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Tuesday, June 20th—12:14 p.m.

929 words. Approximate reading time: 4 minutes, 38 seconds.

Yara turned her head back to make sure that she wasn't too far ahead of Casey. "Come on, slowpoke!" she shouted back to him. "I'm going for a new personal best!"

Casey plodded steadily along the path behind her. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he huffed. "Not all of us have the same superhuman endurance that you do."

Yara laughed and slowed her pace a bit. "That just means you need to go on more hikes with me!" she exclaimed. "You're right, though. I forget this isn't really a workout for you like it is for me."

"It's okay," Casey replied with a smile as he caught up to Yara and matched her somewhat slower pace. "I like getting to see you and like, getting out in nature and stuff. Don't get me wrong; I hate hiking."

"But you love how good it feels when you finish up that seventh mile and you take a step back and realize what it is you accomplished?" Yara asked.

"I was thinking more, I love how good it feels when I finish up that seventh mile and I realize that my comfy couch is finally only a few minutes away," Casey said. The two laughed as they continued along the sandy trail, quietly taking in the palmetto plants that formed a sea of green on either side of the path. An oak canopy sat on the horizon not far from where they were.

Casey wiped the sweat from his brow and tried to focus his breathing. "Woods ahead," he said. "Great. I could use some shade; the sun is pretty harsh today. Still don't understand why you picked this trail of all places."

"This trail is amazing!" Yara cried. "It's one of my absolute favorite easy-rated trails." Casey scoffed. "You know, one moment you're in the woods, one moment you're in a field, one moment you're by the river. There's a lot of different experiences here, and something surprising happens every time I walk this trail."

"It is beautiful here," Casey said. "I'll give you that. Let's take a quick break once we get into the woods, alright? My feet are killing me; I wanna pop my boots off for a few minutes."

"Yeah, alright," Yara said. "But don't take your boots off. If your feet are swollen at all, and I bet they are, it's better to keep them on. They're gonna be a bitch to get back on if you take them off."

"It'll be fine," Casey said as they crossed into the canopy and, at last, some shade. They continued deeper into the woods until they found a large rock near the path that they could rest on. Casey climbed on top of it, then reached down and helped Yara up. They sat next to each other, looking out into the woods. Yara pulled a bottle of water out of her pack and took a few drinks. Casey tugged his boots off with great effort while Yara shook her head.

"I won't say I told you so," she said.

"You won't have to," he replied with a smile. He sat back and looked up at the sky, stretching his aching back and shoulders.

"We need to talk about it, you know."

"I know," he said. "I'm just not ready right now. There's too many what-ifs. We've still got time."

"Not too much time. There's a lot involved in it. Paperwork, health screenings, family history checks. It sometimes takes people years to finalize. We're thirty-two now; we've realistically got six months, max. What are the chances that someone else is going to come along?"

"Not that high, okay, but maybe," Casey said. "And I mean, I'm worried that we would just mess it up somehow."

"How long have you known me? Twenty-seven years at this point? And you’re really worried about that? I don't want either of us to miss our chance." Yara sighed. "Look, I just... I guess I'm saying that the ball's in your court. We can talk about it later."

Casey nodded.

"Let's head out," Yara said. "I still wanna get a good time today." She smiled faintly at Casey, who smiled back. His smile quickly turned into a grimace as he struggled to pull on his boots, while Yara's smile grew a bit.

"I said I wouldn't say it," she said as she jumped down from the rock and went back to the trail.

"I said... you wouldn't... have to!" he grunted as he barely managed to slide his unlaced boots back onto his feet. He stuffed the laces into his boots before jumping down next to Yara.

"I'm impressed," she said, continuing along the trail with Casey right behind. Soon, the brush closed in on the trail, and the two were walking almost blindly as small branches brushed their bare arms gently with each step they took.

"Okay, this is really cool," Casey said. "Like, breathtaking."

"Here, you go in front," Yara said, pushing herself into the brush to let Casey pass. "Get the full experience."

Casey walked past Yara and continued forward, looking back and forth to the dark green walls on either side of him. "It's like going through a hedge maze that was also made to really mess with claustrophobic people," he said with a little laugh.

Just as Casey came to a sharp left in the trail, the green wall directly in front of him began to rustle and shudder. Without warning, a deer burst forth from the brush and found himself face to face with Casey.

Both Casey and the deer froze. They stared into each other's eyes, both wanting the same thing. But each unaware of the other's thoughts, they both stood paralyzed in indecision and fear.

Friday, March 28th—11:21 a.m.

1,592 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes, 57 seconds.

Ellis swung her hammer down hard, driving the nail into place, then sat on the roof and wiped the sweat from her brow. She quickly surveyed her handiwork. The roof had been leaking pretty badly, the family had said, and they were worried that the leaks would only get worse when the late spring rains came in. Ellis was all too happy to jump at the task for her usual fee of room and board while she was working on repairs. Despite being stretched somewhat thin for food as it was, the family was also happy to oblige, since they knew that it was quite a deal for them.

Ellis’ repairs weren’t exactly pretty, but “beautiful house” was low on the priority list for everyone in the Free States, and having a roof covered with a hodge-podge of mismatched tiles was a small price to pay for having a roof that didn’t leak every afternoon when the rain came through. And Ellis knew that her repairs were good, and that the patches would hold for at least a few years.

She stood up and moved slowly to the edge of the roof, then climbed down her ladder. She pulled the ladder down and folded it up, collapsing it to a third of its full height, then carried the ladder into the backyard where her trailer was parked. She loaded the ladder into the trailer, then adjusted her tool belt and made her way back to the house. She pushed gently through the back door and into the kitchen, where Tara was stirring a pot of something over the wood-burning stove.

“That smells wonderful,” Ellis said with a smile, and Tara looked over at her and smiled back.

“It’s the same soup we have for lunch every day,” she said.

“Smells wonderful every day,” Ellis replied, continuing to smile.

Tara laughed. “Well, thank you. How is the roof coming along?”

“Just finished up,” she said proudly. “It looks good; I’m sure it’ll keep you dry in the rainy season.”

“Thank goodness!” Tara exclaimed. “I only have so many pots and buckets around here. It’ll be ready in just a few minutes. Why don’t you go into the living room? Caressa’s in there reading; I think she’s been waiting for you to finish.”

“Well, I was going to get started on that drafty front door,” Ellis said, “but I certainly can’t keep Caressa waiting.” She walked through the kitchen into the front hallway, admiring the construction of the house. This place certainly had good bones, and was in a lot better shape than some of the other houses in this town, but there were still plenty of repairs to be done. It might be a few weeks before she could get to everything she wanted to do.

She passed into the living room, where a little girl was curled up on a rickety old sofa with a picture book in her hands. As soon as the girl saw Ellis, she tossed the book to the floor and jumped up, running to her and wrapping her arms around Ellis’ legs.

“Ellis!” she shouted. “I heard you on the ceiling.”

“Yeah,” Ellis said, lightly rubbing the top of the girl’s head. “Just got everything fixed up, so now your mommy doesn’t have to worry about getting wet anymore.”

“You’re leaving?” Caressa asked quietly, looking up at Ellis with pleading eyes.

Ellis chuckled and shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “I still have some work to do in the house. And I was wondering if maybe you wanted to help me.”

Caressa’s eyes lit up. “I can help!” she shouted excitedly, making Ellis chuckle again.

“Great!” Ellis said, picking Caressa up and walking over to the couch with her, setting her down gently and then sitting down on the floor next to the couch. “I’m always happy to have a helper. Sometimes it’s hard to do everything on your own.”

Caressa clapped her hands. “I wanna help! What do I do?”

Ellis smiled. “Well, I think the next thing I was going to work on was the stairs. You know how there are a couple of them that are real shaky when you step on them?” Caressa nodded. “I’m going to make it so they stop doing that. And that’s what I could use your help with.”

Caressa bounced up and down on the couch excitedly. “Okay!” she cried jubilantly.

Ellis reached into her tool belt and pulled out a small hammer that was sized just right for Caressa’s small hands. She held it out to Caressa, who took it from her carefully, as though she was handling a very special thing indeed. Caressa looked at the hammer in wonder as she grasped it around the handle and moved it slowly through the air.

“And that’s what you can use to help me with,” Ellis said. “Your very own hammer, just like mine.”

“For me?” Caressa asked.

“Yes, honey, that’s for you. You can even keep it if you want.”

“You mean it?”

“Of course!” Ellis said. “You know, when I was around your age, my dad got me that hammer, so I could help him fix things up. I had so much fun with it that I knew right then and there that I was going to spend my life fixing things up, just like him.”

“Wow,” Caressa said, looking down at her new treasure.

“It’s too small for me now,” Ellis said. “I like to carry it with me, though. It’s sort of like... a good luck charm. I always thought that one day, I’d have a little boy or girl of my own and I could give it to them. But I don’t know if I’ll do that now.”

“Why?” Caressa asked.

“Do you remember when I first came here, a few weeks ago?” Ellis asked. Caressa nodded. “Well, in a few weeks from now, I’m going to be done, and then I’m going to pack up my trailer and ride down the road until I get to the next town. And I’m going to see if anyone there needs my help, and if they do, I’m going to help them. That’s my job.”

“Okay...” Caressa said, not really following.

“Little girls and little boys don’t really belong out on the road,” Ellis explained. “It’s dangerous. Little girls and little boys need a home where they can stay. I don’t think I’ll ever leave the road for good, so I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to have a little boy or girl of my own.”

“Does that make you sad?” Caressa asked.

Ellis smiled slightly. “Sometimes,” she said. “But one of the things that is so great about being on the road is that I get to help all kinds of different people. And every now and then, I’ll get to help a family like yours. And they’ll let me stay with them, so I get to meet lots of kids just like you.”

Caressa smiled broadly. “But no one as cool as me.”

Ellis laughed. “Of course!” she said. “Out of all of the kids I’ve ever met, you are definitely the coolest. That’s why I want you to have that hammer. I might be gone in a few weeks, but I’ll never forget you. And I hope you don’t forget me, either.”

“I won’t!” Caressa shouted, just as Tara poked her head into the living room.

“Lunch is ready, you two,” Tara said, smiling warmly at the two. “Come and get it before it gets cold.”

Ellis stood up and hoisted Caressa onto her shoulders. Caressa squealed with glee and held onto her hammer tightly as Ellis carried her into the dining room, where the table had been set with three bowls filled with soup and three glasses of cloudy water. Ellis set Caressa gently down in one of the chairs before taking another chair for herself.

Tara sat down at the third chair, and all three started eating.

“Delicious as always,” Ellis said to Tara.

“Yeah, mommy!” Caressa cried. “It’s yummy!”

Tara laughed. “Thank you, you two. And thank you, Ellis, truly, for all you’ve done around here. I know it’s all little stuff, and my husband and I could manage if we had the supplies, but... well, you coming through here has just been a Godsend. I hope you know how much this means to all of us.”

Ellis smiled brightly. “No thanks necessary,” she said. “Everyone in the States needs help at some time or another. And I think that I was put on this planet to help wherever and however I can. Just being able to fix this place up for you, that’s my purpose.”

“Well it still means everything,” Tara said. “I don’t know what we would have done without you. And Caressa just adores you and all of your stories of the different places you’ve seen. Sometimes I worry that she’s going to try and hitch a ride with you when you’re done here.”

Ellis laughed. “Don’t worry; I’ll make sure she stays here.” She looked at Caressa and smiled. “Besides, someone’s gotta take over for me and make sure this house stays in tip-top shape after I leave, right?”

“Right!” Caressa shouted, holding her hammer up high. “That’s my job!”

Tara and Ellis both laughed, then all three enjoyed a quiet moment of respite from the worries of the day over a bowl of soup. Once the meal was finished, Tara stood up from her chair and began gathering the bowls. Ellis stood up from her chair and pulled a hammer out of her toolbelt. She looked at Caressa. “Well, you ready to help me take on these stairs?”

Caressa nodded quickly, her eyes sparkling. She jumped up from her chair and gripped her hammer tight. “Let’s do it!”

Thursday, August 11th—1:38 p.m.

1,371 words. Approximate reading time: 6 minutes, 51 seconds.

Caressa pushed her way carefully through the shelves and over small stacks of items, leading Anna along the path that Caressa had created earlier in the day, during her exploration. The early afternoon sun shone in through the window, lighting their way and illuminating the dust motes that wafted lazily through the stale air.

“Watch your step,” Caressa said to Anna as she stepped onto and over a stack of old newspapers. Anna stepped onto the stack, but the newspapers on top slipped underneath her feet and sent her crashing down onto the stack, sending up plumes of dust that made her sneeze.

“Are you okay?” Caressa asked, and Anna nodded and laughed.

“I’m fine,” she said. “These old papers are surprisingly good shock absorbers! Must be all of the dust.” She smiled at Caressa and stood back up carefully.

Caressa took Anna’s hand and said, “We’re almost there. Just gotta get to the backroom. Come on.” She led Anna around the last few shelves and through a swinging door into another room. The sunlight streamed in through some small windows at the top of the walls, creating a somewhat cozy atmosphere.

The room was similar to the front of the store, with piles of things all over, but with considerably more open space. Most everything here was just junk; scavengers would have picked up pretty much anything of value a long time ago. Caressa led Anna around the junk piles to a corner of the room.

“Here we are!” she said, waving her arms in front of her as if to present the space. There in the corner of the backroom sat two wingback armchairs, with ratty upholstery but plush seat cushions, with a small table between them. On the table sat something that Anna had never seen before: a small wooden box with a hand crank on the side and what looked to be a large golden horn emerging from the top.

“What is this?” Anna asked Caressa, mystified.

“It’s a music box!” Caressa exclaimed. “I found it this morning when I was digging around back here. It’s actually kind of a wonder that something like this was even still here. Most of the times I go digging around in these old stores all I find are shiny, worthless trinkets.”

“Your souvenirs,” Anna said with a small laugh. “I’m still waiting for the day that your mom has had enough and tosses out your whole collection.”

“I know!” Caressa replied. “She’s finally given up on trying to keep me from exploring, but I know she’s got it out for the stuff I bring back. Not this time, though! This guy is too cool, and I bet even she’d like it.”

“So why bring me here to see it? Why not take it home with you?”

“Well... I dunno. I thought it was really neat, and the atmosphere here and everything just adds to it, you know?” Caressa said. “I just thought that it would be cool to share a moment with my best friend, where it’s like we have this special thing that’s just ours, at least for a little bit.”

Anna leaned over the box, poking it and running her fingers along the sides. “So, how does it work?”

Caressa grinned. “Watch this,” she said, and she started turning the hand crank on the side of the box. Scratching and popping sounds started coming from the horn on top of the box, and the circular thing resting on it started spinning. Suddenly, music began blaring from the horn. It sounded like nothing Anna had ever heard.

“Amazing!” she cried, and threw herself into one of the chairs. Caressa turned the crank a few more times for good measure, then relaxed into the chair on the opposite side. “Caressa, this music is crazy. But I think I like it. What is this called?”

Caressa reached down under the table and pulled out a large cardboard sleeve, handing it to Anna. “This is what it came in. There are a bunch of them scattered around the store. Guess no one really figured out what they were for.” Anna held the sleeve and looked down at it. The sleeve was mostly beige, with a faded photo of a man and a woman on it. It looked like they were performing some sort of religious ceremony.

“It’s hard to make out the words,” Anna said with a frown.

“Yeah, I thought the same thing,” Caressa said. “I just liked the picture is why I grabbed it. But man, this music is something else! Let’s just... sit and listen to it for a bit. It only gets better.”

“Totally,” Anna said, and the two young women rested against their plush armchairs, eyes closed, relishing in the sounds that no one had probably heard in fifty years.

After a few songs had played, the music coming from the box started to slow down, and eventually it stopped spinning altogether. “Well, I guess that’s it,” Caressa said. “I can wind it back up again if you want.”

“No,” Anna said, eyes still closed. “The quiet’s nice, too. This place is really cool. I’m glad you brought me here.” She opened her eyes and looked at Caressa. “Now we’ll always have this memory, no matter what happens.”

Caressa smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to share this with you. You and me, we’re sisters.” Anna smiled back at Caressa. “Okay,” Caressa said. “Let’s just sit and enjoy the quiet. And these comfy chairs.”

The two women sat in the quiet, watching the dust motes float around in the sun rays, for a few minutes. Finally, Caressa spoke up again. “When are we gonna get out of here, Anna?”

“We can stay all afternoon,” Anna replied.

“No,” Caressa said. “You know what I mean. Our plan, what we always talked about when we were girls. Getting out of this dead-end town.”

“Oh, Caressa,” Anna said quietly. “I don’t know anymore. I know things aren’t great here, but what makes you think it will be better anywhere else?”

“Maybe not better,” Caressa responded, “but different. Besides, it’s not like we’d be staying in one place. I wanna be like Ellis. You wanted to be like her, too.”

“Ellis... Ellis was so cool. She really seemed like she had it all together, huh?”

“She sure did! I still have the hammer that she gave me when she came through town.”

“You’ve been holding onto that thing for fifteen years?”

“Anna, you have no idea how much that hammer means to me. It’s my ticket out of here, always has been. I know you hate it here as much as I do. Trapped in this cage.”

“Maybe not a cage,” Anna said.

Caressa frowned. “What’s gotten into you? You used to love talking about this. Thinking about hitching our bikes up to a trailer and just riding away until this whole stupid town disappeared over the horizon. Just you and me, making it together, adventuring into the unknown.

“We’re so close, Anna. We’re old enough that we’ve got nothing holding us back anymore. All we’ve gotta do is get together the stuff and we’re out. I know it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to our families, but we can always come back and see them again. Nothing’s forever.”

“I know,” Anna said with a small sigh. “I know I’ve been brushing you off. I know I’ve been pushing things back. It’s just that, maybe things aren’t as simple as when we were girls.”

“What does that mean?” Caressa asked. “Are you backing out? You don’t want to do this with me anymore? We’ve been planning this basically our whole lives!”

“Why did you want me to come here?” Anna asked. “Was this all just a plan to pressure me to go along with you?”

“Anna, I told you! I wanted... I wanted a good memory. Just in case something happened. I know you’ve been having second thoughts lately.” Caressa sighed. “I also know that those second thoughts came to you very suddenly. And I wish that you would talk to me about it.”

Anna frowned. “Caressa, I can’t go. I can’t just leave. Not anymore. But... I think that you still should. I think that you should go chase our dream for the both of us.”

“Anna...”

A tear rolled silently down Anna’s cheek, followed by another. Caressa’s eyes widened. “Anna, please, just talk to me.”

“I’m pregnant.”

Wednesday, August 28th—11:31 a.m.

1,187 words. Approximate reading time: 5 minutes, 56 seconds.

Sheila stopped to gaze up at the tall buildings, watching the sun glint off of their mirrored glass exteriors. When she had done this with Dad, this was always her favorite part of the trip. Living in a border town, the great city on the other side of the fence was always looking over them, but being this close to the fence and getting to see the buildings up close was a completely different feeling.

Dad would always stop at this same spot, and they would sit together next to the path, looking up at the city. Dad used to live in the city, and he would tell her stories of what it was like in the years before she was born. Sheila remembered just a few months before, Dad had specifically said to her that he told her those stories for a good reason. "The city looks beautiful, especially when you're looking at it from this side of the fence," he said. "But there's not much beauty underneath all of that. I hope you keep that in mind."

Sheila did keep his words in mind, but she liked to marvel at the buildings all the same. Dad made it sound like beauty was a bad thing, and life in a border town certainly did its best to reinforce that idea. She wanted, for once, to have something that was just hers, something different than the other girls. She stared down at her plain outfit. Standard issue, her parents would call it jokingly, since the town tailor only knew a handful of patterns, and carried even fewer fabric options. She imagined what kind of things the city girls were wearing, and she wondered if it was possible to be beautiful inside and out.

Soon she shook herself from her reverie. She was on an important errand, and couldn't really afford to waste too much time. She slid her hand into her satchel, feeling for the cash Dad had given her. She didn't dare pull it out to check, so she counted the bills with her fingers, and hoped that it would be enough for the gas.

Sheila continued along the path until she reached the market entrance. She grunted as she lifted the heavy cover and slid it halfway off of the manhole, before descending the ladder into the darkness. She carefully grabbed the edge of the cover and pulled it back over the manhole.

She continued down the ladder until her feet finally touched solid ground again. She fumbled through her satchel in the dark until her fingers found her pen light and pulled it from the depths. She flicked it on, sending a small beam of light out, just enough to light her way. She took a few deep breaths, reminding herself that she had done this with Dad at least a dozen times at this point.

Moving along the walkway, Sheila turned when she came to a junction, following that to another junction, and making another turn, before finally coming to another junction and choosing one of the three paths. She walked the path that she had often walked with Dad before, but still found herself breathing a sigh of relief when she came to the end of the walkway and found a heavy steel door. She ran her hand over the handle before turning off her flashlight, shoving it back in her satchel, and pulling open the door with some effort.

Sheila slid through the door and pulled it shut tightly behind her. She turned and continued down a long hallway that was lined with gas lamps before reaching the market. It was originally built as a quarantine bunker, or so Dad said. But the company went out of business right at the end of construction, and after the fence went up, some people from the border towns found it and set up some sort of smuggling operation. Then some people from the city joined in, and it eventually grew from a small group of smugglers into an actual underground black market.

Dad had always managed to just cut through the crowds; the people seemed to part when he walked through. Sheila didn't find that she had the same experience. She bounced through the crowds more than cut through them, apologizing her way through the mass of people shouting and haggling, townies and city folk alike. Dad liked to say that one nice thing about this place was that everyone's the same, just people trying to make it through. Like there was no fence. Sheila wasn't that optimistic.

The large open area had been packed to the gills with stands, all sorts of people selling all sorts of things. Some legal, some not as legal. Some city folk price gouging the townies for things like gas and batteries, some townies price gouging city folk for things like deer meat and fresh produce. No matter how much they intertwined down here, it was still two very different worlds.

Realizing that she had lost her bearings, Sheila forced her way to the edge of the crowd, stopping to take a quick breath and a look around to see if she recognized any stalls that would lead her in the direction of the gas vendor.

A kind voice rang out from behind her. "Is there anything you're interested in?"

Startled, Sheila turned toward the voice and found herself in front of a middle-aged woman, dressed very much like she lived in one of the border towns. Behind the woman was an array of various jewelry on display for sale at her booth. Among simple gold and silver chains, some rings set with various gemstones, and studded bracelets sat a particular pendant on a gold chain that Sheila found herself enraptured by.

"What is that?" she asked, pointing to the pendant.

The woman smiled. "Oh, it's a diamond, honey! You never seen one of these before? Oh, try it on, it'll look beautiful on you!" She reached over and took the chain off of its hook. "All of these belonged to my great-gran, you know. Family heirlooms. Turn around, honey, and pull up your hair."

Sheila did so, and the woman slipped the chain around her neck and clasped it in the back. "There. Let's have a look," she said. Sheila smiled and turned around to face the woman again, dropping her hair around her shoulders. "Oh, honey," the woman said. "Just beautiful. Hold on, I have a mirror around here somewhere."

The woman rummaged around in a small cabinet underneath her display. "As I was saying," she continued, "these are all family heirlooms. Hate to part with them, but times are tough." She laughed. "But you're a townie, you know what I mean. Here we go," she said and pulled a hand mirror from the cabinet, wiping the glass off with her sleeve.

Sheila took the mirror from the woman and looked at her reflection. She gasped at the sight of the diamond on her neck, and held her free hand up to it. Her fingers played with the diamond as she watched the light from the gas lamps glint off of it. She had never felt more beautiful in her entire life.

Friday, January 10th—3:29 p.m.

1,695 words. Approximate reading time: 8 minutes, 24 seconds.

Riley looked directly into the camera in front of him, a large smile on his face. In less than a minute, he’d be live-streaming the 100th episode of his wildly popular cooking show Riley Cooks. It wasn’t exactly an inspired name, but he hadn’t realized when he started it that he’d gain so many followers. Really, it was a complete fluke in his opinion. He had already posted nearly twenty episodes on Vtube before he noticed any positive uptick in the number of viewers, and it was only when a big-name Influencer had commented on one of his videos that he really started taking off.

“You’re so handsome!!!” the Influencer had posted on his video. Not even anything about the food that he was cooking. Just about how handsome he was. To be fair, Riley was very handsome in a way that held a lot of appeal to the masses, so he wasn’t too disappointed when he started being called “The Sexy Chef” in various media outlets once he took off. For Riley, it wasn’t as much about why people were watching as it was about people watching at all, although he had to admit that being called "The Sexy Chef" had its appeal.

After his show went viral, he saw his number of followers shoot up from around a hundred to over a million in a single night, and Vtube even reached out to him to update his status badge to Influencer. What a day that had been, receiving that badge and the special privileges that came with being an Influencer! Riley made sure to remind himself to act humble on camera, but viewers kept swooning over him in the comments section of his videos, making sure that his ego was quite inflated.

The episode that Riley was getting ready to film was a special one: not only was it his 100th episode, but it was his first ever live-stream, which meant that he would actually get to see and interact with the viewers. He was excited to feel the attention in real time. A light on the camera turned red, and a screen appeared behind the camera that showed a crowd of people. Some of them held up signs with sayings like, “WE LOVE YOU RILEY” and “SOUP’S ON ME!” Most of them were screaming with glee like they were at a concert. Riley paused for a moment, letting the attention sink in, relishing in it, never dropping his smile. Finally, he started with the show.

“Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the 100th episode of Riley Cooks!” he said to the camera. The crowd screamed and Riley’s smile grew. “It’s so great to see all of you today for this very special live-stream episode! You’re all beautiful!”

“You’re beautiful, Riley!” a portion of the crowd screamed back at him. Riley chuckled and pretended to look away bashfully before returning his eyes to the camera and giving the crowd a wink and a devilish smile, which caused them to go crazy again.

“Today I’ve got a recipe that I’m really excited to share with you all. It’s delicious, it’s healthy, and best of all, it’s easy! I want to see you all trying this at home,” Riley said with another charming laugh. “So we all know how hard it is to find meat lately—unless you live in a border town, am I right?” The crowd laughed, and someone shouted something derisive about border town dwellers, which caused Riley to laugh. “Yeah, okay, so no border townies here it looks like. Well, I’m going to show you how you can make burgers today! But they’re not just any burgers; they’re actually made out of carrots, if you can believe it!”

The crowd quieted down a bit as Riley started in on his presentation. “The thing I love about carrots,” he said as he began running several carrots through a food processor, “is that not only are they good for you, but they’re also dirt cheap! Seriously, you can get a bunch of carrots for just fifteen bucks. Think about the last time you bought beef. There’s no way it was under sixty dollars a pound, right? And that was probably on sale!” The crowd laughed along with Riley.

“Okay, so you’re going to want to get your carrots nice and shredded,” he said, opening up the food processor and dumping the shredded carrots into the bowl. “A food processor is the perfect tool for this, but if you don’t have a food processor, you can just use a box grater. Next, you’ll dice up your onion.” He picked up a yellow onion from the counter and tossed it into the air, catching it behind his back and winking at the camera again for his adoring fans. He peeled and diced the onion expertly and added it to the bowl with the carrots.

“Next up, bread crumbs! About a third of a cup.” He scooped a measure of bread crumbs out of a jar on the counter and dumped it into the bowl. He moved away from the counter to the refrigerator, and the camera automatically followed him. “And one egg,” he said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a single egg, taking it back to the counter and cracking it into the bowl with the other ingredients.

“Now we just mix this all up until it’s well-combined,” he said as he stirred together the mix. “And I know what you’re thinking! Bread crumbs and eggs are expensive, and we’re trying to make something relatively cheap, right?” The crowd laughed and someone shouted something vaguely affirming. “But don’t worry! If you can’t get your hands on either of those ingredients, you’ve still got options. You can sub out the bread crumbs for a little flour and cornmeal, and for the eggs, you can use fruit puree, mashed up avocado, or even chia seeds if you’ve got those.” The crowd cheered as Riley grinned charmingly while he mixed.

“Okay, so then once this is all mixed up, you just want to form it into four patties and stick them in the fridge for about an hour to set up.” He walked toward the refrigerator again while the camera followed him. “Lucky for you, I already have some that I prepared ahead of time!” He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a tray with four thick carrot patties on it.

“Now this is the easiest part,” he continued, as he pulled a frying pan from under the counter and put it on his stove’s induction burner, then ran his fingers through his thick hair, eliciting some more cheers and swoons from his audience. “We’re just going to cook those over medium heat for between five to eight minutes on each side.” He placed the patties gently in the hot pan and began cooking them.

“While we’re waiting for these to cook, why don’t we take advantage of this live-stream and get some of the audience members in on this. What do you say?” The crowd cheered again as a small drone flew over them. The focus of Riley’s screen switched to the drone view as the drone zoomed in on a young woman about Riley’s age. She noticed the camera pointing at her and began cheering and crying.

“Hey there,” Riley said smoothly. “What’s your name?”

“Priscilla!” she screamed with tears running down her face.

“Hi, Priscilla,” Riley said, and Priscilla grabbed the woman next to her. The two friends jumped up and down with excitement. “And who’s this?”

“This is my best friend Jamie!” Priscilla shouted. “We love your show!”

“What do you love most about my show?” Riley asked her with a smile.

“Your eyes!” both women shouted at once, before giggling and hiding their faces.

Riley laughed a little. “Fair enough,” he said, and winked at the two. He continued this with a few other audience members while the carrot burgers cooked, relishing the feeling and kicking himself for not having done live shows before.

When the burgers were finally cooked, Riley carefully removed them from the pan and laid one patty on top of the bottom half of a prepared bun. “Now, when you’re finishing up here, you can put any sort of toppings you want on this. Make it your own! I personally love pickled radish slices, a few pieces of lettuce, and a nice garlic aioli—and if you don’t know how to make a garlic aioli, come back here next week when my episode is going to be all about sauces!”

He placed his toppings on, then covered it all with the top half of the burger bun. “For now, though,” he said. “I think this one’s in the bag. Soup’s on!” He grabbed the burger with both hands and took a large bite. It was good. He was good. He deserved all of this.

Riley moaned softly, and the audience cheered, as he chewed on the bite of burger and then swallowed. “You guys, this is just... You gotta make this. It’s so freakin’ good.” The crowd cheered some more as Riley continued with a grin, “Until next time, I’m Riley and this is Riley Cooks!” The video of the audience faded out of Riley’s vision and the red light on the camera turned off. Riley took a few moments to just stand in his kitchen and relish the feeling. They really loved him. It was amazing.

“Man, I might just start doing live episodes every week,” he said to no one in particular.

In her living room, Riley removed her headset, disconnecting from the Multiverse. She needed to go ahead and start planning for next week’s episode so she could maintain her follower count and her Influencer badge. She stood up and made her way toward the bathroom, stopping to glance at her reflection in the hallway mirror. She was greeted by her own sunken eyes and matted hair. She smiled like him, showing the large cavities forming in most of her teeth, which made her frown. She studied her reflection for a short time, poring over every little imperfection that had only gotten worse with time.

She had a brief thought that maybe she should take care of herself a little better, only to shove it away as quickly as it had appeared.

Saturday, June 13th—11:23 a.m.

929 words. Approximate reading time: 4 minutes, 38 seconds.

Clara slowly emerged from the pool, dripping and glistening in the late morning sun. She made her way across the deck to the lounge chair where she had set her towel before her swim. Grabbing the towel, she began to dry her hair off as she moved toward the back door of her mansion. The door slid open quietly at her presence, and she stepped into a large but sparingly furnished room, leaving drops of water on the marble floor in her wake.

“Rachel, TV,” Clara said. “Finance.” The television hung above the fireplace flicked on, tuned to the Financial News Network. A talking head sitting at a desk in an apartment somewhere was discussing recent stock exchange news. Clara watched intently for a few minutes, listening for any news on her own company.

She finished giving herself a quick once-over with her towel and tossed it on the back of a chair, grabbing the plush robe that she had laid out and slipping it on. “Rachel, TV,” she said, causing the television to turn off. She let out a quiet sigh and walked into her office just off of the great room.

She sat at her desk and picked her headset up, gently sliding it onto her head and adjusting the earpieces and the eyepiece to her comfort. “Rachel, office,” she said, and suddenly her office building appeared in front of her, a fifty-story skyscraper in a bustling downtown area. Other people soon came into existence, walking back and forth along the sidewalk in front of her building, likely returning to work from their lunch breaks.

Clara entered her office building and was greeted by Boris at the security desk.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Sealy,” he said with a smile. Clara breezed past him to the elevators and pushed the “up” button. The elevator doors slid open and Clara stepped inside before pushing the button for the fiftieth floor. Instantly the doors slid open again, and Clara was on a different floor. She stepped back out and walked through a brightly-lit cubicle farm, where nearly a hundred individual workers were toiling away at their computers. A few glanced up at her as she walked past, but most of them knew better.

She approached a set of ornate double-doors, and walked through them to find her assistant sitting at his desk, typing furiously. He seemed very lost in thought and didn’t notice her at first.

“Hi, Ross,” Clara said after a moment, and Ross nearly jumped out of his seat.

“Oh, Ms. Sealy!” he exclaimed. “I’m so sorry; I wasn’t expecting you to come in today.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve seen the news—”

“Of course,” Clara said. “I watched FNN for a bit this morning, nothing came up.”

“Oh, well, it wasn’t FNN, Ms. Sealy.”

“What do you mean, Ross? Tell me what’s going on.”

“Well, The Celeb Report picked up on last night’s party and they’re having a field day with it.”

Clara groaned. “Ugh, what now?”

“Uhm, okay, so it seems like someone that was working last night managed to get a recording and it’s going viral. People aren’t very happy about... uh... they’re calling it ‘a flagrant disregard for public safety.’”

“Oh!” Clara exclaimed. “Public safety? That’s absolutely ridiculous. First of all, it was a private party at my private residence, so what does that have to do with the public?”

“I know, ma’am, I’m just relaying—”

“Secondly, we took plenty of precautions! All of the waitstaff, the valets, the caterers, they were all wearing masks.”

“I understand, ma’am, but I think people are more concerned about the fact that none of the guests were required to wear masks,” Ross said quietly.

“Well, of course they weren’t!” Clara shouted. “They were my guests! This is just completely—” She cut herself off with a loud sigh. “Whatever, it’s fine. I knew this was coming. The damned media always has something to say about everything, always has to make mountains out of molehills. It’s ludicrous.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ross said. “Do you want me to issue any sort of statement?”

“Why would I?” Clara sneered. “I don’t have anything to explain or apologize for. And why should I even care? We’re hitting record profits again this quarter. The shareholders are happy, and they don’t give a shit about this kind of middle school playground bully nonsense. Hell, half of them were there last night!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ross said. “So... I guess we’ll just go through your agenda for the rest of the afternoon?”

“Push it all back to Monday, Ross,” Clara said. “I’m taking a mental health day.”

“Yes, m—” Ross began as Clara disappeared right before his eyes.

She ripped off her headset and tossed it down on her desk unceremoniously. She sat in her desk chair and stared at the walls silently for a few minutes, before standing up and walking back out into the great room. She looked around at her beautifully appointed home and all of her expensive things.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck!” she screamed suddenly. Her voice bounced off of the walls and echoed back to her. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and screamed again, listening to the echoes. She sighed. “That’s a little better, I guess,” she said to no one. “This’ll blow over, Clara. They always do. Maybe I’ll just go for another swim to take my mind off things.”

She slinked across the great room, undoing her robe and sliding it off of her shoulders before tossing it back across the chair it had been on before. She made her way to the back door, which slid open for her just as her bare foot slid along a small puddle of water on the marble floor.

Saturday, May 28th—12:53 p.m.

751 words. Approximate reading time: 3 minutes, 45 seconds.

“That one looks like a dog, huh?”

“I guess. Looks more like a horse to me. What do you miss the most, do you think?”

“I dunno. I guess I don’t really miss much. Things haven’t been that much different for me, really.”

“Really, Jace? Things haven’t been that much different? Or do you just not remember what it was like before?”

“Really, Pria. I mean, maybe things are different for you, but I hardly ever left my house anyway. Sure, it’s been getting harder lately to actually get together in person with anyone, but we’re all online so it’s not like I’m starved for socializing, and I’d already been getting my groceries and stuff delivered, so, yeah... I guess things haven’t been that different for me. There’s a cat.”

“Hm, I’d say it’s a horse. You know what I miss? Bowling.”

“Bowling? Well, that’s something I wouldn’t have expected to hear from you! Shoot, we could get some people together and set up a little bowling alley here in the park. I’m sure everyone would be into it.”

“First of all, you know it could only be like, one other person, max, and even that’s pushing it, three people hanging out in the park all close by each other. It’s bad enough dealing with getting the side-eye from every passerby just because we want to see our friends somewhere outside of the damned Multiverse.

“Secondly, it’s not the same. Outside in the park, in the middle of the day, with what I could only assume are makeshift pins and balls created out of whatever junk three people can find lying around their houses? It’s not bowling if we’re not in a dimly-lit hole in the wall somewhere, tossing back beers and peeling our shoes off of the sticky floor with every step.”

“Okay, now drinking beers with friends, I do miss that. Hey, look, a giraffe!”

“You mean that horse?”

“This game isn’t fun unless you actually play.”

“This game isn’t fun, anyway, Jace. It’s like, the exact opposite of fun.”

“Well, what else is there to do?”

“Exactly. Can’t go bowling, can’t go to a concert, can’t go to a club, can’t go to the movies... Nothing to do but go to the one place we’re allowed to be outside and sit and stare at the clouds. You know what they look like to me? Clouds.”

“Man, you’re such a buzzkill sometimes, you know? Times are hard right now, we gotta do what we gotta do.”

“I know, I know. But still, it’s been two years. When are we getting back to normal?”

“Who knows? Best to just enjoy the life you’ve been given and do what you can to find happiness inside those circumstances instead of trying to go outside of them.”

“Seems a little defeatist to me, Jace.”

“Yeah, but what are you gonna do? Can’t fight the system. Look at the people we’ve seen walk by just in the last hour. Every one of them is afraid and hurting.”

“And every one of them sees us sitting here on this little hill together and glares at us like we’re the worst people to exist on the planet when we’re not even doing anything wrong.”

“Exactly. You think any of those people are gonna say, ‘Man, I sure miss bowling; we ought to rise up and tell the government what we think of all of these restrictions!’? No. Because that’s crazy, Pria. Bowling will be back. We just gotta ride this out.”

“Sure, Jace. Just ride it out. Two years! Do you really think bowling will be back? Movies?”

“I don’t know, Pria. No one does, right? Two years is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Maybe we’ll just have to figure out different ways to entertain ourselves. Maybe drinking beer on a sticky floor in a dimly-lit room will just be something people used to do. No one goes to gladiator battles anymore, and that’s not really a bad thing, right?”

“I guess. It just sucks is all. Aren’t we supposedly social creatures? It doesn’t feel right to get most of your socializing done with words on a screen or a video of someone you feel like you used to know.”

“Eh, it doesn’t really bother me. I kind of like it better. Hanging out with friends was cool, but then you also had to deal with a bunch of strangers whenever you went out somewhere. Okay, that one actually kind of looks like a horse.”

Pria frowned at the cloud that looked kind of like a horse, and silently wished that literally anyone else had been available to hang out.

Wednesday, August 18th—9:13 a.m.

1,569 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes, 50 seconds.

Patrick wiped the sweat from his brow after hammering the last nail into the board, patching a hole that had formed in the fence surrounding the Zone. He stepped back, surveying his handiwork. Much of the original chain link had been taken over by sheets of plywood in various sizes, along with siding from the old cabins and various bits of scrap wood. Patrick found himself wondering how many more years it would be before there wouldn’t be any more chain link to be seen, no more reminders of what his community had been.

He liked the patches, though. Each piece seemed to have its own personality; each piece was a little bit of the history of the community in itself. Many of the children had taken to drawing or painting on the inside sections of the patches, creating crude murals that were always on display for the whole Zone. Some of the so-called pillars of the community had complained about the artwork, but since Patrick was the one responsible for patching the fence, and he liked the art, he had the final say in what to do about it, and decided that it would stay.

He liked to think ahead to the future, to see what the children of future generations would paint on the inside of the fence. Creating and holding onto traditions was, as far as Patrick was concerned, one of the best ways to keep a community together. And this fence, with its scattered patches, showing off the fact that it was being constantly maintained, was a testament to everything that could be done when people just worked together.

Patrick headed back into the Zone through the main gate, locking and barring it behind him, and started toward the only cabin that was still standing, directly in the center of the Zone. He pushed through the bright red door and into a well-decorated sitting room. He always found it a little strange that they had decided to leave the cabin decorated as it had always been, but in a way it served to help as a reminder to not let themselves return to the way things were.

He passed through the sitting room and into a small hallway. Next to an unassuming-looking door was a box of candles and several boxes of matches. He took one of the candles and lit it before opening the door and continuing down a spiral staircase. The staircase went down a few hundred feet, finally ending at a small landing with another door directly in front of him. He took a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the lower amount of light, then pushed through the door into the main hall.

The room was large, and it reminded Patrick of an upscale hotel he had stayed at years ago, before things were different. It wasn’t nearly so grand, but it was a wonderfully open space, several stories high, surrounded by residential suites on three sides. The candles had already been lit for the morning, which Patrick was thankful for, and a few of the other early-risers were already milling about on their way to their daily duties.

Patrick extinguished his candle, leaving it in another box next to the stairwell door, and continued on toward the stairs that led up to the residential suites. Sarah would have breakfast ready, he figured. The kids should already be up. He wondered if John would be ready for what he was going to have to do. Just fourteen years old and already getting into the dangerous stuff. But he was the carpenter’s eldest son, and it was time he got into everything involved in the trade so he could be Patrick’s replacement someday.

He reached his family’s suite, and stepped through the door into his own sitting room. The furniture wasn’t nearly as nice as the sitting room upstairs in the red cabin, but it was serviceable. To his right was a small eating area, where his wife Sarah was just laying out plates of breakfast.

“Perfect timing, babe,” Sarah said with a smile. “How’d it go this morning?”

“Fine,” Patrick replied. “But there’s something we gotta talk about. All of us. Where’s John and Andy?”

“In their room reading. I’ll get them. John! Andy! Breakfast!” Sarah shouted toward the hallway going to the back of the suite, and two boys came running out toward the breakfast table, shoving each other lightly and laughing.

Patrick looked at his family and felt a sense of warmth and safety come over him. He wanted to let this moment last as long as it could, so he sat at the table with his wife and kids and ate breakfast, laughing and joking with them. When the plates were clean, Sarah stood up, gathered everything, and headed for the kitchen. John and Andy started to get up, but Patrick stopped them.

“Wait a sec, boys,” he said. “There’s something we gotta talk about.” The boys both stopped and sat back down, looking at their father.

“Is everything okay, dad?” John asked.

“It is and it isn’t. We’re running low on supplies to keep the fence kept up.”

“Are you and John leaving again?” Andy asked with a frown.

Patrick sighed. “No, we’re not both leaving again. But someone has to. And, well... John...” John perked up and stared at his father quizzically. “Well, you’re fourteen now, so you’re going to have to start taking over some of my responsibilities around here. And it’s been decided that you’re going to be the one making the supply run this time. Alone.”

John sank into his chair. “Seriously, dad? We’ve only ever gone together twice. I don’t know if I can do that on my own.”

Patrick was worried, too, but he didn’t want to let it show. John needed to make this trip. “I believe in you, John. It’s just to QC 10, and we just need some more scrap wood. A couple of days and you’ll be back.”

“Alright dad,” John said. “If you think I’m ready. I can go make the trade.”

“Good boy. Now, it’s already getting late in the morning, so you’ll need to get started right away. Go say goodbye to your mother and we’ll go out to the gate together.”

John got up from his chair, took a few deep breaths, and went into the kitchen to say goodbye to his mother. Patrick looked at Andy, seeing the worry on his face. “It’ll be alright, Andy,” Patrick said. “I know it’s scary, but John’s done this before and he’s always been fine. QC 10 isn’t so far away, and all he has to do is follow the tracks, so he won’t get lost.”

Andy frowned and stood up from his chair. “I could go with him,” he said.

“Now Andy, you’re only ten. There’s no way we’d send you out there. But it is about time you started learning about the fence, too. So we’re gonna start that tomorrow.”

Andy huffed and left the room without another word, going back down the hallway to his bedroom, where Patrick expected he would spend the rest of the day pouting. What a shame, Patrick thought, that these kids had to grow up so early.

John came back out from the kitchen, wiping tears from his eyes. Patrick moved toward him and wrapped him up in a big hug, which elicited a smile from John. “You ready?” Patrick asked, and John nodded.

Patrick and John walked outside together, up the spiral staircase and through the red door to the grassy expanse above-ground, above the entire community living in the bunker. They headed for the gate, which Patrick unbarred and unlocked. On the tracks just inside the gate was an old handcar loaded up with goods for trading.

“Now you know how to get to QC 10,” Patrick said to John. “Just stay on the tracks. When you hit the switch, take it left.”

“I remember, dad,” John said, climbing onto the handcar and grabbing the handle. He looked at his father with a look more serious than Patrick had seen on him before. A boy going through a rite of passage. A tradition that would hopefully continue on to John’s children, and their children after. John knew the importance of what he was about to do, not just for himself but for the entire community. The fence needed to be maintained.

Patrick reached up and gently took one of John’s hands from the handle of the handcar. He squeezed it tightly and said, “I’m proud of you, son. What you’re doing will help keep all of us here and safe.”

“Thanks, dad,” John said, squeezing Patrick’s hand in return before moving his own back to the handle. He started pumping the handle down and up, causing the handcar to move slowly through the gates. “I’ll see you in a few days,” he said to Patrick. “And I’ll have so much wood!”

Patrick laughed a little and smiled. “I love you, John!” he called after his son.

“I love you, too, dad!” John shouted, picking up speed with the handcar and pulling away from the Zone, with its fence all covered in his father’s work.

Patrick watched the handcar disappear down the tracks along with his eldest son. He closed, locked, and barred the gate again, then wandered along the length of the fence until he found the spot. He dropped to his knees and whispered a little prayer in front of a child-like drawing of a man, woman, and two boys, drawn just above the words, “John Altman, 8 years old.”

Saturday, March 30th—11:22 a.m.

1,142 words. Approximate reading time: 5 minutes, 42 seconds.

Leon looked out of the window of his train car, watching the landscape go by as the train continued its steady roll down the tracks. The view was surprisingly nice; trees and other foliage grew right up to the tracks, blanketing the entire train in a light shade. Every now and again, the trees would open up to show large pastures, all tall grass and broken fences, dotted with wildlife. It was bittersweet for Leon, who in all of his thirty years had never before ridden on a train.

He was enjoying the ride and the new experience, but was feeling nervous about his destination. Just the day before, he had received a notice that his weekly test had come back positive, and that he would need to quarantine. Despite the fact that Leon lived alone and had no real reason to leave his house, the notice included a round-trip train ticket, and informed him that he would be quarantining in QC 24, Zone 5, with a brochure detailing the amenities at said Zone. A car would come to pick him up at 8:00am the next day to take him to the train station so he could avoid any unnecessary contact. He was told to bring two weeks’ worth of clothing and any other personal effects that would fit in a standard duffle bag.

Initially, Leon was terrified to learn that he had tested positive. He wasn’t exactly sure where he might have picked up the Disease, but he knew how serious it was to have it. After looking through the brochure, he felt a little better. The news had talked a lot about the QCs when they were first being built just a year or so before. The idea was to have centralized places where Positives could quarantine with other Positives, and put less people at risk overall. The brochure showed neatly manicured lawns, small private cottages with their own swimming pools, and even people congregating together for activities like ping-pong and darts.

He wasn’t happy to have the Disease, but at least if he had to go through two weeks of hell, he’d be in a nice place surrounded by nice people.

Finally, the train began to slow. Through his window, Leon watched as the train passed through a gate in a thirty-foot high fence. As strange as that felt, he understood the need for the high security. A recent news report had mentioned a few people trying to flee from a QC, and while they were thankfully swiftly dealt with, it only made sense, for everyone’s safety, that security had tightened up around the QCs in the last few months.

Any worry that he may have felt dissipated the moment that the train came to a stop and he saw the Zone where he would be quarantining. It was absolutely beautiful, and he thought that the brochure hadn’t really done it justice. The small cabins were near each other but still a safe distance apart, and looked from the outside to be well-maintained. It really looked very similar to Leon’s own Neighborhood, and he found himself excited to meet the people that would be his neighbors for the next two weeks.

Tinny speakers set in the roof of the train car sounded a chime. “QC 24, Zone 5,” a robotic but friendly voice announced. Leon and one other passenger rose and made their ways to the front of the car. A person in a head-to-toe hazard suit checked both of their tickets, nodded to them, and slid open the door of the car.

Leon and his new neighbor stepped out of the car onto a plush lawn, where several people were standing waiting for them. One, a woman around Leon’s age, moved toward them with a bright smile on her face and a clipboard in her hands.

“Welcome, welcome!” she said to them. “This is QC 24, Zone 5, and we are so happy to have you here! I’m Tricia, your Quarantine Counselor and Zone Administrator. My cabin is the one right in the center of the Zone, and the only one with a door painted red. That’s how you can remember where I am! If you ever have any questions or need help with anything, my door is always open.

“Now I’m sure that you’re anxious to check out your cabins, but you’ll need to wait just a little bit while our staff puts away your clothing and toiletries and meticulously cleans every nook and cranny just for you! In the meantime,” Tricia continued, her smile never fading, “we’ve paired you up with one of our other current residents so they can give you a tour of the Zone and help answer any questions you may have.”

Tricia glanced down at her clipboard. “Carl Sweeney?” The man that had arrived with Leon raised his hand silently as Tricia glanced up and smiled. “Perfect! Carl, your tour guide is going to be Lana.” With that, a middle-aged woman stepped forward. She didn’t look particularly unpleasant, but Leon noticed that she didn’t have the same bright grin as Tricia. Lana led Carl off toward the center of the Zone, but didn’t start talking to him until they were both almost out of earshot for Leon.

Tricia checked her clipboard again. “So, that must make you Leon Harden, right?” She smiled at Leon, and Leon nodded, returning her smile. “Perfect! Leon, your tour guide is going to be Alistair.” A young man who seemed to be in his late twenties stepped forward and gestured for Leon to follow him. “You two have fun!” Tricia said, as everyone else scattered, slowly walking back toward their respective cabins.

Alistair led Leon toward the center of the Zone, as Lana had done with Carl. As they got closer to the cabin in the center of the Zone, Alistair said flatly, “Okay. So this here is Tricia’s cabin, like she said. See the red door?” Leon nodded. “Great. So I guess if you have any questions or whatever, you can go knock on the door and Tricia will come out and talk to you. Most of us don’t really bother, though.”

Before Leon could ask why, Alistair started walking along a path that stretched across the front of several cabins on one side of the Zone. “These are the cabins,” he said. “Yours is gonna be the one at the end. For now, anyway.”

“Wait,” Leon said. Alistair stopped and turned to look at him. “What do you mean, ‘for now, anyway’? We’re only here for a couple of weeks; why would I have to switch cabins?”

Alistair laughed heartily. “Oh, man, you newbies are all the same. It never gets old.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Leon responded with an incredulous look on his face. “What never gets old?”

“Geez, man, don’t you get it?” Alistair asked. Leon shook his head a little bit, and Alistair laughed again. “I’ve been here for six months!”

Friday, May 23rd—11:48 p.m.

690 words. Approximate reading time: 3 minutes, 24 seconds.

Nicolas led Zach quietly through the fire door of the skyscraper, closing it softly behind the two of them and flicking on his large flashlight, shining light around the access hallway.

“You know, I still can’t believe that you convinced me to do this,” Zach said. “If we get caught—”

“I’ve done this a hundred times and they’ve never gotten me yet,” Nicolas replied with a grin in his eyes. Zach never could resist those eyes. “Besides,” Nicolas continued, “it’s so worth it, I promise.”

Zach, who had never really been given to adventure, remained unsure, but he swooned when Nicolas’ eyes sparkled, and just said, “Okay. I trust you.” Nicolas didn’t say another word; he simply led Zach down the access hallway to another door that read “STAIRS.”

“It sticks a little sometimes.” Nicolas grunted as he tugged on the door until it finally popped open. “After you,” he said to Zach, still with those same sparkling, smiling eyes. Zach wanted more than anything just to see Nicolas smile.

“Are you sure this is safe, Nic? I don’t even mean like the cops or anything, it’s just... this place is pretty old.”

“Didn’t you just say that you trust me?” Nicolas said, making Zach squirm a little.

“Yeah, okay... But you lead the way. At least that way if anything happens, it’ll get you first!”

Nicolas rolled his eyes at Zach’s attempt to defuse his nervousness with humor. “Come on then,” he said, and led the way up the staircase. The two young men climbed flight after flight until they reached the fifteenth floor. Zach collapsed on the landing with a huff, trying to steady his breathing and rest for a moment.

Nicolas punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Come on, man, aren’t you like twenty-three?”

“Twenty-two,” Zach corrected him through ragged breaths. “And what does that have to do with it?”

“We’re in the prime of our lives!” Nicolas shouted. “Fifteen flights of stairs should be nothing.”

“Okay, well I don’t do this everyday,” Zach grumbled, before adjusting his face covering. “And it’s not like my gaiter is helping things.”

Nicolas reached out, giving his hand to Zach and pulling him up to his feet, then into a tight embrace. “I know, man. I’m just messing with you. This climb sucks, but it’s gonna be so good, you’re gonna just love it. We’re almost there.”

He pushed through the door on the landing and led both of them into a large open area. Nicolas shined his flashlight around, and Zach could see that the floor was filled with short partitions that separated desks from each other. “Give me your hand,” Nicolas said, “It’s a little bit of a maze.”

Nicolas led Zach down a path around the partitions, shining his light back and forth while they walked. Zach glanced at one of the desks as they passed by, Nicolas’ light shining across what looked like a family photo of a young couple and two small children playing in an outdoor space. He couldn’t make sense of it before the light moved on and so did he.

“We’re here!” Nicolas said in a sing-songy voice, breaking Zach out of his confusion and making him forget about that weird photo. Nicolas pulled Zach through a double set of glass doors onto a balcony, and Zach gasped.

Before him laid the entirety of Downtown, all black buildings cutting a jigsaw edge against the dark blue sky, and above him shone thousands of stars. Zach had never seen so many stars before; the lights were always on in his Neighborhood and must have been blocking them out. He stared in wonder for a moment, before turning his gaze to Nicolas.

Nicolas had pulled his gaiter down, showing his entire face to Zach, and causing sparks to fly through Zach’s body. He smiled, a big toothy grin that most people would describe as goofy.

“Well? You having a good time?” Nicolas asked. “Didn’t I tell you? What do you think of the view?”

Zach stared at Nicolas’ smile for a time before allowing his eyes to drift up to meet Nicolas’. He reached up to his face and pulled down his own gaiter, revealing a small and nervous smile.

“It’s beautiful, Nic. Just beautiful.”

Monday, February 13th—2:36 a.m.

1,124 words. Approximate reading time: 5 minutes, 37 seconds.

Caleb snuck down the stairs quietly, taking extra care to step over the stair that always creaked. The last thing that he needed at that moment was for his parents to wake up and find out what he was doing. He made it to the first floor without incident, and breathed a small sigh of relief when he realized that he was pretty much in the clear. He adjusted his backpack on his shoulders and silently moved toward the front door.

As soon as his hand touched the knob, a light turned on, temporarily disorienting Caleb, whose eyes had grown accustomed to the dark house. He immediately felt a pang of fear, and spun around to find his aunt Cara sitting in the plush armchair opposite the living room from the front door.

“Going somewhere?” Cara asked softly, with a hint of a smile.

Caleb gaped. “I... uh—”

“It’s okay, Caleb,” Cara said. “I know what’s going on. Your parents might be oblivious, but I’m not. Sit down for a sec.” She gestured to the sofa next to her chair. Caleb, still nervous and unsure about what was going to happen, cautiously approached the sofa and sat down.

“Aunt Cara,” Caleb started, but Cara raised a hand to stop him.

“Shh,” she said. “Let’s not wake up your parents; just listen to what I have to say. You’re not in trouble. At least, not with me, okay?” Caleb nodded. “Good. So you’re trying to make your way out to the Free States, is that right?”

Caleb hesitated, but Cara smiled at him, and he slowly nodded.

“Do you have any plan of how you’re going to get there?” Cara asked. “Stow away on one of the trains, perhaps?”

Caleb shrugged. “I... I guess I don’t really know,” he said, keeping his voice just above a whisper. “I figured I’ll sneak out to the train station and just... figure it out from there?”

“Oh, Caleb,” Cara sighed. “What I wouldn’t give to be nineteen years old again. All talk and no brains. That’s incredibly reckless you know.”

“I know,” Caleb said. “I just... I gotta get out of here. The thought of spending the rest of my life here in this house and being stuck with my parents... You get it, right?”

“I get it,” Cara said with a nod. “Look, you were only four years old when everyone locked down. You don’t really know what life was like before. I remember it. When I was your age, everything was so different. Life was full of possibilities. The Free States... well, they aren’t exactly like that, but they’re closer than this, maybe.

“When you get to my age, Caleb, it’s really easy to just accept that things are the way they are and that they won’t change. Did you ever wonder why I’ve been living here for the past fifteen years? It isn’t because I didn’t have a home of my own. I was just visiting your dad when the quarantines happened.”

Caleb wasn’t sure what to say. He only had a vague idea of what Cara was even talking about.

“Eh, but you don’t know what I’m talking about anyway. The stuff they teach in schools these days. Nothing important. Look, you’re about to do something crazy. You’re nineteen. I get it. I want to help.” Cara slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out a small plastic card and a folded up piece of paper. “This right here is your golden ticket to a new life, young man.” She reached out to hand him the card.

Caleb took the card from Cara’s hand and looked at it. It was an ID card that looked just like the one that was already in his wallet, right down to the photograph. “I already have an ID card, Aunt Cara,” Caleb said.

“Look closer,” she replied, reaching out and tapping her finger on the top-right corner, where a small red star was emblazoned. “This is a special ID card. This one will get you onto the train, legitimately.”

Caleb’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. “How did you get this?” he asked her. “Why?”

Cara shook her head gently. “Let’s just say that I know some people. Really, for your safety and for mine, the less you know, the better.” She handed him the folded piece of paper. “When you get off of the train, you’ll want to look up the person that’s on this piece of paper. He’s expecting you, and he’ll help you get off to a good start down there.”

Caleb unfolded the paper. On it was a name, Allan Standard, followed by what looked like an address, but the format was different than what he was used to.

“When you get to the train station, just act natural and do your best to blend in,” Cara continued. “If anyone asks, you’re being sent over to the Free States on a work visa. Don’t act like you’re excited about it; most people that are sent over on work visas are being sent over as a punishment. You shouldn’t run into too many people this early in the morning; the Schedule is pretty light right about now. Just be on your guard.”

Caleb nodded. “Okay, Aunt Cara.”

“You alright, Caleb?”

“Yeah, it’s just... I didn’t realize this was going to be so much. Why are you doing all this?”

“One, you are my nephew and I love you,” Cara said. “The last thing I want is for you to get hurt or thrown in jail because of a half-baked plan. And two... I remember what it was like when I was your age. The world was my oyster and I had choices and I was going to be great. I was going to grab life by the horns and never let go.

“That never happened for me. It might not happen for you. Maybe that’s just a part of being human, living in a world of ideals when you’re young and living in a world of bitter resignation when you’re older. I don’t know. All I know is that, in this place, you aren’t going to be afforded that opportunity. You’ve got a slim window to try and get out of here and make something of yourself. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t do what I could to help you take that chance.”

Unsure of what exactly to say, Caleb stared at Cara for a short moment. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Cara stood up and motioned for him to be quiet. “You don’t have to say anything,” she whispered as she helped him stand up and ushered him toward the door.

Cara soundlessly opened the front door, and Caleb stepped outside onto the porch. He turned to look at his aunt one last time. She smiled sadly and said, “And I won’t say anything, either.”

Wednesday, July 18th—5:22 p.m.

1,131 words. Approximate reading time: 5 minutes, 39 seconds.

Arnold carefully hooked the handle of his dutch oven and lifted it out of the embers in the fire pit, setting the pot gently on the ground before grasping it with two mitt-covered hands and placing it on the countertop. As he pulled off the lid, a burst of steam emerged, followed by the aroma of freshly-baked bread. Some vegetables from their garden, mostly beans and peas with a few peppers, still simmered on another pot hanging from a spit over the fire pit.

The back door to the house creaked loudly, and Arnold turned to see his two children, Ainsley and Corrin, bounding through the door with their puppy Jake right behind them. He smiled as the group made its way across the yard to the kitchen.

“That smells great, Dad!” Ainsley shouted, looking at the cast iron pot that his father was turning over to release the baked bread.

“Thanks, Ains,” Arnold said. “I’ve even got a special treat for us tonight. You guys wanna know what it is?”

“Yes!” the children cried together. Jake yipped a few times and started chasing his tail, feeling the excitement of the children.

Arnold reached up onto a shelf above the counter and pulled down a small packet about the size of his hand, showing it to the children. “This, kids, is what we call butter.”

“Budder?” Corrin asked.

“Yeah,” Arnold said. He unwrapped the packet, revealing the soft yellow-ish substance inside. “It’s a yummy spread that people used to put on bread all of the time. It’s pretty hard to find nowadays, but your mom has some friends that raise cows, and they use the cow milk to make butter.”

“Uhm, that’s cool, I guess,” Ainsley said, shrugging his shoulders a bit.

Arnold laughed. “Well, you’ll see. Your mom will be home soon and we’ll have dinner, and you’ll see what a treat this is. Now you two go play with Jake until she gets back so I can finish getting this all set up.”

The kids ran off to the other side of the yard with Jake, running around and playing without a care in the world. Arnold smiled as he watched them for a moment, then focused his attention on the cooled bread, slicing half of it neatly into thick slices, and wrapping the other half up with an old cloth napkin to save for the next day.

He gently removed the vegetables from the spit above the fire pit, his smile fading slightly as he looked up into the sky, seeing how low the sun was. His wife should have returned home from hunting by now, but Arnold did his best not to worry. Maybe her group had found something big and they needed some extra time getting things prepped and ready to take back home. Arnold’s thoughts became filled with meat, another rarity for them these days, since the few people left that kept livestock kept them for milk or eggs rather than for meat. There certainly wasn’t enough meat to go around, anyway.

But when his wife would go out with her hunting group, she would try to bring home something to supplement Arnold’s vegetable garden and whatever staples they could afford from the co-op. Usually it was something small—a squirrel, a wild chicken, or an opossum, perhaps—but on rare and joyous occasions, he might see her pull into the driveway with the basket of her bicycle loaded up with deer or horse meat.

Arnold was lost in thought, dreaming up recipes for deer meat, when his hand touched the pot of vegetables sitting on the kitchen counter. He cursed loudly as the flesh of his hand seared, and Ainsley and Corrin looked up in shock.

“Daddy’s fine!” he said, waving his hand around to try and relieve the pain. The kids looked unsure, but went back to playing. “I’m going to go to put something on this; you guys stay put, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy!” Corrin shouted, and Arnold walked inside the house, nursing his hand. He entered what used to be the kitchen but was now just an extra-large pantry. Rummaging through the drawers and cabinets, he found a first-aid kit and popped it open. Thankfully, there was some burn cream left in there. Not much, but enough for his hand. He opened the tube and gently pushed a small amount of cream out of the tube and onto his hand. He rubbed it over the burn in a thin layer before covering the spot with a piece of gauze and wrapping his hand up with just enough tape to keep the gauze in place.

It wasn’t until he was finally feeling some relief from the burn cream that his mind returned to his wife and her whereabouts. He glanced out of the window into the backyard to see the kids and the puppy still keeping themselves busy, and allowed himself to smile a bit despite his worry.

A knock on the front door snapped him out of his thoughts, and he cautiously approached the door, the worry rising in the back of his mind. He opened the door to find Joseph, a hunting partner of his wife’s, standing on the porch. Arnold knew from the look on his face.

“Seph,” he said in greeting.

“Arnold,” Joseph replied.

“It’s Kim.”

Joseph nodded sadly, and Arnold could tell that he was searching for the right words to say. Arnold himself was searching for words. He knew that there was an inherent danger in going out hunting, but Kim had been doing it for years without any problems.

“Arnold, I’m—” Joseph started.

Arnold cut him off. “Don’t, Seph. We both knew something could happen. Me and the kids... we’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. Just get back to your family before they start to worry.”

“Alright,” Joseph said. “You, uh... you know where we are if you need anything. Anything at all.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll talk to you soon.” Arnold closed the door quietly as Joseph turned and walked back to his bicycle. The moment the door latched, Arnold lost all of his strength and collapsed to the floor, sobbing. He sat there for a few minutes before doing his best to pull himself together and stand back up. He moved into the kitchen, looking out of the window once more into the backyard.

In one corner of the yard, Corrin rolled around on the ground with Jake while Ainsley jogged around them in circles. Arnold watched them, desperately racking his brain for something to say, only coming up with empty platitudes that didn’t seem fully appropriate to the situation.

His eyes surveyed the kitchen, a small makeshift set of counters and shelves covered by a tarp just next to the fire pit where he cooked dinner for his family every night. Four thick slices of bread sat on the counter next to a pot of cooked vegetables and an open packet of butter.

Author’s Note: This was a difficult prompt. You may notice that I threw in a mention of opossums, but I also took inspiration from the song the line is from, where the writer is searching for the right words to say about a situation and can’t come up with anything good to say. Thank you for reading!

Thursday, November 22nd—4:31 p.m.

1,031 words. Approximate reading time: 5 minutes, 9 seconds.

Katie cursed as the match burned her fingers, dropping it into the fireplace and waving her hand around in a futile effort to stop the pain. “You’d think I’d know how to do this right by now,” she muttered to herself. She rubbed her cold hands together to warm them as much as she could and reached for the box of matches on the mantle, then slid it open. “Only five matches left. Shit, okay. Get it together, Katie.” She pulled another match from the box.

It took a few strikes, but the match finally caught flame, and Katie quickly tossed it onto the pile of papers that she had collected from around the house and twigs that she had collected under cover of night from her backyard. As soon as the match landed on the pile, the papers caught, and the flames started moving to overtake the twigs. Katie watched the fire, waiting for the right moment to add more wood. She watched an old photograph start to curl on the corner as the fire took it over, burning away the likeness of herself and her best friend, embracing each other in front of a roller coaster. “I can’t believe that was only five years ago,” she said quietly.

She had a pile of larger branches that she kept next to the fireplace, branches which she had also collected under cover of night from her backyard. She eyed the pile, thankful for the fact that she lived in a somewhat wooded area, and wondered if she had enough branches to last through the night, or if she’d need to rustle herself awake at 2:00 a.m. again to go foraging.

She sighed and tossed a few bigger branches on the fire, letting them catch before adding a few more. Soon, there was a small fire going in the fireplace, and Katie sat beside it, letting the heat warm her body through. She watched the fire burn through the rest of the kindling—more old photographs, pages from old magazines, some newspapers, whatever she could find lying around the house—and ignored the rumbling of her stomach. She had already eaten today, and she was running low on food. She couldn’t afford three square meals right now, so she just sucked it up and tried to deal with it.

It had only been seven days since Katie’s access was cut off. She hadn’t been prepared for it at all, though she sort of suspected now that no one was ever really prepared for it. No one really thought that they’d actually go through with it. But here she was, a dirty “dissident”, trapped in her home in the cold November weather with maybe a few more days worth of food, a handful of old books, a few tree branches, and four matches.

When it first happened, she was in shock. The internet had never gone down before, at least without some notice, and it was never down for more than a few minutes for maintenance. When it would come back up, everyone would jump back into their chat rooms and the next few hours would be taken up by people complaining about the internet access being down for five minutes, and how the maintenance schedule should be changed to be less often since there really shouldn’t be any reason for five full minutes of maintenance on the lines every two months.

This time, Katie waited five minutes, but the internet didn’t come back. She tried to call the customer support line, but couldn’t look up the number without the internet. It didn’t matter anyway, since her phone also appeared to be not working, like her signal was blocked. She wanted to check with her neighbors, but she had never really met them and didn’t know them, never mind the fact that going outdoors was effectively a death sentence.

So she waited, but the internet never came back. Her phone never started working again. After a day, her electricity was shut off and she started trying to learn how to build a fire in the fireplace that she never used. She risked going outside, into her back yard, in the dead of night to gather her twigs and branches and went through what she now realized were far too many matches trying to get a fire going.

Now, she was somewhat better at making fire, but she didn’t know how long she’d be able to make it last. She had to find some way to keep it going, or she might actually die from the cold. ‘What would be a better way to go,’ she wondered, grabbing a poker from beside the fireplace and poking at the branches as though she was doing something helpful, ‘Hypothermia or starvation?’

Katie idly poked at the small fire, disturbing it more than she should. “It’s not fair,” she said to no one. “I didn’t even do anything! I was only even there to try and talk some sense into them!” She had guessed that the problem was that one chat room. All those freaks that thought the Disease was overblown, that the quarantines were unnecessary. All those idiots deserved what had happened to Katie, and Katie took some solace in the thought that maybe they got what was coming to them, even if she had gotten caught in the crossfire.

Her stomach rumbled again, so she stood up and walked into the kitchen. She didn’t bother with the fridge, as all of the food in there would just make her sick. Opening the pantry, she surveyed the few items she still had. A couple of cans of vegetables, half of a stale loaf of bread, a few boxes of breakfast cereal. Something in the very back of the pantry caught her eye, something that she hadn’t noticed before.

“Score!” she shouted as she reached into the back of the pantry and pulled out a box of snack cakes. “I forgot I even had these.” She checked the date on the box. Still good. She reached into the box and pulled out one cake, unwrapped it, and ate it slowly, savoring every bite.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” she murmured to herself, as the flames in her fireplace receded into embers without her noticing.

Friday, July 21st—5:22 p.m.

1,728 words. Approximate reading time: 8 minutes, 38 seconds.

Jeremiah skidded his bicycle to a stop in front of the neighborhood park. It was a beautiful summer evening, with the sun hanging low in the sky but still hours away from setting. The air was stagnant and slightly damp, leaving every bit of Jeremiah’s skin that was exposed covered in a film of sweat and humidity, but that wasn’t unusual for summers, and Jeremiah kind of liked it, especially when an infrequent breeze would come by; the feeling of being cooled all over at once was one of Jeremiah’s favorite things.

His gaze roamed over the park, taking in everything. There were benches with wrought-iron frames, pieces of rotten wood holding on desperately in a few spots. There was a playground filled with faded and weather-stained plastic equipment that hadn’t been used in decades. In the center of the small park stood a fountain, bone dry and filled with leaves, topped by a statue of some man whose left arm and nose had broken off years before. “Old No-Nose,” Jeremiah and his friends had always called the statue. There was a plaque on the fountain that might have elucidated the man’s real name and history, but Jeremiah had never read it. The park had been completely fenced in for as long as he could remember, so the only people that might have gotten a chance to become familiar with Old No-Nose were definitely up to no good.

A lot of people complained about life in the Burbs, but Jeremiah loved it, for exactly this reason. There was so much cool stuff to be found here. The park, his parents had told him, didn’t have a fence around it at one time. Parents in the area would take their children to play on the playground equipment, watching them from the benches and chatting with the other parents. Young couples would carve their initials into the trees with a knife, a symbol of an everlasting love that would maybe last a year or two.

People of all ages would toss pennies into the fountain, which was filled with water, wishing for all manner of things. The base of the statue would shoot out water in beautiful arcs into the pool at the bottom of the fountain, and it would all recirculate and run in that loop without stopping. Jeremiah’s parents didn’t remember the real name of Old No-Nose, so he must not have been a terribly important figure.

Every time Jeremiah rode his bike by the park, he’d stop and admire it. For Jeremiah, the park was essentially an art installation, something to be looked at but not touched. He would imagine the park full of life and people, and would wonder what life might have been like back then. His parents told him stories, but they were just that. Sometimes, he longed to be in that world.

But Jeremiah maintained a good balance between fantasy and practicality, so he would stop at the park and imagine for a while, then would continue on to the task at hand. As such, he pulled away from his imaginary world and continued along the road toward his original destination.

He pedaled along for nearly fifteen minutes, quite a trek from his parents’ house, the whole time thinking about the park. At one point, he had asked his parents why the park had a fence around it. They talked about a pandemic that had torn through the country about thirty years before. Everyone was scared and didn’t know what to do, so most people stayed at home for a time and avoided contact with those outside of their immediate families. Public gathering spots, like the park, were fenced off and closed down to avoid what was seen as “a temptation to gather.”

Eventually, they had told him, people got used to the idea of not going to the park. The kids basically forgot they had ever played there, and the parents were somewhat thankful to not have to deal with wrangling the children to get them to the playground. So no one bothered to take down the fence and re-open the park. After The Split, there wasn’t anyone that wanted to be responsible for it, so it just stayed that way and no one really cared. Jeremiah had learned about The Split in school, but that was the first time he had heard about any pandemic. Then again, he was never really excited about History, so he might have just missed it.

It was strange to Jeremiah that no one really cared about the park, but in a way, he enjoyed it, like the park was his own private thing that only mattered to him. It was nice to have something that was just his in that way, and he was hoping, as he rode along the road toward the river, that he might soon have something else that was just his.

He had been searching for months, when finally an advertisement appeared in the local circular with the words “FOR RENT” in bold at the top. He scanned the rest of the advertisement, and it looked perfect. It was close to his parents’ house, so they would be nearby if he needed them, but not so close that they would feel the need to constantly check up on him. The price was right on what he could afford with his job at the co-op, and the advertisement specifically said, “river views.”

When he told his parents, his mom cried. She kept saying that she wasn’t ready for her baby to leave. His dad was proud, though, and reminded his wife that Jeremiah was 18 now and deserved to have a place of his own. He wasn’t a baby anymore.

Jeremiah rolled his bike up to the bridge over the river, glancing around to see if he could find the right spot. There, right in the middle of the bridge, stood a man by a red sport utility vehicle. The man waved to him. Jeremiah waved back, and rode his bike to the center of the bridge, stopping next to the man.

“You Jeremiah?” the man said gruffly, and Jeremiah nodded. “You were supposed to be here five minutes ago.”

“Sorry,” Jeremiah replied. “I, uh... got caught up in something. Is this it?”

“Yep,” the man said. “She’s a beaut, huh? Decent location, too.”

Jeremiah looked out over the river. “It sure is,” he murmured, watching the sun, large and orange, hanging just over the treeline.

“Alright, I’ll give you the tour,” the man said, all business it seemed. He pulled open the rear passenger-side door of the vehicle and gestured for Jeremiah to take a look inside. Jeremiah poked his head inside and looked around. The rear seats had been folded down, and there was a plush mattress on the floor, taking up most of the rear of the vehicle.

Some shelving units had been attached to the sides and back of the inside of the car that would make a good place to store his clothes, books, and a few snacks. There wasn’t any place for perishable food, but Jeremiah had noticed a small food shop just before the bridge, and there were a few community wood-burning grills scattered around, so it wouldn’t be too much of a problem for him to just stop at the shop on his way home from work and supplement some of the free produce he’d get as a benefit of working at the co-op.

“Glove compartment locks,” the man said. “Alright place to keep your valuables.”

Jeremiah walked around to the other side of the car, where a tarp had been set up, attached to the side of the car on one end and to two posts on the other. An old Adirondack chair and a small metal side table sat underneath the tarp, just next to the rear door for easy access.

“Yeah, there’s a porch, too. Nice view of the river. You want it?”

“I think so,” Jeremiah said. He was nervous about jumping into something and feeling a little pressured, but he did really love the apartment and thought it would be perfect for him. “It looks really nice and it’s in a great spot. Why’s the rent so low?”

The man sighed, steeling himself for another lost lead. “A/C don’t work,” he said. “Or electrical.” Jeremiah pulled a face unthinkingly, and the man hurriedly added, “But look, the windows are all manual so you can still roll ‘em down! And there’s always a breeze on the river.”

As soon as the man said it, Jeremiah felt a breeze come through, cooling the sweat and humidity droplets on his skin, and he smiled. “Hell, alright,” he said, suddenly excited. “I don’t mind that. Let’s do it!”

The man grinned, relieved. “First, last, and security,” he said. “$600.”

Jeremiah pulled out his wallet and reached inside, pulling out six bills and handing them to the man. The man quickly counted the cash, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of car keys. He tossed them to Jeremiah, who caught them deftly. “Alright, she’s all yours,” he said. “You miss a payment and you’re out.” The man climbed onto his own bicycle and started to pull away. “The buttons on those keys don’t work!” he shouted as he rode off.

Alone again, Jeremiah walked his bike around to the driver’s side of his new apartment. He reached into his bike’s storage pack and pulled out a chain with a lock on it. Weaving the chain around the bike and through the handle of the front driver’s side door, he secured it in place. He took the key and locked and unlocked all of the doors several times. He climbed into the back and lay on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling with a smile, relishing in his freedom. He was finally his own man, finally an adult. He was chasing happiness, so sure of himself that he would find and catch it soon.

He climbed out of the rear driver’s side door of his apartment and settled into the Adirondack chair on his porch. It squealed a bit in protest, but was sturdy and held his weight just fine. He took in a deep breath of the river air and watched the sun slowly slip down below the horizon, painting the sky red and orange as it left the day behind, and wondered what exactly Old No-Nose would think of him now.

"Weekly Grocery Trip"

1,369 words. Approximate reading time: 6 minutes, 44 seconds.

It was 11:32 in the morning on Thursday when Maralyn left her home for her weekly grocery trip. She was two minutes behind schedule, which obviously made her a bit anxious. It meant everything to be on schedule, and she worried that she might not have enough time to get her food and get back home. Still, she had to make her best effort, because she needed food and had no other options.

She crossed her arms over her chest and hurried along the sidewalk toward the grocery, thankful that her house was normally only a five-minute walk away. Certainly she could still make it by 11:35 if she tried hard enough. While she walked briskly along her very familiar path, she let her eyes wander a bit, surveying the neighborhood.

Maralyn really enjoyed these Thursday walks; it was such a peaceful time of day. It felt good to be out in the open air, especially during the beginning of winter, when the air had a little bit of a chill and the leaves—little remnants of autumn—decorated the ground, not yet touched by the snow. Despite the fact that it was statistically more dangerous to be out during this time of year, Maralyn still looked for the beauty in her surroundings.

Her gaze moved from the ground up to the houses of her neighbors, and she thought she saw the door of one of the houses open just a crack. She shivered a bit and quickened her pace, wishing that her husband had accompanied her this time. She felt safe enough, but always had a slight tinge of trepidation every time he said he preferred to stay home (as it happened, his favorite television show, Captured, in which hundreds of contestants were locked in an underground bunker and performed humiliating feats while competing to stay in said underground bunker, aired on Thursdays from 11:00am to noon, and there were some weeks where Krystian just couldn’t pull himself away after the first half hour to join Maralyn on her grocery trip). Still, it was just Maralyn on the street, and she wouldn’t see another person until she made it to the grocer, so she knew she didn’t have too much to worry about.

A delivery drone flew overhead carrying a small box—no doubt a new VR headset for Angela, her neighbor three doors down—while playing a jaunty tune from tinny speakers. Maralyn found some comfort in that, as it had been a while since she’d been able to connect with Angela, since her VR headset had gone on the fritz a few weeks prior. Maybe Maralyn would finally be able to set a hangout date with Angela.

After leaving her neighborhood, Maralyn turned the corner and hurriedly continued onto the grocer, which she could see just around the bend. When she finally reached the door, she glanced down at her wrist and noted the time: 11:35. Elated that her quick pace had made up for her lateness, Maralyn smiled a bit to herself. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, opened up the grocery app, and held up her identifying barcode to the scanner by the door. The double-doors slid open, and she stepped inside, being careful (as always) to stop on the first green square of the conveyor belt just inside the doors. After she was inside, the doors slid closed again, and Maralyn heard the comforting “click” of the lock to let her know that she was safely inside.

Exactly ten feet in front of her was Carmen, Maralyn’s “grocery buddy,” since their weekly shopping trips coincided with each other’s. She didn’t know too much about Carmen, since they lived in different neighborhoods and weren’t part of the same social circle, but Maralyn enjoyed seeing Carmen consistently every week. It was the consistencies in Maralyn’s life that really mattered to her. Carmen glanced back over her shoulder and blinked twice at Maralyn in greeting, and Maralyn blinked twice in return. Carmen turned her head back to face front, and the conveyor moved slowly forward.

At 11:38, the conveyor moved Maralyn to the front of the line. She held up her phone, still open to the grocery app, to the checkout scanner. The scanner read her barcode, and within ten seconds several bags emerged from the carousel beside her, containing everything that she had ordered on the app the previous day. She glanced toward the exit to see Carmen walking through the doors with her own groceries. Carmen again looked back and blinked twice. Maralyn returned the goodbye (all-purpose gestures like the double-blink were so convenient; it’s no wonder they’d become popular over the last few years) and grabbed her bags. After Carmen had disappeared from view, the conveyor pushed Maralyn gently toward the exit. She walked through the open doors, which closed and clicked behind her, and made her way back up the sidewalk toward her house.

By 11:43, she was over halfway back to the safety of her home, but stopped her walk short when she noticed a car on the road in front of her neighbor Angela’s house, and saw that Angela’s door was open. Maralyn’s heart dropped a bit when she thought of what was about to happen. She had seen this a few times before on the nightly news (and on the morning news and the news at noon, obviously), but had never been witness to it up close before.

Maralyn stayed still on the sidewalk as she knew to do; it was acceptable to be a few minutes late returning to your home with extenuating circumstances, and this definitely counted as extenuating circumstances. She certainly couldn’t risk going directly past Angela’s house until the threat had gone. She shifted her grocery bags to one hand, and used her free hand to check her face covering, making sure that it was properly adjusted, then watched as two people in head-to-toe sanitization suits carried a sedated woman out of the front door.

It must have been Angela, Maralyn reasoned, though she didn’t look very much like the Angela that Maralyn knew from their VR hangouts. The sanitization workers loaded Angela into the trunk of the car and closed it tightly, then one worker entered the driver’s side of the car and started the engine, while the second worker went to Angela’s front door, closed it, and pasted a large yellow notice on the front. As the second worker returned to the car, Maralyn glanced over and saw in bold black letters, “QUARANTINED—DO NOT ENTER” on the sign. Her gazed moved down a bit to the small package that had been left on the porch.

She shook her head and waited for the car to leave the area. She almost couldn’t believe that Angela was Diseased; but then again, she must have done something against the regulations set forth by the Health Authority. After all, keeping to the schedule was what was keeping everyone safe.

Maralyn made a mental note to not bother with setting up a hangout with Angela anymore (really, she couldn’t believe she had even been thinking about associating with someone like that) as she started walking back to her house. She glanced at her watch: 11:46. A few minutes late due to extenuating circumstances was one thing, but she didn’t want to end up like that horrible Angela, flaunting her disregard of the schedule. She broke into a light jog to get back to her house as quickly as possible, raced up the front stairs and hurried inside, slamming the door behind her.

The wind blew the leaves around gently as Samuel walked down the street on his way to the grocery. He could have sworn he heard the front door of a house a short way down and across the street, but that was of course impossible. It was 11:47 after all, which was inside his assigned weekly grocery slot. He adjusted his face covering and continued down the street toward the grocery, glancing nervously at the houses of his neighbors.

* * *

Author's Note: This was my first attempt in a long time at doing some just straight-up fiction, as opposed to semi-fictional or non-fictional personal stories. I hope you enjoyed it, and I'm happy to hear any concrit you may have for me, as I'd like to explore this side of writing further in the future.

"Embers"
166 words. Estimated reading time: 49 seconds.

I won’t say, “I’ll never
Forgive you for this”
(Though that was the phrase
That my brain was screaming),
But my famously abundant
Patience wears thin,

Especially on days when
Solitude is in short supply,
Which—let’s be honest—
Is most days anymore,
Since you made a decision
That affected more than you.

I detest making
Molehills out of ant mounds
(Or mountains out of molehills,
For that matter),
But even the smallest thing
Can be magnified

If we look at it long enough,
Live with it long enough,
Tolerate it long enough.
Ant mounds become mountains,
And still manage to shock us
With their gradual transformation.

Through all of this,
I’ve tried to keep the spark,
To nurture the embers
That glow in my hands
In the tiny nest of kindling,
Begging to stay alive.

Through all of this,
A touch, a glance, a smile,
A few whispered words
To breathe life into
Something that I sometimes
Feel slipping away.

Through all of this,
Your hands hold mine,
Your breath holds steady,
And your eyes speak
As if to say just one thing:
“I’m sorry.”

I only hope that
We can re-ignite,
When much-needed solitude
Returns to us both,
And that the embers we
So desperately cling to

Do not fade away in smoke.

"Photographic Evidence"

I caught a glimpse of myself
In a photo on the wall;
It was from just last year
At around Christmas-time.

My husband and I
Had our arms around
Each other’s shoulders,
And we were smiling.

I looked old.

I remember that day vividly.
I remember dressing nicely
And brushing my hair,
Shaving my face to look my best.

I remember looking at myself
In the mirror and thinking,
‘I look nice today.
These pictures will be great.’

But I look at the photo,
And I don’t think,
‘I look good. I look happy.’

I look at the photo,
And I think,
‘I look old. I look fat.’

When I catch myself
In the mirror these days,
My eyes play tricks
And convince me that

I am looking at
A 20-year-old man,
Without a receding hairline
With a speckling of gray
Just at the temples,
Without the extra pounds
That I’ve put on
Over the years.

When I catch myself
In the mirror these days,
I look happy.

When I catch myself
In a photograph,
I look real.

"Connection"

1,443 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes, 12 seconds.

There are, in everyone’s life, those people, places, and times that etch themselves into your brain and stamp themselves on your heart. It may not be until years after the fact that you realize it, but a certain smell, a random image, a song playing on the radio will take you back and all of the same feelings will come up as though you had just experienced them the day before. For me, that person is John, and that time and place is our (not quite) date at a busy shopping mall on a balmy summer evening.

At nineteen years old, I found myself in a new town with very few friends to call my own. Those that I knew and loved were a hundred miles away and, while I made every effort to travel back to my old hometown most weekends to see them, I knew that it was only a matter of time before those connections would fade to a mere whisper of what they once were, before they would eventually disappear altogether and we would all lives our lives as though they had never been there at all. Distance has a tendency to do that, if you don’t make an extraordinary effort to keep those connections alive.

It was difficult making new connections in my new town. The people I lived with had been there for some time, and had their own friends, which they were happy to share with me, but it wasn’t quite the same as having friends of my own. All I did in my new town was travel from work to home and back again, and my work friends were great, but spending time with my work friends outside of work felt strange to me, like a blending of two worlds that were never supposed to meet. I worked past that after some time (mostly because I didn’t really have any other options), but when I first moved, I still had that idea that I shouldn’t be mixing the professional and the personal.

I spent a lot of time online in those days; I would generally spend every day after I came home from work sitting in my bedroom on my computer and making friends with words on a screen. John was one of those friends. We seemed to have a lot in common and quickly became close through our conversations. It wasn’t long before I found myself having some familiar feelings for John, like a crush but stronger. We had exchanged photos; I knew what he looked like. We had talked on the phone once; I knew what he sounded like. I had an image of him in my head that I spent my evenings building up while we conversed over an instant messaging program, sharing life stories and jokes, strengthening that connection that I was so desperate to have with more people than just those that I lived with.

John didn’t live particularly close to me, but he did live very close to my old hometown, the one that I visited on weekends that I felt particularly lonely and in need of friends. It was on one of those weekends that we first met in person. Ignoring even the possibility of seeing any of my old friends, John and I had spent Friday evening online, making plans to get together at a shopping mall that marked the halfway point between my own hometown and his current hometown. On Saturday morning, I said goodbye to my roommates for the weekend, hopped into my car, and began the two-hour drive to my parents’ house, where my old bedroom waited for me like I knew it always would.

From time to time on the drive, I’d find myself clutching the steering wheel too tightly, and I’d have to remind myself to relax. I was nervous. My heart was fluttering at the thought of meeting John, and more than once I imagined myself kissing him, feeling his arms around me holding me tightly, before shaking off those thoughts that I knew I shouldn’t be having. John and I were friends, and nothing more. I didn’t know if he felt the same way about me as I did about him; we hadn’t really ever had any sort of discussion that led in that direction. I wasn’t going on a date that evening; it was just a friendly get-together at a mall of all places.

When I got to my parents’ house later in the morning, I tried to take some time to just relax, though my mind was racing with all of the possibilities that the evening ahead held. I watched TV, I went for a swim in the pool, telling myself to act natural and stop being so nervous, telling my heart (futilely) to stop fluttering so damned much. I wasn’t going on a date.

An hour or so before I was due to leave for the mall, I started getting ready. I scrubbed my body all over in the shower with some nice-smelling body wash. I washed and conditioned my hair, which I then spent nearly twenty minutes on in the mirror, trying to make it look as good as possible (but also trying to make it look like I hadn’t spent twenty minutes on it). I had brought the cologne that I never wore with me, and spritzed myself with it before carefully selecting an outfit that made me look my best. My heart wouldn’t stop fluttering. My nerves wouldn’t calm down. I wasn’t going on a date, but I was desperate to impress on this friendly outing.

I arrived early (as I usually did) and waited eagerly in the place that John and I had agreed to meet, trying to calm myself down and being wholly unsuccessful in my efforts. When John finally appeared, coming around the corner looking just like his photo, my heart firmly lodged itself in my throat and stayed there while we greeted each other like old friends. When he wrapped his arms around me in a friendly hug, it took all of my willpower not to just melt into his arms right then and there. But I managed to push aside those feelings that I knew I shouldn’t have, and we walked around the mall together, catching up on the day’s events, and chatting about various topics.

He asked me if I was hungry, and I told him I could eat, so we stopped at a grab-and-go restaurant to get some dinner. I awkwardly announced that I was good paying for my own, and he gave me a look before saying, “Well, yeah, I figured.”

We were not on a date. We were not expected to be sharing the costs here. We were not on a date.

As the evening continued, the crowds thinned out to the point that the mall was almost empty, and the romantic (or possibly sexual) tension between us kept rising until I felt that I might have to physically push through it to get close to him. We sat together on the edge of a fountain in a remote area of the mall, and I felt sparks as his hand casually made its way over to rest on top of mine. I had been rambling on about nothing in particular, and the feeling of his hand on mine caused me to stop short. I looked at him, and his eyes met mine as he smiled.

“I hope I’m not the only one feeling it,” he said to me, and I shook my head gently.

“We probably shouldn’t be,” I managed to finally say as his eyes pierced through mine and straight into me. “But I guess... I guess I’m feeling it, too.” I wanted so desperately to come off as nonchalant, to seem surprised that we were maybe actually on a date.

He slid closer to me and leaned in toward me. “You know what this means, right?” he asked me with a devilish grin.

“I know,” I said, and let his lips touch mine. Fire and electricity shot through my body as I moved to put my arm around him and pull him closer. I closed my eyes and breathed him in for a few moments while we kissed, letting the newness and excitement rush over me. This connection that had formed between us burned brightly in a way that I had never felt before.

He pulled his lips from mine and stared into my eyes. He reached up with his hand and ran his fingers through my carefully-crafted hair, holding the back of my head as we sat, mesmerized with each other. “You’re cheating on your boyfriend,” he whispered to me.

“I don’t care,” I responded, and leaned in for another electric kiss.

“Ephipany”
1,461 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes, 18 seconds.

I awoke before the sun that Saturday morning, and waited impatiently for it to begin to rise so I could begin the trek that I had been planning on since the middle of the week. In a previous life, I may have sat on the porch drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette at five o’clock in the morning and feeling sorry for myself. That morning, it was just the cigarette, still a bad habit and a vice, to be sure, but at least it was somewhat more socially acceptable.

The dogs, fed and happy, wrestled with each other in the backyard while I looked on, looking for signs of too-rough play, ready to shout at them to separate if things got serious. I finished my cigarette, lit another, and rolled my head from side to side, stretching out my aching neck muscles, trying to release the tension of the week.

As soon as I saw the first beams of light begin to color the inky sky, fading it from black to dark blue, I went inside and gathered up my supplies. I loaded my pack with more snacks and water than I knew I would need, because it never hurts to be prepared, and set it on the floor next to my chair, where I pulled on my hiking socks and boots and laced them tightly. My toes protested slightly, as they always did when I put on my boots, angry that they could not spread out as much as normal. I shook off the uncomfortable feeling, and massaged my neck before grabbing my pack and heading out to the car.

The sun crept its way over the horizon and watched over me lazily as I drove east toward it, and my eventual destination. When I pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead, I was relieved, though not surprised, to find no other cars there ahead of me. It had been a particularly rough week, and knowing that the chances of coming across another human being on the trail were slim put me at ease. I was here for solitude and peace, and, while the trail was long and had many different paths, it was also popular for hikers that lived in the area, so it was rare that I didn’t come across someone else while hiking, regardless of the paths I took or didn’t.

I exited my car and breathed in deeply, taking in the smell of the dew on the grass and the slight chill of morning, neither of which had been wicked away by the sun just yet, before diving headfirst into the forest in front of me. The trail welcomed me like an old friend, and I it, as I stepped deftly over and under familiar roots and branches on my way to the first fork, the first decision I would need to make on my path to guidance.

Going right would lead me along the river to the great wooden bridge that crossed it, or further to the mud pits that were once part of the trail, before they had been washed away by the rains, where I had once traveled through waist-deep water trying to find my way to drier ground. Going left would lead me deeper into the woods, to walk beside the equestrians for a mile or so before our paths drifted apart again. I had taken both roads before, at one point or another, and both roads eventually led to the same place and back again, so I made the decision to go to the left, having decided that the path I chose really made no difference. I felt the tension leaving my neck a bit as I made my way toward the horse trails, hoping to still find nobody.

The miles passed—thankfully—uneventfully and quietly, and I soon found myself at another fork in the trail, and another choice to make, another method of finding destiny. Going left would mean walking along a connector to another trail and would put me in a completely different parking area than the one that my car was in, so that option was really not one. Going straight would take me through deep woods and to the highway, where I had walked before along the paved bridge over the river to the fishing spot and the trail entrance on the other side, praying that I wouldn’t become the victim of someone’s momentary lack of attention to the road. Going right would take me down to the river and the great wooden bridge, which would in turn take me back to the parking lot, and back to my home.

I sat for a while on the covered bench in the clearing that marked the fork, mulling over my decision. The sun was hovering much higher in the sky now than it had been when I first entered the cover of the canopy, and the air was beginning to heat up quite a bit. I pulled a Lärabar from my pack, unwrapped it, and pretended it tasted anything like the flavor listed on the wrapper. I took a few sips of water and stretched out my aching shoulders, releasing the tension that seemed to have traveled to them from my neck by way of heavy hiking pack.

I had gotten the solitude that I was looking for, I reasoned, though perhaps not the epiphany that I had come to expect from solo hiking trips. But maybe epiphanies were reserved for the times when I really needed them and weren’t something to be sought after directly, so I made the decision to make my way toward the great wooden bridge, watch the river for a few moments, and head back home with the knowledge that at least I had gotten some time to think and some fresh air.

I made my way along the wide, straight trail, with the trees on either side reaching out to each other and clasping branches like old friends. Their leaves glowed brightly as they accepted the sun’s rays on my behalf, letting only a few bright shafts break through and onto the ground, leaving me dazzled. A half mile felt like only a few steps as I lost myself in the storybook feel of it all. I was surprised to find myself nearing the bridge so quickly, and shook myself free from the wonder of the path I walked. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a path that I hadn’t seen before, despite the numerous times I had walked this loop.

The recent months had seen little rain, and this area that was usually flooded over was now dry. The ground changed from dirt to sand, and the sand seemed to form a path that was maybe not technically a mapped trail, but was a trail nonetheless. Intrigued, I turned away from the wooden bridge that would lead me back home and walked into the pristine sand, my boots sinking down softly and leaving behind evidence of my excursion for other hikers to see.

I walked along the path, feeling the tension dissipate from all of my muscles as excitement and anticipation took over my body, recalling earlier days when the trails were much less familiar and comfortable. I traveled for some time, seeing nothing but more trees, sisters and brothers of those I had already known before, when suddenly there was a break. The trees disappeared and the ground spread wide before me into a large, grassy clearing.

To my left was a small pond, home to several newly-born islands, left uncovered by the lack of rain, their once-muddy shells baked dry by the sun. To my right was a small grass-covered hill with a single old oak tree bursting from the top of it. Though it had seen better days, the old tree was still a sight to behold, and I wondered how many years it had been here alive at the edge of the pond, watching the water rise and fall over time, and how many years it had been dead, but still keeping watch.

The oak tree’s bare branches held dozens of large birds that I recognized as turkey vultures, and my eyes followed the lines of the tree to the base, where I noticed several other vultures on the ground, picking over the bones of a medium-sized animal to find any rotten meat that their brethren had left behind. The vultures on the ground hissed and grunted as they ate, while the vultures in the tree branches stood watch stoically and waited for the right time to go off in search of more food.

I dropped my pack to the ground and sat at the edge of the clearing, watching the vultures feast and the mud islands bake in the sun, waiting for my epiphany to come.

"Dark Chocolate Stout"

1,442 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes, 8 seconds.

I stood in the back of the liquor store, dragging my eyes over the cooler shelves underneath the sign that read “Imported Beers.” The cooler that I was most interested in was the one that held single cans and bottles. I didn’t need a six-pack; I wasn’t an alcoholic or anything. I was just expanding my tastes, and I had recently gotten a taste for good beer and wanted to be able to call myself an aficionado.

Beer was something of a new world for me. My first memories of beer were sneaking a can of my dad’s Budweiser when no one else was home and there were enough cans in the refrigerator to think that one wouldn’t be missed. My dad certainly drank enough cans in a night most nights that I didn’t think he’d notice one gone. That first sip of Budweiser turned me off of beer for several years, and my method of choice for getting wasted became cocktails.

My first “good beer” was a dark German beer. I had found a recipe for pork chops that called for the chops to be cooked in a gravy made from apples, onions, and dark beer. I only used half of the can for the chops, and finished the rest of the can while I was cooking them. I didn’t want it to go to waste, after all. After that, I made the decision that maybe all beer wasn’t bad, and that it might not be the worst thing in the world if I became a beer snob. I wanted to be a snob about something, and I couldn’t drink straight liquor, and wine all sort of tasted like cheese to me, so beer seemed like a good bet.

I had driven to the liquor store straight after work the next day. It had been a rough day on the job, but I wasn’t stopping because of that; I had already made plans to start my beer snobbery the night before. The place was mostly empty, but I suppose that’s almost a given since it was around 12:15 in the afternoon on a Wednesday. I hemmed and hawed over the selection before finally choosing a dark chocolate stout. I liked chocolate, so that was probably the best choice to start my foray into the world of good beer. I took the large can to the counter, where the cashier rung me up and placed the can into a small brown paper bag.

The rest of the drive home (only a few minutes) was fraught with anticipation. I couldn’t wait to try this new thing; I couldn’t wait to start this new hobby. That’s what I was excited about. It wasn’t the thought of getting drunk. After all, I had only bought one can of beer; that certainly wasn’t enough for me to get drunk. I wanted to just taste it, to savor it, to critique it like one might a fine wine or a well-brewed cup of coffee.

I pulled my car into the driveway, and walked up the steps to the front porch, pulling my keys out of my pocket and immediately dropping them on the ground. I cursed my clumsiness as I bent down to grab my keys. Once I had them in hand again, I impatiently inserted them into the lock and opened the front door.

No one else was home. Again, that was to be expected; I worked a very early morning shift, and my roommates typically didn’t arrive home from work for at least four or five hours after I did. I never loved waking up early, but I did enjoy the hours of solitude I had everyday, where I could spend time alone with my thoughts and do whatever I wanted to do without anyone judging me.

I glanced around the house that I shared with two other twenty-something creative types, thinking about the perfect place to begin my exploration with my dark chocolate stout. It certainly looked like the sort of place where someone might get sadly drunk by themselves in the middle of the afternoon, not that that was what I was doing. Piles of old books without shelves lined the walls. A hideous crocheted granny square blanket was tossed casually over the back of an equally hideous vintage loveseat upholstered with orange floral print fabric. A green vinyl-covered wingback chair loomed over everything else in the room, except maybe the large exposed brick pillar separating the living room from the dining room that was always decorated with gold tinsel from our first Christmas two years before.

Nowhere seemed like exactly the best place, so I turned around and carried my beer to the front porch. I sat on the concrete steps and let the sun warm my face as my eyes drifted from the dilapidated old house on the corner where people went to make drug deals to the brand new tiny mansion in the process of being built just two doors down. What a neighborhood. It was as good a spot as any to create a memory and start a new adventure, so I cracked open the can of dark chocolate stout and put the opening to my lips, taking my first swig.

The thing I loved about that beer was how almost creamy it was. It went down so smoothly and was a far cry from that first Budweiser. The taste of the chocolate malt balanced out the bitterness I had come to expect from beer, and I was surprised to find that my body didn’t shudder the way it normally did when I drank something strongly alcoholic. That beer was just so... easy. Finishing off the twenty-ounce can was no chore; it was basically a privilege.

I made mental notes about my beer experience so I’d have something to compare against whatever beer I chose on my way home from work the next day. After all, what sort of beer aficionado would I be if I just drank for the hell of it and didn’t actually learn the differences between all of the good beers I would be trying over the next several decades of my life? I rested the empty can on the porch next to me, and leaned back with eyes closed to better feel the early afternoon sun. I had to admit that the buzz I got from quickly drinking that whole can felt pretty nice, even if it wasn’t what I was doing this for. In that moment, on that sunny Florida afternoon, with the muggy air surrounding me and my head not quite swimming, it seemed like the problems from my work day had floated away from me. I was alone and peaceful, and for a few moments, everything was wonderful.

When I felt that I had savored those moments long enough, I picked up the beer can and stood up, returning inside to the house that was only lit by the sun in the windows, to the ugly crocheted blanket on the ugly couch, to the green vinyl chair and the large brick pillar, to the stacks of old books that hadn’t been read or dusted in years. I glanced at the clock, noting that it would still be a few hours before my solitude would come to an end, before the stillness of the air would be broken by the sounds of the electric organ being played in the back room, by voices discussing the most recent episode of Doctor Who, by the clanging of pots and pans as we prepared to rummage through our refrigerator in search of what we could make for dinner that night.

I casually crossed the living room and the dining room and moved into the kitchen, dropping my empty beer can in the trash. I turned, observing the almost fully-stocked liquor bar that I had been slowly building over the last few years, remnants of my decision to become a master cocktail maker, a spur of the moment decision that came after receiving a cocktail recipe booklet as a gift from a friend.

My head was still not quite swimming from the beer, but I could feel reality slowly closing in on me as I dragged my eyes over the shelves that held the vodka, gin, whiskey, and various mixers. I thought to myself that it certainly wouldn’t hurt to get some practice in, and pulled a martini glass and a shaker from the nearby china cabinet.

A few moments later, I sat again on the porch, cocktail in hand, and marveled once more at the incongruent houses that basked in the early afternoon sun.

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