Pollution and Paroxysm
The Great City of Lincoln, Nebraska, was founded in 1859. By that time it housed just under 40 people, whereas now 40 people could be living together in a single apartment, for sake of money. My ancestors and history teachers would have described the town as simple, intent on education, and maybe a bit overpopulated by Alcohol near the city center. But through time, this world of light and green became a pit of smog, a fate bestowed to nearly every other city across the States.
The fog was shallow that morning, drifting across the landscape like a ghost drifts over water. You could see the mass of low cloud snaking up onto the window’s sill, so close to the inside of our farmhouse yet starkly blocked by the thin pane of glass between us. It had shown up like this every morning, leaving behind a field of grass that almost appeared snow-tipped, the reflection of the dew glistening in the sun like a grassland of diamonds. Never, though, did we find it pretty.
“We have to get going! Move, Move, MOVE!” My brother yelled from the edge of the barn as I was picking up the remainder of the mud-covered hay pieces Spur had left behind. “It’s almost nightfall.” I could feel the steady increasing of my heartrate. “I know, I just need a little longer.” Andrew had already disappeared through the front gates, leaving behind muddy footprints far enough apart to where I could tell he had been running. He would not have heard me from there, anyway. I tossed the rest of the wheat pieces into the red bucket and picked it up.
The shakiness of my hands forced a few over the edge. “Come-on Spur, come-on!” The horse would never be as worried as we humans were, the hell did it know about the mist.
The house had never felt so far away. It was my great-great-grandfather’s decision to build it near the Albatross River when he had first arrived in the year ////. Since then, his little grove of young elms and beeches had erupted into what seemed like an endless forest. The horse held its head low, breathing close to my neck as we walked through the tight undergrowth. I wondered, if just for a second, if that was what the fog would feel like. The denseness of the mist, similar to the sputters of snot-filled breaths the stallion left on my shoulder. It was getting darker. From the leaves dripped the remaining sunlight, airy and dissipating after every step we took. I couldn’t tell if it was Spur’s fear or my own radiating around us, a globe of isolating uncertainty.
I woke up with a fever the following morning. Andrew said it would be gone by the next fog. His voice was uneasy. I shut my eyes, and woke up a while later, on Monday.
By Tuesday morning I was ready to work again. We were a little behind in the harvest, and the landlord would be in the following day to pick up whatever crop we had managed. We would be compensated with barely enough to keep ourselves going until the next week. I started towards the barn. In the day you could make out the little red flags tied to the low branches and fallen logs. It was a pathway, but at dusk the tokens of direction blended with the ever-increasing scarlet fuzziness of the horizon. Sometimes bones or full skeletons of wild animals would end up
alongside the pathway as we passed, as if it was the mere sight of the flags which evaporated their flesh. Today, me and Andrew had found a large one, a full-grown horse skeleton, half buried in the dried dirt. We moved some of the rib-bones out of the direct path, to avoid a tripping hazard on our return.
By the time we reached the barn, it was already midday. I started to work on loading up the wagon with grain and flora. “I wonder what it would be like living in the Great City.” My brother’s voice was distant; cold. He didn’t explain it. “The one with those great silver screens? I wouldn’t want to live there; the people never seem real.” “No just, living there for the grand wall… so the fog couldn’t…” He trailed off, which angered me. I let the anger fade to silence as I finished stacking several obscurely proportioned haybales. I couldn’t remember why we had haybales, we didn’t even have cows, sheep, or horses.
We left the barn earlier that evening, the sky had not yet begun to bleed its viscous red. Andrew walked back with me this time, but he didn’t seem happy about it. I wondered if we were arguing; if we were, I couldn’t remember the reason. When I got back to the farmhouse I sat down and began breaking more CDs in half. They weren’t my CDs, Andrew had said they belonged to our mother, but she had died ages ago and none of the little pictures on the front of the discs made any sense anymore. They depicted bright blue skies and rolling green hills, it was the kind of thing you would only hear about in stories. Our TV and CD player had never worked anyway, not after the fog had seeped into the generator, so we had sold both of them to an oblivious old lady at the city gates a few weeks past. As I snapped the last few discs in half, I tossed them through the half-open window into the side garden. I shut the window and locked it. With every fiber of my being, I hoped it would stay locked, and the CD fragments would be gone in the morning.
“Can you tell it again?” I looked over to my brother who seemed to be tracing the dents in the ceiling joists above us with his eyes. “No, I’ve already told that story a dozen times, get over it.” He ended his statement with a soft huff and closed his eyes. I laid back down against the damp pillow, stained a dull gray from its thick padding of wet dust. We needed to clean, maybe I would get around to that tomorrow. I tried to recall all the details of the story in my head, something about great big clouds which the remaining Gods had tethered down to the earth. They had tried to get rid of life, and it had failed. Something about that story was beautiful, and something about it terrified me, but I couldn’t tell which parts were which. “Go to bed Ryleigh.” “I’m trying.”
I woke up the next morning to the siren-like wailing of Old Man Tony’s car horn. “Get up, you’re late.” Andrew grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the rickety old bed. The sudden movement left me winded and I pulled my shoulder back. “I’m not! He’s just early.” I turned to push the blanket back up onto the mattress and could feel Andrew’s stare burning holes into my neck. “Just come on.” I couldn’t tell if it was the incessant tapping of my brother’s foot or the continuous pulses of car horn shaking the floorboards but I shoved Andrew out of the way and moved towards the kitchen. Andrew could load the harvest himself for all I cared.
I poured myself a cup of room temperature coffee and watched my brother through the front window. Heated coffee was a rarity these days, you’d be lucky to find it in the city. I didn’t care if he was shooting me glances. I secretly hoped the ground would swallow him up; maybe it would. Also, the discs were gone. We used to tell the city kids that the little forest animals would take things like that off of the ground to build their nests with, but they all knew we were lying. It would be comforting though, if the forest animals were as real as the fog, the true perpetrator
of destruction and loss. What use would a nest of shards and memory fragments be to an animal anyways, connection to strange objects like that was a human problem.
“We’re going to the city today.” Andrew had marched in, tracking dirt over the dishrag of a carpet we had left after the last storm. “No, we’re not.” I flipped open one of the very old magazines we had stashed behind some napkins at the table. I didn’t bother to read any of the words, but the sentence structure was nicely formatted and it helped me to avoid his gaze. “Yes. We are.” He closed my distraction and put it back behind the napkin stack.
“Old Man Tony said this year’s harvest wasn’t near good enough, if we don’t go to the city to help the stall’s upkeep, he’ll probably cut us off.”
“He didn’t say that last week.”
“He didn’t have to help me load it up last week, if you would have helped, we probably wouldn’t be in such a goddamned mess.”
I rolled my eyes, setting the edge of my forehead against the window. “I’m just, tired.”
“I don’t give a shit. Take your fucking meds and meet me outside in 10.”
“How are we even going to get there?”
“If you wouldn’t have lost the goddamn…” He trailed off again, it was the same tone he had used yesterday. “Tony’s giving us a ride. Just get your things and wear a smile or something.”
Before I could answer he had made his way back out into the front yard.
I half stumbled to the bedroom, I couldn’t tell if I was angry, tired, or both. If I had a car I would have kept the keys for it in the bowl on the shelf, the old wooden one that always looked
like it had something to say. Nothing good ever came from trips to the city. The walls were dark, foreboding, and gloomy, and the buildings followed the same organization as a row of halfspoiled milk cartons on a dirty shelf. It didn’t have the same charm as the outer fields, where at least a quarter of the plants still retained some level of green and nothing inorganic glowed a neon blue.
I grabbed my meds from the lock box I had shoved into the corner. Antidepressants had been outlawed a long time ago, because it was easier to sell things to sad people than it was to sell things to happy people. In a world where economy was all there was keeping us at political peace, true peace was expensive. At least, that was something along the lines of a quote I saw at my doctor’s office once. I got my meds from a dealer just north of Old Omaha, who gets his meds from a greedy government still trying to pull the strings on people’s lives behind the scenes. I popped two pink pills into my mouth, swallowed them dry, and headed back towards the front door.
“Did you hear they’re trying to farm beagles?” “Beagles?” I swear Old Man Tony had lost his mind. “Is it the kind of farming where they’re harvesting the meat or something, or the kind of farming like the shit they do in puppy mills?” “It’s probably the milk or something.” Tony wasn’t paying attention to us anymore; he was the kind of guy to start a conversation and then leave it to see what happened.
I was feeling better now. The wind was dancing through my matted tuft of hair and the restaurants on the side of the path were getting closer and closer together. “Want to stop at Burnie Jack’s?” Andrew looked over and shot me a smile, it was the first one I’d seen from him in days, so I was inclined to agree. “That’ll be 3 Burnie Burgers, fries for each and…” Andrew glanced over towards Tony. “The real dark soda with the moving bubbles.” The old man smiled
through rotting teeth. I ran my eyes over the weathered menu, “Just a clear water for me.”
Andrew nodded, “And a Blue Sprite for me. That will be all”. There was a drawn out pause from the human or robot on the other side. “It will be extra for the clear water. $3055 at the window.”
The plastic bag and tray of drinks were already waiting for us at the next window. I remembered when I was a kid a smiling person would hand it out to you and wish you a good day. Perhaps it was better it no longer happened like that, because they were never smiling behind their eyes. Andrew tapped his card against the machine and it took his money, releasing the magnet on Tony’s car.
Andrew’s burger fell apart almost instantly, we both were laughing at him as he scrapped up the tiny bits of charred beef and red mush from between his legs on the car’s seat. They would leave stains, but it wouldn’t be noticeable from all the other unidentifiable liquids Tony had spilled in here. Mine was as hard as a rock, but still better than a burger I had at Millie’s two years ago. Whatever thing put my meal together must have forgotten my request for clear water, because little bits of green and brown floated atop the surface under the lid. Maybe there was a human in there, then. Either way, I chugged it and sat back against my seat to enjoy the rest of the ride.
It was busy, for a Wednesday. Lots of cars were lined up in the field directly adjacent the monstrous wall and surrounding moat of sludge. The city was coughing up sewage by the barrels, and ejecting smog like rockets into the gray sky. You couldn’t really tell if it was cloudy. Yet despite its flaws we still thought it was pretty. Giant silver screens the size of buildings telling us something about a new hair product or thing you could eat, buildings the size of mountains with pockets of windows littering every wall, you could even see bits of green held captive behind storefronts or apartments. None on the outside, though.
“Have
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my ID, swiping away a Pizza ad, and handed it to the man at the front gate. Andrew and Tony gave theirs to me to pass over. “645905643805492” “593857492841021” “094583924581882” “One X and two M’s.” He reached his head back out of the window and passed our IDs back. “Good to go through.”
Right past the gate there were a group of kids hanging license plates off the back of a horse. The horse was mostly brown save for a white spot under its left eye. It was almost strange, I could have sworn a horse like that would have been familiar. Andrew didn’t say anything. One of the kids waved to me. I waved back. “Cool horse!” “Thanks stranger, his name’s Steven!”
We arrived at the gateway market close to noon. The sun was sweltering, and people were filing in like sardines. Andrew and I struggled through the crowd to get to stand 87, the one assigned to us, and Tony headed off to talk to one of the federal marshals guarding the area. I wasn’t as used to being covered in sweat as Andrew was, I was usually able to weasel my way out of work if I played victim. This time there was no escape from the crowd, or from the watching eyes of my brother.
We only made just over $100,000 from the stall that day, but it was enough for a few weeks of basic living. What it wasn’t worth was the dozens of dirty hands we exchanged merchandise with, or the flood of sweat which had all started to pool in my work-boots. Andrew set out a sigh which interrupted my self-loathing. “We better find Tony soon, if we want to get home before the fog.” He was tapping his finger repeatedly on the stall’s gate. “Where do you think he could have gone?” “My guess would be the fish market.”
you got your State-Assigned ID?”
We spent about a half hour searching through the fish market, our stall’s card reader bouncing up and down between steps, swerving around in our sweaty hands. “I don’t think he’s here, Andrew”. He wouldn’t face me, but I could tell he was nervous from the way he was messing with his belt. “Just keep looking.” It was snappy, but I wouldn’t argue with safety, there was no chance I was staying in the city tonight.
We eventually found him sitting alone at a table for two, flipping through an old magazine about lakesides. He put his finger up to my brother’s lips before Andrew could explode on him. “I see its time we should get going.” He glanced at his wrist, barren except for the forest of crooked hairs. “Sorry, old habits.” He flashed his toothless smile again and dangled his keys out to Andrew. “I’m too old to drive back, you do it.” I could tell my brother debated saying something, but instead he just took the keys and we began to make our way back towards the main gates. Tony ended up driving anyways.
The sky wasn’t even dark yet, but we knew it was coming. You can always tell by the effervescent dancing of the horizon line, shifting in tune to some dark melody the earth derived from the regret of human touch. Perhaps it had followed us from the city, pouring up on to the carved roadways and starved landscapes like a slithering demon, an incarnation of hell itself, for those who believed in such a thing. It had taken its time during its last visit, to steal away the only living creature my mother ever cared for alongside the memories of such a love. With its steady rising they returned now, maybe it was my own mind that had sealed them for my safety, and incident shrouded in terror and distress. A purely human response, a purely human cause.
The foretelling of the fog was nothing special, as bland as meteorological predictions, as eminent as the end of a life. As it chased our car down the cracking abandoned roadway Andrew took both of my hands in his like he did when I was a kid and pressed his forehead against mine.
I could feel his heartbeat through his brain; it was quicker than mine. Neither of us said anything to each other. We both had always hated each other and in death none of that would change.
As the fog struck it felt like a million needles reaching down my back. It was a familiar feeling but last time Andrew’s voice had pulled me out of it. This time, it was too fast. The smog flowed past like a monochrome mixture of magma and ash, unhindered by the open road. Last time the trees had slowed it down. I imagine it would have been wise to plant more of them, more beeches, more elms to stand guard around our little farmhouse. It was a farmhouse where every animal had died rhythmically in the years prior, suffocating in the waste of big cities and choking on evaporating sewage like I was now. Maybe their flesh had leapt off their bones to try and escape to someplace greener, but their skin would run for miles and find nothing but brown and gray.
I wish I could tell you the story was longer; that it had it had a better ending, but it is unwise to temper the fates of those who may succumb to pollution when pollution itself remains untempered.
The Key of See Minor, or Something
Dear Diary,
Today I’ve decided to kill God. I’m tired of his absurdist game of hiding my keys in different locations each morning and I’m determined to do something about it. Yesterday, He put them above the stove and I nearly liquified my hand on the burner trying to reach them. Do you know how far up that shelf is? How many sacks of flour and vials of spices I had to rearrange to reach my keys so I could leave for work?
Audrey from the cubical next to me says it’s my wife that’s moving them. I think that’s nonsense. Not only do I know its not her moving them, I don’t have a wife in the first place.
Two days ago, I found my keys outside in the backyard, wedged between a garden gnome and Bentley the Boulder. I’ve been telling myself to get rid of that gnome for weeks, who knew it could’ve been a key hazard?! Thanks to my quick thinking though, I was able to punt the gnome over the back fence and onto the sidewalk. Slight downside was that it left two kids and their mother crying on their walk to school, but I’m still proud of myself. They never taught punting distance in school, that shit takes real skill.
This morning was the stick that breaks the camels back, or however the saying goes. I don’t know, I’m not a camel. Diary, you are not going to believe this, but I found my keys about 10 inches down the drain under my sink. I think if there is such a thing as a personal hell, this series of events is mine. I was about three hours and 12 phone-calls late for work today. The first 11 were for the plumber, and the last one was me having a breakdown in front of my mother. (It was sweet of her to listen to me cry for three hours though, thanks mom, if you ever read this).
But because of that I’ve decided to kill God. I’m not going to stand for this absurdity anymore, the plumbing bill, the hospital bill for that little boy, the amount of flour and blood I’ve spilt over this. Its time for war. Over and out, Timothy.
They say the ocean moves in time with the tempo of the trees, or a soft-spoken lady, who sings on the breeze.
That poetry forms from a generous wave, rickety and old, like a unicorn’s grave.
What they don’t know is the shadow, unyielding and great, which falls upon the cave called the ever-ending gate.
With words spun and castles down under, and dragons above moving with thunder, what lasts of a hero so heavenly forged, but a need for power so greedily gorged.
This is not a story of peace and retreat, but a tale in which strong omens meet, a recurring prelude of a prince and a princess, one which becomes so heavily undressed. What he saves is a soul, not found or asunder, but piecewise and henceforth banned from her plunder.
We hope they’ll come back to the story they take, And never die or drown in that lovely unseen lake.
I’ve never seen a dog like that, said Pigeon. Pigeon had been walking around in this same spot for hours now, occasionally indulging itself in the little bit of food Human would give it. Pigeon turned to Pigeon. In fact, for miles, it was mostly only Pigeon. Occasionally, if you were lucky, you would see Goose, but Goose was a fucking asshole. Strange Dog walked up to Pigeon, which almost caused Pigeon to fly away, and Pigeon to fly away. My name is Pug, this is Human. Nice to meet you, Pug and Human. Said Pigeon. Same. Pigeon. I don’t take well to flattery. Said Pug. I do. Said Pigeon. I don’t. Said Pigeon.
Both Pigeon and Pigeon flew away and landed on the Empire State Building. They watched as Human, Human, Human, Human, and Human entered to go to work. Pigeon wondered which floor it was that they would spend the next 12 hours of their life on before coming back out and leaving. Have you ever thought about the weight of the world? Said Pigeon. Pigeon wasn’t ready for an existential crisis, and promptly flew away.
Eventually Pigeon went home. Pigeon had made its home in a broken PBC pipe, neighboring a pile of delicious garbage. Pigeon lived alone, though dreamed about one day sharing its PBC pipe with Pigeon. Pigeon hoped to see Pug again tomorrow. Perhaps Pug and Human traveled together often.
The next day, Pigeon was chosen as a meal by Shifty Alley-cat. Pigeon was okay with that, because Pigeon had lived a long enough life and had seen everything it had wanted to see. Its final words were Ouch.
The moral of this fable is that you shouldn’t be a Pigeon. The theme is Pigeon, and the atmosphere is New York.
The Color Red
We lived out by the lake. It was the kind of place I used to crawl out to and draw for hours, be it my sketches were only a little bit better than scribbles on a good day. My mother would hang them on the fridge next to the sunflowers when I got home, telling me how beautiful they were, and how talented of an artist I would become someday. Today when I was drawing outside the grass was cool and wet with dew, but the sun was bright and warm. I would probably have to deal with grass stains on my new jeans, but my mom had always told me that each mark was a story, and I shouldn’t cry over an interesting story.
Somedays it took me longer than others to put the pen down, it was so much easier to speak when I didn’t have to. Today was a picture of a unicorn, striding across the lake, a scribble of a vibrant blue blob. She was only a baby unicorn, lost but not scared. I imagined every now and then she would stop to dance atop the lake, her beautiful twirls and elegant jumps barely making a ripple on the water’s surface. It was the kind of things my mother encouraged me to imagine. Sometimes I would draw big ferocious dragons and dark storm clouds, but she wouldn’t hang those ones on the fridge. Usually, I’d recover them the next day from the trashcan in her office, and I’d hide them under my bed for safekeeping. Today after I finished drawing, she told me how wonderful the baby unicorn looked and put it on the front of the fridge. It made me so proud, and my smile was rewarded with a trip to the ice-cream shop. My mother told me at the ice-cream shop how nice it was that I would spend hours and hours sitting outside and drawing on the weekends, that it made her life easier because she could work in silence. She said it so kindly, so I smiled and said “You’re welcome!” and began doodling on the napkin with a red crayon while we waited for our blizzards. She took the red crayon from me and gave me a blue
one. She said red was for evil, and blue was for good, and I should draw the lake again. So, I got to work, because I always wanted to make her proud and happy.
That night I fell asleep crying. I never knew why I fell asleep crying, maybe part of me was worried I would lose my family overnight, that some big evil monster like the ones I wasn’t allowed to draw would come and scoop up my mother and me, taking us to its evil lair and feeding us to its evil babies. I wasn’t even supposed to be having those kinds of thoughts, and I definitely wasn’t supposed to be crying. Both of those things weren’t very lady-like of me, even if I was only 7. The next day, I had school, and I spent all day trying to pay attention, even if it was really hard. I drew flowers on the top of my page, and my teacher gave me a little smileyface sticker in the corner of math homework. Then we had art class, and I was allowed to draw with every kind of color, but I only used blue, light blue, and green, and stayed away from the kids who used red.
The rest of the week was kind of the same, as were the many months and years which followed. As I grew older, I realized I had a passion for arithmetic and calculous, and secretly began applying to colleges with programs that had math majors. My mother said I should study art, so that’s what I told her I was doing. These days, it had become easier to lie and keep her happy then it was to actually do things. I had a folder of hundreds of little drawings as proof. When I finally went off to college, I cut my mother off completely moved in with my boyfriend Jared. We drank a lot of Alcohol in college, and eventually I had to quit my dream of math. It was too hard, so I got a job as a barista instead. While I was working, I would draw little flowers in the latte’s, and customers would smile when they saw them. They smiled so much more than I did.
My mother died at age 60 and I didn’t go to her funeral. I still hated her for making me cry when I was younger, and throwing away all my impressive drawings. I was working a new job at a grocery store when I got the news, and my coworkers around me were so sympathetic and tender towards me, but I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t have cared less.
In Loving Memory of Julia Harrison
July 1st, 1960 – August 4th, 2020.
Julia Harrison was born on July 1st, 1960, to Richard and Elizabeth Smith. She married Thomas Harrison when she was 22, and they had a daughter together named Emily. Julia had a passion for art, a trait which she hoped to instill on to her daughter. She divorced Thomas, and bought a house by the lake, where she would spend 20 years raising her daughter herself. She took on three jobs and those who had met her would describe her as kind, selfless, and caring. She brought her daughter out to the lake on Saturdays and Sundays, where some of the neighbors would look after her as she drew. Julia died of kidney failure on August 4th, 2020, and everyone she had loved aside from her daughter showed up to her funeral.
I’ve Decided to Rewrite the Creation of the Universe
In the beginning, there was a singular tree. It grew from its leaves a big apple, which a Martian from the neighboring universe painted to look like the Earth. The God of the new Universe, Winston, thought this was funny and created an Earth-sized replica of the painted apple, and littered some DNA on to it, which became fish, and eventually people. Winston now realized he had to take care of this Earth, and did so for a little while, telling it random lies from his random lie generator. When humans discovered telescopes, Winston quickly panicked and put some planets around the earth because he didn’t want the void to look boring. He had run out of DNA at this point, however, so when humans made little devices to travel out to the new planets, all they found was rocks and stuff. This was because Winston had picked up some rocks from outside of the universe, and put them here to pretend they were planets. The sun however, was his ceiling light, and all the stars were string lights on an Xmas tree he had forgotten to take down for billions of years.
Later, in ancient Rome, Winston invented religion and gave each empire of the human race a little handbook of his celestial fanfictions. The joke was, they were all different and the humans would argue over them indefinitely. Most of the humans took his joke way too seriously, and started killing each other over the inconsistencies. Winston didn’t care, after all, he was the God of the Universe.
Most of how the human race came into being was accidental, or ironic. Even the invention of Evil was ironic, and Good was its accidental sidekick. Morals were subject to extreme irony, and the invention of yogurt was extremely accidental. Seriously, who knew that if you let milk expire enough it turned into delicious goo? It was a similar situation with wine. Regardless, this is how the universe was now made, and I don’t take criticism.
Can Rabbits go to Hell
“Aim…. Fire!” The little boy shot the gun and the white snowy rabbit fell still in the snow, its blood a vibrant crimson red. “Hey, you did it!” Peter high fived him, even if he looked like he was going to cry. “Don’t worry kiddo, there’s lots more rabbits out in the woods, we’ve saved this little fella from getting eaten alive by wolves or bears. The little kid brushed sparkling tears from his eyes. “Promise dad?” Peter held out his pinkie finger and the kid took it. “Promise kiddo. Now let’s go show mom what we got.”
When Peter walked over to the rabbit to pick it up, he saw something he had never seen before. Slowly replacing its clean white pelt was an infectious demonic red overcoat, caked with black stripes. It looked like the fur of a plague rat. “Oh what the hell..?” He pushed the kid behind him before the demon rabbit stood back to its feet, and hopped away. Both father and son were left speechless, and Peter quietly took his kid back over to Caroline.
“I think we’ve killed Satan!” The boy cried to his mother, and she looked up, confused. “No it was… just some rabbit. Maybe we missed… or didn’t see it right the first time… or…” Peter couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he hugged his son close, praying the demons and evil spirits wouldn’t come after his family.
The next day Peter was listening to the radio station in the lodge room they had rented out. There were reports of 15 dead wolves near the area he had shot the rabbit, each one remarkably torn to shreds in almost the same manner. Still in shock, he decided to keep the news to himself but quickly packed up his family and his things and headed out of the mountains, and back towards his hometown.
When he was driving back down the mountainside highway that night, Peter must have hit some sort of rock, which slid under his tire and caused the whole car to jolt. His son woke in a panic and started talking about a bad dream, but both Peter and Caroline had no time to talk as Peter pulled the car to a stop and both of them got out to investigate if there had been any damage.
All they found under the car was a slight scratch and a pool of crimson blood staining the concrete and tire, but no evidence of what they had hit. When Peter stood up and turned back towards the car door, he could have sworn he saw a little pair of beady red eyes poking through the underbrush. By this point, he amounted the encounter to trauma, and helped his wife back inside. His kid was muttering something incomprehensible in the back, but Peter and Caroline were still too stunned to do anything about it.
It wasn’t long after that, that that area of the hunting grounds was shut down to the public under the guise of mountain lions. But Peter and his family would always have a hunch towards the real reason, no matter how often their close family would tell them it had been a collective hallucination, that a rabbit was a symbol of hope, peace, and love, and that no rabbit could commit crimes so worthy of hell.
It was about 50 years later when a Search and Rescue team would next visit the area that had incurred so many horrific incidents, deaths, and tragedies. They brought back to the lab with them a dead black hare, its flesh falling out of its side as if an eagle had torn it apart many times over. They found it on the day that Peter had died.
Dear Mrs. HallowayMrs. Halloway, it has come to my attention that you let about 14 students run around your classrooms with boxcutters today, telling them something along the lines of “if you cut things with those, make sure its something important.” Now, I’d like to believe you would be more reasonable of a teacher than that, but just this last week I had a student come into my office in tears, telling me you had given her an F because her “Shirt was an ugly color” that day. These sorts of things seem rather personal, don’t they?
In terms of appropriateness and the standards I like to maintain at my school, I am considering your termination at the end of the school year, however if you manage to improve your behavior, this may change. We do not want another situation where your “evil twin” teaches in your place, and I was under the impression we left these sorts of shenanigans behind us, last year.
What makes me most concerned is that you manage to achieve the title of “Most-HighlyRated-Teacher” almost every year, and I’m worried you’re blackmailing students into giving you positive online reviews. I know it is not that professional of a topic to discuss over email format, so I was wondering if you could meet me in my office after class today, for a friendly one-onone discussion about your performance.
Best Wishes, and please return all of those boxcutters to our maintenance closet, Principal Aubrey Cane.