Category Archives: Flash Fiction

An enigmatic oval wooden mirror reflecting a foggy forest on an asphalt road in fantasy style

Mirror Mirror – Day One

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An enigmatic oval wooden mirror reflecting a foggy forest on an asphalt road in fantasy style

2025 October 1st

You remember the rules. Don’t look in a mirror in the dark. Don’t keep a cracked one. Don’t catch your sleeping face in a black screen at three a.m. You learned them from neighbors and grandmothers and the hush that follows a flicker in the hallway. You pretend you don’t believe them. You still keep them.

You tell yourself mirrors are tools—glass and paint, a way to check the collar, the curl, the lipstick you’ll swear isn’t too much. You lean in close until your breath fogs the surface and the world becomes you, then smaller than you, then only the small square where your mouth is. You say you’re adjusting. You are practicing.

Here’s what you don’t like to name: every practice is a rehearsal, and rehearsals are for performances.

You’ve felt the wrongness already. Not with your eyes—your stomach felt it first. A half-blink. A smile that held a beat too long. A tilt of the head that finished after you’d stopped caring. You laughed it off, because laughter is a bandage you keep in your pocket. Still, when you left the room, you kept your eyes on the doorway, not the glass. Just in case.

Listen closely. October sharpens edges. Screens and mirrors behave like siblings who made a pact you weren’t invited to. The silver behind the glass is not empty. It’s crowded with what you’ve taught it. Your hands hovering near your face. Your shoulder set against bad news. The way you pretend you’re fine, and then the way you really are.

You can keep the rules if they help: drape a towel, face the frame to the wall, speak to your reflection only in daylight. You can also break them to prove a point. Either way, the glass is patient. It’s been taking notes for years.

Before the month is out, you will see something you cannot explain. No thunderclap, no violins. An adjustment you didn’t make. A gesture you didn’t teach. A mouth forming your name without you.

When that happens, don’t argue with yourself about belief. You always believed. You were just waiting to be addressed.

 

Boat-with-Sponges

The Bay That Storms Forget

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Boat-with-Sponges

The Gulf is too hot this year. The water feels heavy, the air thick with it, and yet summer has nearly passed without a single storm. No spirals spinning on the maps, no frantic rush for plywood or bottled water. Just stillness, and stillness is never safe.

My grandmother used to say the Bay was blessed. She would tell me stories about covenants whispered into the tide, or a princess buried in the water with her drowned warriors guarding her rest. And when storms spun wide and furious, only to curve away at the last moment, she would nod and say, “See? The Bay protects her own.”

I believed her, until I met Daniel. He was a fisherman, older than me, his skin the color of weathered rope, his eyes always turned toward the horizon. He said the Bay wasn’t blessed at all. “She’s beautiful,” he told me once, “but beauty like that always takes something back.” He’d lost a brother to a calm sea — no warning, no storm, just a boat that never came home. “The Bay feeds on us,” he said, “and that’s why the storms don’t stay.”

I didn’t know what to make of it, not then. But I remembered when Daniel himself vanished. Clear skies, flat water, and he never returned. The Coast Guard called it an accident. His family called it bad luck. But I knew. The Bay had reached for him the way a jealous lover reaches, and she had kept him.

That’s when I understood what my grandmother never said out loud: spared doesn’t mean safe.

The storms still circle. They pace the horizon like wolves, throwing their weight against the Gulf, but when they reach the Bay, they falter. They turn aside. And every time they do, another village farther up the coast is torn apart, another marsh is drowned, another name is added to the roll of the lost.

People here still call it a blessing. They laugh about the bubble, say the storms never land, pour another drink while they patch their roofs. But I think about Daniel, about his brother, about all the others the Bay has claimed when the skies were calm. The Bay doesn’t protect us for free. She takes her payment in flesh and memory.

Now the summer is nearly gone. The air feels too quiet, the water too still, like everything is holding its breath. Maybe the storms will try again soon. Maybe the Bay will sing them aside, as she always does. Maybe she’ll ask for another offering first.

And you know how these stories go.
There’s always a storm.
There’s always a price.

Icarus

Icarus, Descending

by

a companion piece to “Daedalus, Diminished”

Icarus

The wax sticks to my fingers. Feathers shake when I breathe.

Father warned me. Not too high. Not too low. Balance. Core. Moderation.

But wings are not for moderation.

The wind tears at me, hot and cold all at once. My chest splits wide, ribs straining with too much air. It hurts. It’s joy. It’s both.

The gulls wheel beside me, screaming. Their wings are meant for this. Mine are borrowed. Stolen.

I laugh anyway.

The sun is close enough to taste. Honey. Fire. Blood. My lips crack with it.

Wax runs down my arms. The first feather drops. Then another. White spirals against blue.

I spread my arms wider.

The frame shudders. The cords snap. My wings are breaking. I am breaking.

Still I laugh. Still I burn.

The sea lifts its black mouth to meet me. Salt on my tongue, spray in my eyes.

I do not close them.

Image Credit: dimitrisvetsikas1969
Cardinal Ornament

Sacrificial

by

The tree stood in the living room, centered in the arch of the window, its branches unadorned – naked. Despite being both artificial and pre-lit it had been there for several days because Ellie insisted that even plastic trees had to acclimate before they could be decorated.

Cardinal Ornament

Several RubberMaid totes, their purple hue faded to lavender by time and dust, sat open on the floor, each filled with crumpled tissue in a variety of colors. The same tissue was re-used every year, until it was so tattered and thin that it had to be replaced. The ornaments – mostly glass, but some wood, some tin, and a few made of seashells – once cradled within were scattered haphazardly on the coffee table, two snack trays, and an end table that had seen better days.

For Ellie, decorating the tree had always been her favorite part of the season, as if a piece of holiday magic entered the room with every bauble placed on a waiting bough until – finally – the angel was placed on top, and Christmas arrived in full force.

This year, however, something was different. The air felt heavier, almost as if the house itself were holding its breath. The dogs seemed to sense it too. Mumble had been pacing anxiously all day, and Pork Chop hadn’t even barked at the mailman once.

“Are you ready to start?” Max asked, coming into the room, and causing his wife to jump.

“You scared me!” Ellie said. “And yes… I am.”

“Great!” Max picked up a small yellow ornament – a glass version of a rubber duck. “This guy looks like he wants to be first.”

“Wait!”  Ellie’s cry made her husband freeze in place. “Don’t forget the sacrifice.”

It was the phrase she’d heard every year from her mother, growing up, and from her grandmother as well. “It’s part of the tradition,” the older woman had reminded them every year, her voice quivering. But in all the years those words had been spoken, often during late-night conversations she hadn’t been meant to overhear, Ellie had never known what they meant.

Tonight, Ellie felt the weight of family history. Every year, one ornament had to break. Not intentionally but also not by accident. Well, not exactly.

“What do you mean ‘sacrifice?’” Max asked. He wasn’t usually part of the decorating process from the beginning. Instead, it was up to Ellie and her mother, and he’d come later and do the top section where they couldn’t reach. But Ellie’s mother wasn’t with them anymore, and she’d insisted that she couldn’t – didn’t want to – decorate the tree alone.

“Mom told me once that it’s for the tree. To make the magic work.”  Ellie frowned as she said it. The notion was absurd. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her mother might have been right. She looked at the tree: it seemed to loom larger than its actual size, the dark green needles casting shadows that looked like clutching fingers on all the walls of the room.

Fighting a shiver, Ellie told their smart speaker to play Christmas music, and she and Max sang along to Bing, Johnny, Burl, and Nat as they began to decorate.

Carefully, they began placing the ornaments on the branches. Ellie’s hands trembled as she hung a shimmering snowflake as high as she could manage. Every brush of her sleeve against the needles or clink of glass as the ornaments touched made her flinch.

As the hours passed, the tree grew more beautiful, but the weight in the air grew heavier, pressing down on Ellie’s chest.

“Is it time?” Max asked as they neared the end of their task.

The remaining ornaments were among the oldest in their collection, things that Ellie’s mother had bought for her when she was still a baby. This one was from her very first Christmas, and that one was from the year Max proposed. How could she choose one to be destroyed?

The answer came not from her, but from the tree itself. A low creak echoed through the room, the sound of the center pole groaning under an unseen weight. The branches trembled, shaking the ornaments as if impatient.

“I guess it’s now,” Ellie said.

She picked up an old glass cardinal with a chipped tail feather. She held it tightly, her hands cold even though the room was warm. Cardinals had been her grandmother’s favorite bird. Standing in front of the tree she reached to slip the gold thread around the branch, but the second she let go, it came loose.

It fell in slow motion, spinning as it descended toward the tile floor. When it landed, the sound was sharper than Ellie expected, the shattering glass echoing like a gunshot.

The music stopped. The room fell silent. The shadows around the tree seemed to shift, retreating as though satisfied. The air grew lighter, the oppressive weight dissipating until Ellie was breathing freely once more. Staring down at the tiny pieces of red glass, she whispered, “It’s done.”

Max restarted the music and went to get the broom. The dogs sniffed the air, then jumped onto the couch, settling into opposing corners.

And the tree? It seemed to hum with approval, its lights glowing brighter. Ellie even thought she detected faint movement from the branches… a bow of gratitude, almost.

Later that night, as she and Max sipped spiked eggnog in the darkened living room with only the tree lights for illumination, it occurred to Ellie that the broken ornament had meant more than just a ritual sacrifice. It was a sort of a pact. The tree would retain Christmas magic until the dawn of New Year’s Day, when the ornaments would be removed.

Still, she had to wonder: what would happen if the tree ever went without?

 

 

Special thanks to Kymm and Francesca for naming the dogs.
1678 - Adrian Borda - AdrianBorda dot Com

String Theory

by

1678 - Adrian Borda - AdrianBorda dot Com

“Vasily, my friend, the Symphony board asked me to approach you.” I said to the man in the straight-backed chair.

“The light,” my old friend responded. “I’m trying to capture the way light filters through the F-holes. Can you imagine? Standing next to the soundpost as a string is plucked or bowed. It must refract the light.”

“I don’t think music works that way,” I said. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Inside the cello, the light beams into the soft, unvarnished wood, like the sun does in a forest. Particles of light dancing in the raw darkness.”

“And the strings change the light?”

“The sound… the sound moves the air; the air bends the light.” He lifted his head from the instrument he was cradling against his body. His dark eyes found mine, and I saw universes spinning in their depths.

“Vasily, are you alright?”

“I am the music,” he said. “The music is me. I am my instrument. It plays me. The light gleams and the sound shakes all of creation.”

“The sound of your cello?” I wondered if I should be calling the staff physician.

“My cello, your viola. The doorstop when you stub it with your toe. The stars. The stars sing their light.”  He pauses, then lifts his hand. “In the beginning, there was the Word, but what was before the beginning? What came before the word?”

“Music?” I guessed.

“Music! Yes. Music shapes creation. Music shapes us all.”

Apparently, this was as lucid as my old friend was going to get. “Vasily, the Symphony wants to commission a new concerto from you. For the new season.” I waited for him to respond. When he did not, I asked gently. “Vasily, they want you to compose. Do you understand?”

My friend was silent. Then he raised his right hand, the one gripping his bow. He played a note, then a scale, then a tune I’d never heard before, and for just a second, I felt like I understood the universe and it understood me. But only for a second.

“Vasily?” I spoke his name again.

He continued to play.

I checked my watch. I was due back at the university where a new group of students was waiting to learn Music Theory 101 from the famous conductor – me. “Vasily, I’m afraid I have to leave now. Shall I come back later in the week – take you to lunch?

“Lunch… yes.. at the café in the park,” he said. “I need to see the light on the water and hear the way it’s shaped.”

Nothing he said made sense to me, but I was certain it was making sense to him. “Alright, then. I’ll be back on Thursday at one. Perhaps we can discuss your commission then.”

“Commission… I should charge the length of a comet’s tail. But I will settle for my usual fee. A concerto for strings and light… ready for September.”

“Vasily, are you sure?”

“Nothing is sure.”

“Pitches are sure.”

He shook his head, “Oh, if only that were so.”

Vasily lifted his bow, put it back down, and repeated the strange tune he’d played a few minutes ago. He ignored me when I said goodbye and I made sure to close the door to his studio as softly as possible.

On Thursday morning, I received a text message. “Keep your tie on. I need to know how red sounds near water. See you at one.”

I stared at my reflection in the window of my classroom. How had he known I’d already been wearing a red tie?”

Image Source: Adrian Borda
Circles and Commas

28 Plays Later 2024 – Brief 02 – The Math/Numbers Challenge: Circles and Commas

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Circles and Commas

 

An excerpt from CIRCLES AND COMMAS:

ZOE (annoyed): Is it flat-flat, or android flat?

BASIL (perplexed): As we have discussed many times, there is no such thing as ‘super android tuning.’

ZOE (still annoyed): No, but there is super android hearing, isn’t there.

BASIL: It is true that I can discern sounds that humanoid ears would be oblivious to, Zoe, but my audio processors do not alter the sounds themselves.

Read the entire play here: 002 – 2402.02 – Circles and Commas

Think You Remember

Whatever It Is That You Think You Remember

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Think You Remember

Memory is fallible. You tend to treat it like it’s not, but you’re wrong. It’s pliable, suggestable, sometimes even amorphous. What really happens and what you remember happening – those are often completely separate things.

Here’s an example:

You wake up covered in blood and assume you got into a fight the night before, but your mind is blank, and when you turn the phone camera to see your face, there’s no sign of bruising. Even your knuckles are pain-free. But there’s blood flowing from your neck. Weird.

You close your eyes, try to think. Where were you last night? You swallow, and your saliva tastes like old blood and stale beer. Gross! But then you recall…

You were at a bar. You met a woman. She had blonde hair. She looked vaguely familiar, but you couldn’t place her, until…

“Paul? Oh my god, how are you?” Her enthusiastic greeting was met by your blank stare.

“Do I… know you?”

“I’m Sam’s sister,” she said. “Don’t you remember? I used to try to tag along whenever you and Sam went to the movies.”

Sam was a friend from childhood. Every Saturday, they’d ride their bikes to the dollar theatre to see second-run movies and gorge themselves on junk food. But he didn’t remember a sister, until…

“I had a pink bike with streamers.” The woman – Sam’s sister – was still talking. “With this really tinny bell and you guys hated it. You told me I could come to the movies if I kept up, but…”

“… but you never did.” The memory was there as if it had been implanted. “We’d kill ourselves trying to outrace you, and you almost caught up once.” You paused. “Your hair was darker then, wasn’t it.”

“So, you do remember me!”

“Sure,” you say. And you realize that an age gap of three years when she was nine and you were twelve was an unbridgeable chasm, but now that you’re thirty-one, a three-year difference is nothing. “Can I buy you a drink?” you offer.

“Do you buy drinks for a lot of women?”

“Hardly ever,” you say. “But you’re Sam’s sister.”

You spent the night drinking and telling stories about Sam. “I haven’t seen him in years,” you said, trying to recall the last time you even called him. “He moved around a lot. He’s somewhere back east, isn’t he? New York? Or…?”

“Pennsylvania,” she answered. And you nod. Because you’re suddenly quite certain there’s a postcard of Liberty Hall on your fridge with Sam’s newest address.

The evening flew by. The drinks flew faster. You aren’t typically the kind who drinks to get drunk, but somehow you’d stopped keeping track. You were surprised when the bartender announced the last call.

“I should go,” you told her, “Can I give you a lift somewhere?”

“I’m good,” she said. But when you stumble at the curb, she pulled the keys from your hand. “I guess I’m giving you a lift. Where do you live?”

You don’t recall the drive. You can’t remember how she got you up the stairs to your apartment. But you remember her voice in your ear. “Invite me in,” she’d said, a faint rasp coloring her tone. Had that been there before?

The hazy image of undressing comes back to you. Your skin was hot and hers was cool. You kept reaching for the light switches, and she kept preventing it. “Darkness is better,” she said.

You remember her pushing you backwards onto your bed, and you feel the echo of her weight on top of you. You reached for her face, to pull her closer for a kiss, but she dodged and got your neck.

(Your neck where the blood is coming from.)

“She bit me,” you remember with a start. “Holy fuck, she was a vampire.” You say the words out loud even though your apartment is empty. “Wait, that’s not even possible.”

You have a sudden urge to call your friend Sam and ask him if he knew his sister was a vampire.

Except… you’re pretty certain Sam never had a sister, that the girl with the pink bike was some other kid on your street, that there was no postcard from Pennsylvania stuck to your fridge with a Domino’s Pizza magnet.

Your phone chirps. An incoming text from an unknown number. A single word. “Forget.”

You move to the bathroom and start the shower. By the time your hot piss hits the cold water of the toilet, you only remember that you met a woman in a bar and had some drinks.

By the time you emerge from the shower, all traces of blood down the drain, you’ll be absolutely sure that you cut your neck shaving.

 

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, or whatever it is that you think you remember?” –  Elizabeth Loftus

 

 

Photo credit: PkProect
Operation

Operation

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Operation

She always arranged her tools before she began any operation. Just as in an any operating theater, it was important to be able to lay your hand on the correct instrument without looking, without thinking. Her young assistant was inexperienced and didn’t always make the right choice, so it was best to be able to direct her to the proper implement.

The operating table had been draped in protective material designed to collect any leaking fluids or stray bits of flesh, and the lighting had been adjusted to illuminate the field with no confusing shadows.

Her hands were already clean, so she drew one glove and then another over her fingers, and down around her wrists. The girl across the table had already done the same, and, she noted approvingly, her long hair had been tucked into a cotton cap. Good.

The patient was already in place, with glistening skin ready to be pierced by a blade. They had marked the surgical site to ensure no mistakes would be made.

“Wait,” she said. “Something’s missing.”

“I forgot to start the music!” Her assistant had the decency to look embarrassed. The girl gave an order to Alexa and the first notes of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” wafted from the speaker system, the opening monotone chime seeming very like a countdown clock.

“No, there’s something else.” She surveyed the scene, and then smiled as realization dawned. She left the area for a moment and returned with metal container. “The collection bowl was missed,” she explained, placing the thing in position. One more confirming look, and then, “Alright, now we’re ready.”

“I hope this goes well,” her assistant said. “Last time we messed up the mouth, and it really wasn’t pretty.”

“We’ll be fine,” she said. “Hand me the first blade.” The girl’s small hand placed the serrated knife into her larger one. “Making the first incision now.”

The blade pierced the patient’s skin and fluid oozed out. Her assistant wiped it away with a paper towel and the two shared a look of glee.

“Shall we continue?” she asked, and when the girl nodded her approval, she made the second cut, announcing, “Alright, Jack! Time for your lobotomy!”

Mother and daughter giggled together. Pumpkin carving had never been more fun.

la_tlanchana_by_andro_san12_df23o87-414w-2x

Tlanchana

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la_tlanchana_by_andro_san12_df23o87-414w-2xThe Mother of Water has many moods and many forms.

When she is sad or angry, her tears fill the basin of the lake near our home, and the power of her emotion fuels wicked storms. The fishermen and sailors beg her for mercy, but she is the snake mother then, and she whips her tail in agitation. The men know to remain ashore and use the time to sit near the fire repairing their nets or stitching new sails.

They tell stories of my mother’s worst tantrums, but their voices are full of respect in equal measures as the fear.

“I remember,” the oldest man says, “that when conquerors tried to cross the lake and take our village, the Water-Mother used her snake tail to whip their weapons from their hands and push their ships back with her well-placed waves.”

When my mother is feeling happy, the skies reflect the bright blue of her eyes, and the waters in the lake are calm. She takes a fish-tail then, swimming alongside the fishing boats and guiding them toward the best catch.

She likes to play with the children on these days, and while I was not the first or the last to wrap my young arms around her neck and let her carry me over and under the surface, coming up for air always at the exact right moment, I am the one who is never afraid.

“The Water-Mother is our protector,” the other mothers tell their children. “And it is an honor to be invited to swim with her.”

Sometimes, though, the Mother of Water must take human form, trading tail for legs, and walking on the land. She did this once to find a mate, and that’s how I was made, but she also comes to shore whenever one of the elders passes out of this life.

In those times her tears are salty, and she cries them over the graves of those who have left. She wraps her silky hair around herself like a cloak and keeps vigil over the bones of the dead.

The old grannies cook for her at those times and leave pots of food and jugs of water to sustain her while she sits in silence. She might sit for two nights or five, or even seven, but when she leaves, it always seems she takes our collective grief away with her.

“Death is part of life,” she reminds us, as she returns to the lake.

Unlike the other girls in our village, the Mother of Water is also my mother of blood. When I am older, she tells me in her voice that ripples like a stream, I will learn to shift my form, to take on the snake tail when I must be fierce and the fish tail when I am being playful, and legs when I am ready for love.

Sometimes she visits in her human form, just to spend time with us.

“Did you love my father?” I ask her.

“I did,” she says. “I do,” she adds.

And she walks on legs into the candlelit depths of our house and shares her joy with the man who raises me. When she departs after those times, her eyes are dry, but my father’s face is wet with tears, and so is mine.

The Mother of Water has many moods and many forms, but in every one, she protects those of us she calls her own.

Art credit: Andro-san12
1730 - Dreams

The Warehouse of Lost Dreams

by

1730 - Dreams

 

“So, it’s your first night at the warehouse, huh, kid?” The paunchy older man with the graying whiskers and faded denim overalls asked. His tone was conversational. His smile was sincere. “Lemme guess… you’re putting yourself through college?”

“I am,” I said. My own coveralls were new, the indigo still deep and dark, with creases from where they’d been folded in the package. With self-deprecating humor, I said, “I’m on the six-year plan.”

“Better six years than no years,” my mentor said. “I’m Maury; lemme show you around.”

“Sure,” I said.

“As a custodian you need to know the sorting policy. Here, on the first aisle are the Childhood Fantasies… things kids grow out of before they turn ten.”

“Like being an astronaut?”

“More like being a spaceship captain, although we still get a lot of firefighters, lion tamers, and superheroes.” Maury shakes his head. “Some of those are messy – the kids who tried flying before they gave up on the idea… their bodies usually didn’t suffer much, but those dreams literally went splat! That’s why we cover up.”

“I was wondering,” I said. “What’s next?”

“Well, this next section, it’s the dreams that are set aside when we’re coming of age.” He reaches into a bin and retrieves a handful of pointe shoes, dangling from faded pink ribbons. “Lots of ballerinas in this section, and tap dancers, but also baseball and soccer players. These are the sports and arts that kids give up when they head off to college.”

“Because their tastes change?” I ask.

“Some of them.” Maury returns the ballet shoes to the bin, picks up a soccer ball and bins it, and then moves a unicycle into a bike rack. “Others… they just didn’t have time, or they couldn’t afford to keep up after high school.” He stops, turns to face me, and stares for a long moment. “Your clarinet is three over, fourth shelf,” he says.

“How did you know about that?”

Maury favors me with a sympathetic smile. “You work here long enough, and you start to pick up on things.”

“How long have you been working here?” I ask.

“A long time,” he answers vaguely.

I follow him up and down a few more aisles until we reach a bin of hard hats. “Put this on,” he says, handing me a yellow one. He places an orange one over his buzz-cut hair. “This section can be dangerous.”

We enter a warehouse aisle that has bits of things – dolls, china, musical instruments, paint brushes, running shoes… riding saddles and medical texts.

“Broken dreams?” I guess aloud.

“Yup,” Maury answers. “Next aisle isn’t dangerous, but it might make you a little sad…”

“Oh?”

But he doesn’t need to explain. One side of the aisle is bins full of college sweatshirts and corporate IDs. I gulp, knowing that if I’m not careful my own future could end up folded and graying here. The other side of the aisle, though, is different. Smaller bins. Engagement rings. Wedding bands. Baby shoes.

“Oh,” I manage to say, since Maury seems to expect a reaction of some kind. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” he answers, as if we’ve just had a profound conversation. And maybe we have. It just didn’t involve a ton of words. “C’mon.”

More rows, some are things I recognize, some are poorly lit, and the shapes are abstract and indistinct. But there’s a warm light emanating from the very furthest aisle, and here’s where we find rows of easels, fishing poles, knitting supplies, baking equipment.

“This stuff doesn’t seem like it’s lost or broken,” I say.

“No. This… this is where I come when the rest of it gets too much. This is the place where later-in-life dreams are protected until they’re ready to be used. Most of these dreamers are grandparents, and they’re either planning retirement activities or embracing hobbies to share with their grandchildren.

“Oh… wow.”

“It’s not good to linger too long,” Maury says quietly. “Maybe I’ve come here too many times.” He picks up one of the fishing poles. “Work hard, while you’re here, kid,” he says. I notice that his hard hat is now a canvas one with fishing lures attached to it. Like that guy from the TV show M*A*S*H.

“I don’t understand,” I say.

“Don’t let go of your dream,” he continues. “Six years, even seven, you finish college.”

“I won’t,” I say. “I mean, I will. I’ll finish.”

Maury turns away from me and walks down toward the brightest part of the light. I take two steps to follow him, but then there’s a loud alarm from somewhere above me, and a computer voice announces “Incoming shipment. Custodian, please report to the loading dock.”

I turn toward the place where I came in, which is suddenly only a few feet from me, instead of rows and rows away. It’s my first night at the Warehouse of Lost Dreams, but it won’t be my last.

Art credit: Max Steksov