Five Blood Soaked Tissues

This is how it ends.

Everything will change now, Jennifer thinks. She wiped down the floor some more and tossed the tissues into the wastebasket.

"I told you not to tell anyone," she says to Mark.

Mark doesn't reply because Mark is dead, with a tent spike through his chest.

"Now, you never will."

Early to Rise

Soot mars the sign like a black toothy grin. It is the only part of the store that doesn't resemble a lump of coal. I yawn. It's too early to be up. The coffee doesn't help much. The rising sun reflects off the face of my watch and blinds me momentarily. It's the seventh time I've checked it in ten minutes. Or eight. I'm losing count.

"You look like hell."

The voice belongs to the fire chief, a friend of mine, and just the person I was waiting for.

"Hi Roger. You all done in there?" I ask.

"Yeah. We should have all of it. Just watch your step. Everything's falling apart."

"Know where the fire started?"

"Looks like the kitchen."

"Accelerant?"

He pauses to think, wipes smoky grit from his face so that it leaves a streak.

"Probably. For it get so big so fast? Yeah, I'd say so."

We say our goodbyes. He asks me if I want to get a drink tonight and I say I will if I can still stand up then. He thinks this is a joke, slaps me on the back, and I nearly fall over. He laughs, climbs on his big red truck and leaves. I don't know where he gets his energy.

A smell invades my nostrils inside the shop; fragrant, pungent, and sickly at the same time. It's a strange but familiar aroma, more familiar than I care for. The floor, countertops, walls, and ceilings are slick with water. I maneuver my way around the overturned remains of chairs and tables to get to the kitchen.

That is where I see the body, which is new. It is in the corner under a fallen rack, blackened and scrunched up into a fetal position. I crouch down, seeing if I can find some identification, but it appears to be a lost cause. I'm not sure the corpse has any pockets. It's so far gone, I'm not even sure it has any pants. Whatever is encased in the crusted cocoon would require the services of the medical examiner.

"Sam."

"Jesus Christ, Feingold, don't sneak up on me like that."

"Jumpy today?" he says with an easy smile.

He looks positively radiant, as in actually emitting light. He's always this way, always bright, always eager, full of youthful vigor. I think he mainlines caffeine.

"So, you think this is the same guy?" he asks.

"Yeah. Got a body though. That's different."

"So what makes you think it's still the same guy?"

"Oh, I don't know," I say. "Three Krispy Kremes in three weeks burned to a cinder. I'm taking a wild guess."

He nods. He's easy to convince. "Do we know who that is?" he says, pointing to the body.

"Maybe the owner. No identification yet. Will have to wait for the ME."

"Time to make the doughnuts."

"What?"

He grins. "You know, from those commercials? 'Time to make the doughnuts!'"

"That's Dunkin' Donuts, not Krispy Kreme," I say, but I don't know why. It's better to ignore him, not argue.

"Just saying, you know--"

"Spare me, okay?"

He laughs and I stare at him.

"I get it. Like a tire right? A doughnut spare?"

I steer him to the door and tell him to get statements from the potential witnesses gathered behind the barricades. As he struts out to greet the public, pad and pen in hand, I can't help but imagine that he might become police commissioner one day and say a silent prayer.

I make some calls and find out that the owner and all employees are accounted for, then look around some more without Feingold and stay late to talk to Tess, our friendly neighborhood medical examiner, who promises to call me before she does the autopsy.

When I get back to that station, it is already late afternoon. I knock on the captain's door and receive a grunt in reply.

"You wanted an update on the arsons?"

Another grunt. The boss is not much of a conversationalist.

"It's probably our guy. There was a body at the scene. If we're lucky, maybe it's our firebug."

"Good," he says, which is my cue to leave.

I walk back to my desk, trailing essence of charbroiled doughnut. I sit and rub my eyes, tired beyond comprehension. At least no one has made any cop and doughnut jokes today.

"Honey glazed."

It's Feingold sitting across from me. When did he get here? It looks like he's wearing different clothes from this morning. They're clean and pressed.

I look up at him. "What?" I say. I am not in the mood for this.

"Honey glazed. That's the doughnut that you smell like," he says, beaming.

Chipper bastard.

The Other Guy

There is always THE OTHER GUY in romantic comedies. The formula has some variables, but often times THE OTHER GUY is never the focus of the story. He is a catalyst to the plot and we don't care about him. But take a moment to think about what this man has to go through. He's a doormat.

Darryl is twenty nine years old. He's a decent guy, has a good job, loves his family, cares for his friends. He is the type of person that is considered great company. One day, Darryl meets a girl, who is beautiful, smart, funny, all things you'd like in a romantic prospect. They hit it off, and in a whirlwind romance, he proposes shortly after. He does everything right and they are in love.

Then enters a third party. Surprise! It's the girl's old friend, a misogynistic, callous, womanizer. But he is a friend, so he makes nice and accepts him. But of course he is not here to be friends. He is here to ruin your life. This is because he harbors a secret flame for your fiance, one that he never knew of, and burns so much more brightly now that she is less attainable. He woos her, and she swoons with little effort because she has a soft spot for jerks and lost causes. He crashes Darryl's wedding and she leaves him, this perfect girl, to a chorus of applause. Applause!

And so they live happily every after. Minus THE OTHER GUY. What's his name again?

Prodigal Son

"How old are you?"

The boy held up three fingers, then--probably because he was bored of me--walked away and returned to his toy cars. He rolled them on the hardwood floor, making engine noises.

"Quite a kid you have there," I said to his mother, a nervous woman.

"Thank you."

She was visibly distressed, shaking.

"It'll be okay."

She looked at me. I don't think she believes me.

"Why don't we start with when it began?"

She nodded. "Two weeks ago," she said, then her eyes averted from mine and went wide.

I turned around and saw little Tommy giggling and playing with his cars, except they were floating two feet above his head, racing on an invisible track of air.

Apple Attack

The day after Melanie brought her new Mac home, strange things started to happen. At first, it was everything as advertised. It was easy to use and quick, all in a slick, fun package.

Then she found a button hidden in the back of the monitor. If she slid her hand over it very quickly, she would never have noticed it. But if she probed, applied more pressure with her fingertips, a button was depressed.

She clicked it, and when she let go, the button reformed with the smooth, glossy finish. A shiny white disc popped out from the side of the disc tray and clattered onto the desk.

She looked at it closely. There was nothing special to it. A perfect circle, smooth like glass. No discernible use. Maybe a coaster. This certainly wasn't in the brochures.

She clicked it again. Out popped another one like toast. She clicked a few more times, and each time another disc popped out. She shrugged, put them in a stack and left it at that. Strange, she thought. She'd have to ask her friend Mark tomorrow. He knew about computers.

The next day, the little white coasters were gone.

The day after that, and this is hard to explain, but the other electronics in the house started acting... strange. It was as someone dusted all of them overnight. They all sparkled, they were so shiny. And their edges were all buffed down to a corner.

All of a sudden, the VCR was easier to use. She turned the television on, and the only channel that worked was a style channel, where each show maligned and scoffed at its everyday normal guests for their utter inadequacy at arranging furniture or dressing themselves.

She tried calling Mark, but her phone mysteriously disappeared. She went to sleep.

The next day, she woke up and everything in her room had turned white.

Answer the Question

They are outside now, the press. They are going to want answers. They're bloodhounds, and they know a good story. But what can I tell them? How do you explain how an eight year old girl is thrown from a van into a ditch? How do you explain the bruises and wounds on her body? What can I tell them? That every time I see one of these cases, I think it's time to pack it in? That I go home and can't sleep for hours?

I look in the mirror in my office. My uniform is clean and pressed, presentable. The shield shines. It used to mean something to me, maybe still does. The man in the mirror looks old. His eyes are dark and hollow. I smooth out my hair, collect myself, and walk outside.

Everest

In his wildest dreams, Dennis Hinderman never thought he would be here now, on the top of Everest. It was a grueling journey. The last fifty feet took an hour even though it was on level ground. But there was snow. Oh, the snow blinded him and whipping from all directions. The oxygen was scarce and it took all his energy behind each step to make any progress.

But like a switch, the weather cleared when he reached the summit. He stood there, barely, with his group admiring the view. He could see for miles. He could see clouds below him. Clouds!

He looked down at his arm, what was left of it. They had said he wouldn't be able to make it on one good hand. That it was too hard. Give up, Dennis, they said.

The group leader told them it was time to back down. The summit or anywhere near it was no place to be in the dark. Dennis took one more look, let it soak in, and joined the others for the descent.

Catching Up With Friends

They told me the train would come in at five in the afternoon. My friends, that is. I haven't seen them in years and it will be good to be in their company again. Going by train seemed quaint, romanticized in a way. A backpacking trip across the country. I would join them after the start of the journey, while they would have already been on the train for four hours.

But I was late. Horribly.

When I got to the platform, the train was on it's way out of the station. I wonder what it must have looked like, myself running top speed, backpack flying off my shoulder, grabbing a handle and swinging myself on board just as the last car cleared the platform. Probably more dashing and exciting than I imagined.

Laura

"Do you like Laura?" the girl had asked me.

"I don't even know her." That was my answer at the age of ten, before attention to nuance and hidden meanings meant anything to young boys.

I don't even remember what Laura looked like. She may have been pretty. But perhaps I should have yes. I realize now that she must have sent her friend over to ask me that important question while she waited for the answer.

It never occurred to me why I was being asked such a ridiculous question tha thad nothing to do with anything. There I was, enjoying my afternoon at camp, playing with friends when a girl I don't know comes up to me and asks me if I like a girl that I don't know.

It makes a person wonder how many lost opportunities lie in their past, past and gone because he was too dense to realize what they were.

It Came From Above

The object was smooth to the point of polished marble. It was dense and dark. And it fell to Earth unnoticed on a cool April night at Robin McCready's farm. In between rows of romaine lettuce, it simmered, cooling after its intergalactic trip.

It wouldn't be found until harvest time when Robin sorted through the leafy greens, found the stone, admired its sheen, and pocketed it.

That night, Robin would begin to change. In ways he never dreamed of.

Storm Brew

Clouds roll in from the west, obfuscating the sun. The sky turns a purplish red, hazy and thick with humidity. There is a shimmer of light in the gray mass of sky, followed by a crack of thunder. Standing still, one can see the storm advancing, unrelenting, steady. And in a torrent of water, it is upon us. It is an orchestra of sounds and light, water and wind. Droplets fall so quickly that they form sheets of water on the ground. Lawns turn into muddy quagmires. Trees shake with ferocity. In the distance, a sliver of yellow is seen. The sun peeks through.

No Frills Baseball

Derek stood at the plate, demarcated by a frisbee. The pitcher, tossed the apple at the plate. With a mighty swing, Derek smashed the apples with a near petrified tree branch, sending apple sauce into the sky. The remainder of the fruit soared a hundred feet into the air.

"Okay. Me next," said the pitcher, and ran towards the frisbee.

Derek dropped the branch and trotted over to the pitcher's mound, a pile of autumn leaves. He picked up another apple that had fallen from the tree and wound up.

Goodbye Mr. Friskers

"I don't need you anymore," the girl said.

She looked at her old friend. His downy marmalade hair seemed to hang lower. Normally bright eyed and energetic, Mr Frisker's looked solemn. He stretched out, all four feet of him.

"Are you sure?"

The girl swung a leg absent-mindedly, scraping the school ground asphalt.

"Yes."

"Okay."

"Bye," she said and ran to her awaiting group of friends.

Together, they ran to the park. The girl turned to look back for one last look at her friend. He was gone.

Fast

"How fast do you think this thing goes," she asks with a devilish twinkle in her eye.

"Let's just keep it under 90," I say.

She eases down on the accelerator, and I watch the tachometer's needle rise as the engine whines. The added speed pushes me into my seat. We fly by vehicles left and right, deftly slipping in and out of traffic.

Then, above the engine and noise of the wind, a very distinct sound. Police sirens.

"Let's see how fast thing can decelerate," I say.

Death Fall

Randy Houghton was shot six times and died before he hit the ground. His killer, Mary Devereaux, killed him on a roof top. In a rage, she kicked his lifeless body off the building. It fell five stories, smacking on the fire escape on the way down, until it slammed into a dumpster with a sickening thud.

When the authorities came, Randy's body was hardly recognizable. The EMT checked his pulse merely as a formality, then the coroner's office zipped up the black body bag.

Mary

The girl strode into the glass booth in the private room and began dancing around the pole. She had her eyes closed, moving to the music in her head.

"Mary."

The girl looked at the source of the voice. A woman.

"Name's Ginger."

"Your daughter wants to see you, Mary."

"Wait," the girl said, but the woman was gone.

Pranks and Misdemeanors

I shush Eric. His new sneakers continue squeaking on the linoleum, but at a softer, more deliberate pace. We are in the office an hour before everyone else gets in, but I am still paranoid that someone might be here. It's the first of April and they are in for a surprise when they come in today.

We unlock the utility closet. Eric knows the janitor.

"Got the dye?" I ask.

He hands me the bottle. I slosh it around.

"That's all?"

He shrugs. I tell him to fill the mop bucket with water. When he comes back, I add in the corn starch I brought along with the dye and start mixing it into a thin slurry. It looks like almost-set red jello.

Eric has a mischievous grin on his face. "Let's go," he says with barely controlled excitemement.

We start slathering the aisles with the fake blood with mop, tracing a chaotic struggle that it is supposed to represent. When we are done, it looks like a masterpiece. A crime scene in thirty minutes.

After I am done cleaning up, I go to our hiding spot where Eric is already keeping a lookout.

"Shh!"

"What?" I say.

"Harriet is here early."

Harriet is our boss, and not a very good one. We peek around the corner of a wall to observe the unfolding result of our efforts. She turns the light on, takes one step, screams at the sight of the floors, and slips on the slurry. She falls hard, landing on a wrist, which makes her scream louder.

Eric looks at me with wide eyes.

"Oh crap..." he mouths.

Accidental Hero

Gretchen waited for the light to turn green. Then she heard a scream. Then another. Then another. She looked to see the source of it and found it. A van was barreling down the street backwards on the cross street. She could not be for certain, but the way the van was moving indicated that there was nobody in the driver's seat, or if there were, he or she was currently not in the land of the conscious.

In the crosswalk, a couple of kids had dared to cross against the Don't Walk sign. They froze when they saw the van.

In a split second decision that Gretchen could not explain with any specificity later on, she ran the red light and screeched to a halt, making her compact an improvised barrier between the children and the runaway van. She couldn't get out; there wasn't any time. Her door opened up towards the oncoming van anway. She heard another volley of screams before taking one quick look at a bumper heading straight for her door.

When she woke, the van had pushed her tiny car up at a thirty degree angle. He door was crumpled in wedged against her side. A fine dust filled the cabin and the air bag cushioned her head against the headrest. Surprisingly, she could feel all her arms and legs. Other than a headache, she seemed to be in once piece. She could hear machinery outside as emergency workers started ripping her door apart with the jaws of life.

Gretchen got out of the car without aid and heard another roar of screaming, but not of horror and surprise. It was the sound of a sea of people cheering and clapping.

Marks of the Earth

"I have seen our future and I am saddened," said the tribal chief to his people seated before him. He wore a ritual headdress of pig skin and tern feathers. The flames of the village's fire pit illuminate his ample frame.

"I see a parting of the old ways," he continued. "Our young leave for the city and do not come back. Since the beginning, we have served and protected the land and respected it because it gives us food and shelter. But I see our ways eroding. The earth is beneath our toes, but we have no connection to it."

A few of the older villagers nodded their head in agreement. Some of the younger ones stared at each other with indifference.

"Son, rise and come to me."

A teenager stood up and walked up to the chief.

The chief clasped one hand on his son. "We must rekindle the force within us that makes us strong."

He bent down and gathered a handful of soil.

"Son, will you undertake this task?"

The boy nodded. The chief rubbed the soil in his hands, chanted in an old dialect, and rubbed his thumb in a circle movement on the boy's forehead, leaving a faint mark. When he was done, he turned back to his people.

"Who else will join my son on this journey?"

There was a moment of hesitance, and then an old woman rose up and approached the chief. She tripped and two other helped her up before lining up behind her. Slowly like a reverse domino effect, the rest of the village lined up and awaited their turn.

Greetings Earthlings

Gleebok lowered the grappling probe of his spaceship into the town of frantic people. He snatched up a puny human man who wriggled in the probe's grasp.

"Hello human."

The puny human man, Geordie, cowered in the corner.

"What do you want?"

"I have questions," said Gleebok. "How do I get to Mars?"

Grand

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"Hah. Hah. Very funny," said Lucas.

Penny plopped down on the grass next to him, scrutinizing her friend.

"Well?"

"I'd rather be alone."

Penny shrugged. She leaned back while sitting, propped up by her elbows.

"I need money."

"Why?"

"I lost it at the game yesterday."

She sighed. I told you not to go anymore. "How much?"

"A grand, give or take a a hundred."

"I guess you'd need more than a penny for your thoughts then."

"Hardy har har."

Extracurricular Activities

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

I swiveled around to find Ms. Granger staring at me, hands on her hips, eyes filled with unhinged menace. I was caught. It was the end of me.

Gary had just left with the stolen answer key and I heard his receding footsteps. No doubt he had heard her. I was left hunched over her desk, five hours after the last class was over.

"Henry Thomas, what are you doing at my desk? And at this hour. Do your parents know you're here?"

It was strange that she would be here at this time too. It crossed my mind to ask her, before I dismissed that notion as suicidal.

"I...I was.."

"Hurry now. Speak up."

"I left my books here."

I said it like a question, as if I was asking her if that as a plausible excuse.

"On my desk?" she quipped.

"I couldn't find it on my desk, so I was looking all over." I motioned at her desk drawer when something caught my eye. A bottle. Of bourbon. It was partially covered by the attendance book and surrounded by a moat of pens and paper clips. I picked it up. I looked at her.

"What's this?" I asked, tried to sound naive.

She snatched the bottle away.

"Nothing."

She stowed it back in the desk and closed the drawer.

"Shouldn't you go home now?"

She was quick to get me gone.

"Yes, ma'am."

All The Way Down

"Get off the goddamned roof."

Jonathan's pleas were unheeded, at least not in the way he meant. He looked up and watched as Brett teetered on the roof's edge in a drunken stupor, no doubt upset over the latest calamity in his overdramatized life. He was wearing a plush purple elephant costume.

"Hey! You drunk fool!" said Jonathan.

That seemed to get his attention.

Brett blinked and gazed down stupidly. He took a seat, feet dangling in the air.

"What."

It was a question with none of the inflection. Jonathan was glad he finally got even a word out of him. He had been shouting at him for five minutes.

"Oh nothing. I was just driving home and I pulled up to the garage and you know what I saw?"

"I dunno--"

"That's rhetorical. Shut up. I saw you wandering on the roof in that ridiculous getup like a lost carnival attraction. What are you doing up there? And will you take off that stupid head?"

Brett twisted the head off and placed it beside him, all eight pounds of it, including the trunk.

"I got fired." Utter despair filled his voice.

"That job sucked anyway."

He shrugged his elephant shoulder pads.

"Why don't you come down?" asked Jonathan.

"Why?"

"Because with my luck, you wouldn't die from a three story fall, and end up breaking a leg. Then I'll have to listen to you piss and moan for weeks while you're laid up in the house. That's why."

"Oh, fine," said a newly resigned Brett.

But as he got up, he tripped over his big elephant toes and tumbled off the roof in a purple blur.

Twenty-Five Year Homecoming

Gareth had vanished twenty-five years ago without a trace, leaving behind friends and family who gave up hope of ever finding him after a couple of exhaustive years. Some thought he was dead, or just made themselves believe it so they could forget about him.

He, of course, was not dead. Not so at all. He left without a trace because he was running away, didn't to be found. There were people who wanted to find him who were not very nice people and although he didn't want to keep his parents in the dark, he felt it was better that way.

Gareth went on the run, never staying in one place for long for five years. When he felt relatively safe, he settled down under an alias, but never gave a thought to ever coming home again. He wouldn't know what to do, what to say. It was easier to stay away. However, he married when he settled down and had a child, who--as luck would have it--chose a college close to his parents (if they didn't move). After he dropped Sam off for his first semester, Gareth took a detour, with no intention other than driving around the old neighborhood.

That wasn't the way things turned out. After ten minutes circling the streets around the old house, he finally drove down it. And instead of driving on by, he found himself attracted like a paper clip to a magnet. He parked and stood by the car, staring at the house. It wasn't anything special, just a small two-story building with a patch of grass that passed for a front yard. He walked up and placed his hands on the link fence that encircled the yard and a small flower garden. It looked the same, like he had never left. Memories jostled under years of dust.

And then he was awoken from reverie.

"Can I help you, young man?"

He looked at the source of the voice, an old woman with a cane in one hand and the other one behind her back smiling kindly.

"No, I was just driving by and this house caught my eye. Beautiful flowers. My wife was thinking of starting a flower garden like that. I'll have to tell her about this one."

She admired the garden. "Yes, it is quite nice. Beautiful day too. Good day for a walk."

"Oh. Yes, beautiful. Well, I have to be off now," Gareth said, walking back towards the car. But he had come this far and he had to know. He turned around. The old woman was still there, as if expecting him to come back.

"This was a long time ago, but there used to be a couple that lived here. The Chungs. Did you know them?"

The old woman raised her eyebrows. "Did you know them?"

"No, not really. I just used to live around here. They were kind to me." Gareth's voice was near a whisper.

"Oh? Because I used to live here. I usually have a pretty good memory. What's your name?"

"This--this is your house?" he stammered.

"Used to be. We moved. What is your name?"

Gareth could hardly speak. He wondered how he hadn't seen the resemblance before. Age had added wrinkles and she was shorter now, but it was her. It was his mother. It took all he had to stop himself from running right then and driving away.

"James," he finally managed to say.

"James what?"

"Fong."

"Hmm," she said. "I don't remember a James Fong. But there's more than a few cobwebs in this head of mine now," she added with a chuckle.

"Are you okay?" She looked at him with concern.

Gareth was not okay. He felt sick.

"And your husband?"

"Oh, he passed three years ago. Good man."

"Yes, he was."

"Did you know him?"

"A little. He--" Gareth took two large steps toward his mother and engulfed her in his arms. He started crying. She was so small. The top of her head barely reached his shoulders. But in that instant, he was the one that felt small. He leaned in, whispered in her ear. "I'm so sorry."

He felt her tremble and then gasp. Then she hugged him back, more fiercely than you would expect an old woman to be able to.

"I knew you'd be back."

Uprooted

A large man filled the doorway.

"Ready to go? he asked.

The boy looked at him and then turned away.

"Will we come back soon?"

"Not for a while. Come on now."

The child picked up his ratty luggage bag and grabbed the man's hand. He took one last look at the house as they walked through the front yard.

"Your new parents are waiting for you," the large man said. "Are you excited?"