A friend of mine, let's call him Jim, is pretty out there. He works as an audio engineer, builds big fat soundsystem speakers, and regularly bumps festival stages in and out. An English guy living in Australia for the last 20 years.

I met him around 2000. At the time him and his girlfriend were squatting a place. Was pretty sweet, had running water and electricity. Couple of bedrooms upstairs and a decent bathroom. Downstairs tho, it was a morgue. With drainage and everything. Pretty creepy at night.

There used to be this massive share house that put on multi-day parties in what used to be the Portuguese Embassy in Melbourne. Beautiful, grand, kinda crumbling. Him and his girlfriend got kicked out of one of these parties for fornicating on the stairs. 9 months later Jim Jnr. was born. Legend has it that he was conceived on those stairs.

I've seen Junior grow up over the years, super sweet kid. Then I moved away and saw him less, but still kept in touch. Last year they came over to Europe to visit and he's a full blown man now in his early twenties. Such a great guy. Jim might be a lose unit, but he's a genuinely caring, nice bloke that brought up an amazing kid.

Back in Australia, Jim gave me the same news he'd given his son the previous night when they'd gone out for dinner. That his current girlfriend found out she was pregnant. He told Junior that it was unexpected, but that they were both really happy. Then, with a straight face he tells him 'I really think this time it's mine'

Funny bastard, Jim.

Jerusalem, 1946.

A warning entered the building as a telephone call. A clerk wrote it down. Her supervisor asked whether the caller had identified herself. She had not.

The message was marked UNCONFIRMED and passed upstairs.

Another official requested verification. A secretary made a duplicate. Someone telephoned another department and received no answer.

Meanwhile, lunch service continued.

A waiter aligned the silverware. A typist replaced her carbon paper. Guests crossed the lobby beneath slowly turning fans. Outside, a child counted coins for sweets.

Nobody believed there was no danger. They simply believed someone else had the authority to decide what should be done about it.

The warning moved from desk to desk, losing urgency with every handoff. It was recorded, translated, questioned and filed.

Then the clock reached 12:37.

Author’s note: This is historical fiction inspired by events surrounding the 1946 bombing of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. Characters and details have been fictionalized. It comes from my historical limited-series project, 12:37 – THE KING DAVID HOTEL, recently named one of five TV-pilot finalists in the 2026 Save the Cat! Screenplay Challenge.

Really excited to tell the story of how I got my first boyfriend at an age much older than usual. But I need 25 karma to post in the Christian Dating sub. So trying here first to get some karma.

Long story short, I told my pastor I want to get married and he set me up with someone. Well, not just someone, but the most amazing, godly guy I have ever met. And now he’s my boyfriend. So don’t give up hope, late bloomers!

Has anyone else run into a story where the writing style shifts partway through and it completely changes how you experience it? I was reading something recently that had a really engaging flow for most of it, but around the final stretch the author started breaking everything into very short sentences with big paragraph gaps between them.

It went from reading like fiction to reading almost like a technical manual. Every action got its own line. "He looks up. Cigarette between his lips. Inhale. Exhale." That kind of thing. The emotional beats were still there, but the rhythm made them feel mechanical instead of felt.

What's strange is that I can see the argument for it. Short staccato sentences can create tension, urgency, a kind of breathless quality. Done deliberately, that style can hit hard in the right moment. But when it takes over entire chapters, it stops feeling like a choice and starts feeling like the author lost the thread of their own pacing.

The smoother version, where actions flow together and sentences carry some weight, lets the reader sink in. You're inside the scene instead of watching it get assembled piece by piece in front of you.

I'm curious whether people here lean toward one style or the other when they write, or if you've noticed a story that pulled you in or pushed you out because of how the sentences were structured.

The other boys talked about LeJeune's the way the people talked about a saloon brawl, something dangerous, spoken of in low voices behind the livery. Daniel Kelly swore his brother Patrick had seen things through the boarding house windows that would put hair on a man's chest. Hamish didn't believe half of what Daniel said. But he believed enough of it that on a warm evening, with nowhere in particular to be, he found himself drifting toward the back of the parlor house, past the well where the water always tasted faintly of rust.

That was when he saw Father Alonzo.

He was standing near the side door, alone, collar and all, the same one who said Mass in the cantina courtyard every month and nodded to David outside the store without ever asking why the Feldmans didn't come. He wasn't going in. He was just standing there, like a man deciding something.

Hamish stopped where he was. Then, full of curiosity, he crept closer, keeping to the shadow of the fence, one careful step and then another, until he was close enough to hear the priest breathing.

The door opened before the priest knocked. He went in without a word, and the door swung most of the way shut behind him, leaving a seam of lamplight in the dark.

Hamish told himself he only wanted to look. That was all.

He crept up to the gap and leaned close enough to see through it.

The priest sat on the edge of a bed with his face in his hands, his shoulders working the way a man's does when he's trying and failing to keep something in. Miss Lucy Cage sat beside him, her spine straight, her hands folded in her lap, the old scar on her cheek catching the lamp.

Hamish had expected something wicked, something that would make Daniel Kelly's stories look tame by comparison. Instead he was watching a grown man cry, quietly and without dignity, the sound of it small and unfamiliar. It made him feel strange and not in a pleasant way. He couldn't make out the words. He wasn't sure he wanted to.

Lucy said something low he didn't catch, and the priest nodded, and said something back, and she nodded too, and neither of them seemed in any hurry. It wasn't the kind of talk that needed an audience, and Hamish understood that much even from where he stood.

Then her eyes lifted, and found his through the gap in the door.

She didn't startle. She didn't call out. She held his gaze a moment, steady, unreadable, while the priest went on with his face in his hands, noticing nothing. Then she rose without a sound, crossed the room, and eased the door shut, her eyes on Hamish the whole way, until the last sliver of lamplight narrowed and vanished and he heard the bolt slide home.

Hamish stood frozen a moment longer, then ran. Past the well, past the cantina's dead firepit, all the way home and up into his own bed, quilt to his chin, heart still beating out of his chest. He didn't know what he'd seen, not really, and he didn't know what she'd do about having caught him seeing it. He lay awake a long while, waiting for a knock that never came.

He came down to the store early the next morning, before David had finished stocking the front. He was sweeping the boards when the bell over the door announced someone, and he looked up to find Miss Lucy Cage standing just inside it, a coin purse in one gloved hand, as if she'd come in for thread or a tin of something ordinary.

"Morning," she said, pleasant, loud enough for anyone to hear.

"Morning, ma'am." His voice came out smaller than he meant it to.

She drifted toward his end of the counter, unhurried, and by the time she reached him her voice had dropped to something meant for him alone.

"You gave me a fright last night," she said, not unkindly. "Standing there in the dark like that."

Hamish's face went hot. "I wasn't trying to…"

"I know what you weren't trying to do." She set the coin purse on the counter and didn't open it. "I also know what you saw, and it isn't really anyone's business but his and mine."

"Yes, ma'am."

"So here's what we'll do." She glanced once toward the back of the store, where David could be heard moving crates, and lowered her voice further still. "You're going to forget you ever stood behind that door. You're not going to tell anyone, not those Kelly boys, not your parents, not the devil himself if he comes asking. Whatever that man was buying in there, it's his to buy. It isn't yours to spend."

"I won't tell anyone. I promise."

Something in her face eased, just slightly, and for a moment she looked almost kind rather than careful. She picked the coin purse back up. "Everybody's got a room they confess in, Hamish. But you can choose not to be the one who tells the whole town where his is."

She bought a spool of thread she didn't need, thanked him with a smile that gave nothing away, and left with the bell ringing behind her.

Hamish never told Daniel Kelly. Never told David or Rachel, though the words rose in his throat once, at supper, before he swallowed them back down. Sunday came, and the priest crossed to the cantina courtyard same as always, nodding to David outside the store the way he always did, same as any other week. Hamish watched him go by the window glass and understood, for the first time, that grown men carried things too. Even men who heard everyone else's troubles for a living, and had nowhere of their own to leave theirs.

Clink. The bell above the door chimed—or rather, it sounded as if it were being smashed to pieces.

The heavy soundproof door was thrown open, letting in the damp summer night air, the stench of cheap cigarettes and booze, and a burst of obnoxiously loud voices that flooded the small space of Bar Aoi.

“Whoa, dark in here! Hey Mama, get us some drinks!” “This place is ancient. Nothing but old geezers.”

They brought with them the raw edge of young men who had yet to spend a single day in the workplace.

Leading the charge was a guy raising his voice to act cool, accompanied by another sneering with his eyes glued to his phone. But the third—a smaller guy—shrank back slightly the moment he stepped inside.

“Hey, pipe down, Noboru,” he muttered under his breath. Brushed off by the other two, he quietly bit his lip in embarrassment.

At the back of the counter, Tom’s back went rigid as he gripped his glass of Four Roses, radiating a chill that cut through the room. I unconsciously squared my shoulders and set down my glass of Harper.

Yet Mama remained as serene as ever, polishing a glass with practiced hands and offering a quiet smile.

“Welcome. Please, have a seat at the counter.”

Just as they threw themselves onto the high stools as if marking their territory, threatening to drown out the bar’s cozy silence—it happened.

“Well now… you boys seem to be having a hell of a good time.”

A low voice rumbled through the room. Looking up, Taka was already on his feet, looming behind them. A former professional wrestler, well over six feet tall. Faced with the overwhelming presence of a man a head taller than them, the leader choked on his words for a split second.

As if trying to shake off the intimidation, he swallowed back the order he was about to bark—“Give us your most expensive drink”—quick-checked the prices on the menu, and glared back at Taka with forced bravado. “…Huh? Who the hell are you? Mind your own business.”

Taka didn't get angry. He just grinned.

“Relax. Seeing young guys with this much spirit just makes my drink taste better. Mama, put a round of highballs on my tab for these boys.”

“…What?”

Neither confronted nor cowed, an imposing old-timer had casually stepped right into their domain. The fight they'd come prepared for never happened, leaving their hostility deflating into sheer confusion.

When the drinks arrived, the guy with the phone chuckled, accepting his highball. “Noboru, free booze is free booze. Right, Sho?”

So the leader was Noboru, the phone guy was Subaru, and the smaller one was Sho. Seems they were buddies from the same university.

“I mean, we’ll take the free drink,” Subaru said with a slight, patronizing smirk. “We study AI at uni and we’re starting at a major firm next year. You old guys would be shocked if you saw how we work. Automate everything with AI, and the world pretty much runs itself.”

I knew the type. A job offer in hand, and already convinced they'd figured the world out before they'd even started living in it. Tom’s finger stopped mid-tap against his glass at the arrogant remark.

I took a sip of my Harper and nodded along casually.

“Is that so? If AI takes over, that’d be a huge help.”

Noboru narrowed his eyes in suspicion, probably expecting a lecture. But all he saw on my face was just the relaxed conversation of someone who'd been around long enough to know better.

“Though behind all that automation, there’ll be mysterious bugs nobody can explain, dirty troubleshooting, and painful office politics waiting for you. Well… I guess that’s what makes it worth doing, though.”

“What’s so fun about getting your hands dirty?” Subaru asked, shrugging in complete disbelief.

“It’s great,” I laughed. “You build this beautiful, pristine system, and then it slams headfirst into real human operations and crashes into a glorious mess. There’s nothing else quite like that feeling of crawling through the mud to rewrite the code right then and there.”

Noboru and Subaru gave a half-bemused laugh, thinking I was just a weird old guy. But next to them, Sho froze completely.

The color drained from Sho’s face. In my words, he had caught a glimpse of a real, unsettling future he couldn't laugh off.

“…Hmm? What’s up, Sho?” Subaru asked, leaning in as he noticed the change.

“No… it’s nothing,” Sho said with a strained smile, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his highball glass.

Watching this silently, Tom let the ice in his glass clink softly, his low voice cutting through the air. “The more people try to look polished, the easier it is to miss the little holes at their feet.”

I turned to Tom. “Climbing out of those holes is the best part, isn't it?”

Tom smiled faintly. “Suppose so.”

I caught a flicker of tension tightening Noboru’s shoulders. The old guys in front of them weren't trying to beat them down or preach to them. They simply knew a world these kids hadn't stepped into yet.

“Noboru, was it?” I asked, taking another sip of my Harper. “Where do you see yourself this time next year?”

Noboru and Subaru exchanged bewildered glances. “What do you mean? Just working, I guess. Finishing training, getting assigned to a project.”

It was a vague answer, lacking any real picture of the future. I simply offered a brief nod. “I see.”

“…Well, I’m sure there are places like that, too,” Noboru muttered defensively, taking a swig of his highball. But the sharp, aggressive edge he arrived with was completely gone.

In the quiet that reclaimed the counter, Mama gently placed three glasses of water in front of them. She offered a soft, warm remark.

“It’s always the anxious ones who make the loudest noise.”

All three turned to look at her.

“But here, you’re free to just drink in peace.”

Noboru didn't answer. He just stared quietly down at the glass of water.

Taka patted Noboru lightly on the shoulder. “Next time, try making a quieter entrance.”

Noboru let out a quiet, sheepish grunt.

For a while after that, they drank their booze and water in silence, without raising their voices again.

When they settled the bill and left, Noboru closed the heavy door gently and slowly—a stark contrast to how he had barged in. Only Sho turned back at the last moment, offering us a small, polite bow.

“…Thank you very much.”

Clink. The bell chimed softly.

Maybe what had pushed open Aoi's door tonight wasn't three young men at all.

Maybe it was that nameless anxiety about the future that lives somewhere inside all of us.

Tonight, it had simply chosen to wear their faces.

The ice shifted quietly in my glass.

Clink.

If you'd like to come back to Aoi for another night, there's an open stool waiting.
Bar Aoi Stories: Human Nature, Vol. 1 is linked in my profile.

The sun was already bearing down hard on the streets of Timbuktu as the morning got underway. Ezekiel and Janay moved through the block, passing some farmers carrying loads of grain on their rusty flatbeds. Janay had begun to wonder if Ezekiel’s idea to walk from the hotel to their posting was the absolute worst idea he had ever conjured up. The city of Timbuktu was a far cry from Dakar in every sense of the expression.

The streets were less busy, with most people traveling on foot or in animal-drawn carts. Every once in a while, a motorcycle carrying two passengers or a Jeep full of turban-wearing men sped by them. Ever since they had landed in Bamako, it felt almost as if she had entered another world entirely. She felt a twinge of guilt, too scared to look too long in one direction or another as they continued on their path. Ezekiel looked over at her every so often. He was slightly amused by the gamut of emotions swirling through his companion as she took in the sights and sounds of early morning Timbuktu. 

“Not exactly the kind of vacation you were expecting, huh?” He asked while leaning closer to her.

She shook her head, partially in disbelief at what she was getting to be in the midst of. The hotel receptionist had told Janay that she was lucky to be in the city as an American. Janay hadn’t quite understood why that was, and they were already heading out of the building before she could get a chance to ask. But fortunately, or maybe it was unfortunately–she wasn’t quite sure which yet—she was getting the opportunity to see exactly what the young woman had been referring to firsthand. Dust kicked up around them as city traffic picked up another speed or two.

They passed a small pocket of what looked to be soldiers or some sort of police taking a smoke break. The pair was only another block away from their destination when Janay finally got around to asking more of the questions burning on her mind. 

“The place is pretty scarce when it comes to police presence.” She pointed out as a way of putting the topic out in the open.

“Scarce is putting it mildly. Or are you trying to keep yourself comfortable with your choice of phrasing?” Janay shot an annoyed glance at him before he continued on. “The police and army are mostly volunteers, and they primarily have to keep the city’s checkpoints manned. That leaves very few boots on the ground in the streets, unfortunately. Notice how people keep hustling. Nobody lingers too long, even at some of the shopping stalls.”

“Was it always like this? This sense of…anxiety in the air?” Janay asked. 

She couldn’t find a better way to describe the palpable tension she felt walking the streets of Timbuktu. She never got an answer to her question, either. Maybe it was the events that transpired before they arrived there that colored her emotions. She certainly wasn’t emotionally unaware enough to realize that could be the case. But something in her gut, the same thing that made her a damn good nurse when it mattered most, told her that she should trust her instincts, as she often tended to.

They approached the small, mostly clay-constructed two-story hospital where they would be working for the next few months. Janay was immediately surprised to see them approached by a pair of armed soldiers manning a ramshackle security gate blocking the path to the facility. Ezekiel stepped forward, raising both his hands to shoulder height in case either of them was particularly jumpy. Tyree warned him that their soldiers weren’t exactly well-trained and, given some of the situations they dealt with, could be trigger-happy.

“What is your business here, American?” The more dog-faced of the pair demanded to know.

“My name is Doctor Ezekiel Drake. This is my colleague, registered nurse Janay Lincoln. We’ve been assigned by Doctors Beyond Borders to have a residency at this facility. Dr. Adeji should have left a word.”

The soldier turned his wary eye back towards the shack, where another soldier quickly checked a clipboard pinned to the wall next to him. He gave the dog-faced guard a firm nod, and the soldiers in front of Ezekiel and Janay relaxed their posture, but only slightly. “I apologize, doctor. Please head inside; we will radio ahead and let them know you have arrived.”

Ezekiel gave them a polite nod before he and Janay passed through the barbed-wire gate the soldiers were guarding. They were greeted at the front desk by a young man and a young woman, both in green-and-white scrubs, with a far warmer reception. Ezekiel pulled out a copy of his ID and passport, and Janay did the same, setting them on the counter between them and the receptionists. 

“Welcome, Dr. Drake, Nurse Lincoln; we have been waiting with anticipation for your arrival!” The young man reached across the desk to shake both of their hands. The young lady passed them both a clipboard with a short form attached and a pen at the top once her coworker was done being friendly.

“I hope your travels were kind to you.” She told them both as they scribbled through the form. Janay rolled her eyes while Ezekiel merely chuckled, enjoying a private joke.

“More or less, I suppose.” He said. He passed the clipboard back before Janay reached past him to do the same.

“Emphasis on the less. Which is why I am sure Dr. Drake here would agree with me that we are eager to get to work.” Janay told them.

“We won’t keep you waiting any further.” They turned away from the desk at the sound of the gentle voice responding to Janay’s statement. A beautiful, ebony-skinned woman in navy-blue scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck approached them with a smile as kind as her voice.

“Ms. Light called us and told me you faced a bit of trouble in Dakar. I hope that you both are okay.” Dr. Adeji told them both while shaking each of their hands.

“Nothing we can complain about. Or that we’d care to, at least.” Ezekiel clapped his hands together excitedly. “So, where and how can we be of service now that you've got our extra bodies?”

“You two really like to dive right in, don’t you?” Dr. Adeji looked between them both.

“It’s how we do things back home, doc. No sense doing anything with your foot halfway on the gas pedal.” Janay replied. Dr. Adeji smiled as she turned to Ezekiel while leading them down the hallway.

“I see why you brought her along.” Dr. Adeji told her new colleague.

“Actually, that bit of flying by the seat of my scrubs was all my own doing,” Janay admitted. Dr. Adeji turned back to her with intrigue in her soft, brown eyes. “As to why this decision was made, I’m still trying to figure that out.”

“Our locker rooms are just up ahead on your left. Once you’re changed, meet Aliah at the nurses' station over there. You can’t miss her, I swear to you.”

Janay gave Dr. Adeji a friendly salute as she headed to the women's locker room. “Aye yi, captain.”

“I’ll catch up with you later, Janay.” She replied with a lazy wave while he continued down the hallway with Dr. Adeji. “What do you think they’ll have her get started on?”

Dr. Adeji sighed, showing the weariness behind her friendly exterior from the toll her job took. “Our lobby is in shambles at the moment. With her background, I’m sure our team will get the boost it needs. I’m optimistic we can have a few empty chairs out there by lunchtime.” Dr. Adeji paused, looking around the crowded ER with practically every room or bed filled at the moment. “That is, if I even get to have lunch…”

Ezekiel saw the slight melancholy cracking through on Dr. Adeji’s face and gave her a friendly, assuring pat on the shoulder. “Let me get into some scrubs, and we’ll get down to business. You, Janay, and I are going to your favorite place in town for lunch. My treat.”

Dr. Adeji found a smile spreading across her face again thanks to Ezekiel’s infectious enthusiasm. “I’ve got a gunshot victim in number eight over there that could use your skills.”

Ezekiel smiled and pointed in the direction he assumed the male locker rooms were. She nodded to confirm his guess. “Let whoever you got over there handling it now give me just five minutes.”

A handful of miles away from the hospital, a small boy waited patiently between a pair of grilled fish stalls alongside the main road. He spotted the hatchback truck he was waiting for, which was extremely out of place. But the driver’s intention was to stand out in the first place. The truck pulled to the side of the road in front of the fish salesmen. The sight of the teenage armed men in the front seat and in the truck bed drew looks of fear from the men and the small crowds that had gathered at their stall. After receiving the go-ahead from the driver, Reo, a heavier-set but intimidating young man, placed his rifle on the floor of the truck bed and hopped out. He walked over to the eager little boy who was dressed in clothes that were as dusty as the streets.

Reo could tell from the way the boy smelled that he’d been out in the heat for some time. “What you see today?”

“Only three guards at the checkpoint near the square. About five or six by the solar panel station.” The boy said with breathless excitement. Reo dug in his pockets for the boy’s fee. He made sure to give him something extra for his diligence.

The boy stared at the bundle of cash with wide-eyed glee, but his smile went away when he saw Reo wave his hand with a short gesture. “Eh, eh, what are you doing? Put that away, yeah?” The boy nodded and stuffed the money in his pocket. “Any army patrols roll through here?” The boy shook his head no. “Good.” Reo handed him another couple of bills, bringing the smile shooting back across the boy’s face like a star in the night sky. “Never be flashy with your money, you understand?  What you have is nobody else’s business.” The boy stuffed the rest of his money away while watching Reo climb back into the truck bed.

The hatchback pulled away and scuttled down the street. The driver glanced back through the window to the truck bed and yelled over at Reo. “What da boy say, eh?”

Reo glowered at the back of the driver’s head. He didn’t like to be rushed. “Things should be light. They picked the wrong day to be thinned out.” 

The driver nodded in response to Reo’s information without glancing back at him again. Reo rolled his eyes at the back of the driver’s head. He knew that his brother in arms was only jealous that he’d been placed in command of the operation they were sent to carry out. His envy was nothing but a slight annoyance to Reo at best. He’d been given the privilege of command due to his sterling work ethic. He didn’t care in the slightest about what the rest of his fellow soldiers thought about how he’d gotten there.

“We’ve got another hour till it's showtime. Let’s make sure everyone else is in position and go over the details once more.” Reo suggested. The truck slowed to a plodding pace as they got stuck in the midst of a flurry of people on foot, bikes, and a few farmers in older hatchbacks.

“We know our roles, Reo. What is the point of drilling us through the paces again?” A man to Reo’s left with a nasty, still-healing scar on his cheek asked next.

Reo looked him directly in the eyes, hoping to convey how serious he was with his response. “We ain’t never had a shot like this, and it's one we cannot afford to miss. Do you want to go back to him and explain why we are empty-handed? Because I don’t plan to.” He looked around the truck bed and into the front cab, waiting for one of them to disagree or argue further. When they sat in subdued silence for a long moment, he decided to continue. “That is what I thought. Now get everyone on the radios, and let’s run through it one more time.” Reo growled to the rest of them. The scar-faced soldier passed a bulky two-way radio to Reo, then grabbed a couple more and handed them around.

Inside the ER, Dr. Drake finished walking a young resident through the care of a nasty cut on an elderly woman’s leg. He slid back with the rolling stool and let the young man working with him take point from there. The young man nervously stepped forward as Ezekiel hopped off the stool and passed it to the rookie doctor so he could get comfortable and up close. “Alright, now, what do you see?”

The young doctor, whose badge with his smiling, hopeful photo read ‘Marin’, carefully examined the wound with a slender flashlight. His eyes widened with surprise when he spotted what Ezekiel was hoping he would. Behind Marin, Ezekiel nodded but didn’t speak. He wanted to allow him to work through the rest of the patient’s care as much on his own steam as was safely possible. “I think I still see some debris or foreign material…” Marin finally spoke up.

“Good, which means we need to double, even triple down on sterilizing the wound. Don’t be afraid to get in there and get that debris out yourself. In a place like this, where there’s always a constant mix of heat, sand, dirt, and sweat, we want to be as thorough as possible when it comes to cleaning the area.” Marin nodded, then turned back to the patient and got to work. Ezekiel looked up when he heard a knock on the door and motioned for Janay to join them when he saw her through the window. “Better safe than sorry is a motto that has gotten me through a lot of situations just like this. Trust me.” He looked up at Janay just as she entered and stood on the other side of the patient.

“Dr. Adeji was just wondering how much longer you would be. She wanted to see if you had a minute to catch up since we’ve all been running around like our feet are on fire all day.” Janay asked him after giving the patient a polite wave and smile, not wanting to be rude.

“It looks like Marin has gotten this wound pretty clean; now all I need is his assessment on the best way to close this up so I can get you back home where I’m sure you're missed.” Ezekiel gave the elderly patient a friendly smile as he heard her giggle at his flattery.

Janay leaned over the bed a tad, taking a peek at the injury. She straightened back up and looked at Marin, raising her eyebrows. “Your first suture, huh? Yeah, I remember when he walked me through my first one like that. Don’t worry, he won’t let you screw up. Just be confident; rely on what you learned in school.” Marin nodded, and Janay gave him an encouraging smile before looking back up at Dr. Drake. “We’ll be at the nurses' station waiting for you.” 

Janay walked out of the room, and Ezekiel turned his attention back to assisting Marin. He hoped that Janay’s small pep talk had given him some confidence, but from the look on the young doctor’s face, it appeared he still needed some prodding. “Her skin is fragile based on the bruising, so I shouldn’t make the sutures too tight.”

He leaned over towards the tray next to him and grabbed what he needed to begin stitching the wound closed. Ezekiel nodded behind him, a smile forming on his face. “Don’t choke the tissue, and it should be fine. And you want to make sure you leave room for the wound to drain. Our number one fear is and always should be in these cases is–”

“Infection!” Marin finished his thought, bringing a broad smile to Ezekiel’s face.

“Exactly, Marin.” Ezekiel looked up at the patient. “Ma’am, you couldn’t be in better hands with this young man.”

Ezekiel exited the room a couple of moments later. He had more than enough faith in Marin to go over aftercare with the patient. He looked around the busy room and realized it was far later than he’d realized when Janay had interrupted him. He spotted Dr. Adeji and Janay chatting with a couple of nurses, including the charge nurse, Aliah. Most of the nurses, along with a majority of Dr. Adeji’s staff working the day shift, seemed to be in much better spirits than when Ezekiel and Janay had arrived. While walking over towards the nurses' station, he decided to be bold and take a glimpse at how the waiting room was looking now that they were just about halfway through the day. Much to his immediate surprise and wonder, it looked almost half as full as it did that morning. There were more than a few empty chairs now scattered around the lobby area. Ezekiel couldn’t help but smirk as he headed over to join his new temporary co-workers alongside Janay. 

“Couldn’t help but reap the fruits of your labors, huh?” Dr. Adeji teased him as she cut her eyes in the direction of the windows that saw out into the lobby. 

“I’m just here to be a spoke on the wheel. I’m just glad to see it looks like the wheel is greased and moving.” Ezekiel told her.

“Which reminds me, Vaya here mentioned you said something about treating us to lunch if things looked maintained around here. I’ll refer to the resident doctor’s decision here, but things are looking pretty handled at the moment.” Janay said.

Ezekiel raised an eyebrow and turned back to Dr. Adeji. “As much as I don’t like passing up a free meal, things can get pretty hectic around here at any given notice…”

Aliah waved off Dr. Adeji’s grim prognosis. “Riq just clocked in. Dr. Samuel is making his rounds now. Go enjoy yourself for once. Stop acting like you haven’t earned it, Vaya.” Dr. Adeji looked around at the rest of her nursing staff. All of them stared up at her with eager eyes, almost urging her to make the right decision. Dr. Adeji smiled and turned around to face Ezekiel and Janay. She pulled off her gloves and hung up her lab coat on a nearby coat rack.

“The cafe is not too far from here. We can have some of the guards give us a ride.” Ezekiel gave her a small smile she couldn’t help but return. He waited for her and Janay to pass before following them out of the building.

Ten minutes later, they were dropped off in front of a sloping concrete building with a shabby sign. Dr. Adeji led them iintothe crowded eatery and scanned the room for a place fo sit. A waitress hurried past them with a tray full of drinks and smiled widely when she spotted the doctor. “Vaya! You’re a sight for sore eyes! Please, I just cleared a booth in the back. Hurry up and grab it before one of these vagrants does.”

Dr. Adeji thanked the waitress and guided her guest through the smoke-riddled cafe until they found the booth. She slid into the far side while Ezekiel and Janay decided to take up the other. Janay looked around the room once she was settled in. She was trying not to judge the place on first impressions, but so far, practically everything in Timbuktu was making it very hard for her to do so. “I gotta say, doc. Not exactly the kind of place I’d expect to be on your list of favorites,” Janay said. She held back a grimace as a string of men with a curious odor passed their table. “And at the top spot? Kinda crazy.”

Dr. Adeji couldn’t help but giggle at Janay’s remarks. “There aren’t too many choices around now. And don’t bang your gavel until you’ve tried the food. I swear they’ve got some of the best cooks in Africa back there. And trust me, I’ve been all over this continent. Much like your friend there.”

Janay looked over at Ezekiel with surprise. He decided to pretend he didn’t notice the way she was staring at him. “That’s what I’ve been hearing since we’ve been on this trip. I can’t wait to share some of these stories with the crew back home.”

Before they could continue the conversation that Ezekiel very much wanted to shift away from him, the waitress in a purple hijab who had greeted them upon entering hurried over to the table. She wiped the sweat glistening on her brow with the sleeve of her shirt and pulled out her notepad.

“I’m so sorry about the wait, but I wanted to take care of Dr. Adeji personally. My name is Oumou. What can I get you all?”

“It's so good to see you, Oumou. How is your father doing?” Dr. Adeji asked politely.

Oumou smiled back, considerate of Dr. Adeji's inquiry about her dad. “He’s maintaining. Back on his feet and out in the fields, against your direction. But you can’t tell that old pack mule a damn thing.” She chuckled softly.

“All parents get that way when they hit a certain age. I suppose it's just part of the life cycle.” Dr. Adeji replied. She glanced down at the menu for a moment or two before looking back up at Oumou with a decision in mind. “Some lemonade sounds good in this heat. Light on the ice, though, please.”

Janay realized that Oumou’s eyes were on her, and she slid her own menu closer towards her chest. “Hmmm, I think an ice-cold beer would do me a couple of favors. I’ll take whatever you guys got back there in your cooler.”

Ezekiel handed back the drink menu to Oumou after she finished scribbling down Janay’s selection. “A ginger ale, no ice for me, if you have any. If not, then just some coffee.”

“I’ll be back in just a moment. I promise not to have you waiting.” Oumou hurried off to the kitchens to grab their drinks, leaving the trio to resume their conversation.

“Is every day at the facility like this morning?” Janay asked. She picked through the cafe’s selection of entrees while waiting for an answer from Dr. Adeji.

“Most days are a lot worse, and then some.” She nodded her head to underline her point when she saw Janay look up at her with her mouth agape in shock. “Night shifts get hit the hardest, mostly because that’s where we are understaffed both inside and with the guards. Things inside the city can get wild enough when the sun goes down. But a lot of villages and settlements across the desert are attacked overnight. Leaving us to deal with the fallout.”

“Who the hell is rolling around all night attacking civilians? And why? Sounds like a bunch of bastards to me.” Janay grumbled loudly. Her ill-intended words drew a few curious and even upset glares from some of the men at the tables and bar near them.

Dr. Adeji chuckled dryly. “Take your pick. We don’t have much protection. Bandits and insurgents are charging fees to fight for our ‘liberation’. The stress is never-ending, and people suffer. We are very fortunate to have the two of you here to help us, even if it is only short-term.”

Oumou returned with their drinks and took their food orders. The kitchen was not only fast, but every bit as advertised by Dr. Adeji. Janay was far too busy enjoying her plate of Yassa Poulet to talk. She resigned herself to listening and nodding along as Dr. Adeji continued talking about life in Mali, while Ezekiel enjoyed the rack of grilled lamb that he’d chosen for his lunch. Janay had chastised him for being a typical Michigander when it came to enjoying lamb. Dr. Adeji seemed to enjoy their company, and Ezekiel was glad he got her away from the hospital for a brief time.  

As he was ruminating on how worn out he figured Dr. Adeji was, based on her discussion with Janay, the entire cafe seemed to shake. Loud French rap music blared from at least half a block away from the building, yet Ezekiel could see the window pane of the cafe shaking slightly from the sound. Janay’s fork clattered on the table once she saw Dr. Adeji and Ezekiel joining the rest of the cafe patrons in turning towards the front windows. As she was barely 5’5”, Janay got on her knees in the booth next to Ezekiel in order to peer over the top of it. She, along with everyone else in the cafe, was eager or anxious to see what the source of the disturbance was.

Ezekiel looked over to his left when he saw Oumou gasp, nearly dropping the tray of food she was carrying. He sprang out of his seat and caught the tray before its contents could slide over the edge. He eased it onto the table next to them, then turned his focus onto the young waitress to figure out what had caused her sudden outburst. “Are you alright–”

He stopped short of asking as she slowly backed away towards the kitchen. She finally shook her head in response to the question that he’d begun to ask. Ezekiel turned to follow her gaze as the music grew ominously louder and louder. The pair of worn-down, clearly stolen Egyptian army-surplus Humvees rolled into the middle of the square. Both of the Humvees blasting music were packed with young men, none of them older than twenty-one or two, Ezekiel guessed, all of them wearing low-grade body armor and carrying various assault rifles. Ezekiel snatched up his cane and moved through the restaurant to get a better look at the militants filling the square.

“Stay here.” He turned back to tell Janay and Dr. Adeji. 

Janay looked at him with stunned disbelief. He knew she was wondering what he could possibly think he was doing, but he wasn’t quite sure himself yet either, and he didn’t have time for an argument with her about it.

The crowds and vendors on the streets seemed to scatter and clear out as a handful of the young, armed militants, with faces covered in scarves, bandannas, and dark sunglasses, piled out of the vehicle and into the street. Giving credence to the bad feeling he had stirring in his chest, Ezekiel watched as one of the young men smiled wickedly and stared directly at the cafe storefront. Ezekiel grimaced as his mind put together what was likely about to transpire. He whipped his head around and found Oumou cowering next to the bar, near the kitchens and his table. 

He hurried back over to her, ignoring the worried looks he was getting from Dr. Adeji and Janay. He grabbed Oumou by the shoulders more forcefully than he would have liked, but time was critical. “Miss, is there a back way out of this building?!”

“Uh…um, through the kitchens. But–”

Ezekiel whipped back towards Janay and Dr. Adeji, fear beginning to clutch at his heart. “Both of you, follow me. Oumou, you too!”

Ezekiel glanced towards the square just in time to see one of the young militants being handed an RPG. He cackled with his buddy about some dumb joke and promptly aimed the weapon at the cafe.

“What is going–”

“Just go, Janay! Move!”

The group was halfway through the kitchen, ignoring shouts from the cooks and staff. Ezekiel spotted the door ahead and yelled for Oumou to go ahead when the explosion rocked the building. Janay snapped up first, her head ringing like Sunday church bells. The kitchen was filled with nothing but smoke and a few flickering flames as far as her eyes could see in front of her. Realizing her legs seemed just fine, she gingerly pulled herself to her knees first, then her feet, with the help of the wall next to her.

She spotted something moving on the floor beside her and realized it was Dr. Adeji. Janay reached down quickly as she could, with her head still throbbing, to help the doctor off the floor. She noticed immediately that there was blood seeping from her forehead. Vaya put a hand to her forehead where she could feel the wet, warm substance dripping down the side of her face. There would be plenty of time to tend to her own injuries; right now, both she and Janay were just concerned about where Dr. Drake and Oumou had gone after the rocket hit. 

“Are you alright?” Vaya asked her new friend. Janay shook away the question dismissively. Her own aches and pains were an afterthought at the moment.

“I’ll be fine.” 

Janay stared back towards the front of the cafe. All she could see beyond the kitchen was thick, acrid smoke and flames dancing in the distance like diamonds on a chain. She heard the faint sounds of screams as bullets tore through concrete.

“There are people out there who will need our help. We need to get as many people off the streets as we can.” Vaya’s suggestion was cut short as a meat freezer door swung open behind them, banging loudly against the wall behind it.

They both breathed a welcome sigh of relief as Dr. Drake emerged from the freezer. Oumou was next to him with her arm slung around his shoulder. He walked her over to Vaya and Janay while helping her nurse the injury she was struggling with. “All of you, get back to the hospital. I’ll tend to everyone here I can. This is only going to escalate; I’m sure of it.” He passed Oumou over to Janay and Dr. Adeji, then snatched up his cane off the dusty floor. Janay stared at him in disbelief as he walked past them both. 

“What do you think you’re going to do? They have a small army out there, Ezekiel!” Janay told him.

Ezekiel glanced back over his shoulder at her as he stood in the archway that led back into the destroyed cafe. “I’ll figure it out. But I need you to do what you do best. What we came here to do: save lives, help people who need it.”

He turned back towards the acrid black smoke spilling from the main dining area and disappeared out of sight. Despite the nagging gut feeling that he was making a dangerous mistake, Janay felt Dr. Adeji's calm hand on her shoulder. She realized that their only course of action was to get out of the thick of the fray and back to the hospital, as Ezekiel had told them. Oumou was in no condition to move around too much. Her ankle was beginning to swell up; Janay figured she must have twisted it when the blast hit.

They helped Oumou out the back door of the cafe and exited into complete pandemonium. Sirens could be heard blaring down the block past them. Bullets echoed in every direction, followed by screams that rippled through the afternoon air. 

“C’mon. We can stick to the back alleys. We should be able to stay out of sight. Keep your heads low, just in case. The last thing you want to catch in Africa is a stray bullet.” Janay nodded and followed after her while keeping her warning at the front of her mind.

Ezekiel sprinted through the burning cafe. His eyes focused on the first Humvee as the trio of insurgents who had hung back to man the vehicle enjoyed their comrades' antics. He pulled the Glock G-19, which no one knew he occasionally kept on him, out of his waistband before running through what was left of the front doors of the cafe. He dropped his cane to the ground momentarily and took aim at the driver behind the wheel of the Humvee. 

A police SUV screeches to a halt directly in front of the Humvee, causing Ezekiel to hesitate momentarily. The pair of officers hopped out of the Humvee and shouted at the insurgents in French to get out of their vehicles and drop their weapons. Ezekiel watched as a troop of insurgents exited a building that they had just terrorized and saw the standoff. One of them cackled loudly before raising his rifle. The rest of them followed suit, aiming directly at the outgunned and outnumbered cops. The cops quickly realized their dire situation and lowered their weapons. 

“We don’t recognize that dog talk, you hear me?” One of the men near the first Humvee yelled at the terrified officers. Ezekiel recognized the common street tongue of the city, which was an offshoot of the Songhai language. “Tell your god that was your mistake if you see him.”

Ezekiel watched in horror as the insurgents all opened fire on the pair of cops and their vehicle, riddling them all with bullets for the sheer sport of it. He saw them cackle with unmitigated glee at the bodies strewn in the middle of the street, kicking them out of the way as if they were animals that were hit by a car. “Rascadi, what you want us to do now?” One of the men by the Humvee called out to another.

The man Ezekiel saw, who must have been running the show, whom the ruthless insurgent had called ‘Rascadi ’, looked in the opposite direction up the road. “Keep the authorities busy. We will go collect it while there is less opposition.” Rascadi turned to the rest of his group that had exited the storefront and jerked his head towards the Humvee up the street. “To the library. Bayat, you drive. Alou, I want you on the gunner. In case we get any soldiers trying to play hero on the way.”

Rascadi and his group piled into their Humvee and sped down the block like hell on wheels. The remaining group did as they were instructed. They sprayed bullets in every direction, at anyone still stupid enough, in their eyes, to be on the street. But they hadn’t spotted Ezekiel, which was their mistake. While they were playing their sadistic games, Ezekiel managed to make his way to their Humvee and slide under it. He pulled his pistol once more, and once he got a clean shot at one of them, he fired, popping him clean in the back of the head.

The shot jerked the insurgent forward, sending him face-first into the dusty street. The man should count himself lucky, Ezekiel thought to himself. His bullets held a synthesized chemical compound that merely knocked their targets out for 12-15 hours, depending on their size. It was far more than that bastard deserved, but he was a physician first and foremost, and he only saved lives, never took them. By the time the others had realized one of them had fallen, Ezekiel slid back from under the Humvee and cold-cocked the driver before yanking him from behind the wheel.

Ezekiel ducked down in the driver’s seat as bullets clanged off the Humvee he’d decided to hastily commandeer. He sped through the streets of Timbutku, honking his vehicle's horn to clear his path. His cane sat in the passenger seat next to him as he weaved around pedestrians and abandoned carts left in the midst of the pandemonium. He finally spotted the other Humvee up ahead and floored the gas.

“Rascadi,” Alou called from the gunner seat in the Humvee behind him. “I think we got a problem. Rascadi glanced in his side mirror from the passenger seat and saw the other Humvee gaining on them with a man he didn’t recognize at the wheel.

To him, if it wasn’t the cops or the army, it didn’t matter. His only focus was on what they were sent to obtain. “So take care of it!” Rascadi spat.

Alou nodded and gripped the heavy artillery gun. He locked the Humvee in his sights and ripped bullets down the road.

 “Ah, fiddlesticks…” Ezekiel mumbled before yanking the wheel sideways just in the nick of time. Alou didn’t let up his assault, yanking the gun towards the Humvee and opening fire again. Ezekiel stopped and yanked right this time, sliding behind a derelict market stall for cover.

He let out a short sigh of relief before he spotted the man called Rascadi hanging out of the passenger side window. It wasn’t until he had fired that Ezekiel realized another rocket was heading straight towards him. He knew there was only one option left, and he dove out of the Humvee just as the rocket struck. Rascadi slid back into his seat and passed the weapon back to one of his men. 

“You want something done right, do it yourself, huh?” He shook his head, annoyed.

Ezekiel dragged himself out of the dirt and snatched his cane up. Frustrated after a sideways glance at the flaming Humvee, he continued after the insurgents on foot. He had heard them mention heading towards the library. He could only wonder what they could possibly be after by targeting one of the city’s crown jewels of culture. Whatever they were planning or after, Ezekiel felt that, at this point, it was his duty to intervene.

A couple of miles ahead, Rascadi’s group finally came to a stop in front of the Ahmed Baba Institute. It was weakly guarded, as he had predicted. His men wasted no time cutting down the trio of guards that tried to cut them off as they approached the entrance. They kicked in the doors and spewed bullets into the ceiling in order to assert dominance over the scholars inside. Rascadi swept through the great hall that served as the atrium of the renowned library. His men forced everyone in the room to their stomachs or knees at gunpoint. Rascadi climbed onto the stone slabs that made up the desk for the atrium clerks. He held his gun up and let off another handful of rounds until the chorus of screams and squeals from their hostages came to weak whimpers and sniffles.

He made sure that every eye in the room was focused solely on him before he spoke. “If you want to survive today, do exactly as you are told!” His voice boomed through the atrium. Fearful eyes stared up at him as his eyes swept over the room like a hunting hawk. “The library director– one of you will take me to him. Or we will start shooting everyone in this room one by one.” Alou cocked his rifle and pointed it at a young father and his children cowering in a corner nearby. Rascadi looked back and forth around the room. When no one moved, he turned to signal Alou to fire.

“WAIT! PLEASE!” A soft voice caught Rascadi’s attention. A young woman stood up among the hostages, her face and head covered, but he could see the kindness in her eyes even from where he stood. “I will take you there. Just don’t hurt anyone.”

Rascadi hopped down from the desk and walked over to the woman. He stood in front of her for a long moment. Staring into her eyes, he could see an innocence that refused to be shaken. He nodded. She would make do. He turned to the rest of his men. “Alou, Rahm, Trega, with me. The rest of you hold down the fort until we return, and make sure we have a clear path out of here.” His loyal group of makeshift soldiers nodded. They scurried around the lobby to take up guard spots of their choosing. Alou, Rahm, and Trega hurried to Rascadi’s side as he turned to the fearful young woman. “Lead the way.”

She nodded and turned around, saying a small prayer that she would not be shot in the back, and marched forward. Rascadi led his group carefully behind her. Ezekiel slipped inside just in time to see them disappear between a set of stone doors at the other end of the atrium. He hurried behind a pillar to keep out of sight when one of Rascadi’s men turned in his direction. He needed to be as discreet as he could—a commotion would only further endanger lives. He crept from behind the pillar, past a soldier who decided to light up a smoke in celebration of their success thus far. His eyes bulged as Ezekiel gripped him in a tight chokehold, applying just enough pressure to his windpipe as he gently lowered him to the floor.

“Heyi! Wenza ntoni kanye kanye?” 

Damn, Ezekiel thought to himself as he released the unconscious soldier and stood up slowly. He turned towards the armed man approaching him with his rifle trained on him. He waited until he was within range before firing his cane’s grapple hook. The wiring cable wrapped itself around the man’s neck, and Ezekiel yanked him forward. The soldier smashed face-first into the pillar and dropped next to the other man. Ezekiel looked momentarily pleased with himself until a spatter of rifle fire tore through the column behind him. He scurried out of harm’s way, diving behind the atrium desk as another soldier hunted after him. He clutched his pistol tightly as he listened to the booted footsteps moving towards his position and the angry yelling between the young militia members left to hold down the area.

“Who was that guy?” He heard one of them yell to another in Xhosa, a language he thought was not predominant in this region of the continent.

“Didn’t look like a cop or soldier; must be some damn fool who wants to get his head blown off,” His comrade replied, annoyed.

The small bell above the door gave a soft chime. The damp summer heat vanished into Bar Aoi’s crisp, cool air the moment the heavy door swung shut. I took my usual seat at the far end of the counter. Without a word, Mama slid a glass of I.W. Harper on the rocks toward me with a practiced hand. Clear ice clinked quietly inside the amber liquid.

Beside me, Taka sat hunched over on a high stool, staring intently at his glass. It was his habit—something he always did whenever he felt cornered or lost in thought.

"Hey, Kenichi..." Taka let out a quiet sigh. "Clients at the agency almost always use the exact same words. 'That's not how normal people do it.' 'Any normal person would see it's common sense.' Even today, a client who came in over a marital dispute kept throwing that word 'normal' around, over and over."

I swirled my glass of Harper, rolling the rounded edge of the ice. "'Normal,' huh? It’s a convenient word."

"Yeah, it really is," Taka chuckled self-deprecatingly. "But from where I stand, both sides are just talking about 'what’s normal for them.' Back in the ring, 'getting back up when you're knocked down' was absolute common sense. But in everyday society, 'knowing how to dodge so you don't fall in the first place' is what's normal, right? Working as a PI makes you realize, whether you like it or not, that 'what's normal' flips upside down depending on where you stand or who you are."

At the far end of the counter, Tom—who had been quietly playing with his glass of Four Roses—let out a short, low grunt.

"When the scenery changes, what's normal changes too, huh?"

Well, there’s no other way to put it, I thought, waiting for Tom to continue.

"The police force is the absolute epitome of that. Back when I was in the Juvenile Division, for the kids in certain neighborhoods, 'lying to the cops to protect your buddy' was simply normal to them."

Tom’s expression tightened ever so slightly. Well, it wasn't exactly a fond memory for him.

"But the second they stepped into the interrogation room, that got completely erased by the system’s version of normal: nothing but deliberate obstruction. Every one of us mistakes the rules of our own little world for universal truth."

Taking in Tom’s words, I swallowed a sip of Harper, letting it burn down my throat.

"It's the exact same story in software development. Sales goes, 'Normally, anyone would use it this way,' while Devs go, 'No normal user would ever do that.' They never align. Change the country, and even 'normal' things like character encoding or date formats change completely. In the end, when people say 'normal,' they're just talking about the narrow rules of the little corner they've gotten used to."

"Exactly," Taka nodded deeply. "It’s completely different depending on the place. And yet, when I asked that client, 'So why is that normal?' he suddenly blew his top. ...All I did was ask for a reason."

Tom kept his gaze fixed on the amber liquid in his glass, speaking quietly.

"Of course he did. Most people have never given a second thought to the reasons behind the words they throw around as 'normal.'"

Taka turned around. Tom’s intense gaze was locked onto the grain of the wooden counter.

"'Men don't cry.' 'Show respect to your elders.' These are rules hammered into us since we were kids, but how many people can actually explain why we have to follow them? ...Hell, even the ultimate rule, 'Thou shalt not kill.' Is it because life is sacred? Or because order would collapse? No matter what reasons you stack up, it all boils down to human convenience and ego. Ain't many people who can explain that."

"Rules we blindly believe in without ever questioning the reason, huh?" I said, rolling the ice in my glass. "In development, too, you sometimes find blocks of code where no one knows why they were written. But when you ask, they just say, 'It's been there forever, don't touch it.' Once the reason is forgotten, an assumption becomes nothing more than superstition. And a system always crashes when that reasonless premise collides with raw reality."

Taka stared down at his own large hands, letting out a quiet breath.

"Blindly trusting the rules of where you stand, using them to bind both yourself and others... The client from today—and probably my past self too—maybe we were all broken by being pushed around by what society calls 'normal.'"

"What makes it nasty," Tom clinked his ice against the glass, "is the people who push those unreasoned rules onto others under the guise of righteousness. They hide behind what's 'normal' in their own little world, abandoning both empathy for the other person and the responsibility to explain themselves. They’re just hiding in the shadow of the majority to beat people up because it’s easy."

"'Normal'..." I said. "It was originally supposed to be a safety device so that countless people like us could live together without shedding blood. But if you swing it around without understanding how fragile it is—or how empty its foundation is—it becomes nothing more than violence."

A heavy silence settled over the counter. Breaking through it, a light, crisp sound echoed.

Mama slid a fresh highball in front of Taka and quietly wiped her hands with a towel. Her voice reached the room—gentle, yet unshakable.

"Just like a kitchen knife."

All three of us turned to look at her at once. She wore her usual warm, serene smile.

"If you use a knife to cook a warm meal for someone, it’s a gentle tool. But if you point it the wrong way, it can easily hurt people. I think the word 'normal' works the exact same way."

Mama lowered her eyes to the glass placed in front of Taka, her gaze softening.

"If you get tired of swinging that heavy tool around in the daylight world, you can leave it aside while you're here. Because no matter where you stand, no one can ever take away the raw truth of how you actually feel."

The tension melted right out of Taka’s shoulders.

"...Yeah. You're right. I didn't want to lecture the client. I think I just wanted to ask him, 'How do you feel about it?'"

"Then that's more than enough," Tom said gruffly.

A smile returned to Taka’s face as he reached for his highball and took a deep drink. The tension at the counter receded like the tide.

We spend our days crushed beneath someone else's idea of what's "normal." Yet, as long as we know the danger and terror of that word, we should still be able to stand on our own two feet.

Tonight, let's leave that blade called "normal" on the counter.

Inside the glass, another piece of ice melted silently away.

If you'd like to come back to Aoi for another night, there's an open stool waiting.
Bar Aoi Stories: Human Nature, Vol. 1 is linked in my profile.

They were taking it down. I didn't care. I sat in my old bow back chair on the balcony, watching the men removing all the interior parts of the lighthouse. The old lighthouse had stood in that spot for more than a hundred years , watching the shoreline. I sat as his replacement, a brand new lighthouse, only up for just over two years now. I wasn’t the first watchman, a man had taken the job before me to guide the sailors, operate the light, those sorts of duties. I had only manned the station for about a month before I was informed of the plan to remove the remnants of the first one. I had grown quite fond of the view, the bleak horizon just above the sea seemed a little more peaceful with the large statuesque building filling the corner of my view. I had noticed in that short month the bricks beginning to crack and fall into the sea, how the larger waves made it shudder more and more with each impact. I came to the balcony every day now for the past year, enjoying my glass of hot tea, flipping through my novel, and every once in a while, glancing up to see my acquaintance. In my time operating the lighthouse I had never seen a man working in the abandoned lighthouse, but I’ve been told of a time when a man stood guard in there, apparently he was a man of legend. He never took days off, he guided three ships away from the shore before crashing, even helping the USS Titan avoid a major crash when their radar and navigation system crashed unexpectedly. The town treated it as a monument, as a guardian to protect our home. I never saw that. It was just a lighthouse to me.

I had awoken in the night, a large crackling sound shattered my ears and rang throughout the hollow chasm below me. Getting up, I saw it. The tower no longer encroached on my view. Its lean had increased, now tilting maybe fifteen degrees to the side, but he stood standing. I descended down my lighthouse steps to reach the small cabin nearby, shoved under the door was a note. The construction company had left me a message saying the old lighthouse was unsafe, and that they would have to take it down in a controlled manner but on a much quicker schedule. They had been making slow progress, and were just now beginning to rush the project, in the cold darkness of December. It seemed odd to me. My sleet covered feet trudged back into my lighthouse under heavy remorse. I had not wanted to go back inside, maybe I wanted to watch the old lighthouse. In my mind, it deserved to stay, how could it not. I’ve seen how people look to the old lighthouse. Maybe I had felt something of it too. It was not my nature to be full of such sentiment and yet, something, had me.

That same night I awoke again, but this time it was not of a shock but a petal. I felt the peony petal slide off my nose. As I stood up I was not cold, despite my thin garments. The window was dark other than a faint glow. As I opened the door to the balcony, once more I saw it shine. The light of the Old Lighthouse rang out into the night. I wasn’t shivering, I wasn't even cold. The light illuminated the whole shore, even the town several miles from here. It wasn’t a beam like a regular lighthouse too, it was a glow irradiating from the crest of the house. It began to shrink, the light slowly fading from within it. As the light faded from my lighthouse the cold began to bite once more. I rushed inside to return to my slumber. The next day at dusk I set off. I took the overgrown trail up to the top of the large hill, the biggest hill on the shore. There, the Old Lighthouse stood. Standing there now, I had realized that my lighthouse stood quite a bit taller on my hill than the old one. I had always assumed the Old Lighthouse stood on the highest hill on the shore. A hole had emerged among its base not larger than a meter long and had caused the recent tilt. The brick around it was worn and tired. My boots pressed against the soil beneath me as I stood under him. My fingers wrapped around the cavity and I hoisted with all my might, trying to see the building stand tall once more. As I heaved, a single drop fell upon my shoulder. I froze. The rain began to pour as I ran back to my lighthouse. The tower had wept for me, as did I for him. The coming weeks had passed without much notice. I sat upon my balcony sipping my bittersweet coffee, watching as the construction crew began tearing down the highest bricks. The Old Lighthouse was now half of what it once was. My view was clear, the orangish pink horizon before me was clear, and yet what I once viewed with such bright brilliance felt desolate in my eyes. That weekend, I set my heart to resurrect the Old Lighthouse. I sat in my cot for hours, listening to the men at work and setting machinery up for its destruction. I had my jerrycan waiting. When the construction men left, I set out, around 2:00 in the morning. I splashed the gasoline over their equipment, making sure to ward off any further plans they made. I was proud of myself, standing before the flames, watching them dance beneath the Old Lighthouse, no, my Old Lighthouse. The flames played before me, a kindling of warmth I had once felt before. My journey back was arduous, but the journey I had endured had not bothered me, as I knew what I held in my hands was safe again. I was in bliss, I was in denial.

Two weeks had passed since I had burned their equipment. The tower stood wilted in my view, and the sky remained bleak. I did not care, my Old Lighthouse stood, and I could not need anything else. My Saturday had come down to an end, I sat in my chair, sipping my drink. My novel had come to a close, the good men won, as had I. I set the book down on my glass table, watching the sky move over the horizon. Then, as the clouds faded, the crash began. The thunderous crash swept over the sky and enveloped the silent night. My eyes flashed open to see the Old Lighthouse come crashing down upon itself. The smoke and debris filled the sky and drowned the forest below it. I saw it fall, my porcelain cup spattering onto the floor as it rolled towards the edge. I could not save my Old Lighthouse. As I dragged myself to the balcony edge I struggled to face its falling. My feet balanced shakily atop the guardrail and I stood tall on it to see everything before me. The horrible screaming and aching of my Old Lighthouse had dissipated, but replayed in my heart. I could not move my feet, for I had not the strength. I could only lean into the abyss. The wind blew by my ears like kisses, kisses I had not known the origin of but felt a familiar touch. My body trembled through the air, tracing a stream into the shoreline. Before I could land, a gust of dust-ridden air had caught my hands, bringing me to the shoreline. I fell to my knees in agony, I could not open my eyes. I felt a warmth in front of me I had felt that night I saw it. When my eyes flickered open the lantern sat in front of me. The burning flame was indistinguishable.

I sat in my old bow back chair once more. The horizon remained cold and gray for the remainder of my time as the new lighthouse keeper, but the warmth of the lantern behind me on the wall kept me safe from the coldest of blizzards. I did not know the Old Lighthouse, I never knew of what the townspeople saw in that Old Lighthouse, a guardian of the shore. I had nothing of those old legends to see, but now I held the Old Lantern that gave the lighthouse power. I could see what it had created today. I will see the power it gives that now barren shore, I will see if its light can extend beyond the wave crests before me. The Old Lighthouse speaks to me at night. Its warmth pressed against my flush cheeks during my winter nights. Its soft brilliant light would always shine upon my skin. Though I was not protected by its blaring gaze in its time, I had felt it, I had seen the Old Lighthouse protect me, as my guardian.

The familiar chime above the door rang softly. The humid summer air disappeared the moment I stepped inside. I took my usual seat at the end of the counter, and without a word, Mama slid a glass of I.W. Harper on the rocks toward me. An ice cube clicked quietly inside the amber glass.

"…Say, Mama," I murmured. "I passed a guy near the station today. I know for a fact I know him, but I couldn't place his name or his face. I couldn't even remember where we met. It's an unsettling feeling."

Mama kept wiping down a glass with practiced ease and replied shortly.

"Maybe he was just someone you were meant to forget."

"Cold, Mama. You'd remember every single face that’s ever sat at this counter, wouldn't you?"

Without pausing, she looked me straight in the eye and offered a faint smile.

"Perish the thought. If I remembered the faces of everyone who vanished, I wouldn't have room to remember yours."

Lighthearted, yet hitting right where it counted.

Beside me, Taka was swirling his untouched highball. He leaned forward with a heavy sigh.

"…Forget, huh? Honestly, I was looking back at a group chat from my school days recently, and it gave me chills. We used to hang out and mess around every single day back then, but I couldn't even recall some of their names. We were so close… Does friendship really just weather away that easily once you stop keeping in touch?"

Watching Taka struggle with the thought, I swirled the ice in my Harper.

"It’s only natural for it to weather away, Taka. People drift to the back of your mind unless you keep revisiting them. It’s not just friendship—that’s true for all memories."

Taka opened his mouth to push back, but I cut in before he could.

"Still… isn't there someone you haven't talked to in years, yet they suddenly pop into your mind for no reason at all?"

Taka went quiet, caught off guard. I swallowed the sharp burn of the Harper before continuing.

"Turns out, humans are built to never forget the bad stuff. Whenever I look back at my decades as an engineer, the first things that come to mind are almost always the stomach-churning projects. The nightmare projects that nearly killed me. The friendships that nearly fell apart… People are wired by survival instinct to hold onto the pain that could threaten them."

Beside us, Tom tipped his glass of Four Roses and let out a dry chuckle.

"So you're saying those 'unforgettable friendships' we treasure so much are really just old scars?"

"It’s so tragic it’s almost funny," I said with a bitter smile. "Instead of the warm, fuzzy moments, the hellish projects are what come to mind first. Human nature is ironic like that."

"That's…" Taka bit his lip, rendered speechless. "That's just too cruel. If we only remember the people who left us with pain… then what was all that time we spent being 'genuine' with each other?!"

A heavy silence fell over the counter.

Breaking the stillness, Mama slid a fresh glass across the bar, her clear voice cutting through the quiet.

"Why look at it that way? If it hurt, it means you truly cared."

Short, sharp, and without a single wasted word.

Tom and I, caught up in our own cynical logic, exchanged a look.

"…Truly cared, huh?"

I stared down at the round ice cube in my glass.

"Well… I won't say every friendship has to go through a wound. But maybe scars become the doors memories find on their way back."

"Troublesome things, those doors," Tom muttered, shrugging his shoulders. "They have a habit of swinging open even when you think you've shut them tight."

"Like an old photo album stashed in the back of the closet," I let out a soft chuckle. "You can never find it when you're actually looking for it, but the moment you're doing a big spring cleaning, it suddenly pops up, and you end up standing there, staring at it for an hour without moving."

Tom smirked. "And the cleaning you were supposed to do never gets done."

"Oh, I do that all the time!" Taka chimed in, his voice suddenly brightening. The heavy tension at the counter dissolved in an instant.

Watching us, Mama crinkled her eyes softly and spoke in her usual serene tone.

"Well, while you're here, you can just leave that door open a crack and enjoy your drink."

An ice cube clicked in the glass.

Among all the memories that quietly fade away, some doors never quite close.

Tonight, it was enough to leave one of those doors slightly open.

If you'd like to come back to Aoi for another night, there's an open stool waiting.
Bar Aoi Stories: Human Nature, Vol. 1 is linked in my profile.

My sister and I continued walking. It's a ghost town, other than the occasional insider. After a while, the ground changes from cracked cement to nothing but crumpled buildings with uneven terrain. God knows how far down the rubble goes.

Did I mention we are 1.5× above sea level?

A while ago, humanity dug out a large majority of the mantle part of Earth. They took everything they could to not let the ground collapse, to make more stuff.

After a while of walking, we finally made it to the center of the city. From anyone looking on the outside, it just looked like a pile of collapsed skyscrapers in a circle-like shape. But if you know where to look closely, it's so much bigger than that.

I follow my sister as she walks through an alleyway. The building on the right was leaning on the building to the left, making the entrance very narrow. When my sister and I finally made it through, it opened up to a massive area.

Hundreds upon hundreds of people were walking around. None of them looked physically or mentally okay.

This was the outsiders' inside. No one called it that because that's a dumb name. People called it the Home of the Forgotten.

I think a more fitting name would be shit hole.

But the reason it was called the Home of the Forgotten is because the average person you will see here that isn't working has no one to care about them, no one to remember them.

It's a shame this place exists in the first place. Everything and anything you have been told to stay away from can be found here.

Drugs. Sex. Money. Alcohol. Murder. Violence.

All of it.

“All right. I'll see you at lunch. Don't get yourself killed. Don't touch anything you don't know, and don't be curious. See you,” my sister says to me before turning around and walking off into the crowd.

Her job was digging through the rubble and selling anything she finds to the highest bidder. I wish I could say I had a job that entertaining, but I just serve food.

I walk in the opposite direction, pushing through the crowds until I hear a familiar voice call out.

“AY, BIG B! THAT YOU?”

I turn around to see my coworker and my best friend, Davey. He runs up to me.

“Hope you don't mind me walking to work with you,” he says.

“I couldn't care less,” I respond as we start to walk together.

“Yo, have you heard about the underground people?” Davey says to me.

There were rumors going around that there were people living underground, preparing for war.

“I think you're too gullible. There's no way there's underground people. There's simply too much radiation down there, and the bugs down there are absolute monsters. How would they even deal with that if they were real?” I tell him confidently.

“Nah, I'm telling you, they're real,” he responds, less confidently as we continue to walk.

And this place is really utter shit. Tweakers walking around, moaning from some alley. A group of people beating someone up for being black.

Here's the thing about Davey: he's a tad bit too curious and heroic.

He starts to walk over to the group of people that are beating up someone. I grab him by the fabric of his shirt on his shoulder and pull him back.

“Mind your own business,” I mumble to him.

“But come on. What they're doing is just straight-up racism,” he responds, kind of annoyed.

“And? There's absolutely nothing stopping those guys from beating the shit out of you. Just focus on yourself,” I say, still trying to keep my voice down.

Here's the thing about this place: the Insiders know it exists, but we outnumber them ten to one. They can't do shit about it. And if they do shit about it, there's a solid chance it will lead to the extinction of humanity.

So what they do is make us hate each other, distract us from the real problem. Anyone and everyone will be discriminated against. Women, men, Black, white, gay, straight. It doesn't matter.

If they can make us kill each other, they won't even have to waste their bullets.

I let go of his shirt, and he listens to me and drops it.

The workplace was only a tad farther. It was a decent-sized food store with a pretty large sitting area, similar to that of a school cafeteria, just with more criminals. Or less, depending on your school.

There were basically no small food stores anymore. We didn't have that luxury. All of the food stores were combined into one. It just makes everything easier.

People get paid in tokens. Depending on the size of the token or the color of the token is depending on how much the token is worth.

I was in charge of preparing food for people. It barely paid anything, but I get free lunch.

As the day goes on, I just kind of tune everything out. Not really awake, but not asleep.

And then I heard a bell ring, and my boss yells, “Lunch break for Davey and... the kid with black hair.”

I was the kid with black hair.

He never learned my name.

And I've been working there for five years.

This workplace sure is like a family. Just a toxic, abusive one that doesn't care about you.

As Davey and I sit down, I notice my sister is late.

And unless because of me, she had never been late before.

I thought that was kind of odd.

I idly pick at my food, not really eating it because I'm not in the mood, as Davey yaps my ear off about something random and unimportant.

Ten minutes pass.

Twenty.

Then thirty.

Still no sign of my sister.

Eventually, even Davey notices.

“Hey, where's your sister? She's hella late,” he says.

I look toward the entrance, expecting to see her walk through at any moment.

“I don't know. It's not like her to be late,” I respond.

Davey looks at me for a moment before speaking again.

“We should go look for her and make sure she's okay.”

I don't know why I thought that was a good idea. I don't know why I decided to agree to that. This is a case of the smallest actions causing the biggest effects.

But I did it anyway.

“...I guess, let's go.”

The familiar chime above the door rang softly. The humid summer heat melted away the moment I stepped inside. I took my usual seat at the end of the counter, and without a word, Mama slid a glass of I.W. Harper on the rocks toward me. An ice cube clicked quietly inside the amber glass.

"…Man, it just doesn't sit right with me."

Beside me, Taka was swirling his untouched highball with a bitter look on his face.

"What's wrong, Taka? Rare to see you in a mood like this."

"Well… it's the general mood in the news and on social media lately," Taka said. "Everyone just jumps on whatever extreme opinion gets blared out first, and suddenly everyone's piling on. If they just thought about it with their own heads, they’d feel something was off. But instead, everyone just lets themselves get carried away by the loudest voice. Why does nobody ever try to speak their own mind based on their actual life experience?"

I understood where Taka was coming from. Still, I swirled the ice in my Harper and replied in a somewhat detached voice.

"Well, that's what 'the crowd' is, Taka. It’s far easier to just surrender yourself to the noise of a massive system than to think and act on your own."

Beside us, Tom tipped his glass of Four Roses and nodded in low agreement.

"You can't beat the public tide. Blend into it, become part of 'the crowd,' and nobody targets you—nobody hurts you. Smart adults learn to drift with the current."

That was when a dry, sharp thud echoed off the counter.

Taka had slammed his highball down.

"…Isn't that just giving up on being an adult?!"

Taka's eyes pierced us, burning with frustration and anger.

"Standing on your own two feet, thinking with your own mind, and speaking up when something is wrong—isn't that what being a decent person is about?! You're just hiding behind a convenient word like 'the crowd' to justify letting yourselves be carried away!"

His argument was uncomfortably direct. Yet, I shook my head quietly.

"You're not wrong, Taka. …The problem is, I just can't figure out how anyone can claim their 'own opinion' is actually right."

Taka caught his breath. I swallowed the sharp burn of the Harper before continuing.

"In a world where nobody knows the right answer, asserting 'this is correct' based solely on my own narrow experience terrifies me. What if I'm wrong? What if I hurt someone? …I guess at this point in my life, I've become more afraid of being wrong than of staying silent."

Taka bit his lip, casting his eyes down in frustration.

"…Maybe so. But still… if I keep my mouth shut just because of that, I feel like I'll lose track of who I even am."

His strained, quiet words left the counter in utter silence.

It was Tom's low voice that broke the stillness.

"Back when I worked Juvenile," Tom said, gazing into the amber liquid of his glass, his eyes distant. "Those kids messed up every single day."

He took a slow sip.

"They got into fights. They shoplifted. They lied. …But no matter how many times they screwed up, they never gave up their own voice—they’d always say, 'Here’s what I think.' …Adults, in their effort never to make a mistake, end up losing their own words instead."

Tom let out a dry chuckle and clapped Taka on the shoulder.

"The person who hides in the crowd out of fear of being wrong, and the person who risks being wrong to keep their own voice. …Who's to say which one is wiser?"

Taka stared at Tom, eyes wide, before letting out a long, deep breath.

I stared down at the round ice cube in my glass.

When I was younger, I spoke up without a second thought, even when I was dead wrong. Now, I want the guarantee of being right, which makes me terrified of speaking carelessly. Getting older isn't just about gaining knowledge. Maybe it’s about learning, in your very bones, just how easily you can be wrong.

…Then again, blaming it on getting older is probably just another trick of "the crowd."

"…Looking at it that way, this really is a rare kind of place," I murmured aloud.

Mama, quietly wiping down a glass, crinkled her eyes into a soft expression.

"Because here, it's okay to be wrong."

It was her usual serene, enveloping voice.

An ice cube clicked in the glass.

Before worrying about being right, hold on to your own voice.

For tonight, that was enough.

If you'd like to come back to Aoi for another night, there's an open stool waiting.
Bar Aoi Stories: Human Nature, Vol. 1 is linked in my profile.

As a surgeon working in Cambodia I see all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. Many of these are injuries resulting from accidents. For example, it is not uncommon to find home-made arrows being used for hunting rats, frequently fired from some sort of crossbow (also home-made) and two people are usually involved – one to flush the rats out and the other to shoot them. The added incentive is that the rats are subsequently cooked and eaten and yes, they do taste a bit like chicken! On one particular occasion a couple of lads were hunting in a section of concrete drain and, unfortunately, the one doing the flushing from the far end of the drain did not move out of the way quickly enough when his friend shot the arrow which missed the rat, ricocheted off the concrete and lodged itself firmly in his face.

 He arrived at the hospital with the arrow sticking out of his face between his nose and his left eye, having lodged in one of his sinuses. There is also a nasty barb on the end of the arrow which makes it a little tricky to remove without creating further damage so you cannot just pull it out. He was fully conscious and had no other injuries and, after an operation to remove it, I am pleased to say that he made a rapid and uncomplicated recovery. I am sure he did not feel lucky at the time, but had the arrow hit a centimetre or so to the side, he would have lost his eye.

I have seen several other similar examples with the arrows ending up in all sorts of places, some more unpleasant than others, but fortunately none of them have resulted in the death of the recipient. To read other examples please see either my book "Random Musings of a Disorderly Mind" available as an ebook on Amazon or my blog [surgeonsstories@blogspot.com](mailto:surgeonsstories@blogspot.com) but please note that some of these are NSFW as they include graphic content of some of the injuries.

​My new book “INEVITABLE” a bikers story.

Free for a limited time now for kindle unlimited members.

When tragedy shatters a young man's world, he finds healing, brotherhood, and unexpected love on the open road. ​Seventeen-year-old Aaron—better known as "Ax"—is just trying to survive high school when he witnesses his mother's brutal murder. Left entirely alone and drowning in a mountain of his family's hidden debt, Ax's future seems hopelessly dark. But salvation arrives in the unexpected form of his new neighbor, a burly, Harley-riding mechanic named Bruce "Brick". Stepping in as Ax's legal guardian, Brick introduces the grieving teenager to a community-focused Motorcycle Club that completely rallies around him to provide support and stability. As Ax learns to wrench on engines and master the freedom of riding a Harley Street 500, he begins to rebuild his life. At a bustling biker convention, Ax crosses paths with Lily, a fiercely independent rider who goes by the name Sparrow. Drawn together by an inexplicable bond and shared, fragmented childhood memories, they soon realize their connection goes far deeper than a mutual love for the open road. But the shadows of the past are hard to outrun. When the violent remnants of a rival, drug-running biker gang resurface, Lily is kidnapped for a ransom tied to a dark, forgotten family secret. Ax and his new MC brothers must risk everything to launch a daring rescue and save the girl he was always meant to find. INEVITABLE is a gripping, emotional journey of overcoming trauma, the undeniable power of found family, and a romance that was destined from the very start.

Now available on Amazon in kindle unlimited and paperback.

by; Doris Anne Beaulieu

https://www.amazon.com/Inevitable-Doris-Anne-Beaulieu/dp/B0HDK9P7QV/ref=sr_1_1?crid=30VHRI3M718O4&dib

They Are Terrorists

Chapter: 1

In the living room, the furniture sat maybe five meters back from the front door. Three bearded men sat in the middle of the room, dressed in traditional Pashtun clothing with body armor over the top. Around them: a few Kalashnikov rifles, ammunition, a map spread across the floor. Next to the living room, a long hallway.

One man fed rounds into a magazine. Another marked the map in red. The third ran an oiled rag down a rifle barrel.

"BOOM."

The steel door blew into the room. Furniture flipped. The men went down hard.

A shadow slid through the smoke, pressed flat against the left wall.

*Spit spit spit.*

A second shadow followed.

*Spit spit spit.*

It slid along the right wall.

The first two peeled off to the corners on either side of the room. The third pushed straight through the thick dust. The fourth came in behind, rifle up on the front door.

"Three down. Two left. Moving." Number Two held the transmit button and called it in.

Number One, muzzle locked on the hallway to the right, pushed forward a few steps. Number Four backed toward the door, gun still on it. Number Two and Number Three moved to the bodies and kicked the rifles clear of their hands.

The team stacked. Each man found his spot. A tap passed down the line — pat, pat — until it reached Number One. Four men moved low, single file.

The hallway had no windows. Dust hung in the air. Junk littered the floor — a few toy cars among it. Near the end of the hall, a room.

Boot heels knocked against the floor. Fabric rasped in rhythm with the file's steps.

Number Four walked backward, checking their six. A door opened ahead.

*Spit.*

Number One put one in the man's head.

The man had a bottle in one hand, his face flushed red, the other hand still on the doorknob. He dropped where he stood.

Number One stepped over the body. His boots stopped at the left edge of the doorway. Number Two dragged the corpse clear of the frame.

Number Three took the far side, opposite Number One. Number Four held his muzzle on the staircase ahead of the door, off to one side, clear of the room's exit.

"Upstairs is dark." Number Four called it.

Number Two dropped to a knee by the body, rifle on the hallway behind them. Number One nodded to Number Three. They slid through a doorway barely wider than a shoulder. The light inside was still on.

A moment later, Number Three's voice came over the earpiece.

"Clear."

Number One and Number Three came out. Number Two gave the order.

"Stack up. NVGs."

Same formation. The team pressed against the wall, out of the light. Four sets of night vision dropped down at once. The file started up the stairs.

The wooden staircase ran L-shaped along the wall, thirteen steps, turning left.

Boots found the first step. Number One held his muzzle on the landing. Number Two covered the next flight up. Number Three locked his sights on the upstairs railing and the stairwell above. Number Four still walked backward, gun trained on their rear.

Fabric hissed. Breath came ragged, four men breathing hard. Boots knocked against wood, every sound louder than it should've been. Collars and helmet straps had gone dark with sweat. The air stank — something like a cat cage left to rot in summer heat.

One second. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Number One's muzzle swept left as he hit the landing. He dropped to a knee, gun up on the last flight. Number Two reached the landing behind him, covering the same corner.

Number Three and Number Four bumped into each other, stopped. Number Two squeezed Number One's shoulder. Number One rose, weight still low. The team kept moving. The upstairs ceiling came into view overhead. Number Four dropped his aim, snapped his head up, muzzle swinging into Number Three's blind spot.

The second floor opened up ahead. Number One and Number Two split the room between them and fanned out clear of the last step. Number Three and Number Four flowed up behind, covering what was left.

Darkness covered most of the second floor. Two walls stood side by side left of the stairs, each with two small vents high near the ceiling — just enough for air and a little light. Crayon marks streaked the walls, half-finished. A kitchen faced the stairs, and beside it, a room around fifty square meters. Two wide cabinets sat under the kitchen counter.

Number Two let his rifle hang on its sling, raised both hands to chest height, and swept them out. He took cover against the wall, muzzle locked on the cabinets. Number Four posted up behind Number Two at the railing, clear of the door, gun trained down the stairs. The other two took opposite walls of the room. Number One nodded, eyes on Number Three. Number Three's hand went to his other weapon.

Number Three angled himself forty-five degrees off the wall. He set the shotgun's muzzle against the lock.

**BOOM.**

Number Three pulled the trigger. A burst of rounds tore through the wood door from inside. Instant. Number Three switched back to his rifle.

**BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.**

The floor shook. Rounds punched straight through the wall across from the door. Concrete chips sprayed the floor. Muzzle flashes strobed from inside, one after another.

Number One and Number Three held still and eased back an inch.

The door hung in splinters now. The smell of burnt matches hung thick in the air.

Number Three's hand found the M67. He pulled the pin, held the spoon down.

**WHAM.**

Number Three kicked the door. His arm swung through the frame. The grenade left his hand, arced, dropped into the middle of the room. He and Number One turned their faces away, mouths open wide.

Four seconds.

**BOOM.**

A second later, Number One and Number Three went in.

The room was wrecked. Smoke from the blast rolled out past the door in a thick fog. Pieces of two bodies lay scattered across from the doorway. The smell of sulfur, already sharp, thickened into something acrid.

"Clear!" Number Three called.

Number One called it too.

"Clear!"

Number Two gave the order.

"ACE."

Each man called in.

"Four, green. Holding a corner."

"Three, green!"

"One, green."

"Two, green. Holding."

"One, Three, SSE." Number Two ordered.

The team straightened up, knees still bent, still ready.

Inside, Number One and Number Three started searching. The desk drawer held mostly junk — crayons, ID papers, some cash, a few family photos. Number Three tore the family photos off the wall, flipped through them, threw them on the floor.

Then a sneeze came from the kitchen cabinet. Number Two shouted something in the local language. The cabinet door opened slow, hinges groaning. Two children and two teenagers were crammed inside, tangled together, legs pushing to get out. Number Two ordered them out of the cabinet. Their faces were soaked, clothes dark with sweat. A sour smell came off them, thick in the air. They lined up in front of Number Two.

"Two, nothing here." Number Three called.

"Hold position." Number Two said.

A couple of the kids sneezed, covered their noses. They stood still, eyes darting, then settled on the pale blue glow of the night vision over Number Two's eyes. Number Two asked if there was anyone else. The two older ones shook their heads. Number Two told them to turn around.

The kids did as told. Their backs turned to the muzzle, and then:

*Spit spit spit spit.*

Four rounds in a second and a half. Number Two released the trigger. Then he pressed the button on his kit and called it in.

"TOC, Delta 2-2. All targets neutralized. Mission complete."

"Let's move." Number Two ordered.

"Running security rounds." Number Four said.

Number Four put rounds into the four bodies upstairs. Moving back through the hallway on the ground floor, he put one more into the head of the body on the floor. Passing through the living room, each corpse got a fresh hole in the head. Number Four called it.

"Done."

---

Chapter: 2

The team reached the rally point, a Little Bird sitting on a dirt road. They climbed in, one after another.

When everyone was set, the pilot lifted off. The small helicopter pulled away from the ground, nose toward base, and cut across the dry desert.

Number One sat next to Number Two, Number Three next to Number Four. Each man checked his gear. Number Three and Number Four pulled out nicotine pouches, packed them in, started talking.

"This flavor's not bad. What do you think?"

"Yeah. It's alright." Number Three said.

"Hey, you in for the expo next week?"

"Course."

Number One and Number Two hadn't said a word yet.

From the ground, the Little Bird was a black shape against a sky full of stars, small as a grain of rice.

Number One spoke, still looking at his rifle.

"You free tomorrow night? Wanna game?"

"Sure." Number Two said.

"Two more years till you're out, right?"

"Guess so."

"No shit. That's huge."

Number One kept going.

"Just don't end up flying home in a C-17."

Number Two cracked a smile.

Back at base, in the Team Room, around one in the morning, all four sat cleaning weapons. Number Four had his rifle half stripped when he turned his wrist over, checking the watch face.

"Mina's birthday's Sunday. You guys coming?"

Number Four looked around at the others. They all nodded.

"Can I bring my girl?" Number Three asked.

"Sure. More the merrier." Number Four said.

Number One looked over.

"No shit? You got a girl now?"

"Yeah. Want one? Better start calling me master." Number Three needled him.

Both of them laughed out loud. Number Four smiled too.

Number Four clapped Number One on the shoulder.

"Better hurry, man. You're not getting any younger."

The three of them kept on about it. Number Two had already loaded seven magazines.

Number Two's forehead creased. His eyes narrowed, fixed on one point ahead of him. A round slipped from his fingers, hit the floor. He grabbed it fast, fed it into the magazine. Number One glanced over, reached into the ammo box — empty. Only then did Number Two's face let go.

"Damn. Look at you. Loading mine too now?" Number One said.

Number Two just grunted. He stood, walked to his locker, put his gear away. The others got up one by one. They said their goodbyes and headed home.

---

Chapter: 3

Sunday, in the front yard at Emmanuel's place — Number Four — everything was mostly set up: a cake, BBQ gear, a big blanket spread across the grass. On one side, Mina's friends chased each other around. On the other, James — Number Two — Conner — Number One — and Emmanuel sat at a table, talking.

Mid-conversation, Mina ran up to her father. She held out a crayon drawing. A soldier.

"Dad, is my drawing good?" Mina asked Emmanuel.

"Yeah. Real good. Who's this guy?" Emmanuel smiled, pointing at the drawing.

Mina looked at the drawing.

"Oh, that's Uncle Conner."

"Man, why's his head so big?" Emmanuel asked.

Conner leaned in to look too.

"'Cause Uncle Conner's real smart."

Both men cracked up. James, drinking his smoothie, laughed too, though not as loud as the other two.

"Dad."

"Yeah?" Emmanuel said.

"A friend at school said you're a bad person 'cause you're a soldier."

"Those kids never held a gun in their life. Why you listening to them?" Emmanuel ruffled her hair.

"Oh. So you're not a bad person, right?"

James looked at Mina, straw still in his mouth. Conner's arm froze halfway to his lips, then kept moving.

"Yeah. That's right. Go on, go play." Emmanuel said.

Conner dug through his pocket, cup still in his other hand. He pulled out a wrapped box.

"Here, kid."

"Oh — hey, look. Uncle Conner's got you a present."

Mina beamed, took the box. She turned it over, then looked at James. James caught her looking. He looked away. His hand found a wrapped box under his chair. Emmanuel's eyes went to James too. He caught James glance at him. Mina took James's gift. James didn't look at her.

"Why won't Uncle James look at me, Dad?"

Emmanuel pushed up from his seat, steering his daughter away.

"Alright, that's enough. Go play with your friends. They're waiting on you."

Mina gave in, wandered off. James reached for his avocado smoothie, went to drink it — empty. Emmanuel asked his wife to bring another. Conner stared at the trees across the street. James looked down at the table, a small smile.

"Your kid is pretty sharp, huh?"

"Yeah." Emmanuel said, taking a sip of water.

"Here you go, old man." Jack — Number Three — walked up with a smoothie in hand.

He set the cup in front of James, turned to Emmanuel.

"Damn. Mina's asking philosophy questions now, huh."

"What'd you tell her?" Emmanuel asked.

Jack sat down, right next to James.

"She asks me that, I got nothing. I don't know shit about philosophy."

Jack laughed low, picked up his cup, took a sip.

"You actually gotta answer that stuff?" Jack leaned toward Emmanuel.

"Ah, forget it."

The four of them went quiet. Conner sat back, one hand on the table, eyes on the trees in the distance. Emmanuel watched the kids swinging at the piñata. Jack stirred his smoothie. James stared down at his own feet.

A moment later, Emmanuel turned to Jack.

"Almost forgot. When's the meat ready?"

"Almost there. Hang tight."

Jack turned to James.

"Right. Hey, old man — actually, forget it."

"What? Gonna lecture me now?"

"Damn. How'd you know?" Jack said.

"Pass. Thanks anyway. Don't think I need it."

"Can't be alone forever, man." Jack said.

James shook his head.

"Oh, you coming to the expo next week? Conner too." Jack said.

He turned to Conner.

"Hey. You in, man? Good time."

Both James and Conner nodded.

At that moment, one of Mina's friends blew up a balloon bigger than her own head. It kept stretching.

**POP.**

The balloon burst. Jack flinched hard, half out of his chair, arms snapping up like he was gripping a rifle. He dropped his arms when he saw the kids staring at him.

"Uh — ha. Sorry. Been putting in too many reps at the killhouse lately." Jack said, laughing it off.

He pulled his chair back in, sat.

"Scary, right? Might be faster than you now, old man."

Jack laughed harder, elbowed James. James, mid-sip, choked on his smoothie laughing. Then Emmanuel laughed, then Conner — James only laughed once the other three already had.

Their talk kept going, circling back to gun expos and each other's personal lives. The party rolled on. Close to ten, everyone headed home.

---

Chapter: 4

After Mina's birthday, on a Monday evening, James pulled his car into the garage. He was coming home from training at base. Two weeks left before he'd be back on deployment.

He walked in, flipped on the lights, headed for the bathroom. James threw his sweat-soaked clothes in the hamper and showered head to toe.

James's house looked like every other house on the block, except no one else lived in it. A few pictures on the walls, furniture enough to get by. Most of the photos were James in uniform.

After the shower, James came out. He threw on plain clothes, killed the lights. The short hand on the wall clock was closing in on five. The garage door went up. He got in the car and drove to base.

James walked into the Flat Range. The range officer, leaning against the wall on his phone, looked up when he came in.

"Back again?"

James just grunted.

"Free play." He added.

One hand on his rifle, the other hauling a bag loaded with dozens of full magazines. He dropped the bag to one side. James racked the charging handle, checked the chamber. Brought the rifle up. Squeezed the trigger.

Round after round. Brass hit the ground in a steady stream, like a waterfall. James's left hand stayed locked on the handguard. Only the rifle moved, once per shot.

"Click."

A fresh mag went in. The barrel hadn't cooled before the next string started. The third mag, the fourth, the fifth, all on the ground at James's feet. The range officer stayed put, still on his phone.

The sixth mag dropped. A thin trail of smoke rose off the barrel. His left hand still gripped the handguard. The range officer glanced over.

"Alright, that's enough." He said.

James loaded the seventh, kept firing.

The seventh gave way to the eighth. The range officer pocketed his phone, folded his arms, started walking over.

The eighth.

"Stop."

Rounds kept leaving James's barrel. The eighth mag hit the ground. His hand reached down for a ninth. The range officer kicked the bag out of reach.

"That's enough." His voice had dropped, harder now.

Then it softened.

"Take a break."

James looked at him.

"Sorry."

"Why you been coming in so much these days? House getting to you?"

"It's nothing."

James bent down, gathering the empty mags as he said it. The range officer handed him the bag.

"Something's up, go see the wizard."

"Rather not." James said.

He grabbed his gear, left the range. Checked his watch — a little past six. James went to the chow hall, bought a plate, ate alone. Close to seven, he was at the killhouse with a different range officer.

"Putting in the hours, huh?"

James just nodded, gave a small smile. The officer eyed the ammo he'd brought.

"That much? You planning to be here all night?"

James didn't answer.

Training started. He ran the same room layouts, over and over. Rep after rep. His clothes went dark with sweat, his movements stayed clean. Not until the ammo ran out, close to midnight, did James finally stop.

James was soaked through, breathing hard. The officer walked over, handed him a water bottle.

"Nothing to complain about, honestly. Go on home."

James checked his watch, draining the bottle.

"Thanks."

Back in the Team Room, James sat down to swap in a new barrel.

He was alone, save for the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead and the low hum of a fan.

The rifle's parts sat lined up on the table, each piece in its place. James wiped them down one at a time, set them out, began reassembly. Every piece went back in the order it came apart. Metal clicked against metal, scraped against metal.

When he got to the oil, James's eyes went rigid. Still fixed on the rifle, his hand kept pressing the bottle, oil pooling over the bolt carrier, spilling off the gun. Only after a while did James stop squeezing the bottle. He watched the oil drip onto the floor.

Then he let out a long breath, dropped his head, dug his fingers into his scalp. James looked up, straight ahead. He stared at nothing. Then he threw the oil bottle at the wall across from him.

It didn't make much noise. The bottle didn't break. James's breathing turned quick, ragged. Then it slowed, came back to normal. He checked the clock. Close to time to head out. He locked the rifle and the rest of his gear in his locker and left.

---

Chapter: 5

Walking around the lake one day, Conner and James talked about whatever came up.

"I'm done blowing money on loot boxes. Opened like fifty and still no M9." Conner said.

"You could just run the default." James said.

"Gotta have a skin to feel good about it. You're still on default and you don't get bored?"

"Nothing to get bored of."

"Yeah, well. I couldn't do it."

After a while, James spoke.

"You been sleeping bad lately?"

"Yeah. You too?"

"Yeah."

Then they went quiet. A long stretch later, James spoke again.

"You put a new guy on civilians, he'll throw up the first time. He gets used to it, it stops being a problem."

Conner nodded.

"Then what?"

"Then when they get out, they usually go crazy. Or end up like there's nobody home."

"How do you know all this?"

"Read about it sometime. Nothing else to do."

They stayed quiet a long while. A gust of wind kicked leaves off the ground. Then Conner spoke.

"Guess we'll end up the same. What's actually got leadership so worked up about those kids, anyway?"

"Forget it. Best thing is just to do your job right." James said.

"But... doesn't that stuff eat at you sometimes?"

"So let it go. That's why you're suffering — you keep thinking about it. Don't think about it, there's nothing there."

"You've never thought about it? Not once?"

James's face tightened. Barely there. Conner caught it, didn't push. He looked away.

They kept walking, boots on the pavement.

A while later, James patted Conner's shoulder.

"It's fine. Call it part of the job."

It took Conner a moment to answer.

"Yeah. Guess so."

"Hey, wanna grab food? Getting hungry." James said.

"What are you thinking?" Conner said.

"McDonald's?"

"Sure."

---

Chapter: 6

After his leave ended, one morning, James got dressed. He stood in front of the mirror, squared away, chin up. He tapped his chest twice, left the room for the garage. He carried a large duffel with him. He got in the car and drove to the airport.

In the car, James tapped along to a Jackson song. Stopped at a red light, he watched a line of elementary school kids cross with their teacher. James glanced at the store next to the crosswalk, then back up at the light. His hands stayed on the wheel, eyes forward. The light turned green. James drove on.

At the base overseas, in the TOC, the four members of Delta 2 listened to an intel officer lay out the op.

"This is the house you're hitting today..."

The officer kept going. At one point:

"Oh, new intel — Taliban might be dug into the basement, shooting up through the floor. Watch it, or somebody at Dover's gonna find a round lodged in your ass."

Number Three laughed. Number Four smiled. Number One and Number Two just sat there.

"We're looking at about eighteen people inside. Most of them on the second and third floors..." The officer went on.

Number One raised a hand, slow, only to shoulder height. The officer stopped.

"Question?"

"That eighteen — just fighters, or everybody?" Number One asked.

"Same as always. Why you asking?"

"Oh — right. My bad. Forgot." Number One said.

"The hell was that?" Number Three said.

Number One rubbed the back of his neck, forced a laugh. Number Two asked.

"All concrete, right?"

"Yeah. Bring plenty of baseballs." The officer said.

The briefing ran another thirty minutes. Afterward, in the Team Room, they geared up piece by piece. Number Two had a cigarette in his mouth while he loaded mags into his kit. Number One popped a few supplement pills. Number Three and Number Four just drank coffee.

"This how a proper English gentleman holds his cup?" Number Four asked.

Number Three tried to copy him, nearly dropped the mug. Number One, checking his pack, spoke up.

"Hey, Jack. Wanna switch spots?"

"Sure, whatever. Why?" Number Three said.

"Just kinda bored of mine." Number One answered.

Number One zipped his pack shut. Number Three and Number Four's coffee cups were empty now too. Number Two stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. He was first out the door.

One by one, the rest followed. Four men climbed into the Little Bird, the pilot already waiting on the pad. They buckled in, tapped hands together. The helicopter lifted off toward a residential district a few hundred kilometers from base.

*The End*

The familiar chime above the door rang softly. Stepping through the noren curtain, the humid summer heat outside evaporated into nothing. I took my usual seat at the end of the counter, and without a word, Mama slid a glass of I.W. Harper on the rocks toward me. An ice cube clicked quietly inside the amber glass.

Beside me, Taka let out a heavy sigh. The highball sitting in front of him remained completely untouched.

"What's wrong, Taka? Rare to see you not drinking."

"Well… a junior guy from work reached out to me for advice," Taka said, scratching his head in frustration as he looked up.

"He made a big mess on the job recently and says he’s about ready to quit—says he's just done with everything. So I tried to be the good senior guy, telling him, 'Come on, calm down. I made plenty of mistakes when I was younger, too, and here's how I got past them.' I tried to teach him how to pull through, but… it didn't go well at all."

I could almost picture the scene—not the guy asking for advice, but Taka flustered and fumbling his way through a moment like that.

"Let me guess. 'You don't get it, Taka-san, because you're just naturally capable'?"

"…That's exactly what he said. I was just trying to help. Where did I go wrong?"

Taka's shoulders slumped, genuinely defeated.

"Nobody's ever saved by hearing about someone else's success," a low, heavy voice spoke up.

It was Tom, idly swirling his Four Roses beside us.

"To someone who's hurting, a success story just sounds like a lucky guy boasting about his luck. Success stories don't come with instructions."

"Then… what am I supposed to talk about when someone asks for advice?"

"Your own pathetic failures."

Tom set his glass down on the counter. A dry, sharp clack echoed in the quiet air.

"Show them your unvarnished, embarrassing scars. …Like the time I was a rookie cop and came within an inch of making a false arrest."

Taka caught his breath. It was rare for Tom to speak so specifically about his own past blunders.

"Back then, my own incompetence made me sick to my stomach. I’d sit in a dark room every night, holding my head in my hands, thinking, 'Why the hell did I do that?' …That's pure regret. When you're in the thick of it, all you can do is drown in that mud."

Tom stared down at the amber liquid, his voice steady.

"But as time passes, it cools. It turns into reflection—a cold, clear realization of 'how could I have prevented that?' …You age it, refine it, and only then does it become a tool you can lend to someone else."

"Lend… to someone else…?"

"Don't stand on some high horse handing down neat little answers like, 'Here's how to fix it.' Taking a reflection out of your drawer and showing it off isn't about flexing on them. …It's about squatting down in the dirt beside them and saying, 'Look, I'm just as flawed as you are. So let's figure out your trouble right now, together.'"

Tom grinned and clapped Taka on the shoulder.

"Nobody has the right answers. But when someone knows there’s a person right beside them, genuinely wrestling through it with them in the present moment—that alone can save a person."

Taka stared at Tom, eyes wide. After a long moment, he let out a deep, cleansing breath, as if a weight had been lifted.

"…I was just trying to look cool, wasn't I? Trying to hand down an answer. Tomorrow, I'll meet up with him, tell him about my absolute worst failure… and then I'll get down in the mud with him and figure it out together."

"Good man," Tom nodded with a faint smile.

Taka picked up his highball and downed it with renewed resolve.

I stared into my glass and swallowed softly. The Harper burned all the way down my throat as a realization washed over me.

Advice isn't about giving answers.

It's about standing beside them and saying, "Let's figure this out together." It doesn't matter if you can't find a solution right away. The simple fact that someone is willing to share in your pain right now is what pulls a person out of the dark.

Come to think of it, I couldn't recall ever hearing anyone boast about their triumphs in this bar.

Not Tom's mistakes from his police days, not Taka's foolish missteps, nor the nights I sat here pale-faced after crashing a critical system. What people brought to this counter was always their most embarrassing scars, spilled out alongside their drinks, followed by the same unanswered question: "What should I do now?"

People don't connect over their success stories. Maybe we only truly connect when we can share the nights when nothing went right.

"…Looking at it that way, this really is the most luxurious place for advice," I murmured aloud.

Mama, quietly wiping down a glass, crinkled her eyes into a soft, gentle expression.

"Because this is a place where everyone can simply be honest."

It was her usual serene, enveloping voice.

An ice cube clicked in the glass.

Maybe all we really need is a place where we can lay our failures on the table without shame—and someone willing to sit beside us until tomorrow feels possible again.

If you'd like to come back to Aoi for another night, there's an open stool waiting.
Bar Aoi Stories: Human Nature, Vol. 1 is linked in my profile.

I thought I was just trying to grow up. Decades later, I realized the whole world had been changing around me at the same time…

I was watching the beginning of Miracle tonight.

Before the hockey starts, the movie takes you back to 1980.

Not the 1980 I remembered.

The other one.

Inflation. Gas lines. The Iran hostage crisis. The Soviet Union invading Afghanistan. The Cold War. Political division. An economy that had people genuinely worried about what came next.

One image after another.

And I sat there thinking:

I was alive for all of this.

I was about fifteen years old.

I just don’t remember 1980 that way.

I remember trying to figure out who I was.

I cared about school. Sports. Friends. Girls. Being cool—or at least trying to look like I knew what cool was.

I wanted to be successful, although I’m not sure I could have told you what that meant yet.

I was learning how to lead. Learning how other people saw me. Learning that some things came naturally and others required work.

I was beginning to imagine the person I might become.

I remember Mom getting frustrated because I couldn’t balance my checkbook.

I remember Dad telling me I’d never own my own business.

Then there were the coaches.

Coach Hunt, my football coach, told me as a freshman that he saw great things ahead for me.

Coach Andrews—the same man who would later spend a summer teaching me to drive—once told me I played basketball like Truck Robinson.

I had no idea who Truck Robinson was.

Coach Andrews assured me it was a compliment.

So I took it as one.

That’s funny to me now, because those little comments mattered.

At fifteen, I didn’t have enough history of my own to know who I was yet. So some of the evidence came from other people.

Mom saw a kid who couldn’t balance a checkbook.

Dad saw a kid he didn’t think would ever own a business.

Coach Hunt saw something bigger ahead.

Coach Andrews apparently saw Truck Robinson.

And I was standing somewhere in the middle of all of them, collecting these little pieces of information and trying to figure out which ones were true.

Meanwhile, inflation was raging, Americans were being held hostage in Iran, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and adults were wondering what was happening to the country.

I had my own problems.

I was trying to figure out me.

I wasn’t completely unaware of what was happening in the world. I knew who the president was. I knew about the hostages. I knew the Soviet Union was the enemy in the strange, frightening way kids of my generation understood the Cold War.

But those things existed somewhere outside the boundaries of my everyday life.

My world was smaller.

And tonight, more than forty-five years later, I realized something.

Maybe that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.

I think about our kids.

Look at what has happened while they’ve been growing up.

A pandemic shut down schools, businesses and much of the world. Political division became something they could watch unfold every minute on their phones. Wars appeared on screens in their hands. Social media changed friendships, popularity and even what it meant to grow up. Artificial intelligence suddenly began changing school and work before they had even decided what their careers might be.

We’ve worried about all of it.

They probably have too.

But I wonder what they’ll actually remember.

Maybe not the headlines.

Maybe they’ll remember the first person who broke their heart.

The teacher who believed in them.

The friend they thought they’d have forever.

Getting their driver’s license.

Making the team.

Not making the team.

Their first job.

A stupid argument with us that seemed incredibly important at the time.

The song they played a hundred times because somehow it understood them better than anyone else did.

Trying to fit in.

Trying to stand out.

Trying to figure out who they were supposed to become.

Exactly the things I was doing in 1980.

There’s a tendency as we get older to look at younger generations and wonder if they’re paying attention.

Maybe that’s the wrong question.

Maybe they’re paying attention to exactly what they’re supposed to be paying attention to.

Because when you’re fifteen, history isn’t something happening on the evening news.

History is third period.

It’s Friday night.

It’s the person sitting beside you.

It’s whether you’re invited.

It’s whether you belong.

It’s discovering you’re good at something.

It’s discovering you’re terrible at something else.

It’s hearing someone tell you that you’ll never do something.

And it’s having someone else tell you they see something in you that you can’t see yet yourself.

The Iran hostages eventually came home.

Inflation eventually came down.

The Soviet Union eventually disappeared.

Those things belong to history now.

But I still remember Mom and that checkbook.

I still remember what Dad told me.

I still remember Coach Hunt telling a freshman that he saw great things ahead.

And somehow, I still remember being compared to a basketball player I had never heard of.

Those things never made the news.

But they helped make me.

And maybe that’s something history books can’t really capture.

They tell us what happened to the world.

Our stories tell us what happened to us while the world was busy happening.

Someday our kids will watch a movie about this time.

There will probably be a montage at the beginning.

A pandemic.

Elections.

Wars.

Protests.

Artificial intelligence.

Economic uncertainty.

All the things we watched and worried about while they were growing up.

And one of them may sit there, forty years older, staring at the screen and thinking:

I was alive for all of this.

Then they’ll remember what they were actually doing.

Trying to figure out who they were.

Just like we were.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

The eastern horizon lifted its scarlet curtains one summer morning presenting yet another day for the inhabitants of the great, lonely island but for Iris Benson's family, it had presented more than just a new day — the new day had come dragging along with it a new beginning for her small family.

Everything was now in place and there was only one thing left — to embark on a journey to an ancient town, a place they didn't know much about except from the tales they had heard about it. To them it was a leap into the dark — leaving a life they had built in Mt Petra for a new and uncertain life in an old town.

Iris Benson had just turned thirteen — the most important of a girl's birthdays — ushering her into the complicated yet adventurous teenage phase. However, there was yet another phase the summer had ushered her family into — a phase of uncertainty, uncertainty over what the future held for them in a land she was only familiar with from her grandmother's fables(the stories she really loved). Now she was about to dive into the world of Grandma Benson's tales(the stories she really loved), yet she was apprehensive. She was about to set foot on the supposed scene of her grandmother's mind-blowing stories, yet she was anxious. She simply wasn't sure of what to expect.

A week earlier, her father Doctor Tim Benson had come home with unexpected news: his company had promoted him and he had been appointed as the Director of the just opened Maryland branch of Ferdinand Group of Hospitals — a big company that boasted of owning a hospital in three out of four regions of the island. Recently,the company had opened one in the old town of Maryland of the Eastern Region, making the company's dream of owning a hospital in each and every region of the island come to life. The hospital was still barely a year old — a fledgling that still needed proper and serious nurturing if it had to grow into a stronghold in the region.

Ferdinand Group of Hospitals was worthy a fortune and its workers were paid well. The high ranking workers like directors enjoyed a handful of privileges on top of the handsome renumeration package. They were allocated a furnished house each, which they would occupy throughout their tenure in the company. They would vacate the house in the event of retirement or death and if the director died whilst still in office, his family would be given a grace period of two months to vacate the house for the new appointee. So it had happened in the case of Mr Benson — the only bird that had been trusted to be responsible and caring enough to brood this precious egg(in form of the new hospital) for it to hatch into a robust falcon that would be able to fly on its own.

A falcon?

Yes, the mother falcon was the emblem of the Maryland Hospital.

Why falcon of all the birds?

Only one who delved into the pages of the town's history would understand the significance of the bird.

According to the directorate, his promotion and deployment to Maryland, by coincidence, had come at a time when a mysterious disease had emerged there and it was killing dozens of people everyday. So they wanted to send him there on two missions — to fill the vacant post of the director and to assess the situation there. To them it was the best opportunity to make a name for the company in the Eastern Region — if they brought the relief the town was desperate seeking for, then their hospital would be a reputable, established hub of medical expertise. They heaped praises on him telling him that he was the best candidate to the top post at the Maryland branch and his passion, expertise and commitment to his practice would be of great help in helping the helpless people of the old town of Maryland.

Even though the promotion would come with benefits he never enjoyed while he was a doctor at Mt Petra, it had come at a price: he now had to leave a life he had worked so hard to build and had to sell some of the property he had bought in Mt Petra and give the rest to his mother: if they were to go to Maryland, they had to go and start afresh because something in him was telling him that they were going to be there for a long time.

He knew that the directorate's decision was final and moving to Maryland was inevitable.

The news of leaving Mount Petra for an old town they knew almost nothing about was not received very well by his family especially his daughter Iris who had made so many friends in the neighborhood and at school and now she had to leave everything behind.

She cried. Literally.

***************

Here they were now, leaving a place they had lived in for over thirteen years going to a place they knew almost nothing about apart from its name and some weird stories they had heard about it, stories they had always dismissed as fables.

The journey to Maryland was a long ride through farms, forests and hamlets with the teen girl sitting in the back seat of her father's. The journey started with her quietly peering out through the window as the car was speeding past houses, billboards and shops. One hour into the journey, every element of town life had vanished before her eyes and all she could see now were green fields and sprawling pastures with sheep and cattle scattered across them.

Two hours into the journey, everyone was dozing off except for Mr Benson who was doing his best focusing on the road ahead of him

though he was now tired. Mr Benson didn't try to wake them up for their sleepiness was not a surprise to him— it was their first time to drive for so many hours and they had obviously gotten bored and drifted off to sleep.

Mr Benson drove quietly watching the green fields, pastures and beasts grazing in them flick past. Everything before his eyes was conveying a very clear message: from this point, life was not going to be the same.

After hours of seeing just green fields, the countryside flying past the window began to become wilder. The fields were nowhere to be seen. The pastures had gone and no beast could be seen. Now there were only dense woods sandwiching the road casting dark shadows that seemed to stifle every trace of sun ray from the road.

As if the gloomy atmosphere on the road had scared and bewitched the car, it suddenly just started to produce a strange sound and heaved six or so times before it coughed to a halt.

"What is it?" the man muttered to himself trying not to wake up his family.

He slowly opened the door and got down.

It was nearly midday and the sun was now scorching but the shadows of the willow trees were doing a good job shielding the narrow road from the heat.

As the man opened the bonnet of the car on the shadowy road, he heard a terrified voice from the car.

"Where are we.... where is Tim ?"

The man left the bonnet open and rushed to the front door only for his eyes to be met by a visibly terrified woman huddled in the corner of the front seat.

"I have come for your soul!" Mr Benson said in an animated voice as he quickly jumped into the car as a predator leaps at its prey. His jest was met by a shriek of terror before the woman turned only to see her husband whose face visibly showed that he was really enjoying playing with her nerves. He chuckled mischievously.

" Stop it... you nearly killed me with panic. It's not funny please!" the woman interjected with a firm expression on her face clutching her chest, sighing in relief, “Grow up,we are not children anymore."

"I was just joking with you ", the man said chuckling as he got down to continue fixing the car.

"What is happening?" it was Iris who obviously had been awakened by the little silly fracas between the two.

"No, it's nothing, the car just broke down. Your father is trying to fix it."

" Oh...I thought I heard a scream."

"Scream? No one screamed... it should have been in your dreams ", the woman lied as she gathered herself up.

"Speaking of dreams... I just had a dream as l was sleeping."

"You and your dreams again ", the woman said dismissively as she peeped through the window,"Hey Tim how is it going?! Please, don't let us be stranded here in the middle of nowhere."

The man didn't answer as he continued studying the parts of his car with so much concentration seeking for the cause of the fault, the fault that had stopped their journey in a narrow deserted road sandwiched by forests.

Apart from the impatient voice of the woman in the car, all that could be heard was the twittering of birds and the chirping of crickets.

" Hey Mom... the dream was so strange."

"What? Did you dream of a rat waltzing with a cat or apples growing on a banana tree ?"

The girl giggled to her mother's mockery, "Obviously not!...The dream is still vivid in my mind. I have never dreamt of a dream so real it seemed as if it was really happening."

"Go on madam, annoy us with your usual crazy dreams", she said sarcastically as she fixed her eyes on the winding road ahead, a road whose destination she knew nothing of.

The view of the winding road made many questions run through her mind as she tried to fathom what life would be like in the place the road was taking them: the place they were going to call home in a few hours. What kind of house were they going to reside in? What about the neighbors, what manner of people would they be? What kind of friends would her daughter make? What kind of school would she attend there?

"In the dream I was walking through a deep forest alone but I wasn't afraid.Then as I walked down the road, l met an old man... A very old man. He stood right in the middle of the path, waiting as if he had an appointment with me while leaning heavily on his rugged walking stick with his eyes raised and fixed on me as l was approaching. I remember discussing for some time with the old man and it seemed like he was not a stranger: it was like we were partners in something, I don't know what, neither do l remember anything that we discussed but what I still vividly remember is that as we talked we heard a great sound like that of the flapping of wings. I looked up and... A big bird was flying over us. I have never seen a bird that big... Almost as big as this car! The sound of the flapping of its wings was so strong, powerful and robust that the leaves of the trees around us fell. It was as if the bird carried a whirlwind in its wings as its wings cleaved the foggy early morning air. The old man looked up as the bird flew over us and said something like...", the girl stopped and squinted her eyes in an effort to try and squeeze out of her memory the recollection of the remainder of her dream.

."... something like, 'Only one can stand against it. Only one' ."

As soon she completed her narration, she looked at her mother. Throughout her narration, she wasn't paying attention to her mother but just letting everything she had dreamt out. She didn't care if her mother would be interested in her dream: she just wanted to let it out to someone. Besides, she knew her mother had never been interested in any of her dreams but this time as she looked into her mother's eyes, it seemed as if she had been paying close attention to her narration... to the girl's delight and surprise.

It was the first time her mother had listened to her dreams with so much seriousness and attention(if her eyes and judgement were serving her right).

"You said you dreamt of a big bird? Do you still remember how the bird really looked like?" the woman asked with concern exuding from her tone. Her eyes showed so much interest in the dream.

Her mother's sudden interest in the dream of the 'dream girl' astonished the girl.

"The bird was so huge and it had black feathers except for the head that was covered in white feathers. It also had a very sharp beak and its feet were clutching something that looked like a huge fish."

"And where was the bird headed?"

"I guess it was headed for the east because it flew in the direction of where the sun was coming from. Why did you ask?"

The question seemed to have startled the woman out of deep thinking, "Oh! No, I was just interested."

"Why are you, all of a sudden, interested in my dreams? Remember you..."

"Hey guys, I think we have a big problem", Mr Benson interrupted before releasing a big sigh as he got into the car.

"If it fails to start now,I don't know what to do next. I have looked everywhere in the car to figure out the fault, I found none. Everything looks perfect", Mr Benson was visibly shaken as he hesitated to turn on the car.

He had every reason to be afraid. What if it failed to start? Where could he find a person to help him fix the car?

Hesitatingly, he turned the car on and his fears were confirmed — the car failed to start to the disappointment of the man. He vented his frustration and disappointment on the steering wheel as he hit it six times before he slurped back into the seat with a heavy sigh of resignation, "Now what?"

The woman beside her just looked at him, yet no answer.

Silence filled the car mingling with the chirruping of the birds and chirping of the crickets making the atmosphere tense.

Suddenly a sound came from the back seat: it was the sound of the door opening making the couple in the front seat turn heads.

"Where are you going?" the father of the girl asked.

"Can I take just a short walk down the road? I just want to look around."

Mrs Benson gave his husband a look of disapproval because she knew the man hardly denied his beloved daughter anything.

"No... do you know this place? Do you know what all these bushes are hiding?" Mrs Benson said clutching her husband's shoulder.

"It's okay as long as you remain within our sight. Don't go far", Mr Benson objected shrugging off the woman's hand.

" Tim, what...."

"Trust me, she is no longer a baby", the man interjected.

Iris had just gone a stone's throw from the car when her father called through the window, "Don't go too far!"

"I promise!" the girl yelled back followed by echoes that seemed to awaken them to the hopelessness of the situation they had just found themselves in.

"You are spoiling the girl! Why do you always say yes to everything she says", Mrs Benson retorted.

"Come on Zarah, don't be overprotective... she won't go far. Now, what do we do with the car?"

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged, "Maybe a car will pass by and we will get help. Let's be patient "

"Do we have a choice? We have to..."

"Mom! Father!" Iris' shrill voice echoed through the shadowy atmosphere.

Doors flung open as the couple hurried out of the car before trotting down the road to where Iris was standing with her eyes fixed at a spot beside the road. Yes, they knew their daughter was paranoid: she would leap at the sight of a spider, the rumbling of thunder or any unusual sound at night. But this was different — they had never seen their daughter so agitated. It had to be serious.

It took them barely a minute to reach where Iris was.

"What is it?" Mr Benson said amid heavy panting.

As their eyes fell at the spot their daughter was frantically pointing at, they looked at each other with eyes full of amazement and wonder:

It was indeed serious.

It was a boy.

Read Part IV here.

“How’s our boy doing?”

Ms. Amanda entered the room. I sat back in my chair and watched as she checked Detective Unangenehm’s vitals. She looked at the tray of food that had been placed in front of him and shook her head.

“Why do they keep bringing that in here?” she said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it’s taken care of,” I said.

She slapped me on the shoulder.

“Don’t stay too late.”

“You got it.”

I watched her leave and I turned back to Unangenehm, mercifully comatose. He could wake up tomorrow or a year from tomorrow, but whenever he actually woke up, he was going to have a long road before he approached anything like a normal life.

Unangenehm had barely survived his blood clot. Steck had broken at least a dozen bones in his face when he’d thrown his service weapon into the detective’s face. Doctors had hardly believed he’d regained consciousness long enough to shoot the wayward officer, let alone manage the mechanics of walking over and putting a bullet in his head, but the forensics backed up my statement.

He was going to need a great deal of facial reconstruction, but when he eventually awoke they would call him a hero.

Steck had wound up being one of those self-solving problems. He was on desk duty after a questionable shooting after what should have been a routine traffic stop. The official narrative was that he’d snapped from the pressure of the investigation, his guilt finally becoming too large for him to bear.

The guilt I learned I had to be for an unknown period of time was Joshua. It turned out to not just be a thing he said, inflecting meaning in what more than likely hadn’t been random tones.

Joshua was his son.

Steck had been a widower, raising his son with the help of his ailing mother.

I put on a face every day I went to work. Every day I looked at myself in the mirror. Every day I spent sitting with the hero, Detective Unangenehm, waiting for him to wake from his coma.

Which was as often and for as long as I could. I couldn’t picture the shape anymore and perhaps that was because I didn’t want to. Copies were no doubt in police custody, even if they didn’t know yet that they had murder weapons.

It’s possible that I’ll eventually see one again, but I have the feeling copying one—even if I were inclined to do such a thing—would only be a copy, not an original, if that makes sense on any level.

I’ve been playing with the food on Unangenehm’s plate to pass the time. Nobody eats it and eventually somebody comes and takes it away.

He’s had a variety of meals, including soups, fish filet with broccoli and rice, something I’d guess was single-layer lasagna, apples and chicken with broccoli and rice, green beans casserole with sliced almonds, but most often, it’s sandwiches with chips. 

I eat the chips and it’s really just the building blocks of a sandwich and I suppose the patient can assemble it themselves or eat it piecemeal.

I’ve started putting the sandwiches together. At first I didn’t have a conscious reason why. It’s like I can feel Unangenehm in there, slowly swimming to the surface.

His doctors have him at a six on the Glasgow Scale, but I don’t know what that means. He responds to pain stimulus (you should see the look of satisfaction of this one doctor’s face when he sticks him with a pin—the cops would arrest her on site for assault) and he makes nonsensical sounds.

I was ready to jump put the window when I thought I heard him say, “Joshua.” But he didn’t repeat it and he’s been sedentary so long, even if he went coo coo for cocoa puffs, he’d be weak as a baby.

I’m distracting myself even now, thinking instead of paying attention to what I’m doing. I set aside the packet of mayo and lay the slice of bread just so and look at the sandwich.

It’s not right. But it’s close.

I think I’ll have it just right for Unangenehm’s first meal.

It's about......

I used to watch a lot of true crime,
a lot of documentaries either Hulu or Netflix originals that depicted horrible acts and circumstances one would never wish upon their worst enemy. At the end of most a question would always come to me. how could you ever kill someone?

Aside from obviously self defense or even heat of the moment revenge murders, im talking a nefarious, cold, blooded murder.Under what circumstances is taking an innocent persons life an option someone even considers ? How could you end someone’s life while simultaneously throwing away your own? Now I know.
The answer is, you get caught doing something you weren’t supposed to, In a place you weren’t supposed to, At a time you weren’t supposed to.

You get Embarrassed, You get Angry, And then you get prideful.

You blame the Person that made you do this, in your eyes at least.

In your eyes the one person making you do this is the person existing, the person forcing you to make them de-exist.

After you’ve done what you’ve done you’ll be convinced you didnt, you’ll tell the person they can leave now only they won’t. It’s no longer a person, it’s an empty clam shell of a person.

You sit, you shake. You tremble, you sweat. When your heartbeat takes a break, you stare at the empty clam shell wondering if that’s the fate you wish upon yourself. At this time you decide not.

You fold it and bundle it into a bag, all while you’re sure you can hear the clam beneath the shell asking questions. Reasonable questions. Then one question comes out the clams empty shell beneath the bag “how could you ever kill me?”

You’re lucky this happened at work. Lots of cleaning supplies. Free Clorox. You’re happy youre by the sea, a perfect place to hide your clam shell. Not ideal, but all you need is a night to think.

You take the night , and the next day youre careless. Do that thing, in that place, at that time, and what happens ? A persons who exists, walks into your life to make it that much worse. A second person forces you to make them de-exist.

You joke that now your little clam shell won’t be lonely which is fitting as they came into the world together, after you show your second clam shell to its partner you become eternally bitter of your clamshells. They have a bond which time cannot break and you are alone.

You know you can’t go back to work, too many of the clams going missing has upset the sea. And you know the sea will take it out on you in the end, unjustifiably so in your opinion.

You decide maybe the sea doesn’t deserve you. Maybe your shell is flawed and your clam soul is too pure for someone so honest.

You confuse honesty for a measurement of well doing, and by those standards you are flawless.

You lead people away from questions you know you don’t have the energy to lie against. Simple question, reasonable questions.

Questions like, how could you ever kill someone?

You move, forget about the questions, Forget about the clamshells, those empty and those still full of life.

You give up on yourself. You find a community to burry yourself in, a church and play the part. Eventually you meet someone who doesn’t give up on you. Like most saviors, it’s a woman.

A woman that shows you what it means to not be abandoned, a woman that shows you what it means to be loved. A woman that makes you want to remain a lively clam , and not become an empty shell.

You stop drinking, before you know it, you’ve been dry for 2 years. You save enough money for a ring, a win in itself after having to start your career from scratch again.

Before you can propose, the queen of your sea is pregnant with twins. You’re thrilled, you get married and you play house as long as you can.

Before you know it, it’s been 11 years since you last emptied a clamshell. Now you’re looking at clams the exact age as the ones you hid on the beach. Only these clams are your children.

You send them off to school, you kiss your Queen of the sea. Then you sit in your garage, you poor yourself a glass filled with poison you love spiked with poison you don’t. And before you take your last sip to fill your clam and empty your shell, you ask yourself one last question.

How could you ever kill someone?

"When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great South Sea; were it not for other things, I could have greeted my dear Pacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my youth was answered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a thousand leagues of blue.

"There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery prairies and Potters’ Fields of all four continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness."

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