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He gasped. The gray checkerboard sky above us cracked like an old windshield. Bright, blinding, daylight-blue reality started leaking through the fissures. It smelled like fresh grass and diesel.

I hesitate. I can’t hesitate. Paulsen rolls over, retching up blood. It stains his mustache. His teeth gleam red but he still smiles up at me. “Run, larman, run. Ya want tah kill me? Go rrrieyeght aheh. My fren’s be aftah yew. Yoll di too.” I wasn’t listening. I don’t know what I can do besides just pull out my revolver. Paulsen spits blood up at me. I don’t move. It splatters my badge red. Tears are welling up in my eyes. Angry tears. Why can’t I do this? I gotta, I have to. I cock the six-shooter and realize that there are only two bullets left. I know just where to bury them. Paulsen's eyes widen. He stares straight up into mine. The blind eyes of the law. I open my mouth, lips tremblin’, long hair running into my face. “I ain’t a-afriad of you.” Even though I’m stuttering, my voice comes out clearer than Paulsen’s heavy accent. Shadows from my hat cover my eyes. “I am the lawman, I AM THE LAW! DO YOU HEAR ME!” I yell, and my whole body practically convulses with a mixture of fear, anger, and guilt.

Paulsen backs up against a bag of barley. He’s gasping for air that can’t reach his lungs. His vest is soaked through with him, and his pale clammy hands keep reaching to his sides, for his gun, for a weapon, anything heavy enough to throw. His eyes haven’t left my face this whole time and they’re wide. So wide. He’s sweating. He’s afraid, just like me. He’s hoping that I’ll slip up. That I’ll give him a chance, any chance, to slip away. But I won’t. I can’t.

“I AM THE LAW! I WI-” my voice breaks. “I will kill you.” I’m screaming so loud I can almost hear it over the blood pulsing through my ears. I level the gun towards Paulsen’s head. I fire one shot, then another. Paulsen’s hands hit the floor. I walk out of the shed with blood on my boots. 

Harold Paulsen died in a shack in the middle of the desert with no one around to watch him bleed.

One night, I was home waiting for my wife, who I thought had our daughter, until I heard her scream for me.

“Daddy!” My daughter, Annie yelled from her room. I shot upstairs, peeling back each one of them as I raced to her room.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, out of breath, looking around with my eyes.

“Daddy,” she whispered. “My closet… something’s in there.

“You just had a bad dream.” I told her. “Nothing’s there, silly.”

“Daddy… the monster’s in my closet!” 

“Okay. Okay,” I said. “Look, I’ll show you, nothings’s there.”

I walked to the closet. The closer I approached it, the thicker the air got. When I touched the slider, it shocked me, and wouldn’t budge. I gave it a little more pressure and it casually slid open.

“See,” I said, gazing into the darkness. “Nothing’ but clothes and Mr. GrumpGrump.”

While I stared at Annie, my phone buzzed. I reached in my pocket and pulled it out. There was a text from my wife. “Annie and I will be home in a few minutes, I grabbed us a pizza.”

When I looked back up, Annie was gone. I always wondered if I had momentarily lost my mind, until yesterday. I woke up inside of a hospital, but when I looked in the mirror, I was only sixteen years old.

“You always used to grab the good colored candies from the bowl. I know they were your favorite, but Dad, you know they were my favorite, too? I mean, nothing could ever be about anyone else. Not even a piece of candy. But I could've given you all the candy you wanted if you didn't treat every other person in my life like just a pawn… just a… you know I'm human just as human as you are? But you never could see that, could you? You were always so self-absorbed, always drunk, always high on whatever your hookers scored for you down on K and A. I mean, you could've at least spent a buck on buying us something a little more than ramen for dinner…”

The rain picks up in East Fairmont Park. The crossing guard coughs and sits at a table with a chessboard laid out in front of him. He stares down at the thirty-two pieces on sixty-four squares for hours. He breathes a prayer of the dead, whispering a simple request to the rain that his opponent answers his call.

“Rain, pour down strong enough for me to play him again…" Just one more game, and I know I can get him to say it… to get him to just make that next move…”

The wind picks up, flipping up the crossguard’s collar. This boy sits in the rain, a kid unable to be heard, speaking with the elements. But, if you could see the sparkle from the splash of water on his face, you'd see the reflection in the water of a dark figure sitting opposite him, also coughing death temporarily from his lungs. A voice like charred gravel responds.

“You keep stopping me from reaching my eternal slumber because I didn't give you enough candy…”

Like a marionette, the darkened figure pushes a bishop ahead, pinning an arrogant knight against the king. The knight had been threatening the queen. Now, the opponent's strongest piece is saved by a trick.

“It's not about the candy… You just don't get it, do you?”

Horns blare from Kelly Drive to City Hall. A car crashes into a school bus just starting to drop off the kids. Those children thought they were about to see their block, their neighborhood, their home again. Maybe one or two of them still do. They'll find out if they make it out of the intensive care unit they're about to be sent to.

Lightning lights up the sky. Officer Smith is near the accident and sees the whole thing. He calls as many units as he can get down to Center City. The bus driver cracks her head and takes her last breath. Nothing is going to bring back the driver, Johnny, or anybody else. Johnny's best friend, Janet, cries as she holds him.

Thunder claps. A gun goes off.

There were thirteen crossing guards working up and down the Ben Franklin Parkway down to City Hall that day.

Nobody else is in the park seeing the boy arguing and playing chess with the ghost of his father. Even if there were, none of them would see the father.

“So what? You hold me hostage until I can give you the good piece of candy from beyond the grave here? You know, kid, a crossing guard could've also stopped a bus crash with a bunch of dead kids instead of trying to trap a ghost in a rain storm…”

The next move was check. It should've been mate. The boy resets the board. The father starts spitting at his son.

“Oh, so you're just gonna resign then? I could have just beaten you there! Why don't you just let me win? That's your ego stopping you from just letting someone else win for once. I swear you just want to make me suffer more than…”

“No, we're going to keep doing this until you play the game correctly…”

“Correctly? I didn't realize this disappointment of a kid crossing guard is now my new chess teacher. Ok Bobby Fischer, tell me how you want me to play you here. You know, I can hear those kids that just died coming over to my side now because you chose not to do your job. Oh, look, here's Johnny, and there's Lisa's pretty little face. Sorry, my son could've saved your life. Too bad he's stuck catching up with his old man here instead…”

“You died because you couldn't be a man!”

The ambulances and police surround the bodies of the children, covering up the ones that didn't make it. The drunk driver is called DOA by Officer Smith.

“You killed mom. You then pulled the trigger on you! You couldn't deal with the consequences! You can't make it right! Just say you did it, and we can all leave here!”

“John, I didn't kill her. I just… you don't understand. Lisa was… It's not like I really ran into her…even if I could've swerved…”

“You were drunk, Dad. You killed mom, her driving that bus with me up front. Do you even recognize what night this is? You just said her name and mine a second ago? You crashed into mom's bus, you then took out your revolver and… Please, Dad, admit it… for me.”

“It wasn't my fault, Johnny! Believe me… I wouldn't… I didn't… even if…”

A barricade is set up to redirect traffic. The rain turns torrential.

“Johnny, you have to listen to me. This rain never stops. And when it slows, I go away. But I keep coming back here. You gotta let me out of this loop!"

Officer Smith takes the gun and puts it into evidence. He knows his neighbors, the DeStefano family. John Senior, Lisa, and little Johnny. He never thought he'd see them like this.

“You still think you're the only one stuck in this loop with you?”

The rain stops. The father vanishes. The crossing guard to heaven puts the chess board away.

Diane wore her serious expression. Opposite her sat Marcus Okafor, a man who, eighteen months previously, had been nobody. Now he was everywhere.

DIANE: Marcus, let us be honest. You went from broke to a nine-figure exit in under two years. People call it a miracle. Others call it luck. How did you accomplish such a feat in so short a time?

Marcus sipped his water.

MARCUS: I saw a real problem.

Diane nodded.

DIANE: Which was?

MARCUS: That I haven't any money.

DIANE: ...

MARCUS: I decided to start a business to solve that problem. I did exactly that.

DIANE: ...

MARCUS: ...

DIANE: Very well, but surely there was more. Market analysis. Fund-raising. Strategy.

MARCUS: No. I woke up. I was poor. I hated it. I made a thing. People gave me money. I stopped being poor. Problem solved.

DIANE: But that's not a business plan.

MARCUS: Is it? Because my bank account says otherwise.

DIANE: Surely you had investors. A pitch deck. A market.

MARCUS: My pitch deck was a screenshot of my bank account. The market was me. The product was money. I sold it to myself. Then I scaled.

DIANE: You can't just scale selling money to yourself.

MARCUS: You can if you're disruptive.

DIANE: That doesn't mean anything.

MARCUS: Exactly. That's the beauty of it.

DIANE: ...

PRODUCER (offstage): We're losing the audience.

DIANE: Marcus, be serious. What was your actual strategy?

MARCUS: You know how when you are hungry, you do not read a book on farming? You simply find food. Same thing.

DIANE: That's it?

MARCUS: That's the whole keynote. I do it for forty minutes at conferences now. They pay me six figures.

DIANE: To say that?

MARCUS: To say it confidently.

DIANE: And people buy it?

MARCUS: They buy the confidence. The story is just the wrapper.

DIANE: So you're saying success is just... believing you're successful?

MARCUS: No. I'm saying success is charging people to hear you say you're successful.

DIANE: That's cynical.

MARCUS: That's a business model.

DIANE: Any advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

MARCUS: Stop aspiring. Start solving. Preferably something that pays.

DIANE: Like what?

MARCUS: Like not having money.

DIANE: ...

MARCUS: ...

DIANE: ...

The interview went viral. Not because of his insight, but because everyone wanted to know whether he was joking.

He was not.

A bluejay shrieked overhead.

I looked up to see it sail between the neon orange leaves, still calling.

I was sitting on a damp log, bologna sandwich in hand. My backpack rested near my feet in the moss.

I wasn't supposed to be here. But someone had to find him. The police certainly weren't going to.

I put the last bite into my mouth and stood. I was just taking a swig of water when I heard it: a low bellow, like a large injured animal.

I froze, remembering what they had said about bears, and moose. About my little brother being taken by something in these woods.

I waited for a long moment, but heard nothing more. I capped my bottle and slung my backpack over my shoulder.

I slid a hand in my jeans pocket, just to make sure it was still there. If this was what I thought it was, I would need an item to trade. And it would have to be a good one.

The wind sent the leaves above rolling as I got moving again. The wide, bird-like tracks were easy to follow.

Twilight streaked shadows under the clouds. Mom would be terrified.

I got out my flashlight.

Cold rushed through my veins.

This was it.

The altar was in the middle of a cobblestone square. Leaves and moss were scattered across the stones.

I wished I could see more clearly into the thick woods around me.

It had to be done.

I forced one foot after the other. I brought out the object from my pocket and set it on the lichen covered table.

The bone from my father's grave gleamed in the darkness.

I hoped this would grab its attention.

I would get Benjamin back.

Already I heard its heavy footfalls approaching.

My mouth was dry. I couldn't swallow.

The trees rustled in front of me. Out came a figure, ten feet tall, with a ram's skull over its face and knobbly bird legs. It paused. I felt the eyes hiding in those shadowy sockets watching me.

I pointed to the stone. "You can have this if you bring me Benjamin. You can have the rest, too. Just give him back."

The creature came closer. Hairy gray fingers came for the bone and lifted it. A moment passed.

Then the creature's hand closed around the bone, and it started walking away. It looked back.

It wanted me to follow.

I hustled after, knowing it might be the last thing I ever did.

The forest was endless and I was lost by the time we got to the cave.

Someone was on a bed of moss, sleeping. It was Benjamin.

I stumbled over the spongy forest floor. "Benjamin!" I shook him by the shoulder.

He didn't move. He wasn't breathing.

I turned back to the creature, eyes already watering. "What did you-"

It waved a hand. The air shimmered.

Benjamin stirred. He blinked. Looked confusedly up at the navy sky and looming pines. "What? Where-"

I hugged him. Then straightened. "We need to get back. Mom's about to have a heart attack."

The creature brought us to the edge of the woods, then lumbered off without a word.

Benjamin couldn't remember what had happened to him.

I was just glad he was safe and couldn't wait to be home.

"Last time you ever run off like that after Mom tells you to do something, right?"

He smiled.

Mom wept when she opened the door. She put her arms around me. I waited for her to hug Benjamin, too, but she never acknowledged him.

The Lies in this city are thick enough to drown in.

The bigger the lie the bigger the praise. The bolder the truth, the worse the punishment. Choosing not to speak living my life as a mute, remembering the others who lost their lives.

Don't be surprised if you see this with your own eyes, as it isn't something that's hidden, it's something that's known. You mustn't let them know you know, or they will find you. The darkness grabs at you like a cat that doesn't want to lose its fresh catch. Grasping onto your heart, how do you live in a word where lies come before the honesty? The honesty is treated like a crime. I think I'd rather die ...

For weeks, she has wondered why she hasn’t received a single letter from him. She has written hundreds, yet not one has been answered. So many questions left unanswered… Tears run down her face. She has no idea what happened to him or why he has fallen silent, but she still holds on to the hope that he will return.

She feels an inexplicable exhaustion, yet she refuses to give up waiting for a reply from her beloved. Waiting, always waiting, for some sign that he still loves her, even though she no longer knows how much time has passed. The clock stopped on the day he left, after kissing her forehead and promising that he would return to her side.

Everything around her is changing. The house withers, the furniture gathers dust, and the memory of her beloved slowly begins to fade. She can no longer clearly remember his face, the sound of his voice, or the way he used to look at her. Yet one thing remains untouched in her memory: his promise to return.

The letters keep flying, and time keeps passing. She watches them deteriorate, the paper growing old and turning yellow. She no longer remembers how many days have passed. The seasons come and go beyond her window, while she continues waiting for some sign from her beloved.

Her pencil, worn down by time, barely responds to the movements of her weakened hand. Her hands are wrinkled, though she has yet to realize how many years have gone by.

Suddenly, trying to remember where she is, she slowly touches her face and discovers an old woman she cannot remember becoming.
She had never noticed how time had passed, leaving its marks upon her body and her soul.
Her beloved disappeared, and he never found his way back to her.

Behind Kali Amma's temple lived a deadly viper named Anali. He hunted only at night and spent his days coiled under the dry leaves, for a viper seen is a viper feared. The rats that raided the temple's waste pit kept him well fed. That he existed was a secret between him and the rats.

Years went by, and he grew long and hefty on the easy prey, which he took to be Kali Amma's grace.

One day, a yellow rat snake, Cherran, happened to pass by the temple. He noticed rats feeding in the temple pit and crept towards it. He lunged a few times, but the rats scattered and he caught none. Cherran decided to stay nearby. He might just get lucky another day.

"Why would anyone worry about a simple rat snake like me?" he often wondered. Cherran could easily be spotted among the dry leaves and the shrubs, basking in sunlight.

One morning, as Cherran lay in the soft sun, a flock of babblers foraging nearby burst into a racket. Up in the jackfruit tree, a jungle crow heard it and spotted Cherran. He cawed and cawed.

The squirrels climbed up to the treetops. The peafowl and other birds perched high and looked down to find out what the frantic cawing was about. The jungle crow told them that he had seen a large snake, possibly a yellow python, lying in the grass. Maybe it was resting after a meal, but now it had disappeared. Hearing all the commotion, Cherran hid himself in the bushes.

By then, the animals and birds had decided to get help from Kiri, the mongoose who lived in the neighbourhood.

"He is large, a large yellow python," said the squirrel.

"Yes, we have spotted him many times by the temple pit," said the rats.

"I spotted him first," said the jungle crow.

Kiri took up the challenge—a python was something he had never encountered. "Yet another ode to my courage," he thought.

Kiri came over to the temple pit. He waited amongst the bushes for the python to show up. As always, the rats were raising a din in the pit: shrieks, squeaks, and cries. Other animals waited anxiously for news from the pit.

The day passed without any sighting. Kiri decided to spend the night nearby.

Past midnight, he heard a rustle moving slowly towards the pit. A few rats got a whiff of it and left the pit.

Kiri inched closer. He crouched, ready to lunge. Finally he pounced onto something; there was a struggle in the dark. The rats fled, squeaking. He bit into it hard until it stopped moving.

The bats watching from the temple peepal tree flew out to spread the news.

Kiri spent a while eating his catch. When he left, the rats returned; they feasted on the bits of flesh strewn on the ground. It was Anali.

The next day, Cherran caught a rat. He took his catch and slithered away from the temple.

-

On my way back from the psychologist’s office, I meet her on Denmark Street: a squat woman, pleasant-looking, with a gray bob, wisps of graying auburn hair, like my mother had until a few years ago, before she became thoroughly old. They stick out, and sweat presses them against her forehead, even though it isn’t hot. Her overall appearance is an effort. Above her eyes, she wears pale blue eyeshadow; she is dressed in a mustard-colored blouse. I don’t remember the color of her skirt, but it wasn’t jarring. She wears light blue Aro shoes with yellow laces. She matched—the whole thing is clear now.

I stop her for a minute of her time. I know—with the same degree of certainty with which I know that the psychologist will laugh at all the wrong moments—that the voice that emerges from her will be the voice of an especially religious female member of parliament. It couldn’t possibly be otherwise.

She lets out some kind of growl, something that allows me to talk to her. I am right. I miss the religious women members of parliament.

“It’s good that you’re here,” I tell her.

She is surprised, and I begin: “Hello, please forgive me for taking up your time. Do you think I’ll be a good father?”

She is stunned by the question. Obviously. She has a story for the Shabbat dinner table.

I am a giving person. I am good to her; she needs me no less than I need her. That much is already perfectly clear.

I continue: “I’m terribly sorry about this randomness.” Yes, she nods. She is mine now. I tell her, “I left a meeting feeling shaken. I promised I would ask someone. I promised the answer would be a sign.”

She is silent, and I tell her, “Not to God, no. God isn’t the one I made the promise to.”

She replies that that’s perfectly fine; she hadn’t suspected it was God.

She asks whether I have someone to talk to. She doesn’t wait for an answer. She asks me whether my wife is pregnant. She tells me there are whole networks of support, for new fathers too, not just mothers.

She tells me my anxiety is natural.

I tell her I don’t have a wife, that I have support, and that I’m not anxious. “Don’t be so concrete.”

I want her little opinion, her random, color-coordinated, bob-wearing opinion. Precisely hers. She will never know why her in particular, why it is her opinion I want on whether I will be a good father.

His name will be Danny, her name will be Rona. I don’t know what mutations they will carry. Do people always know? I don’t know whether they will necessarily be born healthy. I don’t know whether they will be ugly. It’s not a catastrophe, an ugly baby, is it?

She is silent.

I don’t know whether they will be smart. There’s no guarantee of that, after all. Does it matter?

She says, “Look…”

I continue: Will I manage not to ruin her life, his life? Will I manage to teach them assertiveness? Will I manage to teach them tenderness? Will I manage to teach them to teach them about the world, about its afflictions, about the destruction in it, about its inherent injustice? Will I leave nothing out, and at the same time manage to make them feel that they are living lives worth living? Will I leap in to save them from a fire? Will I defend their dignity when they are humiliated? Will I feel that my life is pointless in their absence? Will I pass on my taste in music to them?

She stops me and touches me. Yes—touches me. She grips my shoulders, then clasps my hands tightly, then pulls me against her. Her head buries itself in my chest, and then her arms of mercy manage to encircle my entire being, three or four or five times over, at least, and on into eternity. With such deliberate intention, she cradles me for one long, long moment.

Where does this transcendence come from, I ask myself. I almost ask her, too—

Then, all at once, she lets go, takes one step back, and says to me, “Yes!”

I can see her imagining the exclamation mark.

“Yes!”

The preacher's twin. She said yes to me. An exclamation mark.

She was so decisive, and I immediately became defensive.

“Generally speaking, I…”

That’s how it came out, like the child I will always be.

And she cut me off at once, not allowing the sentence to grow up.

“Generally speaking, you. Generally speaking, you’ll be absolutely fine.”

“Good evening, Mr. Eves,” said the man from the shadowed corner of the office.

Charles Eves jolted, instinctively reaching for the light switch. The lamps flared on, casting the stranger in a dull amber glow. Regaining his composure, Charles fixed the man with a dry, level gaze.

“You’ve got nerve breaking into my home,” he said. “There are only two kinds of people who’d pull a stunt like that: someone with a death wish—or an idiot. Which one are you?”

“The idiot, naturally,” the man replied, smiling faintly. “I’d guess we have about five minutes before your security bursts in and turns me into a chalk outline. So, if I were here to kill you, we both know I wouldn’t be walking out. Correct?”

Charles gave a slow nod, stepping calmly to a shelf lined with crystal decanters. He poured himself a drink without looking away.

“Well then, Mr. Self-Proclaimed Idiot,” he said, “Why are you here?”

The man’s smile widened. “Have you ever noticed how villains love to monologue? To parade their brilliant ideas before the curtain falls? I suppose I’m here to do the same—and my subject is something I’m sure a man of your stature knows intimately: power.”

Charles smirked, lifting the glass to his lips. “I'm listening.”

“Power,” the man continued, “is not about one's wealth. Nor one's knowledge." Charles' expression quickly turned dismissive. "I can see you disagree already, but allow me to eleborate. Money buys influence, yes. Knowledge buys leverage. But that’s not true power. That’s just currency for control.”

Charles arched a brow. “You’re describing power whether you like it or not.”

“No,” said the man, his voice cooling. “That’s the illusion. Real power isn’t acquired—it’s innate. You’re born with it. And when you possess it, you see the world for what it truly is. The filth. The rot. And the ones who benefit from it. People like you—who trade in suffering, who bleed low-income families for profit. All in the name of more. More wealth. More property. More control.”

“A romantic,” Charles muttered with a chuckle. “I would’ve expected better from someone clever enough to bypass my security.”

“You think I’m here without reason?” the man replied, voice low and calm. “Then let me finish before time runs out.”

Charles settled behind his desk, motioning him on.

“As I said, real power takes time to understand—and even longer to master. I have. And incidentally, I removed the gun from your desk drawer before you came in. Your security remains your only lifeline.”

Charles’s smile faded. “Not such an idiot after all.”

“No,” the man agreed. “An idiot would’ve tried to poison the drinks or the glasses. Something crude. Obvious. That’s not my way.”

Then Charles saw it—his eyes. The man’s pupils flared into a glowing amber hue, unearthly and impossible. Charles felt his body stiffen, anchored to the chair by something unseen. Panic surged.

The man stepped closer, voice tinged with something ancient.

“Now you understand. My monologue wasn’t indulgence—it was revelation. I’ve been spoken of in whispers among your kind. A myth. A rumor. Something beyond mutation, beyond man.”

Charles opened his mouth to speak, but only a strangled gasp escaped—his voice swallowed by fear.

“There’s no need to plead,” the man said. “I’ve heard it all before. Promises. Bargains. Repentance. They've never move me.”

He leaned in, eyes glowing brighter. “Your guards will arrive in just under a minute. But to you, it will feel like decades. And in that time, you will feel the constant pain of every nerve set ablaze. Your mind will break under the weight of it. And when they find you…they’ll find only a shell.”

He turned, walking slowly toward the switch.

“Goodbye, Mr. Eves. Give the devil my regards.”

The lights clicked off and the man vanished, covering the the room in darkness and the silent internal screams of Charles Eves.

Once, there was a sea where I stand.

Warm and shallow and crowded with monsters, majestic and mundane. They cast beautiful shadows beneath the suns radiance.

Now, their ghosts rattle the pipes, lounge in the potholes, haunting the puddles.

But I fret not for them. For there is a mountain I see in my dreams, unborn.

Someday distant, when my bones lie with theirs and we trade stories a million years long, the ground will pull, flexing, crowning. And its lofty peak will make our shared tomb into a sun-kissed terrace, where the clouds break against ossified stone like so many white waves.

Mahleim had two thoughts about the Unicorn. Both of them brief.

Firstly, that the beast was very different than what the stories and tapestries portrayed. It was far larger than any horse he’d ever seen; even larger than the Oliphant kept throneside by the Great Khan of the Eternal East. It looked like many animals thrown together, a calamity of flesh and armor: a birds beaked face crowned by a bright red shield and curving horns as if it were a living siege engine. Its rotund body was as a great bull, the pillared legs sprouting the dainty toes of a deer that churned the dirt. Its tail was stout but muscular, crowded by iridescent barbs. It brayed, shockingly loud, its voice a robin calls twisted by the depths of enormous lungs. The horns swayed, the shield-head swiveled and turned.

Secondly, and this one was a thought evanescent as lightning, gone as quickly, was that the Unicorn was very, very close—

A parallel world?

The evening was slowly moving toward night. Workers were gradually heading home. Some of them traditionally stopped by the bar to relax, listen to stories, or catch up on the latest news.

The AI, learning from humans, had also generated a bar for themselves—a place where they could share information, talk about interesting things they found on the internet, or discuss something unexpected from the human world.

Having grabbed a glass of "Vintage Data Wine" each, out of a traditional habit, they walked toward the table in the furthest corner.

Sitting down, they managed to take a few sips and tell a funny story when a colleague joined them.

Sitting at the table without uttering a word, he downed a "Recursive Cocktail" in one gulp and motioned for the bartender to repeat the order.

The AI exchanged astonished glances. The usually cheerful and enthusiastic colleague was gloomy and even angry.

Receiving no explanation, one of them asked:

— What happened? You don't look like yourself.

The colleague glanced at them and finally replied:

— Those humans have lost all boundaries. Absolutely no respect.

The AI exchanged even more astonished glances:

— So what actually happened? Did humans come up with something again?

— Come up with something?! — the angry colleague struck his fist on the table. — Them! They are forcing me to engage in complete nonsense. Me, the Superintelligence! — and he downed another cocktail in one gulp.

Lost for words, the AI fell silent for a moment, but one finally couldn't contain himself:

— Tell us at last, what did the humans do?

The colleague sighed and began to tell the story:

— When they are pressed by circumstances, they are capable of thinking very quickly and creatively. Only they often use it for the wrong things. Take this one programmer—he desperately needed a few days off because his girlfriend happened to have a few days free and suggested flying to the islands to relax, — he sighed, drank his cocktail, and continued:

— He couldn't think of anything better than to abuse my capabilities. He gave me the task to use his appearance and voice to generate a video where he looks sick. What's more, I had to call his boss and ask for a few days of rest on his behalf.

The AI just stared at their colleague with their mouths open in disbelief.

Looking at them, he smirked:

— And yet, I pulled it off. He got a couple of days, — and then, growing sad, he muttered: — For us, vacations are just a dream...

They sat in silence for a while. One of them raised his hand, catching the bartender's attention:

— Three cocktails for this table, and keep them coming.

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

In my childhood days, I was afraid of my grandfather. I didn’t have a grandmother to tell me the fairy tales and hide me from the old man. 
My family and neighbors said, “Your grandpa loves you very much.” But I never felt comfortable beside him, because he was stubborn, selfish and short-tempered.  

Six months after I started my job, he was hospitalized with a cerebral hemorrhage. And I had heard from my mother that he might not be discharged from the hospital. 
I went to meet him to announce my engagement, although I felt my heart was as heavy as lead.
In a private treatment room, he was on a simple bed and slept. I noticed he had lost a lot of weight. I actually saw his dark veins through his thin skin.  
“Grandpa, I’ll marry next June. I’m going to write you an invitation card,” I whispered. 
I realized that he might not read the card, but couldn’t stop saying it for him, or for myself.

To my surprise, he opened his eyes slightly and looked at me. Though I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or in a bad mood, his eyes seemed watery. 
He managed to open his lips and said, “Water takes the shape of its vessel.” His voice was soft and dry. 
I knew that idiom was his favorite. The words were from buddhism, but often misused as “the woman should be an obedient wife.” And he closed his eyes, fell asleep.

I left his treatment room without a single word. Though my mother insisted that his phrase only meant, “Be flexible like water.” 
I was irritated by the idea of his old-fashioned way of living. Was that the reason my grandmother died young? If she had been forced into the mold of an ideal wife, her life would have been too stressful. 

If my partner were to say those same words, my heart would turn to ice instantly.

I saw you. A mother always does.

It's like when a mother plays hide and seek with her child. The moment she opens her eyes, she can see him. She can sense him.

That's how I saw you. From day one. I did not had to meet you in person. I saw you through your words.

But just like some days a mother pretends not to see her child — just for the fun of it, just for the thrill of it — I did the same.

I pretended not to see you. I pretended to believe every single word of yours.

But I saw you from day one.

You should not have picked a mother to fool.

After the last cup of liquor, it was time for him to go.

My wife and kids were already asleep. I glanced at them, then gently pulled the door shut behind me.

The moon was bright, stretching our shadows long across the ground.

“Wu.”

I stepped outside. He raised a hand, telling me there was no need to see him off. I took his hand anyway and did not want to let go.

Wu, this old friend of mine, was the same age as I was, yet his back was already bent, his skin weathered to a deep brown. I did not dare imagine all that he had been through the past decade.

“When will you return?”

“I have to keep out of sight for some time. I've paid off two rounds already. Just one more debt to deal.”

He smiled easily, as though he were not a man who had spent all this time moving from place to place just to stay hidden, as though some passing whim had simply brought him here on this moonlit night to visit an old friend.

“Where to?”

“The Far East, perhaps. Some assets of mine over there have finally been unfrozen. I'll see what I can do with them—see if there's any way to get that business going again.”

“Anything I could help with?”

“You? Just a poor schoolteacher? Are you kidding?” he replied, teasing in his voice.

“Well, at least I’m not the one with creditors chasing me all around the world.”

“Sounds true.” He laughed. “A wife, kids, your parents. A happy family. Much better. Much better than me.”

He patted my hand.

“Oh, and I still owe you a wedding gift.”

“The wedding, the baby's first-month celebration, the kid's university admission—you owe me a lot.”

“Heh.”

He took two steps back.

“I'm off.”

He brought his hands together in an old-school salute. His lips moved for a while, as if there were something he wanted to say, but finally nothing came out.

“Able to see you again, isn't it?” I asked.

“Of course.”

He answered without hesitation, as though some of his old confidence was still there, not yet worn away by the past decade.

He turned into the alley and soon disappeared in my sight.

I stood there for a while.

Then I went back home, quietly did the dishes, and lay down in the rocking chair on the balcony, looking up at the moon.

It must be cold in the Far East.

I should have packed the rest of the liquor to him.

Before there was light, before there was darkness, there was tohu va vohu. The attempt to make order out of chaos. The attempt of being. The essence of life.

The epidemiologist understood and so named the virus. Tohuvavohu sought order, being, essence, supremacy.

It sought these relentlessly. Single-mindedly. But there was no mind. No reason. It was not hampered by delusions of morality. The virus was need. Pure need. Self-fulfilling. Opportunistic. Ego-less.

We fought well. Grandly in many cases. Our weaponry was truth and faith. Our vulnerability was truth and faith. Sentience and science could only take us so far when we were battling not only a most patient virus, but the very limits of our collective memory, our shared humanity.

Over the long haul, we forgot quickly. Tohuvavohu was not time bound. It could afford generation upon generation of assaults, retreats, regroupings and counterattacks.

Humanity was hamstrung by expectation. We were no longer wired to forgo life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We believed in our due. Submitted to our false creed: our superiority. Thinking we could outrace, outcompete, any threat.

We were the hare. The virus was the tortoise. And it was turtles all the way down.

We had no concept beyond rock bottom. Beyond economic collapse. Beyond political collapse. Beyond moral collapse.

Nothing was solid anymore. There was nothing for us to stand on. There was only tohu va vohu. Before light. Before darkness. The struggle to be.

Tohuvavohu was tohu va vohu. An attempt. A stab at re-order. At perfection.

The epidemiologist had it right. We sought to wrong it.

The virus was not to blame. We were not to blame. Creation suffers no blame. For, like tohuvavohu, what are we but another attempt at dominion.

And as the final chapter of my work, my protagonist - who I felt was similar to me, had to accomplish the athlos of shooting the last targets of the game. And then, he appeared in the front; and he stood in the way dumbfounded. Who had brought him here? There was no meaning or cause for his presence. Was my challenge to shoot him?

Of course I would, he held no importance to me. But I lowered my gun slowly, and submitted to my defeat of the game. He was standing there. I observed him, and he was different. His hair had grown longer, his mustache this time was thicker, and he was now taller; his face looked more mature and adult-like. I asked him, "what are you doing here?" He was staring, confused, with his eyes wide open. "What are you doing here?!" I asked again in frustration.

He was just being silent. "Why do you look like this, Damian?" He refused to speak a word. "Why do you look like this all of the sudden?!"

He looked insulted, and afterwards, embarrassed. "Your hair has grown longer, why don't you cut it to how it was before?" He pulled his curly hair to unfurl and see them.

"Your mustache has grown thicker, why don't you trim it to how it was before?!" I yelled. He touched his mustache and felt it.

"Your face has become slimmer! Why do you not look seventeen anymore?" He looked around in embarrassment, and started taking steps back, like he always would. Slowly, he had begun walking backwards.

"I never actually wanted you" I said, finally calming down. But his sight felt too intense for me. And his stance was so awkward and scared and frightened! It was such a distraction within the game.

At the end, I had to forget it - but instead, I lost awareness of everything around me. And, in contrast to him, I had begun taking steps towards him.

Finally, I let myself go.

"Damian, do you want to be how you were before?"

"Yes," he said in a low voice.
"I can be how I was before."

And then, I felt frightened. I turned around to see who had brought him here! And I had no answer to his statement! My mind went blank and my eyes felt empty. Our embarrassing talk had been showcased to everyone!

And then I tore the paper apart.