I Found A Message In A Bottle

It had started with just the one.

It was in an old plastic bottle, bobbing in front of my paddleboard. It glistened in the water, sunlight bouncing off the surface like a star caught in the glassy water.

Litter, I thought. I couldn’t just ignore it – it marred the serenity of the small estuarine preserve around it. I paddled up to it, lowering myself to pull it out and toss it into my bag for disposal.

Then I saw it…tucked inside, folded into a rough rectangle – a piece of paper. A note purposefully folded – a message in a bottle. I didn’t feel disgusted by the trash; I felt butterflies from some inner child, some sense of excitement. I was a kid again, and found a floating letter, someone’s private secret or treasure tossed into the wide anonymity of the sea and found here, floating up to me, on a rental paddleboard in a Podunk tourist town in Florida?



I pulled it out and read, scrawled in chicken scratch:

“Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,

Nor services to do, till you require.

And still I love you.”



“Lyza!” I called out, as soon as I finished. “Hey, Lyza! This is crazy!”

I looked around for my sister; she was about fifty yards behind me, moving around one of the patches of mangroves, kneeling on her board. I could tell she was having a little harder time then me, but coming down from the Midwest after all these years, her struggling to find her sea legs again made sense. She looked over to me, and waved.

“Hey! Everything ok?”

“Yeah, I just found this poem inside a bottle!”

“There was what?”

“I found a bottle!”

“What?”

I could hear the strain in her voice, so I paddled back towards her. I was excited; it was like finding a secret from a stranger, one you don’t feel any guilt in sharing. When I got close, I could see the weariness on Lyza’s face.

“Hey, you doing alright?,” I asked.

“Yeah,” she panted out, and I could see a strained smile on her face. “I’m just not in great shape for this anymore. Listen, I’m going to paddle over to that sandbar and relax for a bit.”

I nodded back. “No worries, I’ll join you in a few minutes. Some person threw a note in the water, some love poem. Crazy, I’ve never seen that before.”

She nodded back, but I could tell she wasn’t really listening – just tired, probably thirsty and wanting a break since we’d been out all morning.

I went back around the bend, wanting to go the long way around the mangroves to get a little more movement in before taking a break; I didn’t figure I’d find anything quite as interesting besides the note.



Then I found the second one. And the third.



Around the far side of the mangroves I saw the two bottles shimmering in the water again, and I paddled over with fervor. Two more coke bottles, two more notes inside. I didn’t even find it weird, and that should have been strange enough; I was just curious, almost expectant – what would I see now?

The first note was folded with the same meticulous creases that the original one had; I pulled it out with haste and read:

“Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

Save, where you are how happy you make those.

Why did you leave me my love? Why did you leave me?”



I tossed the bottle into the ocean carelessly as I pulled out the next note; I guess my mind forgot about the littering. The third note was simply crammed into the top of the bottle, no clean crease, or careful fold. And the writing was short; and the handwriting was worse.

“I loved you. I loved you and you left me. Why did you leave me?”



I could feel a quick chill pass down my back, even in the bright and hot light of the Florida day. I felt a chill, and suddenly felt very alone.

I looked back for Lyza, then remembered she had moved to the sandbar. I should have gone over to her then; instead, I saw a fourth bottle.

And behind that a fifth.

And behind that a sixth.

I paddled towards them, where they formed a line moving into an alcove of red mango trees in the outer section of the estuary. Here, the trees were taller, less well kept than the inner section, close to the rental center. Here, the shadows, even at midday, were longer, and the roots seemed to hold back the current of the water so that it was still within. I reached down and grabbed the first one; I didn’t really feel that same sense of wonder now. It was almost like anger – anger at finding these secrets, anger at their being poured into the water like this.

The rough note was balled into the top:

“I love you, and you left me. I thought you would leave forever, but I never forget, I never forget”

In like fashion, the next was unevenly written, almost like a child learning to write:

“I love you and I needed you for all these years, all these years”

And the sixth:

“I have cried so long alone so long I love you I love you”

Before I had even tossed this one back into the water, I felt the brush of the seventh bottle brush against my knee, sticking out over the edge of the board. I grabbed it, not even thinking about a note – which there was, crammed into it again like garbage.

The writing was nearly illegible now.

“I love you but I hate you”

I wanted to leave.



I was tired, and whatever chills I had felt had passed – I was acutely aware of just how hot this still water was, how much I could taste the salt on my breath and feel its sting on my dried skin.



And then I saw them – in front of me, like a constellation clustered into the stretch of this shoreless line of trees – a dozen, maybe two dozen, maybe more. Floating along like dead fish, floating dumb and blindingly glittering, mocking the tranquility of the cool shadow of the trees.

I couldn’t help myself, and I paddled in. Further and further.



The notes were all crammed in, all scrawled with fervor and rushed writing, all the same.

“I love you and I hate you”

“I love you and I hate you”

“I love you and I hate you”

“I love you and I hate you”

“I love you and..”


Something splashed in the water behind me. Breaking the silence and stillness.

I turned, and I could feel my heart slam against my ribs and chest.

There was nothing, no fallen tree, no animal.

No person.

Just the bottles. Scores of bottles. Beneath the mangroves, amidst them.

Just floating.



I looked around, dropping back to my knees and panting like a dog. I noticed now how loud my breath was, and my heartbeat. There was no other sound, beside the distant waves and small whistle through the leaves. Where were the birds, the fish? Where were the other paddlers? I didn’t know how deep into the mangrove trees I had paddled; the path had curved, forked. Bottles floated everywhere, and the stretches of trees looked identical, like funhouse mirrors had been shoved into the grove.

Then I saw something distinct – a canvas tarp, hanging from the trees. A rain jacket, tarnished and ripped, but clear in intention. It was draped across the branches, not blown in by the wind. It was a shelter. Shelter for someone.

A few plastic bags, with empty plastic bottles filling them, were tied to the branches of the trees there. Candy wrappers floated in the water. Someone had been here, and it had been recent.

I looked into the depths of the mangroves, to see if there were any other signs of habitation. It was too thick, and the branches choked out a great deal of the sunlight – with the light behind me, my eyes could not adjust to the darkness within the trees. I was on my hands and knees now, peering in.

My hands shot back as I felt some object touch my fingers grasped over the edge of the board. I looked down and saw a bottle, a green plastic one, with one more note inside.



I couldn’t stop. I pulled it from the water, and I opened it, pulling the note from within. It was folded neatly, like the first ones had been, the torn bottom from a receipt.



“So true a fool is love that in your will,

Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

I love you Nellie. I love you and I want you home.”


I paused, stunned in shock that melted rapidly into horror. I grabbed the paddle, rowing as quickly as I could, and screamed.

“Lyza! Lyza! God where are you?!”

I heard nothing in response. I did not know how far I was.

But I kept screaming. I screamed because I knew a Nellie.



Lyza Nellie.

---

Credits

My son Has An Exoskeleton

It happened on the third night of our cruise, near the shores of Cat Island.  My wife was pretty exhausted, so I volunteered to let our son Marty go for a walk on the beach to try and run out the energy he had.

About half an hour into our expedition, I heard him scream so loud I thought he had broken a bone. He had gotten a little ahead of me on the path, so I didn't get a clear look as to what happened; but when I got closer to him and saw the swelling on his ankle I immediately realized what had happened. Something had bit him.

My first thought was it was a snake and I called up the medical department on the ship, then grabbed Marty up and rushed to get him treatment.

I told the porter to find my wife once we made it to the doctor's quarters and had the young physician examine Marty immediately.

I watched helplessly as my boy buckled over in pain and screamed as the doctor did his best to examine the bruising.

"Looks like a spider bite," was the first thing out of the doctor's mouth after trying a few simple tests to confirm the skin was tender. "We'll give him the usual round of anti-venom we have here and hopefully we have the stuff for whatever hit him," the man added.

Jane arrived a few minutes later and started soothing Marty as much as possible as he was given five different injections.

After it was all said and done the medical staff on the ship advised that we watch him for about 24 hours to make sure that the swelling went down. It looked like the shots had done the trick so we did our best to try and make our vacation get back on track.

Of course that wasn’t 100% possible because Jane wanted to watch him like a mother hen and admittedly I felt like a fudging idiot for even letting something like this happen.

Still, it did seem like we were out of the woods and he didn’t have any adverse effects from the bite itself.

Or so I thought.

Soon we were back home and Marty was going back to the last few weeks of school. We had actually forgotten about the incident entirely when he came home one day and complained that his feet were really swelling. Jane was at work so I asked if I could see them and when he managed to squeeze his shoe off, I found myself at a loss for words.

Near to the part where the original swelling had taken place now it seemed like my son was experiencing massive skin lesions by his ankles and toes. I rubbed my hand against his leg gingerly and asked him where it hurt, noting the places where he was complaining felt hard like bone.

Then I noticed he was scratching at his back, and I asked to take a look there too. I wasn’t prepared for that unsightly horror.

It looked like a protruding bone was pushing its way out of his skin and covering his skin the way a scale would on a lizard. It sent a chill down my spine and I quickly snapped a picture of it and forwarded it to Jane.

We arranged to take him to the pediatric clinic that same day.

After several x-rays, Marty’s doctors admitted they were baffled. “It seems as though your son is developing abnormal skeletal structure outside of his body. Portions of his skin are hardening,” the nurse said fearfully.

Marty was in constant pain. So the doctors gave him some steroids, Advil and told us to monitor his progress for the next 24 hours as they had no clue what was happening or how to stop it.

That night was so agonizing. Jane and I took shifts sleeping in his bed and listening to our son writhe in pain. We debated about going to the ER, which was a good half hour away and eventually when his fever rose to 102 we agreed to do so.

It was nearly 2am in the morning when we rushed him inside, the nurses immediately offering us a room as Marty’s pain grew louder. The protrusions on his legs and back were now spreading out. Worse yet it was striking his chest and neck and he was having a hard time breathing.

I softly cried as I watched him begging to just go to sleep, grabbing at my hand as tightly as possible.

A few skilled techs came in with a saw and asked permission from his mom and I to cut off one of the protruding bones. They wanted to test it and determine what the source of the infection might be.

It took several of them to hold him down, and Jane and I watched helplessly as our little boy screamed bloody murder. I felt like the worst parent in the world as they took away the bone fragment and I climbed onto the gurney and stroked his long blonde hair.

That was when I noticed that the hardening had stretched over the back of his head. It wouldn’t be long before the process suffocated him.

“Please do something!!” Jane yelled frantically. They gave him more sedatives. But nothing seemed to work.

An hour later Marty stopped breathing. But his heart was still beating. We watched in silent agony as the hardening bone was encasing him in this skeletal cocoon and took away what little was left of our little boy.

Eventually, the doctors returned with the results of the test; but it didn’t identify with any known creatures.

“I’m sorry... there is nothing else we can do,” the main ER physicians admitted.

Jane and I requested to take him home. It probably looked beyond bizarre for us to haul this large stone cocoon into the back of our car. But we weren’t about to abandon our precious son.

Honestly I didn’t know what was going to happen next. We knew he was still alive in there, somewhere. Barely breathing and being forced to transform into something... otherworldly.

We found the answer four days later when a new sound came from his room.

I stumbled through the dark and stared into the dim light to see something emerging from the bone. Long spindly legs like crabs came first. Followed by an elongated neck and a thousand sparkling green eyes. Strange ragged blonde hair on its misshapen spine and a massive abdomen like a spider’s thorax could be seen as it climbed to the ceiling.

Jane screamed in terror. The creature stumbled back in fear. I realized that deep in that monster, our son Marty still lived. Jane couldn’t see it. She stumbled to find a firing arm and we wrestled as our monstrous child watched.

Eventually I gained the upper hand. A single shot fired and I ended my wife.

That was three weeks back. I made arrangements to turn the basement into a den for Marty and told the local authorities Jane left me and that my son died.

I don’t think they are ready for the truth yet. The fact that my son has evolved into something more than merely human. And that he is still growing to become almost a god.

I see it though. I know he is still my Marty.

---

Credits

We Thought My Brother Overdosed...He Didn't

"It'd be easier on everyone if you just fucking died Jimmy!" was the last thing I ever said to my brother as I slammed the door to his apartment behind me.

The words echoing in my head on a constant loop, drowning out our friends and family offering their condolences to my parents and I as we sit beside his open casket.

I can't stand to look at him. Half out of guilt, the remainder his appearance. Drugs took his life but it robbed him of his looks long before that. Death has not redeemed him of this quality, it's amplified it.

"Alan, please" he said with an outstretched hand beckoning me to sit beside him on his dingy couch. "Don't leave." The lump in his throat as audible as the welling of his eyes were visible.

Despite his pleading, I just left him there. I should have done something. I could have done something. Instead, I told my own brother he should die and either he, or God, or both agreed with me because later that night he did.

We didn't know exactly what substance it was that he was abusing that did it. We were still waiting on the toxicology report for that.

People will tell you that it's not my fault. People will insist that I loved my brother. People will say that I'm a good man.

People are wrong.

This is my fault. I own it. I abandoned my own flesh and blood in frustration when he needed me most. Hours passed before my conscience finally got the better of me that night and by the time I made it back to his home to make amends, it was too late.

I stood at his entrance practicing my apology. Testing the best sentences I could use to tell him how sorry I was but in the same breath, truly get through to him that his demons were tearing our parents apart.

My rehearsal was interrupted by a squishing sound from beneath my feet as I paced. The industrial carpet lining the corridors of the run down complex were wet. The dirty beige colour now a dark brown in an uneven half circle where it's been saturated most at the foot of my brothers' door.

I apprehensively used my spare key to gain entrance. Cool droplets of water fell down from the ceiling. Puddles pooled deep in sections on the uneven floors. My guilt morphed into anger instantly as I wondered how much my parents would have to pay the landlord for the damages my little brother has caused to his property.

It builds into blind rage as I jerk in surprise as one of the drops from the ceiling falls onto my face.

The emotion fades faster than it came when I turned my body towards Jimmy's living room preparing to give him hell.

My voice catches in my throat when my gaze finds its destination.

There he sat, lifeless on the sofa where I left him. His mouth agape, eyes wide and nearly completely white. His soaking wet t-shirt molded to his skinny body revealing the contour of his ribcage. His hand outstretched at his side resting on the unoccupied cushion as if even in death he requested my companionship.

"Jimmy!" I shout as I scramble towards him splashing in the puddles as I ran. I held him in my arms screaming his name and tapping his cold face with my hand. "Please, wake up!" My voice cracking in terror.

I recoil in surprise as a drop lands on my hand breaking my daydream as I sit slumped in the funeral homes' chair. I instinctively look to the ceiling as if I were still at Jimmy's apartment. Realizing too late that I was the source. I've been silently crying this whole time.

The rest of the viewing was as hard as you would expect for a family bidding a 26 year old member farewell. The burial was even worse. There's something about the finality of the closing coffin that leaves you so empty you'd swear a piece of you was in there with your loved one, never to see the light of day again. I wish I could tell you that it became easier on us in the weeks that followed but I won't lie to you. I can't find it in me to care enough for that.

It's been especially hard on my mother in the six weeks that have passed. She had spent most of it watching old home videos of my brother as a child. Birthday parties, piano recitals, graduations and the like. Her nights however are filled with quiet weeping from her upstairs bedroom, clutching a photo of him in a frame she keeps by her bedside. My father being the war veteran that he is, copes with trauma as he always has with quiet strength, a cigarette, a stiff upper lip, and if need be a stiffer drink. I've never seen so much as a tear form in my father's eye my entire life, not even as we carried my brother's casket to be buried. You could sense his sadness as it hung heavy in the air around him, its weight could be felt by every single person in attendance. But to him, crying was weakness in a man and not an option while he had a wife and surviving son depending on him.

It's the reason I was so shocked to see him sitting on the floor next to his cellphone, sobbing like a child when I let myself into their home.

"Dad?" I say as I make my way toward him, leaving the front door open behind me. I knelt as fast as I could to rest my hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

He wipes his face ashamedly "Hey Alan," he says trying his best to conceal the agony in his voice and shifts his body abruptly to stand.

I keep him down, he doesn't resist.

"Dad, it's ok." I soothe, "What happened?"

Fresh tears well in his eyes as he stares into mine. It's my turn to be strong for him as I fight back tears of my own.

"The doctor called," he whispers. "All of Jimmy's results came back negative."

"What?" I blurt, failing to conceal my surprise.

"There were no drugs in his system. Hair, blood, saliva... nothing." he whimpers, "what... what killed my boy?"

I feel dizzy at this revelation and use my father's shoulder to steady myself as I sit with my back to the wall beside him.

Both of us staring off into nothing.

Both of us now weeping.

We had all been so sure that Jimmy overdosed that we had refused an autopsy. Confident that sending off Jimmy's various bodily fluids would reveal the culprit. The police found no evidence of foul play and they attributed the water and damage to the apartment as a drug fueled hallucination. "He probably thought the place was on fire!" were the exact words used by the officer. Yet here we are in a reality where Jimmy not only did not overdose, but had no trace of narcotics in his system whatsoever.

More time had passed since I found my father on the floor and its passage has done nothing to heal my wounds. I became obsessed with my brother's death, and vowed to find out what it is that killed him not only for my sake but for the sake of my parents who have deteriorated into shells of their former selves without this closure. I found my answer among his possessions which lay in storage boxes in my parents garage.

Jimmy was an avid reader, and owned more books than an underfunded public library. So it was easy for everyone involved who didn't know him to overlook the leather bound journal that was tucked away between Wilde and Poe. Even if it had garnered any amount of attention, it would be short lived. Its pages were seemingly empty.

When we were children we nicknamed my father the Colonel because he took all of his military style bootcamp training and transitioned it over to his parenting. When one of us broke something in the house, or just generally disobeyed him we would be sent to our rooms which he called "the hole" for a pre-set amount of time.

"Come here boys!" He would bellow, his deep voice reverberating throughout the house and my brother and I would drop anything we were doing and scurry to get to him as fast as our little legs could carry us. We would stand up straight before him with our hands at our sides like mini soldiers.

"Which one of you broke your mothers vase?" He'd say to us sternly, my mother cooking in the background trying hard not to smile. My father never hit us so the "little soldier routine" as she called it made her smile through her mock grimace everytime.

"I did sir!" Jimmy would shout.

"Takes a man to own up to his mistakes." my father would say, "but he's got to face the consequences too, don't you think?"

"Yes sir!" He'd say standing up straighter.

"Good. One hour in the hole!" The Colonel replied with my mother behind him smiling blatantly now hoping to at least surpress the giggles.

It wasn't uncommon for Jimmy to take the fall. It's just who he was and would always be. I had broken the vase that evening but Jimmy couldn't bare the thought of someone else being punished if he had the power to prevent it. He gave anything and everything he had to those he loved and as he aged that quality only grew stronger.

Jimmy was a better man than me.

It was during those hours in the hole that we devised a way to communicate with eachother, undetected from the Colonels' watchful eyes. We would pass notes under the door written in lemon juice or milk. Once dry the paper would be clear, the ink unseen. The only way to reveal the message was to apply heat either with a candle, or the burning hot incandescent lightbulb of our bedside lamps, turning the transparent ink brown like magic. As soon as the message was read, the paper was destroyed and if it were ever intercepted before the heating process as they sometimes were our parents would simply command us to pick up after ourselves seeing only a blank page. It was our very own invisible ink. We briefly tried with urine once but neither one of us was willing to touch the paper afterward which defeated the purpose.

Holding Jimmy's leather journal in my hand and leafing through its pages, I smiled at the memory. I took it with me to my father's workbench in the corner of the garage. Reaching to take the propane torch from the top shelf. I twist the nozzle releasing a hiss of propellant, and pull the trigger igniting a blue flame.

He couldn't have. Could he?

I travel the flame carefully over the first page as to not combust it and stare in bewilderment as words do indeed begin to surface.

LET ME GO ALAN.

BURN THE BOOK.

-Love, Jimmy.

With my heart beating out of my chest I don't know whether to laugh or cry as I read Jimmy's message from beyond the grave so I do a bit of both as a swallow hard, composing myself before turning the page.

I PRAY THAT NO ONE IS READING. I HAVE DONE MY BEST TO CONTAIN WHAT I HAVE FOUND SO WHEN I DIE, IT DIES WITH ME.

"What the hell is going on, Jimmy?" I whisper aloud. For the very first time, the thought that the toxicology report might be mistaken emerges in my mind. Who else but a man intoxicated could ever write such things?

The sense of smell is so closely linked to memory that the aroma created by the flame eminating from the paper triggers happy flashbacks of when we used to do this as children.

A stunning contrast to the morbidness of my discovery. How did we end up here?

Another page, another message.

PLEASE, IF ANYONE IS READING THIS ESPECIALLY YOU ALAN WHO IS THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS ABOUT THE INVISIBLE WRITING, JUST BURN THE BOOK! PLEASE DO NOT BRING THE POEM BACK INTO THE WORLD.

"Poem?" I think to myself as chills run up my spine.

I LOVE YOU ALAN, TO THE MOON AND BACK. IF YOU ARE READING THIS, HUG MOM AND THE COLONEL. THEY'LL NEED YOU. IM SORRY I COULDN'T TELL YOU. I COULDN'T RISK IT. I DISCOVERED A CURSE. A CURSE THAT ONCE READ BINDS YOU TO IT. IT WONT LET ME DIE ALAN, UNLESS I WRITE IT.

I flip the pages as fast as I can to continue my brother's message.

IT CAN'T BE STOPPED. I'VE TRIED. I'VE DESTROYED EVERYTHING RELATED TO THIS CURSE THAT I'VE FOUND SO THAT IT CAN'T BE SOUGHT OUT. THE INVISIBLE WRITING IS MY LOOPHOLE. A WAY TO END MY SUFFERING BUT PROTECT THE NEXT VICTIMS.

The next fifteen pages consisted of only three words repeated over and over.

DO NOT READ.

My heart breaks at my brother's mental state. If I had known his mind was so fragmented I could have gotten him the help he clearly needed.

The words on the sixteenth page burned darker than the rest. No longer the golden brown of its predecessors but a deep black. No longer bold capital letters but a fine script.

*Each flash of lightning will reveal its form.

*It preys on the cursed in the eye of the storm.

Every page that followed was empty.

I clutched the journal to my chest. "I'm so sorry Jimmy." I mutter "I love you too."

I couldn't bring myself to tell my parents about my discovery, it would do them no good. Upon exiting the garage, I tuck the book into my jacket sleeve and lay it on the couch where I take a seat next to my mother watching her daily dose of home videos.

"Hello sweetheart." she smiles, leaning in to kiss my cheek.

"How you doing mom?" I respond.

"I'm alright I guess I'm just trying to remember happier times." She smiled, "These videos just remind me that I did tell you boys I loved you a million times a day." and points to the screen.

I chuckle because she speaks the truth. At this moment, in the video labeled "Jimmy's 8th birthday" she can be heard from behind the camera asking her two sons her favourite question. "Boys! Boys! How much does mommy love you?"

Jimmy and I sat on the backyard picnic bench surrounded by presents and other children, red as tomatoes and rolling our eyes.

"Mom, not in front of our friends!" We hushed in embarrassment.

"How much my little monkeys?" She squealed with glee.

"To the moon and back" We muttered in defeat.

To add to our horror, the other children surrounding us were ooing and awing in unison.

"See?" my mother says drawing my attention away from the television and back to her.

Both of us share a laugh. It was so nice to see my mother smile again that it helped me to forget Jimmy's journal. So when she asked if I would like to see another video, I agreed without hesitation.

"Do you have my clown birthday party?" I inquire.

"Oh I sure do!" she says jumping up from the couch to retrieve it. "That's my favourite!"

I remember that damn party like it happened yesterday. "The party from hell" Jimmy would dub it later on. My mother thought it would be a tremendous idea to have a clown perform at my 9th birthday, completely unaware that clowns terrified both my brother and I. It was a particularly hot July day. We had already been delirious from too much sun and sugar when Twirly the clown made his entrance holding my candle topped cake. Dancing instead of walking toward us with grand exaggerated kicks of his legs. There's a particularly funny scene in this video where my mother pans the camera from Twirly's theatrics and laughing family members in the background, to where my brother and I sat holding eachother, eyes shut tightly with our faces turned towards the sky crying in fear.

But that's not what played on the tv. The setting hadn't changed. The people in attendance were the same. My younger father before his hair began to grey, stood at the barbeque flipping burgers just as I remembered only he was dripping wet in the rain.

"It wasn't raining." I think to myself confused.

"Look how handsome your father is." I hear my mother say at my side. I can't find my voice to reply so I just nod never taking my eyes off what I'm watching. "Here's the best part!" she claps with joy.

"Bring on the clown!" My father says, but it's difficult to make out over the ever increasing ferocity of the storm. The screen goes white with a flash of lightning as if it struck within meters of where we were standing.

My pulse quickens as I perceive everything in near slow motion. The camera moves from my father to Twirly the clown, his large red shoes splashing in the mud as he danced. The white make up on his face running down onto his orange coloured jumpsuit. The large red painted on smile associated with clowns, sagged into a grimace. His eyes completely blacked out as his drawn on eyebrows did the same.

The happy family members in the background clapping and cheering as the water pooled around their ankles. Heavy winds tossing the womens hair every which way as they applauded, seemingly unaware of the hurricane that raged around them.

Lightning illuminates the scene that has made my family laugh for the better part of two decades. I stare in horror, paralyzed with fear. The camera finally finds its way to young Jimmy and I as we sit holding eachother. However this time only one of us was crying with our eyes shut. Jimmy was staring directly into the camera wide eyed, head vigorously shaking from side to side.

His lips move but I can't make out what he's saying over the ripping thunder. Another flash of lightning and I gasp as a figure materializes behind us out of nothing. Its skin is stretched tight around its tall, skinny body almost translucent in appearance. Its oversized hands resting on both of our shoulders. Its long fingers traveling almost the entire length of our torsos.

I can't make out its face through no fault of my own because it doesn't have one to speak of. Only a mouth that makes up the whole bottom portion of its oval head.

Jimmy jerks his shoulder away from its clutches running up to the camera and grabbing it with both hands to bring it up close to his face.

"You let it out!" He shrieks. " Alan, you let it out! He repeats himself until his voice is hoarse. The hands of the figure coming into frame behind him where they rest on his shoulders.

I taste the salt of my tears at the corner of my mouth and recoil violently as I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"It's alright, Alan" my mother says with both her hands held out in front of her trying to be as soothing as possible.

"I'm sorry mom." I respond and start wiping my face with my sleeve until I turn back toward the video. The sun is shining and the clown is dry. His makeup impeccable as the young me reluctantly blows out the candles.

"I miss him too." she says rubbing my back.

"I gotta go." was all I could muster in my dazed condition as I kissed her cheek, picked up my jacket and headed for my car.

I sat in silence on my drive home. Silent enough that the soft swishing of my windshield wipers in the rain were infuriatingly loud. I kept going over what just happened in my head. Overwhelmed, I switched on the radio to the most mindless dance music station I can think of to drown out my thoughts. The vapid radio disk jockey addressing his audience in the typical fashion.

"Yo, yo, yo party people" he begins, "This is MC Mookie Mayes, the flyest DJ on the east coast coming at you live on this beautiful Saturday evening."

He has the desired effect of distracting me at the very least because I roll my eyes and mutter "douchebag" under my breath.

"There's not a cloud in the sky today." he continues, "so I want to see all you beautiful people dancing to my lit beats under the stars tonight!"

I laugh aloud at this. "Hey dj dimwit!" still chuckling, "it's rainin-" my voice trails off as I pull off to the side of the road. I reach to the passengers side seat to retrieve my phone. I open my weather app, warm and clear skies with a zero percent chance of precipitation.

My blood runs cold as thunder rolls in the distance. I look up from my phone to see the silhouette of a figure far in the distance and all I can do is stare as each flash of lightning transports him closer to me.

I floor the gas pedal and speed down the road my tires spinning on the slick surface. My wipers struggling to keep up with the ever falling rain making it difficult to see. "I gotta get out of here." I speak to myself to try and calm my nerves constantly checking my rearview mirror in hopes to catch a glimpse of the figure behind me. But I was mistaken when another flash of light brought the figure directly in front of my car. I swerved to avoid it losing control of my vehicle, spinning out as I try to compensate the steering. When it finally grinds to a halt, I sit gasping for air and listening to my wipers squeaking as they pass over the dry glass. I exit my vehicle and notice the stars in the sky and not a cloud in sight.

When I got to my apartment, I headed straight for my bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. What greets me in the mirror causes me to stare. I've begun to age just as Jimmy had. My cheeks are sullen and the dark rings under my eyes are the worst I'd ever seen.

At first I questioned my sanity. After all, the apparitions left no evidence of their visits. When the storm passed, I was able to carry on with my days. Even my appearance could be reasoned away with illness or the depression caused by the loss of my brother. That luxury would be short lived. As its bond with me grew stronger, its effects became more apparent. Each passing storm would leave its mark. The wet clothes on my body or the welts in the shape of handprints underneath them.

It's been weeks since my first exposure and I can't carry on like this anymore. I hope you can understand, I don't want to die. The figure comes with a higher frequency than ever before. I awaken in the middle of the night to thunder and my apartment is now rife with mold from water damage. I've lost 30 pounds and two teeth since then.

It's here with me now both hands resting on my shoulders as I write this. I tried to hold off for as long as I could, but I'm going to give in to what it wants. The largest audience it's ever had in the who knows how many centuries it's roamed the earth. I think in passing it to you I can save myself. I can't be sure but it's worth a try.

Jimmy was selfless. He wrote the curse in a way that no one could ever read it. He gave his life to protect the world.

Please forgive me, I've already told you.

Jimmy was a better man than me.

---

Credits

If Anyone Thinks Food Has Been Tasting Off Please Read

Okay, I’m incredibly scared and frustrated. I don’t know what to do. But I’m hoping my story can save someone.

I have always loved food. Maybe even too much sometimes. I’m by no means… overweight. I actually think of myself as quite average. I suppose every girl wants to be a bit thinner, right?

However, a couple of weeks ago I began to notice a change in my appetite. The problem is that I work as a chef, so tasting food and eating is part of my job description. That day at work I just didn’t feel like eating. Not necessarily an aversion to food yet, but just a meh feeling towards it. I decided to just trust my cooking abilities that night. Service went well, we cleaned, and I went home.

The next day I woke up to make the usual omelette I always make. Three eggs, a little tomato, a bit of chopped onion and some cilantro. Making omelets to me is like an art. When I finished I sat down to eat it, but something in me just wouldn’t let me start eating it. I had to force myself to eat every beautiful bite. I knew it was delicious but I somehow felt very reluctant.

I went to start my usual daily chores, but I must’ve overdid it at breakfast because I spent the rest of the day puking my guts out. I even had to call into work. They weren't happy about that. But, I didn’t want to tell them I was puking either. Not exactly what you want to hear from a chef.

I thought maybe I just had one of those 24 hour bugs. I told my work I was sorry about yesterday but was ready to go in now. I know it’s probably super wrong that I went to work because I might of been sick. But, at the time I didn’t really think much of it and I can’t afford too many missed days at work. My boss would probably fire me.

That day at work was horrible. Everything that I tried to taste was so bland. No matter how much seasoning I added it still tasted so bland to me. What’s strange is that multiple people complained of over-seasoning. When I tasted the returned plates, it still tasted bland to me. I was baffled. I tried to ignore my taste buds. I told my sous-chef he’d have to taste the dishes; that I smoked earlier and that it might’ve whacked out my taste buds.

I think he knows that was a lie (probably because I don’t even smoke), because he just stared back at me with eyes that said “are you okay”. I just gave him an awkward smile as if to respond “yes I am, I promise”.

I knew the next day was my day off, so I just thought to myself “get through this service and you can spend all of tomorrow relaxing”. So I pushed through service and we got it done with no further complaints about overseasoning nor blandness.

That night I got home and sat on the couch, angry at myself and the situation. I didn’t feel sick so I wasn’t sure what was going on with my taste buds. I felt perfectly fine despite the fact I hadn’t eaten much. I stopped to think about it and realized I hadn’t really had a meal since the omelette… if that even counted.

I opened my fridge for what felt like an hour, trying to think of anything I could eat. I mean everything seemed appetizing. I always kept a well stocked fridge of fresh vegetables, butter, eggs, and any other chef delights. But nothing really tickled my fancy. I closed the fridge and sat on the floor feeling angry about my appetite.

My palette was a necessary tool. Not being able to taste and being a chef is like having no limbs and being in construction. After all, it was my absolute sense of taste that got me to such a high position so quickly. I could tell freshness, where something was from , how it was prepared, all from just my mouth. I don’t mean to brag but its quite an extraordinary ability in my opinion and I’m glad it has brought me nothing but success and happiness.

Until now.

Growing angrier and angrier, I slammed open the fridge. I tasted the cream- nothing. I tasted a tomato- bland. A piece of cilantro- like old tasteless leafs in my mouth. As I grew angrier I became more and more upset. I began pulling out everything in my fridge and trying it.

Bland. Bland. Bland. Bland. Bland. Bland. Gross. Gross. Gross. Gross. Bleh. Bleh. Blah. Yuck. Ugh. DISGUSTING. PUTRID. GROSS. VILE. The apples tasted like sand. The fresh meat and vegetables began to smell rotten. The scent was making me so nauseous. Nothing was how it was supposed to be. It was all rotten and disgusting.

I began throwing it all on the ground in a flurry of anger. Tomatoes crushing under my feet. Butter melting. Eggs dropping. Raw meat in bloody chunks on the floor. I was almost done with my tantrum until I saw one last egg sitting in a corner. I don’t know what possessed me to do so, but I cracked the egg right in my mouth. I threw the shells on the floor. It actually tasted normal for a second! And then

I heard a peep.

I gagged. My mouth tasted as if it were filled with feathers and dirt. I began puking violently again. There wasn’t much in my stomach since I had spat most if it out during my fridge taste test. I crawled away from the fridge. And when I looked back, the whole pile in the dim light was grey. Lacking any color whatsoever. Freaked out, turned on the lights. And there in a huge disgusting pile of food and vomit was nothing but gray.

Confused I went to my pantry next. I pulled out a colorful box of cereal and dumped its contents on the table. Gray. Bread. Gray. Pasta. Gray. Granola. Gray Everything dumped onto the table was gray. A huge pile of nothingness. Even the rice was lacking it’s usually whiteness. It was then that I noticed it was less of a grey. It was a complete lack of color.

I must’ve passed out because I don’t remember what happened next. I woke up pretty hazy. I just remember getting a phone call from work saying someone important was coming in before the restaurant opened. They wanted me to head over ASAP and create a testing menu for some event. My head was pretty hazy so I don’t exactly remember all the details.

I just put on my chef's coat and headed there as soon as I could, closing the door on my disgusting incident from the night before.

When I got there I didn’t greet anyone and just headed straight to the kitchen. But, I quickly realized no one was probably there anyway since it was early. My head felt so dizzy. I didn’t really feel like I was there. Maybe I was just hazy from not eating. I don’t even remember what I made. I just remember cooking and putting dishes on the large table in our dinning area. I guess I didn’t really know what I was doing. I swear I didn’t.

The man arrived with woman and the manager greeted him at the door. He must’ve been in his office. Maybe I was cooking for a wedding? I can’t remember. I was finishing up the last dish and then I heard a woman scream.

I ran out, still not feeling right, to go see what happened. The woman had fainted. The man was kneeling beside her covering his mouth and holding his stomach. My manager was doing the same. My manager began screaming profanities at me. I can’t remember. He said it smelled disgusting. Something about going into the dumpster i think? Raw meat and bones and tentacles. Something like that. I can’t remember. It didn’t smell weird to me. He yelled that I was fired. I remember that part. And I just walked out feeling even more dizzy.

When I looked back at the table, it did look weird. I can’t exactly explain it.

I began walking toward my apartment, but the road began to feel so long and wide. Then from the corner of my eyes, darkness slowly began to take over my eyesight until everything was completely black.

I’m pretty sure I passed out on the ground in the middle of the sidewalk.

I woke up in the hospital with an IV drip, an oxygen mask, a beeping machine, the whole shabang. The nurse came in and smiled sweetly once she saw my eyes were a bit open.

“Good Morning. Are you feeling well enough to sit up?”

I nodded and sat up a bit, removing my oxygen mask. She handed me a cup of water. I took a small sip. In that moment my brain saw a series of images. I can’t even remember them. I don’t know why, but I threw the cup off the bed, letting it splash all over the floor. It was sort of a knee-jerk reaction so I felt kind of bad when the nurse had to clean it up. I just sunk down a bit and looked away. She cleaned up the mess. Jotted something down and left. I closed my eyes again.

I awoke to the nurse trying to set a tray of food down in front of me. I wonder when the last time I’d eaten was. Felt like forever. Then I hear a noise. I narrowed it down to tray inform of me. It was definitely making some sort of sound. Before I lifted the lid I put my ear to it and listened. I heard screaming. Small moaning yells of someone in agony and pain. In a frightened state I quickly opened the lid and the moaning began to resonate across all the walls of the room.

I covered my ears and closed my eyes. It was screeching. When I opened my eyes, I didn’t even see food. Not even the lack of color. Not even the pale outline of food. Something I can’t even put into words. It was horrifying. I threw the plate on the floor. My heart must’ve started beating real fast because I noticed the machine making even more beeping noises than usual. The nurses came rushing in. They might’ve sedated me with something because I quickly passed out.

When I woke up next, my mother was sitting next to me holding my hand. She noticed my opened eyes. “Hi sweetie, its Mom. How are you doing”

I was barely awake and nodded. “They told me what’s happening. I’m sorry sweetie. You could always talk to me about your problems, you know that right?”

I don't know why but I started crying. I just let the hot tears fall down my face. I couldn’t exactly tell her what was happening. I couldn’t even explain it myself. But just having someone there who you could trust and comfort you was more than overwhelming considering the horror I had gone through in the last couple days.

“I just want you to know that we’re gonna do everything to help you get better.”

If only they knew what was happening.

“Don’t worry about how much it will cost. I’m going to pay for it all. This facility is the best around.”

I was confused. I muttered in a low raspy voice, “I don’t want to go to a facility. I’m not sick.”

“I know honey, they said that many girls like you are very reluctant. But, you’ll make friends and be able to talk to girls who are going through the same thing.”

She stroked my hand but I pulled away.

I was sleepy, confused and annoyed. “I’m not sick.”

“I know, sweetie, I know. You’ll be able to work through your eating disorder. There are many girls who suffer from it. It’s okay sweetie. Mom will take care of it.”

I looked at her with my eyes furrowed “Eating disorder? I’m not anorexic. Look at me.” I tried to let out a little laugh.

“It’s okay, honey, just because you’re not suffering on the outside doesn’t mean you’re not suffering on the inside. I didn’t want to say anything but we found your, umm, mess in the apartment. Someone in the building began complaining of the smell.”

She must’ve noticed I was getting upset. “It’s okay, it’s okay. They’ve educated me on bulimia and binging and purging.”

I looked at my moms eyes. I didn’t know how to explain myself. How could I?

That’s how I ended up here. In this facility for girls with eating disorders. They stuck a feeding tube in me because I refuse to eat. But it’s easier to pretend this way than to tell them what’s really happening. I know they’d for sure lock me up somewhere worse. I’ve been taking the time to do research on what’s happened to me. If anyone else has gone through the same.

At the meetings, girls talk about their bodies, control and perfection. All kinds of heartbreaking stories.

But, I can’t really relate. No… not when they don’t see it. The disgusting mess. The smell. They don’t even hear the screaming.

There were times I thought I was just crazy. Maybe it was all in my head. Maybe it was just me. Maybe I really was ill.

But the other day I saw a girl get 5150’ed. Before they dragged her away I heard her yelling “ITS GREY. IT’S SAND. IT’S GROSS. GET AWAY!.” She screamed the whole way out. I can still hear it ringing in my ears.

Now I’m worried it‘s spreading.

If anyone thinks that food has been tasting off, please contact me.

And try to get help.

Before it’s too late.

---

Credits

I Work As A Sleep Analyst

I don’t know if this is the right place for this, but I need to put these stories out there just so people have a record of what was going on here in case something ever does happen to me. I work as a sleep analyst at a specialist clinic located in a place I don’t feel safe enough to disclose. My job is essentially to watch people whilst they are sleeping and determine the cause of their insomnia, sleep apnea, usually quite run of the mill problems. Doctors refer their patients to us before they hand them medication so they can have a more thorough idea of their issues.

By and large, my job is okay. It pays well. Whilst in most places in the country, sleep analysts aren’t required to watch live footage of the patients, our clinic requires sleep analysts to do this as part of policy and patients always have to stay overnight for the analysis to be completed correctly. This would be all right, if things didn’t get specifically strange around here at night.

***

- When I first started working here, I got assigned a lot of the midnight shifts. I’m pretty nocturnal, so I didn’t mind this at all. Mostly I used to sit in the observation room and watch the screen and when it seemed like the person was in deep sleep, I’d just listen to their breathing patterns for changes whilst reading a book. When I’d get up to go to the toilet though, an uneasy feeling would settle in my gut. It always felt as though someone was watching me in that long corridor between the observation room and the bathroom. I kept writing it off as nerves until I started seeing something in the corner of my eye that would disappear the moment I would look at it. It was like the shadow of a person but there was no shadow.I mentioned it to one of my co-workers when I was handing over the next shift to him and he just got really uneasy and said not to acknowledge it.

When I pushed him further, he dropped his voice to a whisper and said “It gets really angry when you talk about it.” He refused to say anymore. A week later, he quit and I never saw him again. No one really talks about him anymore. It’s almost like he never existed.

I think his name was Daniel, but I can’t be sure.

***

- Every few months, and for no reason, all of the patients sit up in bed at once. Their eyes are wide open and they are staring at something in the right hand corner of the room, mouthing words but don't actually make a sound. It looks like they're talking to someone, but they can't be because nothing is in there with them. The first time I saw this, I panicked and called my boss and was really surprised to hear her say, groggily as she only worked during the day, “Just erase that part of the video when it’s over.”I tried to protest, “But-”“Just do it.” She snapped, “And don’t wake them up or mention it to them in the morning.”

My colleagues say they are sleep talking – but I’ve never seen sleep talking like that. As a collective in different, secluded rooms with eyes so wide open that they look like they’re bulging in fear. I tried reporting it to my boss’s boss but got no response.My boss must have heard about it though because she gave me a verbal warning for disobeying her and going behind her back.

***

- One time at around three in the morning on a Wednesday, we started hearing hammering and scratching on the clinic’s door, a weird wailing shriek joining it. Every time one of the three of us would answer, that is me, the security guard or the sleep tech, there would be no one there. Sure, it could be some kids playing a prank but the clinic was located close to a secluded forest, the nearest town was miles and miles away. You would have to get to us by car and there were limited parking areas around here. We didn’t see a car in any of them, and we went out with flashlights to look twice. We all thought it was maybe the wind as it was a particularly windy night and just let it go. It carried on till early morning and when we got ready to hand over the shift, our colleagues Sally and James came in looking perplexed. Instead of answering us, they just told us to go and see what had happened to the front door.

It looked like someone – or something had been trying its damnedest to get in.

There were bloody scratches all the way down the thick wood. Scratches that looked far too wide for any bear or wolf or any kind of wild animal. And scratches that certainly didn’t look human.

***

- We keep cats in the clinic to soothe people. We have five of them and generally let anxious patients stroke them to soothe themselves before they sleep. These cats have been raised from an early age to cope well with strangers, be calm and generally are very friendly in nature. Sammy, the cuddly little tabby is the friendliest and a favourite amongst everyone. Recently he’s been hissing more frequently though but only at certain patients and refuses to go near them. Strangely, those people are always the ones who complain of night terrors, the kind where they accidentally scratch or bruise themselves.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence but it’s weird how he always knows.

***

- This last one (for now) is about what I found in one of the rooms no staff other than the bosses are allowed access to. The clinic isn’t a new build, it used to be a hospital once upon a time before it fell into disuse and disrepair after the owners died, their kin didn’t really take an interest in running it and people started going to the newer, swankier hospitals that were built in their own towns. It’s at least a couple of hundred years old and even though it’s been renovated and looks brand new, there are certain parts of the building we just aren’t allowed to go into because they’re still being done up.

They’re labelled private, and have “authorized access only” across the front. A few days ago, I had lost my way trying to find the new staff room they had just renovated for us and found myself in an older, carpeted corridor staring at stairs that led up to a red door, which was ajar, light pouring out from inside. Thinking this was the staffroom, I took the stairs two at a time, wanting to get out of the dark, slightly musty corridor and make a fresh pot of coffee.

When I pushed open the door, I found a single armchair in the centre of the room, wooden floors and a massive floor to ceiling window behind it.

The light came from a crystal chandelier, this whole room looked like time had forgotten it, it was so different to the clinic which was all white and medical and still smelled of fresh pain. It was also slightly creepy how there was no other furniture in here. Just a single, red and gold ornate armchair. A pile of black files lay on top, the first one open. My curiosity got the better of me. I picked the open file up and began to read. And paled almost immediately. Across the front of the file, it stated clearly “deceased” as of today, but I had never heard of this patient before.

His name was Charles Islington. He was part of a experiment on night twitches, the thing that happens to you when your whole body jerks and no one really knows why. I hadn’t even known we were conducting something like that here and all the staff were supposed to have equal knowledge of everything happening within the clinic. I got as far as reading “patient appears to be convulsing after second induced jerk” when I heard a soft, scraping sound behind me. My heart stopped and I dropped the file, slowly turning around. There was nothing there. Suddenly the chandelier began to flicker, and I swear to God, I saw something…something move in between the flickering, edging closer to me. It looked like a figure, but I couldn’t make out its face, all I know is that it was reaching for me and it wasn’t a human hand, it couldn’t be. It was too twisted and gnarled and pale and the fingernails just weren’t right but I couldn’t even tell if that was what I was seeing my eyes were so effected by the light.Instead, I ran, almost blinded by the flickering in the direction of the door.

I kept running, down the stairs until I reached the corridor to the observation room and then walked to the observation room and shut the door, locking it for good measure. The rest of the night passed uneventfully but I took the next night off because I’m still slightly shaken.

I live alone in an apartment in a busy neighbourhood in a town about 30 miles away from the clinic and usually I feel really safe here. My little studio has always been my refuge and coming home has been a welcome respite.

Ever since that night though, I feel like something has been watching me. Like something angry has followed me back from the clinic. I can see it shift and move slowly, carefully. Like it is waiting to devour me. It thinks I haven't seen it yet, and I think that is what is keeping me safe. But I know it's there.

It's watching me right now as I type this.

Waiting.

In the corner of my eye.

---

Credit

I’m Sure My Supermarket is Violating Health Codes

I’m not trying to get anybody in trouble. Not my intent. So, please don’t go report this and get somebody fired. Those folks need those jobs.

That said. I just cannot shake my sense that my supermarket is violating health code stuff. It’s the Safeway off College, the one by the art school.

I was there Sunday, in the hour before they close. I don’t usually go that late, but I’d spent time with my cousin that afternoon and it just pushed everything back. Anyway, I park close to the door and head inside.

And the place just does not smell right. There’s a stench. It seems to be coming from everywhere. And my first thought is, “It’s got to be the carcasses.”

I don’t usually start shopping in the Carcass Section. I don’t like them just sitting in my cart in room temperature as I shop. But I want to figure this odor out. I push my cart over there and the glass case is pretty picked over. There’s still a lamb carcass, and a piglet carcass, and a few disemboweled hens. I roll by them all casually, sniffing as I go. I wager it’s the birds, because they were Organic-Tortured and those tend to rot faster than animals who were tortured and pumped full of antibiotics.

But the Organic-Tortured hens don’t smell any worse than anything else. I ask the butcher, “Were these carcasses all bled-out and gutted within the last few days?” And he assures me they were, and that Safeway has a seal of quality for a reason.

And I believe him! Because the smell isn’t any worse in the Carcass Section than it had been at the entryway.

I usually take the store aisle by aisle, but the next likely suspect is the Vegetables Section. I head on over there, getting ready to breathe through my mouth. But when I get there, nothing looks unusual. I bend down and smell the blood on the floor. It’s not crusty. Still sticky to the touch. I stand back up.

And then I do the same thing I did with the Carcass Section, I mosey down the display, inspecting produce as I go. I pause at the tomatoes. I squeeze one. It’s ripe. I pick off one of the callouses and hold it up to the light. It’s thick alright, but that means that whoever it came from had been doing this a while, and I prefer that. I sniff the callous. Nope. No fungus. I stick the callous back to the tomato and put it in my cart.

The smell is actually a little less pungent here. I move into the Fruit Section. And I head straight for the pineapples. I have seen flies there before.

But there are no flies! These look really fresh. A little picked over—again, it’s Sunday night—but good. I don’t need pineapple this week, but if I did, I’d probably get at least two of these. I give one a squeeze. Tough skin. Good, firm flesh. Plenty of fingernails. And whole ones too, not just the little chips you get with apples and kiwis. You can see the bloody nailbed roots on these; they were torn away in one, clean jerk. I lift a pineapple of them to my ear and sure enough, I can still hear the echo of a shriek. I’m guessing a woman, but it’s faint.

The pineapples don’t stink. Neither do the pears. Or the melons. I give the berries an extra check, because sometimes the coating of mucus and tears has a masking effect on rot. This is not the case tonight. The fruit is good. Bette than usual, honestly.

The odor is unlikely to originate from the boxed foods, but I do a quick pass up and down the aisles. There are ingredients I need here, but I’m fixated on this smell, so I barely look at my list. It’s not coming from the Breakfast Aisle. It’s not coming from the Food Taken from the Pantries of Murdered Mothers Aisle. Not the Cooking Oils. Or the Bags of Crunchy Ashes Aisle. Or the Peanut Butter, or the Noodles, or the Condiments.

Okay, the bags of crunchy ashes were two for six bucks, so I did go ahead grab a Regret ‘n’ Suffocation and an Exploitative Nacho Ranch and toss them in the cart. I eat healthy, but I have my weaknesses.

I’m almost ready to ask an employee where the smell is coming from when it becomes obvious to me—it’s the frozen food.

Like I said, healthy eater, I don’t shop in frozen foods. I don’t know which foods are the likely culprits. So I follow my nose down the long line of freezers. Frankly, I’m pretty grossed out just looking at these meals. Who eats this shit? I mean, Anus Meat Poppers? I grab that one out of the freezer and turn the box over. Yep. Come on, people. Don’t look at the branding, look at the ingredients. “Anus Meat Product.”

I knew there was no way that thing had actual anus meat in it. I put the box back on its shelf backwards. Maybe that way someone will pay attention.

And as I do this, I get a whiff. A strong, rancid whiff. I gag, but I’m righteously satisfied. Bingo.

I follow the whiff. I go freezer door by freezer door, opening them and inhaling, moving closer to ground zero. On the sixth door, the stench is so thick, I cough. I slam that door shut for a minute. I breathe deep. And then I open it back up.

It’s some frozen dinner pasta. A whole bunch of red boxes you heat up in a microwave. I pull out the box closest. Some Italian looking guy with a big mustache and his arms flung wide. The branding reads, Mario’s Landfillers Mac & ‘rhhea! I scan the box for the sell-by-date.

Wow. This thing isn’t just expired. It’s expired by almost a year.

I grab the one behind it. Same story. And the one behind that. Same long-gone expiration date. I set the three expired meals in the top shelf of the cart and start looking for an employee. I am complaining. I will be that lady tonight.

I walk past three empty aisles until I see an employee standing by the hot food bar with a big cardboard box. I head over. I grab a Mac & ‘rhhea out of my cart and am about to address the employee. But I halt.

I cannot believe what I’m seeing.

The employee is shoveling a steaming hot tray of food right into the box.

Surely he’s not throwing them away. Surely.

I ask, “Excuse me?”

The employee jerks backwards and looks at me. “Yes?”

“Those are Sweet ‘n’ Sour Mixed-Carcass Nuggets, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They’re still hot. You’re not…throwing them away. Right?”

He smirks awkwardly. “It’s the end of the shift, ma’am. We have to.”

“But you can serve them again tomorrow. Or donate the food to a refugee camp.”

He gets this scared look on his face and I assume it’s because he thinks I’m angry at him—which, I am—but then a voice from behind me startles me. A man asks, “Miss, is this employee bothering you?”

I jerk around. It’s a manager. Big nametag and everything. His eyes are wide and he’s smiling.

“No, no,” I spit out, instantly nervous. “No, I was just…asking a question about the mixed-carcass nuggets.”

“Were you hoping to purchase some? Did this employee prevent you from doing what you want?”

“No! No! I don’t want any—Look. Are you smelling this?” I shove the cold box towards the manager. “These are expired!”

He takes it from me carefully and inspects it. His smile falls. “Oh, ma’am. I am so sorry.”

I tell him, “They’re all expired. By a year! And it’s making the whole store smell awful. Please address this.”

The manager’s face goes ashen. He falls to his knees and begins to weep. And I appreciate good customer service, but I don’t need the waterworks. It’s too late though. The manager grabs me by the knees and starts screaming, “Oh God! Oh God, I’M SO SORRY! SHAME! SHAME ON MY HEAD! OH GOD, THE FIRES OF SHAME!”

I look over at the employee. He’s resumed shoveling the nuggets into the box, pretending not to notice.

Enough. I put my hands on the sobbing manager’s shoulders and try to loosen his hold. He looks me in the eyes and pleads, “Punish me, Ma’am.”

I pull my hands back.

“I beg you, Ma’am. I can’t bear the shame. Punish me.”

I need this to be over with. I ask him how he would like to be punished. “Feed them to me,” he says.

“But sir, these are frozen. Like bricks. You won’t be able to chew!”

“Shove them in.”

This was not how I saw my Sunday going. But I initiated this moment. I’ll finish it. I open the first box.

It’s not easy. The stench is incredible. The ingredients are fully rotten. I’ll never order this dish again, not even at a nice restaurant.

Also, his mouth rips. A lot. There’s blood. A couple of other shoppers start pausing to watch. But after about ten minutes, I manage to get the three umber blocks into his esophagus. Which also rips.

I offer to help him to his feet, or even breathe into his mouth a little, but the manager firmly refuses any aid. Me and the few other customers watch as he struggles to survive and, when it’s clear he has died, we clap politely.

Thank God, the employee has good customer service instincts. He breaks the mood with, “Ladies and gentlemen, to thank you for your trouble, anything in the hot food bar is on the house tonight. Please enjoy.”

The small crowd cheers, even me. I don’t want any hot carcass tonight, but I’m clearly the only one. The other shoppers swarm the hot food bar, laughing, packing their to-go boxes with steaming chunks.

The employee approaches me once more and says, “Thank you for informing us, Ma’am. I’ll see to it that these Mac & ‘rhhea’s are swapped out.”

“Thank you. And thank you for finding a creative solution, rather than wasting all that hot food.”

“You got it, Ma’am! Always looking out.”

I nod. I go back to shopping. I check out. I go home. I make myself some dinner. A salad. It’s good.

Like I said, I’m not trying to get anyone else in trouble. And I appreciate the steps the Safeway staff took to fix the problem. But I still can’t relax about it. Someone there is not paying attention. And I doubt it was just one sloppy manager.

Has anyone else had an experience like this at the Safeway on College? The place seems like a health department headline waiting to happen. You feel me here?

---

Credits

I Keep Pulling Off VR Headsets

As I type this, I can feel it burning into my scalp. I want so bad to pull the headset off, but I know exactly what will happen, and I don’t think I can survive that again.

When I first caught wind of the Oculus Rift back when it was still just a Kickstarter Campaign, my mind was blown. I’d dreamed as a kid of being able to step into my favorite video games.

I daydreamed about swinging the Master Sword with my own hands as Link. I visualized myself as a bored god, making sure my sims needs were met or making their lives miserable. The idea of being inside the world of a game sounded so impossible. Yet under 2 decades later, we were on the cusp of actual, tangible VR.

Some people doubted it – Called it fake VR. Compared it to the failure of Nintendo’s Virtual Boy headset. Some folks wouldn’t even be happy until we got Sword Art Online levels of Virtual Reality. But I was satisfied simply with sight, sound, and the ability to move my arms and interact with a world more joyful than my own.

Years later, VR has come a long way. We have developers working on pixel perfect limb movement, leg trackers, 360 degree treadmills. People are doing everything they can to make the VR experience even more real.

But they have no idea that it’s all pointless. Once you go too far down the rabbit hole, you get stuck in hell.

It all started when I attended a small VR expo in Chicago. With the promise of new, yet to be released prototype headsets available to demo, I was guaranteed to attend. I was a VR nut now, so there was no missing something like this.

The expo was thrilling. There was a new headset from a lesser known Chinese Phone company that had an insanely high resolution. The demo game looked nearly real, but you’d need a $3000 dollar gaming PC to run it at speeds that wouldn’t make you nauseous. Even the desktop they had hooked up to the headset was struggling to meet 60 frames per second.

Then, my personal favorite, was the headset that focused on field of view. They’d managed to stretch the field of view to 180 degrees, which exceeds humans’ horizontal field of view and meets our vertical field of view. The more you know. When I tried this one, I could see how people could nearly forget they were even wearing a headset. It felt like putting on a different pair of eyes. Sadly, the resolution suffered and the screen door effect was so bad, you never felt immersed.

I spent several hours making multiple rounds at the event, trying a multitude of spectacular devices.

As the event was coming to a close, with 20 minutes left until the building closed its doors, I spotted a modest booth that I hadn’t seen previously. Strange, I thought. By then, I’d made at least a dozen laps around the entire place, yet I’d not seen this booth before.

It consisted of a single black curtain with a plain black banner boasting white, times new roman lettering that read “Conscious VR”.

I smirked. These VR titles were only getting more predictable.

There was a man sitting there behind a cheap folding table. In front of him was the boxiest looking headset I’d ever seen. It’s goggles ended in jagged edges. The strap was loose and seemed to be made of a cheap material. It was beyond generic, reverting past basic.

The man himself reflected the dismal headset – Adorned with a plain white tee, a tired expression and eyes that had glazed over hours ago. He looked bored.

I walked over. 20 minutes was plenty of time to experience one more prototype.

“Conscious VR?” I said with a curious inflection.

“Mhmm.” The man didn’t even open his mouth.

“So, uh, what’s the gimmick?” I pointed to the hefty headset. “It’s pretty big. So what, does it have a crazy field of view? Super 8k resolution? Or is it an all in one or something?”

I knelt down and got a closer look. I didn’t want to handle the thing until I got some sort of reaction from the man.

“None of that.” He muttered.

“Well, then, what is it?” I insisted.

He paused for a moment, staring at me, then to the headset. Without looking back at me, he simply said. “Wakes you up.”

I sneered. “What is that supposed to mean? Like, a cup of coffee?” I could certainly believe that a VR game or device could be designed to get your blood pumping, so I wasn’t too skeptical.

“Well, how tired are you?” he asked, emotion still vacant in his words.

I was getting impatient. Reaching my hands out to the headset, I looked toward the man. He nodded, granting me silent (though unenthusiastic) permission.

The thing was heavier than it looked. It must’ve weighed 12 pounds at least. Immediately, I rolled my eyes. Whoever developed this wasted their time – Something this heavy would never be consumer or commercially friendly.

I grasped the strap and stretched it over the back of my head. Then, I laid the goggles on my forehead, struggling to find a means to adjust the tightness of it around my head before I blinded myself with it. But I couldn’t find anything. No way to tighten the straps, no knob to adjust the forward position of the goggles, nothing.

“You’ll need to hold it.” I heard the man say seemingly seconds away from a deep yawn.

Seriously? A headset you have to hold? There goes any hope of innovative or even enjoyable gameplay you could get out of it.

With a sigh, I did as he instructed me. I held it at a position as comfortable as the awkward device would allow.

The screen was black.

“Is it on?” I asked.

There was no reply. This guy was starting to piss me off.

“I-is there a button I need to press?”

Still silence.

Forget it. I wasn’t going to stand there and be made a fool of by someone who should’ve been there to sell me on their idea.

I yanked off the headset.

I immediately fell backward onto the ground breathless.

Everything was black. In every direction, up, down, left, right, it was all blackness. A perfect dark that did not sway or falter. A black this flawless was unnatural. Unnerving.

I began to panic. I could feel my breathing speeding up and becoming more shallow. It was a struggle to pick myself back up and remain on two legs as I could not see anything to balance myself with. No frame of reference.

And when I was standing again, I attempted to look at my hands.

There was nothing.

I screamed.

But the blackness seemed to swallow the sound, if there ever was a sound. I couldn’t be sure.

Was I blind? Was I deaf? Was I dead?

I kept reaching up to pull off the headset, which I could’ve sworn I already did, but I felt nothing but my hair and skin. At least I was still there.

Then, the electricity came – A deep, sharp stinging pain that ran through me from top to bottom like a bolt of lightning. This was pain so intense, that all other thought left my mind. And though I could not see it, I felt the dribble of saliva flooding out of my mouth like some tazed criminal suspect.

***

When I “woke up”, my entire body was asleep - A thousand needles per square inch of my flesh. My vision had returned. The headset was gone. And I lay there in the floor of the event building alone.

I sat up awkwardly, the needles slowly fading. My head was a mess of agony and confusion.

The building was empty now. Had everyone left me there while packing up and leaving? Why would they do that? Had I passed out and no one cared?

I picked myself up and carried myself to the glass front doors. For some reason, they weren’t locked and I was able to leave without a problem.

Groggily, I made my way back to my hotel room. I had a plane to catch in the morning, and I had no way of knowing what time it was because the numbers on my phone were too blurry to read. How I made it back to my hotel bed alive or at all was a surprise.

I lay there, eyes closed enjoying the comfort of thread counts higher than I had at home. I felt fine then, save for the remnants of a headache. I looked toward the digital clock on the nightstand.

2:17 AM

The journey back to the hotel certainly didn’t take more than half an hour. So, I must’ve been unconscious for a while. Even so, I was extremely tired. I found it difficult to keep my eyelids open, and raising my arms was a skirmish against my own body.

So, with some effort, I adjusted my pillow and shut my eyes.

But sleep did not come. Something was keeping me up.

At first, I thought it was the headache, but it soon became clear to me that the headache wasn’t actually a headache. There was an ache above my ears wrapping around the entirety of my scalp like a circle. I could feel something there – Something that hurt the longer it remained on me.

For a moment, I assumed the heavy headset had left a sore spot around my entire head. Naturally, I reached up to feel the source of my discomfort.

My eyes flew open and taut. They began to water, quickly swelling to a point where tears flowed down my face.

What my fingers came into contact with was not a sore on my flesh, but a cloth webbing.

It was the same kind of material that headset had been made of.

I shot up and began to scour my own face with my hands, feeling immediately a bulky apparatus in front of my eyes – In front of my own vision and somehow I didn’t see it.

Choking on my saliva, I yanked at the strap and clasped at the thing in front of my eyes, raising it above my head.

In a sudden transition, the world around me changed. The hotel room disappeared as the apparatus came off. Around me instead was my own bedroom, my wife sleeping soundly at my side, though I remembered her having blonde hair – Not auburn. The morning sun burned my retinas through the glass pane, but I remembered that window being on the opposite side of the room.

Shivering, I looked down at my hands. Lying within their grasp sat a jet black device. It wasn’t the same device as the Conscious VR headset that I had expected. This was more sleek, quite a bit lighter, and with a more professional design sense applied to it.

My eyes strained to open wider ready to come apart at the seams.

“Mmm honey, did you really wear that to bed?”

I turned sharply. My wife stretched herself awake and had greeted me with a reference to this device that I thought I’d never seen before.

“W-what? No, I-I-“ Speaking was difficult. My throat was dry and trembled even more than my exterior.

“You always wake up acting weird when you go to bed with that. I told you to stop. It can’t be good for your mind.” She climbed out of bed with a yawn and made her way to the bathroom, yet I recalled the bathroom entrance being in the hallway.

I took the opportunity to reexamine the headset.

It looked typical. A strap, some adjustment knobs, some sort of softer than foam material applied to the inside of the goggles. If anything, it just seemed like a consumer perfected version of a VR headset.

But then I turned it about to see the lenses.

There weren’t any lenses. Rather, there in the middle of the top of the goggles sat a metal connector, a dongle of some kind, similar in shape to a USB Type C.

My mouth was agape. I reached out, touching the connector. There was some sort of brownish red residue on the side.

Is that blood?

Instinctively, my hand flew up to my forehead where the goggles would have met my face.

A chill ran down my spine.

My fingers met a small hole that perfectly matched the shape of the dongle.

I must’ve sat there, thoughtless and silent for a while. Because the next thing I knew, my wife stood nervously at the bathroom door in a robe.

“Henry? Henry is it happening again?!”

Eyes watering, my gaze slowly met hers. I failed to blink and I swear for a brief moment I forgot how to breathe.

In a sort of shell shock, I watched my wife pick up her phone and dial an ambulance.

I was taken to the hospital. An exasperated doctor looked over my eyes and forehead thoroughly with a miniscule flashlight.

“Henry, you were in here just last week. I told you to take a break from that headset.”

My mouth didn’t budge. I had nothing to say.

“Yes, okay, you see, your excessive use is causing a blood leak. While not usually fatal, it can cause disorientation and even seizures.”

I stared down at my hands. For some reason, all I could do was listen and count my fingers.

1, 2, 3, 4 –

“I want you to stay here tonight while we monitor your brain activity.”

5, 6, 7 –

“Are you listening, Henry? We will keep an eye on you. But when you leave in the next couple of days, promise me you take a break from that thing. And by god don’t go to bed with it.”

8, 9, 10

The doctor spoke to my wife just outside the room. A nurse came in to apply some monitors to my heat and temples. She let me know that, if I felt a seizure coming on or if I just didn’t feel right, I simply needed to press this red button next to the bed.

My wife came in. Kissed me. Cried a bit. Told me to get better. Then, she left.

***

That night, the hospital was quiet. But I lay awake, trying to figure this out.

Was this reality? Had I come back to the real world from some sort of hyper-realistic escapism?

If this was the real world, why didn’t I remember it?

Sure, for the most part my wife was the same. Our house was the same. The decorations were the same.

The only big difference was the headset.

I never remembered a headset like this existing. I didn’t recall having surgery to implant an insertion point in my skull. This… This world was like the one I remembered, but only slightly different.

My mind raced. I was beginning to wear myself down. Maybe I was overreacting to this. After all, if everything was essentially the same besides the technology of some weird headset, maybe I was worrying about nothing.

I’d just go home, live my life as usual, and stop worrying my wife by using that damned headset so much.

“Ach!” I winced. My temples throbbed. Were they sending some sort of current through these monitors?

I reached up to feel them, and my heart seemed to stop.

Webbing.

A strap.

Another headset.

Tremors flooded me as I lowered my hands. This time, I was too terrified to immediately rip off the apparatus. I was not prepared for another transition – Another revelation showing me that not even this was real. I was still in yet another virtual world.

I swallowed hard, but nothing went down. My throat was drier than ever.

I didn’t want to do it, but I knew I had to. If I didn’t reach up and pull off this headset, I would only live on not knowing, living a lie.

Steadily, one inch at a time, my hands moved in unison up to the straps that I was now fully aware of.

These were thinner, yet somehow sturdier than the last. It came off more easily. I kept my eyes shut tight and only opened them slowly once the headset was off entirely.

***

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room I was in. Once I came to, I could make out a large auditorium full of hundreds of people. Laughter, excitement, just plain positivity.

If I had to guess, it was an expo but a much larger one than the one I attended with the Conscious VR booth.

I quickly located a large banner toward the back of the hall.

Welcome! Step Into Another World 2019!

“Watcha think?!” An ecstatic voice nearly shouted in front of me.

“Huh?” I managed to say. I looked ahead of me. I was holding the headset, which consisted of a thin white strap and a small rectangular box – A far cry from the goggle-shape I was used to.

“The Cubic is great, huh?! It’s the smallest Extraneous World device on the market!” The guy was short but built. He obviously took care of himself and was very excited about his product. “Well, it’s not on the market yet, but obviously we’re gonna make some waves, right?”

Extraneous World? Is that what they called VR here?

Once again, my breathing became troublesome and stressed. This world already seemed far more different compared to the last “shift”. People wore hairstyles that seemed out of place to me. Several other people walked around with IVs coming from stylized backups and implemented into their wrists like this world’s version of vaping. A woman walked in with a species of animal I didn’t recognize.

Without a word, I handed the device back to him and walked away.

I exited the event, searched for my wallet, and thankfully found a keycard with information to my hotel room.

When I made it back to my room, I sat down at a rolling chair in front of a tiny wooden desk where a laptop lay.

I opened it.

I quickly scanned over the icons.

Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, a Classic Runescape Launcher.

It was exactly the same as my original laptop. The brands were the same, the icon positions were the same, even the Classic Runescape played identically to what I remembered.

My head collapsed into my hands as I sobbed. I wanted to scream, yet I sat convulsing in tears. Because it didn’t matter that the differences still weren’t major. Because it didn’t matter that I could probably pick up the phone and still hear from my very same loving wife.

I cried because I had absolutely no idea what “original” actually meant anymore.

I cried because, as my face sat in the palm of my hands in a puddle of my own tears, I could feel yet another set of webbing around my head. Another strap. Another headset. Another fake world.

***

I haven’t “shifted” worlds again. I’m still in the last one, noticing more and more differences than I had before.

That new Nintendo console I’d purchased a month ago? It hasn’t released yet here.

The Pomeranian puppy I bought my kid for their birthday? It’s a German Shepard now.

But worst of all… I noticed the first major difference within one of these “shifts” when I flew back home.

My daughter – Our 5 year-old little girl who had begged for a puppy and a bunk bed so that her friends would have a place to sleep during sleep overs – She wasn’t our daughter anymore.

She was now a 14 year-old HE.

I still feel the same love and adoration as I should. But the affects this has had on my psyche only grow, even as I continue to ignore the ache of the strap around my head.

It burns. It throbs. It stings every second of every day.

I can feel the pain of it, I can feel it indenting itself into my flesh on the other side. Every sore sensation screams at me to pull the headset off.

But I’m too afraid.

Because I know things will get different – My definition of “real” will only drift further away.

I don’t think I can handle it again, even though I know beyond this headset, there will be another.

And another.

And yet another.

And I’m afraid that, with each removed headset, I place myself closer to a more hellish reality.

A reality closer to the truth.

A reality where my daugh- I mean, my son doesn’t actually exist.

A reality where I’m alone, bed ridden, diseased, paralyzed…

Or worse.

Maybe a fake world isn’t the worst one to live in. I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.

---

Credits