Logic

Logic stalks through streets of stone,
Wrapped in chains and rags of red,
Longing for the freedom of her sister:
Love, in beauty's mask.

The Mask

She’d always worn a mask. No one questioned her motives; no one dared to ask why. It was simply a given that Stella Ridley wore her crimson mask everywhere she went. She didn’t wear it because she had some facial deformity. It was widely believed that she was rather beautiful underneath that handcrafted piece of red Venetian leather, yet still she continued to wear it.

Despite the mask, the one thing that really distanced her from reality, she made friends easily. Her manner was unassuming, relaxed, understanding. She allowed much and forbade nothing. All were equal in her eyes, from the darkest, most sorrowful soul to the brightest smiling entity she attended school with. Her best friend was nearly her opposite, constantly concerned with appearances and impressions, but Stella’s nature only increased their friendship. Though Genevieve Cartier was obsessed with how the world perceived her, Stella brought a new wind to her life, a wind that helped strip her of her own invisible masks. They understood each other, despite their mass of differences.

Everyone knew not to question Stella about her mask. It was simply something the girl did. It was her form of expression; some their age wrote out their frustration, some painted or took their anger out in a sport, but Stella wore her mask. It kept her safe. It was her net. When all else failed and the world came closing in, Stella could hide behind her mask. When everyone left her to fend for herself, her mask would protect her from the harshness of reality.

Stella astounded everyone who knew her; she seemed born to knock down the old pillars of belief in beauty. There was nothing special about her, save for her mask, but Stella’s presence seemed to bring about an odd sense of trust. Her masked face and kind voice brought faith to those who had long given up. She was a masked prophet, a teenage girl who could bring those close to despair back from their black prison.

The day Stella Ridley died came all too soon. She’d not yet turned eighteen when she was taken from her parents, her friends, her charges, yet all who’d known her remembered her. Stella Ridley had changed everyone who knew her. She’d given friends new perspective while she’d helped strangers realize that not all was lost. She’d been an angel in times of desperation and a benevolent presence in times of peace. Stella Ridley had been a mystery, but now she was a mystery much missed.

She’d brought hope to those who had forsaken all, and she would be remembered for her forgiving manner, her deep kindness, her soft voice, and her red Venetian mask.

The Stocks

I sighed, wriggling my wrists around inside my upright wooden handcuffs once more. Some pathetic little faith in the ultimate goodness of the universe kept me moving every five minutes, hoping against hope that the stocks I was in would magically spring open and I would be able to perform another randomly miraculous escape. Lord knew I had a reputation to uphold.

I was the best thief this side of the Channel, woman or no.

Next to me was my trusty partner-in-crime, a Spaniard I knew only as Sanchez. The dark-skinned woman next to me had been by my side for years, supporting me as I first became popular with the thieves of London, then with the thieves of England, and finally as I was named heir by the most powerful Thief Lord in all the Isles. Sanchez had saved my life hundreds of times and we’d worked together for ages, yet it never occurred to me to ask her name.

She was simply Sanchez.

And I was Stephanie Snyder, the only daughter of a couple Dutch immigrants, though the English population knew me as Clever Steph. Apparently, I could cut a ten pound purse from the Duke of York and he wouldn’t know what’d hit him until he reached his home.

Or so they said. Who was I to say I’d never met the Duke of York in my life? The people were content to think I was daring enough to take on Charles Stuart, and I was content to let them think so.

With a sigh, I wriggled my wrists yet again and turned to look at Sanchez, a deep frown etched in my features. I saw she had a similar expression.

“And you call yourself a thief,” I said disgustedly, crinkling my nose. “You couldn’t even manage to nab the keys off one of our guards.” Trusty indeed…

“Says the typhus-ridden fool who got us nicked,” growled Sanchez, her teeth bared. I narrowed my eyes. She broke the cardinal rule, the rule everyone adheres to when they’re friends with a Dutchman.

Never insinuate we have a disease of any kind, even if we do.

I stuck my chin in the air, looking down my nose at her as best I could. My voice took on that noble tone I saved for special occasions (usually when people called me typhus-ridden) and arched an eyebrow.

“I can’t help the fact that you’re an incapable piece of flesh who’d rather sleep with a herd of horses than an attractive man.” I smiled cockily at my comeback. Nothing like a reference to bestiality to get her in a fix. “You were supposed to be watching my back yet, when I turned around, I came face to face with Charles Root and his band of Dogs. Excellent job, Sanchez. Well done.” Everyone in London knew Charles Root was the Provost in all but name. The real Provost was some crippled old man and Root had gracefully slid into place as his ‘temporary’ steward.

If there’s one thing I’d learned about the English, it was that ‘temporary’ generally meant ‘permanent’.

"Yes, well, at least my idea of an attractive man doesn't look like the backside of a horse. Besides, it's a bit hard to watch your back when I can’t differentiate between it and your arse." I raised both my eyebrows.

“Why, my dear Spanish friend, I had no idea you knew what differentiate meant. In any event, blaming each other is getting us nowhere.” I grinned and decided to use the age-old mention of, “What we need is a plan.” Sanchez grinned at me, our previous banter forgotten.

“Si.” She smiled and locked her eyes on mine, obviously expecting me to elaborate on said plain. There was nothing but silence for a moment as we stared at each other, her look expecting and mine blank.

“What, you think I’ve actually come up with something?” I demanded after a moment, my expression one of revolt. “We just got put in the stocks, for Christ’s sake! I’ve got other things on my mind! You’re the smart one. You think of something!” Sanchez's eyes flashed and I suddenly felt as though she were going to insult me in a foreign language.

"Tu bastardo! ¡Su madre era un su del padre eperlano hamstar y de bayas del saúco!" With a glare, her insults ceased and she huffed. My blank stare relayed I had no idea what she'd said. "All right," Sanchez growled, "here's the plan: I lay on the accent, seduce one of the guards, get him to unlock my stocks, kick you in your worthless Dutch arse on my way out the door, and then I come and laugh at your execution in a couple weeks. Is that satisfactory, Senora Puta?" I smiled sweetly at my counterpart.

"Very much so, except for the kicking-Snyder-in-the-ass part, the reference to my being a whore, and the bit about my execution.” After screwing my face up in thought, I snapped my fingers, the proverbial torch lit on my head (we had no idea what light-bulbs were back then so you understand my torch reference). “This is what we’ll do, Sanchez. Next time someone comes past, we ask them to get us a can of lard!”

“And what’re we going to do with the lard, Snyder? Cook up some bacon for our own Last Supper?!” I couldn’t help but frown at that.

“For being a thief, you’re really not that bright. No, I’m going to lather your hand up with it, you’re going to dislocate your thumb, and then you’ll slip out! After that bit’s done, you’ll use your free hand, do the same with the other, find some keys, and unlock me! Then we’ll make our miraculous escape and go down in history for being the only thieves to ever escape the stocks! You’ll forever be known as Slippery Sanchez and all the people of England will be afeared of your wily ways!” My face was alight with excitement as I relayed the plan to my partner; clearly, this was the product of pure genius. “Well? What do you think?”

"I think that afterwards, I’ll refer to you as Snyder the Dilatory Dutchman, an incompetent excuse for a thief who was freed by the Sanchez the Slippery Spaniard.” Sanchez grinned at me as I frowned, though I tactfully held my tongue. “One question, though: who’s getting us the lard? Everyone who walks by either throws something or laughs, if not both.”

“Well, my dear Spanjolen, if you’ll look to the north of us, there are two noblemen shopping at that bazaar that I, for my part, know to be intellectually challenged. They can’t write, they can’t read, and they certainly can’t make the distinction between their ass and elbow. I think that, if it’s done properly, we should be able dupe them into getting us some lard rather spectacularly.”

“And how’re we to get our heads out?”

“Sanchez, we’re thieves. We pick locks for a living. Once our hands are free, we’ll pick the locks and be on our merry way.”

“That’s a stretch if I ever heard of one.”

“Don’t think of it as a stretch. Think of it as trying different avenues of escape to file away in our twisted little minds.” I flashed a huge grin at Sanchez and immediately started to usher over the two noblemen. They came toward us at a leisurely pace, each grinning stupidly, the one on the left stroking the slight beard he’d begun to grow. Neither was out of their twenties; the one to the right was Theophilus Howard, Earl of Suffolk while his friend was William Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury. Thankfully, neither recognized me from any of the events we’d attended.

“Good gentlemen,” I began, easily masking my Dutch accent with that of an Englishwoman, “how art the pair of you faring this glorious morning?” Suffolk scoffed at us, his smile turning into a sneer.

“Better than you, I might imagine,” he responded in his nasally voice. Biting back my natural ability to insult everyone, I continued to smile, playing out my part of a stupid commoner.

“Yes, I fear you are right, Lord Suffolk, and that is exactly why my unworthy counterpart and I have beleaguered your most wondrous selves to trouble you with a call for help.”

“Beleaguered, eh?” Salisbury asked, his eyes narrowed in distrust. Attempting to be discreet, he leaned over to Suffolk and asked, “Is beleaguered good or bad for us?”

“I’m not exactly sure.” Turning back to me, Suffolk put his nose even higher in the air (the man was rivaling the Himalayas) and used his best I’m-a-filthy-rich-nobleman voice.

“And how is this beleaguering to be accomplished?” he asked, trying for all the world to sound important.

I had to stifle a giggle.

He’d managed to not only make an ass out of himself already, but he’d used ‘beleaguered’ in the wrong context.

And they had the nerves to call themselves educated.

"Well, sirs, it seems my friend and I are in need of some lard..." With an obliging smile, I explained why the lard was needed (something about Sanchez catching my typhus, which caused her hands to itch) and what we would be willing to pay for it. It didn’t take much to convince the pair of them; as idiots, they were more trusting than most, and Sanchez soon had her hands on (actually, they were in) some lard.

Stupid of them, really, for Suffolk and Salisbury to trust a thief.

Needless to say, Sanchez and I were freed that day. Suffolk and Salisbury didn’t stand a chance against our (or rather my) superior intellect and methods of escape.

And their purse strings didn’t stand a chance against Slippery Sanchez’s Spanjolen blade.

She Dances Alone

She was an angel of the purest kind, but even angels bleed.

Her dress was the whitest satin one could ever imagine; it was so white it radiated every color in the spectrum, almost like a sun in its own right. The cloth flowed over its owner’s body and fit like a perfectly tailored glove, every curve settling in the right spot, every seam blending faultlessly with the pasty colored fabric. The dress’s proprietor, a young woman named Neriah, was a beautifully swarthy European girl who had a sun kissed glow to her noble Spanish skin.

She knew nothing of the pain she was destined for.

She swept through the palace that had become her home, a single crimson rose held loosely in her right hand, her thoughts constantly drifting to her lover.

Her dearest Miguel.

She hadn’t seen him in months; he’d sailed early in the year, a proud officer in His Majesty’s glorious Armada. She’d begged him to stay for reasons unknown, pleaded with him not to go on Spain’s errand to England, but he had reasoned with her. There was no earthly reason he shouldn’t go. He’d been on countless missions before and had always come home to her. He’d asked her to simply her rationale and give him just one plausible reason. One reason and he would stay.

But she hadn’t had one.

So she watched him sail that day that seemed so long ago, praying to God he would come home safely. Every day since Miguel had left, Neriah had gone to the palace’s chapel and begged God to protect him. She longed for nothing more than to see her love again and to dance with him.

What dancers they had been.

Lately, she’d spent her days roaming the palace in her best dress, her raven curls pinned up by a blooming flower, and a rose from the palace gardens clasped in her hand. It had become a ritual. She would dream of Miguel’s return, of the strong features in his face, and of the ball that her father would undoubtedly throw in glory of his Armada’s success.

And they would dance. She and Miguel would dance.

Surely the Armada would succeed. Spain was an undefeated power, their armies magnificent and their navy superb. There was no reason for her to be worried, none at all. Spain would succeed and Miguel would come home.

And when he was home, oh, they would dance forever.

Seconds Pass

One moment, the locking of eyes across an empty hall. Need, need is there in her hazel eyes, pure desire along with fear. Secrets cloud his normally clear eyes, but the same need, the same desire, is present in him.

The seconds pass slowly, so exquisitely slowly, and there is nothing but her and him, him and her, them. Only they matter; only they exist. The Frigid One is nothing more than something conjured, something embodying everything she hates and fears and envies. no, that being is gone. Those hates are removed, and only the pair of them remain. They look so deeply, drinking heartily from the spring of each others' souls. So much is absorbed in that instance, yet there will not be enough taken.

She glances away. Their connection is broken. Both hearts cry in despair, yearning for the absolute sustenance that only the other heart can provide. Never have either of them felt such pain, such a ripping in their chest, but still they swallow it, as humans are wont to do, and continue on.

He will damn his paths not taken, while she will damn her own weakness in loving him.

White Cotton T-Shirt

Pressed against him,
His back to me, his head on my shoulder,
Heat passing;
The heat of a summer reborn.
His dark hair against my nose,
The smell of him filling my senses;
That sweet smell of his,
A smell only he can master.

A white cotton t-shirt
Emblazoned with memories past.
Memories of him.
A white cotton t-shirt,
Dried with sunlight and fresh air,
Smelling of trees, of summer,
Of him.

His body against mine,
So friendly, so endearing, trusting.
He knows not what he does.
He lies across me,
Front to back, cheek to cheek;
He undoes me.

He knows it not.

Sally and Jack, Respectively

Her hair had always been red and stringy and straight as a bone; she looked like a rag doll with yarn pasted poorly to her head, but she never complained. Though she'd been made, not born, and was now a servant to the man who made her, she couldn't complain.

Not as long as she could see him every day.

He was king, king of a great land with adoring subjects. He ruled well and had a kind manner about him, despite his yearly profession as a nightmare. No, he'd never been a nightmare to her. He was perfection, absolute perfection.

And he spoke to her.

Her greatest joy was that he knew who she was, knew her name and her face by heart. Not only did he know her, he was her friend. He confided in her, told her secret things that, before her creation, had been whispered to the wind. He told her everything, and her heart swelled with the knowledge that she was his confidant.

Still, despite the happiness his friendship brought, she wanted more.

She wanted him, undying and eternal. She wanted to feel absolute love radiating from him when he embraced her. She wanted to know his ins and outs, the depth of his kiss, the chill of his bones against her skin. She could live with his friendship, but she needed to live with his love.

------------------

He'd known her for as long as he could remember. The good Doctor had created her long ago, when he was but a young prince, not yet man enough to be king. He had marveled at the Doctor's technology then, at his ability to give such a thing life, but now he knew it was not the Doctor's skill that had given her life. Her own will to live had brought her spirit to dwell within the body that had been made for her. Then, she had come, she had drawn her first breath, and he had been smitten.

Before her, he'd had no one. His secrets remained secrets until there was such a surplus of them he could barely stand to exist, but now... now, she was there, she was always willing to bear his weight, and he was always grateful for it. For her.

Gods, he didn't know how he'd survived before she came. She was everything to him, the very air he would breathe if he could, the very life that flowed within him. She was his sustenance; she kept him alive, and he would always love her.

She was so strong. The Doctor had no idea what he'd created in her.

A Boundless Curiosity

Tuesday, July 17th, 2007; 12:27 a.m.

I am eighteen-years-old. I have been diagnosed with depression and have been put on medication, but for the past three months I've ignored my doctor's wishes and have neglected to swallow the 5 mg pill that helps control my wild side. At first, it was freeing; my monster, chomping at the bit, had been unleashed, and the feeling that came with such a freedom was extraordinary.

Now, I wonder how I could have permitted myself to make such a mistake.

I never liked taking medication to stay sane. I'd never thought about suicide, never wanted to hurt myself or anyone else. I simply... wasn't normal, wasn't right in the head. Even after three prescribed medications, I knew I didn't need it. I could function on my own.

Lately, since graduation, I've retreated to a place from which there is no escape, a place where I can no longer control myself or my thoughts, and where there is nothing so beautiful as death. It used to be every now and then, I would wake up in the morning and wish I didn't exist. Now it's every day. Every day my mind strays to that single thought and contemplates it. I can't help but wonder if death or nonexistence is really as painful and terrifying as some say, or if it'll lead to a better place for me, where I feel and am sane, and I'm not controlled or managed or ruled by anything or anyone other than myself.

Every day, when I go to work, I consider putting my car into a ditch. I wonder how badly it could hurt me, or what would happen if I drove into the river or a train, or crashed into the sheer rocks on the Narrows. And every time I tell myself, "No, that's the coward's way out", but I just wonder what would happen to me afterward, who would be sorry if I died, or who would come see me in the hospital if I lived.

I wonder if it would put life into different perspective for me, or if my bad luck would intervene and either kill me or ruin an expensive piece of machinery without ruining myself, my mind or my body, in the process. Some days the urge is so strong I actually let go of the wheel, let my car drift into the gravel or the other lane, but I always take it back in my hands, right my car, and continue what has turned into a miserable existence.

I'm both terrified and excited to see the day when I don't take hold of the wheel again and I let my two-ton car take my life in its careless hands for just a moment.

Some days, rare days, I don't need the car and the road to think of death or pain. Some days I stare at the bottle of Tylenol I keep on the dresser, or the 800 mg tablets of Ibuprofen I keep close at hand, waiting to end a certain suffering while creating another.

These days I feel a million miles away, detached from reality and trapped within myself, and there's no one to trust or turn to.

No Time for Goodbyes

He held me close and then the sharp pain came, a stabbing in my abdomen followed by a cold trickle. That trickle became a river, and then the river began to gush. I felt my life flowing from me; I felt his rough shirt underneath my fingers as I stared in disbelief; I could feel the frozen quality my expression had taken on. He'd brought me so close, deceived me, and allowed me to think I was forgiven.

What needed forgiving again? Oh, yes. I wasn't her. I would never be her. That fact was trespass enough against him. I couldn't be her, willowy and graceful, dark and beautiful, an undercurrent of malice threaded into my soul. I couldn't emulate her likeness enough. I couldn't remind him enough of her, her shaded and jaded countenance, the stinging memory of her evanescence. She'd flown from him like a captured bird, and I'd eagerly taken her place, or tried to. I could never truly be her; I don't know why I ever thought I could.

I was so convinced of our oneness, our casual affability, that I was blinded to his true motives. Now, I was paying the price for that blindness. I had failed to become her, and so I could not live.

I crumpled as my soul slowly leaked from my body. My legs lost their ability to stand, my hands theirs to grasp, and I slid down and away into the dark nothing of disappointment. He towered above me, gazing down on my shock-ridden face with a cold and unfeeling demeanor. It was a mask to me. I'd never seen his face become home to such a dark look.

As my body lay back and my soul ventured forward, my eyes moved to his, and I saw the last pieces of his humanity flake away. He became statuesque. He became cold. And so I died.

No time for goodbyes.

Rhyme

Narrow pen-tip, thinning ink;
What to do tonight but write?
Home tomorrow; home to think;
Home to act bold yet contrite.

Six long years since rhyming's end;
High school, college, in between.
Now the rhyming's back again,
Flaunting worded liberty.

One more class and then a car,
Filled to brim with packing stuff;
Driving home, not very far,
To a bed and homey things.

Oh my, the rhyme's deserted me...

Ode to the Jew

Shameless plugging, she says
A shameless plug, a grip for time
Shameless
Shameless
Shameless
Shameless
She'd be a bitch if she weren't so nice
But she can't deceive like that
She's not that kind of girl and she never could be
She brings a different kind of shame to shameless
A different kind of loud to silence
But not loud in the material sense
The crazy inferial sense
The normal and meltingly serial sense
No.
She's a different kind of girl altogether
A Jewish American Princess: sans the princess, add more Jew
She's sweet in a savory kind of way but not
Sickening or heavy on the stomach
She lands lightly and makes you fall softly, safely
Into a comfort all coffee beans and ambient tones
She was a sweet girl, but not the kind of sweet that makes you sick
Just the kind of sweet that leaves you wanting more
More of her tender friendship and innocent praise
She's the kind of girl that makes you sorry you're you
But only almost.

She encourages with every bit of her soul, a mother to the world
Whose only desire is to make her children feel more secure
She's all forgotten words and rambling sentences
But in the best sense.
She's never crazy in life, only in thought and style
But watching, seeing, listening to her makes you see
She wishes, so desperately, to be as free in deed as she is in word.
What she doesn't know is she has her freedom,
A tasteless but powerful freedom before her
And it's there for the taking
But she won't reach.
Fear stays her hand because of her past
Because of the pain her soul has cried out against
The pain of death and loss at such a tender age
But if you only look, girl, if only you'd truly see
Your pain has long left you and your heart's attached itself
To an empty idea of what you should feel.
Open your eyes, Sam, and see
You are as free as you allow yourself to be.

Fat Pen

Fat Pen in my hand,
Black ink flowing from fat to thin
With a little glob of black
Left on the tip.
Oh Fat Pen.
My beloved treasure.
So full of ink and promise,
Truly a Pilot of my imagination;
Tank! in the background,
Three, two, one, let's jam!
Spies running, making escape,
Yet here you are, Fat Pen,
Chillin' in my hand.
You're not escaping, silly thing.
You wouldn't,
Because you know:

You're my favorite Fat Pen in the whole world.

Scream

I sat across the room from him, my body completely rigid and my fingers digging into the cushions of the couch. My jaw was frozen shut with fear and my cheeks were pale, the blood drained into my pumping heart. He just looked at me. His expression was no different from any other day. He just looked. I think that’s what was most unsettling about it all. We sat there for God knows how long… maybe an hour, maybe a minute. All I knew was that I somehow wrestled down the fear threatening to escape through my throat and unlocked my jaw. Somehow I gathered my thoughts and spoke.

“Nathan…” My voice withered away, his name buzzing on my lips. Still his expression remained stoic. Nothing changed; nothing moved. His blank face should have worried me more and would have, if I’d known what was to come. Instead, he silence empowered me. Since he did not move to stop me, I assumed he was willing to hear my confession.

“Nathan, I’m sorry,” I pleaded, my voice shaking with emotion. “Please, let me explain. You don’t understand what he said to me, what he threatened to do…”

“Who?” That one word resonated in my mind. There was no malice behind it, no ulterior motive. He simply wanted to know. He was curious. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to calm my racing heart before I pressed on.

“C-C-Cary. Cary Issacs.” Nathan nodded in understanding and fell silent again. I took this as an invitation to go on. “Cary came to me when you were away. He told me you’d been taken by them, that you weren’t coming home.” My face suddenly heated up and I felt the prick of tears in my eyes. I looked away for a moment, blinking desperately to stem the oncoming flow. Once I felt it was under control I looked back across the room. He was the same as he had been before, unphased by my sudden loss of control. I took a breath and continued, my voice calmer than it had been before. “He told me about the debts you owed and how I would be expected to pay them off. I didn’t have the money, Nathan, and I didn’t think you were coming back. What else was I supposed to do? They would have taken that money from my hide! A sum that great… they would have killed me.”

His silence permeated everything. It bore down on my soul and encased my brain. It severed my spirit from my being and I felt I would cry out. Just as I couldn’t bear it anymore, he steadily stood from his seat and walked over to me. I stood as well, though I paled in comparison to his six and a half foot stature. He came up to me and put his hand on my cheek, gently stroking it before carefully taking my chin in his hand. In is other hand he held up a large flashlight, showing it to me and letting my eyes take in its appearance. It was an industrial flashlight, the kind carried by police officers, the handle of which gleamed like new steel.

“Do you know what this is, my darling?” he asked, his face still blank. I nodded.

“A flashlight.” For the first time, he smiled, a sad smile that conveyed a depth of regret I couldn’t understand.

“It’s much more than a flashlight,” he whispered, bringing my face closer to his. I though he meant to kiss me but he paused just as there were mere inches between us. “It’s called a kill-light.”

I was dizzy from the proximity of his body. I couldn’t think, I could only ask, “What’s a kill-light?” His smile widened and changed in nature; it was no longer sad. It was a smile far different from any I’d ever seen. It was something I couldn’t classify. Then he let my chin go abruptly and took a step back.

“It’s exactly what it sounds like.”

Realization suddenly rocked my body.

The last thing I saw was the massive flashlight swinging straight for my head.

The last thing I heard was its deafening crunch when it met with my skull.

It was the perfect footnote to my scream.

Jeanine

She looked as though she was no more than fifteen years old, and that was being particularly generous. Ace bent down on one knee to better see in her eyes. She was definitely not a child but her short height might have fooled any random passerby. It was clear this girl had never been properly taken care of.

“What’s your name?” The girl didn’t speak. Instead, she made a motion as if to write. Understanding her meaning, Ace felt around the pockets of his coat and produced a pen. He held out his hand to act as her paper and she wrote her name on his palm, her script not the childlike print he had expected but a delicate and flowing script. He turned his hand and read the name there.

Jeanine.

Ace smiled and looked back into the girl’s face. “That’s a beautiful name, Jeanine. Do you have a last name?” She motioned again for his hand and wrote the name Taylor in the same beautiful script. Ace nodded.

“Where are your parents?” he asked carefully.

Dead, she wrote.

He could do no more than nod again. Such a young girl should surely have someone to look after her and yet here she was, on her own and not faring so badly. Her clothes were worn, but they were sturdy and clean; her stature was small and thin but her eyes were brighter than most he’d seen. She had life in her. She was determined to press on.

Ace’s brow furrowed as another question came to his mind. He studied the girl for a minute, then asked, “Why can’t you speak?” At this the girl’s face drooped slightly and she shook her head from side to side. Ace kept his eyes on her face and angled his body to look in her eyes; he placed his fingers gently under her chin and brought her face upward so that he might look at her fully. He waited for her to answer. It took several minutes but the girl finally reached for his hand, aiming the pen and carefully penning three words. When she had finished, she looked at what she had written with resignation before letting Ace’s hand fall out of her own. Ace slowly dropped his eyes from her face and let them brush across the blue words written on his palm, his eyes widening slightly as he took in the full depth of their meaning.

Tongue cut out.

An Introduction

Silence is a great healer. That’s what my twin brother used to say to me when we were kids. Only ten-years-old and he’d already tried to absorb the adult world by taking in adult concepts like silence is a great healer. I had no idea what it meant then but I do now and it pisses me off.

My twin brother always thought he was hot shit. Angel was the firstborn out of the pair of us but he was still only a second son and therefore unimportant. My father prized my oldest brother Valenio and my lone sister Ellie above the rest of us. To my father, me and Angel and our other brother Rafe were practically useless. He couldn’t get rid of us because the fact was we were backups.

You know, backups. In case beloved Valenio died.

It really pissed my dad off that my mom could never give him a backup daughter, though the reality was that he would have treated that girl like shit just like he treated Angel, Rafe and I like shit. There was no reason to love us, not for him. Some people might think that’s foolish and I would agree; the lack of care of us three boys made us hate our father and none of us would have helped him if he’d asked, though he was more of a forcing man.

Instead of love my dad prized duty. He figured that even if he kicked the crap out of us, even if he ignored us when we needed him, even if he made us hate him, we were still bound to him and if the need arose, and we would do our duty.

It pisses me off that he was right.

No, no, not about me. I wouldn’t have done a damn thing for that selfish bastard if my life depended on it. Neither would Rafe. It was Angel. Angel craved our dad’s attention and his love, so when Valenio got killed it was no surprise that, despite the years of torment, my twin brother stepped into Valenio’s shoes and did our father proud.

Stupid bastard.

The worst thing was that even though I was determined to hate my dad and make him hate me, my dad was proud of me. Don’t get me wrong, I still hate that bastard’s guts to this day. But it wasn’t mutual, see. When Valenio died and Angel stepped into his place, it was like my twin brother couldn’t do anything right. Dad was always riding his ass about something or other: “You saddled your horse wrong”, “That’s not how you hold a sword”, “I don’t want you speaking with those people again”. No, despite Angel’s rise to power, my dad still thought of him as the family fuck up.

Me, on the other hand… well, I was a different story. It’s a story I very much hate. I might tell you the whole thing later on but what I will say now is that my dad’s neglect of me as a kid made me angry, and my anger made me ruthless. When I’d finally finished my studies at home, I joined up with the Imperial Army and I really soaked everything up. I loved war. I fashioned myself into this unstoppable force and I reveled in it. The Empire loved me because I was effective but not out of control; I could take orders and follow them to the letter while also getting my point across.

Boy, could I get my point across. Still can.

Anyway, to show me how valued I was, the Emperor made me one of the first soldiers to join an elite training program to become what he called Tourmasters. And that right there is what pretty much started me down the road to hell. I did unspeakable things when I was a Tourmaster, things I think of and regret every day. That aside, being a Tourmaster sure did make my dad proud. I hated him and I still hate him but he was proud. I was what he’d always wanted of Valenio and what Angel could never be. I was a killing machine, kind of like he was, only tenured with the Empire. I had not only my pay from the Imperial Council but their approval and support as well. The Emperor, whose wife was childless, planned to adopt me, though I don’t have any idea why someone would place a serial murderer on the throne of their country.

I guess they thought I knew something.

Life was pretty good in those days and then Angel, being the fuck up he is, got mad and fucked up my life. He fucked it up real good and now I’m paying for the fact that my brother just can’t stand to lose. My only consolation is that now he’s a miserable bastard.

Once, right after my twin brother took control and right before he fucked me over, he told me a secret. He said to me, “Arhenion, I want to tell you a secret, but you can’t tell anyone, okay?” I’d nodded and leaned in close like we were sharing something great, just like when we were kids, and he said, “I’m going to kill the Emperor.” I’d laughed at him then and told him he should be more careful about what he said. I brushed it off. It was Angel being Angel, meaning he was all talk and no action.

Biggest mistake of my life was when I walked away from him that day. I should have turned him in. I should have gutted him myself.

But I didn’t.

Now, I’m paying the price. Angel killed my Emperor before I’d been adopted and took my throne away from me. Now he rules and I am left to the whims of an angry and tormented twin.

Right after the coup, right before he locked me up, Angel took me aside again and said this to me:

“Thank you for keeping your silence, Arhenion. Without you, this would not have been possible.” Then he patted me on the shoulder and walked away and my life fell apart. I was jailed as a sympathizer. The young wife I’d taken was executed for consorting with the enemy. And I, named Public Enemy #1, was sent to the far north to die in a cave with the knowledge that all I’d loved, all I’d cared for, had been taken from me.

Silence is a great healer?

Fuck that.

Silence ruined me.

Give me noise.

Give me death.

Give me war.

The Nut

I really hate this goddamn place.

That single thought overtook my entire brain and body as I drove my car into the parking lot. I worked for a gas station/convenience store and it was honestly the worst goddamn thing that had ever happened to me. I dreaded going there every day of my life. What was worse was my boss almost always made me work the shittiest shift in the world, 7:30-4.

That was the one shift everyone hated. It was the one shift I had to work all goddamn summer. I wasn't working it that day, though. I was working a rare 4-8, a glorious respite from all the early mornings filled with scumbag truckers and shit-caked farmers that just wanted their burnt coffee and their goddamned Little Debbie's snack cake. They actually ate that shit for breakfast. It disgusted me.

I pulled into my parking spot and tried not to die a little inside. Just the thought of enduring four hours in this hellhole was enough to make me vomit. I took a deep breath and held it for a minute, silently willing myself to buck up and get a grip, before I took the keys out of the ignition and grabbed the door handle. I swung my body out of the car and took my purse in my hands before I shut the door and hit the lock button on my key-less entry thing. I adjusted the stupider than fucking stupid hat I was forced to wear on my way inside and noted that it was hotter than a son-of-a-bitch outside. There were a couple of trailer trash white kids loitering around the front door in obvious defiance of the "No Loitering" signs that were plastered all over the building, precisely placed every three feet. They were smoking and laughing and swearing and they stared at me as I ambled up the sidewalk. I'd gone to high school with them. They were worthless.

I said nothing to them as I walked inside. They could loiter all they wanted. I didn't care.

A loud sigh escaped my lips as the air conditioning hit my skin. The day was hot and the cold air felt good. That was the only upside about this place: Central Air. Other than that, Acorn Markets, its management and its customers was a metric fuckton of shit that I was forced to shovel with a smile.

I wanted to die.

I walked behind the counter and nodded to a couple of my coworkers, especially Arin. I'd gone to high school with her and we'd spent a lot of our time together smoking as much weed as we could physically stand or drinking as much alcohol as our young livers could process. It was a good life back then.

Arin was different from most of the people I went to high school in that she wasn't a dumbass piece of white trash that thought it was funny when you got dicked over and had to work a shitty job all summer just to pay your phone bill. She had to suffer through the same shit I did, day in and day out, and she understood when I walked in to work and couldn't smile.

I walked back to the office, past Pizza Cole hammering away on a couple of afternoon orders and Sam cleaning off the sub counter. I hung up my purse on the pegs across from the computer, taking out a little money for my dinner, and then I punched in.

I was trapped till 8.

I walked back up front to Arin and tapped her on the shoulder after she finished ringing up the customer she was with. "Wanna get my till out of the safe?" She smiled and nodded before signing out of the register and taking her own till back to the office. She came back up and unlocked the safe, handing me my own till.

"How've you been?" she asked as the money left her hands. I not-so-politely jammed the till into the drawer and slammed the drawer shut. My boss had warned me not to do that, that I'd ruin the wiring, but he wasn't here. Fuck him.

"I'm all right," I answered Arin over my shoulder. "You know. I'm here."

"Yeah, I get that," she chuckled.

"How're you? How's Matt?"

"We're okay." She stopped after those two words and I turned to look at her. Her eyes were pointed at the floor. She suddenly seemed really interested in the grout between the tile. I sighed quietly and glanced around to make sure no one was in the store before I ventured in.

"Are you sure? How are you guys handling things?"

"We're trying," she said, still looking at the grout. "It's tough, you know. I still keep thinking she's there but she's not." I nodded and said nothing. I didn't know what else to do.

"I'm sorry, Ace," I said after a couple seconds. It was lame but it was all I could think of. Arin nodded and looked up at me, forcing her face into a smile.

"It's okay. It's not your fault."

"Yeah, I know. But still." We were quiet for another minute. A customer brought something to the counter and I rang him up without thinking. After he left, I turned back around to look at my friend.

"Did I tell you that Brad scheduled me on the day of her funeral?" she asked me. My mouth immediately dropped open. Brad, our boss, was a goddamn tool. He was an evil child molester who had lied on his application to the store and only held his job through a series of even more twisted and complicated lies. He was currently fucking the assistant manager and with the two of them running the place, every grunt employee's life was a living hell as soon as they walked through the front door.

"What do you mean he schedule you on the day of her funeral? Does he know what 'bereavement' means? Does he even have a fucking soul?" I growled angrily. Arin just shook her head and shrugged.

"I know. I went to Betsy about it and she actually said she would switch things around for me. It's the first time she's ever taken my side on anything. I was surprised."

"You should be. I thought it'd kill her to go against her man."

We stood there for a couple minutes more before Arin heaved a large sigh.

"I'm going to go home," she said. "Matt'll want dinner and I can't stay here anymore." I nodded and plastered a fake smile on my face.

"Okay," I said a bit too cheerfully. "Feel better, sweetie. If you need to talk, you have my number." She nodded before sticking her hands in her pockets and walking out to her car. I turned back to my register and just stood there for a minute, gazing out over the store before someone yelled from the back that I was letting the pizzas pile up.

Goddamn it, I thought. I really hate this fucking store.

Studying Arin

It was another typical day working at the Nut when Arin walked in. She had her boyfriend Matt in tow, a guy who had the look of a coke addict and likely was a coke addict but still had the sweetest disposition of all of Arin's boyfriends to date. Arin waved to me and shot me a brief smile before dragging Matt back to the beer cooler, her long hippie skirt twirling airily around her legs as she went. I smiled and waved back as I rung up my next couple of customers. Slowly the line in front of my register dispersed and I was free to wander the store.

I made a beeline for the beer cooler.

"Hey," I called to my friends. Arin and Matt turned, both of their faces lighting with smiles when they saw me.

"Hey!" Arin said, prancing around Matt to come hug me. I easily folded her small frame into my own before releasing her and taking a step back. "How're you?" she asked cheerfully, letting Matt drape his arm around her shoulders.

"I'm good, good. I saw Cassie yesterday. She says hi." Arin snorted.

"Has she got a job yet?"

"Nope."

"Guess she's still living the dream."

"Yeah, I guess." We were quiet for a minute before she remembered something and practically jumped out of her skin.

"Check it out!" she said excitedly, turning around and lifting the back of her light yellow tank. "I got a new tat this weekend. I finally got that appointment with Joe and he did some sick work." I leaned forward and peered at the tattoo before smiling and nodding in approval.

"He definitely did a good job. I really want to get one of my own soon."

"You so should!" Arin jumped, turning to grab my arm. "It hurts like hell but it's so much fun! I think I'm going to go back to Joe's shop and see if he'll pierce my nipples." A devilish smile lit on her face and she slid her eyes toward Matt and then back to me. "I wouldn't mind him staring at my tits for twenty minutes. He's a hot piece of ass if I ever did see one."

My eyes widened. I turned to Matt and he laughed.

"Hey, if she wants to go through that fuckin' pain she can do it. I won't stop her. Besides, she knows I'm a better lay than Joe Haley." I put my hands up defensively and raised my eyebrows, looking away from my friends.

"You're insane, Ace," I muttered, but a smile lit my face. I wasn't all that surprised.

He Called Me In

"Beth, could you please come in the office?"

Shit. I panicked. That was the voice that cold fucker used when he was going to fire someone. That nasally, superior, detracted, completely fucking in-your-face voice that he adopted whenever he was preparing to financially rape someone in the ass. I knew that voice. I'd heard it a lot for only having worked at the Nut for three months.

Now he was directing that voice at me.

Fuck, I thought. My parents will kill me.

I slowly turned from my register and faced the child-molesting asshole I was forced to answer to and quickly had to readjust my eyesight to match his height.

I always forgot that he was about four inches shorter than me. No wonder he was so goddamn cranky. My dad always referred to this as 'Little Man Syndrome' – the shorter the asshole, the bigger the attitude.

"Yeah, sure Brad. Just let me find someone to cover my register."

Will you believe that little prick shoved his nose right into the air?

"Sarah's going to cover your register. Come with me, please."

I could tell that 'please' was forced.

I followed Brad back into the office and sat in the chair he indicated, nervously twining my hands together. My boss sat across from me in front of the time-clock computer and shuffled a couple of papers around before getting down to business.

"Beth," he said seriously, "do you know why I've called you in here?"
I shook my head. I was too afraid of losing my job to speak.

"Earlier this afternoon, you let a woman charge gas and cigarettes to her food stamps." Brad pitched his voice lower than normal to help indicate the severity of the crime I'd committed.

I didn't catch on.

"Beth," he said slowly, closing his eyes and rubbing his face. "Do you know what this means?" He looked at me with his most serious expression but all I could think about was how disgusting he was, how his face was covered in little moles and how he resembled a weasel and how his goatee was uneven and poorly trimmed and even how he'd touched little boys back in the 70s.
God, how I fucking hated him.

"Charging gas and cigarettes to an EBT card is against the law," Brad said sternly, bringing my attention back to our conversation. "I could terminate you for this."

My face slackened.

Fuck, I thought. Fuck fuck fuck. Mom and Dad will kill me. I won't have gas money. I'll never be able to go anywhere again. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

"I'm so sorry, Brad. I didn't know. I mean, I know better than to charge that stuff on EBT but I just wasn't paying attention," I fumbled, trying desperately to save my job. I hated the Nut more than anything. I hated working there, I hated driving there, and I hated the thought of being there but I needed the money I got from that job. I pleaded with my eyes, I did everything I could to lie and tell my boss I didn't want to lose my job.

Finally he responded to me.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to terminate you," Brad said after a sick pause. I hated the way he said that word, 'terminate'. He wielded it with a nauseating power, like he wasn't wearing a ridiculous blue shirt and khaki pants and a stupider-than-fucking-stupid hat just like I was. He said that word like he had power when he really didn't, but the kicker is that inside the Nut he did. He reigned supreme.

This fucking killed me.

"I'll let this one slide this time," Brad said, a disgusting weaselly grin spreading across his face, "but don't let it happen again. I don't want to see you back in this office." With those words he just turned away from me and started shuffling paperwork. I knew he wasn't doing anything important but I was just so grateful not to be fired I didn't care.

I got out of there.

Studying Cole

Cole didn't speak to me that much in the beginning. His appearance honestly offended me when I first started work at Acorn. He had long blond hair that hung nearly to his waist and he obviously didn't know what an acne treatment was but after a couple of weeks he warmed up to me and I to him. We would talk about video games and movies and nerdy things that other people at work didn't understand. Most of all, though, we would talk about cars.

I had a license. Cole didn't. I also had a car and Cole didn't. Cole's greatest dream at that age was having his own car, which is why he loved to talk to me and listen to me talk about the glories of the open road. He used to spend hours telling me exactly what color his car would be when he got it and what kind of engine it would have. He knew exactly what kind of oil he would feed that treasure of his and he vowed he'd never let anyone touch it.

Once he got a car, it'd be his and only his.

No one would ever have figured Cole for a motorhead. He was scrawny and had a weird laugh and he was years older than everyone in my graduating class but he still hung out with people younger than I was. He was that classic figure that failed at life – he was twenty-three, he lived with his parents, he refused to go to college, he'd worked at the Nut for four years, he played Dungeons and Dragons in his basement on the weekends and he'd never had a girlfriend.

Not exactly motorhead material, but Cole loved cars anyway.

An Daingean

I look out the window and the land expands before me.
This widened space of green grass is more emerald rich and verdant here
Than anywhere else on Earth.
Here the sky rolls down to meet the sea
And a cosmic hand stretches up from beneath,
Molding the landscape into cavernous valleys and forcing mossy peaks to just into the wild.

I look out the window and see the neatness of John Street
Stretching down through the town and up again,
Across the stream come down from the Pass
And curving round again to Dingle Town Hospital.
It disappears on its quest to Dunquin.

I see the relaxed busyness of Strand Street and the harbor,
The pubs and shops a-bustle with people,
The buildings painted brightly, all a different color.
Such a European town.
Such an Irish town.

I look to the south and hear the ringing of the church's bells
As they call the town to mass and conjure images of my school.
My school.
My school – alight with candles that seem to make the statues move.
A night is descending that has a will of its own.
This night will envelop my convent – my school – and prompt the monsignor to walk his hallowed halls.

I look out the window and it expands before me,
The whole of Dingle Town,
And my heart simply swells
For my love of home is great.

My Father

My father is a tall man, heavy set with the weight of the world on his shoulders. My mother always told me that he worries too much about everything that doesn't affect him but somehow, in his mind, he thinks that it does.

She also tells me I am exactly like him.

My father had always taken great joy in teaching me about the world until I stopped sharing his opinions. When our thoughts began to diverge, he became angry and frustrated. He never thought me naïve but merely inexperienced. I was always eager to prove to him that observation and intellect can make up for that. Unfortunately, I've failed, and forcing him to watch my failure has made him both anxious and understanding. The dichotomy is strange but fitting for a man like him.

Ever since I can remember my father's been on medication to control a chemical imbalance in his brain. Ever since I can remember he has been dependent on that medication. My grandmother calls it his sickness. My mother calls it his condition. No matter what you call it, he becomes a monster without his medicine. He yells, he swears, he fumes and rages and storms. He is inconsolable and there was a time when I was angry with him for how he acted and sometimes I still am but mostly, now, I am not. Now I understand because I feel the same way. I have the same imbalance, the same medicinal dependency, and sometimes I want to rail against him and at him and let him rail against me until we consume and destroy each other with rage and hate.

But I don't because I love him so very much.

Studying Brad

I have nothing to say to you. Nothing but what's true, anyway.

I've been working this job for a few years now, managing the local Acorn. I've been sleeping with my assistant manager even though I have a woman at home who's taking care of my three kids. I feel no guilt. I don't feel much at all, really.

Betsy, the woman I'm sleeping with, isn't a particularly good lay, but it's more the excitement of sleeping with a woman who's supposed to work under me as well as cheating on Roz, who's dutifully been keeping my house and raising my children for over four years now.

Did I mention that they're not her children? That's what makes it all so beautiful. She does so much for me and I'm sleeping with my assistant manager.

And I feel no guilt. I know I should. I see them interact when Roz comes into the store and I see the smugness that alights on Betsy's face and I know I should feel guilty for the woman who cleans my house and cooks my meals and watches my kids, but I don't. I just don't feel anything.

When I was twenty-one I was convicted of sexual assault. I feel something about that. I feel a mild anger. I am mildly angry that I am forty-four and everyone in this town still knows about what I did over twenty years ago. They still look at me like I'm that person and like I'll steal their kids in the night. They look at me like I do that to my own kids. That makes me mildly angry, but only mildly.

That's about the only thing I can feel.

---

"Hey, Brad?"

It was another day at the job, another completely emotionless day. I looked up to see Arin standing in the doorway of my office, her cheerful face abnormally stern.

"Yeah?" I asked her.

"I'm going out for a smoke."

"All right. Be back in ten," I ordered as I turned back to my paperwork.

"Yeah, right," she scoffed as she skipped out the back door. Cole was right behind her, his pack of smokes and lighter in hand. I watched as he followed her like a dog, a big doofy smile on his face. He loved her. He'd loved her since she started working here. My employees didn't think I noticed these things but I did. When a person is as emotionally removed from the world as I am, they notice so much more.

I got about four seconds into my paperwork before I heard a knock on the door behind me. "Yes?" I asked again, my voice unnecessarily harsh this time. Sometimes I changed my tone just to see how people would react.

The cashier, Sam, bitchily informed me that Roz was waiting at the counter with my children. I nodded to her shortly, stood from my chair, and followed Sam out from the office and into the main part of the store. Roz and my sons were busily perusing the rack of candy that was placed next to the register and I could hear her promising to buy them each a piece of their favorite kind. I walked out from behind the counter and was greeted by all three of my boys as they ran to me, yelling, "Daddy!" I knelt to hug them and forced a smile to my face.

"Hi boys!" I said with mock enthusiasm. I hugged each of them separately before standing to greet Roz with a simple, "Hi."

"Hey baby," she replied with a slow smile. It revealed a mouth of half-rotten teeth, stained from cigarette smoke and a lifetime of heavy drinking. Her neck and face were spotted with large moles and her coarse gray hair was swept into a terribly executed pony-tail. She wore a torn tank top bespeckled with age-old stains and a pair of aquamarine shorts that rode up between the fat of her thighs.

Roz had a heart of gold, though.

I smiled at her and kissed her on the cheek, hugging my son Parker to my side. "How's your day going?"

"Good, good," she answered honestly, a genuine smile lighting on her face. "Listen, I thought maybe we could take the kids out to Mickey D's tonight and then go on over to Denison Park and let them play for a little bit." She leaned a little toward me and lowered her voice conspiratorially. "I called Annie and she said she'd watch them for us tonight so we can, well, you know." She grinned then and winked at me.

Her efforts at seduction were terrible.

"All right," I said, smiling in reply. I felt empty inside but I pushed it down, covering it with a thin veneer of determination. I didn't feel excited at the prospect of seeing my children play or at the thought of being able to sleep with Roz, uninterrupted, for the first time in weeks.

Instead, I just felt blank.