

# Literary Underground: Unearthed

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SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Literary Underground

Literary Underground: Unearthed

Copyright © 2012 Literary Underground

COVER ART BY:

Steven Novak

Copyright © 2012 Steven Novak

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Acknowledgments:

Literary Underground would like to acknowledge the efforts of the following people who helped to make Unearthed a reality:

Mary Ann Bernal and Maggie Secara for their time, effort, and patience editing the works contained within.

Steven Novak for creating the masterpiece that is the cover art.

All of the authors who contributed to the pages within this anthology. You are all very creative and talented storytellers!

All of the members and friends/fans of Literary Underground. Without your encouragement none of this would be possible.

Last, but certainly not least, MJ Heiser and Steven Novak. For without these two individuals there is no Literary Underground.

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Forward by Ryan ONeil

Born out of frustration and desire (and maybe with a pinch of anger), Literary Underground (LitU) is the brainchild of Steven Novak and MJ Heiser. In a situation during which they, and a handful of other authors, could have possibly seen their spirits and dreams crushed, the two sparked an idea to gather the assorted pieces, pool their talents, and create an atmosphere of cooperative literary production: In plain terms, friends helping friends achieve their literary dreams.

January 2012 marks the first anniversary of LitU's existence. In that time the group has not only grown in numbers, but also in terms of accomplishments.

LitU numbers:

16 Literary Underground-associated authors

28 Literary Underground-associated literary publications

23 Lit-Pods: The Official Podcasts of the Literary Underground

Countless associates, friends, and fans

From a personal perspective, LitU has made the frustrations from the past a distant memory for me. The people I have met have been there to help me when I was walking through the steps of publishing my first book. Since then I have paid that forward, and have shared my experiences and knowledge with all of LitU in hopes of making their publishing journey a little less scary. To me, that is the basis of the group: to learn and share as a team. I'm happy to say that I have made several good friends while associated with LitU. I love exchanging ideas and thoughts with the group and look forward to many more years of being a part of the LitU party!

The Unearthed anthology has been a labor of love. In the beginning we knew that we wanted to create some sort of collective piece that would highlight the talents of not only the members of the LitU community, but other authors that are in the self-publication boat as well. We tossed around several ideas before coming to the conclusion that the project should be an anthology. By sheer luck, the release of Unearthed coincides with the one year anniversary of LitU. There is much to celebrate and it is now that we recognize the efforts and accomplishments of all those involved.

I invite you to sit back and relax as you take in the work presented to you within this anthology. Each piece is a work of art specially crafted for your enjoyment!

Cheers!

~Ryan O'Neil
Forward by MJ Heiser

One year ago, I found myself at a crossroads. I was in a bitter dispute with what had been sold to me as the "traditional" publishing process. After querying dozens of agents with lukewarm-to-absent results, I had submitted my work to a small press. An editor had read my first book, _Corona_ , and liked it. The book was put out in e-book format and in print. It sold briskly and garnered a lot of heartwarming praise. Then – that "publisher" disappeared.

I had a choice to make. I could continue to put my trust in a process that had disappointed me repeatedly, or I could strike out on my own and go down the much-ridiculed road of the Self-Published Author.

The only problem with that was: How? There's a reason that self-published books are ridiculed and reviled. For the most part, the authors refused to try the traditional method because they couldn't bear the thought of exposing their precious work to ridicule. This leaves a glut of unpolished, underprepared, and frankly awful work clogging up the virtual presses. I am not afraid of constructive criticism; in fact, I've often been called a masochist. But who will give me that criticism? Who will do my cover art so it doesn't look like the stick-figure drawings that represent the limit of my artistic talent? Who will give me hints on how to best promote my book? Who will post my book on a polished website and transmit the news of my successes?

After an enlightening conversation with another super-talented writer who had endured what I had, I discovered that we had our answer. We knew people, all orphans of the traditional publishing process, and each of our colleagues had talents that could resolve everyone else's needs. _We_ were our own solution. There was strength, talent, and resilience in our numbers.

Over the past year, I have come to not only respect the talents of my fellow Underground dwellers, but I have also come to appreciate their sense of humor, their determination, and their willingness to lend a helping hand. Because of our team spirit, we have a constantly-growing list of finished, polished, professional novels, and more coming all the time. Our ranks are growing. In the best way, the Literary Underground represents the change that is coming to the literary world.

I hope you read that spirit of innovation, courage, and strength between the lines in this anthology. And, more than that, I hope you enjoy it.

MJ Heiser

January 2012

Forward by Steven Novak

The best ideas often spring from the worst personal circumstances.

Born in the wake of a frustrating situation with an unscrupulous publisher, The Literary Underground set out to give a home to any author in need of one and create a place where writers interested in self-publishing could connect, share ideas, and find others willing to help them produce and release the highest quality work possible.

A year into the creation of the group and I couldn't be happier.

Has it been perfect? Of course not. What is?

I mean, besides Rosario Dawson in that leathery, strappy, buckle crazy get-up from Sin City, of course.

For the most part, LitU is exactly what LitU was intended to be, and things will only improve as we move into the new year. Our members are amazing, our books are top-notch, our presentation is professional, and our numbers are growing. The landscape of the publishing industry is rapidly changing and it's exciting to be able to witness that change first hand.

On a personal level, I just want to say that I'm both honored and humbled to have met and been given the opportunity to work alongside such talented people. It's been fun and frustrating, and interesting and annoying, and an incredible learning experience to boot. The Literary Underground was exactly what I needed at exactly the right time. It was a band-aid and it was a gentle nudge forward. It was a slap in the face when a slap in the face was exactly what the situation called for.

Steven Novak

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Forever Lost

by

Mary Ann Bernal

Massive waves broke upon the deserted beach, the pounding surf crashing against the jagged rocks beneath the massive cliff that dominated the landscape. Soft silver moonlight illuminated the darkened night, and a gentle sea breeze moved inland, cooling the stagnant air.

Rina stood at the water's edge, devoid of emotion as she stared at faint flashes of lightning on the horizon, while glimmering frothy waves caressed her bare feet and a sea mist sprayed her face, its salty taste lingering on her lips. A strong wind whipped her tattered clothing around her slender body, her shoulder-length hair lashing her tear-stained cheeks while droplets of blood fell upon the wet sand.

Rina shivered when the cold water covered her feet as she walked slowly into the beckoning sea. She heard the soundless words whispered by wind-swept waves, calling to her, offering an end to her torment and the agonizing pain of his betrayal, offering her unabated solace within the confines of the deep and dark ocean. She kept her arms around her waist, moving ever so slowly through the multiple breakers while a forceful undercurrent threatened to pull her under, plunging her into a welcoming abyss of oblivion.

Rina stretched out her arms in supplication, and closed her tear-filled eyes just as a collapsing wave enveloped her, causing her to sink into the murky depths of an angry sea, water filling her lungs as she courageously embraced death.

Threatening storm clouds ruptured suddenly over the landscape, icy rain pellets stinging the shoreline while forceful winds whipped the threatening surf. Ribbon lightning streaked across the heavens and booming thunder rocked the earth as Adrian galloped across the treacherous beach, silently praying that he would be in time. He shouted her name but his words were muffled by the thunderous roar of nature's fury as the tempest unleashed its vengeance upon a Godless world. Blinding rain limited his vision as he searched the raging sea, hoping against hope that she had not been foolish, but as he rapidly approached the base of the cliff, and Rina was nowhere to be seen, Adrian feared he was too late. The chestnut stallion neighed and stood on its hind legs when a bolt of lightning struck the beach, throwing Adrian onto the muddy sand before running aimlessly back towards the nearby trees. Adrian was grateful that his only injury was a bruised ego as he got to his feet and headed towards the rolling waves, searching the rough waters while praying for a miracle.

Adrian walked the length of the beach, thankful for the lightning that illuminated the darkened night. He stumbled on driftwood that had washed up onto the shore, falling to his knees as foaming waves pooled around him, swirling bubbles spitting remnants of the ocean floor. The undercurrent was strong as the waves returned to the sea, pulling him forward as he tried to get to his feet, powerful wind gusts pushing him into a breaking wave. He held his breath as he tumbled under the rushing water, kicking and flailing frantically to reach the surface. He felt the weight of her body just as he opened his eyes, scooping her into his arms before a massive wave tossed the two of them onto the beach. Adrian pulled her away from the threatening surf, dragging her body through the muddy ground, not giving in to his exhausted state until he reached the shoreline.

Adrian brushed aside her matted hair and gazed into her lifeless eyes, gently kissing her lips as tears intermingled with droplets of rain gushed down his cheeks. He held her in his arms, rocking back and forth to the tune of the angry wind, protecting her in death while admonishing himself  
for failing to protect her in life.

Adrian's thoughts returned to the day when...

...Rina was in his father's gardens, tending to the flower beds that encircled the spouting fountains. Rina was unlike any of the women in his known world, where status and privileged made a difference, where a life was planned out before one was born. She was sweet and innocent, the trappings of her life had no bearing on the way she viewed the world. Rina saw a beautiful land, filled with love and honor, and justice, where wrongs were righted and the strong protected the weak. She was always treated kindly and with respect, and never feared her master like some of the slaves she had befriended when she visited the market. Rina had been born a slave but had been given her freedom upon the death of her mother. Because she had no knowledge of the world, she feared leaving the only home she had ever known, but Gaius, Adrian's father, quickly relieved her anxiety and had offered her a position in his household, and also paid her wages for her service. She saved her coins, knowing she would need a dowry if she were ever to wed.

Rina praised the gods for her good fortune, and went about her daily tasks with a smile on her face and a lively gait. When she finished her chores, she would help anyone who had fallen behind so as not to incur the overseer's wrath. She visited the slave quarters even after she had been given a private chamber in the main house, preferring their company than just her own, since she was shunned by the freeborn staff.

While Rina was enjoying her newfound freedom, Adrian was returning home from Rome. She had never seen Adrian, having worked in the piggery when she was enslaved, but she had heard the young women speak of his fine looks and charming ways, and wondered if his head had been turned by their blatant admiration, and if any one woman held his heart.

Rina had been kneeling in the dirt when Adrian came upon her in the flower bed. There was a smile on his face as he watched her pulling out unwanted weeds before she planted a row of daisies. Her white dress hung loosely over her curvaceous body, her shoulder length hair blowing freely in the soft breeze. She hummed a joyful tune as she deftly worked the garden, her delicate hands tackling the dirt with gusto while beads of sweat formed on her forehead. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand, brushed wind-blown strands of hair away from her face, tossed the trowel into the grass-filled basket, but lost her balance as she tried to stand.

Adrian managed to catch the embarrassed young woman before she fell into the thorny bushes, his strong arms gently lifting her to her feet, his laughter alleviating her fears. Her eyes sparkled, and her cheeks burned red as she thanked him for his assistance. He was amused by her discomfiture when he tapped her dirt-smudged nose with the tip of his finger, and held his breath as he kissed her lips. Adrian was startled when she slapped his face, not used to having his advances rejected. He held her wrist firmly to keep her from fleeing, and saw her bewilderment through moist eyes. He muttered an apology while releasing his grip, placed the basket in her hand, and left her standing beneath the midday sun, her beauty etched in his brain.

Rina said nothing of her encounter with the stranger whose identity was not known to her, and thought nothing more of it until she saw him talking with his father as she carried refreshments into the room, and realized this man was Gaius' son. She kept her eyes lowered as she placed the tray upon the table, and waited to be dismissed, but the command was not immediately forthcoming. She tried not to fidget when she noticed Adrian's eyes upon her, and felt her heart beating rapidly when he winked mischievously in her direction. Rina was able to return to the kitchens once Adrian and his father entered the enclosed courtyard, but she had difficulty controlling her thoughts. She wanted to be in his company without trembling, she wanted to know more about him, and of his studies in Rome. She was truly smitten, but quickly admonished herself for believing that this aristocrat would ever consider loving a woman of her class, and made it a point to avoid Gaius' son.

Adrian was intrigued by this rare woman, whose naiveté was not feigned. Her trusting nature made her easy prey for predators that lurked in the shadows, evil men who cared only to satisfy their selfish desires at the expense of the innocent. He wanted to protect her, and keep her away from the patricians that governed the empire, where slaves and freed servants were mere chattel, to do with as one saw fit, where lustful encounters were a pleasant respite from the treachery and deception that ruled the privileged class.

Rina was alone in her bedchamber when she heard footsteps along the corridor. She remained silent when she heard the slight tap, and prayed that the person would just go away. But Adrian was persistent and when she failed to open the door, he let himself into the sunlit room. He had never seen such beauty, yet had never seen such fear, so he kept his distance while speaking of nonsensical things as he tried to gain her trust.

Adrian carefully pursued Rina, and encouraged her to speak her mind. They would walk in the nearby forest and on the deserted beach, safe from prying eyes and malicious tongues.

Adrian was attentive when Rina spoke of her childhood, and understood her desire to learn the identity of her father, but siring children with slaves was quite common, and acknowledging a bastard child was indeed quite rare. Adrian refused to speculate but had his suspicions because of her sheltered upbringing, assuming the overseer to be her father.

Rina was overjoyed when Adrian started to confide in her. At first it was simple things, such as being frustrated when his opinions were taken lightly, but as time went on Adrian revealed his innermost thoughts, sharing with the woman he had fallen in love with every aspect of his being. She cherished their time together yet feared discovery, believing she would be cast out into the streets, and forced into prostitution, but also believed true love was invincible and quickly cast aside her fears.

Adrian and Rina professed their love beneath a star-studded sky, within the confines of a secluded garden. Adrian longed to possess her but refrained from satisfying his passion, not wanting to betray her trust. He would speak to his father, and take for her his wife. Marrying a commoner was not unheard of; in fact it was a frequent occurrence in the far reaches of the empire. Rina could not believe her eyes when Adrian presented her with a promise ring, and agreed to wear it beneath her clothing until their betrothal was made known.

Time stood still on that magical night, when the love they shared blossomed and the bond between them cemented their spiritual union. What passed between them was timeless, two lives made one throughout eternity. Rina did not want the moment to end as she gazed upon the familiar constellations. She pointed excitedly to Andromeda and Perseus, identifying with the mythical lovers. Rina fell asleep beneath the stars, content to be in the arms of the man she called husband. Rina was unsettled when she awakened at first light in her bed, and assumed Adrian had carried her to her chambers so that her absence would not be noticed. She held her promise ring tightly in her hand, reliving each precious moment in her thoughts. She was exceptionally cheerful as she went about her tasks, and patiently waited to be called before Adrian's father. But Rina's joy soon faded as the midday sun began its descent and Adrian was nowhere to be found. She hurried to the kitchens where preparations were being made for the evening meal, only to discover that the family had returned to their apartments in Rome earlier in the day.

Rina could hardly contain her tears as she ran back to her bedchamber, waiting until she was safely in her room before she succumbed to her fears. She realized that Gaius would need time to sanction the marriage of his son to a former slave, and believed in her heart that this absence, though painful, would only strengthen Adrian's resolve to fulfill his promise.

Rina was preoccupied on the day that Adrian returned with his father, unaware that a new member had been welcomed into the patriarchal family, and was replacing the cushions on an elongated couch when Delphina and Adrian entered the room. She glanced quizzically at Adrian who avoided her gaze while Delphina commanded that she return with refreshments. Rina held her head high as she left the room and headed towards the kitchens, but her knees became weak when she discovered that Delphina was Adrian's wife. It was said that the marriage had been arranged, that a union between wealthy and powerful families was inevitable, and that the husband and wife was not given any choice.

Rina was disheartened as she performed the rest of her duties, and was grateful when the sun finally set so she might return to her room. She retrieved the ring she kept hidden in a jar, holding it against her heart, believing that somehow things might be set right, that Adrian would return to her, and their love would be fulfilled.

Rina stood before the open window, watching storm clouds gathering over the horizon while storm clouds threatened her very being. Tears flowed gently down her face while occasional flashes of lightning lit up the evening sky. She was lost in her own thoughts and did not hear the door open nor hear his footsteps until he embraced her and kissed the nape of her neck. She turned slowly, afraid of her emotional state, afraid of saying hurtful words that could never be recanted once they were said.

Rina listened quietly as Adrian recounted the meeting between him and his father on the morning he expressed his intentions that they be wed, and how Gaius would have none of it. Adrian's father refused to let him out of his sight as he made preparations to return immediately to Rome, and had also forbidden him to seek her out until he was safely wed to someone more suitable. Adrian's father told him he had no problem with keeping Rina in the household to satisfy his lust, but the meetings would be discreet, so as not to disgrace the family name.

Rina shook her head in disbelief as her virtue and honor were so easily cast aside, and was disappointed that Adrian had capitulated to his father's wishes so easily. She ignored his pleas when he begged for her forgiveness, and pushed him away when he tried to kiss her. But Adrian could no longer control his pent up passion as he picked Rina up and threw her upon the bed. She struggled beneath him as he kissed her, tearing at her clothes like a crazed animal. She pushed him off her, rolled onto the floor, and reached for a dagger on a nearby table. Adrian suddenly realized the full extent of his betrayal when Rina threatened to take her own life. He approached her slowly, begging her to give him the knife, but Rina pointed the blade at him as she backed away, inching towards the door. Adrian was almost upon her, the dagger within his reach. He whispered soothing words, professing his undying love while promising to annul his marriage. Rina wanted to believe him, to trust his words, but Adrian would never defy his father, and because of his submission, her fate was sealed.

Rina kept the blade at her side when she kissed Adrian tenderly on the lips. He flinched when he saw the pain her eyes depicted as she fled through the window just as peals of thunder shook the ground. Adrian had to find her, he had to set things right, he had to find the courage to confront his father...

...when he remembered why.

Adrian buried his head against Rina's neck and shoulder as the tempest peaked, and the raging waters threatened the shoreline. If he had not been such a coward, if he had taken a stand against his father, Rina would be alive within his loving arms. But his tortured soul could not forget her pain when his betrayal was made known, nor could he live with himself knowing she believed his love was feigned.

Suddenly lightning crackled and the ground quaked as retreating waves returned to the sea. Adrian embraced Rina tightly when he saw a massive wall of water racing towards him, knowing he could never outrun its destructive power. As Adrian waited for the inevitable, he heard the soundless words calling to him, offering a release from his torment, offering him solace within the confines of the deep and dark ocean. Gaius may have kept them apart, but he failed to stifle the love that burned in their hearts. Rina and Adrian would be together for eternity, creating their own constellations amongst the brightest stars, their love shining through the universe throughout time.

Adrian kissed Rina one last time as the massive wave enveloped them, destroying everything in its path before retreating back to the sea. The devastation was quick and merciless, crushing the lives of man and beast alike, but Gaius was fortunate, and his villa survived the storm unscathed, having been built atop the crest of a hill.

Gaius waited until the sky was once again blue and the sun was at its midday peak before he ventured out of the compound, searching for his missing son. But it was when the children walked the beach that Adrian and Rina's bodies were discovered in a loving embrace amongst the displaced rocks.

Each year, on the anniversary of their death, a lone daisy sprouts from the sand, on the exact spot where the sea claimed them for its own, a tribute to lives forever lost.
Hell Hath no Writer's Block Like a Kitten Bored

by

Lael Gardner-Stalnaker

Wilson turned away from his computer to stare into the depths of the darkened room. The glow from his laptop monitor backlit his wavy mane of hair and outlined the profile of his rugged face. Tiny crinkles showed between his eyebrows as he frowned. He hated being interrupted midstream with his journaling. His eyes scanned the far end, searching for the cause of his distraction. Just as he began to turn back to his half-finished entry, the wailing began again.

Grumbling to himself, Wilson got up from his chair. This time he was fairly certain the noise was coming from the closet on the opposite end of his study. Feeling the need to bleed off some discontent, he stomped as he marched over and yanked aside the hanging mirrored door. His eyes swept over the closet floor without revealing the sonic miscreant.

The frown deepened. There wasn't anything there. The floor was empty and the coats hanging there were a good two feet off the ground. He began sliding the door shut once he was satisfied that it truly empty. As he reached the half-way point, the wailing began again, right in front of his nose. Well, actually, above his nose. Wilson's eyes trailed upward and locked on the culprit.

Powder blue eyes stared into his. The wailing grated on his inner ear with all the fierce piercing quality of an unhappy baby's cry. Which, technically, it was: a baby. Wilson stared back but the frown began to unclench from his features. The ball of white and tan was crouched on the closet shelf and wailing its heart out. It made sense.

"What's wrong, Thai Boi? You get yourself stuck?" Wilson asked the Siamese kitten.

The answer was another wail. Wilson watched the tiny mouth open, revealing pink gums and miniature hypodermic needles masquerading as teeth. The kitten had plainly jumped upon a coat, climbed it and then jumped from the hanger to the closet shelf. Once there, he had finally realized that getting down again was beyond his ability. Lonely and a bit afraid, the kitten yelled for help.

"Come here, trouble maker!" Wilson gently picked up the kitten and carefully placed it on his shoulder. The meowing stopped and the kitten immediately crept around Wilson's neck and went to the other shoulder. Wilson almost laughed as tiny whiskers swept across the back of his neck as Thai Boi moved. Wilson slid the closet door shut, this time making sure it didn't bounce back open from slamming it closed too hard or quickly.

"You're just lucky you spoke up before I went to bed, silly kitten! You'da been stuck there all night! Now behave yourself for five minutes so I can finish this, will ya?" Wilson admonished the kitten.

Thai Boi dug his claws in for balance as Wilson walked back to his computer and sat down. The kitten's eyes watched as fingers flew over the keyboard. Content with his situation, Thai Boi draped himself on Wilson's shoulder and neck while he kept watching. Wilson half smiled as a petit, almost subsonic, purr vibrated against his neck. The little paws began kneading Wilson's shirt while the keys clicked and words marched across the screen.

Bored with his perch, Thai Boi got to his stubby legs and semi-wobbled. Wilson ignored him and kept typing. Hunching with his butt in the air and tail stretched out, the kitten watched the moving hands below him. The tail twitched once, then twice. On the third swish, the kitten launched from Wilson's shoulder and landed, legs splayed, on the keyboard with a thud. Wilson watched in horror as the Delete macro somehow activated and the Select All highlighting dumped the entire hour's writing. Part of the kitten's body covered his left hand and again blue eyes stared into his own. The tiny mouth parted and meowed in a squeaky voice. Wilson sat stunned.

"Oh... my... god!" groaned Wilson.

Lifting his left hand, he dumped the kitten into his right and moved the fur ball to his lap. The paws dragged across the keys leaving a trail of nonsense letters over the top of the now slightly less blank page. Thai Boi circled in Wilson's lap and then curled up in a ball with his head upside down. The cuteness neutralized Wilson's irritation with losing his work. He shook his head as he found that the Undo function didn't recover the lost words. The purring from his lap helped him keep his temper and sense of perspective.

Sighing deeply, Wilson set about recapturing the lost ideas. He knew they would never be the same as the first run through but maybe he could get the gist of it and go from there. He typed for another hour before trouble again reared its tiny head. Wilson felt the kitten yawn and then stretch. The stretch became so pronounced the kitten rolled right off his lap and onto the floor. Wilson looked down and found those blue eyes wide and staring again.

Wilson flinched as the kitten calmly stood on his back legs, reached up as far as the little forearms could reach and proceeded to dig in his claws. In a mad scramble, Thai Boi scampered up Wilson's leg. Wilson howled since he was wearing shorts rather than his usual jeans. The kitten launched from his leg and landed on the printer. The printer beeped loudly, startling the kitten into a spin which planted his paws on the buttons. Paper began feeding through the printer and landing in the tray. The paper-feed button was stuck.

Picking up the kitten, Wilson plopped him onto the desk and began trying to pop up the button. After a few minutes, he finally got it to release and come up again. The paper was long finished sliding into the done tray. Sheets were spilling out onto the floor and hanging half over the edge. Wilson knelt and retrieved them and returned them all to the feed tray. Sitting back down, he turned back to his laptop. Thai Boi was now sprawled on the keyboard on his back, legs in the air and totally out cold. Wilson gritted his teeth and carefully moved the kitten onto the desktop. Thai Boi blinked and fell right back to sleep.

Looking at the open document, Wilson was hardly surprised to see that everything was gone again and another random splash of characters made a couple of solid lines at the top. His eyes darted to the little word thief sleeping on the desk and then back to the page. His eyes did this a few times before a grinding noise came to his attention. Once Wilson realized it was his teeth, he unclenched his jaw and decided to try again to get his word count objective for the day done.

He typed for a couple of hours before realizing he was thirsty. Looking at the deeply sleeping kitten, he thought about moving him to his cat bed before leaving the room. Shaking his head, he decided to let sleeping kittens lie and went to get a diet soda from the fridge. Returning, half in dread at what he would find, he sighed in relief that the kitten was still sound asleep and the words right where he left them on the screen. Satisfied, he set his glass down on the desk and resumed typing.

Thai Boi woke up and looked up at Wilson. The little mouth opened and mewed in his adorable way. Wilson stroked Thai Boi's head with a finger and kept typing. The kitten stood up and stretched. His back legs hit the glass, knocking it over. Wilson grabbed wildly for the tumbling container but missed entirely. All of the liquid poured directly onto the keyboard and quickly soaked down into the drive. To his horror, Wilson heard a fizzing pop, then a crackle and then the screen went black.

He quickly yanked the cord out and scooped up the laptop. Running into his bathroom, he tilted the laptop on its side in the bathtub. Diet coke flooded out. Wilson set it on end and left it to drain completely. He was beginning to get upset but then stopped himself. It was his own fault for setting the glass down on the same side as the kitten. It wasn't as if Thai Boi had done it on purpose. Cats nearly always stretched when waking up. Sighing again, Wilson went back to his study and swept up the kitten. Nuzzling him on the neck, Wilson smiled slightly as the kitten began purring against his lips. Setting Thai Boi down in his cat bed, Wilson decided to try writing out his journal entry by hand. Hell or high water, the entry for the day was going to be done.

Plopping onto the couch in the study, Wilson began the laborious task of rewriting, yet again, his thoughts. He barely noticed when Thai Boi began clawing his way up onto the couch with him. Flipping the page, Wilson kept at it. A blur caught his eye as pain wrapped its pointed claws and teeth around his wrist. Thai Boi was clinging like a constrictor to Wilson's wrist on the hand holding the pen. Gnawing on Wilson's wrist bone, Thai Boi began pumping his back legs. Wilson yelped as scratches began breaking the skin and thin beads of blood popped up in their wake.

Dropping the paper pad, Wilson began carefully pried the playful kitten from his pain-skewered wrist. Thai Boi eagerly clung to the new hand and Wilson found himself trying to juggle the kitten between his hands without hurting him. The little fellow wanted to play and play rough. Wilson finally had to catch the nape of the kitten's neck and lift him up. The paws flailed in midair seeking purchase. Wilson got up, allowing the pad to fall to the floor as he carried the kitten back to its cat bed and set him in it. Then he went to wash out the scratches and bandage them.

Returning to his study, his eyes widened in horror. The paper pad was in the process of being shredded to confetti by sharp little teeth and claws. Shreds of paper, bite-sized, littered the floor in a ring of destruction around the pad. Several layers of paper had various amounts of damage and Wilson was amazed at how much the kitten had done is such a short time. Scooping the kitten up, Wilson put him in the hall and shut the door. Enough was far and away more than enough.

Wilson knelt on the floor and began gathering up loose bits of paper. He quickly realized there weren't enough big pieces to make it worth trying to puzzle them back together again. He grunted his annoyance and dumped the pile into the waste-can. Looking at what was left of the pad, he found that there weren't enough undamaged pages to work with left on it. He dropped that in too. Then he finally noticed the noise. Scratching, clawing noises from the door. Also a high pitched mewing that was becoming louder and more pitiful by the moment.

Looking over at the hall door, he saw flailing paws reaching under the door. As far as the arms could reach, in they came and clawed at the carpet. Already bits of fluff were accumulating. Wilson walked to the door and bent over. As the paw came out, he tapped it with his forefinger. It yanked back and the other one came. He tapped that one too. Thai Boi withdrew it and shoved the other back. On and on this went. Wilson was surprised that the kitten did not give up. Exasperated, Wilson finally carefully opened the door. In ran Thai Boi, mewing loudly.

Wilson scooped up the kitten and held him to his chest. Thai Boi immediately began purring. Stroking him, Wilson went back to the couch. Obviously, writing was not going to happen at this point. He held the kitten up, supporting his rear and stared into his eyes.

"If I didn't know better, I could swear you were determined to sabotage me tonight, you little punk!" Wilson said to Thai Boi.

Wide blue eyes stared into his. Mew! Wilson sighed again and brought the kitten back into his chest. The purring began again as Wilson leaned back into the couch and let his body just relax. Soon he fell asleep with the kitten curled up under his chin. Both began snoring gently.
Stealing the Stone

by

James Staples

\- Westminster Abbey, Christmas Morning, 1950 –

Before the Children of Danu, when Cu Chullain was King, Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales were, briefly, one land. This happened again in the Sixth Century, when Arthur was King of the Britons. It is on the verge of happening again. The question is: Who will wear the crown?

Kay was especially nervous. The driver of the getaway car usually is. When you are caught up in the crime, but have no responsibility for the mistakes that occur, when you know that you can go to jail with all your cohorts, even though you did not do the actual deed, you find yourself obsessing even more than the rest of them. They leap in and do it. You sit outside and hope and pray that they get it right.

"Look," she said, trying to be rational. "Tell me again, why do we have to do it this way?"

"It's perfectly simple!" said a very impatient Gavin. "Ian was hiding in the Abbey, overnight. He was going the take the Stone. He got caught. He talked his way out of it and now we  
have to go to 'Plan B'."

"Ach, great!" Kay blurted in exasperation. "That's simple, is it?...And this is 'Plan B', is it?"

"Kay," said Ian, in the strong, easy tone that would make him a respected Queen's Counselor in a few years. "It really is alright."

Kay immediately felt herself relaxing. If Ian Hamilton says it is alright, it is alright. "The only reason I was caught was that I was so knackered. I was hiding in the Abbey since bloody Wednesday! It's a miracle I talked the guard into letting me go."

"It's no miracle, Ian," said Gavin. "You're a born politician." He chuckled, and Kay felt herself calming even further down. "You could convince anyone of anything."

"Well," muttered Ian, in an attempt to shrug off this left-handed complement, "the main thing is, the museum guard let me go, and now, here we are. We're at 'Plan B' and we have to make it work or we're done for. Scotland's done for. We'll just be a bloody province of England forever."

"I'm just worried that this is, like, a last-minute, desperate attempt to make good!" Kay blurted. She had hung so much of her hope on Ian and Vernon getting the Stone out of Westminster. It had not worked, and now they were here, in the Abbey parking lot, on a very chilly Christmas morning, and she was not at all sure 'Plan B' had been rehearsed... or thought out... or even actually planned. "Do you three actually know how you're going to get that big thing out of there and into this car?"

"Of course," said Gavin, the engineering wizard, although he glanced at Ian and the ever-tacit Alan for reassurance on this point. "It weighs twenty-four stone. The floors are smooth level. The three of us can carry it... no problem."

"Yeah, but what about alarms?" Kay asked suddenly, sounding on the verge of panic. "What about locks and security guards and all that?"

"Relax," Gavin admonished her. "Ian worked all that out when he was trying 'Plan A'. Isn't that right, Ian?"

"Oh, yes," Ian assured them, and he was surprisingly convincing. "Yes, I saw to it that the doors are all ready for us. There is only one guard in the Abbey, and most everyone is at home for the holiday. We won't be able to get away with this on any day other than today, but we can damn well do it today!"

"Let's just go." Alan spoke for the first time in over an hour. Of all of them, he was the least sure why he was here, trying to liberate Lia Fail, the Stone of Destiny, from the English and return it to its "rightful" place in Scotland. He had no sophisticated political position, like Hamilton. He was not doing it for love, like Ms. Matheson. He didn't even have Gavin Vernon's passion for attacking England, just because it was "The Establishment." All Alan knew was: he was a Stuart, and he was tired of the fact that being a Stuart did not mean anything to anyone. Besides, he thought with bad grace, we needed two cars and I have one. "This whole plan is stupid, and we're going to get caught, but if we don't do it now, we won't do it at all. We have two cars, so we'll be able to split up. We have about twenty minutes to act before people notice. Let's just go."

"Right," said Ian and Gavin simultaneously, and as the three men lurched at the Anglia's door-handles, Kay tightened her hands on the steering wheel.

Disaster did not strike immediately, but it struck.

Their way into Westminster Abbey was surprisingly easy. They made their way in through the "Poet's Corner" entrance to the chapel shrine of Edward the Confessor, or, as Gavin called him, "Edward the Possessor," and easily pulled away the barrier that stood between the Throne and the Viewing Public. The Stone of Destiny was there, in all its ancient, sandstone glory, sandwiched neatly between the lacquered wood of the throne and the floor. Alan and Gavin smiled and nodded at each other and took hold of the Stone. They pulled it out, completely underestimated its bulk, and both gasped as it dropped ingloriously to the floor...

...and broke into two pieces.

This is, classically, the sort of situation in which everyone involved freezes into complete, immobile, mortified silence. Indeed, that is exactly what happened. When people devote their time, energy and their very safety to the accomplishment of a project, and then they stand by and watch as that project goes horribly wrong in front of them, there is very little that can be said. The ancient Stone of Kings, the Lia Fail, the Coronation Stone, Jacob's Pillow, the Stone of Destiny...had just fallen to the floor and smashed into two pieces. Emotions run high on occasions such as this, but words tend to fail the witnesses.

Alan spoke first, apparently, addressing Gavin.

"You! You... bastard!"

"Me?!" Gavin almost screamed, incredulity sloughing off of him like steam off dry ice.

"Wait," said Ian, quietly, and therefore, unnoticed.

"Why did you fucking let go?!" This time, Gavin really did scream.

"Wait!" Ian said again, a little louder.

"I didn't let go, you divvy!" Alan yelled at Gavin.

"You fucking did!" Gavin yelled.

To further represent this dialogue would present the author with problems, and the reader as well. There was a lot of talking at cross-purposes, and a lot of everyone talking at once. Suffice it to say, Gavin and Alan were expounding extensively on the theme of, "this is obviously your fault, not mine." At the same time, Ian was trying to impress upon his colleagues that calm and quiet were urgently called for at this time. Each man was slightly aware of the fact that they were in a tenuous position, and all of them wished - deeply and sincerely - that the Stone of Destiny was not lying at their feet, broken into two unequal pieces.

"Shut up!" Ian imposed, and it finally worked.

The three men looked at their handiwork. The Stone was broken. They had to get it out, no matter what. Questions of fault and competence vanished after Ian had imposed the voice of calm. Urgency collided with logic, as each man tried to conceive the perfect solution while, at the same time, ignoring the internal voice that screamed, "We screwed up! We're DOOMED!"

"Ian," said Gavin, quietly, as if he was worried that his brilliant idea would go away if he called too much attention to it. "Take off your coat."

"What?" Ian gasped, jerked from his near-panic into the now. "Oh. Yes, of course."

They pulled the bigger piece of the Stone onto Ian's coat. Each of them was privately wondering why no guards had come and arrested them. Each of them was trying to avoid the obvious conclusion: This was impossible. They would be caught and arrested. The whole caper was ill-conceived. This should not be working. But it was. It was as if the gods were blessing them. No matter how ill-conceived this is, you will succeed, because, damn it! You are right to be doing this. So, DO IT!

"Ian," said Alan, in his once-in-a-lifetime expression of total selflessness. "Take the small bit. Take it out to Kay. Put it in the boot. Let Gavin and Me deal with this big bastard."

"No!" Ian protested. "If you get caught, I can..."

"Sod that!" Gavin yelled. "You can carry the small bit! It'll fit in the boot! Just go! We'll be right behind you."

Ian Hamilton stared at his two friends for a moment. The moment became a longer moment. Eventually, it became an intolerably long moment, and he capitulated. He squatted down, grabbed the smaller piece of the Stone, heaved at it with an unfit grunt and picked it up. "Don't do anything stupid," he called to them, and then added, "I'll put this in Kay's car. You get that one into the other car. You know where to meet us."

Ian left, staggering slightly, with the smaller of the two pieces of the Stone of Destiny clutched to his chest. Alan and Gavin watched him go, standing, with the larger piece sitting hugely on Ian's coat. He would never mention it. Ian would never once say anything about his coat. He just wanted this caper to go correctly. They both felt, tacitly, that they owed it to him to carry the rest of this plot out to a successful conclusion.

They did, although probability was heartily against them.

"What the hell is that?" Blurted Kay in the shrieked whisper of the very perplexed.

She had seen Ian staggering out of the Poet's Corner door toward her in the wing-mirror of her car. Realizing that, whatever it was, she was going to have to do something about it before she could seriously expect a reply, she got out and hurried to the rear of the car, throwing up the boot-lid. Ian struggled up and flumped the chunk of rock into the boot, but not before momentarily letting it come to rest on several toes of Kay's left foot. She staggered backward and leaned on the car as she forced her howl of pain to come out as a whispering gasp. Ian got the Stone into the Anglia and rushed to Kay's aid, breathing out one hushed apology after another. She assured him that it had hurt like hell, but nothing was broken and she would survive.

"It broke," gasped Ian self-evidently as Kay rubbed her hurt foot while shooing Ian away from her. "Gav and Alan have the other piece."

"The other piece?" Kay nearly screamed, though the instinct to whisper was still just barely present. "You... How...? What happened, Ian?"

"Listen! We have to go! Get in the car. I'll tell you later."

For a few seconds, Kay stood there with her arms splayed and a look of total incredulity plastered across her face. Next, she let out the kind of sigh that is full of tension and exasperation, swiveled on her heels and limped back to the driver's door. Ian was already climbing in the passenger side and looking back to see if there was anyone else in the parking lot. Seeing nothing, he let out the kind of sigh that regrets the last few minutes, and prays that the next few will pass more tranquilly. Alas, this was not to be.

Just as Kay was about to let out another burst of near-incoherent shock and wrath, a crunching of gravel and a strobing blue light told the pair that a police car was rolling cautiously into the Abbey's parking lot. She looked helplessly at Ian, and for the first time since she had met him, she saw a look on his face that was just as helpless and desperate as her own. There was literally no explanation for their current situation. Even the truth would sound like an outrageous lie. They could not simply bolt because their companions were still in the building behind them. They had less than five seconds before the police car's headlights would be upon them, and probably no more than a minute until they were confronting an officer.

As the predicted flood of light barged in, Ian grabbed Kay and kissed her. For all the times Kay had imagined a breathless encounter with Ian, she had never once pictured this. As panic ascended, she embraced his embrace and the pair found themselves locked in an impassioned tangle. In what seemed like a combination of thirty seconds and two hours, the impromptu couple heard the police car's door open and close. She heard the footsteps pause, undoubtedly so the officer could look at the other car. After the few seconds required to determine that it was empty, the footsteps continued toward the Anglia. Even with her eyes closed, Kay perceived the flicker of an electric torch's beam flashing into the cabin of the Anglia. There were a couple of crunching footsteps and a mute chuckle followed a moment later by a gloved knuckle tapping on the glass of the driver's window.

With a slight reluctance that surprised both of them, Kay and Ian broke their clench and Kay turned a smudged smile to the policeman's silhouette. She gave a tight, embarrassed laugh that was not affected in the least and cranked her window down.

"Good morning," said the voice of authority stoically but with a trace of amusement.

"Er, good morning, officer," murmured Ian.

"Merry Christmas," added Kay.

The officer leaned in and peered at each of them in turn and smiled a tiny little bit.

"Yes," he said, "apparently so." He glanced around, as if making sure he was where he thought he was, and then leaned back in. "Do you know this is Westminster Abbey?"

Not knowing what else to do, the illicit couple let out a burst of that high-pitched, twittering laughter that has a little to do with mirth, and a lot to do with twanging nerves.

"Yes, officer," said Ian, trying to sound casual. "Yes, of course."

"I ask this question rhetorically, you see," explained the constable. "I imagine you both knew where you were, but I was hoping you might tell me why you chose this particular spot for your little...Christmas party."

Two minds raced furiously as throats were cleared and a little more nervous laughter bounced off the windshield. Just as Ian was about to make an attempt at an explanation, there was a deep, solid thud behind them, in the direction of the Abbey. Ian and Kay were tacitly and instantly aware that the source of this noise was connected to the fact that Alan and Gavin were hauling the larger piece of the Stone of Destiny to the Poet's Corner entrance, and were just about to fling the door wide and drag the big thing out. Since this left him, once again, at a total loss, Ian simply began laughing. This time the laugh was loud and raucous, accompanied by a quick and frantic glance at Kay, who took the hint and began laughing along with him in a big and - to the policeman's mind - unladylike guffaw.

"Here," he said in bemusement. "What's so bleedin' funny?" Ian stole a quick glance past Kay and the policeman, just keen enough to see the Abbey's door swinging quietly closed. He looked back up at the officer and continued to laugh, attempting to signal with waves of his arms that he would account for his jocularity in just a moment, only he had to catch his breath first. Kay kept laughing as well, although the sound was becoming forced, and she knew they would have to stop eventually. With wheezes and sighs, the pair did eventually let their outburst roll to a stop. It concluded with a number of sounds on the theme of, "Oh!" and "My goodness!" and "Whew!"

There followed a long pause. This pause was followed by a further pause. As a deputized authority figure, the policeman felt obliged to say something.

"Well?" He said, for lack of anything more apposite.

"Yes?" Ian inquired, with another little chortle.

"What were you two laughing about?"

"Ah!" Ian exclaimed. "What, indeed? Well may you ask."

There was another pause, which broke along with the officer's patience.

"I am asking!" He bellowed.

"Well," Ian began lamely, "it was... er, we were just..."

"We just thought this must look awfully funny to someone in your position," Kay blurted, and then giggled again, just to hammer home the point.

The pause made an encore appearance.

"Oh, you know how it is, officer," Ian drawled, starting to regain some control.

"Do I?" Inquired the officer.

"Well, yes, of course," said Ian with perhaps a bit more casualness than was absolutely called for. "Festive spirits, what? A bit of holiday fun...you know?"

"Hmm, yes," muttered the policeman, on the tight-wire between suspicion and sympathy. He shined the torch back and forth between their two outrageously innocent-looking grins, and then straightened up. "Well, let's be off, then. Mind how you go, now."

"Yes, sir," said Ian.

"Merry Christmas!" Kay chimed again as the policeman gave them one last glare and turned back to his patrol car. Kay rolled the window up and let out a sigh that was nearly a sob. Ian looked back to see whether the officer was going to his car or toward the Abbey. When he saw it was the former, his relieved whoosh of a sigh joined Kay's. As the police car began to roll past them, Kay made a show of starting the Anglia's motor and checking her mirrors. "I think," she said shakily, "that qualifies as a Christmas miracle."

"Yes," Ian muttered. "Well, God bless us, every one. How's your foot?"

"You mean has the throbbing pain suddenly vanished? No, Ian, it still hurts like the blazes!"

Ian apologized yet again and continued to peer through the early morning gloom at the Poet's Corner entrance. Finally, the heavy, wooden door cracked open and Gavin's head poked out. It zipped back in again and after another minute, the door swung open and the other two men stretcher-carried the big stone out. Ian ran to join them, and soon, the trio had muscled the big stone over to the other car and wrestled it inside.

After a brief consultation, they decided to split into different pairs. Gavin Vernon climbed into Kay's car so she could take him to the train station. She had borrowed the Anglia from a friend of hers who lived in the Midlands. After dropping Gavin off, Kay would return the car to her friend, temporarily leaving the Stone in the boot, where no one would ever think to look for it. Ian joined Alan in his car, and together they drove the larger piece to Kent, where they hid it by the expedient of dropping it in the middle of an unfarmed field Alan had found a couple of weeks earlier. Thence, Alan took Ian to Edinburgh to find a stonemason named Robert Gray. Gray and Hamilton had known each other since Ian started in at university.

Because Gray was entirely sympathetic with the group's ideology, he met Ian's request to look at the broken Stone with great enthusiasm and fascination. As 1951 was just getting underway, and front pages across Britain were splashed with news of the "theft" (in England) and the "liberation" (in Scotland), Ian recovered the two pieces of the Stone and brought them to Gray under conditions of extremely delicate secrecy. The stonemason explained that, because the Stone was made of soft, porous sandstone, it would be fairly easy to repair, but would remain relatively fragile (relative, that is, to its bulk and considerable weight). That, Gray told Ian, was not a problem. It was the other matter that bothered him.

"What other matter?" Ian asked him.

"Well, it's just that..." Gray began, and then seemed overcome with a reluctance to continue. Ian prodded him gently but insistently, and Gray shifted his weight back and forth from one foot to the other, before he continued. "It's just that the effort might not be entirely worthwhile for this particular piece of stone."

"What on Earth do you mean?" Ian beseeched the stonecutter. "This is the Stone of Scone, Robert. This is Lia Fail!"

"Ach, well, that's the trouble, you see, Ian," Robert replied in a near-mutter. He looked sheepishly up at Ian and shifted around some more, clearing his throat and fidgeting a bit. "There are people - quite a few people, actually - who, as it were, tend to doubt that this particular piece of sandstone is the...is what you would call the, uh, genuine Coronation Stone."

"Oh!" Ian exclaimed, rolling his eyes and conveying in classical body language the idea that, if that's all this is about, then we have no problem. "Robert, I know the stories as well as anyone."

"Aye?" Robert muttered, sounding suspicious.

"Of course!" Ian rejoined. "Look, my friend, you must understand, it doesn't matter if this stone is ancient or if it's a replica."

"It doesn't?"

"No! Have you read the papers? England is in an uproar. Everyone is panicking. Finding this Stone is a top priority for the Crown. Everyone believes this is the Stone. Everyone believes the Stone was taken. As far as the government is concerned, this is the real Stone. For all practical intents and purposes, that makes it the real Stone."

There was a pause as Robert Gray fixed Ian with a long, thoughtful stare. Finally, he looked at the two pieces of sandstone and nodded his head.

"I see what you mean, Ian," he said at last. "People believing it's the genuine article is what makes it true. Right, I'll have her repaired in no time." Ian sagged with palpable relief, letting out a sigh and a smile at the same time. Just as he was about to thank his friend, Robert continued to speak. "Tell me one thing, though. What do you propose to do with the thing after I repair it?"

For a moment, Ian looked from Robert to the Stone and back again. He gave a little laugh and shook his head. "We're working on it," he said eventually.

"Huh!" Robert grunted. "Well, you'll have a little while longer to work on it while I'm getting her fixed up. But remember one thing: I'd like this thing off my hands and out of here as soon as possible, alright?"

"Absolutely," Ian assured the stonemason. "As soon as you are finished, we'll have it off the premises. I guarantee it, Robert. You have my word."

It was about three months later, on April 11th, 1951, that English authorities received an anonymous telephone call, informing them that the Stone of Scone was sitting on the site of the altar of Arbroath Abbey on Scotland's east coast, just northeast of Dundee. This location was brilliantly chosen for its political implications. In 1320, the Abbot Bernard de Linton drafted the Letter of Arbroath, beseeching Pope John XXII to put pressure on the English king, Edward II to recognize Robert the Bruce as the true and rightful king of Scotland. "As long as a hundred of us remain alive," the letter proclaimed, "we shall not on any condition be subjected to English rule." It was set with the seals of eight earls and forty-five barons and it remains one of Scotland's most eloquent and passionate affirmations of the desire for independence from England. Leaving the Stone at Arbroath made it absolutely clear that it had been taken by Scottish nationalists, and that its return to English authorities was entirely voluntary.

English police recovered the Stone that very same day, and it was immediately returned to Westminster Abbey. Within a day or two, rumors already abounded that the Stone had been replicated and the one at Westminster was a fake. The four university students were eventually identified and brought into the police for interviews. On balance, however, it was decided that to press charges against them would be unwise. The press had characterized the caper as a "prank" and a "jape." A trial, it was feared, would make the political sensitivity of the matter glaringly apparent, and could foment considerable unrest in the general populace.

Forty-five years later, in 1996, the Stone was finally returned to Scotland. A British Landrover transported the Stone from Westminster to the middle of a bridge across the River Tweed, at Coldstream, on the Scottish/English border. It went directly to Holy Rood Palace in Edinburgh amidst the skirl of pipes, and resided there for two weeks. Then, on November 30th, Saint Andrew's Day, the Stone was installed at Edinburgh Castle. It was officially handed over by Prince Andrew, as the English Queen's representative. It was officially accepted by Michael Forsyth, the Secretary of State for Scotland. England officially renounced its claim to Lia Fail once and for all. It is now to be moved to Westminster Abbey only for coronations then returned to Scotland.

It was also at about this time that The Scotsman uncovered documents from 1951 that revealed the true feelings of the English authorities at the time of the Christmas Day Caper. Detective Inspector William Kerr, who was in charge of the Scottish investigation of the Stone's disappearance, wrote that the Home Office and Scotland Yard had put him under "intolerable pressure" to find the Stone. In truth, this "university prank" had rocked the English monarchy to its foundations. Four iconoclastic young people had forced Britain to reconsider the importance of Scotland, and the legitimacy of Scottish claims to the throne. All four of them were still alive when the Stone was returned to Edinburgh. All four of them were hailed as folk heroes.

Ian Hamilton's political career was distinguished, although he always tried to put the mad caper behind him, and he refused the invitation to be present at the returning ceremony in 1996. Kay Matheson has spent her entire life in the Highlands as a teacher and Gaelic scholar. She was "in awe" of Hamilton but they were never romantically involved (apart from that one minute on Christmas day). Gavin Vernon completed his studies and became an electrical engineer. He moved to Canada in the 1960s and, after his identity was revealed, he discovered that he "would never have to buy another beer" for himself. Vernon died in 2004. At his funeral, Kay Matheson remarked, "My toes are aching today, a result of the Stone of Destiny falling on my foot in 1950." Alan Stuart always maintained that he had fallen into the plot by accident, and has never been forthcoming about his exact role or his motives. It can be said, however, that his participation showed him to be a quintessential Stuart.

The Stone remains in Edinburgh Castle.
I Didn't Mean to Turn You on

by

Nicole Bissett

Lauren's hand shook as she heard her husband's voice. There was no hanging up now. He knew she was the caller.

"Hi, Lauren," he said.

He was on his way to another woman; his fourth date with her, to be exact. He didn't know Lauren knew this. He didn't know she knew many things, for that matter. She heard him in traffic. He sounded almost happy. It broke her heart to hear it.

"Hi. How are you?"

"Fine," he answered. Lauren could hear the venom just beneath the surface.

There was an awkward silence. He didn't ask how she was. He just let the silence drag on.

"What are you doing?" Lauren asked.

"I'm on my way to an appointment," he lied.

"An appointment? On a Saturday night?"

"Yup."

"Are you dating someone?" She knew it was masochistic to ask the question, but she couldn't stop herself.

"That's not your business anymore," he answered. "We're separated now. What I choose to do, and with whom, is no longer your concern."

"It is my concern," Lauren cried. "Divorce papers haven't even been filed yet."

"It doesn't matter," he said. "I told you at some point that if you didn't come home, I was going to seek someone out. I don't like being alone."

"So this marriage isn't worth working on? You don't care to save this marriage at all?"

"We went over this before, Lauren. I don't have time to go over it again. But I will say that I have always wanted this marriage to work out, but not on your terms."

"So only on your terms." This was a statement, not a question.

"I told you before, Lauren. It's important to me in this marriage that I be the one to make the final decisions. That's just one of many things you don't want to agree to, and it's important to me. You just want things your way, and in this marriage, I'm the head of the household."

"So that's what it all boils down to, does it?"

"Look, Lauren, I don't have time for this. We've been through this. The bottom line is that you don't want this marriage to work out. You don't want to defer to my authority, so you have brought this on yourself. So I will now date whomever I wish, and you now have to accept the consequences."

She hung up on him before he had a chance to. Then she let the tears flow freely. It was really in her husband's mind to replace her. He had claimed to love her once. Now, she realized, she was just another woman to him so he didn't have to be alone. This really wasn't news to her now. It just re-affirmed to her that it was best they part forever, and she was doing what was best.

Allen Whitaker set his cell phone between the two car seats in disgust. The last thing he needed was to hear from Lauren, the woman he was married to in name only.

He had an uneasy feeling about tonight, though. He supposed Gayle was probably going to want him to spend the night with her. Whatever his feelings were for Lauren (and those were subject to change on a moment's notice), he wasn't ready for that. Divorce papers hadn't even been filed yet. Lauren was right about that. But there were more things that he couldn't put into words. He generally ignored feelings like this, because they defied the logic he prided himself on at all times.

So far, Gayle was trustworthy, at least within reason. He had been asking friends to set him up with a woman, and his friend Joe had obliged. He'd said she was a great cook, great company, and an overall "killer woman."

Gayle answered the door in response to his quick knock. "Hi there," she said warmly. "Wow! My goodness! You didn't have to bring anything."

She was referring to the bags he was carrying.

"Of course I did," Allen said. "I couldn't just let you cook and not contribute."

It was spacious and clean inside, and smelled of cooked meat and potatoes. Jazz music played softly in the living room, and the table was set with what looked like her best linen and plates.

Allen set the bags down on the counter and began to pull out their contents.

"Diet coke. Sugar-free apple pie and ice cream. For the lady," he said.

Gayle rushed over and took his offerings to the refrigerator. "That wasn't necessary," she said. "There's going to be plenty of dessert." She winked. "But thank you. Dinner's almost done. Have a seat."

Allen was never one to have a seat while others around him worked. That was one of the qualities that attracted every one of his wives. He assisted Gayle with final preparations. When it was time, Gayle lit candles. Allen thought this was a nice gesture, but one he was a bit uncomfortable with. She was expecting romance for sure.

Gayle had class, and that showed in her home, as well as in what she wore. Allen found her friendly and intelligent, and enjoyed her company. He did not, however, find her attractive. She wasn't fat, but had the middle-age chunkiness of a woman who, for whatever reason, had let herself go a bit. Besides, she was too independent. He didn't need another independent woman. Lauren had been enough. He needed a woman who knew her place, and would be happy there.

They dined on steak, mashed potatoes, green beans and salad. Then the two of them did the dishes and went into the living-room to sit down and talk. Another jazz CD was now playing. Though Allen enjoyed jazz, he couldn't recall the name of the artist she had on, and, in fact, his brain was beginning to feel like he was forgetting everything.

"Would you like some coffee?" Gayle offered. "Some dessert, maybe?"

Allen declined. "Relax," he said. "You really outdid yourself tonight."

"I'm so glad you enjoyed it," Gayle said. "I'll be right back."

She disappeared down the hall. Allen did his best to assure himself that she was going to the bathroom. That was all. But he knew otherwise. Knew it in the pit of his stomach. Something was about to go wrong.

He paced the room, not daring to look down the hall. He glanced at pictures of unknown people on the walls and hummed to himself. The Eighties song "I Didn't Mean To Turn You On," came to mind.

"When I took you out, I knew what you were all about." The rest escaped him. He was so focused on keeping his mind off of what could possibly pop out of the bedroom; he didn't realize he was singing out loud.

"La dad a dee, la dad a de de de de da," He was now humming with no tune in mind.

Gayle soon re-appeared, dressed in a white, lacey nighty that seemed a sad attempt to bring back her youth. Her breasts sagged beneath the lace. "Nice singing," she smiled. "Did you want something?"

He knew what her question implied. "Nope," he answered casually. "Just looking at these pictures here. Nice family." He pointed at an image of a tall, slim man. If it was her son, he must have taken after his father. "Is that your son?"

"My nephew," Gayle replied.

She didn't bother to point out her son on the wall. "Ah, okay," Allen replied. "Shows what I know."

"Sit down with me,' Gayle said. Her voice had an almost pleading tone to it that turned Allen off. 'Let's talk for awhile.'

He stood still for a moment and then moved back toward the couch.

He decided to try the approach of ignoring what she was wearing, and did his best not to stare. But he was getting nervous. She was too bold. She had never come on to him like this before.

Not to be ignored, she stood in front of him. "Well? You like?" she asked.

He decided to try the approach that would most likely turn her off. It was one that usually worked with Lauren. "Well, not really. I think you looked better in what you were wearing. But what's important to me is that you're comfortable. Friends should be comfortable around each other, and if that's what makes you comfortable, that's what matters."

His lack of tact didn't work. Instead of being turned off or even hurt, she sat beside him and put her hand on his thigh. He stiffened.

"I find your honesty refreshing. You're a breath of fresh air. That was one of the first things I found so attractive about you."

"Honesty and open communication are important in a friendship," Allen said. "We're becoming good friends."

Gayle chuckled nervously. "I've never been good at subtleties," she admitted. "So the only way I know to do it is to just come right out with it. I—well—I'd like to make love to you tonight."

"I, I..." His arrogant confidence began to wane. "I see that. I don't know what to say."

"Say yes. Who are we kidding? There's desire between us. We're not just friends." She moved her hand further up his leg. "I think we both need this. It's been so long for me and I know that it has been for you too."

The truth was, while it had been 10 years for Gayle, it had only been a month since Allen had made love. Despite their separation, sex was one thing he and Lauren always had between them.

"Gayle, I..."

"It's been so long since I've felt this way about a man. So long since I've made love to a man I really wanted. I find myself wanting to cook for you, be with you, I'd give my life up for you."

Give everything up for him? That was something Lauren wouldn't do. She wouldn't even give up her friends for him. When they'd first married, Allen had thought himself lucky to have Lauren, a woman half his age, who worshipped him. But then, over time, she'd forgotten who was king.

As if reading his mind, she said: "I have a lot of friends, Allen. But I'd give them all up just to spend the rest of my life with you. You're such a wonderful man! I don't know why your ex-wife Lauren let you go, but, if I can help it, I never will."

Allen's head was spinning, as if he had been drinking. He didn't want her, but she had thrown him off balance. He couldn't recall having mentioned Lauren's name to her. Everything was happening so fast! One minute they were eating dinner and having a pleasant conversation; the next—

He found himself following her lead into her bedroom. Before he knew it, she'd shed the skimpy gown. He didn't have time to see the wrinkles or the bare sagging breasts. She was working on the buttons of his shirt. He was grateful for the dark. He only wished he had some alcohol in him, yet he felt like he was on his way to a buzz anyway. He didn't know how this woman could have such an effect on him.

"Easy," he said, coming to his senses a little. "Easy. There's no rush."

He removed his clothes and laid them out on her desk chair. Then he lay beside her on the bed.

"That's better, now, isn't it?"

Something was definitely wrong. He now felt as if the room was spinning.

"You have a terrific body for your age, Allen," Gayle said, running her hand over his chest. "I'm so fortunate to be the last woman who gets it."

Wish I could say the same for yours, he thought.

She kissed him slowly, then more hungrily. "'Scuse me," she whispered, leaning over him. "I have a surprise for you."

She opened a drawer while Allen lay there, nearly unconscious now. Grabbing a condom, he supposed lazily. For a woman, especially in her late fifties, she wasn't much into foreplay. The class she had shown him over the past four dates was gone. She was like another woman he'd never met.

Suddenly, his head felt wet, though he hadn't thought it was hot enough for him to sweat. He reached up groggily and felt his head where the wetness was.

"You okay, honey?" Gayle asked.

"I." He pulled his hand back in alarm. It was blood red. There was no time to react. He was only dizzy and weak for another moment before his head felt the explosion, and the world went dark.

"Allen," Gayle cried. "Allen? Oh my god, Allen! You're bleeding!"

She examined him briefly. He was already dead and bleeding profusely. She jumped quickly out of bed and ran for the phone. It was time to do some real performing for the police, and then get the arrogant, bloody pig out of there. He deserved to be shot. She'd known that from the first date Joe had hired her to suffer through with him.

Lauren jumped at the sound of the ring. She had been waiting all night. "Hello.".

"Hey, beautiful," the male voice said. "Barbra took care of it. He's gone."

It was Joe. He had set his so-called friend Allen up with Gayle, which wasn't even her real name. Barbra wasn't, either, for that matter. As far as Joe was concerned, it served the pig right. He had always hated the way Allen treated her, and now he could rot.

"Gone." Lauren let the words sink in. Her male chauvinist, cheating husband was gone, as per her request.

"You okay?" Joe asked. "This was what you wanted, remember?"

"Yeah," Lauren said, but her mind was detached from the conversation.

"He's dead, Lauren. Barbra took him out. She said it was real easy, too, after she put a drug in his dinner."

"Oh." She didn't bother to ask what drug. It really didn't matter.

"You're not having an attack of conscience, are you?"

"No. No, I'm just shocked I guess. I guess, I didn't think it would happen that fast."

"Gotta go, honey," Joe said. ""Don't wanna hang on the line. Love ya. Check on ya later. Have a little brandy in my honor."

Lauren hung up the phone numbly.

She had asked Joe for this, and the woman they hired had delivered. She now had to live with a man's blood on her hands. She would learn how. She supposed it would be no worse than living with a man like Allen Whitaker for seven years. Only time would tell, she supposed. All she knew now was that, for the first time in years, she was free.

Ruby

by

Ashley Bowie

"Ronnie, come on, they love you out there." Milo is resting a hip on the edge of my makeup table with a hopeful look in his eyes. His face is settled into a practiced calm, ready to talk me out of my usual storm. I don't even know how to tell him, how do I even start? I think there is nothing he can say that will make much difference tonight. I'm fumbling with my lipstick — always my finishing touch — and I just don't want to put it on. I roll the long tube between my fingers, remove the cap, stare bleakly at the half-spent Ruby Dazzle and click the lid into place again.

"No, they don't, Milo. By the time they leave, they all hate me." I say it just above a whisper, not with my normal ranting passion, so when I catch Milo's reflection in the mirror, he looks a little worried. I doubt he could grow a beard if he wanted to. He looks like the angel over my shoulder, reminding me to do the right thing. Just go out there, do your job, get paid, go home. His baby-innocent eyes are out of place. But there it is, the demands of the devil sitting on the lips of an angel.

"Ronnie, that's just crazy, everyone comes to see you. You're the biggest star this place has ever seen, believe me. I've never seen crowds like the ones you bring in." He hesitated. "And you're the most requested girl in the place." My eyes tighten against the ambush of memories containing the people who had requested me. Milo's shoulders roll forward, and he hunches over a little, like I'm scolding him.

"That doesn't mean they love me, Milo." I rub the space between my eyes, shutting them tight and pressing until I can see spots of light.

"No, I know that. But come on, love? What do you expect? Here?"

"I have no idea." I click the Ruby Dazzle cap into place again and toss it on the table, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

"Ronnie, you can't not go on tonight." He leans over and picks up the lipstick, thoughtful for a moment. "You know my mom always loved this color. She said she never felt bright enough to wear it." His eyes squint and his mouth presses into a hard line. "I never understood what she meant by that." He rolls the tube between his fingers. With a slow drawn breath he lowers his voice and exhales a warning. "You know what he'll do if you don't go out there." From anyone else it would have sounded like a threat.

"I don't know if that's any worse than what I do to myself every night any way." I catch Milo's eyes briefly before I look away, the difference in my tone is not lost on him. On any normal night, the thought of my boss's unusual method of discipline would at least make me cringe, but there is nothing he can take away from me now. There is nothing he can do to make me hate myself any more.

"What else are you going to do Ronnie? You got another job lined up? How you gonna eat?" His attempts at straight forward reality don't usually work. He's too gentle. It's like someone plucked a preschool teacher right out of wholesome Middle America and set him in the seedy back halls of a Vegas dance hall. I can see him with his hands on his knees talking to me like I'm a child, "Go out there and get an erection out of that audience now, honey."

"Maybe I just won't eat." I know I'm no better than a petulant teenager, throwing a tantrum and making threats that will only hurt me. I stand up and fluff the feathers that circle my hips, more for the action of doing something rather than just sitting there. I throw them away from my butt and sit down again. "I'm sorry, Milo, sometimes it's just too much."

"I know, I've seen that look before. It only happens when you get to the top." Milo is studying the lipstick in his hands. I know he must be thinking of his mother, who never felt worth the touch of dazzle I use so callously. It's easy to see the pain that's pulling his eyes tight.

"You mean, when you get to the top, after all that fighting, all you see is just how far you are about to fall."

I'm staring into the mirror, seeing nothing but the empty blackness behind me. I feel like I'll fade into it at any moment, like I can just disappear entirely. The thought is welcome. I close my eyes and try to see the darkness as a mystery the way I used to. Opportunity, wealth, and possibility used to manifest themselves in that inky black. Fame for the taking; a ladder that could lead me to the top of the world. I open my eyes and find only the abyss, a black hole born of all my disasters, all my selfish pursuits, waiting to pull me down, inhabit my soul, make me one with the darkness.

The light of the mirrors outlines a door that delivers me quickly to the stage. And beyond that, an audience full of men and women who want a spectacle, something they can tell their friends about when they go home. They want a line-up, a meat market, someone they can blame for the divorce rate and the out of control porn industry, domestic violence, teen pregnancy, and hell, I'll take the economic crisis while I'm at it. They discuss girls like me with all the fervor of better men, with better lives. Later they will grope, and caress, with husky voices and demands they think I won't mind. You're pathetic. Every groan and whisper sounds this way. Your curves are why men are unfaithful, your breasts are why women are jealous and catty.

I let my eyes slide out of focus, using the dim light from the mirror's edge to blur the unforgiving blackness in my mind. The whispers of my five-year journey to the top are echoing in my head, mocking my silly tantrum, reminding me that I wanted this, I fought viciously for this. And here I am with everything I've ever wanted at my fingertips, standing at the top of my ladder like a tramped-up goddess, and nowhere to go but down.

"They don't hate you, Ronnie, no one hates you."

"Yes they do, Milo. By the time they leave, they can't stomach the thought of me."

"How can you say that? They have dreams about you, they pay thousands for you." His flimsy argument hangs in the air for a moment; he knows it's worthless. I can't buy enough with their thousands to forget what I do, what I have done.

"They hate me Milo! And I'll tell you why. They come to my room, they don't know my name. They call me Ruby, they call me whore, they call me beautiful, sexy, some of them even call me love. You can see it on their faces, they feel like gods when they touch me. When they lay on me, they feel like kings. 'Ruby, Ruby, you're exquisite' they say, and they feel like they're winning some kind of title. But when they get up, they realize, they're only men. They have conquered and won nothing. They have risen to the top of their own expectations and find that they are just men. Their wives have told them they are kings, their bosses make them lords, and their children treat them like gods. Then they come to conquer me and without a word, I tell them that they are men. They hate me when they find this out about themselves. They hate me for not being worth it. They hate me, forever wanting me. When they leave, they hate me."

"You know these are the worst men, Ronnie, you know these men really do think they're gods." Milo has unconsciously pulled the cap off the Ruby Dazzle again and managed to smear it on his fingers. My angry rant threw him off guard. Noticing that his hands are sticky he looks down, surprised at his carelessness, and embarrassed at the mess, he clumsily clicks the lid back into place and then stares at his hands, unsure what to do.

"Yes, I know." I hand Milo a couple tissues and take the lipstick from him. My hands are shaking, my lips are shaking, but I add my finishing touch with a deep sense of resignation. "And I am at the top of their ladder. They find me, and see just how far they're about to fall." So this is what my life means? Now I see it. I meet people at the top, and throw them down to the bottom. "Hand me that box, would you?"

Milo picks up the powder box but doesn't give it to me. His eyes hold questions he is unable to form, but what can he possibly say? He looks horrified, and scared. I see the fuel spark and flame one moment before the explosion.

"You should just leave," He nearly spits in his passion. "Get the hell out of town and don't look back." He begins rubbing the lipstick off his hands with a vigor and urgency that I can't quite place, almost as though he is getting rid of evidence. "You could be more than the top rung of some asshole's divine ladder."

I take the box and press the shimmering powder all over my exposed legs and breasts. He stands up and paces the room for a few moments without a word. He's making me nervous.

"Milo, stop that." After a few moments he sits back down. "No, I can't leave. You were right before. Your father would find me and make me regret it." The streets are full of women who regret crossing Milo's father. "I'm at the top of my own ladder anyway. I made me what I am. And if all I'm good for, the rest of my life, is teaching gods that they are men, then so be it. I'm a whore, Milo, and from way up here the best thing to do is just jump." I drop my eyes at the end, unable to sting him with full force. For no reason at all I pick up the lipstick again and scrawl one word onto the mirror. Whore, it says. I lean forward and accentuate the 'e' with my kiss. Milo hates this word, and pained as he is, I'm trying to make him feel mine.

I'm inches from the ledge, maybe just a few days from a gruesome and untimely end. It's time to let go of Milo. It's time to send my angel back to heaven where he belongs, so I can be on my way to my own personal hell.

"Milo." I whisper to his reflection. "You are better than this." I mean it. Even in spite of his child-like appearance, people respect him. I take in the not-so-subtle aspects of my own reflection: feathers harvested from more than one peacock, faux furs harvested from a plastic factory, animal prints harvested from the hands of pre-pubescent Indian girls. No one takes me seriously, no one respects me. My feathers and furs might set me at the top of this ladder, but I'm the dirt on the shoes of average men.

I turn to look Milo right in the face. He always looks me in the eye, even with my breasts all propped up and shimmering. "You should get out before you end up at the top too." I run my fingertips along his cheek, leaning in close. "You of all people deserve better than this." I kiss his cheek, like a mother would, and walk into the abyss.

I hear it before the first scream. The shattering glass is almost in perfect time to the music. Then it's his swearing, and grunting. Then it's quiet for one second. In the space of one breath, as I pulled out of a back bend, I can see the audience. It's the first time I have ever looked. A set of eyebrows raised, lips with the half smile of barely contained lust and disgust, riding the tension of wanting more and not wanting anyone else to know it. They move their heads in time to my legs, necks craning to see all there is to see. Their jaws have dropped like the puppets on strings whose masters have slacked the tension and showed the raw material that is unimpressive and less than magical. Little more than creatures of sculpted wood. They have no choice, they have to watch. Unable to tear their eyes away, and unable to do anything to stop the tragedy that is me dancing before them. Even if they could make it stop, they don't want to. People like me have to exist, if only to make them feel that they are better than someone.

It takes them a moment to notice that I've stopped dancing. I stand rigidly looking up at the window. For five years my eyes have scanned past that window to see if he is pleased just before I exited the stage. Sometimes I have walked away terrified, sometimes triumphant. Tonight I'm gawking, waiting for it all to unfold before I decide what to feel.

A glitter cannon explodes on cue and 200 pounds of self-made god comes pouring out the window with 200 million shards of dazzle. He's about half way down when the screaming starts. It was appalled, it was horrified, it wanted to watch. I step back and watch him crash on the center of the stage, turning just in time to catch the splatter of that devil all over my back. I can feel the fluids from his shattered head soaking through my feathers, through the fabric on my back. I am disgusted with what's left of him. I unclasp the front of my costume and pull the whole thing off. Without the chaos, it would have looked as heartless as it was; thank God for chaos. I remove the headdress for good measure. Then I just stare at him for a moment, the lifeless body before me.

I'm waiting to feel sorry or sad, or even a little bit of remorse. Nothing. Not even a shred of disquiet at the sight of a man's brain on the floor or his limbs splayed unnaturally in the middle of the stage I serve four nights a week. There is nothing for me to do but watch. If I could help, I don't want to. The tide of his blood is pouring over the stage and the glitter from the cannon lands indiscriminately in the mess of his wasted life, Crimson Dazzle. I drop my costume where I stand in front of him, and with one last look at the decimated god of America, calmly walk off stage.

Milo is pacing in my dressing room, breathless. He throws my dressing robe at me and runs both his hands through his hair. He takes a deep breath and then stands perfectly still.

"Milo, what will we do?" I study his face as I tie the robe in place. He is undeniably different. His halo is not tarnished, he's no less sweet, or gentle. But I can finally see a man.

"We?" he asked cautiously. "You mean it?"

I don't need to say anything. I cross the room and wrap my arms around his waist, resting my forehead on his chest. Breathing deeply for a few moments, I steady my rapidly moving thoughts.

"Thank you." I whisper, "I know you did it for both of us, but thank you."

He pulls me a few inches away from his body and locks my gaze. "He must have shot out the window and then jumped."

"Okay." I whisper, not breaking eye contact.

"I just couldn't. Ronnie. Not again, and not you. I didn't want to let... You mean... You're better than this Ronnie."

I don't know what to say. It's like he's pulled me off the ledge. I'm not a ladder, I'm not a whore. With one sleeve, he wipes the Ruby Dazzle off my lips.

T.J. Frog

by

M. C. Arvanitis

From his rocky viewpoint, T. J. Frog watched the beautiful ladies of the Court wading in the shallow end of the palace pool holding their skimpy see-through clothing high above their knees showing white thighs. Others—he guessed they were the royal princesses—lounged on beach chairs, their naked bodies shining in the sun as maids-in-waiting rubbed perfumed oils on their bodies and kept the goblets filled with cool intoxicating liquor.

Music came from inside the courtyard where the royal musicians played the popular songs of the day. Once in a while, several of the palace escorts would join them in a dance or two, giving each princess the pleasure equally as was required by their position.

T. J. sighed. He should hop back to his wife but she was not as beautiful as these ladies. He wished he could be an escort and flirt with the beautiful ladies (and maybe give them more attention than just dancing). He knew what to do if only he were a human male.

He had asked the disgusting old witch of the swamp for advice. She suggested getting a beautiful lady to kiss him. He had tried every trick he could think of to do so, but whenever he hopped close to one of the ladies she would scream and run away.

Today he noticed one of the shyest maids sitting apart from the others. She looked kind. Maybe she would kiss him.

He hopped close to her. "Hello, beautiful," he croaked. "How about a little smooch for this poor lonely frog."

"Oh, I don't kiss frogs," she stammered. "Anyway, I am not a princess. The spell wouldn't work."

"You are as pretty as any of the others. Have you ever tried?"

"No." She picked him up and placed him in her lap. "I think you are kind of cute, though."

"Just plant a kiss on my head. I promise I won't give you warts."

The maid-in-waiting giggled and looked around. No one was watching so she quickly kissed the frog.

Walla! He turned into a human male.

"EEEK!" screamed the maid pushing him away.

The other maids and princesses stopped what they were doing. "EEEK!" They screamed and ran from the courtyard calling for the palace guards.

T. J., confused at this reception, looked at his reflection in the pool. An ugly short greenish warty man with bulging eyes stared up at him. Hearing the guards coming he quickly slid behind the bamboo and hurried back to his home in the swamp. He found the old witch. "Look what you did to me." He shouted. "I should kill you." He raised a rock to smash her head.

"Wait, wait." The witch stepped back. "I can fix it!"

T J. lowered the rock. "You had better, old woman!"

"Just picture in your mind what you want to look like."

T. J. saw himself six foot tall, curly blonde hair cut in the latest style, slim but muscular, and endowed with manly features where it was needed to please the ladies.

Whoosh! He was exactly as he imagined. The next day he applied for the job of palace escort. The heads of the palace society were happy to hire such a fine hunk of a man.

From that day, T. J. lived in a fine apartment, ate palace food, and entertained only the most beautiful of the queens, countesses, and princesses who came to call on the King and Queen. He escorted them to theaters, grand balls, horse races, and finished up with a tête-à-tête in their boudoir. He always left them satisfied.

One rainy, stormy evening after entertaining the young Countess of Monaco, T. J. relaxed on his way home in his fine carriage. Suddenly an old woman appeared in front of the carriage. The driver pulled to a stop. She waved. "Please, can you give a poor lady a ride?"

T. J. snarled at the driver. "Keep going. We don't have time to pick up ugly old ladies." The driver took off.

The old lady let out a terrible curse. Lightning flashed and thunder roared.

When the driver pulled up to the palace entrance he was surprised to see a warty green frog sitting on the seat. "What are you doing here?" He shoved the frog out of the carriage. He looked around for the escort but could not see him. Scratching his head he drove to the stables.

T. J. hopped to his home in the swamp.

"Hey, you old witch, why'd you do that?"

"Why were you so rude to me. Wouldn't even give a old lady a ride," the witch snapped.

T. J. wanted to kill the witch but he could not pick up a rock big enough to do so. He thought for a moment. Maybe kindness would work

Changing his voice to the one he used to entice the ladies, he said, "I am so sorry I left you out in the rain, dear lady." He sniffed back tears. "Please change me back to the man I was. I promise never to be mean to old ladies again."

After an hour of begging and promising payment of gold when he was human again, the witch agreed to change T. J. back. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. Whoosh! T. J. was once again a man. He hurried back to his apartment in the palace wondering why the witch cackled.

Unbeknownst to him, the spell was not complete. T. J. looked as handsome as before, but his manly ability was missing. After that, no matter how he tried, he could not please the ladies. Not even Viagra helped.

Complaints came in. The heads of the palace society demoted T. J. to escorting only those older queens, countesses and princesses who were not interested in his physical prowess, but only wanted a young man's arm to lean on at the balls, theaters, and race tracks.

Year after year, T. J. listened to continual chatter about their grandchildren. Year after year, he played up to their poodles and other boring pets. Year after year, he dined on soft foods and listened to classical music. He knew he was going to die of boredom before his time.

One day on his way back to his palace apartment he saw the same old lady walking along the road. He ordered his driver to stop. "Would you like a ride, dear?"

The old lady climbed in. "Well, now ain't you being nice. I suppose you want me to make you sexual again," she grinned.

T. J. shook his head. "No," he said. "Make me back into a frog. I have had all I can take of being a human."

Once again lightning flashed and thunder roared. When the driver stopped at T. J.'s apartment the old lady got out. A frog joined her. The driver shook his head in wonderment. How did T. J. get out without him seeing?

T. J. hopped back to his wife in the swamp. She welcomed him with open arms and now he lives happily with his dozens of children and his beautiful wife who looks like a frog.
The Beach

by

Ryan Masters

The painting had hung slightly askew in the back corner of the art gallery. It was a miracle that she had even found this particular gallery as there was only one small window sign that was barely visible from the street. If fact, if it had not been for the well-dressed man and woman who had been exiting the building she might not have gone in at all. She had briefly stopped them on the sidewalk and asked if this were in fact an art gallery. "One of the finest," the older man had assured her. She had thanked the couple and looked again at the small window sign. "One of the finest art galleries in SoHo with the cheapest sign ever," she thought to herself. "How peculiar."

Jennifer had opened the door and stepped into the well-lighted room. It was like she had stepped into a small part of heaven. In contrast to the gritty streets outside the room was brightly lit, but easy on the eyes. It smelled of a meadow on a warm spring afternoon just after a brief sun shower mixed with a hint of freshly baked cookies. Large white walls jutted out from every angle and were adorned with painting after beautiful painting. She took a few steps forward and shut the door behind her. She noticed a handful of other people were slowly browsing the artwork.

"May I take your jacket?" Asked a nicely dressed woman who was also presenting her with a glass of red wine.

"Well, thank you. Thank you very much, but I'm just looking. I'm not sure I'll even buy today."

"There's no pressure, but please, make yourself comfortable," she said as she set the glass of wine down on a marble countertop and began to assist Jennifer with removing her jacket. "Please feel free to ask any questions that you might have. Enjoy the experience and take your time." The woman hung the coat on a small hook. She once again picked up the wine glass and presented it to Jennifer. "Perhaps you would care for a white wine?"

"No," replied Jennifer. "This will do just fine. Thank you," she said as she took the glass in her hand and brought it up to her mouth. She took a small sip and said, "Oh my, this is the best wine I have ever tasted. Thank you!"

Jennifer began to relax and cruised up and down the aisles, viewing the many walls of the gallery. She smiled at the other patrons as they passed each other and made quiet comments to no one in particular about certain paintings. Each new piece seemed to be more exquisite than the last.

The aisles and walls seemed to continue on forever and she began to wonder out loud if there was actually an end to this place.

"Lots of people say that," commented the woman that had given her the wine and taken her coat when she had first arrived. "People also say that from the outside this place just doesn't look like it could even be half the size, but trust me, it's all the fantastic work of our interior designer. The angle of the walls and the right amount of lighting can make anyplace look huge. But that's just a secret amongst us girls." The woman laughed loudly, but no one seemed to notice. "Is there anything that I can help you find? Maybe a special piece for a special place?"

"I'm looking for something for my apartment, but I don't know exactly what. I do know that I'll know what it is when I see it," she paused slightly. "If that made any sense at all."

"It makes perfect sense my dear. As a reminder, everything here is for sale," she said. Her eyes had given Jennifer the once over. "Everything."

Jennifer politely smiled and continued her viewing.

It wasn't until she was about to give up for the day that she saw it. In a nook tucked away in the back corner of the gallery she saw a rather lifelike painting that she had been instantly drawn to. The painting was of a beach scene. There were a few palm trees in the background and what appeared to be an old weather beaten straw hut on the left-hand side. The beauty was in the simplicity of this piece. The waves calmly lapping up onto the beach and at the same time slowly drawing back into the deep blue of the ocean. The moment that she laid her eyes on this painting she not only felt completely at peace, but also knew that this was the one she had been looking for the entire time.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" The wine and coat woman asked her. "It's called _The Beach_ and it's honestly one of my favorites. I'm shocked that this piece has been here for so long. So many times I've had the urge to just snatch it up myself, but my walls are filled and I'd have to part with something. But enough about me. Is this something that you're interested in purchasing?"

"This is so beautiful. I'm afraid to ask the price. I'm sure that it's out of my range."

"I think that you would be surprised." The woman stuck her hands into her pockets and retrieved a small notebook and a pen. She flipped the notebook open to the first little page and quickly scratched a number on it. She returned the pen to her pocket and thrust the notebook in front of Jennifer's eyes. "I think you'll find that the price is more than fair. And, um, if you purchase today I will personally deliver the painting this weekend and assist you in finding just the right place to hang it."

Jennifer had felt completely uncomfortable, but had already fallen in love with the painting. "I'll take it." She blurted the words out so quickly and loudly almost without thinking. "But you don't have to go to all that trouble of hanging it. My place is all a clutter and I might not even hang it until after I finish decorating."

"That's fine, ma'am. It's just a service we offer that makes us unique to the neighborhood. You can pay up front. Thank you for visiting us today." The woman then opened the door and disappeared into a back office.

The next weekend there was a knock on the door. Jennifer had not been expecting anyone, but then remembered the painting. It had been a long week of work and she had somehow managed to forget about the most amazing painting in the world. She felt a rush of excitement. She quickly straightened her hair and ran to the door. Her excitement was short-lived when she opened the door to find the woman from the art gallery. She was wearing a long mink coat. In one hand she held a case that surely contained her painting. The other hand held a small shiny red toolbox. It looked just big enough to hold a small hammer and maybe a screw driver.

"Good afternoon. My name is Claire and I have come to deliver and hang your new painting."

At first Jennifer was upset, but the excitement of the new painting overwhelmed her and her mood quickly changed. "Welcome Claire. Come on in," she said with a smile. "Let me take your coat. Sorry that I don't have any wine to offer you." She smiled again and laughed just a little bit.

Claire exhaled and smiled. "Thank you so much." She set both the case and the toolbox down and slid her coat off. Jennifer took it from her and walked to the coat closet. "Can I offer you anything to drink?" She asked as she hung the coat. When she turned back she saw that Claire had taken the case and the toolbox and was walking into the living room. She was wearing a tight red dress and matching high heels.

Claire opened the case and pulled out the painting. The sunlight caught the scene just right and Jennifer was instantly caught up in the peacefulness of the beach scene. She imagined gazing at this scene at the end of a long stressful day and letting the waves just wash her stress away. "Where would you like it?" Claire asked.

"I didn't have any place in mind. You're the expert. What do you recommend?"

"Well, while most people would want it hung as the focal point of the main living area, I would recommend hanging it in a room that is more secluded. It's a special painting and, honestly, should only be shared with special people. By any chance do you have a reading nook or some sort of tranquility room? Somewhere out of direct sunlight and void of everyday distraction?"

Jennifer thought for a moment and was on the verge of saying her bedroom, but then thought differently. She remembered the comment from the gallery and thought it was best not to lead Claire in that direction. "I have a room that was originally going to be a home office, but has transformed itself into a bit of a writing room. It's far from complete though."

"Perfect!" Claire exclaimed. "Lead the way."

Jennifer showed her the room and stepped aside as Claire brought the painting and the toolbox into the room. She held the painting up against the wall. Her arms were stretched up above her head and she arched her back to hold the painting in place. "How does that look?" Claire asked.

Jennifer felt an odd feeling wash over her. She felt as though all of the blood in her body was rushing into her face. She watched as Claire held the framed piece and felt a sudden attraction to her. "That looks fine right like that," she replied.

Jennifer didn't remember much after that other than waking up the next morning in her bed wrapped up in the arms of Claire. She looked on the bedroom floor and saw Claire's red dress and heels. Next to them was Jennifer's sweatpants and t-shirt. Confused, but happy, Jennifer drifted off to sleep again. The next time she woke she found herself alone in bed with the sun setting outside of her bedroom window. She had quickly jumped out of bed. She pulled on her sweatpants and t-shirt. The red dress and shoes were gone as was the shiny red toolbox and the mink coat from the coat closet. She had rushed back to her writing room and found the painting hanging on the far wall. There was a note attached to the bottom of the frame. Jennifer plucked it off and quickly read it:

Dear Jennifer,

I hope that you find everything that you are looking for in The Beach

Warmest Regards,

Claire

That was almost 10 years ago. Jennifer had never mentioned her encounter with Claire to anyone. Well, except for one drunken night four years ago with an old friend from high school. "That's hot!" He had commented. Other than that one time it had been her very own little secret. The painting, however, she had not kept a secret and invited anyone and everyone into her writing room to view it. Every person who had seen it had fallen instantly in love with it and that made Jennifer feel great. She credited that painting for the success she had found in her life.

Jennifer had been writing for as long as she could remember, but it was after only two years of having the painting hanging on the wall of her writing room that her career began to blossom. There was something special about being in the same room as that painting that inspired her to write until her fingers couldn't type another key. After a long stress-filled day at work she would come home and sit in the chair in her writing room. She would stare endlessly at _The Beach_ and dream of the peace and solace that she would find in such an island escape. The next thing she knew the sun would be coming up and much to her surprise she would have one, if not two, completed short stories. Whimsical tales of adventure and romance began to fill up her computer hard drive. At first these short stories were being accepted by magazines, e-zines, and anthologies. As a result she had won a few awards for her work and she was starting to draw attention from several agents.

One agent in particular, Robert Dall, had taken some serious interest in her work. He had made several attempts to woo her to become a client, but the many emails, phone calls, and even the single handwritten letter had all gone unanswered. It wasn't until a chance encounter at a small bar in SoHo that Robert, or Bobby D as his friends called him, was able to get face to face with Jennifer.

It had been another long week at work. Jennifer hadn't been getting much sleep lately and the all night writing had begun to take a toll on her. While the painting did help her to relax she also needed her time away from writing to unwind with friends. She had been enjoying drinks and laughs with some of the other girls from work. Robert had been standing in a nearby circle with a group of men who were also drinking and laughing and generally having a good time. Jennifer had excused herself to use the restroom. It was on the way back to her circle of friends that she literally walked into Robert. She was a bit tipsy and although she meant to cut to the left she had accidentally walked into him. In the process she had spilled his drink. Jennifer apologized and offered to buy him another, but Robert had refused. They had struck up a conversation that lasted long after all of their friends had departed. The two of them had found a small table to sit at and had spent hours just talking. The conversation was light and easy and flowed effortlessly.

At some point well into the evening the topic of conversation had turned to art. Jennifer beamed with excitement when she described _The Beach_ to Bobby. "You've got to see this painting!" She had exclaimed to him. Bobby had smiled and said that he would love to see it sometime. "Now, I only live five blocks away," she said to him as she had stood up and tugged at his shirt. "Come with me now and see it!" Bobby stood up and together they walked the five blocks to her apartment building.

Once inside she walked him into her writing room and pointed at the painting. "That's it. That is _The Beach,_ " she gushed. "Isn't it fabulous?"

Bobby was truly impressed with the painting and felt an odd feeling wash over him. He felt as though all of the blood in his body was rushing into his face.

Neither of them remembered exactly what happened after that except that they awoke the next morning wrapped in each other's arms. They stayed that way until early afternoon; wrapped in each other's arms alternating with sessions of passionate love making.

Their relationship took off and within a month they thought of themselves as a serious item and within six months they were married. People would often ask how they had met and the couple loved to share the fantastic story. People would laugh when Jennifer would tell them about Bobby's many failed attempts to contact her as an agent and they would always comment that "it must have been meant to be" when hearing about the chance encounter.

Jennifer was not only Bobby's wife, but also his best selling client. He had recommended that she begin to write novels instead of the short stories. Four Best Selling books later Jennifer Dall was a household name and people snatched her books off of the shelves and downloaded digital copies in record numbers.

Although they now owned a house in the Hamptons they kept the apartment in SoHo. Jennifer was very reluctant to give up her writing room and Bobby found that he could manage his one and only client from anywhere. He loved to be with her and, more so, he loved to watch Jennifer write.

On many nights when Jennifer was tapping away feverishly at the keyboard creating a new masterpiece Bobby was in the doorway simply gazing at her in wonderment. Her fingers moved so quickly and her long black hair flipped to and fro as she worked. She held a pencil tightly between her lips even though she never wrote with it. He had long ago stopped making attempts to speak to her or even bring her food or drinks while she was writing. He once put a small blanket over her shoulders when he felt she might be chilled, but she simply shrugged it off without saying a word. It was as if she was in another world and paid him no attention. He thought it was cute and often wondered if this is what it had been like to watch Michelangelo paint or John Lennon to write music.

The years ticked away and both Jennifer and Bobby grew more and more in love. Jennifer's books continued to sell at a fantastic rate and she was sure to thank Bobby and also give credit to _The Beach_ in every book.

After one particularly long book tour in which Jennifer had found herself crisscrossing all over the United States and Canada she was exhausted beyond belief. While she loved being out and meeting her fans, she hated to be away from Bobby. She wanted to either be home curled up in his arms or at the apartment finding peace with _The Beach_. She sat in her First Class seat sipping wine, wondering if the writing and the traveling and the being away from Bobby was worth it any longer. While she still loved to write she found that it wasn't as much fun as it once had been. It was more of a job now; a task which must be completed to please the masses. The critics, while still mostly favorable in general, had begun to turn on her and her latest release. They said that her newest novel was as if someone else had written the words and simply put Jennifer's name on the cover. Several of them commented that they found the story boring and not up to Dall Publishing's fine standards. All of this together weighed heavily on Jennifer's mind as she soared at 35,000ft. "I'm going to do it," she whispered quietly. "When I get home I'm going to tell Bobby that I am done." Just then the plane began to shake roughly in the turbulence.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the sweet voice of the stewardess said over the plane's intercom. "At this time the captain has put on the Fasten Seatbelt sign and has advised us that we will be briefly entering some rough skies due to a thunderstorm over Newark. Nothing to be worried about, but for your own safety he asks that you keep your seatbelt fastened until we land at JFK."

The remainder of the flight was without incident and they landed on schedule at JFK Airport. Jennifer now sat in a black stretch limousine and thought about how she should approach Bobby with her news. The traffic was snarled more than normal. She sipped on a red wine while she went over the many scenarios in her head as to how Bobby would react. Part of her thought that he would flip out and disown her and part of her thought that with the long hours that the two of them had been putting in that he would embrace her decision... and still another part of her didn't know what to think.

After sitting in traffic for over an hour and not having gotten very far, Jennifer decided to reroute her destination. She opened the partition and asked Stephanie, her personal driver, to bring her to her SoHo apartment instead of home to the Hamptons. She just wanted to be done with it all and be in the peace and quiet of the apartment with _The Beach_.

Finally, she was back in her apartment. Stephanie kept her bags and continued on to the Hamptons without her. Jennifer walked down the hallway towards her bedroom where she had planned to flop onto the bed and sleep away the rest of the day. As she passed her writing room something strange caught her eye. _The Beach_ was slightly crooked. Knowing that she would not be able to get to sleep without first straightening the painting she entered the room and flipped on the light. With the light on and being closer to _The Beach_ she noticed that not only was the painting crooked, but there appeared to be a small reddish glob on the right side just along the waterline. She walked up close to the painting and straightened the frame. She grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk and dabbed repeatedly at the red glob, but was unable to remove the mark. It had been a long day and this was the last thing with which she needed to deal. She left the room and retreated to her bedroom. She called Bobby to let him know that she was going to stay here for the night to relax. They talked for several minutes and before she hung up she asked him about the painting. He told her that he hadn't been in the apartment all week and that maybe the cleaning woman might know what had happened. Jennifer made a mental note to call the cleaning woman the next day.

After they hung up Jennifer took a quick shower and hopped into bed. She was fast asleep in no time, but her slumber was short and far from relaxing. She awoke in a sweat. In the silence of her bedroom she could hear her heart as it pounded away inside her chest. As she lay there bits and pieces of the nightmare that she'd just had began to surface and replay before her eyes. She was seeing a woman on a boat with a tall man. His face was a blur and she could only see the back shoulder of the woman. It was bare with the exception of a red strap of fabric. They bobbed up and down slowly in tune to the rise and fall of the waves beneath the boat. There were several empty bottles of wine. The woman turned to kiss the man, but before Jennifer could get a good look at her face she blended with the blur of the man. Both identities were unrecognizable. Behind them were flashes of lightning. The couple slowly danced together and although she could not see their faces clearly Jennifer knew that they often embraced in a kiss. Another flash of lightning and another kiss. Another flash of lightning and - a scream. The blurred face of the man laughed with his arms outstretched. The woman in red was falling backwards and screaming. Another flash of lightning and Jennifer saw the woman's face clearly. It was Claire from the art gallery. She hadn't thought of Claire or their experience together in several years and wondered why she would now inhabit her dream. Claire splashed into the sea just as the boat's motor roared to life. The man at the helm pushed the throttled forward and the boat raced away. As it did the man turned around briefly and Jennifer saw that it was Bobby. He laughed a long wicked laugh and soon the boat and Bobby were out of sight.

Claire splashed about in the cool salt water. She was drunk and doing the best that she could to stay afloat. Off on the horizon the raging thunderstorm began to close in on her. Claire continued to splash around in the water screaming and gulping at the salty sea air, "Bobby! Bobby! Why?!?! Whyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

It was at that moment that Jennifer had awoken. Fifteen minutes later she caught her breath again, but her heart still beat faster than normal. She could not get the dream out of her head and found it impossible to get back to sleep. She rose from the bed and snapped on the light. As she walked down the hallway she saw that _The Beach_ was again hung at a crooked angle. She froze where she stood and wiped at her eyes to make sure that she was seeing this correctly. She walked into the writing room and for the second time this evening she straightened the picture. As she did her bare toes stepped into something wet. She looked at the floor to find a very small puddle of what appeared to be water. Jennifer looked up at the ceiling for any signs of a leak and found nothing. She then noticed that the two fingers on her right hand were also damp. She slowly reached out and touched the bottom right corner of the frame and found it to be wet. Thinking that the leak must be coming from the back of the painting she quickly reached out with both arms and pulled the painting up and off the hook from which it hung. The wall was completely dry. She rehung the painting straightly on the wall and left the room to get a towel.

Jennifer quickly returned with a hand towel and soaked up the small puddle on the floor. As she was drying off the bottom of the frame she noticed something odd about the painting and immediately thought that she had finally gone off the deep end of crazy. Earlier in the night where there had been a mysterious red glob on the painting was clearly now a pair of bright red high heels sitting at awkward angles in the sand as if someone had flung them there haphazardly. To the left of the shoes were a single set of footprints that seemed to lead in the direction of the grass hut. The incoming waves appeared to have washed away some of the footprints. Jennifer was sure of two things; the footprints led to the grass hut, but more importantly, the footprints hadn't been there before.

She raced into her bedroom and snatched her cell phone from the nightstand where it was charging. The wires of the charger tugged back at her in resistance, but quickly gave up the fight and had snapped apart. She dialed Bobby's cell number. After a few rings he picked up. By the sound of his voice she had definitely woken him from a deep sleep.

"Uh, hello. Jen, are you alright?" Bobby mumbled.

"Bobby, something weird is going on. First the picture was crooked so I straightened it. Then it was crooked again. And I had this nightmare and you were in it and Claire was in it. And you pushed her overboard and then the painting was all wet. And I went to dry it and she was in the hut. I mean, I think that she was in the hut, but I won't know for sure until she wakes up... if she wakes up. Oh shit. Bobby, I gotta go." Jennifer threw the phone down and raced into the writing room.

"Jennifer? Jennifer, are you there?" Bobby yelled, but she was already gone. Bobby quickly got up, got dressed, and hopped in his car. He sped out of the driveway and headed in the direction of the city.

At the same time Jennifer was in the writing room staring at _The Beach_. It was clear now that there was someone in the grass hut on the left side of the painting. She saw two long legs sticking out of the small opening of the flimsy structure. Just above the person's knees she saw the hint of a red swatch of clothing. "Oh Claire, please be alive. You can't be dead." Jennifer cried. The tears ran down her cheeks and dripped onto the floor. "Please wake up!" She shouted.

For the next half an hour Jennifer sat in her comfortable office chair and stared at the painting. She waited and waited for the legs of the woman to move, to give any sign of life at all. Her head began to nod and her eyes began to flutter closed. Before she knew it she was fast asleep, but once again it was short-lived. She was awakened by the sound of water dripping and her bare feet being sprinkled by the water from every drop as it slapped onto the tile floor in front of her. Her attention instantly shot from the large puddle around her feet and up to the painting on the wall.

_The Beach_ had a very different look to it now. The waves no longer lapped peacefully at the light tan beach. Instead, the surf was completely flat. On the sand, written in letters made completely of rocks was the word "HELP". Just to the left of the rock word was a large fire. The hut was engulfed in flames and the smoke billowed upwards out of sight. To the right of everything sat a woman in a red dress with her head and arms resting on her knees. A wave of relief hit Jennifer. "Claire! You're alive!" Again she cried, but this time they were tears of joy.

Through her tears Jennifer saw something flicker to the left of her and at the same time she smelled smoke. Her eyes focused on the top left corner of the frame and it was there that she saw a small flame of fire that danced about. "Holy shit!" She thought to herself unable to bring the words to her lips. "Her God damn signal fire has ignited the frame." Jennifer assumed that she was officially insane now. She sat motionless in disbelief as the small flame grew and danced and began to catch a nearby frame on fire. The paper inside of the other frame, an award she had won for one of her early short stories, quickly caught fire and burned brightly beneath the glass. It was this flash of light and the piercing sound of the room's smoke detector that snapped her out of her coma-like state of mind.

She sprung from the chair and ran to the kitchen to grab the small fire extinguisher that she knew was sitting in the cupboard beneath the sink. She flung open the cabinet door and broke a nail as she grabbed the red canister and ran back into the writing room.

Again the world seemed to have changed in an instant. The smoke still hung in the air and the smoke alarm continued to shriek, but the fires had all gone out. The frame was no longer burning, but even more alarming was the fact that the signal fire in _The Beach_ had gone out. It was completely gone. The rocks that had once spelled out "HELP" were now scattered randomly about. Close to shore in the water was a boat. It was the boat from her dream. The scene that rattled Jennifer the most was the image of Claire. Her body now laid further back on the beach near a palm tree. Her legs and most of her hips were obscured from sight by the boat in the foreground, but her head and torso were clearly visible. What was also in clear sight was the bloody mess that was Claire's head. Dark red blood, much darker than the ripped and torn dress that she still wore, covered most of her face and chest. There was no doubt in Jennifer's mind that Claire was dead and that Bobby had killed her.

Jennifer grabbed the phone from off of her desk and punched in the numbers of Bobby's cell phone.

Robert Dall saw the display of his cell phone illuminate as he drove at high speeds on the Long Island Expressway. Along the way he had called the police. He told them of the weird phone call that he had received from her and requested that they pay his wife a visit in their SoHo apartment. It was the phone number of his apartment that was on the display of his cell phone now. He picked it up and said, "Jennifer, is it you? Are you OK?"

"What the hell did you do to her?" Jennifer screamed. "Why did you kill her?"

"What are you talking about? Jennifer, slow down and explain what is going on." Robert swerved back and forth within his lane. "Jennifer, are you there?"

There was a brief silence before she began to yell again. "You sick son of a bitch. What did Claire ever do to you?" She demanded to know.

He had no clue what his wife was talking about. She continued to yell at him and scream about _The Beach_ , and a fire, and a bloody rock, but none of it made any sense. Just before his car slammed into the retaining wall of a bridge abutment he had heard what sounded like someone crashing through the door of the apartment.

Jennifer heard the door crash inwards and dropped the phone. In a panic she began to run, but slipped in the puddle on the floor. Her feet went out from underneath her and she fell backwards fast and hard. On the way down her arms flailed about wildly trying to grasp at anything to stop her fall, but instead one of her hands knocked the fire extinguisher off of the desk where she had set it. The extinguisher slammed her in the nose just as the back of her head hit the tile floor.

"Famous author Jennifer Dall is in a vegetative state after a fall in her home" announced the television reporter. "Her husband, Robert Dall, dies in a fiery crash on the L.I.E. But first, these cute puppies need a home..." The reporter's voice faded into the background noise of the crowded diner.

At the same time in SoHo a woman in a red dress unlocked the front door of a nondescript art gallery and prepared for another day of work. In a nook tucked away in the back corner a painting hung slightly askew...

The Drummer

by

Matthew C. Plourde

"Thank you," Aaron said as a patron dropped a copper coin into the tin.

Nesi examined the night's take and frowned. "Not so good these days," she said.

As Borrum packed his ocarina, he said, "Sign of the times..."

"It'll get better," Aaron said, though he wasn't sure.

Borrum grumbled.

"We'll get more work," Nesi said.

Aaron hesitated, not sure he wanted to tell his friends about the offer. "Well," he said, "I got this strange letter before we started tonight. It's an invitation from the king's court."

"The king?" Borrum snatched the invitation from Aaron's hand and examined the paper, as if it possessed mystical properties.

"Why would the king send you a letter?" Nesi asked as she swiped the invitation from Borrum.

Aaron shrugged. "I met him once... A long time ago."

"It says our musical talents are requested for a private performance!" Nesi said, beaming. "And we'll get paid fifty crowns!"

Borrum crossed his arms over his chest and said. "You weren't going to tell us about this?"

Aaron frowned. "I wasn't sure what to do. I mean, we're not exactly court material."

Nesi blinked and said, "For fifty crowns, I'll paint the whole castle if the king asks!"

The trio made the short trip through the cobblestone streets to the castle. After showing their invitation to a guard, they were escorted inside and deposited into a banquet hall. Torchlight attempted in vain to illuminate the nooks and alcoves. Banners from a long-removed time of glory watched  
over the empty room. The remains from the night's feast littered the tables, but nobody from the castle attended the mess or visitors.

After a few minutes, a teen-aged boy entered alone. Dressed like a servant, the boy's clam grey eyes and olive skin betrayed him – Aaron recognized his king.

"Please, sit," the king said as he motioned to some empty chairs. His voice was as serene as a morning pond. "But do not relax. We have little time."

"Who are you?" Borrum asked before Aaron could stop his friend.

"My apologies," Aaron said. "Borrum didn't recognize you, your eminence."

Borrum and Nesi gasped.

The king held his palm towards them and said, "Please, you may ignore the formalities. I am here to ask you a terrible thing."

Nesi and Aaron exchanged glances, though neither spoke.

"As you know, these are troubled times," the king said. "The empire my father built is crumbling and his enemies draw near. Time is short, perhaps even for me. There is one man my father trusted - King Tritus of Vellium. All my attempts to send King Tritus a message have failed as my enemies are here in the castle as well."

The king paused to look into everyone's eyes. Then, he said, "I need you to brave the treacherous journey and deliver my message to King Tritus." He pushed a small envelope towards Aaron.

When nobody responded, the king smiled at Nesi and said, "I know this is not your kingdom - yours lies far to the south, in the Endless Forest."

Nesi looked at the letter, unable to meet the king's gaze. She longed for the home she had abandoned.

"And you," the king said, turning to Borrum. "You served with Aaron's father in the Thousand Year War. I commend your bravery."

Borrum grunted. "My dishonorable discharge says otherwise."

"Nonsense. You fulfilled your friend's dying wish," the king said, turning his attention to Aaron. "You abandoned your commission to watch over your friend's only son."

Aaron's thoughts wandered to the day Borrum told him of his father's death. At the time, Aaron was on the street – abandoned by both his parents.

"Aaron," the king said, "I remember you."

"How's that possible?" Aaron said. "You were an infant."

"Oh, I remember your unique gift."

"Gift?" Nesi asked.

"Yeah," Aaron said. "The guards rounded us up - to pay homage to the newborn heir. I had nothing... Nothing except my drum. I was about to hand it over when I saw the heralds \- they had horns of the brightest gold and drums aplenty."

"You grew into a man that day," the king said.

"What did you do?" Nesi asked.

Smiling at the memory, Aaron said, "I played my drum for him."

The king smiled too. "You, unlike everyone else, realized that a gift need not be one of gold or worldly things. This is something my people have forgotten, and I cannot think of a better person to help me in my time of need."

Aaron fumbled with his words as he reached for the envelope. "I... I don't know what to say."

The king touched Aaron's hand and said, "Say you'll help me and my heart will rest easy this night."

Aaron met the king's eyes, though he knew it was a crime. He hadn't realized his gift left such a lasting impression.

"Why do you put your faith in me?" Aaron asked. "I'm nobody important."

"But – you are," the king said. "You grew from your dire beginnings into a man of virtue. The song you played for me when I was a child was more than mere music – it was a sharing of your soul. I doubt I can ever repay my debt to you... and it saddens me to ask of you this favor, however I know my trust is well-placed. You have strength in you, Aaron. Everyone else sees it. Perhaps it's time you do as well."

Aaron filled with hope at hearing the king's words – a vote of confidence beyond any he had ever been given. Aaron decided to turn his eye inward, attempting to see what the king saw in him - was there anything of value? Perhaps this journey would tell.

"We will deliver the message," Aaron said, sure of his path for the first time in his wanderlust life.

"I know you will," the king said.

Skin

by

Dave Elsensohn

The nigh-wolves have pursued her for ten kilometers at a dead run. She wonders when the Skin will be out of breath.

They are not much like wolves, actually. The baying of wolves has fewer hisses and less chittering, and wolves use all four legs to run at such speed, and wolves, as far as she can remember from the Memcache, have more fur and less chitin, and wolves are extinct in any case. Still, these are predatory, and they pursue, to catch and rend and devour with strong jaws and what might be teeth.

She has not always thought of herself as a _she_ , for that matter. That is a recent event. Yesterday, _it_ had been exploring as it was grown, molded, taught and assigned to do, and decided to be a _she_ , or at least arrived at that identity through deduction. (It is just as well; human sexual dualism had been reluctantly discarded once the total of possible landing points on the sexual continuum had passed six.) Her breasts are present, but small and nonfunctional; there is no need for them, not for her, not for her purpose. She lacks external genitalia, so feels she belongs among the _shes_ , and she likes the feeling of it. It fits her, like the Skin.

[memcache repos recsync 'EvoMorph Somatosensory Nanodermis' : The Skin is slightly thicker than one thirty thousandth of the width of a human hair. It keeps itself infinitesimally repelled from the body with its own energy; always adjacent, never touching. It protects from extremes in temperature, and spreads moisture and heat throughout the wearer's body until it reaches glandular interfaces, feeding fluid back into the mouth or the eyes. Its nanoplates change color to reflect or absorb light, which causes the wearer to appear... : end]

She whips between scaled, tubular growths that are the closest thing to a tree this planet allows. They emit a hollow thump when she careens into them. The Skin receives the impact warning, sensing that surfaces within and without are sharing an alarmingly excessive approach velocity; it knots up in places to absorb and deflect damage that might result from such imperfectly elastic collisions. She is pleased about this behavior, but not at having been slowed down due to hitting the Tube Tree. She is lithe and strong and fast—the vats have made her this way—but the Skin is the only thing keeping her ahead of the nigh-wolves, and therefore still alive to perform her function.

Skin. Such is the apparatus that an evomorphed Explorevaluative Unit wears, always. It is all she has. She has no weapons, a fact of which she is painfully conscious, but she does have a sense of frantic need, as her exploration is nearly finished. She has few desires, being content to perform her assignment, but looks desperately forward to the cramped, dreamy silence of the liftship which will carry her back to the planet that created her. There are no windows on such a ship, nor on the dropship that placed her here; there is no need. There is no one awake to look out of them, and no light by which to see, until the dropship settles with a crunch onto a surface, opening like a dying leaf so its human can clamber out blinking in the light or squinting in the dark, Skin buzzing with absorbant glee.

[memcache repos reced auth oer^ghalnfiantêe (translated from the nkiktai). 'introducing earthian psychology' : when earthians impose themselves on their galactic surroundings, the human explorevaluative units are a secondary gesture... to potential new homeworlds, fairly primitive robotic platforms are sent first, creeping over the landscape, waving friendly antennae and recording observations, discovering whether anything needs to be killed or controlled or replaced... then, charmingly evomorphed humans are sent... these humans explore, gather anecdotal data, and are occasionally eaten by the indigenous entities that are overlooked by the friendly robotic platforms... we should not judge them for their carbon bias, but... kko17.14 : end]

She is trying not to be eaten, so plunges directly into a greenfield.

The continents on this planet are large islands with webbed fingers, heaved into smoky existence and made chemically pregnant by volcanoes. In a greenfield, spores paint the ground, billowing in yellowy green clouds as she runs over them. The Skin is put constantly to work keeping the spores out, before her lungs sprout luxuriant fungi and leave her dead but alive with new growth. She clicks down her eye membranes and holds her breath, which she can do for many thousands of heartbeats if need be.

[memcache repos reced auth Janiss Ben Haven (human). 'Becoming Transhuman: How We Evolved Away From Ourselves' : If a creature once developed something interesting through its own feeble, random mutations, and we thought it a good idea, we took it. We had been trying to armor ourselves against a universe that was so indifferent to our exploration; throwing ourselves against it to conquer it, we failed. Now, instead of wrapping ourselves in metal, ceramic and plastic, we changed ourselves. An EM Human's body is slim, muscular, and modified so that the level of nitrogen and oxygen present has less importance than the pressure. So far they perform with the highest level of success, and we can make enough of them not to worry about the expense. The Skin is the last protection, until we can evolve quickly enough to fully match new worlds. While there is not yet a necessity to provide a return... b283.7 : end]

Seven minutes later she bursts from the hazy cloud and sprints up a jagged, iron-colored ridge of ancient lava; the nigh-wolves click and hiss at her heels. They are not concerned about the spores. Her lungs scream at her as she draws in new air. Her legs burn. The Skin is becoming overtaxed, and will take a while to soak up enough weakly thrumming infrared light from the neighboring red giant star to handle something like another greenfield. She wonders if she will die. An odd event, she thinks, to be reduced to a primitive predator/prey relationship. She thinks perhaps humor might be associated with that, maybe even irony, but someone else would be needed to appreciate it.

She is not alone on this planet, at least not as of an orbit ago. A planet usually has a team of five assigned to it, although _team_ is a misnomer. The five humans are deposited all over the surface, to wander and discover, and will never see each other.

She has been here three years, and looks forward to the dreams on the way home.

The ravine stretches downward out of visible sight, and is wider than the dropship was tall. She leaps, and with the help of spiny growths the Skin suddenly adds to her fingertips, catches the rock wall on the opposite side. She clambers up, clenching her teeth in effort, and claws over the lip. She looks behind, and though she hasn't exercised her voice in several months, groans audibly. The ravine is not slowing the nigh-wolves; they scrabble down the rocky face.

Here, at least, she can pause, and decrement her pursuers.

When the Skin needs to be charged, she can throw messages up to a metallic glint in geostatic orbit far above. She has done this every few months. The glint would breathe in the local red giant, and emit a tight beam to the planet's surface, under which she would stand for long minutes with upturned palm, nanoplates rising like a sea of tiny pyramids to meet the divine light. The Skin is impervious to the beam. Hopefully the nigh-wolves aren't.

Lungs rasping painfully, she thinks her coordinates to the satellite and calls for a recharge. The beam hammers into the ground a meter behind her, and she backs up through it. She waits until the first slavering creature comes over the brink and gallops at her, hissing and chittering in victory.

She does not smile when the nigh-wolf runs through the beam, cleaving itself neatly in half, but she is grateful for the respite. It collapses with an insectoid scream, smelling of burning fur and chitin. The beam is good for two more of her pursuers, then she takes out her frustration on two more. She sidesteps a snapping set of jaws, reaches to grab underneath the creature's neck plate, and hauls upward; forty kilograms of snarling nigh-wolf is whirled away like a spinning dandelion. She catches another in mid-leap to snap its spine. The creatures continue to boil over the rim of the ravine.

Eventually, she will be overborne, and so again runs. She has always been moving. No place on a new planet is permanent, no matter how safe, how warm. No home. Explorevaluative Units in stasis do not obtain data. She, and the other four EUnits, have to travel, always, until they die or are transported home.

Lake. She dives into it, the Skin registering its temperature _[73.8˚C]_ , its chemical content _[water, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen chloride, hydrogen fluoride]_ , and its corrosive factor _[2.3 value pH scale]_. The Skin promptly seals up her eyes, nose, mouth and ears—all orifices—while it works out a reasonable method of pulling nutrients from this unfriendly soup. She cannot see the electric blue swirling around her, but the Skin has laid a wireframe map over the eerie waterscape. Spidery thermophiles float about her submerged body, feathery antennae brushing the Skin, unsure of its potential for edibility. Distantly she senses the nigh-wolves pulling up short, not liking the acidic stench, lining up along the bank to shriek at her in a demonic chorus. She cannot stay long. The Skin has its limits. This frothy blue liquid seeks to dissolve this new irritant like vinegar.

She emerges on the opposite bank, the Skin hissing its protest, and is alone. She climbs painfully past a thicket of purple shrubs that are sentient enough to be angry and almost mobile enough to do something about it. None of them, she knows, is edible. She crawls atop a black mesa of volcanic rock, curls up, and tries to recover. She does not sleep.

She could swear, if she knew what swearing was, that the Skin hums sometimes while it works. It flickers bits of itself like a furry shudder, clearing the hateful moisture, assessing the damage with a serious, worried mind. It does not have much of its energy to spare.

[memcache repos reced auth Janiss Ben Haven (human). 'Becoming Transhuman: How We Evolved Away From Ourselves' : One of the hardest things for humans to evolve was our communal nature. Hunter, gatherer, agroculturer, all in a structure that assumed a collective aim. Some few had learned to isolate, to deny themselves, but always replaced that void with a philosophy or faith. We are different now, and suffer no void. Perhaps we could be thankful for that, but to whom would those thanks go? h92.1 : end]

She knows how to be alone, to be patient, but still, traveling between worlds and living on them takes time, and humans, being aware of themselves, are aware of time. Society therefore is considerate enough to provide the entirety of human experience in several billion of the Skin's nanoplates. Books, treatises, missives, news documents, art. Rich vistas of color and sound can arise before her to entertain, to inform, to remind, and she prefers the experiences created not from observance, but from thought. She likes especially what they used to call _movies_ , as if to differentiate them from—what? Stationaries? She does not remember what the Memcache told her, but believes they used to be cast against a surface, like watery reflections on a cavern roof or the planet's magnetic field shimmering against the sky. She is immersed in movies more than watches them, their stories directly prodding and sparking her optic nerves. The earlier stories fascinate her; they render themselves in colorless light, like the photoreceptor rods in her eyes when the nocturnal cycle begins. She sighs. She cannot experience them now, for while her spirit needs distraction, the Skin is weak. She must lie, alone, silent, waiting, thinking.

She wants to go home.

She thinks of the five evomorphs who stumble over this world with her, and wonders if she is different from they. She wonders if her gaze lingers more on the gleam of the planet's rings, or on the massive scarlet sphere boiling up over the horizon. She wonders if they have lain on their stomachs, eyes close to the dirt in fascination, watching the tiny wars between bulbous, metallic worms and the pale, clicking myriapoda that want to eat and enslave them. She wonders if her fellow Units have taken the time to learn an ancient art of folding flexible membranes into shapes; instead of swans—she does not know what swans are—she creates circuit board patterns, flowering tesseracts, and dodecahedrons blossoming in her hand. She leaves them at the base of the tubular trees. She does not know if it is art, but thinks it important.

[memcache repos reced auth Alan Suaresh-Van Beck (human). 'Rhythmic Histories of Human Conquest, Eighth Volume' : Optimistic socioscientists calculate that humanity as a whole has reached a Kardashev value of 1.18, although our (first) planet had been scraped nearly dry before reaching this status. For some centuries only the 'civilized' and the 'wealthy' (retrieve these terms from the Memcache, if they are meaningless to you) lived above the surface like a patch of white snow [retrieve from Memcache 'snow'] not yet melted from the top of a scrap heap, while forty billion toiled and starved on an efflorescent surface. Then a Dyson Bloom was installed within the orbit of Mercury, millions of tiny mirrored insects swinging around the solar surface like twin shotput, whipping beams of energy back to our hungry third planet... : interrupt]

The Skin reports a problem. Damage is extensive to her limbs—the bites of the nigh-wolves and the lake have worked their will—and the Skin cannot compensate without further electromagnetic and thermal input from the orbiting satellite. Both are exhausted, for now. She is concerned, and the pain has begun to throb its way past her endorphins, but she will simply have to wait until the shiny glint can catch its breath during the next rotation period, and she can request another recharge.

The Skin's energy is dangerously low. She will have to remain still. She cannot make much use of its temperature adjustment, so curls her body into a tight sphere against the oncoming nocturnal cycle. The air will be cold at this altitude, but the planet's heat threads moodily through the ground. She wonders if she is the last one alive, or the first one to die.

_[memcache repos reced (continue) : The power of our local star had finally been harnessed. Wars over resources became obsolete, the concept of currency [retrieve from Memcache 'medium of exchange'] lost its station, and humanity scratched its head and did things_ for _itself instead of_ to _itself. We had made feeble proddings at our surroundings, capsules launched from different political states [retrieve from Memcache 'nation'] in competition with each other, but now we began to really explore. Hydrogen itself was culled to power ships to near-relativistic speeds, until intelligent humans cooperated with hyperintelligent tools to figure out how not to fly fast enough_ through _space, but_ within _space [retrieve from Memcache 'Alcubierre', 'apparent superluminal']. The old warlike urges and carbon-based chauvinism were difficult to leave behind, however. Homeland became homeworld, for a time. Flesh heals. Flesh is cheap. The old governments, the old militaries, understood this... : end]_

She has not been bred or approved for sexual relations, but her humanity is still there. Odd sensations, like a deeply buried itch in a phantom limb, would draw her hand to the crux of her legs and make her wonder what the other EUnits look like, where they fall on the continuum, whether they think the way she does. The old movies separate the _hes_ from the _shes_ , as if there could be only two sexes, and one chooses the other, or sometimes chooses its own, and a story is revealed: imagined. The stories have references to them called _titles_ , although she has to access the Memcache to recall them. The humans in the stories go through conflict, attraction, denial, trauma. They make decisions, have decisions made for them. They triumph, persevere, rejoice, weep, cope. They come together or are forced apart. They meet in fog, or in daylight. They look at each other under shadowy brims and declare love.

The Skin pauses in its work to bring an event to her attention. She lifts her head achingly from the rock, looks upward at the point of light.

[Transmission : Observation complete. Homeworld potentiality denied : return]

The Skin tosses a question upward: liftship?

[Negative : return]

The glint far above makes calculations, expands its sails, and begins to move on, away, to the next assignment. For it is more expensive in resources than she. She is to transmit data until no longer functional, like those poor melted machines on Venus. Data are useful.

Her eyes do not blur with tears, for the Skin picks up the moisture, cleanses it, and redirects it back into her glandular interfaces.

The Skin will never receive its recharge, so there is little point in prolonging its energy. She delves into the Memcache, retrieves one of her favorites, plunges it into her optic nerves. The Skin estimates about ninety-two minutes until the power will run out, and she will be truly alone and exposed to a planet which has been determined not to want her, or anyone like her.

She figures she can get to the scene where the grey _he_ in the hat chucks the young, glistening-eyed _she_ under her chin, and tells her he is looking at her.

.

Terry's Rope

by

Steven Novak

Terry hated his rope. He'd always hated his rope. Over the years his rope had become grimy and gross. He hated washing it. He knew that he needed to wash it, but washing it seemed like such a pain. The fibers were caked in a layer of dirt. It smelled like old socks filled with mayonnaise, like an old man's feet coated in guacamole and topped with a heaping spoonful of shame. His rope was a nuisance. He was always tripping over it, or getting it stuck beneath heavy objects, or tangling it with someone else's rope.

The tangled ropes of complete strangers?

_Ug._ That was the worst.

Always having to untangle his tangled rope was embarrassing. Terry hated the looks he'd get, the exaggerated sighs and the three-sixty eyes. He was forty-three years old and the days of awkward tangles should have been a thing of the past.

At breakfast one morning, Terry came to a decision. He was sick of his rope. He was tired of dragging it around. He couldn't stand the sight of it, or the stench, and he was going to do something about it.

The time had come to take a stand.

Terry looked up from his plate of eggs, steadied his resolve and slammed his fork onto the table. "That's it! I'm done! I can't do this shit anymore!"

The sudden explosion took his wife by surprise. Terry had always been a mild mannered sort of man, maybe a bit soft, even. In all their years of marriage he'd only raised his voice on two non-consecutive occasions. The first time was when he was laid off from his comfy position as foreman at Al & Al's Son Construction. The second was when he broke his leg playing football with their son, Erik. Terry was an honest man, quiet and uncomplicated and simple, and these were the very reasons his wife married him in the first place.

She didn't particularly like seeing him worked up. It didn't suit him.

"Can't do what? What's wrong now, Terry?"

Terry pointed at his ankle. "This is what's wrong, Edith! This thing! This stupid thing tied to my leg! I'm sick of this thing!"

When his wife didn't respond, Terry lifted his leg and deposited it on the table. Forgetting that he wasn't the least bit flexible, he managed to pull his groin while doing so.

Grunting, he ignored the pain and wrapped his hand around the rope tied to his ankle, and shook it in the general direction of his wife. "I can't wear this stupid thing anymore! I can't do it!"

Edith was confused. "What? Your rope? You're tired of your rope?"

"Yes my rope!"

Edith shook her head and sighed. Her eyes did the three-sixty thing he hated so very much. Her lack of reaction succeeded only in making him angrier.

Edith had never taken him seriously. He was sick of her not taking him seriously.

"That's silly. Stop being silly. You can't be tired of your rope. And even if you were, so what? It's your rope. It's not like you can do anything about it."

"Yeah, it's my rope. So what?"

"What do you mean so what?"

"So what if it's my rope, Edith? Have you ever stopped to wonder why we have these things in the first place? I mean, we're born and the very first thing anyone does is tie a rope to our ankles? That doesn't seem just a little stupid to you? They cut us free of our mothers and they immediately tie us to something else? Why? Why do they do that, Edith?"

Edith shrugged.

Terry didn't appreciate her shrug.

With a frustrated huff, he moved to the opposite side of the room, grabbed hold of his rope and began to swing it angrily. "Where do these things even go? Where do they lead? What the hell are we tied to anyway? Did you ever stop to think about that? Did you? Ever? Why can't I just untie myself, Edith? Huh? What about that? Why can't I remove this stupid thing from my ankle?"

Edith shrugged again. "Because it's double-knotted?"

Terry wanted to scream. He wanted to run across the room, grab the stupid broken toaster that was always burning his toast and throw it through the window! He wanted to kick the refrigerator! He wanted to bust his chair and whack his wife over the head with the broken leg! He wanted to use the stupid rope around his ankle to wipe his butt! He wanted to grab his wife by the shoulders and shake even a modicum of common sense into her!

Unfortunately, none of it would make any difference.

Edith didn't care about the ropes. No matter what he said to her, or how he said it, or how long he said it for, she was never going to understand what he was saying. The fact that the ropes existed was enough for her and it was always going to be enough. It was pointless.

It didn't matter.

For maybe the first time in his life, Terry knew exactly what he needed to do. It was his turn to sigh and roll his eyes. He was going to shake things up. He needed to shake things up. He hadn't shaken anything in years and the things in his life needed some serious shaking.

Terry grabbed hold of his rope and headed for the front door. "I don't know when I'll be back, but I'll be back as soon as I can."

Now Edith was really confused. "What? Wait a minute! Where do you think you're going?"

When her husband didn't respond, Edith rose from the breakfast table in a huff. She chased him through the living room and onto the lawn. When she caught up with him, she snagged him by his wrist and spun him around. "Answer me, Terry! Where are you going?"

"I can't do this anymore. I'm following the rope. I'm going to follow this stupid rope until I reach the end."

It was an idiotic suggestion. It was insane. It was lunacy. Clearly her husband had gone mad. "W-w-what? You can't ju-s-just. I mean, you can't just follow..."

Edith placed her hand on Terry's head to see if he was running a fever. He immediately brushed it away.

"I'm not sick, damn it! In fact, for the first time in my life I think I might be seeing things clearly. I know what I have to do, and what I have to do is follow this rope."

Edith's hand went right back to her husband's forehead. "No you're not. You're burning up Terry! You very clearly have a fever and you're talking nonsense! Come back inside and I'll call Doctor Kaplan."

Terry shrugged her off and ran awkwardly into the street. The time for discussion was over. Edith followed him as far as the sidewalk before she stopped. The neighbors were watching the spectacle unfold from their respective lawns. The yelling had stirred the hornets from their nests. Edith could feel their collective eyes upon her, shaking their heads in disgust and judging her. "Damn it, Terry! This is wrong! You can't do this! Everyone is watching! This isn't how people act!"

Terry didn't answer. He could hear his wife screaming, but he didn't care. When his neighbors began shouting obscenities, he ignored them. When they started to throw rocks, he did his best to dodge.

For three solid weeks, Terry followed his rope.

Sometimes he ran and sometimes he walked. When he was tired, he stopped to sleep. When he was hungry, he grabbed a bite to eat. Word of what he was doing spread quickly. When the media picked up the story he became a national sensation. When his story hit the web it went viral. In no time at all, the whole world was watching. The late night talk shows poked fun at him. Right-wing nutjobs called him an anarchist. The left-wing wackos called him a right-wing nutjob.

It made for compellingly stupid television.

When Terry wasn't running the reporters jogged beside him, shoving their cameras in his face and clamoring for an interview.

"Why are you doing this?"

"What exactly do you hope to accomplish?"

"What do you think you'll find?"

"You are aware that the rope is double-knotted, aren't you?"

Terry ignored them. They were just like his wife. They wouldn't have understood his answers anyway. He was deeper than them now. He was breaking the mold and doing his own thing. He was exactly what he'd never been.

He was a rebel.

A police escort followed Terry for the first week and a half before the Army stepped in to take their place. Though the authorities kept an eye on his every move, at no point did anyone intervene. The Feds whispered secretly into their walkie-talkies and the soldiers stayed their itchy trigger fingers. Any one of them could have shot a bullet through his skull and splattered his brains across the cement, and yet, none of them did.

Terry wasn't sure why.

He thought it best not to think about.

After a month of traveling, Terry followed his rope into a forest the next state over and almost immediately the soldiers backed off. The Feds clicked off their walkie-talkies and the reporters dropped their microphones.

Once again, Terry wasn't sure why.

Once again, he thought it best to ignore.

After nearly a day and a half of trudging through the forest, his empty belly rumbling and his legs sore, Terry arrived at a massive pit in an open field. It was enormous, and it was circular, and it was miles wide. Millions of ropes descended on this single area from every direction, emerging from the trees before sinking into the blackness of the gargantuan opening in the earth. To Terry, it seemed as if all the ropes in the world had converged on this single place. He'd never seen anything like it. He'd never even imagined anything like it. It was incredible. It was impressive. It was terrifying.

He swallowed deep.

Terry could have stopped there – _maybe he should have._

He could have turned around and headed home, and hoped that his wife forgave him. He could have made his apologies to the authorities and blamed it all on heat stroke, or even a drinking problem like Mel Gibson. He could have begged for his job back and maybe he would have even gotten it.

He could have done any of that, but he didn't.

Instead, Terry walked to the edge of the hole, grabbed a handful of ropes and began his descent.

Ten minutes into his climb he passed the ghostly image of the girl who cheated on him in college. She grinned at him from the shadows, winked and blew him a kiss. She then lifted her shirt, flashed him her perky ethereal boobs and hopped into a car with three drunk frat boys. _Bitch._

Five minutes later he saw himself in high school, standing in the back of the room during prom in his rented tux and trying his damndest to look like he hadn't come alone. He watched as the captain of the football team pantsed him. _Asshole._

Ten minutes after that a much younger version of his father floated from the surrounding black. The vaporous image stopped three feet away, put its hands on its hips and shook its head.

"What the hell are you doing, Terry?"

"Leave me alone, dad."

"You're acting like an idiot son. I mean, seriously, what are you thinking? What is any of this supposed to accomplish? Your mother and I are very disappointed in you. You know that right? This isn't how we raised you."

Terry grit his teeth. "Please don't start in with that again. I'm trying to climb here. I don't need this crap right now."

"You know those ropes are double-knotted , don't you son?"

Terry stopped climbing and turned to his hovering ghost-parent. "Yes! I know that the damn ropes are double-knotted! I'm sick of everyone telling me that they're double-knotted! So what? Who cares? Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? Who gives a shit?"

Terry's mother emerged immediately from the shadows, floated alongside her husband and waved her indistinct finger in Terry's direction. "Don't you dare talk to your father that way, mister!"

When Terry reached the bottom of the pit he was out of breath. His arms were sore and he'd pulled at least three muscles in his back – maybe four. If he'd had any knowledge whatsoever about the actual number of muscles in the human back, he might have been able to make a more accurate count. On top of it all, the friction from the ropes had peeled the skin from his palms, leaving them bloody and throbbing.

The bottom of the pit was essentially a cave. This was a bit disappointing for Terry. After running across ghostly versions of his parents and ex-lovers, and the asshole that pulled down his pants at prom during the descent he was expecting something a bit more substantial.

There was just rocks though – a bunch of rocks.

It was a letdown.

Terry cautiously followed the ropes deeper into the cave. He passed through five or six more tunnels that eventually emptied into a surprisingly spacious alcove. In the center of the rocky room there sat a throne and seated on the throne was the devil.

How did Terry know it was the devil?

Well, because it looked exactly like the devil.

The creature's skin was bright red. There was a pair of sharp, ivory horns protruding from the top of its head and whipping from underneath its buttocks was a tail. It was also holding a pitchfork. There was a particularly curly mustache too.

That pretty much sealed it.

It was the devil all right.

It couldn't have been anything else.

The devil however, did not agree. "I'm not the devil."

"What?

"I'm not the devil. You're thinking that I'm the devil because of the way I look, but I'm not the devil, no matter what the narrator says. In fact, the reason I look so much like the devil really says a hell of a lot more about you than it does me."

The thing Terry previously believed to be the devil chuckled. "Get it?"

"Get what?"

"What I did right there? Get it? When I said the word hell? Because you thought I was the devil? Get it?"

Terry scratched his head. "Huh? I-I don't understand." He really didn't.

Not-the-devil scratched its horns and sighed. "Listen, it's like this; if you had wanted me to look like country music sensation Tim McGraw, I would have looked like country music sensation Tim McGraw. I'm not the devil. I'm just who you need me to be."

Terry didn't respond. He couldn't. He was confused.

Not-the-devil decided to ignore it and move on. "Why are you even here, Terry? You're not the guy who should be here. There are a lot of people I expected to see down here one day, and honestly, you're pretty low on the list. This isn't your style."

"How do you know my style?"

"Trust me, I know your style. I know everything about your style."

Terry was quickly growing annoyed. "I followed my rope. I needed to know where it led."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did."

"No you didn't. You're not the kind of person that wonders about the ropes. You're the kind of person that needs the ropes. You can't live without the ropes."

"No-no-no! That's not true! I'm sick of the stupid ropes! I'm the guy who followed my rope! Has anyone else ever bothered to follow the ropes? No! I did that! Me! I've been following it for weeks!"

Not-the-devil smiled, reached up and began to twiddle the pointy edges of its amazingly well manicured mustache. "Let's be honest, that's not really what happened, is it?"

"Yes it is."

"Nope. You got a bug up your ass and you set out on a little adventure, that's all. It's sort of charming, really. It doesn't mean that you understand anything about the ropes or that you really want to understand anything about the ropes. This is a mid-life crisis at best. It's a brain fart."

"What? A brain fart? Shut up!"

"No."

"Yes! Shut up! This isn't any brain fart!"

"Yes it is."

Terry had moved beyond mere annoyance. Now he was angry. "Where do you get off saying something like that about me? You don't know me! I came here to get this stupid rope off of my leg and I'm not leaving until I get this stupid rope off of my leg!"

"Yes you are."

"No I'm not! Stop telling me what I'm going to do!"

"I don't know if you've noticed, Terry, but that rope's tied with a double-knot . Do you have any idea how much of a pain in the ass it is to untie one of those? It'll take you hours."

Terry's hands coiled into fists. His lip curled up and he bared his teeth. "You're sort of an asshole, you know that, right?"

Not-the-devil grinned. "If I'm an asshole it's because you made me that way."

Terry had heard enough. Without thinking he charged forward and kicked the red-skinned creature across from him between the legs. Not-the-devil screamed in pain. The creature grabbed its crotch and tumbled immediately to the dirt.

Terry hovered over his fallen foe and pointed his finger in its direction. "There! How do you like that? How's that for a midlife crisis you son of a bitch! I'll show you who doesn't know anything about the damn ropes!" He then snatched Not-the-devil's pitchfork from the dirt, lifted it above his head, and used it to slice his rope in two.

"Suck on that you red-skinned piece of shit! Guess who's doesn't have a rope anymore?" With a smile so wide it looked almost comical, Terry pointed his thumbs at his chest. "That's right, this guy!"

Not-the-devil groaned. "You're making a big mistake, Terry."

"Whatever. You're the guy rolling around on the ground holding his nuts."

Not-the-devil couldn't help but chuckle. "I don't have any nuts."

"Wait. What? So you're..."

"Yep, I'm a woman. You just kicked me in the vagina."

"What about your mustache?"

Not–the-devil rolled her eyes and sighed. "I don't know. You tell me, smart guy. It was your oddball perversions that gave it to me."

So, the devil was a woman.

This was the first thing in a long time that made perfect sense to Terry.

Cut free from his rope and realizing he didn't have time to dwell on the fact that he'd just kicked a mustached devil-lady in her puss, Terry turned around and bolted back through the caverns. He ignored the pain in his tired legs and ran as fast as he could manage. When he reached the rope-covered pit he climbed and continued climbing until he saw sunlight. When he exited the forest, the reporters and the army and the Feds were waiting for him. They wedged their microphones in his face and spit their questions in hurried bundles.

"What did you see down there?"

"What happened to your rope?"

"Where do the ropes lead?"

"How did you get past the double-knot ?"

Terry ignored them all. For the first time in his life he felt free. For the first time in his life he felt strong! He'd not only challenged the status quo, but he'd kicked it square in the hoo-ha! He could go anywhere and he could do anything! He could be anyone he wanted to be! He was free of the ropes and he was reborn! The possibilities were endless.

He needed to tell his wife.

He needed to see the look on her face when she finally realized just what kind of man he was.

It took Terry half the time to find his way home that it had taken him to find the rope hole and kick the lady devil that lived there in the baby maker. He still wasn't sure what any of it was supposed to mean, but he honestly didn't care. By the time he arrived at his house he was tired. His back was sore, the muscles in his legs had long since transformed to spaghetti, and he was having trouble catching his breath.

After a bit of searching around his house he discovered that his wife wasn't home. It was still early. She hadn't returned from driving Erik to school. _Damn it._

He really wanted to rub everything that had happened in her face. It would have to wait.

Terry hobbled upstairs, plopped onto his bed and drifted to sleep. He dreamt mostly of kicking people in the crotch.

When he finally woke, Edith was standing at the foot of the bed and tying a rope to his ankle. By the time Terry realized what was happening it was already too late.

She'd used a double-knot .

Terry shoved her away. "No-no-no! What are you doing?" His hands went to the knot and his fingers began to fidget. It was no use. His wife had tied it tight and she'd tied it twice. It would have taken him hours to work it loose.

"Edith, why? Wh-why would you do that? Do you have any idea what I went through to get that thing off of my leg?"

Edith crossed her arms and shook her head. "Oh, no. Yes I do. I saw the news. I saw what happened. You don't get to walk around here without a rope like you own the joint. That's not how this works, Terry." She poked a finger into her husband's chest. "If I've got a rope, you've got a rope. That's marriage. That's what you signed up for and that's all there is to it."

When she left the room, Edith slammed the door.

The next day Terry apologized to the authorities. He drove to work and begged for this job back. On the way home he bought his wife some flowers. He also stopped caring about the ropes. The ropes were stupid. Everyone had them and everyone seemed okay with having them.

Why should he be any different?

He also never kicked anyone else in the groin.

Someone kicked him, though.

The Muse

by

MJ Heiser

Blowing in his ear was like blowing on a boulder. She hadn't been able to get anything done since she'd first encountered him -- but that wasn't going to keep her from trying.

After all, in him, she saw the perfect vessel for her art, her poetry, her prose. She needed him. All Muses needed a medium, and he was hers, as surely as the night belonged to the moon.

She kept trying. He was a hard man, old from the moment of his birth, his loose flesh scored by wrinkles by the age of 30. He was not beautiful. His back was covered in wiry black hair, and tufts of the same bloomed in his ears and nose. His eyes were the darkest brown and yellowed like old parchment. He looked through them at the world with suspicion and deep misgiving.

But Muses didn't see this surface stuff when they looked at humans. They saw what was inside, the playground, the tool chests. She saw in him a wonderland of vocabulary and a mind-boggling grasp of how to structure a story. More than the raw gifts, however, she saw deep, fathomless, and unrequited affection for a pretty girl.

She knew he wrestled with this affection. She knew the depths of his despair and frustration. And she also knew that he would have given up this obsession if it hadn't been for the fact that his darling was deeper and smarter than most of her contemporaries, and had as profound an adoration of the written word as he did. She worked in a bookstore. As a result of her occupational choice, he found an apartment near the bookstore and spent at least one full day a week there, drinking coffee at the cafe and browsing the stacks near her customer service desk.

Winter was beginning to fade from the edges of this cozy, almost perpetual scene of want and worry when the Muse finally decided she had to take drastic measures. Usually, she was fond of the plight of the unrequited pairs in the world; they served her, because such tragedy and twisted hope produced the most poignant and heartbreaking art she could drum up. This time, however, it was running counter to her purposes in using this human. The vision of this woman blocked his creativity and made him useless to her. She had to clear the distracting hurdle for him. She had to get these two together.

But how to go about it?

There was only one way. She had to appear to him.

There was great risk in doing this for most mortals. Muses are, after all, dazzling and beautiful to them, and, as their names implied, inspirational to the extreme. Most men couldn't handle the vision without losing their mind.

Her own human, however, was not like the rest. He was hard and cold with only the one exception.

She unveiled on a Tuesday, right after the sun began to shine in the downtown park and thaw the frost off the branches. The light had come in through the crusty and neglected glass of his window, shining on the dingy, matted carpet, and he had just stirred from his sleep. It was the day for patrolling the bookstore. His Lady was on duty. It was the right time.

"What the --?"

"Hail, human," she said, her voice bright, her hair so blonde it almost seemed silver as it cascaded in loose curls to the small of her back. Her bright blue eyes fell on him with no revulsion or fear, no recoil in her at all. She smiled. She laughed, a tinkling, bell-like noise in the sad stillness.

"What are you?" He breathed, pressing back against the wall next to his narrow bed.

"I am your Muse."

"What do you want?" His voice was low and cynical, even in the face of her startling appearance and certain loveliness.

"I want your mind."

***

_I will not say the words I am expected to say_

_I will not conform to this commercial Saint's Day_

_I wanted only to watch you read my words_

_I wanted only to see the effects of them on your face_

_How to describe that face? Again, the words fail me_

_Like staring into the sun, I cannot tarry long_

_And like the sun, the afterimage lingers_

_Just a brief exposure to you, and my eyes are full_

_My mind is seared, my soul is right again_

"Who's it from?" Patrice asked Sylvie. They had been fast friends since the younger girl had started working at the bookstore. It may have had more than a little bit to do with the fact that they both had French-sounding names, and both adored the work of Virginia Woolf and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Patrice had been surprised to find such sophisticated tastes in a woman under 30.

Sylvie shrugged and chewed on her lower lip. "I dunno. No name."

"So a secret admirer, then?"

"Yeah."

Patrice regarded her friend. She was pretty, sure, but she wasn't dazzlingly pretty. She was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and had a face that leant itself to brooding. She didn't smile very often. She didn't speak to many people. She wore dark colors, like the deep, eggplant purple top and black slacks she was wearing today. She was only _this much_ too cute to be Goth, but it was a close thing. The overall assessment was that she was in no way the kind of girl that attracted secret admirers.

"And how do you feel about that?"

Sylvie winced. There was confusion there. "I -- I don't know. I mean, I like the poem. Okay, I more than like the poem. But I don't know who it is. I've never been good at this."

"But you do like it?"

"The poem? I've already said I do."

"No, the . . .helplessness of it. The Cyrano de Bergerac of it."

Twin spots of color flashed on Sylvie's cheeks.

"So -- who would you want it to be?"'

Sylvie frowned again, and the color faded. "What do you mean?"

"If it could be anybody, who would you want it to be?"

Sylvie shrugged, but Patrice could tell her mind was working. The younger girl looked around at all the sheep grazing through the books around their customer service desk. There was a lot of new traffic lately, shoppers trying to find a special gift for what the unknown poet called the "commercial Saint's Day." Still, she could see the regular customers, too. The overweight empty-nest housewife was pawing through the recipe books and jotting down her notes. She thought she was being sly, but Patrice knew. Everybody knew. The high school kids that skipped class once a week were hanging out in the young adult section, sprawled out on the sofas, chatting about the vampires they thought they loved. And the guy, that intense guy with the hungry eyes and rumpled clothes, was sitting in "his" chair, sipping his coffee, just like always.

\--Except . . .

That wasn't quite right. He seemed jittery. Nervous. Even more unhappy than usual.

Patrice was going to mention it to Sylvie when she noticed the younger girl was glancing at him, too. But . . .differently. More often. As if she was checking on him to make sure he was still there.

"Sylvie?"

"Huh?"

"I asked, who would you want it to be?" Except that Patrice already knew the answer, and as strange and unnatural as that was -- he wasn't Brad Pitt, or Romeo, or even Heathcliff -- it was, oddly, _right_.

Sylvie lifted the letter a little and waved it imperceptibly at the man with the hungry eyes. Patrice watched as those eyes grew wider, and he dipped his face behind a book. She moved her regard back to Sylvie, who was blushing and smiling softly.

"Ah. Never mind, then."

***

The Muse watched from outside the bookstore. She had been watching all day, safely cloaked in invisibility again, as her human bided his time for his Lady. He would not approach during the day, when so many could bear witness to his humiliation. He would watch. He would wait. And if she did not seem to be repulsed by his gift (written with the Muse's help, of course), then he would speak to her, at long last.

The shadows of night had drawn themselves close to the windows, and finally he made his move. The store was quiet now, and the Muse watched the muted exchange. He approached the object of his worship, trembling from the top of his balding head to the worn-down soles of his shoes. For her part, the Lady was blushing, her eyes darting from him to the counter of her desk and back to him again. He began to speak. She began to listen. She smiled.

He smiled.

And when he smiled, his face was transformed from that map of lines and crags to a handsome thing, brilliant, joyful. He reached out to shake her hand, still awkward in the ways of romance, and she let her own hand be taken. The touch lingered . . .lengthened . . .

And the Muse knew she had him.

"Enjoy, mortal," she whispered, sincerely happy for his happiness. "Enjoy, because tomorrow, we work."

### The End

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