Flash fiction: Inciting Incident

HROUGHOUT the Huldrealm, preparations for the Chosen One's imminent appearance were underway. The hidden entrance behind the abandoned church was swept and tidied and discreetly garnished with violets and tuberose petals, festooned with crystalline rocks that glowed subtly in the darkness to light the Chosen One's way. The clearing into which the Chosen One would enter, pushing through the choicest cobwebs and the ferniest undergrowth, was exquisitely misty and mossy and mushroomed. The Hulda fiddler tuned his instrument to entice to the wild dance, and the Hulda bakers created a magnificent twenty-layer pavlova lashed with passionfruit jam and dotted with silver dragées that would drive any child into a mad sugar frenzy.

But the Chosen One was playing Candy Crush on her phone that day, and did not come.

Puzzled but undaunted, the Hulda tried again. In a few years, they prepared another entrance through an overgrown bike path at the end of the Chosen One's street. Beyond it, in a meadow lush with long grasses and purple wildflowers, waited a glorious coal-black mount, fiercely wild yet willing to accept an apple in tribute, and prepared to convey the Chosen One deeper into the secret recesses of the mystic Huldrealm.

But the Chosen One was posting pictures on social media that day, and again she did not come.

Now carefully considering their options, the Hulda next spun up a castle of ice and moonlight (accessible through the disused final stall in the high school's basement restroom) and in its exact center, like the stamen of a frozen flower, arose the ever-youthful ruler of the Huldrealm -- snow-haired, sloe-eyed and fine in deep blue silks, haughty, sometimes cruel, but possessed of a feral beauty and grace, and obsessed with dancing.

But the Chosen One was busy texting her crush that day, and again she did not come.

So time passed, and again and again all the beings of the Huldrealm expertly stitched together scenarios of tantalizing and dangerous enchantment, always close by and discoverable with just the tiniest bit of digging -- and the Chosen One simply refused to dig.

Until one particular day like any other, a fifty-year-old woman with bushy hair graying around her temples stumbled into the most hidden sanctum of the Hulda royal palace without anyone noticing.

"Wait," cried the palace guard, "how did you get in here?"

"Well," said the Chosen One, shrugging, "it's the weekend, there's an electrical storm and all my devices went down. I had nothing to do and I guess... I guess I was just bored, so..."

Fiction: Bob the Human

[LONG-WINDED PREFACE: A while back, for about a hot second, I had a Reddit account (before realizing it wasn't really my thing) and used it to post a short story that got some positive interest, which is always nice. Since I don't have it posted anywhere else, I thought, "well, why not here?"

There are two types of fiction I find particularly difficult to write. One is science fiction; while I love reading it, I can't always wrap my brain around all the implications of certain scientific concepts and how they would mesh with -- or transform -- human nature. Nor is it easy for me to try to think the way a truly alien intelligence might think. It's a challenge. The other type of fiction that's hard for me to write is pure dialogue. So of course, right out of the gate I posted a short SF story that is ALL dialogue. Never let it be said that I'm not up for a self-made challenge or two.]

 

BOB THE HUMAN
(originally published under the name a-skyful-of-stars)
(Click here to hear Miandis and his mom read "Bob the Human" on YouTube)

"Well, that's done. Our course is all laid in and executed; the ship does the rest. From here on out to the Nebula it's pretty quiet."

"Sounds like we'll have orbits of free time. Care to play a game?"

"No, thanks. Between my memory and my clan's, we've played every game in this ship's database at least two hundred times."

"What about stories?"

"Only if you've got a new one."

"Hmm. Want to hear about the prank the 15-gen Threz pulled on the Grati?"

"Is this the one about filling their entire hall with foam putty?"

"So you've heard it then."

"Way too many times."

"How about the time the ghost of Jorit 2 Makh the Exemplar came back to haunt the Retmer clan?"

"Uh. That was another Threz prank, wasn't it?"

"What can I say? We Threz like pranks."

"Sorry, we Dorg spend too much time worrying about cargo and all the things that can go wrong with a ship to appreciate pranks."

"Well. Hmm. I suppose I could tell you about Bob the Human."

"… uh, that one is not familiar. What about Bob the Human?"

"Well, it started 3 gens ago with Threz 37 Norcim, my clancestor. Fought in the Human War. We honestly thought that with our superior tech, the whole thing would be over in a half-orbit or so. Turned out we were right, but not for the right reasons. In our defense, every clan of Finayar underestimated how the humans would fight under pressure."

"Yeah, two of my clancestors were pilots in the Human War. Our memories of humans are frightening. The things they did, even with grossly inferior weapons… nngh."

"Well, anyway, once the war had come to a standstill and the Finayaran ambassadors had worked out the treaty with them, Norcim signed up for the Finayaran Exchange. Honestly, we didn't really want to get to know humans, but the terms of the treaty demanded it -- and we were promised a sizable land grant on a colony world once we'd completed the exchange. So we agreed to stay for one Earth orbit. And that's how we met Bob the Human."

"Bob was your exchange host?"

"No, no. Our host was Anne. Very friendly and attentive to Norcim -- a bit too attentive, honestly -- weirdly interested in Finayarans, so we were constantly looking for valid reasons to leave her dwelling. We met Bob one night in a communal drinking hall -- a 'bar,' if Norcim's memory serves. Bob came right up to us with a large blue bottle -- he admitted later he was a little, uh, 'plastered' at the time -- and said, 'Hey there, Finnie, you gotta try some of this stuff. Cures rabies, scabies and babies!'"

"Ra-bies…?"

"Well, rabies and scabies are both Earth illnesses. Babies… well, that was the primary reason Norcim didn't want to get to know humans. I assume you’ve heard the rumors?"

"What, that they… uh… that they reproduce…"

"Mm-hmm. Full-on sexual reproduction. They're even sexually dimorphous."

"Ugh. Like animals?"

"Yup. It's why we assumed we could colonize Earth. Sapient species just don't reproduce sexually."

"That's kind of disgusting."

"Do you know, it's even disgusting to them? Bob told us that when young humans learn about their species' own reproductive behavior for the first time, they usually find it repulsive."

"Wait, so… how are they coerced to mate?"

"We asked Bob about that. He said, 'Oh, you get used to it. Matter of fact, usually the trick's getting us to stop mating.'"

"Oh, that is SO NASTY!"

"Ha! At least they usually mate in private."

"So if they, uh, mate instead of dividing -- then each new gen of theirs begins with no clan memories?"

"Exactly right."

"Glorious Finayar. How do they survive?"

"Good question. Young humans are frighteningly altricial. They can't walk or speak or do much of anything for themselves. So for the first several orbits of their lives, their closest clancestors do everything for them, including sheltering them, feeding them nutriment and removing what they eliminate. Every gen of young must be taught language, behavior, how to survive, and they're constantly supervised, because they don't even know enough not to throw themselves into deep water or play with intense heat. It's an exhausting process."

"Their clancestors must resent them."

"Norcim thought so too, at first. But over time we observed that humans instinctively care more about the beings for whom they sacrifice, not less. So the more trouble clancestors take to care for their young, to ensure their survival, the more emotional connection they have for those young."

"Hmm. Still seems like a lot of trouble. Parthenogenesis is much more efficient."

"It certainly has its advantages. At least we start with our clancestors' memories. All we have to do is grow to full size and take our clan's role in society."

"Well, that's exactly why our society is superior. No knowledge is lost, every being improves on the competence of the gen before it, every clan has its proper place. Dorg are pilots, Threz are warriors, Grati uphold the laws, Retmer sculpt, Jorit are philosophers..."

"Hmm."

"…what?"

"So, if we're superior… and if nothing is ever lost… then why don't we dance anymore?"

"All right, you know better than to talk like that."

"Why? We're on a ship in the middle of nowhere. Orbits of time. No one else is listening. Why can't we talk about what happened to the Ruuk?"

"Not on my ship. Tell me more about Bob the Human."

"Fine. Bob… well, Bob loved pranks as much as Norcim. He could've been a Threz. He figured out a way to rig a coffee machine at his work so it randomly dispensed balsamic vinegar."

"Coffee… vinegar?"

"Coffee is a human stimulant drink. Vinegar, well, isn't. Norcim found them equally revolting. But it was fun to hide with Bob and watch other drowsy humans fill up their cups, take a big swig and then spew it across the room."

"You Threz are all mildly insane, aren't you?"

"I think the word you're mispronouncing is 'fun-loving.'"

"You're always getting yourselves in trouble."

"Well, that’s where the fun is! Bob used to take Norcim for rides on this old two-wheeled machine called a Harley. It made horrible noises, it went too fast to be safe, and the only protection we had were round headgear that didn't fit our head, and clothing made of processed animal skins. If we'd fallen off we certainly would have perished. And it was spectacular! We went YEEEHAA."

"What's yeeehaa?"

"Obviously, it's the noise you make when you're hanging onto the back of a Harley."

"Humans have weird customs."

"You said it. Do you know that every orbit they celebrate the day they were born?"

"What would they do that for?"

"Well, Bob tried to explain. He said that life was precious to humans, so they tended to have celebrations every chance they got. But he really should have explained what a birthday party was like before we got there. It was the most bizarre thing we'd ever seen. The guests had covered the inside of the dwelling in dangling bits of paper. They all yelled at Bob in unison when he entered and threw more bits of paper around. Everyone put tiny bright cones on the tops of their heads and blew through objects that made squawking noises and flicked out like a Retgar's tongue. Then they turned out the lights and ceremonially set fire to a confection. Bob just sat there grinning in the light of this flaming pastry while they chanted this peculiar little song, and then he blew out the fire before it could do any damage to the dwelling. Then they stabbed it repeatedly and gave slabs of it to every guest… we supposed that it came from some ancient human tradition where everyone present must share in the ritual sacrifice. It was disgustingly brown inside, but everyone was eating big mouthfuls and making noises of joy, so Norcim tried a bite."

"And?"

"Well, we didn't die. But the stuff they called 'ice cream' was better."

"Huh. As I said, weird."

"Then afterward, they put on some raucous noise they called 'classic rock' and everybody danced."

"What, Norcim didn't… you… danced?"

"Why not? It has no political connotations on Earth."

"But… even on Earth… it could have been reported. No one after Ruuk 10 Dragut…"

"Oh, NOW you want to talk about the Ruuk."

"No, no I don't. But how did Norcim even know how to dance?"

"We didn't. One of the guests at the party taught Norcim how. It was easy. And it was fun."

"Oh, come on! How can you expect me to believe that anyone could learn in one day what it took the Ru -- ah, never mind."

"What it took the Ruuk clan multiple gens to learn?"

"I did NOT say that."

"Oh, stop sulking. The short answer is that human dancing, at least casual dancing, is simple. It doesn't require all the gens of formal training the Ruuk used to put into it. There's no deeper spiritual meaning, no ritual symbolism. It's done for pleasure."

"But… didn't it cause them to…?"

"No. No one at the party acted like Dragut. No one at the party had ever heard of Dragut, other than Norcim. How could humans know anything about the Ruuk clan, or how it perished? It's not a well-discussed part of our history, even on Finayar. Can't even talk about it with you, apparently."

"It's just… now that we know dancing is dangerous, that it… spawns untested ideas, encourages rebellion, breeds dictators like Dragut… I mean, can you deny the Ruuk were evil?"

"We used to think they were. Norcim believed what our clancestors believed, that the Ruuk had to be extinguished for the good of all Finayar. But after the dance at Bob's party… well, there was nothing subversive in human dancing, nothing but fun. I'm more inclined to believe now that the only Ruuk who really went bad was Dragut. The rest simply followed orders. We could have redeemed them. Preserved their memories, their experiences. Instead, we've lost that part of our culture forever."

"Well. We don't need to dance."

"Neither do the humans. But they do it anyway."

"How can you possibly be flippant about this? Haven't humans ever had to deal with the horrors of a dictator?"

"Oh, they've had plenty. Bob told us about some of the humans who tried to take over Earth. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim, Ruff, Shang… it was a long list. Somehow humans manage to fight back and destroy dictators without completely wiping out their clans in the process."

"That's so odd. I mean, humans showing restraint. They were such horrific fighters during the war."

"You know what Bob told Norcim once?"

"Hmm?"

"One night, when he'd had too much to drink -- again -- he admitted that he was a war veteran. Killed many of us."

"You made FRIENDS with a war criminal?"

"You know, on Earth Norcim could have been considered a war criminal for all the humans we'd killed. But Bob didn't treat us like that. Not ever."

"But… but they were so fierce. Killed so many. What was it that enraged them so much?"

"Norcim wanted to know that too. Bob told us, 'I had to fight them… well, fight you, I guess… after Colleen, after the Finnie blitz. It gave me something to live for after she was gone.'"

"And Colleen was…?"

"Bob's mate."

"Ugh. Back to mating again."

"Well, sexual reproduction may be distasteful to us, but Bob… well, for him it was more than just ensuring the next gen. He developed deep emotional connections with his mate. Even when they were separated, he said, thinking of Colleen made him feel stronger, happier, more full of life. The way he described it, it was almost as though they -- shared each other's lives. Something like what we share with our clancestors, only voluntarily."

"Huh. And when he lost that connection, he had to fight us? I don't understand."

"Well, he said that when Colleen died, she took some of his soul away with her. No, don't ask. Bob tried to explain souls so many times, and we never understood it. But his connection to Colleen was so strong he came close to killing himself rather than living without her. Fighting let him get revenge against the beings he felt had taken his mate from him. It gave him a chance to fight for the survival of his clan. And it gave him a reason to go on living until he could come up with reasons of his own."

"So… he fought us. They hated us. How could you ever think of him as a friend?"

"Because he was a friend. He did all the things friends do. He cared about what happened to Norcim, not just because we were part of the Exchange, but because Bob honestly liked us. He wanted us to be happy, to have a good experience on Earth. And he made sure we did."

"I don't see how he could like you as a friend, if he was so busy killing us for revenge."

"Oh, that. He said, 'Don’t worry about it, Finnie. We usually make friends of our enemies after every war. Besides, I expect Colleen would want me to. She always loved the idea of ETs.'"

"ETs?"

"It's from an old entertainment of theirs. 'Extra-terrestrials.' Their name for every sapient species that doesn't originate on Earth."

"Tsh. Making friends of their enemies, myopically self-focused, sexually reproductive… humans are the most bizarre little creatures."

"…I suppose so."

"Now you don't sound all that convinced."

"It's just… I've thought about it for a while, and I'm not sure we should look down on humans for the way they reproduce."

"I don't follow you."

"Well, if we'd reproduced parthenogenetically from the very first intelligent Finayaran, we'd all be the same, wouldn’t we? All part of one clan?"

"I… guess, but…"

"But instead there are many different clans with differing physical characteristics… and our clan memories don't go all the way back to the beginning, so… well, hasn't it occurred to you that at some time in the long past, Finayarans must have reproduced sexually too?"

"UGH. You've spent too much time on Earth; they've corrupted your thoughts!"

"Oh, hardly. The Jorit have been positing the same theory for orbits now. Jorit 40 Klenabar has been saying that sexual reproduction has some advantages over parthenogenesis."

"That's because Klenabar is a deviant."

"That's just another word for 'thinks differently from the rest of us.'"

"Look, I can't discuss this tawdry subject any longer. I'm going to go see to the ship."

"As it suits you."

 

[5 ORBITS LATER]

"You're back."

"Well, I've done everything I can think of to do. We're still on course, all the maintenance systems are working properly… it's all ticking along just fine."

"I see."

"And… uh… I've been thinking a little about what you said."

"What part of what I said?"

"About Klenabar. And advantages to… uh… you know."

"Sexual reproduction?"

"Nnngh. Well. I just don't see how it could possibly be more useful."

"Well, Klenabar's theory is that Finayarans once reproduced sexually, and that's what created our clan lines -- we all originated from individual beings with specific skills and talents. Klenabar believes there's evidence to show Finayar had an extinction-level event about 40 gens ago, before we developed spaceflight. Some individuals survived, but they must have been sterile. Back then, parthenogenesis could have been a secondary method, a way to reproduce in emergencies, but it must have become our only option."

"Huh. Even assuming Klenabar's theory is correct… which I'm not sure I believe… then it would have been an evolutionary advantage only in our past. Parthenogenesis is superior. We're far more fortunate to be as we are."

"Hmm."

"Oh, what now?"

"You remember how fiercely the humans fought?"

"Of course. Wish I could forget."

"They were fighting for their mates. For their offspring. For the emotional connections they had to other humans. And not just to other humans, but to other beings as well."

"I thought you said Earth didn't have any other native sapients."

"They don't have to be native sapients. Humans voluntarily care for animals. They cultivate local flora in their dwellings. And sometimes they even protect offworld species. One night a couple of humans came up to Norcim, called us 'dirty splitter' and said something about 'making an alien autopsy vid,' and tried to cut us open with blades. But they didn't get the chance, because Bob went after them with something he called a… um, I think it was a 'Louisville slugger.' He fought them like a true warrior. Would have made any Threz proud. I think he might have saved our life."

"Well, that was… honorable of him."

"It was more than honorable. Because Bob thought of us as his friend, he was willing to put his own life in jeopardy to protect Norcim's. That's what we saw during the war. It wasn't just that humans were trying to defend a world they thought of as theirs. In the process of trying to colonize Earth, we destroyed many beings that were precious to them. That's why they would do anything to beat us."

"That doesn't make much sense. There are always other beings with whom they could forge connections. It's not like we wiped them all out."

"No, no, think. Humans are different from us. Do you know why I'm going back to Earth?"

"Because it's the only planet that will have you?"

"Ha ha. No. I'm going back to tell them about Bob the Human."

"Uh. Wouldn't they be better off hearing Bob's stories from Bob?"

"Well, yes, but... after the orbit in the Finayaran Exchange, Norcim went back to claim the land grant we were promised, and Bob was -- remarkably emotional at seeing us go. We kept telling him not to worry, that Norcim or one of Norcim's descendants would come visit him in the future. And he said, 'Look, Finnie, I'm 62 years old. Realistically, I'm not going to see you again. But I'm damned glad I got to know you. Don't forget me, all right?'"

"Heh. Silly thing to say."

"That's what Norcim thought, but we hardly had time to dwell on it. We had other things to think about, mostly colonization. Three gens later, though, when the colony was well established and I was still only partly grown, I thought it'd be fun to go see Bob again, or some of his descendants."

"Let me guess. He groaned and called you Finnie."

"No. He wasn't there. His dwelling wasn't there. None of his clan members or friends were there."

"Hmm. Must've moved offworld, then."

"I thought so too. I went to the human government to find out where he'd gone. They combed their records and told me Bob died thirty orbits after we left."

"Died? Glorious Finayar, what happened to him? Was he in an accident?"

"They said 'natural causes.' That it was common for humans back then to die after ninety or a hundred orbits."

"What? But he was so young!"

"They were all so young. All the humans Norcim met during our time on Earth had been dead for at least three thousand orbits. I couldn't comprehend it. They told me that even now it's rare for a human to live beyond a hundred and forty orbits. They just… succumb so quickly. I had no idea how fragile, how tiny their lives were."

"Oh. Well, that explains…"

"What?"

"After the war, the humans wanted to talk to the Dorg. They were offering to exchange their technology for ours, specifically for the faster-than-light tech they were sure we had in our ships. We didn't understand why they thought we had tech past lightspeed. But it makes sense, if they live such short lives…"

"Right. They couldn't even survive a journey to the nearest star outside their system. It’s why all their colony worlds are so close together."

"Well, at least you found Bob's descendants, didn't you?"

"I did, actually. Many of them. So many."

"And did THEY groan and call you Finnie?"

"No. None of them recognized me."

"But -- oh. Oh, that’s right. They don't have clancestor memories."

"Exactly. And since their lives are so short, Bob's whole life might as well be a myth to them. All they knew was that they had a clancestor who fought in the Human War. That was when I started to understand the tragedy of being human. Every single one is a discrete, solitary individual, with no memories other than his own, and no way of transferring memories directly to the next gen, so every single death is like the extinguishing of the Ruuk. I think that's why they make such strong emotional connections -- so they won't feel so alone."

"So… so Bob is just… gone?"

"No, not completely. He's here in my head. With Norcim's memories. That's why I go back to Earth. I can't bring Bob back, but I can make sure his descendants have all our memories of their clancestor. Each time I visit, I tell another of their gens everything Norcim knew about Bob -- his friends, his mate, his beliefs, his pranks, his vengeance, his kindness, the way he lived."

"Tell me, do you think they… appreciate what you do? Do they like hearing about Bob?"

"I think most of them do. But I'd do it anyway. I've realized their small lives need our long memories."

"And besides, Bob wouldn't want you to forget him."

"Oh, believe me, Bob would be impossible to forget."

"So… uh… care to play a game?"

"Sure."

Fiction: Moving House, part 2

[Click here to read the first part of this story]

I swam out of the blackness to find I was still lying in the doorway of my house. But now my feet were propped up above the threshold by a wad of tissue, and I'd been covered by another thin sheet of tissue that wasn't doing a great job of keeping me warm.

"What happened?" I groaned.

A very large voice responded, "I think you fainted? I treated you for shock, but you might want to stay down for a while."

He was looming over me, staring curiously at me -- great, another mother hen -- and swigging from a quart carton of chocolate milk.

"Do you have to stare?" I asked.

He looked at the floor. "Sorry," he said. "I've just... I've never met somebody your size before."

So that part actually happened. Helen's grandson had seen me, had told me Helen was in the hospital. And something about assisted living... and...

I pushed the tissue sheet aside and sat straight up, and everything in my vision immediately spun and rippled. I leaned against the doorframe, trying to banish the spinning. "I need to talk to Helen," I said. "Does she have her cell with her?"

"Should be in her purse," he said, taking another swig of milk. I tried not to watch; seeing this gigantic person stand over me taking huge gulps of liquid made me uneasy. And a little nauseated.

"Where did you get that?" I asked, mostly to try to take my mind off the dizziness.

"What, the milk?" He held up the cardboard carton. (Helen always bought cardboard cartons; she claimed the plastic containers made the milk sour faster.) "It was in the fridge. This stuff's gonna expire soon. Figured I'd finish it up." After a moment, he added, "Why, you want some?"

Bleah. "I'm good. Be right back, I'm going to call Helen." I staggered to my feet, shook my head hard in an attempt to clear it, and walked -- gingerly -- into the den.

"Wait, you have a phone?" I heard him mutter, but I was too busy dialing Helen's number. It rang once and went straight to voice mail. I tried again; same thing. Mom and Dad told me never to leave a message; Helen knew to call us back. But where was she?

My head was still whirling, but I felt a little less queasy. I crossed back toward the front door, trying to think. If I couldn't get Helen on the phone...

"She's not picking up," I reported.

"Hmm. Last time I visited, the nurses kept turning her phone off," he said. "They told me she doesn't need any extra excitement."

"Well, that's probably true, but I've got to talk to her. And I think I'm going to need your help... um... did you tell me your name?..."

"Oh, no, sorry. I'm Grant. And you're Paula... do you have a last name?"

"Of course I have a last name," I said, feeling vaguely cross that he'd asked. "It's Forty-Seventeen."

"Forty-what now?"

"Forty. Seventeen," I repeated slowly.

He smirked. "I've never met anybody with a set of numbers for a last name before."

I was still feeling out of sorts, and Grant's amusement at my name was rubbing me the wrong way. "And I've never met a monstrosity who lips right off the milk carton and then offers me a helping of his spit," I retorted.

"Hey," he muttered. "I'm not a monstrosity."

"You are to me."

Now he looked annoyed as well. "Well, excuse me, Arrietty," he said. "I may be a lot bigger than you, but it's not fair to blame me for that. I can't help being this size any more than you can help being yours."

I was about to fire back when I thought of Mom: Soft answers, Paula. You have a sharp tongue, and it can cut your mouth just as easily as other people's ears. She was right. It would be stupid to anger or alienate Grant, just because I couldn't keep my temper. I took a breath, tried again.

"I'm sorry," I said. "It's been a rough few days. I just... I really need to get hold of Helen. If I could just talk to her, I'm sure we could straighten this all out."

Grant sat down again, finishing off the milk. "I could take you to the hospital," he said after a moment. "But we'd have to figure out how to get you there. Grandma says you don't like being seen, and you really don't like being picked up."

I felt a sudden swell of gratitude for Helen. "I don't," I said. "And I'm not about to be stuffed in a pocket, either."

Grant thought for a bit. He looked at me, then back at the now-empty milk carton. And I could practically hear the idea go ping! in his head. He pulled a multi-tool out of his back pocket.

"If I made this thing into a carrier," he asked, already cutting the top off the container, "would you ride in it?"

"Um. Assuming you wash it out first?"

"Don't worry, I'll clean it up." Suddenly his right hand was next to me, with the multi-tool in it, and I started away, thinking he was about to grab me. It took a second to realize he was measuring me. "OK, just over five inches," he muttered.

I clutched at my heart. "Will you warn me before you do that?!"

"Oh, right. Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." He had the decency to look embarrassed. "I just want to get this the right size."

Then something occurred to me. "Oh wait, wait! Can I take my phone with me?"

"I... guess? How big is your phone?"

"Hang on." I went back to fetch the phone. It was too heavy to pick up, but I could slide it across the floor. I unplugged it from the charger and started scooting it along, stopping every now and then to let waves of dizziness pass.

When I was about halfway through the living room, Grant's voice echoed all around me. "Uh, Paula? Can I get permission to pick that up?"

One of his big dark eyes was looking through the open living room window. He could have just reached right into the house, but I had asked him to warn me -- and he'd listened.

"Sure," I said, and stepped back as a huge hand came through the open window and gathered up the phone like it weighed next to nothing -- which, for Grant, was probably true.

"Hmm. Well, I could jam it in there, but it won't give you much space," I heard him say. "I could put the phone in my pocket, if you're good with that."

I wasn't sure I was good with that, but I also wasn't up to arguing the point. "As long as we take it." After a minute's thought, I grabbed an oversized pillow off the living room couch and brought it to the door.

Grant had poked holes in the side of the carton and was busy cutting up a hinged lid. He glanced at me. "Pillow, huh?"

I sat down on the stoop, hugging the pillow to my chest. "Well, I'm guessing it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

He cocked his head in agreement. "Good point. I'll try to be careful, but I've never done this before."

"Yeah, me neither."

Grant stood up, and I had to suppress an urge to dart back into the house -- he was alarmingly huge. "Lemme see if Grandma has some string or yarn or something."

"T-there's string in the junk drawer," I said, and watched as he went into the kitchen.

What was I doing? Was I really going to leave this place with some massive stranger multiple times my size? I'd gotten used to Helen, of course, but even she wasn't as big as Grant.

When I was younger, every time someone visited, Helen would warn us and my parents would gather me up and hide in the secret attic room of our house until the visitors left. I wondered how often Grant had been one of those visitors, and yet I'd never seen him before. Did I dare trust this behemoth to take me anywhere?

There was still time to hide. He didn't know about our attic.

But he had my phone. I'd made him take my phone. My only connection to the outside world was currently nestled in his pocket.

I buried my face in the pillow and screamed mightily at my own stupidity. It didn't fix anything and my woozy head throbbed. Ugh. Mom and Dad would have known what to do, but me? I'd just turned 20 and had never set foot off Helen's property in my life. I was in no way prepared for this.

Well, I had to see Helen. And I wasn't going to let him take that phone away. I dropped the sofa pillow, went upstairs to my parents' bedroom and searched everything until I found Mom's dagger, small and still very sharp, in the chest of drawers. It wouldn't be much of a defense against giants, but it might buy me some time if I had to get away. I slipped it into my pocket and went down to see what Grant was doing.

He was back, having threaded the string through the holes on each side of the carton so he could wear the contraption around his neck. "All cleaned up and ready to go," he said as soon as he saw me. "Let's see how well it fits you." And he set it on its side in front of me, with the lid open.

I hesitated. I could still run. I could hide in Helen's house and he'd never find me. But he has my phone. And just as I wavered, there was a loud pounding at the front door.

"Helen Pratt?" came the VERY loud voice behind the pounding. And after a short pause, the pounding became a splintery thumping.

Grant went pale, swore softly. "They're breaking the door down," he whispered. "Quick. Quick!" And almost instinctively, I grabbed the pillow and dived into the carton. My stomach turned over as Grant flipped the container right side up, slipped it on over his head, and bolted for the back door.

For a while I had no idea what was going on. I was being jostled around so completely that it's a wonder my brains weren't scrambled, and the pillow didn't provide much insulation. I just curled up in the bottom of the carton and prayed I wouldn't scream, throw up or fall out.

Grant was panting, and I could feel his heart hammering right through the carton. "Hold on, Paula," he said. "I don't know... who those guys are... but something tells me... we don't wanna find out..."

Everything went dark. I guessed he had zipped up his jacket with the carton inside. And after that I couldn't make head or tail of the noises I was hearing, but at some point he must have stopped running, because I was no longer in constant danger of throwing up.

I thought about trying to get Grant's attention, or at least trying to get some fresh air, but I wasn't sure we were in a spot where he could respond without drawing attention to me. So I slumped on the pillow, leaning my head against the side of the carton -- which still smelled faintly of chocolate milk. I guessed I'd just have to sit tight for however long it took until we got to Helen.

Fiction: Moving House

[A little something ginned up from a writing prompt.]

"Well, I'm headed to bed. You all right there, girlie?"

I was almost through the transcription batch, but Helen was growing deafer; she wouldn't hear unless I yelled -- and she wouldn't settle down until I responded. So I rose from the tablet phone, running from the study through the living room to the front door.

Opening up and leaning out, I hollered, "I'm just fine, Helen! You sleep well!"

"Thanks, Paula dear," she replied. "Don't stay up too late now."

I smirked. My neighbor had forgotten, or didn't care to remember, that we -- that I -- was usually active at night and slept all day. But I could forgive her a few memory lapses. Mom and Dad had taught me that we owed everything to Helen -- our home and its comfortable safety, our access to food and clothes, our ability to stay healthy and mostly self-reliant -- and that I was never to be rude to her.

When the illness came, Dad succumbed first, then Mom a few days later. Helen had done everything in her power to save them, and when I fell ill she feared terribly that I would die too. But she dosed me with antibiotics and hovered over me, and I recovered. For the first few months after my illness, she checked on me multiple times a day, bringing little gifts or stories from her errand-running, just to make sure I was all right. I appreciated her concern, but I wasn't comfortable with the frequency of her visits, so I was relieved when she settled into a little ritual of checking in with me once in the morning and once before she went to bed. While Helen could be a bit of a mother hen, I had to admit that the sound of her voice helped me feel a little less lonely. I suppose she felt the same way.

I closed the door, heading back to work. As Dad used to say, another day, another dime.

Helen had bought the phone for Dad. He'd tried to refuse -- it was so expensive! -- but she'd insisted, showing him all the ways being wired could improve our lives. "My grandson got one for me," she'd said, "and I don't know how I managed without it."

The phone was our initiation into a larger world. Once we'd figured out how to open a bank account online, how to make money online, how to buy things online, we didn't have to rely on our old survival methods. We could buy proper furnishings, handmade clothes and food, and have them all delivered to Helen's address. We could even stream new movies, and I could talk to people online about them. I was almost starting to feel like a typical person when Dad got sick.

Well, no point in dwelling on that. At least I had my neighbor, and I had the tablet phone.

I'd settled down and was just about to resume transcribing when I heard a soft cry and felt a shock run through the house -- a sudden hard THUMP, like a miniature earthquake. That couldn't be good. A horrible sick feeling spread out from my stomach.

"Helen?" I yelled. Then, in a panic, "HELEN?!" No reply.

She must have fallen. And if she wasn't responding, she was probably unconscious. She might have had a stroke or a heart attack. I had to get help right away.

Well, that's what the phone was for.

"911 operator, please state the nature of your emergency."

I tried to keep my head clear, not to say anything that would give me away. "My neighbor Helen had a fall and she isn't responding when I call her. I think she's had a stroke. I can't do any CPR and I need a doctor."

"Could I get your name and address, please?"

The place where we sent the packages. "Oh. Yes. The address is for Helen Pratt, 134 Northeast 29th Street."

"Helen is the woman who you believe had the stroke, correct?"

"Yes, that's right. Please come quickly."

"And could I get your name, please?"

I hung up, shut the phone down, ran upstairs, climbed into the wardrobe in my parents' room and, hands shaking, shut it tight after me. Everything I'd seen and read about 911 services told me that they checked up on every call, even false alarms, so someone would arrive soon to check on Helen. And I couldn't let them see me.

I stayed there, still shaking and trying not to throw up, as the paramedics arrived. I heard them working on Helen, talking about what to do next. I listened as they loaded her onto a stretcher and ushered her out of the house. And I wanted to wail as the noise of the sirens drifted away.

Mom and Dad were right. We owed everything to Helen. If she died, how would I survive?

* * *

I heard nothing from my neighbor for four days. Even though I tried to keep calm and stick to routine, it was pretty much impossible. I paced, tried to eat, threw up, binged on Netflix, slept an hour or two at a time at most. Every little noise had me on high alert.

And then, on the morning of the fifth day, while I was just getting into bed, I heard the sound of Helen's front door opening.

I thought it was her. I honestly thought it was her. That's the only way I can explain why I did what I did. Because I raced downstairs to the front door, opened it up without thinking and sang out, "Helen! Is that you?"

And that's how I came face to face with Helen's grandson.

He was huge -- six feet if he was an inch -- with messy brown hair, a stubbly chin and dark eyes that stared down at me in absolute astonishment. I stared back up at him, too shocked to retreat.

At least he didn't try to grab me. Instead he fumbled for a chair, dragged it toward him, sat down heavily in it, still staring at my house and at me standing in the doorway.

"Are... are you Paula?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Uh. OK. Um. Grandma, uh, Helen says to tell you thanks, first of all. I guess you called 911 and it saved her life. They had to do emergency heart surgery..."

"Is she going to be all right?" I burst out, and he twitched -- surprised I could talk, I supposed.

"Yeah, I think so. Surgeon thinks she'll get through this fine. But, uh, she wanted me to come talk to you. She was worried about you."

"I'm fine," I lied. "As long as Helen's all right. When is she coming home?"

I couldn't read his expression. "Well, that's what she wanted me to talk to you about. She wants to come back here, but her surgeon wants her in assisted living now. And she said she couldn't move, that this was her home and that you needed her here."

My legs were wobbling. I hung onto the doorknob for stability. "What -- what's assisted living?"

"It's like an apartment where you have doctors and nurses to check up on you."

"Helen's already a nurse," I protested, feeling tears well up. "And this is her home." And it's my home too, I thought but didn't say.

He nodded. "I know, but she's going to need extra care after this. She can't live alone any more."

"She doesn't live alone! She has me!"

What he said next I already knew, but it still hurt miserably to hear. "How are you gonna take care of her when you're so tiny?" And the moment he said it, I could see he wished he hadn't.

"Oh man, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, Paula. This has got to be so hard for you. It's hard for me too. I thought Grandma was crazy when she told me there was someone living in her dollhouse. I mean, who wouldn't? But she was so worried and she kept telling me I should check on you, and... whoa, are you all right?"

And that was the last I heard from him for a while, because that's when I blacked out.

[Link to the next bit]

Fiction: Curst

[I'm sick with what appears to be viral bronchitis. There's not much to do but cough uncontrollably, pad around the house, attempt to sleep -- and write. Well, it's that or lie on the sofa and hook up a chicken soup IV drip, and those noodles are murder on my veins.]

Rachel's trip to England didn't quite go as planned. All past experiences aside, I'd hoped that somehow, this time, things would turn out for her. But when she called me from Shuangliu Airport at 3 a.m., sobbing and babbling incoherently because she'd lost her passport, I'll admit my first thought was, "Well, Rach, what did you expect?" I didn't bother asking how she'd managed to end up in China -- when you've known Rachel a few years, you stop asking how these things happen. Instead I calmed her down and got her the number for the nearest consulate in Chengdu.

"I'll call Overseas Citizen Service from here," I said. "Between the two of us we ought to have you home in no time."

"Thanks, Sean," she said, sniffling. "I don't know what I'd do witho--" and the line abruptly went dead. It took me a moment to realize that her phone had probably run out of juice. And she probably hadn't thought to pack an adapter to recharge it. Or a charger, for that matter.

We decided that Rachel was cursed one Friday night a few years ago, over the course of several beers. She wasn't always like this; her childhood wasn't particularly accident-prone. But somewhere around her sophomore year of college, minor things started to happen: she'd trip and fall in the middle of the quad, show up in the wrong classroom, walk around all day with the back of her skirt tucked into her underpants. Over time it just got progressively worse.

On the day she absently walked through freshly-poured cement, she made her first appointment to see a doctor. Then she had to make another one because she'd forgotten to keep the first appointment. But after a thorough battery of physical and psychological tests, the doctors gave her a clean bill of health: no signs of early dementia, Alzheimer's or Parkinson's; no ADD; no brain cancer -- nothing medical, in short, to explain the host of small miseries that seemed to follow her like a cloud of mosquitoes.

After graduation Rachel and I ended up working together on The World's Worst Sitcom. I'd already been scriptwriting for them a couple of years when Rachel showed up looking for work. She joined the camera crew -- not what she'd hoped for when she got her film degree, but then writing for TV hadn't been my biggest aspiration. Still, I was glad to see my old partner in crime again. Back in college we'd planned on making movies together; I was going to write the screenplays and Rachel was going to direct them. But I soon discovered that just wanting to write isn't enough. You have to have something worth writing about. And when it came to worthwhile ideas, I was having almost as much good fortune as Rachel. Twenty scripts circulating and not so much as a nibble on any of them. At least I had enough credit to help Rachel get a ticket home.

The most charming -- and heartwrenching -- thing about Rachel is her eternal optimism. I know she's wanted to visit England since she was a little girl. She saved for months, recovered from identity theft, filled out a passport application but somehow lost the photos, filled out and sent in another application, lost the completed passport, and expedited yet another application so that the passport arrived in the mail the day before she was scheduled to fly into Heathrow. But she took it all in stride, because she was finally going to live her dream.

And instead she somehow ended up in mainland China. I sighed and started dialing.

* * *

"Honestly, I don't know how it happened," said Rachel. It was about a week later and we'd met for beers after work at Backlot Bar & Grill. "I know I was supposed to make a transfer at Schiphol Airport. Everything seemed to check out fine at the gate, I was tired, I fell asleep before we even started taxiing... and then the flight seemed to be taking a really long time, and..." She sighed. "I don't know."

"Well, at least you made it home in one piece," I said. "It could always be wor--"

"Sean! Shut! Up!" Rachel blurted out. "If it can be worse, I'm sure it will be eventually." She slumped her head on her folded arms in defeat, her short dark hair sticking up everywhere. (Rachel had long hair in college. At least she did before the Taffy-Pulling Machine Incident. Since then she's kept it boyishly short.)

I shut up and drank my beer. When Rachel gets morose -- which, fortunately, isn't often -- she doesn't want anyone to show her the bright side of things. You just have to let her brood for a while. Eventually that natural optimism of hers comes through.

"I want some soooup," she muttered childishly into the tabletop.

Most of the pub grub on Backlot's menu is utterly forgettable -- people come there to drink and talk, not to eat -- but they make this soup that's so addictive I swear they could sell it by the gram. I ordered two bowls from the kitchen, and soon we were indulging in the flavor Rachel craved. The world slowly grew a little brighter.

"Mmm. Soup makes everything better," said Rachel, in between spoonfuls.

"This soup does. What do you think they spice it with? Opium?"

She smiled a little. "You know, there was this noodle soup I got from a street vendor in Chengdu... see, I stayed in the airport all night trying to sleep, but it was really cold and security kept waking me up, and I couldn't read any of the signs or understand what anyone was saying. By the time I got to the consulate the next morning I was so tired and nervous and hungry I felt like dying. And of course the consulate didn't open for another fifteen minutes. I just sat down on a bench and started to cry."

"Aw, Rach."

"No, no, this is the good part. Somebody started poking at me, and I looked up and this cute little old man with a cart was offering me a bowl of soup. I tried to tell him I didn't have any money, but he just smiled and poked the bowl at me again, so I took it from him and started eating, and he sat down next to me on the bench and tried to talk to me in super broken English. But I hardly noticed what he was saying 'cause I was having a religious experience, Sean. That was the best noodle soup I've ever had in my life. Piping hot and spicy and silky, and the broth..." She closed her eyes and sighed happily. "It was almost worth it to get lost in China for those noodles. Almost."

"What, better than Backlot's liquid crack? Blasphemy."

"Seriously. Some day I'm gonna drag you to Chengdu and make you try them."

"First I'd need to get a passport." I grinned. "It's a good idea, anyway. You never know when you might need to flee to Rio."

She rolled her eyes at me and smiled. Optimism was winning out again.

"Thanks for coming by," said our surly waitress in a tone that meant 'get out.' "Here's your check... hang on... I forgot to total it up." She started patting her pockets. "Wish I had a pen."

"Wait, here you go." Rachel produced a pen from her pocket and handed it over. "Hey, before I forget to ask, there's gonna be a street fair on my block this weekend," she told me. "You wanna come?"

"Hmm. Let me check my brimming social calendar."

Rachel snorted. I guess I've gained a reputation as a workaholic. "Just come. It'll be fun. Besides, I owe you big time after that emergency ticket and everything." She leaned her head on my shoulder. "Seanie, my hero."

"Is that my cue to look manly?"

"Shut up."

* * *

"Oh, Seanie, look! Palm readings!"

The street fair had that smell nearly all southern California street fairs have -- that peculiar incense of fried dough, grilled meat, and weed smoke -- that advertises its existence long before you find it. Rachel had succumbed to temptation and bought a gyro, which rewarded her for her purchase by peeing grease all over her shirt. She promptly bought a new shirt with "I'm the one Mom warned me about" printed across the front; it was a little small, but she wasn't letting that dissuade her. She was pointing to a little fabric pavilion.

"So?"

"So let's go get our fortunes told." She tugged at my sleeve like a little kid.

"Oh, no, Rach... you don't believe in that crap?"

"No, but it'll be fun." She grabbed my hand and dragged me along. I just sighed and let myself be led on. You can't talk Rachel out of these things.

The palm reader sat behind a table draped in purple and gold, expertly crocheting a piece of lace with white thread and a tiny hook. Rachel slid onto the seat reserved for customers, and very nearly fell off, grabbing hold of the table at the last minute to right herself. The palm reader dropped her crochet and slapped her hands down on the table to steady it.

"Hi, I'm Rachel, I'm 24 and I want to know my fate," Rachel said, still a little breathless.

"Do you have a specific question in mind?" the palm reader asked.

"Um... yes," Rachel said uneasily. She glanced at me, the skeptic, and then leaned in to whisper her question. I looked away, ostensibly to give her some privacy, but I already knew what she wanted to ask. I only wondered what this charlatan would tell her.

The palm reader seemed surprised. "All right," she said, "let's take a look. Your dominant hand, please?"

Rachel put her right hand on the table and the palm reader immediately went into her mumbo-jumbo. "Ah, a fire hand," she murmured. "Active, extroverted, enthusiastic, emotional, and... somewhat accident-prone."

I tried not to snicker, but the palm reader gave me a crusty glance before turning back to Rachel. "You're in entertainment... let's see... the job's stable for now, but you're looking for something more suited to your sizable creative talents. Your fame line suggests you'll be successful in your quest. Ooh, and you have a trident mark here..." She fell silent for a moment, tracing Rachel's hand, and then looked up into her eyes. "Mind if I look at your other hand as well?" she asked. "No extra charge."

Rachel shrugged and put her left hand on the table, and the palm reader scrutinized it in silence. She matched the two hands together and compared lines. "Interesting," she said softly. "Your hands are... unusual. Not in a bad way, just unusual." Then she rubbed at her forehead. "Ugh. It's hotter than I expected today. Kinda wish I'd planned ahead and brought a drink."

"You want a Coke?" Rachel asked. "I pulled one out of the fridge just before I left." She produced a can of cola from her bag and handed it to the palm reader.

"Well, thank you," the palm reader smiled. She popped the top and took a quick sip. "Ah, much better. Anyway, as to your question. Your palms indicate that no one has attempted to tamper with your fate. In fact, I'd say you're extremely fortunate." She seemed on the verge of adding something else, but stopped short.

"Uh, thanks," said Rachel, a little bemused. "$20, is that right?"

The palm reader nodded absently and accepted Rachel's money. Then she turned to me. "I assume you're next?" she asked.

"Oh, no, really, I don't --"

"Come on, Sean," Rachel coaxed. "I'll pay. Maybe you'll find out your destiny."

She put down another $20 and dragged me onto the seat. Well, what the hell. "All right, I'm Sean. I'm 26. Don't know what to ask, so how 'bout some general information about my life?"

"Fine," said the palm reader. "Your dominant hand, please?"

Just to screw with her, I gave her my left hand. She flipped it over, examined the fingers, then gave me a look I'd last seen from Sister Agatha in fourth grade. "Your dominant hand," she said.

Ah. No calluses -- probably a dead giveaway. I sheepishly gave her my right hand and she started in. "Hmm, a forked head line. You're a writer. Let's see. Intelligent, sarcastic, skeptical, sometimes depressed. You suffer from unhappiness in your work. Have you thought about a change of venue?"

I gave her my best poker face. I've researched cold reading tactics a little bit. Any information I volunteered, either vocally or visually, she could use as the focus for more "psychic" crap. The palm reader paused, ostensibly tracing the lines of my hand, but I caught her stealing a glance at Rachel's face.

"Creativity is a limited part of your work right now," she went on. "But you need to unleash that creativity. Perhaps in concert with a friend."

"Oh, she's good," said Rachel appreciatively.

I gave her the look of death. "Buzz off, kid; let the grownups talk for a while."

Rachel stuck out her tongue at me and went away in an exaggerated huff.

"She a close friend of yours?" The palm reader nodded at the departing Rachel.

"Gee, I don't know, what does my palm say?" I asked sardonically.

She let go of my hand and folded her arms across the table, looking straight across at me. "OK, smart-ass, let me level with you," she said. "It sucks being a Cassandra. I see things I don't want to see, in the hands of people who don't believe what I tell them. I know you think this is just a game or some kind of parlor trick. But I see the truth. And I've just seen some crucial things -- in your palm, yes, but more importantly in hers."

"I'm not paying extra for this," I said.

"I'll refund the $20 if it makes you feel better," she retorted. "But first I want you to listen." She picked up my hand again and pointed to three lines in quick succession. "These marks here, and the shape of several other lines, indicate that you already have what you need. All you have to do is act."

"What I need?"

"You figure it out." She pressed on. "About your friend? She has a very powerful talent. She doesn't know she has it, and it's probably best if she never discovers it."

I snorted. "Oh, she's discovered it, all right. She's a walking bad luck magnet. If we sit here and listen for a minute we'll hear her break something."

The palm reader took a deep breath. "It's like I told her," she said slowly and deliberately. "She isn't actually cursed. But..." She paused, as though trying to choose the right words, then gave me a piercing look. "She does have a problem she can't solve on her own. You, on the other hand -- you have the power to solve both your problem and hers." She took the $20 and folded it gently into my still-open palm. "It's all in your hands now."

I pulled away from her, stood up. "Well, thanks for the cosmic fortune cookie. I hope you make some good money today."

"Just think about what I told you." She waved me away. "Go buy your friend a treat or something."

Shrugging, I pocketed the bill and went off in search of Rachel. I found her five minutes later; she was sopping wet and her left hand was dyed a rich purple.

"You don't even want to know," she sighed.

"You're right, I don't. Wanna go get some frozen lemonade?"

* * *

On Thursday, Mendel called the writers together for a talk. We were barely holding on in the ratings, but that wasn't our biggest problem. Harley Cowan, our lead actor and resident prima donna, had decided he wasn't getting paid enough per episode and was threatening to walk off if he didn't get a raise. Mendel already had us cutting corners everywhere to fit our tiny budget. He knew he couldn't ask the network for more money with our current ratings, and he couldn't think of any more corners to cut unless he let somebody go.

I told Rachel about it later, at Backlot. "I'm sweating bullets right now. I'm the youngest writer with the least seniority. If they're going to cut anyone, you know it's gonna be me."

"Oh, Seanie. They're not going to cut you."

"I'd love to have your optimism right now. I just wish I knew what to do," I murmured.

"You should quit," said Rachel.

"What?"

"Do it tomorrow. Then you'll have the time you need to write a really good screenplay."

"Yeah, and be sleeping in a dumpster next month! I'm not some trust fund kid, Rach. I have to make money if I want to live."

"I know. I'll help you out 'til the first one sells."

As long as I've known Rachel, there are still times when I wonder what planet she's from. "Are you honestly suggesting I walk away from my job?"

"Yup," said Rachel. "It's bad for you. Makes you grouchy. That's not the Seanie I know. You need to get your passion back. So tell Mendel you're going to pursue other interests, and write something amazing."

I sighed. "That's the other problem. I don't even know if there's a story in me worth writing."

"Don't be dumb, Sean. There's all kinds of things to write about."

"Such as?"

"I dunno. They always say to write what you know. Maybe life on The World's Worst Sitcom. Or write about your adventures with your fabulous friend Rachel!" she grinned.

"I might as well write about pocket lint for all the good it'll do me."

Rachel punched my shoulder. "Stop it. You are my brilliant friend Sean, and you're going to write amazing screenplays so I can direct them, remember?" She would have continued, but at that point the bartender slid her a cold beer, and it toppled off the bar and into her lap.

* * *

That night I was walking along the beach and found an empty soda can half-buried in the sand. I picked it up and brushed the loose sand off, and Rachel appeared in front of me.

"Please," she said, "I'm doing my best. You're exhausting me."

"Rach," I said, "I don't remember asking you for anything."

"But it's in your hands," she said. "Look."

I looked down to see a steaming bowl of noodles and broth in my hands.

"It is a gift," said another voice. I looked up to see a little old Chinese man pushing a noodle cart. He smiled. "You try it, feel better."

"But what if it's no good?" I asked. I turned away from him and saw the palm reader, sitting cross-legged on the beach, still crocheting away.

"Quit stalling, smart-ass," she said. "All you have to do is act." She gestured at my hands with that tiny steel hook of hers. And I was holding a new manuscript. I could feel the power of this one vibrating right through the paper into my hands. I knew it would sell. But what had I written about?  I tried to read the title, but everything started shaking and buzzing...

...and my buzzing alarm clock woke me up. Frustrated, I punched the snooze button. But ideas from the dream were still swirling in my head... all you have to do is act... I'm doing my best... it is a gift... quit stalling... it's in your hands... and suddenly it all coalesced in my head, and I sat straight up in bed. For the first time in a long while, I knew exactly what to do.

First, I called in sick. Then I fired up the laptop and started typing.

* * *

"Where have you been all week?" asked Rachel indignantly. "I was starting to think you died in your apartment."

"Got something for ya," I said, and I thunked down the screenplay on the bar in front of her. "It's still a draft, but I think this one's going to sell. Will you read it first?"

"This is what you've been doing?"

"Yep."

Rachel looked at me, and must have seen something she liked, because she smiled. "Aw, Seanie, you know I'll read anything you write. Mind if I look at it right now?"

"Please do."

Eagerly she turned over the cover sheet and began to read. And as she read I watched her -- Rachel, my partner in crime, who would do anything to help me succeed. Rachel, who must have been listening to me back in college when I wished I could come up with something worth writing about. Rachel, who had been plagued by the most horrible, wonderful, story-filled bad luck ever since.

Rachel, who didn't know she had a talent for granting certain wishes.

The palm reader was right -- it wasn't something she needed to find out, and in future I'd have to be careful saying "I wish" around her. But if my hunch was correct, both her bad luck and mine were about to change. And maybe, if I was really lucky, she'd agree to direct it.

FADE IN

SHUANGLIU AIRPORT, CHENGDU, CHINA - EVENING

A young American woman in her twenties is sitting on a bench, systematically going through her purse. She grows increasingly more agitated as it becomes obvious whatever she's looking for is missing.

RACHEL

No. No, no no. Not again.

Frustrated and afraid, she begins to cry. Fumbling through the purse again, she pulls out her cell phone to call her best friend for help.

SEAN (V.O.)

Rachel's trip to England didn't quite go as planned.

Fiction: Origin

[I wrote this story in early 2012 and submitted a version of it to The Magazine Which Shall Not Be Named. It was rejected, most likely for its high sentimentality. Since I doubt it'll ever be published anywhere, here you go.]

Origin

A light snow had just begun to fall as Charlie Cavanaugh left the Red Line Diner on Roosevelt Street. As always, he ran -- the fastest runner in the fifth grade, so quick he hardly felt the cold -- through the gloaming of early evening. He turned left on Main, then right at Adams Avenue, and went into a dead sprint as he rounded the corner for Taylor Street and home.

He broke through the front door. "Mom! Mom! Th-th-this guy down the Red Line..." He stopped to take a deep breath, just like Grammy said. Charlie almost never stuttered any more. "He had a gun and he held up Mr. Higby! I was right there, I saw his face and everything! We gotta call the police..."

But Mom didn't answer, and Charlie found a handwritten note taped to the icebox:

Dear Charlie,
I'm on call at Mercy tonight. There's food in the icebox if you're hungry. If I'm not back before 10, you may sleep over at the Jurrisons. DO NOT TOUCH THE PHONE.
–Mom

Charlie scowled. Jeez, a guy makes one little prank call and nobody trusts him anymore. But Mom didn't realize how important this was. Would Batman give up chasing a criminal just because he couldn't make a phone call? Well, if he couldn't use his own phone, maybe he could use the Jurrisons' instead. And he was off at a run, cutting across the front lawn to save time.

"Mrs. Jurrison!" He barreled right past Dickie's older sister Betty, who was always on the phone, and into the kitchen where Mrs. Jurrison was fixing dinner. "'Scuse me, Mrs. Jurrison, I really gotta use your phone. There was this guy down the Red Line Diner and he had a gun..."

Mrs. Jurrison didn't gasp. She didn't chide him about bursting in without knocking again. She kept right on chopping onions as though Charlie weren't there. "Hey!" Charlie yelled, but she didn't bat an eye. Confused, he wandered back out into the front room.

"Hey, Betty, lemme use the phone? It's an emergency..." Betty studiously ignored him, but Betty ignored everyone under the age of fifteen. He'd just have to get Dickie's help.

Dickie was eight, and a born hero-worshiper. The kid had been following Charlie around since he was in diapers. Most of the time Charlie put up with him because Dickie could be counted on to do whatever Charlie wanted. He was just where Charlie figured he'd be -- on the floor behind his bed, reading one of Charlie's old Action Comics.

"Hey, Dickie." Charlie flung himself across the bed. "Help a guy out, wouldja? I really gotta make a phone call. This guy at the Red Line held up Mr. Higby with a gun and everything and I was right there..."

He stopped, puzzled. Dickie was usually so excited to see Charlie that he could hardly sit still. But there he lay, turning over pages as though he didn't notice Charlie at all.

"Man, I'm getting sick of this!" said Charlie. "I expect the silent treatment from Betty, but what'd I ever do to you?"

Dickie said nothing, turning another page.

"Fine! Just be like that. I was gonna let you borrow my copy of The Flash, but you know what? Buy it yourself. Good luck sneaking it past your mom." He slid off the bed and stomped out, equal parts furious and frightened.

By the time Charlie got back to his own front door, fright was taking over. What was wrong with Dickie and the Jurrisons? Had he made them angry, or had he somehow turned invisible?

Well, whatever game the Jurrisons were playing, he still had to call the police. For three full minutes he stood beside the black desk phone, hesitating, as the kitchen clock ticked steadily. Finally, he decided that in this case, making the call was more important than obeying Mom. He sighed and reached for the receiver -- and couldn't pick it up. He tried four or five times, but some invisible power kept him from taking it off the hook.

A chill went through Charlie. He backed away from the phone, then turned and ran down the hall to his bedroom. Everything there, at least, seemed normal -- his bed, his desk, his bureau all in their regular places, his window overlooking the front yard, his stacks of comics all over the room.

Whenever adults asked Charlie what he wanted to be when he grew up, he always gave the standard answer of "a fireman" or "a policeman," but he was lying. Charlie wanted to be a superhero. He followed all the big comic heroes -- Superman, Batman, Green Lantern -- but his newest favorite was the Flash, with his police scientist background and his super-speed. When Charlie ran, he thought about the Flash, and when he daydreamed, it was usually about how he was going to acquire his superpowers. He wondered what Barry Allen would do in his place.

The new issue of The Flash was waiting on his bed. He'd bought it yesterday at the newsstand, but Mom had kept him so busy with chores he'd only been able to glance through a few pages at bedtime. All through school he'd wondered what the Mirror Master was up to. But as he sat down on the bed and tried to pick up the comic, Charlie discovered that he couldn't do it. It was like the phone all over again. Panic began to flutter in his throat.

He couldn't open the drawers of his bureau. He couldn't budge the roll-top on his desk. He couldn't even pick up his pillow. Charlie began to shiver. On an impulse he went to the window, looking out into the snow-covered street, just as the streetlights began to flicker on.

The snow was falling heavily now, really starting to stick. It had covered the stairs to the front porch, the walkway, the dormant lawn. And in the bluish-white glow of the streetlights, Charlie saw that in all that blanketing of snow, there was not a single footprint.

Charlie slumped to the floor. He was not going to cry, he was going to think. He'd had a perfectly normal day, right up to his visit to the Red Line after school. He'd sat on a plush red stool right next to the counter and Mr. Higby had made him a malt and some onion rings. Behind him, in a booth, a shifty-eyed stranger in an old bomber jacket had been wolfing down a cheeseburger. When the man came up to the counter, at first Charlie thought he was just going to settle the bill. Then he saw the revolver.

"Empty it out," said the stranger. "Put it all in the bag." He cocked the revolver, and Mr. Higby had hurried to open the cash register. At first Charlie hadn't moved. He had just stared at the stranger, at his face, recording every line and curve and scowl as though his eyes were spy cameras. And then it had struck him: never in a million years would the Flash have just sat there and let Mr. Higby get robbed.

"Hey!" he'd said.

"Shut up, kid," said the stranger, without looking at him. "This ain't your concern."

"Maybe you'd better go home, Charlie," said Mr. Higby, his voice wavering.

"Like hell he's going home!" the stranger yelled at Mr. Higby. "You think I'm gonna let this brat run straight to the police? He's stayin' put until I say so!"

Tears were starting to form in Mr. Higby's eyes -- Mr. Higby, who was the kindest man Charlie had ever known -- and suddenly a fury overtook Charlie. "You -- you leave Mr. Higby alone!" he'd yelled, and he'd thrown himself at the stranger, and

BANG

and then he was on the floor, and everything had gone dark all of a sudden, and it didn't hurt exactly, he'd just felt numb. He'd heard Mr. Higby holler, and the stranger had yelled back, "If you don't want to join him, you EMPTY IT OUT NOW!" And then the numbness was gone and Charlie could get up, and he'd gotten out of the diner and immediately run for home...

Oh no. No, no. This couldn't be real.

He was going to turn 11 in April.

Charlie began to rock back and forth on the floor, softly chanting, "Please God make this not be real, please God make this not be real, please God..." over and over. And when he felt familiar arms wrap around him in a hug, at first he thought God had answered his prayer. "Mom?"

But instead he was looking up into Grammy's speckly hazel eyes, with the twinkles in the corners. She didn't look stiff and stern, the way she had in the hospital bed. Instead she was her old smiling no-nonsense self, the way she'd been before the cancer, wearing the same old blue button-up house dress and slippers she always put on to do the laundry.

"Hello, Charlie dear," she said.

Charlie's tongue froze. "G-g-g..."

"Wait, wait. Remember, take a deep breath. Relax and think about what you're going to say."

"Grammy... I don't want this to be happening. I'm really scared."

Grammy hugged him again. She smelled of roses and cinnamon. "Oh, Charlie," she said, "it's not as bad as you think." She smoothed his hair. "Remember what I said, about the soul and the body being like a hand inside a puppet?"

Charlie nodded.

"Well, you've just taken the puppet off." She smiled. "That's nothing to be scared of, is it?"

"But Grammy, if I... I mean, I was gonna do all kinds of stuff..."

Grammy sighed. "There are always things we still want to do," she said softly. "I didn't want to leave my little Charlie, or my dear Helen. But sometimes we have to let those plans go."

Charlie shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I'm not ready."

"Charlie, dear, all your obligations here are finished --"

But Charlie didn't hear the rest. Obligation. That had been a spelling word last week, and he'd gotten it wrong. Mrs. Quinlan always made them write definitions next to the words they misspelled. A binding promise, contract, or sense of duty. "There's something I gotta do first," he said.

"Charlie, wait --"

"It's OK," said Charlie. "I'll be right back." And he got up and ran.

Now that he knew what had happened, he didn't have to worry about going around buildings. He flickered through the neighborhood as fast as thought, passing through walls as though they were mist, elated with the feeling of being able to move just like the Flash. Then he was standing outside the Red Line. Several police cars were clustered around the entrance now. But one pair of footprints, rapidly filling with snow, led away from the back door. Charlie hesitated, thinking about going inside for a moment just to see... but on second thought, he didn't really want to know. Instead he followed the prints.

* * *

Bill Simmons cut across a vacant lot, heading for the tracks. Well, he'd royally screwed the pooch this time. A measly twenty-seven dollars and forty-three cents in the till, and then that damn kid had decided to get in his way.

He'd never shot a kid before. The diner cheeseburger turned over in his stomach.

Best not to think about it. Best would be to skip town and lay low for a while until the whole mess blew over. If he could manage to hop a freight, he could ride it over the state line and...

At that moment, something made him reach into the inner pocket of his bomber jacket and pull out the revolver. It was still loaded. There was a thought in his mind, a foreign thought: Grammy was right. Just like a hand inside a puppet. And he found himself raising the gun to his right temple.

"What the hell?" Simmons squeaked. He tried to pull the gun away, but his arm -- his body -- wasn't cooperating.

I wasn't ready to die today, Bill. How 'bout you? He felt his thumb pushing down on the hammer, heard a precise click as his hand cocked the gun, ready to fire.

Simmons began to shake uncontrollably. Scenes from his life began to flash through his brain: Pop coming home drunk again, vomiting on the kitchen floor. Pop not coming back any more, and his aunt and uncle grudgingly taking him in. The screaming, the beatings, the constant accusations. Being left out in the cold all night as a punishment. Never getting enough to eat. The day he'd reached the end of his rope, beaten his harpy aunt with a broom and run off before they could call the cops. And the only thing that had let him escape the pain: the stories in his old Detective Comics, with their hardboiled private eyes and mysterious caped crusaders, and the promise that eventually the villains would get their due. The hand that held the gun began to waver.

No. His arm suddenly went slack, and something made him put the gun down in the snow of the vacant lot. You're a bad guy, Bill. I don't want to be like you. He felt his spine stiffen. But if you read all those comics, you already know bad guys don't win. Now march. And although he struggled against it, the foreign presence in his mind and body forced Simmons to turn and walk back downtown.

* * *

Since everyone else was at the Red Line investigating the murder and robbery, there was only one officer on duty at the station house when Simmons walked in the front door. He was still struggling hard against the inner force steering him, but the force was stronger, and like a hooked shark at the end of a line, he was starting to tire. Simmons stared dully at the officer, whose name was embroidered in white letters across the breast pocket of his uniform shirt.

"Officer Hanlon? My name's Bill Simmons, and -- and I want to confess," he said, through clenched teeth. "I robbed the Red Line Diner tonight... and I shot --" He'd meant to say "some kid who got in the way," but then a name came clearly into his head. "Charlie Cavanaugh," he said, slowly, and exhaled. "I sh-sh-shot Charlie Cavanaugh." His shoulders sagged, and he began to cry. And all the while, as Officer Hanlon cuffed and booked him and locked him into the station's only cell, Simmons wept like a boy.

By that time Simmons was so shaky with exhaustion that he couldn't tell exactly when the presence left him and he was back in full control of himself, but the feelings of remorse and self-loathing weren't coming from anyone else. "I shot a kid. God forgive me, I shot a kid. I -- I didn't mean to, I just..."

"I know," said a voice. "But you did."

Simmons looked up at the blurry outline of the officer outside his cell. He blinked hard. Something about the cop was different now. His movements were eager, fluid, and his eyes were bright and curious.

"I can't stay long," said Officer Hanlon, in a voice that seemed familiar. "But listen, this is important." He leaned in. "You hafta go to jail for what you did, Bill. That's how it works. But you don't hafta stay bad. You could be a good guy if you wanted to."

Simmons' stomach clenched with nausea. "Kid," he muttered, "don't you get it? How am I even going to learn to live with what I did to you?"

The presence inside Hanlon was quiet for a moment. "I don't know, Bill," said the familiar voice. "But I think I oughtta tell you something. I know you didn't mean it to happen, but because of... because of what happened at the diner... today I got to be invisible, and run through walls, and make people do and say things with my mind, and I even got to help the police solve a crime. I got to be what I wanted more than anything in the world." Hanlon grinned hugely. "Just for today I got to be a superhero, Bill. And it was so cool."

Simmons looked at the boy inside the officer. "I can't give you your life back, kid," he said. "But what do you want me to do?"

"You already know," the familiar voice insisted. "Just do good things. Practice 'til you get better at it. Then you can teach the other guys in jail how to be good too." Hanlon smiled. "I know you can't give me my life back. But as long as you make your life better, I guess we're square." Then he twitched. "Cripes, I promised Grammy I'd be right back. I gotta go. Bye, Bill! Don't shoot anybody else!" And the voice and the presence were gone.

Bill Simmons sat staring through the officer, trying to wrap his brain around everything that had happened, but he had to give up. It was too much. The only things that remained clear in his mind were the kid's words, still glowing softly inside him. If the kid -- if Charlie -- was willing to forgive him, even after what he'd done...

Officer Hanlon seemed to settle back into himself by degrees. He blinked, staring dully at Simmons. Finally his eyes dropped. "I don't wanna talk about this," he murmured. "Ever." And he went back to sit at the desk. Even when the rest of the force returned from the crime scene to peer at the suspect and ask questions, Hanlon just sat there, not saying a word. He was thinking about the bright spirit that had lingered with him for a few brief minutes, and then how it had left -- not vanishing, not stepping away, but tensing like a spring, then suddenly rocketing straight up and out into the starry darkness.

He sighed, and wondered what it must be like to be able to fly.


For Erik Martin—Electron Boy

Fiction fragment: Cornelius

HE thing that still trips me up is the lack of sleep.

You'd think that after a while you'd get acclimated, but you don't. There's something about the process of going to bed that brings each day to a strong, satisfying coda.  You lie there, awake but resting, anywhere from a few minutes to several hours -- I never had an easy time falling asleep -- thinking about the events of the day, planning out what you'll do tomorrow, ruminating over something you read or something a friend said to you, maybe closing your eyes and indulging in some well-worn fantasy that takes you to your happy place.  Gradually, you let sleep take you.  When you wake, the new day stretches anew before you; even if you didn't sleep well, you're mentally ready for it.  But when you never sleep, there's no delineation in your mind between one day and another; although the night falls and the sun rises, there's no clear sense of a new day dawning.  So although I know I've been dead for some time, the lack of sleep has made it all feel like one very long, drawn-out day.

It makes me irritable.  When I was alive and I wanted to take the edge off, I'd go to a café or tavern for a drink.  I was never a heavy drinker, really; the whole point of the exercise was to get me out of myself.  I'd nurse a beer for hours, or sip a coffee until long after it went cold, talking to the other patrons or listening to their stories.  Most of their troubles were petty and meaningless, to be honest, but others -- especially if the patron in question had been drinking heavily -- were horrifying.  One man was struggling to raise his daughter, an idiot child who screamed and shook with spasms, after his wife had died giving birth to her.  It helped me put things into perspective.

Of course, now there are two troubles associated with going down to get a drink.  First, I can't drink anything.  Once-solid objects have become as fluid as water to me, and I can't even do something as simple as pick up a coffee cup.  Second, since the living don't see or hear me, I can't ask them about their problems or talk about my own.  The last time I visited a café, I left the place swearing lustily.

I'm starting to understand the appeal of haunting a place.  If you're sick of being invisible and ignored, haunting has got to be a sure way to garner some attention -- even if it's all negative.

So what is there to keep a dead guy occupied?

Quite a lot, it turns out.  The modern world has become weirdly obsessed with bringing people together in ways that actually keep them at arm's length.  Thus you have teens who try to get to know each other better by eating together (it's hard to talk to someone with your mouth full), dancing (in a cavern where the music's so loud you can't hear yourself think) and watching a film (sitting silently side by side in a dark room, staring straight ahead at a screen for two hours).  It's no wonder so many couples break up, when they never really got the chance to know each other.  But some of the changes are advantageous to a spook like me, especially if you have a fondness for film, as I do.  The multiplexes in particular might as well have been designed for ghosts; all day you can flit from one theater to another, watching fascinating stories of love or horror or speculation or comedy.  For an hour or two I can just live with the story, laugh or cry or shriek with the audience, and forget I'm dead.  (Though sometimes I've sat at the back of an empty theater, wondering what popcorn and Junior Mints taste like.)

Reading is more of an issue.  I'm just as incapable of handling books as I am other objects, much to my frustration.  But recent developments in electronics have been to my advantage.  After a lot of trial and error, I've discovered I can use some of the low-level energy a disembodied spirit gives off to tweak electronic devices.  So I can read books on temporarily abandoned computers, readers and smartphones.  It's not the same as holding and turning the pages of a real book, and I'm limited to the borrowed time I can snatch when the owners of these devices absently walk away and leave them switched on.  But it's like water to a thirsty mind.

Then there's music.  Music is virtually everywhere in the world now, and the sheer diversity of it is miraculous to me.  I can wander into a recital, an opera, a musical or a rock concert and be filled with a surfeit of sound.  Oddly enough, although physical objects are almost intangible, sound has become more solid since I died.  I can float and swim in it, swirling effortlessly through the air grown thick with music.  Over the years I've learned not to judge too quickly and to be open to new sounds, and although I still have a penchant for classical composition, now I welcome Def Leppard almost as readily as Donizetti.

Still, an existence not shared with others is ultimately empty.  I walk the streets surrounded by people, passing by and around and sometimes through me, incapable of seeing, hearing or feeling me.  After a while of this, you begin to question your own being.  Am I actually real, or was Descartes wrong?  Does the existence of independent thought truly prove one's being, when there is no one to whom you can express that thought?

Definitely irritable today.

I keep asking myself obvious questions which have no clear answers: is there a heaven or a hell, and if there are such places, why didn't I go there when I died?  Or is this meant to be hell?  It certainly can't be heaven, but if it's hell it's not nearly as horrible as they advertised in church.  Or is it somewhere else entirely?  Am I stuck in a place I'm not meant to be, like a card wedged between a drawer and the back of a cabinet?  I can't imagine an afterlife that isn't peopled with other dead, and yet in all the time I've been dead I've never, not once, met up with a fellow wandering disembodied spirit.  Plenty of poltergeists, which are more annoying forces of nature than discrete personalities.  A handful of haunted places, which I don't dare stay to investigate -- even I get the creeps.  And occasionally an animal will seem to sense my presence and back away.  But I've met no fellow travelers in the afterlife.

Sometimes I think it would be easier if I could simply shut off my brain.  But thinking is one of the few things I can actively do.  If I were to stop thinking, perhaps I really would stop existing -- and as frustrating as my post-human existence is, I don't really want to be snuffed out like a candle.  Not again.  So I continue to walk, and think, and go to concerts and movies and plays, read whenever I can, and occasionally try to puzzle out the odd riddle of my continued being.

Seattle isn't a bad place to be if you're dead.  I've tried many other places -- big towns like London or New York, so-called haunted towns like New Orleans, little towns in the heartland, small villages in the Yucatán and on the opposite side of the planet -- but I've discovered I'm an urban dweller and an American to my core. I'm more comfortable in a city that's big enough to be interesting and small enough to be completely explorable.  Seattle has plenty of theaters and music venues, a handful of traveling Broadway tours every year, and an annual film festival.  There's no local obsession with the supernatural, other than an amusing fascination with science fiction -- and, for some reason, zombies.  And of course there are plenty of electronics to mess with.  It's an acceptable fit for now.

It's become important to me that my place in the world lacks an obsession with the supernatural. New Orleans cured me of any lingering hopes that a spiritualist might help me contact the living.  For something like twelve years I searched for a bona fide medium.  Not a single one was genuine.  Oh, some of them thought they had access to the Other Side, no doubt, but they couldn't see or hear me.  I guess whatever it was they felt when they "felt the spirits" could be chalked up to a minor seizure or twinges of rheumatism, or just a bad case of believing their own hype. One of them got me so frustrated I actually started screaming at her.  She didn't bat an eye -- just kept handing out hokum to her customer about how his grandfather was at peace, and they'd find the will soon.  After that incident I decided I was fed up with all things paranormal, from séances to Ouija boards, and gave up mysticism as a lost cause.

Occasionally I'll try to reach out by other means, mostly electronic.  As mentioned, I can tweak computers a little bit, but it's difficult to fine-tune my meddling to the point that I can make words appear on the screen.  Most of my attempts to date look like pure gibberish:

#hl0 m2 pls 8 sm gh$$$$)t 2

I suppose I'll get better at it with time and practice, but I have no idea whether it will do any good.  If you went into the library to use the catalog and saw that someone had typed "please help i am a ghost" in the search box, you'd probably just think some kid was goofing off.  You'd delete it in an instant, not realizing that it took the better part of five hours to compose or that the spirit in question was sitting next to you, trying futilely to get your attention by any means available.

On edge now.  What I wouldn't do for a drink.

Fiction: Stolen

[It's way too long to be flash fiction... but what the hey.]

IGHT had fallen, and the harbor wisplights were just flickering to life, one by one, as Kenna fled along Ageba Street. It was a slow and careful kind of fleeing, just the way Medlar had taught her: never look back, blend into groups, move from shadow to shadow, don't take a direct route home. "Control yourself first, and you control the situation," he chided her in her head. But she couldn't stop her heart hammering or her need to take deep breaths of the humid, salty harbor air. And there was no way to control the soft glow pulsing from her bag.

She guessed it was the most valuable thing she'd ever swiped. Medlar would be pleased.

Well, anyway, he'd better be.

She went on past the pier without stopping, slipped into a graffiti-laden public message booth, pretended to place a message on the grimy terminal, careful not to let the thing read her fingerprints. All the while she glanced at the dim reflections in the booth's upper windows, checking for the shopkeeper, the keis or any of the local gangs. Listening. Waiting. Trying to still her breath.

Medlar made it look so easy. In truth, every moment you fought the urge to run, but the keis noticed you if you ran, and Kenna couldn't afford to be arrested. As a foundling and a thief, she had neither birth record nor docs, and Medlar had told her repeatedly that if the city officers ever caught her, she'd be on her own.

"I didn't swipe no milk and blankets and shoes for my health, cher," he'd say. "You're my long-term investment. You and me, we gonna be the finest thieves in New Kobe. But if you get sloppy and the keis pick you up, don't look for me to come running. I'll cut my losses and move on."

But Medlar hadn't moved for some time, and he couldn't talk without coughing, nor breathe without wheezing. And though she'd swiped tea and oranges and sake for him, Kenna could see he wasn't getting better. He wouldn't go to the clinic, and for the last week he hadn't left the tank.

No one seemed to be following her. She left the booth and doubled back, heading toward the rickety pier. An official-looking metal sign blocked it off from public access. Medlar had told her it read, "City of New Kobe. No Trespassing. Structurally Unsound Pier." He'd made it himself. Kenna hunkered down near the sign, casually swinging a foot off the deck, feeling for a bolt that had been driven into the pier support. Her toes finally found it, and she climbed softly down the bolts of the support and under the pier, swinging along like a monkey above the churning seawater until she reached the little platform beside the tank. She knocked once, softly.

"Ojii-san," she called, and was answered by a fresh outbreak of coughing. Eventually Medlar cleared his throat enough to respond, "Come in," and she slipped through the hatch.

The tank had been there a long time, almost completely buried in the seawall that holds Ageba Street above the waves. Sometimes, just to pass the time, Kenna and Medlar would speculate about what it was originally meant for.  Medlar found it three months after arriving at New Kobe, and erelong he'd converted it into his own little thieves' palace, with Oriental rugs and chests and futons on the floor, dried fish and smoked sausage hanging from the ceiling, and all manner of stolen bits and bobs in between. It was snug, secret, and surprisingly dry. Even at high tide, they were well above the water -- and when the sea-storms for which New Kobe was famous began to rage, they'd seal the hatch and Medlar would pull out the oxygen tanks until it passed.

Kenna kicked off her shoes in the genkan and scrambled up onto the main platform.

"I got something good for you, old man," she said.

Medlar stared at her blearily, as if unable to focus. He was a short, solid man whose muscles were going to fat, with the bright blue eyes and fleshy-nosed profile that marked him as a gaijin and an offworlder. In the stolen wisplight of the tank, his face appeared as green as his threadbare digital fatigues.

"Sake?" he croaked.

"Nope. Better." She slipped her bag off her shoulder, lowered it to the floor and unfolded it to reveal the glowing object inside. Once uncovered, it shone like the sun, illuminating everything in the tank. Medlar's eyes went wide and he began to cough again.

"A foxfire ball?" he finally got out. "Where'd you find that?"

"In the ginza. That one little shop across from the Daiso... Ton-- Tondai--"

"Tondemonai?" He began to laugh, until the coughing stopped him. "That tourist trinket shop?"

Kenna shrugged. It was Medlar who had taught her not to judge by appearances. "Shopkeeper went out to take a leak and left this on his desk," she said. "It's almost like he wanted it swiped."

The foxfire ball was perfectly round and smooth, like a pearl -- if pearls came in the size of Medlar's fist -- and it seemed to emit a soft, warm sound, like an electronic hum. Kenna picked it up, brought it to Medlar.

"Here," she said, her dark eyes brightening in the reflected light. "Take it. It'll make you well."

Medlar, shielding his eyes with one hand, regarded her with a combination of pride and pity. "Kenna, you're the finest little thief in New Kobe," he said, affection sweetening his ragged voice. "Maybe someday the best on all Shintenchi. But I don't think for a minute this thing here can heal me. Prob'ly just a toy."

"No!" Kenna cried. "It's not a toy! It can change things! I've heard the stories--"

"Aw, they's just stories, cher. Don't believe everything you hear."

Despite her best efforts to push fear away, Kenna's eyes began to water. She dropped to her knees beside Medlar. "Look," she said, "just -- just try it. Even if it's only a toy. Please, Medlar?"

Medlar was proud of his emotional control. The Marines had taught him to be stoic, and the sight of Kenna crying would never tear at his insides. Never. Not even a little.

"Oh, all right," he relented, taking the object from her. It dimmed to a soft glow in his hands. "No need to bawl about it. Besides, ain't nothing good online tonight. We might as well play with this to pass the time, ne?" Another coughing fit followed, which he managed to tamp down with some effort. "Well, then, what d'you reckon I should wish for?"

"You had better wish to survive this night," said a soft, silky voice.

Kenna and Medlar started, looking up simultaneously. Standing in their genkan -- how had he gotten in without either of them hearing? -- was a tall, straight-backed old man with a pencil-thin mustache, close-set eyes and an expression of righteous anger. Kenna recognized the shopkeeper from Tondemonai. His eyes flicked back and forth, scanning information on his iris monitor.

"Mercredi Jacques Brumaire," he murmured. "AKA Gavin Medlar. Born New Orleans... former USMC... chased off Earth, Mars, Europa... nearly spaced in the lunar colonies for thievery... wanted in New Kobe for fencing stolen goods. Well. I should haul you down to the keisatsu right now. I'm sure the bounty on your head would be one worth collecting."

He was focusing so much on the internal monitor that he didn't notice Kenna closing in on him, and when he finally glanced her way it was too late -- she threw herself at him. The next thirty seconds were bedlam as Kenna tore into the intruder, kicking and biting and raking at his face with her fingernails. But the old man was surprisingly strong, and he soon had her in a hold she couldn't wriggle out of, as much as she tried.

"Your little protégée here has plenty of spirit," the shopkeeper said. He wasn't even breathing hard. "Shall we look over her criminal record?"

"Let her alone," said Medlar. He was working to control the cough, fighting not to show weakness to the intruder. "It's me you want, anyway."

"NO!" Kenna cried, struggling. "Medlar, wish yourself away from here! Do it now!"

"That would be extremely unwise," said the shopkeeper. "You haven't the first clue how to use the tech. That ball could put you into the middle of the sea, or five miles underground, or fling you out into space. You'd be safer returning it to me."

Medlar might be sick, but he was still plenty canny. "So you're sayin' this is yours?" he asked, hefting the ball and staring at it curiously. It hummed softly in response to his movement. "And that it's real? Reckon that'd make you a native, then."

Kenna felt the shopkeeper stiffen, but his voice remained as silky as ever. "I never said anything of the kind," he replied. "But your thiefling here stole it from me and I want it back."

For some time, Medlar said nothing. He simply spun the glowing ball around, passing it from hand to hand as if he were performing a magic trick. Kenna could feel the shopkeeper grow ever more tense behind her.

"Y'know, when I first immigrated to Shintenchi," he said, "I thought about goin' legit. Studied on all the records for citizenship. Most of 'em was deadly boring. But one thing I read stuck with me... something 'bout how the first Japanese settlers sent word back to Earth that there was sentient creatures on the planet. Shapeshifters, they said... with strange techno-whatsits..." he spun the ball again... "that let 'em change the nature of local reality. Weird stories. Well, nobody on Earth believed it, but some bigwig sent the Marines just to be sure. Pretty soon the official story was that Shintenchi was a Class 3 uninhabited world. No shapeshifters. No dangerous tech. All nice and neat and ready for moving in." He stopped spinning the ball. "Most of my kin was Cajun, but some of 'em was Cherokee," he muttered. "I know what happens when settlers find a ripe, juicy new world and they's people who have the gall to be livin' on it already."

He let the silence brew for a while, his thoughts unfolding slowly like a chrysanthemum blooming in a tea bowl. Then despite his best efforts, another coughing fit took him, and the shopkeeper nudged closer, looking for a chance to grab the ball away. But Medlar was quicker.

"I hear tell you native-folk don't like bein' separated from these things too long," he growled, raising the ball above his head. "What happens if I break it?"

In response, the shopkeeper tightened his hold on Kenna, who began to whimper.

"Looks like an impasse," Medlar shrugged, slowly lowering the ball. "You wanna take your ball and go home, I want my investment back. Unless you wanna trade straight across and call it--"

But Kenna interrupted Medlar's haggling by sinking her teeth into the shopkeeper's arm, who yelped and loosened his hold enough that she broke free. Medlar might be stupid enough to trade away his one chance at getting better, but she wasn't about to let him do it. She scrambled up to Medlar, grabbing the ball away from him, and it blazed up brightly again in her hands.

"Medlar, be well! Be healthy!" she cried, putting out a hand to touch Medlar. And a power like heat lightning, weird and weirdly familiar, flowed from the ball through her hand and into the old thief. Structures flickered in her head like lines of code, rebooting Medlar's bones and blood, refreshing his vitals, writing him whole. And then it passed, and both Medlar and the shopkeeper were staring at her as though she'd sprouted a tail.

"Kenna..." said Medlar softly. His voice was the clearest Kenna had ever heard it.

The shopkeeper nodded slowly. "Just as I suspected," he said. "She's one of ours." He gave Medlar the eye. "Where did you find her?"

"Pff! What do you mean, 'one of ours'?" Kenna scoffed. "I don't belong to anyone 'cept Medlar. He found me in a basket, on the pier..." She looked to Medlar for confirmation of the story she'd heard a hundred times over, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. A well of dismay suddenly yawned open in her stomach.

"Medlar?" she asked.

"Don't you think it's high time you told her the truth?" the shopkeeper said, not unkindly, but Medlar wouldn't look at him either. His eyes darted back and forth across the floor, as though looking for an exit. Finally he spoke.

"It was goin' on night, and I was on the road back to New Kobe, near the city wall," he said. "There was a dozen of 'em out in the field, easy. They musta thought they was alone. I reckon they was playin' -- turnin' theyselves into people, birds, animals, all sortsa things just for fun. It was... beautiful." He sighed. "I just wanted to watch, is all. But I got clumsy and they heard me and bolted." He looked up at the shopkeeper. "They left her behind," he said, almost accusingly. "She looked like a human baby. What was I s'posed to do, just leave her there?"

The shopkeeper looked at Kenna. He stepped up, gently took hold of her shoulder with one hand and retrieved his stolen ball with the other. Kenna didn't even notice; she was still gaping at Medlar.

"What--" she finally got out. "Medlar? What are you saying? I -- no. No. I--it's a lie."

Medlar still wouldn't look at her, and suddenly the well in Kenna's stomach bubbled with rage. She shook free of the stranger and flew at Medlar, pushing at him, screaming, slapping, beating, hating. And he simply stood and took the abuse, which only made it worse. Medlar never brooked that kind of disobedience from her.

"Stop it!" she screamed, and the tears started to come through. "Stop lying, old man! Tell him the truth! Tell him I'm human! I'm human, I'm just like you!"

With that, Medlar finally looked up at her, his eyes suspiciously red. "Oh, half right, cher," he said brokenly. "You are just like me. Finest little thief in New Kobe. But you ain't human." His eyes dropped again. "And... and you ain't rightly mine."

Medlar wasn't too clear on what happened next. The shopkeeper, foxfire ball in hand, began to murmur something under his breath in unknown syllables. The ball grew brighter and brighter until the light turned physically painful, but through the blinding brightness it seemed as though Kenna and the shopkeeper began to quiver and change -- and suddenly Medlar was alone in the gloom of the wisplit tank.

He started and gasped -- one with no cough to interrupt it. His lungs were whole and strong, and something told him he'd never be sick again a day in his life. So he had more than enough energy to go frantically through the tank, taking inventory. Every trace of Kenna's existence had been neatly erased, from her futon on the floor to her shoes in the genkan to all the little trinkets she'd swiped and brought to him over the years, as though thievery were a game she played and won.

His long-term investment -- his little foundling -- had simply evaporated. Only his memories of her were intact, and Medlar honestly wasn't sure whether that was meant as a kindness or a cruelty.

He sat down hard on the futon and -- well, he never cried -- began scrubbing roughly at his traitorous eyes. From the day he'd stolen back to New Kobe with her, Medlar had reckoned that some day someone from her people would catch up to him -- there must be so very few of them left now; they had to be looking for her -- so he was always scaring her with don't ever be seen, don't linger too long, don't go anywhere with a stranger, never touch anything, if the keis catch you I'll cut my losses and move on. And now he didn't know how to move on without Kenna. She might not be his, and she might not be human, but they were too much like each other to function separately.

But... Kenna thought of herself as human. And as his. She'd said so. If he needed her, he reckoned maybe she needed him, too. And the native -- a stranger to her, after all -- had never gotten Kenna's permission to take her away. Hope had always been a hard thing to kill in Medlar, and now it stirred in him and began spinning a harebrained idea.

He took a pack down from the wall and began to fill it with necessaries. It felt like the day he'd first run away from home. Slipping into his shoes in the genkan, he swung out of the tank, locked it down, climbed up the pier supports and out into the dark streets of New Kobe.

"Don't look for me to come running," I told her, Medlar thought, and it almost raised a smile. But hell, the kid's my long-term investment. I put too much work into her to just let someone take her without puttin' up a fight.

Reckon she's the most valuable thing I ever swiped.