her, trying to pry off her slinky red dress. She smiled, confident in the effect she was having on the group, hoping it would last throughout the night and throw off the competition's concentration.

She took the bank check out of her purse and placed it on the table. Admission here came with a high price. Spending so much money made her uneasy, but the baby was arriving in seven months and the mortgage statements were piling up. And as she had often heard, you had to spend money to make money.

"Sam Kenner," said the man with greedy and eager eyes next to her, holding out his hand.

"Julie Madison," she said, shaking it. She flashed her best seductive smile, entranced him with her perfume. She gave him a quick once-over and could tell that he would be an easy man to manipulate and defeat--the sort who did the majority of his thinking below the waist.

"I haven't seen you here before."

"First timer," she lied, still armed with that warm and welcoming smile. "I don't even know what I'm doing here!" she added with a giggle. Men liked it when she giggled.

"It's good to see a new face."

"Any tips?" she asked, twirling a strand of her auburn hair.

"Full house beats a flush," he said.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"I'm full of great ideas."

"I have a few of my own, too," she said, leaning in and placing her hand on his thigh.

Pregnancy had come with unexpected calls of nature and feeling one coming, Fiona excused herself from the table. As ladylike as possible, she hurried to the restroom only to find it locked.

"I'll just be a moment," called out a muffled voice.

The door opened.

"Fiona?"

In the doorway stood a man in a dealer's vest wide-mouthed in shock. His name was Jason, a poor graduate student with a growing family for whom he was trying to provide for by secretly moonlighting as a dealer at illicit poker games. He was also Fiona's husband.

"What are you doing here?" Fear crept into his voice since she could be asking him just the same thing. He had told her he was going to be at Mark's.

"Shh!" Fiona looked around quickly and pushed her husband back into the restroom and locked the door behind them.

"And what the hell are you wearing?!" exclaimed Jason, who was not one to be shushed. He hadn't seen her wear that dress in a long time and never had it fit so well.

"I can explain..."

"Please."

So she explained and Jason did the same.

They left the restroom in less than amicable terms. She was mad that he lied to her; he was mad that she spent two thousand dollars of their nest egg--money they could not afford to lose.

"We'll talk later," he grumbled as they parted.

Composure was a lofty, if not unattainable goal at this point for Fiona, flustered being a severe understatement of her current condition. Back at the table, Sam resumed small talk but it went in one ear and out the other.

Dealers came to the tables signaling the start of the tournament and she breathed a sigh of relief to see that Jason wasn't assigned to hers. This, however, was short-lived. Moments later, he tapped their dealer on the shoulder. They whispered some words and swapped places.

Unwise as it may be, she tried to catch his eye. She needed to know that everything was okay. But he wouldn't meet her eyes.

The first hand was dealt and Fiona lost a quarter of her stake. The next several hands yielded similar results, dwindling the chip stack yet again. Sam continued to chatter on obliviously while she ignored him. Sufficed it to say, things were not going well. Normally she'd be flirting with every man at the table already, each of them wrapped around her fingers, a puppeteer to their marionettes. Now she was just trying to survive.

Fortune finally smiled on her with good hole cards, so she went in strong. It was now or never if she wanted to stay in the game. As he dealt the last community card to the table, Jason glanced furtively at her. When the card dropped, Fiona allowed herself the tiniest of smiles.

The last round of bets were made. Cards were shown and one thing was clear: her full house most definitely beats a flush.