Wild Musette Journal

by Andy Tu

Every night when I was little, my mother would turn the crank of a music box, and a metallic lullaby would doze my brother and me to sleep. Those notes would pluck and ping in my dreams, my dreams of floating down a curving, dark river, moonlight swaying along the water and a warm breeze hugging around my blanket. I’d drift toward a never-ending horizon, where bright stars blinked and waited.

On my fifth birthday, after I blew out the red candle on a cupcake, a loud rapping came at our door. My father ran into the other room and I heard the whirring of a machine shredding papers through its teeth. The door was kicked in and my mother yelled words in a language I didn’t understand as she tucked us between her arms in the corner of the bed, her legs shivering like when the train passed in the middle of the night, trembling from her bones. Three men entered, two flipping through our things and a short one waving a silver stick in my father’s face as my father said no, no, I don’t know, I don’t know. When the man raised the stick, my mother threw the blanket over our heads and plugged her fingers into my ears, and I heard the light pitches and soft rings of that lullaby, hopping along a scale, up, and down. Next to me my brother rocked back and forth in the orange glow of light seeping through the blanket and I wondered why he looked so different than I’d ever seen him.

Gradually, my mother spun the crank of the music box less and less as I fell asleep watching shadows glimmer along the wall and listening to vehicles pass our building, the grumble and vroom of the occasional truck or motorcycle. Gradually, my brother began turning in his bed like he’d eaten a bug and it was trying to eat its way out through his ribs. Gradually I began noticing the absence of my father’s printer-ink scent in the morning as he kissed my forehead, the way he’d pull the blankets up and tuck them under my chin. Gradually, I began wondering if he were real or just part of my dreams.

On the night a loud boom shook the ground so hard that the window cracked and crumbled into a thousand pieces, my mother pulled us out of bed and told me that we were going to play a game. I was to follow her and not look anywhere except at her back. Right there, she said, tapping her spine. Then she loaded bullets into a gun and handed another one to my brother, reminding him to keep the safety on until the time came, and when the time did come there were fireworks all around us dazzling through the night.

On the first night in our new home, it was my father instead who cranked the wheel of the music box as I fell asleep wondering where my brother was. The ashy wool of my mother’s coat softened the gravel against my spine and the notes of that lullaby dipped, and climbed, and snapped, softly like powdered fingers, more clear than ever before.

Andy Tu is an up-and-coming writer. His stories, which have appeared in thirty-nine magazines, are inspired by his travels; within the past five years, he has lived in Cambodia, Boston, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Colombia. He is currently querying agents to represent his first novel, a literary thriller, while moving back to his home town in California. Andy writes because every person is a mystery to him, and he longs to know their stories.

by Linda Tyler

Once a week Heather ran our community choir in the dusty village hall. For an hour and a half, we sang songs from around the world. Her favourites, perhaps, were those from South Africa calling for freedom, from Russia praising the deity of our choice, from Scotland lamenting  brave men dying in battle. She would call our chattering group to order by singing a bar or two of whatever we had been practising the previous week, until gradually we came to attention, joining in and taking our places. The sign for us to end the song was when she raised her arms.

“High waving heather,” my friend the English teacher whispered to me.

I recognised her reference to Emily Bronte’s poem. “I hope we don’t sound like stormy blasts,” I murmured.

A woman of over seventy, Heather’s fashion style was nevertheless on trend. Her boxy jumper and beads were brightly coloured; her slim hips were clad in denim. Her hair, though grey, was worn artfully messy on the crown of her head.

Her only failure of age was that sometimes, as she began to sing a piece well known to the rest of us, she forgot the words or tune. Then she would wave her arms, bringing to a halt those of us who were singing correctly, and say, “No, no. Stop. Listen to me.” And off she would go again while we listened dutifully until she finished, before returning to our original version. Then she would nod, pleased we had grasped it.

After the session, we would all pile into the café next door. Occasionally she would join us, pulling a chair over to our long table and breaking into the lively chatter with some unrelated anecdote.

“When I was at Oxford…”

There would be silence as, mugs held in midair, we waited politely for her to speak.

“When I was at Oxford, Yehudi Menuhin was a customer at my local coffee shop. Then I moved to London and bumped into him again!”

We would glance at each other, uncertain how to respond; some muttered to their neighbour.

Did she really mean she had studied at Oxford, I wondered. Once or twice, perched on the edge of her seat in the cafe, she had mentioned other establishments.

“I was a student of music and art at the Sorbonne. Paris was different in those days.” A faraway look would appear in her eyes.

Presently, after one of these announcements was met with bemused looks, she would rise, assemble a smile and say, “I must check the arrangements for the concert next week.”

With wrinkled fingers covered in rings, she would hand round leaflets advertising the latest entertainment in the village hall.

“The cellist is a young man I met when I was in Spain. He was playing in a little taberna—such a wonderful musician—and I invited him to come over and stay with me.’

“What kind of music does he play?” someone asked.

“Oh, all sorts,” she said, pinning up a loose strand of hair, “but he mainly improvises.”

The others round the table would stifle their laughter, burying their faces in the frothy liquid in their mugs. She never drank coffee with us or stayed long.

Sometimes, when on my way to my afternoon book club or setting out to meet my walking group, I would come across her in the high street. She looked smaller, somehow—lost and insignificant.

“I’ve entered a woodcut in an exhibition,” she would say, or tell me she was arranging to have a piece of her artwork framed. Away from leading the choir, her smile would take on the rigid appearance of a mask.

One day at the end of the singing session she said to us, “I’m having a little party on Saturday. There’ll be food and drink.” She gave her address. “From eight o’clock.”

The others said something about how nice, will try to come if we can get baby-sitters, dog-sitters, husband-sitters, and she said, “Of course. I understand.”

I made some expression of pleasure at the invitation. She said, “Well, you all have the address.”

I nodded. The others had moved away when it occurred to me that there might be a reason for the party. “Is it a special occasion—your birthday, perhaps?’ “

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was thick.

She picked up the sheet music from the top of the piano and tapped it into a neat pile, before pushing the papers into her satchel. Her school bag must have looked like that once, I thought, when she had dreams of an exciting future.

“I’m sure I can come to your party,” I said.

On Saturday evening I drove to her house on the outskirts of the village. The driveway was overgrown and leaves rustled in the wind. Her house was in darkness and for a moment I thought I had come on the wrong day. As I turned off the engine, I was sure my car beams picked out a movement at an upstairs window. I sat for a moment but saw nothing else; I lifted the bottle of wine from the passenger seat and walked to her front door. The sound of the knocker echoed in the night air. It sent a flock of black and white magpies rising from the tall ghostly trees, but it brought no one to the door.

I bent to peer through theletter box. Against the wall stood a table with a telephone; her coat hung on a peg.

“Heather,” I called. “Are you there? Are you okay?”

The only response was the harsh chatter of the magpies.

Gradually the birds quietened again and a heavy melancholy settled back around the darkened house. I waited a while longer, then I got into my car and left.

“You’re back early,” said my husband, looking up from the television.

“It seems the party was cancelled,” I said.

“Strange woman.” He turned back to the screen.

I had an image of Heather as she raised her arms to end our last song and it seemed to me they drooped. And, running through my head, the thought that after all we were the stormy blasts ’neath which she bent.

Linda Tyler was born in London and now lives in a village on the edge of the Scottish Highlands. She has been published by Ouen Press, D C Thomson, Bards and Sages, Riding Light, Alliteration Ink, blink-ink, and Thema. Stories in forthcoming publications include “Grey Wolfe” and “Alban Lake.” A retired lecturer, she now runs self-catering holiday accommodation and is walked daily by her Labrador.

by Daniel Stride

Alice punched the numbers.

“One hundred twenty-one trillion. Quite a lot.”

The man on the park bench looked over her shoulder, and smiled. “You still underestimate by a factor of a thousand.”

Misread the zeros. Damn contact lenses. Alice shoved the calculator back into her coat pocket. “So even if your ringers spent centuries at it—millennia—they would only cover a fraction of the possible permutations.”

“Indeed. To ring the extent of nineteen bells—every permutation as you call it—would take some two billion years.”

“So they can’t possibly do it.”

The fellow nodded across the lawn towards the bell tower.

“Listen. They are doing it right now.”

Alice paused. The clanging song continued apace, each change of the bells mellow and melancholy, yet also subtly different from its predecessor.

“How long have they been at it?”

“Some time.”

It’s like interviewing that M.P. “How long?”

“Less than two billion years, or they would have finished.”

Alice picked her pad and pencil off the bench, and scribbled a note. She needed a drink.

“Returning to the original question, what is the purpose of this strange exercise in campanology? What do you hope to achieve?”

“There are many purposes, mostly aesthetic. I understand my methods are unconventional.”

“And supernatural. Your bell ringers neither eat nor sleep.”

“As you say.”

Alice thinned her lips. “Let us take this in a different direction. These bells are magical, and their purpose is either benign or malevolent.”

He laughed. “They are purely benign. How could anything this elegant be malevolent?”

“This has been going on for an unnatural length of time.”

“All lengths of time are natural.”

“Even two billion years?”

“Even two billion years.”

Two can play this game. “Is this experiment’s duration closer to the end of that mark?”

That rattled him: a slight twitch of the cheek, a flutter of the eyelids.

“I couldn’t possibly comment.”

“To hazard a hypothesis…” Alice drew a deep breath. Down the rabbit hole. “Two billion years ago is when cells with internal organs appeared, paving the way for what came after. Is there a link between these magical bells, and the existence of higher life-forms on this planet? Is your experiment about sustaining life itself?”

She expected either a bark of laughter, or some nervous denial. Instead he merely shrugged.

“We must wait until they are finished.”

“Pardon?”

“If the bells sustain life, life shall end when the ringing ends. Assuming causation, and not mere correlation.”

Alice frowned. “Can’t you stop the ringing to check?”

That did elicit laughter. “I could. But if life suddenly stopped, being right would be cold comfort.”

Alice scribbled another note. “Then perhaps another benign supernatural purpose. Do the bells protect us from enemies? Demons? Hostile space aliens?”

“A most interesting hypothesis.” The man stood, and smoothed his shabby jacket. Then he crossed the lawn, and fetched a small stone from the rock garden.

“What if this protected the earth from demons and space aliens?” he said, as he resumed his seat on the bench. “Rather than the bells.”

Alice took the stone from him. “But it’s just a rock. It doesn’t protect anything.”

“And those bells are just copper and tin alloy, in varying percentages. Yet you ascribe miraculous properties to them.”

“The bells are demonstrably magical. This isn’t.”

“The only magic you have identified is that the ringers neither eat nor sleep. Otherwise, the bells’ nonaesthetic attributes are no different from those of that stone.”

Alice put the stone down on the grass.

“Very well,” she said. “Do the bells possess any malevolent properties?”

“Care to suggest any?”

Alice bit her lip. “The peal does not kill those who hear it, so it can’t be that.”

The twinkle had returned to the man’s eye. “A sound observation.”

“Maybe it causes insanity though.” It would explain much.

More laughter. “My dear girl, the people of this village have listened to the bells all their lives. Do they appear mad to you?”

“No, but—perhaps the bells lure in new victims, and turn them into eternal bell ringers.”

“Do you feel an unnatural urge to swap journalism for campanology?”

“Not particularly.”

“Did any of the bell ringers look distressed when you passed through the chamber?”

“Not that I saw.”

“Then if the bells are malevolent lures, they are very poor at their job.”

Alice shut her Notepad, and stuffed it into her pocket. “That’s all my questions. Thank you for your time.”

The man cocked his head. “Are you quite sure?”

“Well…” One question still lingered on the tip of her tongue. “Are you God? Or a god?”

“Quite the step up in speculation.” He flashed a toothy grin. “Godhood would be a surprise, given that I am the exact opposite.”

❦

The man sat on the bench, eyes shut, his ears filled with the wondrous peal.

“She never did ask if I enjoyed the music,” he said.

Daniel Stride has a lifelong love of literature in general and speculative fiction in particular. He writes both short stories and poetry; his first novel, Wise Phuul, was published in November, 2016 by small UK press, Inspired Quill. Daniel lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.

phuulishfellow.wordpress.com

by Mike Murphy

Elias Farrell founded Look Ahead Enterprises—a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company designed to do the impossible—in 2027.

On the morning of March 8, he met with a potential client, Jeff Healy, in Farrell’s well-appointed office. He offered him a seat, which he took, and something to drink, which he refused. “Let’s get down to brass tacks then,” Elias said. “How may we help you?”

Healy was a bit nervous, like many new clients. He began, “I was referred to you by a—a business associate of mine, Charles Kilpatrick.”

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s fine. He said that you solved a tough problem for him.”

“He’s too kind,” Farrell smiled and replied. “We merely showed him the way.”

“How did you do that?”

“I can’t speak of specifics. Look Ahead Enterprises places great value on our clients’ confidentiality.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“What problem would you like us to deal with?”

“I—uhm…”

“Anything you say here will never leave this room. I need to know what your problem is to see if we can help you.”

Jeff paused uneasily, but finally spilled. “It’s my son—Alex. He’s fourteen.”

“That’s quite an age: No longer a child, but not yet a man.”

“He’s starting to act—strangely.”

“How so?”

“Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Farrell. Alex is a good kid. My wife, Trish, and I raised him right—with love and discipline.”

“I don’t doubt that for a minute.”

“He seems to have fallen in with a bad crowd. He’s started skipping school, and talking back to Trish and me. We’ve done everything we can think of, talked to all kinds of specialists, but we’re at our wits’ end.”

“I can imagine.”

“Charlie said you give DVDs to your clients.”

“For a small fee, yes.”

“I thought that,” Healy went on, “if I could show Alex video proof of what he’s going to become if he continues down this road, it might straighten him out.”

“May I assume you’ve looked over our fee schedule?”

“I have. I’ve already filled out the paperwork too. I think the One Look package would be best.”

“From what you’ve told me, I agree.”

❦

“Simply put,” Farrell summed up, “with the proper programming, our computer can momentarily subvert natural forces and the laws of physics to peek into the probable future of any person we choose.”

“Probable?” asked Healy.

“Our best estimate is 89.6%.”

“So what I’ll see here today—what I’m paying for—isn’t the definite future?”

“Most likely it will be,” Farrell said. “Some factors beyond our control make it impossible to reach 100%.”

“Such as?” Jeff prompted him.

“Free will, for one.”

“I don’t get it.”

“A fictional example: Walking home tonight, I cross the street and get hit by a bus. If I delayed crossing that street by even a minute, the bus would pass me uneventfully, and I would live to see another day.” He looked Jeff in the eye. “That percent,” he said, “is the absolute best we can provide. If it’s not sufficient for you, I can cancel your contract.”

“No,” Healy replied emphatically. “I’m going through with it.”

❦

It took Elias Farrell ten minutes to ready Healy’s viewing room. He explained to Jeff that his look ahead would appear on the screen before him, unfortunately without sound—something his programmers hadn’t been able to work out yet. The computer would select what it believed to be the subject’s most important future day. The DVD recording would begin as soon as the video appeared on the monitor. The One Look would last approximately a minute and would be date stamped.

The monitor flickered to life: Healy’s house. The date stamp was a little over a year from now. The video moved inside the home to show his son and wife. They were talking about something while Trish put papers into her valise. He was nowhere to be seen. To Jeff’s shock, the on-screen Alex pulled out a gun and, after some heated arguing, shot Trish twice in the chest. Seconds later, the screen went blank. Healy sat staring at the monitor, slack-jawed. He couldn’t believe it. “Can this be changed?” he asked, hoping against hope.

“It’s possible,” Farrell told him. “Any actions you, Alex, or your wife takes mightinfluence the future.”

“To the point where that won’t happen?” Jeff asked, pointing disdainfully at the screen.

“Maybe.”

“Then we’ll do it!”

“Do what?”

“Whatever keeps Alex from shooting Trish.”

Farrell was confused by his client’s words. “We have no way of knowing what actions to take.”

His client was dumbfounded. “Your computer can’t tell me what to do to set things right?”

“No, sir. It’s only a viewer.”

“So I can possibly save her life, but I can’t know how?” Healy asked, his face growing red. “By dumb luck, I might do something which will keep that from happening, but I could also bring it about quicker.”

“That is the paradox of time.”

Jeff rubbed his eyes for a moment, trying to keep all this information in his head. “Any advice, Farrell? Any at all?”

He paused for what seemed like forever and then muttered, “Well…”

“There is something?”

“It’s very expensive.”

“Tell me.”

“You must promise that my suggestion will go no further than this room. If it were to become public knowledge, my future…”

“I promise,” Jeff replied eagerly.

Farrell took the deepest breath Jeff had ever seen anyone take. “They do exist,” he began.

“Who?”

“I could set you up—with a fixer.”

❦

“His name is Tomlinson.”

“What’s his first name?”

“No one knows,” Elias answered. “He goes only by Tomlinson.”

“What does he do?”

“You should know that fixers are outside the law. The Feds usually turn a blind eye to them—but not always to those who hire them. Our operations here are sanctioned by the government. We are answerable to the government. Tomlinson and those like him are not.”

“I understand,” Jeff said. “What does he do?”

“Fixers have equipment beyond ours. They’re able somehow to analyze a problem shown by a glimpse into the future and prevent it from occurring.”

“So Tomlinson can stop what I saw on that screen?” Healy asked hopefully.

“He’s the best chance you have.”

“How do you know about fixers?”

“Let’s just say that you’re not the first client whose One Look was negative.”

“Tomlinson’s good?”

“Very good—and very expensive.”

“How do I contact him?”

“You don’t. He’ll contact you,” Elias continued. “A friend of mine knows how to reach him. I’ll have to give her all your information, including a copy of the video record. She’ll forward everything.”

“Whatever he needs. I definitely want to hire him.”

“You don’t hire him.”

“Huh?” a befuddled Jeff asked.

“He decides whether he’ll accept you as a client. If so, he’ll call you. If you don’t hear anything within a week, his answer is no.”

“A week! I don’t want to let a week go by!”

“I might be able to set you up with another fixer who may have more availability.”

Jeff tried balancing quicker help against skill in his mind. “You said Tomlinson’s good?”

“The best.”

“I want the best. How long before he gets my information?”

“I should be able to reach my contact tonight. Tomlinson will have your records within twenty-four hours,” Farrell assured him. “Do I have your permission to continue?”

“Of course!”

“I would appreciate it if you forget who directed you to Tomlinson. If the government finds out about…”

“No one will ever know.”

❦

Seven interminable days later, Jeff’s cell phone rang. “This is Tomlinson,” he heard.

“Yes?” he responded eagerly.

“I’ll take your case.”

“You can prevent the shooting?”

“I believe so.”

“You believe so?”

“Even my methods are not foolproof,” Tomlinson replied, sounding a bit annoyed. “You’re free to back out. Tell me now before I waste my time.”

“No, no,” Jeff added quickly. “I don’t want to back out.”

“Good.”

“Mr. Farrell spoke very highly of you.”

“I’m the best,” the voice proudly answered. “My fee is $25,000, up front.”

Jeff was taken aback by the amount. “Twenty-five—”

“Having second thoughts?”

“I’m used to paying for services rendered. It’s how I do business.”

“This is how I do business. Take it or leave it.”

“How do I get you the money?”

“I’ll let you know.”

“How do you keep the shooting from happening?”

“Simple: We alter the timeline.”

❦

“The what?” Healy asked the voice on the phone.

“That’s what we call the order of time,” Tomlinson explained. “Think of it as a long, straight highway. Everything’s in order: Tuesday follows Monday, and Wednesday follows Tuesday. What I need to do is put an ‘exit ramp’ on that highway.”

“You realize there isn’t much time.”

“I know,” the voice assured him. “Starting tomorrow morning, I’ll need daily updates from you.”

“On what?” Jeff asked, confused.

“Everything you did the previous day—from what you had for breakfast to when you went to bed. The same goes for your wife and kid. The more information, the better. If you and Trish had pillow talk, I want to know about it.”

“For what reason?”

“Time is strange, Healy. We don’t know what might influence it. I need to cover every base. The slightest omission could cause trouble.”

“Gotcha.”

“You haven’t shown your boy that DVD, have you?” Tomlinson asked urgently.

“No,” Healy answered. “I thought it best to wait and speak with you.”

“Good thinking. Don’t. It might give him ideas. Don’t show it to anyone.”

“How do I reach you?”

“I’ve downloaded an app onto your phone while we’ve been talking. Every morning at 9:00, call me at star 7809. Your words will be recorded, and I’ll expect a full accounting.”

“You’ll get it.”

“You’ll notice that your caller ID is showing this as an unlisted number.”

Healy glanced at the phone’s display and replied, “Yes.”

“Never call me beyond your updates.”

“What if something important happens?”

“It can wait for the next update. Any extra calls increase the chance I’ll be identified and caught before I can help you.”

“I understand.”

“Have you told your wife about this?”

“No.”

“Don’t,” Tomlinson ordered. “During tomorrow’s update, you’ll learn how to transfer my fee.”

“I’ll have the money ready and waiting.”

“You may not hear from me for prolonged stretches of time. You might think the period of silence excessive. I assure you it’s necessary. Finally, in order to save your wife’s life, I may need to make requests of you.”

“What kind of requests?”

“I may need you to do or say certain things.”

“Couldn’t we just keep Alex away from Trish?”

“Certainly not! Some major things will happen to you and your loved ones during this time. However, intentionally altering your family life will make our goal much more difficult to attain—perhaps impossible.”

“I’ll leave things be.”

“Good. Remember: Your first update is tomorrow morning at 9:00.”

❦

“Well, yesterday I got a raise, so Trish and I went out for dinner at our favorite…”

❦

“I had to go to Alex’s school. He got into some trouble with his…”

❦

“Yesterday was our boy’s fifteenth birthday, so we all…”

❦

“It being Black Friday, Trish hit the malls early. Alex and I stayed home and watched some football…”

❦

“…and went to bed. Tomlinson, are you getting these updates? I haven’t heard from you in months. The day of the shooting is coming up. Have you done anything to prevent it? Tomlinson!”

❦

“How about the two of us play hooky from work today?” Jeff asked his wife.

“What?” she answered, surprised.

“We’ll send Alex off to school and call in sick. We could go out to lunch, to a movie, to the museum. Whatever you like.”

“That’s a great idea,” she replied after a brief chuckle, “but I can’t. I’m showing the Cartwright place to three different couples this afternoon, and I’m told they’re all eager to buy. We could sure use my commission.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Maybe next week?”

Jeff sighed. “I suppose.”

“We’d better get moving,” she said, looking at her watch. “Could you please take out the trash? I’ve got some papers to get together.”

❦

In his grungy T-shirt, jeans, and once-white sneakers, Alex was as dressed up as he ever got. “Hi, honey,” Trish greeted him from her seat on the couch, looking up only briefly before going back to collecting her notes. “Sleep well?”

“So-so,” he answered. “Mom, I—I need some money.”

“Would ten bucks do?” she asked, zipping up her valise.

He awkwardly pulled a gun from a pants pocket. “I was thinking more of everything you have.”

“Alex, where’d—What are you doing?”

“Don’t move,” he ordered. “How much money do you have in your purse?”

“I’m not—not really sure. About fifty dollars, I think.”

“I want it.”

Trish began doing as she had been told. “Okay, the trash is out,” Jeff announced, walking into the living room. “It looks like the raccoons…”

“Sit down, old man!” Alex exclaimed, pointing the gun at his dad.

“Put that down!”

“When I feel like it,” the teenager said. “Give me your money. Now!” Jeff slowly took his wallet from his back pocket, removed the bills, and handed them over. “That’s it?”

“Every cent.”

Alex counted it quickly. “That’s not even a hundred bucks!”

“How much do you need?” Trish asked.

“A lot more than this.”

“Who do you owe the money to?” Healy inquired. “A bookie? A dealer?”

“Shut up!” Alex yelled, sweat coming to his pimply brow. “We’re going to the bank, and you’re gonna get me the money I need.”

“There’s not much in the account,” his mother told him. “I paid the bills the other day.”

“When will there be money in it?”

“Friday,” Jeff told his son. “We both get paid on Friday.”

“He won’t wait until Friday.”

“He?”

The doorbell rang. “Who’s that?” Alex asked Jeff nervously.

“How am I supposed to know?”

“It could be him.” The bell rang again. “You’re gonna take care of this.”

❦

Healy stood on the threshold. Behind the open door, Alex held his gun to Trish’s right temple. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and she was doing all she could not to weep aloud.

The man on the stoop was about forty-five. He was short and a little chubby. Jeff had never seen him before, but he knew that voice. “Good morning, sir,” the visitor said in a friendly tone. “My name is Tomlinson, and I’m with the Your Opinion Matters Research Company.”

“I’m afraid that now isn’t a good time,” Jeff informed him.

“I only have a couple of questions to ask. Won’t take but a minute.”

“Well…”

“Answering them will qualify you for some valuable prizes, including a fabulous cruise to Alaska.”

“Answer the questions and get rid of him,” Alex whispered through his teeth.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Jeff said.

“Thank you, sir. With all of the crime in today’s society, do you own—a gun?”

“I do not.”

“If you were to purchase a weapon, would you have any preference as to the type? Say, a revolver, perhaps?”

“A revolver would be good to have.”

“Thank you, sir.” Tomlinson removed a bulky, unsealed envelope from his coat pocket and passed it carefully to Healy. They exchanged an understanding glance. “Here are your chances on the cruise,” the fixer said. “Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

“Good day,” Tomlinson said before turning and walking away.

Healy shut the door.

“Let’s get m—” Alex uttered before taking a bullet in his right leg, dropping his gun, and falling to the carpet.

❦

Tomlinson called Jeff at the hospital. “Your case is closed,” he told his client.

“Didn’t you cut that rather fine?” Healy complained.

“Not intentionally. Working with the timeline, I realized there was no way to prevent the shooting aside from visiting your home and getting you a weapon.”

“Another minute or two and…”

“My attempts to prevent the problem must’ve jostled it to a slightly earlier time. It should not have been happening when I arrived. It should not have begun for another eleven minutes.”

“Eleven minutes?”

“Exactly.”

“Tomlinson, I…”

“Your account is paid in full. Goodbye, Mr. Healy. Best of luck in your—future.”

❦

“The doctors say he’ll be fine,” Healy told his wife as he walked back into the waiting room.

“He could have killed us, Jeff,” Trish said. “Our own son could have killed us!”

“I know,” Healy replied sadly.

“What do you think he needs the money for?”

“Not a clue, but I’m going to find out. Alex is getting his act together starting now.”

“Where did you get the gun?” his bride asked him.

“Tomlinson gave it to me,” he answered her.

“The man at the door?”

“Right.”

“He just happened to show up with a gun right when we needed it?” she said incredulously.

“It’s a long story.”

❦

Later that night, Jeff noticed that Tomlinson’s app was still on his cell phone. He couldn’t resist.

“The number you have called,” he heard, “has been disconnected. No further information is available…The number you have called has been disconnected. No further information is available…The number you have called has been disconnected. No further information is…”

Mike Murphy has had over 150 audio plays produced in the U.S. and overseas. In 2016, he won two Moondance International Film Festival awards. Mike’s prose work has appeared in Dime Show Review, Gathering Storm Magazine, Zeroflash, Inwood Indiana Press, Zetetic: A Record of Unusual Inquiry, With Candlelight, Asymmetry Fiction, Lyonesse Fiction, Communicators League, Theme of Absence, Visions With Voices, Fabula Argentea, and The Flash Fiction Press. In 2015, his script The Candy Man was produced as a short film under the title Dark Chocolate. In 2013, Mike won the inaugural Marion Thauer Brown Audio Drama Scriptwriting Competition.

www.audioauthor.blogspot.com

by Pat Tompkins

As the sun circles the flat earth,
you of the one true religion,
smarter than the dumb animals,
believer in alchemy and phrenology,
remember the fate of dinosaurs.

Regard a pinch of sand, blade
of grass, bead of water.
Listen to the wind and waves.
Melt snow in your hand.
Taste salt of tears and heat.

Question those who are sure.
A plague on soothsayers.

Pat Tompkins is an editor in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in KYSO Flash, Grievous Angel, Thema, and other publications.

by Kyle Owens

CLOSEUP SCHOOL PHOTO:

First grader, OSCAR WILLIAMS, stares back at the camera, smiling in the full spirit of happiness. An American flag stands in the background. Soft brown eyes echo the tone of his skin. Black hair, cut close to the scalp, crowns his head.

PULL BACK:

INT. APARTMENT (KITCHEN)— DAY

WILMA WILLIAMS (forty, black female) sits at the kitchen table with the interviewer. She stares at the photo lovingly.

“This is his first grade picture. He wore his Detroit Lions shirt that day. He loved the Detroit Lions. It’s all he talked about back then. I have a larger photo of this one hanging up in the living room. That’s my favorite photo of him. Just look how happy he is here. He was always a happy child. Never had any problems with him until he got to be about eight years old.”

“What caused him to change?”

“His father was shot and killed.”

Her words go off like a grenade.

“That had to be a very traumatic thing for the whole family.”

“It was. Roger was a good man. He had a good job at the grocery store. It’s hard to find a good job in Troit so we knew we were blessed.”

“Do you know who killed him?”

“No.”

Wilma is quiet. The clock on the wall chimes for the top of the hour. The voices from people walking by the apartment filter in through the bars across the open window.

“We ran out of milk and he went to pick some up for supper that evening down here on the corner at the Rite Shop. And he got shot and died on the sidewalk on his way back. The guy that shot him took his wallet, watch, and even took the jug of milk he bought.”

The silence slides by like razor bites.

“Did anyone see who did it?”

“No. Nobody gets caught in Troit.”

“Why?

“We’re expendable.”

The interviewer is startled by her words said in such a calm and exact tone. She stares at the refrigerator covered in photos of her son held up by butterfly magnets.

“No one’s expendable.”

“That’s white man talk. We black folk have been expendable since they been making people.”

She gazes away and then her eyes softly reach up to his.

“How did losing his father change Oscar?”

“He was much more quiet. I could tell he was taking on demons.”

“What kind of demons?”

“Guns.”

Boys become men
across the nation.
Do what’s best
for the family’s reputation.
But Troit is different
where fathers are none
so little boys
are on the run.
No guidance, no protection,
no hand to grab.
So the gun
becomes the Dad.

CUT TO:

EXT. APARTMENT STEPS—DAY

A mist of rain falls against the sky. Drips of water fall into an old metal coffee can positioned beneath a leaking gutter. The interviewer is talking with FRO (black male, twenties) while they sit in white plastic chairs.

“Pick was a really good guy.”

“How did he get the name Pick?”

“He saw this cat murdered when he was nine. The guy that shot him ran off and Pick went over to where the dead guy was lying. Half his head was gone, man. Just blew it right off and blood, flesh, and bone spiderwebbed all over the wall. Pick saw the dead guy and the cat had a bag of cocaine at his side so he just picked it up and before morning came he done and sold it all and was a rich man. ”

Laughter spasms through the rain.

“Was that the first time he saw a man murdered?”

“No.”

No fathers in the home,
mentors out of sight.
So they walk the streets
and learn that might makes right.
Mothers lie awake
hearing sirens and screaming.
Welcome to the life
where boys are raised by women.

CUT TO:

EXT. HOUSE—NIGHT

JENNY BROCK (black female, nineteen years old) is sitting on the steps in front of her house with the interviewer. The street lights, those that still have their bulbs, begin to flicker to life.

“How did you meet Pick?”

“At the club.”

“Which club?”

“Deuces. I’m a dancer there.”

“Did he come up to you after the—what do you call it—show?”

Jenny laughs as she buries her face in her open right hand.

“Call it what you want. No, he didn’t come up to me. I went over to him.”

“Was it an instant attraction?”

“Yeah.”

“What attracted you to him the most?”

“He had money.”

“Money? That’s not very romantic—you know—to just to be attracted to his money—is it?”

“I don’t live in a very romantic place. I’m just trying to survive. In Troit you don’t pick men you love. You pick men you need.”

Deceased, expired,

departed, gone.

Slain, slaughtered,

stack of bones.

All our bloods

piled into a hole.

Tomorrow they’ll be endless ashes

these people we used to know.

CUT TO:

EXT. PARKING LOT—NIGHT

SKIDS (twenties, black male) is sitting on the tailgate of a Chevy LUV pickup truck eating spicy potato chips from a bag. The interviewer is sitting beside him drinking a root beer from a can.

“How did you meet Pick?”

“We went to school together. We was tight.”

“Was it your idea to start a rap group?”

“No, it was his—well, I guess it was both of ours, but he had thought it out more. Anybody that listens to hip-hop always starts thinking about putting a group together or trying to lay some tracks down. That’s just the nature of it.”

“Why do you think rap music has such an impact around here?”

“To get out of Troit. Music could be the way. Ain’t but two ways out of here in most of our eyes. That’s in music or in a body bag.”

Skids smiles and his large white teeth brighten the dark.

“What were you going to call the group?”

“Death Riders.”

“Death Riders? Why that?”

“Look around you. Spend a few nights in Troit and let’s see what name you come up with.”

Laughter spills forward from both men.

“Was Pick a good rapper?”

“Oh yeah. He could cut’cha with his rhymes. But Pick wanted to go to the next level in rap. Pick really thought that rap had stopped evolving. We was going to do it different. We weren’t going to sample anything. We was going to write our own hooks as well as the raps. We played our own instruments. He thought rap needed to get out of the sampling stuff and create its everything. Show the world we got talent that can create from the nothings of our lives into the something of yours. One thing that upset him more than anything was when they started sampling TV theme songs. That just made him insane. He thought that showed no creativity at all and we were going to change that. Then he got shot.”

Hope seems to rubble about his eyes.

“Did you see it happen?”

“No one sees it happen. It just happens.”

“Who shot him?”

“Probably one of the pimps he was robbing.”

“He robbed pimps?”

“Oh yeah. That’s the way to get good money. He wasn’t into cocaine or drugs himself, well—beer he liked—you know, Colt .45. He guzzled the stuff. But he’d rob the pimps for the money to get for the group or if his mother needed money for rent or groceries. He’d do anything for his mother. His goal was to get the group going and then when we got successful he’d move his mother to Beverly Hills.”

“Why Beverly Hills?”

“It just sounded safer to him. He’d get her a big house in a gated community and he wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore.”

“Was the group having any success?”

“Oh, yeah. We cut one song up in his girlfriend’s apartment and put it out here locally. Even got a radio station to play it some. It was hittin’ too. People liked it. Then he just got shot. Ended everything. When you’re robbing drug dealers you aren’t playing with fire. You’re in the fire thinking you can get back out. But he didn’t get back out that night.”

Time ruins
in silent moments.
Causing all to be gone
before the eye can notice.
Life becomes a broken garden
scattered gone by nature’s riots.
And all that’s reaped
are seeds of silence.

CUT TO:

EXT. SIDEWALK—DAY

MALLARD RAYMOND (black male, forties) walks down the street with the interviewer with his pit bull, Mr. Pops, on a leash.

“You were Oscar’s uncle?”

“Yeah. I’m his mother’s brother. He was a great kid too. I really thought he was going to get big with his music. I work down at the radio station…”

“You a DJ?”

“No. I’m the janitor. But I’m in good with the night crew and I brought his music up to them on a cassette tape one night and told ’em that I have the next big thing outta Troit right here. They listened to it and they just loved it. Played it on the air that night. Everything was looking bright. I was going to be their manager. At least that’s what I was angling for. I thought since I got their music on the air then that would put me in good standing with ’em, you know. I got down an old road atlas and began circling places they could play at and thought about getting some shirts made and stuff like that. I was into it big time.”

Mallard laughs which highlights his missing front tooth and then his expression changes to a clot of regrets.

“But it just didn’t work out. That’s what a body gets for dreaming in Troit.”

They walk by an abandoned building with no windows or roof, with trees growing up out of its crumbling concrete floor and gang signs painted on its clay brick facade.

“There’s no hope around here. None at all. You just do what you can do to get by. You don’t live in Troit—you survive Troit. All of us here is here because we can’t get out. If we could get out we’d get out. We’re at the bottom of the world here. Move over Antarctica, Troit is taking your place.”

Mallard laughs as he stops to let Mr. Pops relieve himself against a metal post missing its sign.

“There has to be some hope here, doesn’t there? I mean, can’t you get government assistance or something to…”

“Government assistance? Man, how white are you? I’ll tell you what government assistance got us. It got us lead in our water. That’s what government assistance getcha’ in Troit. They took the wet out of our water and replaced it with lead. That’s all you gotta know about this place. We’re the bottom. We’re not forgotten—we’re worse than that. We’re ignored.”

Can’t drink the water.
Can’t walk the streets.
Any glimmer of hope
despair quickly defeats.
It’s just one million lives
without a point.
Welcome to the city
the dead call Troit.

Kyle Owens lives in the Appalachian Mountains. His work has appeared in Eastern Iowa Review, OdyssaMagazine, The Breakroom Stories, and The Arcanist, among others.

by Mary Cresswell

Let’s go now while the going’s good:
Little Red Riding Hood ran to the wood
ran to visit her granny’s house
ran and tripped into the grey wolf’s mouth
like everyone reckoned she probably would.

She never got wet without making a flood,
whatever she did was crass and lewd,
the boys she brought back were smelly and rude…
…Oh, let go now!

She was gone for a bit but she’s back in the hood
true to her family, true to her blood.
The old goats dribbled, the old cows mooed,
the fastidious sneered as they once pooh-poohed
but the party’s begun like we knew it would:
…Let’s go now!

Mary Cresswell is a science editor turned poet. She is from Los Angeles and has lived on New Zealand’s Kapiti Coast for many years. Canterbury University Press recently published her collection of ghazals and glosas, Fish Stories. Her poems are widely published in New Zealand, the US, Australia, Canada, and the UK.

www.bookcouncil.org.nz/Writers/Profiles/Cresswell,%20Mary

by M. A. Akins

It started with the crow.

I reserved my Saturday mornings for long walks with Rufus and Max, my dogs, my boys. I always referred to them as The Boys, which sometimes confused people when meeting me for the first time. They got used to it. Fortunately, I had met a couple of like-minded spirits, Anke  and Robi, in August after my transfer to Stuttgart, Germany, and we enjoyed each other’s company on most mornings while their dog, Daisy, and my two frolicked.

After our walk in the fields one Saturday in October, Anke invited me to join them for brunch. She said the warm day demanded some leisurely balcony time, so she dropped us off at the apartment, and I told her I would be there after feeding The Boys and showering, about an hour or so.

I opted to wind my way through the small back streets of the village to avoid the bustle of the last shopping day of the week. The blackbirds and sparrows sang and rustled around in the brush near a small lake as I passed by. Regardless of whether other people stood nearby or not, I greeted the birds with a good morning and wished them a nice day. I always did this. I knew they didn’t understand, but on more than one occasion, I felt as if one of the blackbirds was following me, landing on a fence or a sign or a bush a few feet ahead of me. I could almost reach out and touch it when it would flutter off.

Robi and the smell of bread greeted me at the door when I arrived. On the balcony, jams, cold cuts, cheeses, butter, and breads filled their small table. After I sat down, Anke poured coffee. I sliced a baguette in half lengthwise.

“There is a rumor the pasture and surrounding trees in our forest up the street are going to be cleared for more housing,” Anke said while spreading butter on her brötchen. “They will have to rip out a third of the trees at least. The mud will run down the paths and destroy most of the trails for who knows how long.”

“I love walking there in the evenings,” I said. “Mornings in the park are great, but The Boys and I will get bored if we have to do that twice a day.”

“It’s only a rumor,” Robi said. “For now.”

“Have you talked to the Forstmeister?” I asked.

“He would never tell us anything.” Anke sipped her coffee.

“I don’t suppose there’s a way to stop it.” I said, as I rolled up a slice of meat and cheese together, then bit off a chunk.

“We could protest, but housing is a priority,” Robi said.

“Let’s hope it’s a rumor then,” I said.

We discussed other locations to walk, the pros and cons of each, but I couldn’t help but feel cheated, robbed of a location near enough to my apartment where I didn’t need to drive, burdened by the heavy traffic the Stuttgart area had become famous for.

A part of me wanted to stir into action, but as had happened so often in my life, I knew I would let the moment slip by and return to a more passive self. I would once again become the person who had allowed my wife to walk out of my life without a fight, had allowed a well-deserved promotion to pass over me without contesting its validity, had allowed my neighbor to destroy part of my lawn without demanding compensation. Within moments, I had rationalized and decided this was not my fight.

After finishing the bread, we packed the leftovers away in the kitchen and returned to the balcony. I crossed my legs and turned my face to the sun. Crows squawked across the street, and battled over something or other on the sidewalk.

“Would you look at that?” Robi said, after he returned with a couple of beers.

I turned to see a crow with its head wedged between two pickets while two others bounced around on the sidewalk below him.

Without putting my shoes on, I rushed out the door and across the street. The crow beat its wings and cried out. The other birds scattered as I approached.

“Calm down, little one,” I said as I approached. The crow’s head rested on the upper rail, and I feared it might break its neck if it kept thrashing about. I placed my left hand under the bird’s body and lifted enough to relieve the stress on his neck. The crow’s wild eyes looked into mine.

“I forgot gloves mister, so please don’t bite me.”

With my other hand, I took the crow’s head. It relaxed and seemed to settle its body’s weight into my hand. The wings stopped flapping. The eyes closed. I feared it might have died of fright, but then the eyes opened again. I lifted body and head together till it was no longer trapped. I only then noticed how majestic, how large it was. It rolled from my palm and opened its wings, catching the wind and flying into the nearby tree. We watched each other for a moment, and then feeling I had saved a life, I took a deep breath and turned to cross the street. The wind blew before I stepped from the curb, and I thought I heard the words Thank You, but when I looked again to the crow, it had already taken to the skies.

“You have a friend for life, you know,” Anke said after we settled back into our seats on the balcony. “They have a long memory.”

“Besides, crows are good luck,” Robi added.

“Then I better buy a lottery ticket.” I raised my glass and we toasted luck.

And then there was the bunny.

One morning, one very early morning, The Boys and I walked in the park without Anke, who had decided to take a day off and sleep in. It was one of those early November days where it felt like there should have been frost, but there wasn’t. The grass had recently been mowed, so the deer stayed hidden away in the trees. Darkness blanketed everything.

After we left the street, away from any possibility of running into a car or jogger or biker, I turned first Rufus, then Max, loose from their leashes. They bolted down the path. I didn’t worry about them straying too far, and they enjoyed the freedom to explore the nearby stream and wander a few yards into the open grass area.

They wore illuminated collars, Max in red and Rufus in blue. I could see the bright collars right halfway across the park. A blue glow approached from ahead, so I thought Rufus was returning for a treat, but then a shadow fell in behind it. I pulled my flashlight from my coat just as a greeting reached me.

“I don’t run into too many people at this hour,” I said.

“I am running a bit late, I’m afraid,” said a man. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”

“Late? It’s only 5:30 a.m..”

“Yes. And I must be going. Sorry to be so rude. Maybe another time.”

And with that, the man vanished into the darkness. His passing happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to see what kind of dog partnered him, something I am usually quite keen to know. To be honest, I didn’t even get a good look at the shadow. I turned once again to my own task to see the red and blue of The Boys bouncing in the middle of the park.

As we approached the far side, a place on the path where the stream burbles under a small bridge and The Boys on warm days quench their thirst, a place you can choose to venture up into the forest or go around the corner to follow a line of houses, I saw another shadow dart up into the trees. Or had I? The Boys would certainly have taken notice, but then they had not alerted me to the presence of the stranger and his dog. I shook my head and laughed as Rufus drank from the cold water near the bridge.

I then remembered a meeting I needed to prepare for and hurried The Boys along. Max stopped near a fence and busied himself more so than I had ever seen him previously. He ran back and forth from a meeting of two fences, one chain link, the other wooden, painted red. I didn’t have time to investigate his finding, a mouse I reasoned, and urged him onward. Rufus flew ahead, but Max did not want to leave. Despite my demands, he remained. I put him back on his leash and dragged him along until we were far enough from his obsession to free him once again.

My decision not to consider Max’s finding troubled me throughout the day, and while I had convinced myself there could not have been anything to see, I concluded we should take our evening walk in the park again to satisfy both his and my curiosity.

That evening The Boys and I returned to the park. The sun settled just below the hill casting a slight orange glow at the top as if the trees had begun to burn. Few people continued to mill about as the air chilled and the sky darkened. The lampposts, set every fifty or so meters apart next to the path, flickered on against the dimming twilight.

Max ran ahead and stopped at the spot once more. His head turned to make sure I followed him, then back again to the object of his intense interest.

Upon arriving I turned on my flashlight and scanned the area in front of the fence. I could see nothing.

I stepped back and panned the beam up and down the path, then into the park where Rufus ran in the direction of the stream. I searched the walkway again not wanting to be thought a burglar or peeping Tom should a passerby happen to see us nosing around outside someone’s house.

Max grew more excited and stuck his nose against the metal post of the fence, clawing the dirt underneath. I moved him aside and shined the light where he had just scraped away some earth. On the other side of the fence, the beam struck white and gray fur. At first I thought the poor animal was headless, only seeing a body, but then it moved.

I ran to a low gate and leapt over it. When I reached the corner, I dropped to my hands and knees and returned to the corner area of the fence. Once again, I found a white and gray fur body, but this time with a head and long floppy ears attached, stuck under the chain link. I tried to free it, but feared I would kill it or cause it great injury in the attempt to pull it from under the metal.

I rang the doorbell of one of the houses sharing the yard. A young woman I recognized from my walks answered the door, and while I might have otherwise made some small talk, I told her about the trapped bunny. She pointed to her neighbor’s door. I thanked her and quickly rang his doorbell.

A tall, stooped man with gray hair came to the door. He had a gentle look in his eyes, and given my appearance, dirt-covered knees and black knit cap, showed no apprehension. In broken German, I asked him if he had a bunny.

“I am afraid I lost her two days ago,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

“I found it, but we need to hurry. I need wire cutters. Do you have any?”

He didn’t understand, so I rang his neighbor’s door again. She spoke English better than I spoke German; I asked her to translate for me.

She told him about the bunny and repeated my question.

He quickly ran back into the house, returning a moment later with cutters.

We jogged back over to the bunny. I put my free hand on her body to calm her and keep her from jerking at a bad time, or at least, I hoped it would. I tried to cut the fence near her head, but feared hurting her with the cutters. I worked my fingers up to the neck and slid the blade along my finger also hoping I would still have the finger after squeezing the blades together. A welcome snap rang in my ear. After two more snips, I pulled the bunny from her self-imposed snare and handed her to the old man.

He held her firmly under her chin, and kissed the top of her head, caressing and crying. He tried to thank me, but could not say the words, not in any language. I understood. I imagined in that brief moment how I would feel if either of The Boys went missing and then turned up again.

The Boys!

I handed the cutters to the young woman and turned to leave, when the wind gusted from nowhere. I heard Thank You in that wind and whipped my head toward the bunny, now draped over the man’s shoulder on his way back home. The bunny looked at me and blinked.

And along came a deer.

Winter came early to Stuttgart that year. A blanket of cold, white powder greeted me and The Boys when we stepped outside for the morning walk. Rufus dipped his nose in it. Max ran in circles. They love snow.

“Typically, the snows fall in January,” Anke said when we met on the way to the park. “We might get a few flakes in December, but certainly not this much, and it’s still coming down. It really is quite amazing.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. I had grown up with snow in the winter, but since moving to a warmer climate years before, had not seen it in some time.

We walked through the streets without talking and enjoyed the muffled silence.

I freed The Boys from their leashes at the park entrance, after Anke turned Daisy loose. The dogs ran ahead. Daisy threw herself to the ground and rolled around as if making a snow angel. Max plowed snow with his nose.

The snow lessened the darkness normally oppressing the wide open grassy park. I could see farther than when a full moon glows brightly in the early morning sky. The colored light from the dogs’ collars reflected on the snow as they roamed. The park resembled a live action snow globe in grand scale.

“I can’t remember seeing this place looking so lovely,” Anke said.

“It truly is,” I said. I had seen wondrous snowscapes in both pictures and as a child growing up in Indiana, but something made this setting even grander, both in its simplicity and beauty.

As we walked, the conversation drifted to building snowmen, making angel forms on the ground, and hoping for a white Christmas, something Anke assured me had never happened in her lifetime. I told her it was not all that common where I had grown up.

When we arrived at the fork in the path, the dogs turned their attention in the direction of the forest. They stared as the walkway vanished into a curtain of falling snow swirling in a tunnel of barren trees. I wondered what had arrested their attention from their need to explore and joined them in their waiting.

A gust of wind blew the snow sideways and halved the distance we could see. I looked down to the dogs now sitting on their haunches, then felt a gentle tap on my side. I faced Anke who motioned forward with her chin. From the wall of white stepped a buck. His antlers told me he couldn’t have been more than three, old enough to know better than to present himself to three dogs, two big enough to run him down. But the dogs sat there. I had seen Max run after a deer much farther away, yet with this one a mere fifty feet away, he did nothing, not even bark. The wind blew hard, harder than at any other time that morning, mixing the snow on the ground with that coming from above. The white engulfed everything. We could see only each other. When the wind settled, the buck had disappeared. We walked to where he had stood, but could not find him or even a footprint.

“I would never have expected to see something like that,” Anke said as we stood there with the dogs sniffing around. “And he was so big. I have never, ever seen a deer like that here.”

“No, me either. Do you think the snow confused him?”

“Who knows,” she replied. “Deer are not smart animals. Come on, I have to get ready for work.”

I looked at my watch and realized we were running well behind our usual schedule. The dogs had already turned back to the main path to resume their playfulness and exploring in the snow.

The snow tapered to flurries by the time we reached the street again, and ended completely before we parted ways. Before I said goodbye, I asked if we could go together into the forest for the evening walk; maybe the buck would show himself again. Anke told me she would return too late to go with me and that Robi would be taking Daisy with him to work.

“Besides,” Anke said, as she departed. “The forest is too dark after work. It’s dangerous.”

Throughout the day, my thoughts of the buck distracted me from my work. I wanted nothing more than to see its beauty standing before me once again. I hoped to finish early and get home before the dark set in. This did not happen. In fact, I returned home much later than planned.

After I changed into my hiking clothes, I gathered The Boys and rushed them outside, barely remembering their leashes and a flashlight.

No more snow had fallen since the morning and the walkway in the park was well worn from the many people taking advantage of the fresh and powdery snow. Fresh tracks from cross country skis had cut grooves just off to the side of the path, while toboggans had worn the side of the hill down to the grass. But the park lay still now.

The half-moon, hidden behind clouds that morning, illuminated the park so completely, I didn’t need to turn on my flashlight. The Boys ran and chased each other through the snow and, as if they could read my mind, turned up the path into the forest.

Upon reaching the cobblestone road, a road built for tanks and military vehicles to run between two bases, a road now used by hikers, bikers, and people walking their dogs, we turned to journey further into the forest. Powdery snow glazed the cobblestones, and in the moonlight, they looked as if no person, dog, or bike had yet disturbed them. I considered what I had seen just a few yards earlier and doubted what I saw. The moon and the trees played tricks with my vision. I turned on my flashlight and pointed it to the ground, sweeping the beam this way and that. The snow lay unbroken.

I reached in my pocket to pull out my smart phone to take a picture, when I discovered I had forgotten it in my haste to get here. After another minute, I switched the light off, and we moved forward.

In one hundred yards, we reached an intersection, where a dirt and stone path crossed the road. If we turned left, the path would lead us up a hill, deeper into the forest, while turning right would take us in a circle back to the park. I debated the wisdom of proceeding. If Max or Rufus became injured, or worse still, I did, hours would pass before anyone would find us. I nearly turned around when I heard a grunting sound unlike anything I had ever heard. I looked up the path to see the buck from earlier that morning. When had he come? I had heard nothing. The Boys did nothing.

The buck stared at me. Maybe he was surprised to see us here in this place at this hour. He stepped forward, nodded his head, and then wheeled around to face up the hill. After five steps, he stopped and looked back to me. Elated as I was at the opportunity to once again see such a magnificent animal, I had not moved an inch in any direction. I didn’t even know what direction I should go at that moment. The buck signaled me to follow and then proceeded once again. I followed.

Halfway up the hill, perhaps no more than five or six hundred yards, the buck turned right, down a small path no wider than one person. The path appeared to exist due to animal traffic, and I couldn’t be sure it would even be visible without the snow exposing it. Surely the plants would hide it throughout most of the year.

Before my nervousness overtook my courage to continue forward, the trees thinned and the path opened wider and wider until we came upon a clearing. The moon shone brightly on the snow in the open area, casting a blue light on every bush, every hedge, every tree, and every animal. Badgers, fox, deer, and almost every other creature that lived in that forest stood there. A swoosh by my head made me spin around. By the time I returned my gaze to the buck, a crow had landed on his right antler. It stretched its wings, then folded itself back up. It cawed at me.

“Well, hello again,” I said. “If you are the crow I saved, that is.” The bird darted its head up and down as if to tell me it was.

The Boys sat, one on each side of me.

I heard a man’s voice say hello from behind, and when I turned to see who had called out to me, I saw the man who passed me a month ago. His dog ran past me to land beside the buck, which bent down and sniffed him.

“Welcome to night in the forest,” he said. “I did not expect to see anyone else here. Not many people are brave enough to come here in the darkness, even though, I am sure you have noticed, it is not all that dark. You are American, are you not?”

I told him I was. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on where I knew him from other than that brief encounter.

“I did not mean to be rude when we passed—when was that? November?—but it was a long night and I needed to get to work.”

“I understand,” I said. “I was a bit behind that morning as well. I was only surprised at how quickly you came out of nowhere.”

“I have learned to be quite light on my feet,” he said, once he reached the buck and patted him on the side of the neck, as if he were patting a horse. It was then I realized the buck stood at nearly the size of a small horse, a Haflinger perhaps, certainly greater than any I had seen thus far here. The crow cawed.

“I hear you are the one who saved my friend here,” the man said. He pointed to the crow, which once again stretched its wings. “He is very grateful.”

“I guess. I can’t tell one crow from another, to be honest. If it is, then it was my pleasure. No creature should suffer and die the way he was going to.”

“I also heard you saved a bunny down in the park,” he said. “Is this true?”

“Yes, that would be me,” I said.

“And what are you doing here? In Stuttgart, not here in the forest.”

“I’m sorry. Who are you?”

“I am being rude once again. Sorry. My name is Volker Haidele.” He reached out his hand to me, and I shook it while giving him my name.

“I’ve heard that name,” I said. “You’re on the city council, or something like that. That’s where I recognize you from. I saw your poster in a few places during the election.”

“Now that you know what I do…”

“Ah yes. My turn to apologize for being rude,” I said. “I work at the Stuttgart University as an exchange professor teaching American literature and English. I’ll be here a couple of years. I have to tell you: I love the culture.”

“And yet it is not perfect,” Volker said. “Have you heard they plan to destroy the forest here?”

“This can’t be the same forest,” I said. “I heard it will be the upper part of the small wooded area nearer the top of the hill. We can no longer be anywhere near that. This can’t even be the same forest. I’ve been walking there almost daily, since I moved here, and have never seen this place nor walked over the small path that led us here. We walked a very long distance to get to this clearing; at least it felt like we did.”

“What seems small in the day can be very big at night.”

I didn’t know what to think of that, so I said nothing.

“In a month’s time, the destruction begins. I have stated my opposition to this, commissioned studies, and even proposed alternatives. All of this falls on deaf ears. I’m in the minority party, and have even fewer fans in the public. These creatures consider you a savior of sorts. Do you think you can help me save the forest?”

“Rescuing a couple of animals in distress does not make me a savior. I was at the right place at the right time. I’m sure anyone else would have done the same. Besides, I’m not even German. What could I possibly do?”

“I can only tell you what I am doing and what I will continue to do,” Volker said as he raised his hand to the crow, who climbed down from the antlers to perch on the back of his hand.

Volker strode over to me and raised the crow. I looked first to Volker, then to the bird. She stared at me, and without warning hopped to my shoulder. I was startled, but did not jump. I felt her and thought I could hear her heartbeat. She stretched out her wings, the left one lengthening behind my head. Rufus looked up to the crow, but remained in place.

The buck walked over to us and sniffed Max, then me, then Rufus. He stepped away afterwards, and his dark eyes met my eyes. I wanted to tell all of them how sorry I was I could do nothing, how weak I felt as a human, but the words did not come to me.

“I’m not sure I can help you or even what I can do, but let me think about it,” I said.

“I guess that’s all anyone can ask from you.”

A breeze tossed the snow about, and the crow leaped from my shoulder and alighted once again on the buck’s antlers. Unseen birds flapped their wings and took to the sky, bringing down curtains of snow, while the other woodland animals turned away to leave the great clearing. In a few minutes, only Volker, the buck, the crow, the dogs, and I remained.

“Come,” Volker said. “Let us return to our homes. I need some coffee before the day begins.”

I didn’t understand what he meant by that, but the buck suddenly walked around us and proceeded back down the small path. We followed in silence until we reached the cobblestone street, where we made our farewells. As the buck wandered into the trees, the crow leaped into the air and vanished into the high canopy.

As we walked back to the city, Volker and I talked about the politics of the region while the dogs returned to their frolicking, kicking up clouds of snow at every turn. Once we reached the point to part ways, he gave me a business card and told me to call him for a beer. I agreed.

“I apologize for once again having to rush off,” he said, as he jetted down the street.

I hurried the rest of the way home eager to put on some hot water for tea. After I put on my pajamas, I looked at the clock on the stove as I turned on the burner and was shocked to see that it was morning. It was not time for tea. It was time for coffee as Volker had said. We had been out all night, and I had no time to go to bed.

As I showered, I reached my decision to come to the aid of the forest. I didn’t yet know what I could do, how I would go about doing whatever I decided to do, or even where to begin. I only knew something had to be done. I could not allow others to fight this fight alone. I too needed to be a part of it.

M. A. Akins is an emerging writer of speculative fiction. He is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Fiction at Lesley University and lives in Indiana, where he spends his non-writing time wrangling nine cats.

by Rosemary Gemmell

The sea is still today;
no white horses
dancing the waves
foretelling black storms.

Only the empty stares
from a painted carousel
reminding me
life is circular.
We all return
to the quiet earth—
except for you.

You sing and play
in the fathomless ocean
where kelpies breathe life
into drowned lungs.

I watch the turning seasons
beside the silent horses
on their endless ride
through time and space.
Hoping the calm water
will cleanse dark thoughts
to let me glimpse you dancing.

Rosemary Gemmell is a historical and contemporary novelist from Scotland. Her short stories, articles and occasional poems have been published in UK magazines, in the US, and online; several stories have won awards. Rosemary has a Post-Graduate Masters in literature and history and is a member of the Society of Authors, the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and the Scottish Association of Writers.

www.rosemarygemmell.com

by Russell Hemmell

I’d never liked daylight, streets full of people—and pubs, bars, and oddly defined meeting spaces even less. After many years of wondering about the reasons of my idiosyncrasy, I arrived at the inevitable conclusion: I dreaded the smell and sound of the living, their violent intrusion into your private sphere, their shameless prevarication in imposing their presence when the only thing you crave is blissful solitude.

Difficult for a human to avoid the ordeal though. I prayed to all divinities mankind has produced to be turned into an insect, a rat, or at least into a less conspicuous mammal. No such luck. My human awkward shape—spiderlike white legs and clumsy arms—didn’t go away no matter the spell I voiced.

So I adapted and chose a job that suits my neurosis. I worked on the streets, cleaning what rests of raucous parties and unbridled revelries. Socially authorised to live at night, I slept my day away, forgotten by the loudly mass.

An uneventful existence for a colourless individual, where days are all the same and equally (un)cherished. Until one night in the Scottish summer, collecting trash across old Edinburgh closes just near the dungeons, I saw something I was not supposed to see.

I saw her. Pale, gentle, with a dress in tatters.

I’ve escaped. She said. You won’t give me away, will you?

“No,” I said.

Her name was Ranya, a murderer, she confessed. She had broken free from the dungeons and she was going to stay in the close, hidden, until the angry mob stopped searching for her. It could take a long, long time, she announced.

“Who have you killed?”

You don’t want to know, she replied with a sad stare.

She turned her head away from me, and I left the close in silence.

❦

I tried to steer clear of Ranya’s Close—so I rechristened that dark, smelly little alley—but I couldn’t. Something there attracted me inexorably, as if it was only there that life breathed for me in the city. One night, a few months later, I went to see her again.

Hello, visitor, she said, spotting me in the dark.

“Hi. I thought you had left by now.”

This is my new prison. If I indeed have to hide, I’d better be comfortable, yes?

“Yes—but why here?”

Because it’s here I was born once—in the age-darkened building that still towers above us now, she said, her pale green eyes wide open. It’s a kind of different prison, this one. It has no gates or bars to restrict movements and yet it’s a confined space. I can breathe open air, but the invisible line that crosses the entrance of the close is harder than concrete. I like it this way—it’s unblemished and luminous, always allowing for a view of the city.

“Edinburgh?”

 The city of dark and light, that’s what we used to call it at that time. The city where anything is possible during the day, and everything is dangerous at night. I love my city. It’s just that I wouldn’t have lived here, if I were given a choice.

“Talking about choices…”

Will you be my friend, yes? Somebody friendlier than a jailer, but not substantially different in cases like this. She smiled for the first time. I’m a nice prisoner to have. I’m neat, gentle, even kind when the mood is good. And when I’m bad, I retreat behind the stones of this close, where only air is allowed and silence is sovereign. There I stay, until violence passes over like a hurricane on a deserted beach. No witnesses. No damages, except to dead things—like that monstrous entity of mine that doesn’t deserve the name of soul.

I shivered, and stepped back, involuntarily.

You do understand, don’t you?

“I’ll try.”

So keep me company. Until I leave again—one day.

I nodded, while her hand, like a butterfly’s transparent wing, touched mine in a cold caress.

❦

In my daymares I had often imagined how it could have been to make friends, kindred spirits I could talk to, sharing thoughts, feelings, or simply moments of silence. But for that I should’ve ventured out of my oyster—mixing up with people, bearing that physical proximity impossible to manage.

With Ranya, I didn’t need it any longer.

I was going to the close every night. To visit her and the people she had murdered centuries ago in her blind vengeance—against a community that failed her and her family and a government that crushed her delicate bones.

But there were no hard feelings among them, for ghosts, I discovered, are nicer in comparison to the living. Pale, gentle, discrete. Sticking to their familiar closes, to their forgotten crypts and any other space where the light of sun doesn’t penetrate, they appear only when somebody comes searching for them. Like me.

❦

I will leave soon, she said again.

“I thought ghosts were perennial.”

Everything ends, Iain. Even ghosts. But you’re welcome to come here, staying with the others. Keep them company.

“I’m going to miss you.”

Something of me will always remain in this place—tied by invisible but unbreakable tendrils of fear and pain. Nothing else has survived.

❦

Ranya let me touch her face sometimes, cold and weightless like a white shadow or the winter breeze. She talked to me about her sister dead of plague, about her trial as a witch, about the community she had slaughtered in revenge. But she remained silent about her tortures and the suffering that turned her into a monster.

Rage, pain, and agony were long gone. Condemned in life but forgiven in death by the same she had killed, Ranya shared the close with them, like a peaceful family finally reunited. It was power, Iain, that corrupted them and confused their minds. They aren’t but victims that deserve your compassion.

I know it now; there are no angry ghosts, only angry living.

❦

Yet I discovered things about Ranya’s ordeal, scant details I picked up here and there—whispers, gossips, and solitary tears on her sister’s face. The little girl that still bore on her ghostly features the marks of the disease told me one night a story I’m not going to forget.

They came for her on All Souls’ Day, like monsters from children’s nightmares. The elders of the kirk they were, our highest authorities. I was dying of plague because it was God’s will, they said, and going against that will was blasphemy. Studying the human bodies is against the laws of the Church, Ranya, it is consorting with the Light Bearer, it is renouncing your immortal soul—those were the terrible words the head of the kirk threw at my sister. They searched and found her books, her anatomy treaties, and her medical instruments that she had used on me to incise my buboes.

They arrested her and put her on trial. They tortured her, by water and by wheel, by sleep deprivation and by iron pincers. She is a witch, they said, performing rites and summoning the Devil. She has to die, burnt at the stake. The community was called as witness, and the community bent to the elders’ will. It gave testimony against her, telling about Ranya’s herbal remedies, forgetting the times they had profited from her help. She was condemned but the day of her execution the riots broke out in Edinburgh, for one more war of religion. She escaped from the dungeons and came back to the close, to cry on my deathbed and bury my mortal spoils. Then she empoisoned the public wells on the Royal Mile, killing them by the thousand.

“How did she die?” I asked the girl.

Happy, like a sated guest after a plentiful banquet. Fighting against a power that prefers killing rather than saving its subjects, that fears science and relishes in obscurantism. She was one of the countless victims of the riots, but she went with a smile on her face.

I didn’t say anything, but when at the breaking of the dawn I came back home, I curled in bed and cried.

❦

One night I didn’t find Ranya. She had been taken on by the northern winds, freed from the close’s invisible chains and the regrets of the ones that linger.

Cherished by the others still prisoners, longed for by all.

Edinburgh’s ghosts still wander through dungeons and closes, through castles of sand, in a city that never sleeps—remembering the golden moments of their mortal existence. Gentle and smiling, they come out at night and pale away at dawn in a minuet dance that knows no pauses.

Caught in time as entangled particles or gentle cats, they present themselves to the city of light and dark, to people that stumble at night. Like me who sees things I shouldn’t possibly see, meeting white glowing shadows.

And missing the ones that have left.

Russell Hemmell is a statistician and social scientist from the U.K. who is passionate about astrophysics and speculative fiction. Russell has had recent work appear in Gone Lawn, Not One of Us, SQ Mag, and others, and was a finalist in The Canopus 100 Year Starship Awards 2016–2017.

earthianhivemind.net

by Sarah Milne Das

Do not fear the spirits of the dead.

When our loves are the dead, how can we find them? Scrying mirrors, turning tables, incense, prayers incantation? Left-behind lovers, sisters, mothers, all call the spirits of the dead.

And how must we speak with our dead loves, and tell words that are true from tricks and illusion? Fingertips on glass, a pendulum’s swing, the voice in the ear of a priest or a king?

Then how will we hold them, our loves that are dead? With dreamcatchers, salt and saucers of cream? We’ll know when we find it, the one true rite. We’ll know when we know them again, all our dead.

❦

There is a woman who took out a piece of her heart. She displays it on a plate, on her dining room table, surrounded by artificial flowers in peach and lilac and primrose.

The plate is not of the best china, but the most-perfect specimen of the second-best set. It is important to keep a full pristine set of the very best china, she thinks. The second-best can spare a plate; it is usually used for smaller parties.

Over the plate, covering the hunk of heart, is a Pyrex mixing bowl, upside down. It is protection from the flies and from the air, she says, as if the torn handfuls of bloody muscle are genteel slices of cake.

Once upon a youth she freely gave her heart away, and when its master joined the dead she knew the heart would summon him back to her. So she locked away her grieving, bit her tongue with needle teeth till her cries were drowned in swallowed blood and then she prepared her bait.

She cracked through the safe of her living marrowed ribs, the break a creaking shrieking wail, heartache made sound. Her nails tore a jagged wound-trail into the dark red tissue, her fist twisted the bleeding portion out and up to her lips for bitter blessing.

Through dry sobs, she flung it down and left it there to wait for him.

But hearts are not preserved this way. The piece of the woman’s heart is not in good shape, not heart-shaped; you could not imagine it beating a second, a minute, or year ago.

The heart is spongy, melty, blackening and browning. Stinking of meat, the odour seeping and weeping, escaping the Pyrex. It is a dead thing, a sick thing, a remnant of the abattoir.

“Oh, that old thing!” she exclaims now, when visitors’ eyes enquire. “I almost forget it’s there, you know, it was all so long ago.”

❦

There is a woman who feeds the graveyard birds; she piles blackberry offerings on blackening tree stumps.

She knits, coarse wool in grubby shades: tiny shoes, skew-buttoned cardigans, unpractised lumps of hats.

She hangs the garments in arching branches, in the sprawl of a corner where the soil-womb rests, where great stone angels give way to cherubs, to soft toys, rainbow beads, greeting-card epitaphs.

She prowls the perimeter of the rotting nursery, cooing at the earth and tutting at observers. “Hush!” she whispers, “Babies are sleeping.”

On new moon nights she murmurs lullabies, smears berry juice over the cradle-graves, burns rosemary and waits.

❦

There is a woman who sets a trap for her mirror-self, every day.

Still, still as a stalking wildcat, she stares at the face so like her own that everyone else is fooled, slows her breathing, waits, waits.

She leaps—it is sudden, sideways—she spins, lunges, whirls, jabs. She does not blink, alert, waits for the spirit in the mirror to slip, trip, skip a beat.

Dervishing fast, faster and faster, the not-a-reflection at her heels, toes and elbows, hand to hand and eye to eye, never missing a step or a breath or a howl.

Frustrated she whirls at impossible speed, knowing, knowing, that the lost girl is hiding there, her troubled trickster twin who she will catch, she will keep, will comma-curl around again like in their first nine months.

Friction on flesh and sparks fly, smoke furls and swirls as bare feet grind down to the bone. Ragged bloody ankles, skin and flesh-strings whip like curtains,

her skeleton feet dance on.

❦

Do not fear the spirits of the dead, fear that the rites are the living’s alone, and all our dead loves are gone.

Sarah Milne Das is based in Oxford, UK. When not playing with Excel in a University office, she writes flash and other fiction with a touch of the fairytale, as well as the occasional essay. You can read her work in The Sandspout (Albion Beatnik Press).

www.dixitstories.net

by Richard Zwicker

Coexistence with gods involves accepting a complex world run on a need-to-know basis. When people demand more information, that’s when I go to work. I’m Phokus, Athenian detective. I wear a tunic.

It started when my wife Delphinia left me for a Spartan. With that city-state’s constant militaristic training, I wasn’t surprised she preferred his  drilling to mine. The truth was, I’d neglected her for my profession. Not ready to throw in the chiton, however, I paid a visit to the temple of Hera, goddess of marriage. I didn’t expect any great insight, but it doesn’t hurt to have a goddess in your corner. I should have known better. I stepped between the Doric columns and right into Hera’s priestess and Zeus getting something straight between themselves. The priestess had her eyes closed and was reciting the opening passage of The Odyssey, but Zeus saw me, and I knew if I didn’t change my address posthaste, he’d transform me into a gadfly and make me bug myself to death. I’d once helped Cadmus, the king of Thebes, find his kidnapped sister and he told me to stop by if I was ever in the city-state. It was time to call him on that. I convinced Alastor, my plodding but faithful assistant, to accompany me. At the very least, it would take my mind off my failed marriage.

❦

Extended land trips guarantee you’ll encounter the biggest misshapen cretins this side of Egyptian mythology. We got off easy, meeting just three questionable characters. One old man wanted us to wash his loincloth. We told him to look us up when he had enough for a full load. The second day an underage female flashed us and offered to rock our world for twenty shekels. Alastor expressed interest, but I reminded him to beware of girls baring groins. On the third day we encountered a zealot who vowed to cleanse the world of its filth. We sent him to the loincloth guy.

On the fourth morning we reached the outskirts of Thebes. In the distance we saw what looked like a very large dog sitting in the middle of the road.

“I don’t want to know whose best friend that is,” Alastor said.

“It’s got the head of woman, the body of a lioness, the wings of a bird, and the tail of a serpent. What does that say to you?”

“Mixed breeding?”

“No, it’s a sphinx. Let’s get out of here.”

We turned left off the road, hoping to double back and enter Thebes from a different route. Before we could get far, the sphinx let out a piercing squawk, and in an unnatural combination of running and flying, plopped down in front of us. It reeked of death.

“If you answer my riddle, I will let you pass. If not, I will eat you,” it said in a world-weary female voice.

I chuckled nervously and turned to Alastor. “It’s incredible Thebes has any tourism at all.” Then I said to the sphinx, “I’m a private detective. Usually I have weeks to solve cases.”

The creature sat still as the rock in front of the Cyclops’ cave. “I’m a sphinx. I eat immediately. Here is my riddle. What creature in the morning goes on four legs, at mid-day on two, and in the evening on three, and the more legs it has, the weaker it be?”

I’d never considered myself a leg man and had no idea. It sounded like another sphinx, but I doubted that was it. I gave the only answer I knew. “To get to the other side?”

“Wrong!” the Sphinx said. “Prepare to be eaten.”

I didn’t know what to do except be literal, hoping to delay the inedible. “Isn’t the onus of preparation on the eater?” Apparently it was, as a claw clasped my left leg. “Alastor,” I said weakly, “this would be a good time for assistance.”

Alastor had on what he called his bluffing face. I called it his blank look. As seconds passed, I wondered if he was thinking of a way to save me or deciding which engraver he’d use to carve “Alastor, Private Detective” on my office door.

“Wait,” he said finally. “There are two of us here. Don’t we get one chance each?”

The Sphinx and I looked doubtfully at Alastor. “Very well. Make haste,” it said.

Alastor did his best, grimacing, grunting, and growling. In the end he just slumped and said, “Man, I don’t know.”

The Sphinx screamed, shooting into the air like an arrow and crashing to the ground like an empty coat of armor.

“What happened?” Alastor asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t even know why people like riddles.” But as I was a detective, it was a good thing they did.

The guards couldn’t believe their eyes when we straggled in. After we told them the riddle and our answer, they still couldn’t believe it.

“What kind of stupid answer is that?” one asked.

“Of all the sphinxes in the world, we get a retarded one,” the other said.

I identified us and our reason for being in Thebes. They took us to a pool, where we freshened up. A circular table with eight chairs was at the water’s edge. A slave set two of the places with dishes of figs and two-handled wine cups filled with a liquid I didn’t recognize. He then motioned for us to sit. We stared at the figs, unsure if we should eat or not. Whether meeting visitors, fulfilling government promises, or pleasing his wife, Cadmus had a reputation for making people wait, and then they wondered why they bothered. The shadow on a horizontal sundial moved about a tenth of a revolution as the figs toasted and our faces burnt. Finally, to the funereal beat of a drum, Cadmus entered.

Compared to his pottery drawings, he looked flabby. The tall, vacant-eyed slave who provided the accompanying percussion stood immobile at his side. Had he got tired of solo drum, he could have done duets on his protruding ribs.

“Gentlemen,” Cadmus said, “you honor me with your presence. Did you have any trouble getting to Thebes?”

“No, your kingship,” I said. “We just pointed ourselves northeast and put one foot in front of the other. The Sphinx was a bit of an obstacle though. If it weren’t for Alastor, we’d be paddling down its gullet right now.”

“Sorry about that. We do seem to attract an unwholesome element.”

“The Sphinx could be Thebes’ city-state bird,” Alastor muttered, while undressing the figs on his plate with his eyes. The slave’s mouth was also watering, and I felt a bit peckish myself. Judging from Cadmus’s puffy appearance, however, we had no chance of winning a game of chicken over the figs.

Cadmus continued, “It’s propitious you’re here as I have a delicate problem you might help me with. It has to do with my daughter, Semele.”

“We’re here to serve. Is she missing?” I asked.

“No,” he said, but before he could explain, we heard a splash. The frothing slave had fallen into the pool. Now more animated, his muscular arms flailed and he screamed in a language I didn’t recognize. Neither had much effect on his buoyancy.

Cadmus shook his head. “I got that slave from Ephesus. Can’t swim a lick.”

I told Alastor to jump in and save the poor man, though being a slave, I was unsure we were doing him a favor. In a few moments, both men sat on solid land, sputtering and gasping. Once the slave recovered, Cadmus sent him to fetch Semele.

“The problem is she’s in the family way but won’t tell me who the rest of the family is,” Cadmus announced.

“And you’d like us to find out,” I said. “Has she much exposure to the public?”

“Well, yes, she’s a priestess,” Cadmus said. My heart skipped a beat, then spent the rest of our conversation trying to catch up.

“For Hera?” I asked.

“No, for Zeus.”

Alastor burst into mirthless laughter, but for me, the bad news produced a kind of epiphany. Zeus might not be omnipresent, but as his far-flung seeds attested, he was omnipotent. We’d come all this way, but there was no escaping him. We could only do our job as best we could.

“What exactly are her duties?”

“The usual things. She keeps the torches lit, sweeps up, prepares the sacrifices.”

I could imagine the kind of sacrifices she was making with Zeus. The slave returned, saying he was unable to bring Semele because the temple door was locked.

Cadmus looked confused. “Follow me.” Reluctantly, Alastor and I left the fig-laden table for the temple.

“Semele, are you in there? What’s going on?” Cadmus asked at the entrance.

Moments later, a discombobulated young woman opened the door. Her cloak was wrinkled and her hair askew.

“Why was this door locked?” Cadmus asked.

“Was it locked? The wind must have blown it shut. It gets stuck easily.” She had a musical voice stuck in a high register.

“I’ll have Deleterius put a rock down to hold it open,” Cadmus said. I guessed Deleterius was the slave. The king motioned toward us. “These two men are great admirers of Zeus and have come from Athens to pay their respects.”

“Doesn’t Zeus have a temple in Athens?” she asked.

“Yes, and it’s a very good one, but the lines are terrible,” I said.

We introduced ourselves, then Semele showed us around the Zeus shrine. Inside we noted various symbols associated with the chief god, among them a statue of an eagle, paintings of Mount Olympus, and a cloud with a lightning bolt. In the far corner sat a thick bull oak tree. In the center was a blood-speckled stone altar.

After our tour, Alastor and I met in the courtyard to discuss strategy and attack the figs.

“What I’m wondering is,” Alastor said, “after Zeus turns us into blighted turnips, will we have the sensitivity of turnips or humans? I hope it’s turnips because they can’t feel anything.”

I grabbed him by the shoulders. “Listen, I had an epiphany in the courtyard. Our lives will be easier if we accept that we are the gods’ playthings.”

He grimaced. “It would have been nice if you’d had this epiphany in Hera’s temple before we walked fifty kilometers.”

“With epiphanies, the question is not when they happen but how you respond. For better or worse, I’m a detective and you’re my assistant. I say, let’s detect and assist. Are you with me?”

Alastor hesitated, looked sweepingly at the sky, then at himself. “I’m with you.”

We toasted our solidarity but the wine was so watered down, I didn’t know whether to drink it or wash my face with it. Everyone diluted wine, but this was ridiculous. Thebes’ economy must really have been in the chamber pot, and I worried about my fee.

Alastor grimaced. “You realize there’s more mystery about where this wine came from than about who slept with Semele.”

I pushed my cup away. “Sometimes I dream of how nice it would be if we didn’t have a chief god that was such a porker.”

“King of the porkers. The Sultan of Twat, the Olympian of the Loins.”

“Let’s not get distracted. If we’re going to get paid, we need proof.”

“How are we going to get that? See if the baby has a lightning bolt on its forehead?”

“No. As distasteful as the prospect is, we’re going to have to catch them in flagrante delicto.”

“What does that mean? ‘In deep shit’?”

I told him it didn’t, but for us it probably did.

We settled on a surveillance schedule. While Semele was at the shrine, one of us would enter with a group of devotees and hide behind the bull oak tree. I had the afternoon. I made no discoveries, though I did wonder what bulls had to do with oak trees. I watched as Semele talked to a really ugly old woman who could have been the plain-looking sister in Medusa’s family. Without warning, Alastor stumbled into me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “You’re not due until dusk.” He looked like Helios had rear-ended him with his sun chariot. His hair, normally neat, branched out in more directions than the tree of life. His eyes were unfocused and his mouth hung slightly open, despite his body crashing to the ground.

“I wanted to see how many goblets it took to get drunk on Theban wine,” he slurred.

This was the type of experiment that fascinated Alastor.

“How many?”

He hesitated. “After a while it didn’t seem to matter. So what’s happening here? Oh, holy Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.”

His blurred eyes lit on the old crone talking to Semele.

“We can do without your ageism,” I said.

“Ageism? I’m a Greek. I worship the human body. That woman is against my religion.”

“If you cut down on your drinking, you’ll be old someday. You might even make it to thirty-five.”

He belched, then giggled. I told him to hush, as the conversation between Semele and the old woman grew animated. There was no one else in the temple.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the crone rasped.

“Who are you to tell me what I should feel, old woman,” said Semele. “No one would be ashamed of this child’s father.”

“Really?” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Is he a prince?”

Semele pshawed, the youngest person I’d ever heard pshaw. “Much greater than a prince.”

“Is he a king?”

Semele guffawed. She really was a virtuoso of dismissive dialogue tags. “A king? My guy could see three kings coming and wonder if it was worth getting out of his seat.”

“Hmm, you make him sound like Zeus. But it’s hard to believe Zeus would give the time of day to a young sprite like you, especially when he’s married to such a beautiful goddess as Hera.” A smile came over the old woman’s face, giving her the appearance of a grinning skull, yet I thought I recognized the outline of Hera herself.

“Oh yeah? Well, it just so happens I’m mature for my age and…” She looked around to make sure the temple was empty. “Zeus is the father.”

“Ha! I don’t believe you,” the crone said.

“It’s true!”

“How do you know?”

“Well, he had a beard.”

The crone flew into hysterics. “That narrows it down to every man and some of the women.”

“But he told me he was Zeus!”

The woman’s waved her hand. “Maybe he was a minor god pretending to be the god of thunder when he was actually the god of crabgrass or fire ants.”

“There’s no god of crabgrass.”

“And there’s no god for you either, you deluded girl.”

The crone left, taking Semele’s composure with her. We watched the girl pace back and forth, muttering, “He was Zeus.” I wondered if the old woman could be right. If Semele had been compromised by a poser, it would be harder to discover his identity, but after we did, we might avoid joining the brotherhood of the tuber. I was about to comfort Semele, but she abruptly left the temple. As Alastor was younger, I ordered him to follow her. The spirit was willing, but the body was shitfaced. After achieving a wobbly balance, he leaned over by the tree and hurled. By the time he finished purging himself of Theban wine, Semele was back, leading an apprehensive bull to the sacrifice platform.

She tied the bull’s rope to the platform and from the wall grabbed a sword half her length. I prefer to remain general on what happened next: Semele sacrificed the bull. I’ll hear the screams of that poor animal for the rest of my beef-eating days. Alastor threw up again, and I felt queasy myself as blood flew like a sandstorm. So much of it landed on Semele, she looked like a giant, displaced body part. But instead of being appalled, she said, “I guess I’d better clean up.” She doused the floor with a bucket of water, which just spread the stains further. I thought she was going to the pool to get more water, but she kept going and didn’t bring the bucket. We kept a safe distance, but she moved as one possessed, to the river.

We found plenty of trees to hide behind as we watched her romp in the water, humming, “I’m gonna wash that blood right out of my clothes.” For someone doused in bull blood, she maintained a puzzling equanimity. Every so often she glanced at the sky, as if worried about rain, but this time of year, there was more chance of Hephaestus falling to the ground. Then I saw it: a large eagle soaring above us in a majestic circle. Slowly, the circles diminished as the bird approached Semele. On landing it assumed its true form: the mighty, bearded, armored, horny Zeus. Alastor crouched spellbound and I told him to stay that way. One belch out of him and our sleuthing days were over.

“Semele,” Zeus said. “What are you doing here? Did you sacrifice another bull and get blood all over you?”

To my surprise, Semele’s happy mood vanished. This trip to the river was clearly an assignation, but when the guy she’d meant to assig with showed up, she got pissed off. I’ll never understand women.

“If you were truly Zeus, you’d know I sacrificed a bull,” she snarled.

“What do you mean, if I were truly Zeus? Who do you think I am, the Trojan Horse? The world is a complicated place. I can’t be aware of everything.”

Of course, they being lovers, that’s exactly what Semele thought he should be. “Anyone could say they were Zeus. I’m the type of girl who needs proof.”

From his incredulous look, this was news to Zeus, and probably to the unborn child as well. “Proof? We—we yoked the chariot, we did the centaur stomp. Do you really think anyone else could make love like Zeus?”

“How am I supposed to know? You’re the only one I’ve ever slept with.”

“Should I send Hades over for comparison bonking?” Zeus asked, flustered. “Trust me, you don’t want that. Besides, he’ll try to make you eat a pomegranate seed.”

“I don’t like your tone. If this relationship is to continue, you need to prove once and for all that you’re Zeus.”

Zeus lowered his Olympian pectorals. “The fact that I came here as an eagle doesn’t carry any weight with you?”

“I’m not a bird expert. It could have been a roc or a vulture.”

“Very well.” Despite the authoritative aura emanating from Zeus’s body, he looked unsure of his next move. We’d heard Semele admit to a relationship, and Zeus said they’d made love. Would that be enough evidence for Cadmus? Even if it was, what could he do with it? We weren’t exactly treading on the course of logic here. Point in fact, Zeus’s next words: “To prove to you I am Zeus, the king of gods, ask me anything and I will grant it.”

I couldn’t believe it. How could the king of gods be so dumb? How many times had gods made that kind of promise to young people? There was no chance Semele would ask for something sensible, like a ring or a necklace.

“I want to see one of your lightning bolts,” she said.

For a moment, Zeus relaxed. “No problem. I’ll just sashay up into the sky and make a storm you’ll never forget.”

“No. I’ve seen thunderstorms. I want you to produce a lightning bolt right now, in front of me.”

The ruddy color drained from the visible portion of Zeus’s bearded face. “That’s not possible.”

“Aha, so you’re not Zeus!”

“Please ask for something else. How about an all-expenses-paid trip to Mount Olympus, three days, two nights?”

Semele was unmoved. “I want my lightning bolt.”

Zeus lowered his head, sighed, then said softly, “A promise is a promise.”

This is another thing I’ve never understood. Greek gods have affairs all the time, often with their brothers and sisters. They castrate their fathers. They ruin the lives of innocent people to satisfy their lusts and whims. BUT THEY CAN’T BREAK THEIR PROMISES? It makes no sense. Sometimes I feel like opening the gates and saying, “Barbarians, come on down!”

Zeus, in a masterful understatement said, “This is really a bad idea,” and explained to Semele how he was going to show her his smallest lightning bolt. Alastor, Zeus, and I all knew no human could survive seeing even a small lightning bolt up close.

We needed a plan and we needed it yesterday. “Listen,” I told the now sobered Alastor. “Just before the bolt appears, I’m going to throw my body in front of Semele and avert my eyes.”

“That’s very brave, boss. I salute you,” Alastor said.

“You’re going to do more than that. On my signal, I want you to charge into the river and scream, “Aegean Beach!”

“Why ‘Aegean Beach’? This is the Dirke River.”

“That’s not the point. I want you to cause enough confusion for Zeus to think, ‘These humans are nuts. I’m going back to the mountain.’ But if he does get off that lightning bolt, whatever you do, don’t look at it.”

We waited, then Zeus raised his arms. I yelled, “Go!” and we both took off. I had my head down though, and accidentally crashed into Semele. To this day, I can’t say if the flash I saw was inside or outside of my head, but it happened. Alastor really did yell “Dirke River!” but I don’t think that mattered. When I came to my senses, Zeus was gone and a dazed Semele lay sprawled beside me. She slowly sat up, rubbing her head.

“What hit me?” she asked.

I checked my head for dents. “I’d like to say common sense, but that’s probably more credit than either of us deserve.”

After we’d returned Semele to her father, we had a long talk. Basically, Cadmus said, “How could you?” while Semele said, “How couldn’t I?” What could I say to bridge that divide? In trying to understand emotions, I’d turned to a life of logic and detection, and it cost me my marriage. I finally said to Semele, “Though you will bear Zeus’s child, you can find a better life partner than the king of gods.” I hoped one day she would be old enough to believe that.

The walk back to Athens was more solitary than the way up. We didn’t meet anyone of note except Hermes. Of course he had a message, and it was from Zeus. I quote, “I admire your courage, but know this. There are things humans can never understand. We call those things gods.” Unfortunately, since the gods are omnipresent and we are in their image, humans have no choice but to keep trying to understand them. For now, my conflict with Zeus is at a standoff, and I figure as long as I don’t have a wife, daughter, or female livestock, I am safe.

I’ve since pledged to restrict my practice to Athens. I even have my own riddle ready if the sphinx comes knocking on my door: Why is Thebes the last place you should ever visit? Answer: You don’t want to know. It’s not sphinx quality, but it works for me.

Richard Zwicker is an English teacher living in Vermont, USA, with his wife and beagle. His short stories have appeared in T. Gene Davis’s Speculative Blog, Zetetic, Perihelion Science Fiction, and other semipro markets. Besides reading and writing, his hobbies include playing the piano, jogging, and fighting the good fight against middle age.