It is here that I have chosen to include all the short stories I have written over the years. The oldest of which remain at the bottom. I do not normally write short stories, but I am normally pretty happy with the ones that come out. Some could use expansion, but I am content with where they are right now.
Returning Home (May 2023)
It has always been easier to keep my head down.
These crowded streets were the home of thousands of eyes searching to meet another pair, to beg them for something few had to offer: attention.
These crowded streets were the grounds I must tread to make it home at a decent hour.
Most who walked the same streets kept their heads down, too. Somehow, it was easier to tell where the crowd was moving just by following the feet in front. Keeping my head down meant I was not interested in what that food stall was selling, or the man with the suspicious trenchcoat that jingled with what I could only assume were watches, and it also meant I felt my heart fail every time I passed a poor soul with a cardboard sign attached to a body that reeked of its own blood, sweat and tears. A body that despite the ingrained soul’s greatest attempts, could earn nothing but pity.
I had to avoid the eyes of another. I could not afford to give any more than I already had. I had spent enough today. The box in my briefcase was proof of that. Beneath the din of the street, I heard it rattle. Or perhaps it was merely felt.
I kept to the right of the sidewalk, following the crowd downstream: the way I needed to go. The other side of the sidewalk would take me away. I had to be careful not to stop nor to be swept into the stream of streetwalkers headed the opposite way.
I was approaching a turning point and risked an upward glance to locate my bearings and cross the street’s rapids.
I slowed down too much and was pushed, unwillingly, further.
Stumbling, my shoulder crashed into the shoulder of another going upstream. I offered the man a brief apology, keeping my head down to mind my own business and allow him to mind his, but something caught my eye despite my attempts to protect them.
A tail.
The tail was thin, wiry even, black and leathery. At its tip was a pointed arrow formed by three small triangles approaching its tip. It drooped low to the ground.
I wanted to mind my own business, but I could not help but look back. Was that a tail or just a loose belt?
I risked eye contact.
As did he.
The man’s face was rather tame, handsome even. His square jaw, lined with a thin black beard, and broad frame indicated might, yet the wide-brimmed hat suggested stealth. Strange, however, that he wore a bright white suit as if he wanted to be noticed.
We had both stopped in the middle of our respective streams, but only I seemed to be an obstacle for others.
Eye contact was a bad idea. I made my turn and followed a new stream.
That wasn’t real. Was it?
I sensed a new stranger keeping my pace to my right. Strangers rarely walked shoulder to shoulder with one another. I tried to elude the stranger by slowing down, but they matched me again.
Shouldn’t the tide have taken them away by now?
I risked eye contact.
It was the same man.
A grin spread across his face. “You can see me… can’t you?”
I shot my gaze back to the ground. Weighing my briefcase, I felt for movement of the box I hoped was still inside.
No. Nope. No, I cannot. Not happening. I need to get home. Nope. Nope. Nope-Nope. Nope.
“Oh, there’s no use hiding it now!” the stranger said, staring at me as his grin grew wider. There was an air of excitement and relief in his voice. “I’m here to take someone, that means someone who can see me, someplace new.”
Oh, God. It’s Hell, isn’t it? He’s going to take me to Hell. He’s a demon. Why else would a man have a tail like that? I’m not ready to die. I don’t want to die. Oh, please, if this is a demon, God, strike it down and save me, and I’ll never miss a Sunday again… starting next Sunday.
Nothing happened.
My heart began pounding out of my chest, the adrenaline kicking in, prompting a fight-or-flight response.
I chose flight.
Shoving my way through the crowds in a panicked attempt to distance myself from the stranger and hoping the commotion I caused would be forgiven by the streetwalkers during my next commute, I barreled through the streets.
Though the city remained, the crowds suddenly disappeared.
“I thought they might get in the way,” said the stranger behind me. “For now, I have a request.”
They ask if you want to go to Hell now? That’s convenient.
“I don’t want to go to Hell.”
When I blinked, the stranger had moved in front of me, wearing the contorted expression of someone deeply confused.
“Why would you assume you are going to Hell?”
“Well… I mean… the tail… the grin… the… face. You… made everyone disappear! You are a demon, aren’t you?”
The man sighed. “No,” he said. “I’m not.” He reached behind himself and made a slight pull and revealing that the tail was nothing more than an accessory. “I just used it in hopes I would get someone’s, meaning your, attention. I thought the white suit would have been enough, but no one looked at me, noticed me, until you.”
“But then, how did you make everyone else go away?”
“They did not go away,” he corrected, wagging his finger. “We did. The planes between realms supply a good middle point between worlds. I could see everyone in your world, but not everyone could see me, as I am not native to your world. However, since you were able to see me, it means you are a native of my world. The planes of reality all coexist, but the senses do not perceive what does not come from their own reality. You can see both because you are the Lost Child.”
That felt insulting, considering I was–no–I am a full-grown man with a job who is on his way home to his apartment.
“You were born in my world. In a desperate attempt to save you from a sorceress who sought to end the monarchy, which included you–”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “I’m a prince?”
“Yes,” he said tersely. “The king and queen sent you here when you were nothing more than a child. Your senses adapted to live in this world as you were so young, but they still know their true home.
“The sorceress was defeated a few years after you were sent to this world, but when we began our search, you were nowhere near where we had left you, and the place was deserted. It seems there have been many advancements in this world too. In our world, you would be only a teenager now, but here you look…”
“Old?”
“Mature.”
“Thanks.”
“It would not do to disrespect a prince.”
“But it is acceptable to scare him half to death?”
“That was never my intention. Once we return to our world, you may have me executed, if you wish.” He bowed low.
“No- I wouldn’t- That wasn’t what I was trying to say… did you say ‘return’?”
“Yes. We already stand, as I said before, at a midpoint. It is but a little further to our world. If you merely take my hand, I can bring us the rest of the way.”
I didn’t want to leave. They may be my adoptive parents, but they raised me. I would miss Kate far too much. She is probably at the apartment, hoping I get home before the food gets cold.
The man noticed my hesitation. “My pri-”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m no prince. This is my home now.”
“But the king and queen-” he began.
“Lost their son. And I shall remain lost to that world I never knew.”
He was disappointed.
“You said it yourself, I’ve adapted to this world, whatever that may mean, but I belong here now.”
I belonged here.
An idea occurred. I knelt down and opened my briefcase. It felt awkward to do so in what felt and looked like the middle of the day on a normally busy street, but it was my best option. I did not need to rummage for the picture I kept taped to the inside roof of the case. It was a picture of my family, in this world I suppose, and Kate that we had taken this most recent Christmas. A picture in which we were all smiling. I had it printed once, but I kept a copy on my phone. I could print another one. Removing the picture, setting it aside and retrieving the box to stuff in my pocket, I then closed the briefcase.
“Here,” I said, offering the picture. “You can tell the king and queen that I’m happy here. This will be proof enough.”
He approached and held the photo gently and pulled it from my fingers.
“As you wish, my prince.”
He snapped and the people reappeared around me. I was left to the stream of streetwalkers once more. The man was gone.
I arrived at last at my apartment.
“Sorry I’m late,” I announced as I walked through the door. “I ran into an old friend of my parents’.” I continued walking toward her. She was distracted with the skillet.
“Your timing is perfect,” Kate said. “I was actually running a little behi-” I dropped to my knee and opened the box to present the offering inside. She noticed.
I didn’t even need to ask the question before she said, “Yes!”
Five Years (July 2022)
“Where do you see yourself in five years?”
I was ready for this question, “Working here, maybe with a couple of raises or even a promotion under my belt. I know I’m a hard worker and will be a great asset to the company.”
“I see,” my potential employer replied. He was an older man and had worked here for some time. His eyes drifted lazily across the paper in front of him, seeing if my resume would spark any more questions for him to ask. Suddenly, he brought his glasses closer to his face and then went over everything again, underlining with an ancient, miniature number 2 pencil. He seemed skeptical of the numbers I reported in my highlights from my other jobs.
“One-hundred percent gains on multi-million dollar accounts in a year at Arthur Mayfield investors?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I replied. Maybe I should revise that number a bit more. It was actually five-hundred percent gains in a little under a year. His eyes went wide for a moment.
“And correctly predicting the outcome of four elections within ten percent of the final vote as a statistician for the Taylor Town Daily?”
“Yes, sir,” I confirmed again. I could predict the exact outcome but always reported within a half-percent which candidate would win. He leaned back as what I could only assume was disbelief settled into the chair with him. Ten percent is still too good, I guess.
I had tried to stay in fields where my ability could be explained away reasonably as “just damn good at math and reading people.” Smaller towns and firms were advantageous, too; I was harder to notice. It worked for some time, but I always had to leave when I could see future success would be impossible. That, and investing felt like robbery and my predictions of elections sometimes felt like publicly humiliating the candidates. I never really cared about the money as much as I did just helping people, but I didn’t want the fame that would come with being a public “superhero.” He seemed to nod his head lightly as if he was understanding something.
For some reason, I couldn’t tell if I was going to get this job. It was a small town bank, so pretty similar to my job as an investor, but I would help evaluate the loans of those who requested them. And for any rejected loans, I can see if there is any future where it would be approved and what they would have to do to get their loan. Then I could tell them to come back without feeling bad about turning them down.
The interviewer made a slight hm noise, and then the future ahead of me became clear again. I was about to be accepted, but what had changed, I wondered.
“I can offer you a job,” he said, “but I don’t think we want you as an underwriter. I think I’ll recommend you work here in HR. With me.”
I was confused, so I looked again. Everything I saw moments ago was distorted. If I agreed, I would be working in HR; otherwise, I was going to have to find another job.
“Where do you see… me in five years?” He asked me as his elbows landed on the desk and his hands folded in front of him.
Why would he ask me that? Why would he care about my opinion? So I made up some random story of how he would be retired and spending time at a lake house with his grandkids. I had no idea how rich he was, but I figured a little grease couldn’t hurt if he were really asking.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t give me that. What do you really think? Honesty is key in this industry.”
I stared into his eyes for a moment. As I did, my mind flashed with images of his future life and its possibilities. It was sometimes hard to see everything, considering how fast everything seemed to pass by in my mind, but I caught one constant. His wife was dying. At best, she had two years left, no three… wait, four? As my estimations continued, the timeline increased. I now saw them living together in their humble home with her constantly talking. He seemed to just smile at her while he listened. Then the image of her death was gone. She would outlive him now.
I thought I saw a faint smile stretch across his cheek, but as soon as I noticed it, it faded.
My focus returned to his future, clicking a pen as I peered past the present. I couldn’t stand the silence.
“Thank you,” he said, though I wasn’t sure for what. Tears began to well in his eyes. “Because neither can I.”
Home! (January 2022)
The drive back home felt longer. Seemed like there were more cops on the road, so I was watching my speed more than usual too. After getting off the highway, traffic was a lot smoother and I was able to make it to the driveway of my house in the suburbs without stopping. All the lights fortunately stayed green as I approached them, and who stops at a neighborhood stop sign if they aren’t getting a test?
Either way, I pulled my car into the garage and walked out to the mailbox and found nothing but insurance companies trying to get me to buy boat insurance even when I didn’t even own or want a boat among other spam. I’d almost drowned too many times as a kid, so I did not really care for large bodies of water. The closest lake I think was about two hours south of me, but I didn’t really care to check.
Turning around, I saw something at the front door.
I wish I had noticed it then, but the package distracted me from everything else. Inside that long-awaited package was my new graphics card for the computer I was building in my free time.
Before heading to the porch, I shut the garage door using the panel on the outside and returned to enter the house through the front door. My doormat that read, “No solicitors, except those with Girl Scout cookies,” had seemed shifted.
The delivery guy must have done that, I thought absently.
I corrected the doormat with my foot and picked up my package and kept it under my arm like a football. I pushed open the glass outer door without noticing it wasn’t latched as it had been when I left this morning, unlocked my front door using the largest key on my car’s keychain and shoved the door in with my shoulder. It was a good house, intended for a large family, but that door liked to stay shut.
When I shut the door behind me, I locked it immediately, a habit of my ex-wife’s I picked up many years ago. But I was glad she was where she was and I was where I was. When she suddenly changed her mind about a family after our son was born, he didn’t make it through the night.
Something felt off, familiar, but off. I brushed the thought to the side and set the package on the living room coffee table where all the other components for the computer were and set the junk mail on the counter in the kitchen. I figured I would go through them later for a coupon or two.
I opened the glass cabinet above the sink and pulled out a joke glass she had gotten me. It was a standard whiskey glass in size but on the side were three levels, “Long day,” “Bad day,” and “What day?” It wasn’t quite a “What day?” but the traffic earlier compelled me to fill it to “Bad day.”
I moved back to the living room and turned on the TV. I hated working in silence. The whiskey glass knocked against the wood of the coffee table as I set it down to install the graphics card. I unscrewed the side panels of the PC and got to work.
The graphics card slid, delicate as it was, out of its static bag and weighed a little more than I expected. I was already worried about damaging the card with my naturally sweaty hands (which never made anything easy) and just as I was getting ready to snap it into place on the motherboard, I heard it, “… three women have escaped from the Columbia Prison this afternoon according to the local police department. While we don’t have their names, two of them were apprehended immediately, but the third has yet to be found. Everyone is encouraged, if they see or hear anything suspicious, to call the police immediately.”
I dropped the graphics card, completely wasting the thousand dollars it had cost me. Everything seemed to be clicking into place in my brain. The doormat was moved, the outer door unlatched, and the unknown familiarity, it was her. Or at the very least her perfume. I ran to my front door to check underneath the doormat. I am just imagining things, right? I tried to comfort myself, but the barren concrete beneath the doormat confirmed my worst fears.
Returning back to the living room, I made for the landline with a slow, heel-to-toe step. Dead. My cell was in the kitchen with the mail, so I continued, maintaining the quiet steps, to the kitchen and dialed 9-1-1. Before I could hit the light green call button on the screen, I felt a sudden jolt in my back, then another, and another, and another. I looked at the kitchen cutlery set, a knife was missing, but I had a good idea of where it was as I fell to the ground.
“Honey! I’m hooooome!”
Monochromatic (Jacob Wilson Short) (November 2017)
Every relationship ends. This is something I have known for as long as I can remember; my grandparents were divorced before I was even born. I knew things could end that way, my great grandparents had been separated through death when I was at an early age, and I had seen countless high school relationships end in a flash. Some relationships may seem like they would last an eternity, but the maximum time we can give to people is our lifespan and even that seems never to be enough. Even with all of this knowledge and my introverted personality, for some reason, I still crave a relationship.
For me relationships are, at the simplest level, people who respect each other or, on a deeper level, people who love each other; therein lies the problem. Love itself is a difficult term to define. For most people, it is as simple as respecting one another’s ideas and caring for them no matter what they do, and for others, it is as dangerous as risking life and limb for them. In between these two extremes lies what I call the normal zone; the normal zone is an area in the relationship where people respect and care for each other and would risk life and limb, or so they say. When coming face to face with a normal zone relationship, it boils down to impressions: neither party truly cares for one another, would be willing to risk life and limb, nor would they be overly upset once it ended. This is where I find high school romantic relationships lie.
A relationship in the normal zone, for those inexperienced in that form of care, is lifeless: a money drain, time drain, and social drain. As I mentioned before, I am an introvert, people exhaust me, and I can barely survive a day at school without feeling near the end of the day. Trust me when I say, “I sleep well,” because I do. Tiredness has nothing to do with it, nor do my classes. It has to do with being around and talking to people, even friends. It drains me of everything.
A girlfriend makes it worse. Once you are done with school, you have been automatically prescribed another few hours with your girlfriend, especially on Fridays and weekends. That is when the money, time, and social drains really hit, but I also mentioned lifeless. I call a relationship in the normal zone lifeless, as even if I say, “I love you,” and I mean it from the bottom of my heart, then hearing it in return, there’s a ticking in the back of my brain that says, “No you don’t,” and I am sure I am not the only one. There is a part of me that stings every time I say, “I love you,” because I believe deep down I can’t. It’s like having my life essence removed when spending time around people, and if I love someone, I would have to care for them no matter what they do as step one. I can’t love because I can’t care without feeling dead myself, and personally, I have too many people who at least lie that they need me around that I would not risk my life and if I’m not risking my life might as well not lose a limb.
I recently was separated from this normal zone with a girl I felt I loved, but I don’t know if I did. Actually, deep down, I know I didn’t, but that isn’t something I ever want to truly admit to myself.
As much as I’d like to say the separation was mutual, it wasn’t. She ended it for us. I felt immediately lost. Our “six-month anniversary” was six days away, and I already had a gift prepared, and then it suddenly didn’t matter. I was confused and a seemingly endless stream of questions flooded into my mind, “Whose fault was it? Was I just a rebound? Did she ever love me? Did I ever love her? Why aren’t I crying? Where did we go wrong? How did this happen?”
The breakup seemed surreal, taking place outside her car as I was ready to kiss her goodnight but was unable at the sound of her, “How do you think we are?” I couldn’t answer because I knew no matter the answer would end this perfect little normal zone. I may seem salty that our relationship ended, and I am, but for some odd reason, I cannot bring myself to be angry, sad, or happy. It’s all just dull.
My coping mechanism for this has never been ideal. I had been through what I will call a pre-relationship-break-up or, in short, rejection. I had coped through it by ignoring them for a couple of weeks and keeping them out of sight and out of mind until my dull self was finally able to return to what little life I had left in me. I guess this one was the final straw.
No, I am not dead. I have no intention of dying any time soon, as no person in my mind is ever worth that. If it is done, it wasn’t meant to be, which brings me back around to my dull, lifeless self right now: pessimistic yet somehow faking a smile at the ever terrifying world around me. No relationship is ever “meant to be,” there are people in life that can make the world just a little brighter, but they are never meant to be there because it all ends and reverts anyway, causing more pain than if they had never been there in the first place.
With each rejection and this breakup, I know it sounds stupid, but my life has lost its embrace of color, it doesn’t feel like I can feel anymore and it is likely a result of my coping mechanism not operating properly. I can’t not see her as she regularly sits a few feet away from me and there is no dodging her with all of our mutual friends. I guess, for now, I’ll sit and wait, suffering my monochromatic life alone until the old light disappears or a new light shines in.
Blue (May 2017)
There seems to be blue everywhere: blue sky, blue ocean, blue lives, and blue screens. With all of the blue in the world, I thought I would have hated it by now, being such a mundane and everyday color, yet here I am staring at a blue screen, on the blue carpet, in my blue jeans, resting on my blue chair, reading through my old blue messages as my eyes begin to blur the image in front of me. I can’t see anymore, so I close my eyes to rest my aching mind and eyes. I listen to the music coming from my blue screen, where I spend the majority of my day. The blue screen is my life, and without it, I don’t know what I would be doing with my life.
Too Far Gone (March 2017)
She was wonderful, and she thought I was, too. The keywords here being thought and was. We got along so well, even though neither of us expressed it in an extroverted way as many may expect, we knew we loved each other.
I miss her every day now; without her, my mind feels empty. I have been telepathic since birth and have always learned others’ thoughts, and sometimes it was frustrating, like when my enemies would think of cruel things to do to me over such petty things, and others times it was soothing, like when my late wife would think about me as she goes to sleep. It makes me happy that I knew I was enough of a comfort in her life to be the thing that puts her to sleep every night.
Now, at night, my mind is empty and it roams. The normally calm quiet seemed as restless as I was. Everything seemed off, the bed felt empty and cold when I rolled to my side, the television didn’t feel right being more towards my side of the bed, and the thought of her being gone circulated through my brain endlessly, refusing to believe that she was dead. My brain couldn’t stand it. She will come back, it thought. She can’t be gone, it continued. She wouldn’t leave me.
When we married, we had promised that I would be the one to die first, but that ended horribly, as I was still here. I got out of bed and walked to the window and watched the driveway waiting for her car to come back fully repaired from the wreck I didn’t want to believe happened.
I thought to myself over and over again, Why had I survived? The immense amount of frustration sent me into a furious rage as I tore down everything that was mine, leaving all of hers alone so as to tell myself what I wanted to hear: I’m the one who is really dead; she is fine.
I destroyed all of my clothes, my dresser, the television I brought into this room and just as I was about to cut my side of the covers, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. She had picked these out. I remember her soft yet firm voice saying, “These are perfect, we have to get these,” as I read her thoughts about how much she loved them, and I knew she meant it. They were hers. I could never destroy them.
I walked into the garage, picked up my shovel and started wailing down on my car. I could never forgive these machines or myself, so I figured why not destroy both at once?
I kept the garage closed, attached a tube from my exhaust pipe into my back window and started the car. I set my head on the horn forcing the car to scream for me. My voice was useless now that was going to die. It hurt to no longer hear her thoughts. It was as if the last person on earth but me had died, “So, what is the point of living if you are the only one left?” I said aloud, my voice croaking as the fumes filled my lungs.
Then the unexpected happened, I heard a voice say, “to live.” I recognized that voice. It was hers. But it was too late. I was too far gone.
Beautiful World (February 2017)
It was the middle of the town’s annual fishing festival, right at the tail end of the fall. We were at the top of a hill. She was cloaked in scarlet red as we lay beneath the dead tree and gazed through its branches at the stars. It was beautiful. Her hair was rather short and scattered, disorganized but a wonderful shade of black. Both of us remained still, barely breathing, then I grabbed her warm hand and looked back down the hill where the main street was filled with vibrant reds and shining blacks, shimmering behind the tall fires used to cook the fish. People filled the roads, all crowded together, with decorations of fish and boats all around. All of the townspeople were down there, everyone, participated in the festival. She did not enjoy parades because of the noise. She always had her ears covered for the parade, but she helped build it, I could tell by her hands, and I snuck off to the top of the hill. I found her there where during the fall, it was normally covered in yellow grass and dead leaves, but with all of it cleared out earlier today, the hill was even more beautiful and soft with just the dirt. I never enjoyed crowds; they were loud and hard to get out of, basically like shooting fish in a barrel, so I left the crowd early and that’s when the crowd got really loud. Everything went off with a bang, the fireworks and the parade. It was so rambunctious it seemed as though the buildings were barely left standing, the whole town shaken. The festival was such a beautiful red and I am glad I came.
I always loved the color red, it seems like it suits everybody, and it does. Black is a similar situation, if you don’t know what to wear, just wear black, it is a nice simple color. Too bad it had to be red and black. It was usually white.
Pen (February 2017)
This place had always creeped me out. After stupidly accepting a dare, my fear was, consequently, irrelevant and I had to preserve my dignity. It was an old house located at the end of the street that no one had lived in for years; the house seemed damn near as old as murder. I entered the old wooden house that had not really been maintained; mold, moss, rats, and rotted walls surrounded me, it was quite disgusting.
The specifics of the dare were that I had to stay here for an hour, so I figured while I was here, I may as well explore and reassure myself that this place wasn’t as creepy as it was disgusting. As such, I began to explore the great hall that I had entered; it was dark with a grand splitting staircase right in the middle with two hallways to either side of the staircase. I began with the right, following the right-hand rule out of a maze, if you will, and slowly I discovered each room: the kitchen, grand ballroom, quite a few guest rooms, just your typical everyday mansion. I continued on my journey throughout the house, went upstairs and found the master bedroom. It was huge, quite empty though, and seemed like it had been raided frequently. I continued following the right-hand rule and went back downstairs.
My hour was nearly up, but I decided to continue exploring as I only had the left hallway remaining to explore. At the end of the hallway, however, was the first closed door I had ever encountered in the house. All of the other doors had been open, as most didn’t have doors but simply doorways, but even the ones that had doors were always open, except this one. I turned the knob of the door and walked in, continuing the right-hand rule.
The room was significantly less dusty than the others, surprising considering it had not been used and the door to it was closed so the draft could not even get to it. In the middle of the room were a table, a chair, and a pen. Curious, I left the wall and sat in the chair.
That was my biggest mistake.
The door slammed shut in front of me, and I saw no windows in this room. It was completely empty with the exception of myself, the table, the pen, and the chair in which I sat. That soon changed. Almost immediately after the door shut, a piece of paper slipped through with a lot of old-fashioned cursive writing.
I stood up and brought it over to the desk and began to investigate it; the old cursive made it a little more difficult to read but it stated, “You are trapped,” thanks, Captain Obvious, “but there is a way out.” Good to know. Intrigued, I continued reading, “Simply, write the name of a person that you know on the marked line below, they die and you get to leave,” I was shocked with horror after what I had read.
The words seemed to force me back away from the table. I knocked and banged on the door, asking if it was a trick. I didn’t get a response. I walked back to the table and slumped down into the chair.
Trading my life for another person I know. Who am I to determine whose life is worth less than mine?
I began running through the people in my life who had wronged me, but my life had been pretty great, with the exception of that one guy who kept stealing my favorite pencil, but he isn’t worth more than me. No one that I knew could have a life worth more or less than mine. I had a thought, the news. Certainly, there must be a criminal on death row who is going to die anyway. That’s when two things came to mind: one, I didn’t know any of them, and two, I couldn’t think of any anyways. My phone was elsewhere, so I couldn’t call anyone either.
How am I going to get out of here if I don’t kill someone? I once again began searching throughout the entire room, trying to find some kind of hidden trapdoor or some secret lever to open the way out, but it was hopeless. The room had no minor imperfections for me to exploit. I tried picking up the chair and whacking the door, but it too was no use. Then I realized, wait, this paper was delivered; there couldn’t possibly be a way for the person’s name I write to die instantly. Someone has to do the deed, right? So what if I write my own name… the idea is brilliant.
If I am here and they are out there waiting for me to return the paper and let me out, all I have to do is tackle the person and never let them know whose name I wrote. I mean, this is the best way, that way, I don’t value anybody else’s life, and who’s to say my life has value anyways? I have done nothing, I just go to school and have a few stupid friends who would love to hear this story, but other than that, I have nothing. I picked up the pen and stood above the table and scribbled my own name on the paper and set it back underneath the door. It didn’t move.
Ok, I thought, Maybe they just aren’t back yet, maybe that’s why they haven’t let me out yet.
I was wrong; they saw it all right. I tried to pick the paper back up to see if I could change the name but it felt glued to the floor, and not to mention it was in pen. I paced around the room. I tried using the pen and the chair, by taking them apart, to force the door open or something. I banged on the door for hours, but no one replied.
It took ten days for everything to fade to black.
Blood (November 2016)
You know, when you have been with someone for about twenty years you would think that you know them, right? Well, wrong.
Everyone knows that from birth, we have white blood. Science teachers know it, my parents know it, everyone knows. However, that doesn’t mean it stays that way. The more you do wrong, the darker your blood becomes, with no way to turn it back.
Quite frankly, seeing the color of someone’s blood is useful to establish a connection with someone. But sometimes, it can be something that tears a connection apart. Right now, I am not sure which this is.
I met her around twenty-five years ago in college. She sat in the front row in a sweater in my psychology class. I introduced myself, gave her my number, and that was it. She had never called me before. I had always assumed she was busy with something. She was a quiet person, so I just assumed she was an introvert and just let her be comfortable with what she felt like doing. But that night, she called and frantically asked me if she could come over to my dorm room. I hesitated for a moment, then agreed. I wasn’t in a co-ed dorm so members of the opposite gender were not allowed in my dorm after 10 pm. But I figured it was an emergency, so I helped her sneak into my dorm. I was only on the second floor so it wasn’t too difficult. I hoisted her up through the window and as she came up over the windowsill, she must have stumbled or something because she fell right on top of me, knocking me over as well. Her hair smelled nice, freshly shampooed, and her hands were cold despite it being summer. She stood up suddenly, turned around and slammed the window, a few taps from below. Thanks, I get it. I’m noisy. She looked at me with worry and thankfulness in her eyes, a common mixed emotion. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from psychology class, it is that mixed emotions are typically not a good sign, so I started by asking her what was wrong. She explained to me that she had just broken up with her boyfriend. My immediate thought was, “Great, now I have to clean up this mess, don’t I?” She then said she was scared that he might come to her dorm and beat her, he had apparently been rather aggressive and that would also explain why she favored long sleeves year round. I reassured her she was safe with me. This was the first time I had seen her in panic, so I was nervous for two reasons: one, there was a girl in my room at 11 pm in a boys-only dorm, and two, the calmest person I knew was freaking out.
Luckily, my roommate was out of town for a funeral, so I calmed her down and let her sleep in my bed and I slept in my roommate’s. She seemed like an angel as her breath moved slowly; now, all I gotta do is pray the RA doesn’t come and visit my room in the morning for some kind of random check-in.
I woke up in the morning and she was gone, the window was open. I could only wonder where she went as I shut the window.
Nearly nine months passed without a word from her; she didn’t pick up her phone, didn’t even show up to class. She missed our winter final, and spring passed without a thought of her. Then I saw her outside the college gates walking towards a cab with some luggage. She looked around nervously then placed her stuff in the trunk of the cab. I called out to her and she looked at me and forced a smile. Once more, I called out to her, telling her to wait. She hesitated but then paused with her hand on the cab door. I sprinted over to her and asked where she had been. Her reply was a look at the ground. I asked her how she had been and if she would like to catch up with coffee; she surprisingly agreed, albeit a little hesitantly.
She retrieved her stuff from the now annoyed cab driver’s trunk and followed me to the college coffee shop. She ordered a coffee with cream. I ordered the same. She still refused to tell me where she had been. I cared, but not enough to pressure her. I changed the subject and told her about our psychology class and about what amazing events she missed throughout the school year. She smiled at some of the stories I told, specifically the one about the dog and the unicycle.
She requested to leave, so I breathed in and, with all my confidence, asked her out on a date, tomorrow, Saturday evening, rooftop of the school union. She agreed and we met outside the school union the next night. We climbed the metal fire escape on the outside of the building up to the rooftop and sat side by side, staring at the stars and dreaming of the future. She was as much of a delinquent as I was, but let’s be real, is climbing a building really that bad? Regardless, the moonlight reflected off her face perfectly and I couldn’t resist. I turned to her, she turned to me, we leaned in and kissed. It was my first kiss. She later told me that I was number 13 or something, great, my lucky number. We continued on more and more dates and got married 4 years after our first date. She was definitely the one. I proposed after graduation right outside the coffee shop where I asked her on our first date among a variety of “aww”s from nearby customers.
Now that you know the background, here is what happened; It’s our 20th anniversary, so I had a plan, we would do exactly what we did 24 years ago when we went on our first date. She loved the idea. As we began to climb the union’s fire escape, she slipped and scraped her knee on the concrete below. She was bleeding. Her blood tainted the sidewalk. It was pitch black.
I had no idea what to do. I lept off the ladder as she desperately tried to cover up her blood, but it was too late I had already seen, but that didn’t matter, I wanted her to be safe. Whether she had black blood or not, that didn’t matter. Maybe that’s old news, but that didn’t matter. I loved her and was not going to let her hurt. I tore part of my new shirt and applied a makeshift bandage. I picked her up and carried her to the car, set her in the back seat, and drove home. I would ask questions later. When we got home, I carried her inside and set a few towels on our bed, applied real bandages, gave her some water to drink, then let her rest.
A day later, she finally felt well enough to stand, but I didn’t make her; I just wanted her to sit up and tell me why she had such dark blood.
“Please,” I asked, “Just tell me the truth.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, very worried.
“Yes, I am sure I can handle it, no matter what it is,” I said.
“I lied,” she stated.
I laughed, “Lying? That isn’t that bad. Come on, please, what made your blood so dark?”
“I lied. To you,” she confirmed.
Now I was worried, “About what?”
“I never loved you.”
David J. Neumaier 