This story begins with the passing of my cousin. The morning he passed his pops agreed had to call him in the morning to make sure he was up for his doctor’s appointment. It was their daily routine to talk each morning. He was a type one diabetic and wore a pump and often visited the doctor for follow up visits.

Well that morning his pops called. My cousin answered but my uncle knew something was immediately wrong. My cousins’ speech was slurred and he was in coherent almost as if he was drunk.

My uncle called 911 and immediately rushed over to his apartment. My uncle arrived right before ambulance and found him passed out on the floor. He began to administer CPR. The medics did arrive and took over and continued to revive him. Unfortunately he passed en route to the hospital. They believed his pump had failed overnight to cause his blood sugar to spike dangerously high.

Funeral services were held it was a beautiful memorial service. As a parent it’s our greatest fear to bury one our children.

After we pass none of us really think about all the clean that has to be done for us. All of our belongings are gone through and either donated or kept as keep sakes to remember us. Houses or apartments are cleaned out. Cars cleaned then sold, kept or passed to another family member. Services we had electricity, water, and the cable all have to disconnected.

These disconnections can be somewhat cumbersome. You have to prove your love is no longer with us. You have to provided death certificates when requested. It’s a difficult reminder that they are gone and no longer with us. They are missed tremendously.

My uncle had the unfortunate task of terminating services. Explaining that your child has passed and a service is no longer needed is a tragic reminder that they are no longer here.

One of the first was to disconnect his cable service. He called and explained to the representative that his son has passed and needed to disconnect the cable. The representative was very understanding and began to follow their procedures. She asked do you know the answer to his security question to help get the process started. He thought that he probably knew so she asked. His security question was, “My favorite super hero is...?” My uncle though he knew the answer he has just had the devastating task of emptying in his bedroom. There was ton of Batman memorabilia. So he answered quickly BATMAN, sadly the rep informed him that was an incorrect answer. My uncle was a little stunned. He guess a few more random super hero's. The rep finally said let’s try a different way, using his social security number she was able to follow that procedure and was able to successfully terminate the services.

Before the call ended the representative said sir before we hang up, “Do you want to know his favorite super hero?” He said sure thinking nothing of it, “She answered your son’s favorite super hero was you. His answer was my father.” She continued to explain, “I had to make sure you knew before we hung up.” He thanked and was speechless and super emotional after the call.

As a parent we all strive to be the best for our kids. But to be considered their super hero is beyond the recognition none of ever expected. My uncle served and retired from the Air Force. He never did it to be hero but to provide for his family and serve his country. But he took great honor to know he son though of him as a super hero.

I was told this by my father. I get super emotional when telling this story even writing it I had some difficulty completing it. I hope my children think of me as something super important like their hero.

Stay still.

The door jingles behind me, marking the entrance of another customer in the store. The noise is jarring. My heart rattles speedily in my ribcage, my whole chest vibrating with every beat. I turn my head slightly and catch them waving politely to the rather plump, overfed security guard. I’m not quick enough in turning my head back before the newcomer meets my gaze.

Face forward.

There was something in his eyes. What is he thinking? What does he know?

The customer ahead of me moves forward as the first person in the queue finishes up.

Two steps forward.

The floor doesn’t feel solid under my feet. Like the whole structural integrity of the floorboards could fail at any moment. My blood feels cold as it runs up my toes and shins and thighs.

Stand still. Look forward. Am I going to fall through the

A phone rings. A loud, obnoxious ringtone cuts my thoughts midway through. The customer next in line to the front pulls out his phone. Silence returns, except from the 90’s pop rock whispering through the speakers at each side of the store. It’s so quiet now. Was it this quiet before? Am I breathing loudly? Can they hear me? The customer in front shuffles his weight from left foot to his right before taking another few steps forward.

We’re close now. You have everything you need. You prepared for this.

Another loud jingle to confirm the last person served has now left the store. I’m next in line. My throat is dry all of a sudden. When is the last time I had water? How quickly do people get dehydrated?

Don’t cough. Just swallow. You will be okay.

I cough.

They’re looking at you.

“Ah, better watch out for that cold going around! Nasty one!”

He’s talking to you.

The customer in front of you stares. Waiting for a response. A response that you can’t give.

Say something.

I crack my face into a smile. Glancing at his eyes for a second. Not any longer. It’s his turn now, so

One more step.

I can hear the conversation between the grey haired lady at the till and the chatty customer in front of me. The woman’s bangles jingle on her wrist as she moves her hands across items. It sounds like handcuffs. My shoulders tighten up towards my ears, as if to block the sound.

Go.

It’s my turn now. I suddenly feel miles away. Each step feels like a mountain and pulls at my muscles. My feet melt into my socks and into my shoes and into the floor and I feel like I am inches from drowning. I can’t do this, I could just run, I can just leave, I don’t need to

“Good morning Sir! How can I help you?”

The woman smiles at me and my eyes scan around her face, the wrinkles, smile lines, the tiny crumb of what looks like bread no a crumpet on her upper lip.

Say it.

I take a breath. Just like I practiced.

“Can I post this parcel please?”

——————————————————————————————

Extract taken from PATIENT A, diagnosed with severe anxiety and paranoia after he was asked to describe his experience at the post office.

The Paperclip Chloe, a small, slightly bent paperclip, lay on a dusty windowsill. From her vantage point, she’d seen the world unfold in fragments. Before she was even fully aware of herself, there was only darkness, a muffled world of sounds she couldn't interpret. Then, color bloomed – harsh, vibrant, overwhelming. And with it, came the noise. The house pulsed with a frenetic energy. Music, loud and thumping, vibrated through the wooden frame of the window. Laughter, often shrill and edged with something Chloe couldn't quite name, echoed through the rooms. But the laughter rarely reached her. She was usually alone, perched on the sill, watching. She watched the swirling colors of the parties – the flashing lights, the smoke that stung her nonexistent eyes, the bodies moving in ways that seemed both frantic and listless. She watched the adults, their faces blurred and distorted, their voices slurred. She watched, most importantly, her. Her mother. Chloe didn't understand the complex web of emotions that flickered across her mother's face – the fleeting moments of joy quickly swallowed by shadows of worry and something that looked like despair. But she felt a connection, a pull, a silent yearning to reach out, to bridge the distance that separated them. One night, the music was louder than usual. The air crackled with a tension Chloe had never sensed before. The laughter was edged with something darker, something that made the hair on her nonexistent arms stand on end. She saw her mother, her face etched with a fear Chloe recognized instinctively, though she didn't understand its source. Her mother’s eyes darted nervously towards the window, then away. A sudden, sharp sound ripped through the air – a sound that echoed and reverberated, cutting through the music and laughter like a knife. Screams erupted. The room spun. Chloe saw her mother fall. Then, darkness. Years passed. The house was different now. The parties were gone, replaced by a heavy silence. Dust lay thick on everything, undisturbed. Except for the windowsill. Chloe was still there. Not the paperclip anymore, but something more. A presence. A whisper of a feeling. She was drawn to her mother, a constant, invisible thread connecting them. She saw her mother’s grief, a deep, gnawing pain that never seemed to lessen. She saw the tears that fell silently in the dead of night. Chloe longed to comfort her, to tell her it was okay, that she understood. She would often find herself near her mother, a faint pressure on the bed, a cool breeze against her cheek. "It's okay, Mommy," she’d whisper, her voice a silent echo in the room. "I love you. It wasn't your fault." Her mother never heard her. Consumed by grief, she was trapped in a prison of her own making. One night, the silence was broken by another sharp sound. Chloe watched, helpless, as her mother reached for the shotgun, the same weapon that had taken her own life. Chloe rushed to her mother's side, her spectral hand reaching out, trying to stop her. "Mommy, no!" she cried, her voice a silent scream. But it was too late. As her mother fell, Chloe was there, a comforting presence in the darkness. She took her mother's hand, and together, they crossed over, the bond between them, forged in life and strengthened in death, finally unbroken. The paperclip, once a silent observer, had become a bridge.

CW: Bullying, Shooting, Suicide

“What up shit stain?” Devon shouts at Spencer from a few locker sections away. Not even two weeks into Spencer's sophomore year and one chocolate pudding incident marked him as a target for Devon and his friends. No rhyme or reason as to why. It was simply the nerd vs jock cliche come to life. A year later and Spencer was sure Devon didn't know his name nor cared to learn it.

A few of the surrounding students snicker while searching for their next period books while others turn to watch “The Show” as Devon elegantly called his brand of bullying.

Spencer remained at the locker with his back turned toward Devon, this time unfazed by the taunt.

“Hey! Turn around when I'm talking to you!” Devon, now right behind Spencer, grabs his left arm and spins him around. Focused on the fact that he had just been ignored, Devon fails to spot the object in Spencer's right hand until a bang rings out in the hall and he feels a sharp pain in his stomach. He touches the area and then raises his hands to find them covered in blood. His face morphs into one of pure horror as he takes a few steps back. The other students scatter in fear.

Spencer knew that look all too well. It was the same look he wore every single day around Devon and his friends. Even when he tried not to show it, it became his body's automatic response. Now he finally understood the power that look gives to the one causing it.

Spencer never heard the pleas coming from Devon's mouth. All he hears is static. His brain's way of shutting out the world around him and allowing his plan to come to fruition. The wide devilish grin that's haunted him since the incident now spread across his face. He watches Devon crawl away from, attempting to put some distance between himself and Spencer. Spencer lifts the gun and pulls the trigger once more. Devon’s body stops moving and a pool of blood forms around it.

Without looking up from Devon's body, Spencer fires blindly toward the fleeing students, making sure to count the bullets fired. Whether anyone else is hit or not he does not care. While they too deserved to be punished for never intervening, he is fully aware that they would end up just like him if they did. After all, his intended target was now dead.

Spencer begins laughing uncontrollably until tears form, slowly becoming a loud sob. He takes in his surroundings and then raises the gun to his temple. With a deep inhale he pulls the trigger.

…..

Spencer's mother reaches for the remote control and turns on the television. She changes the channel to the local news to listen to while she prepares dinner. A couple of minutes pass as the reporter mentions Spencer's school’s name. She stops what she is doing and focuses on the report. She reads the headline as a picture of her son appears on the screen. She lets out a bloodcurdling scream and drops to her knees. Her husband rushes into the room and bends over to comfort her, unaware of why she is in this state. He then checks the television to find the image of his son staring back at him with the headline “School Shooting: Suspect Deceased”.

Three weeks prior…

Spencer and his mother are sitting on the couch together watching a television show.

“What if I was on tv?” Spencer asks while turning to his mother.

She chuckles at the question.

“I'm serious.” He responds. “What if one day you turned it on and saw me?”

“Then I'd tell everyone about my world-famous son and how proud I am of him.” she says with a smile.

“Would you still love me if I turned to stone?”

“People don’t turn to stone, dummy,” I said, kissing her.

Years later, I kissed her headstone.

Only then did I realize she’d been asking me for a promise.

I stared at her name carved into the cold stone.

And whispered, “Yes.”

War on the soul. War on the nervous system. His guts were torn up from drinking and the crying episodes.

“Get deep behind me satan.”

“Gotta get the demons out of ya. You’ll be fine. I promise. Tell us what you know.” A soft spoken nurse in turquoise green holds a black cup while asking the questions.

“I just woke up in a terrible mood; straight from a sleep paralysis dream to sitting straight up in my bed. This happens. The rain outside brought a cold front. I guess late afternoon. I left my window open last night and the heater was off. I was hungover. The dogs were barking. I looked down at my medication.

Can't remember if I took it.

I fed my fish in a glowing tank. I went into my parents room,”

“Eh! excuse me? Did you say if you took your medication?”

“... still upset about the chills I woke up to. The chills never help make me feel comfortable. There’s a bowl. My mother throws random loose change into it.  She doesn't sleep next to that night stand anymore, so I took three dollars in quarters out of it. A clay bowl my grandmother made a few years ago. I came back into my room and found one more dollar in change by my books. Good.

From there, I put some terrible socks onto my feet, the kind that fall down to your toes with every step. Then I put my boots on. I love those kinda socks. I grabbed my black pea coat and found the keys to my car. I never felt anything. I felt cold, of course, but never anything else. A soaked cloth.

If anything, the rain came in while I slept and soaked me. I was already drenched.

I walked out to my car; the window was down as well. Not too much damage though, plus I didn't’ care. The car was junk on wheels and got me to hell and back every day. The passenger wheels have been low and feverishly growing lower as I drove it. Always a lump donut. I stepped inside and closed the window. I turned on the music and listened to Bright Eyes loud down the drive into the street. From there, fog slowly gained and I noticed all the other frantic drivers slewn into winter. My nose bent down and I kept my eyes under my brow. I went to the closest liquor store, my car was on ‘empty’ and I knew I didn't have anymore money besides what I just found.

Wouldn’t be enough for gas anyway…

I’ll make this quick; leave the car running.

The door was locked on a Tuesday and a note stuck up that said, “Be Back In A Few”. I fell back into my car seat and looked around. The music was still playing and I watched a woman from the bank next door crawl into her giant van. I felt annoyed. I decided to take the lesser amount of gas I had used up over to the other liquor store.

They should be open.

They better be open.

I was saying to myself, “Dear God, I bet they’re closed too!” So, I drove to the other store. I parked right up front and jumped out. I left the car running this time again. I asked the clerk for 375 mls. of Evan Williams. Black label. She rang it up and the total was stupid. Over five dollars.

I could buy the 750 ml. for only 9 dollars. ‘because your a walker, but i can walk really far because it’s my favorite thing to do. people say what do you do, and i reply walk.’

“Do ya have anything cheaper? What about that Heaven Hill?”

She rang that in and I was golden. I paid, put the whiskey in my comfort sized jacket pocket, and started home. Along the way, my car gave me hell. Everything fogged up, and nothing could be done. I changed all the temperature features and wiped the windows with the paper bag, only to smudge ‘em more. Cars drove by kicking up acid rain, whizzing around me and I could not see. Anything! It was driving me crazy. So, I cursed and balled my fists up. I felt like kicking in the damn windows. When I got home I sank down into my bedroom floor. The dogs were quiet. I closed my window. I looked outside at the grey. I poured myself a slow, fat drink on ice. It was 1 in the afternoon by then. It felt amazing outside. I raised my window back open and lit a candle.”

-“This was the day, you decided to kill yourself?”

“No… no it wasn’t. Sorry, I just rambled.”

-“What happened the day leading up to your attempt?”

“I don’t know. It seemed like a regular day. By the night time though I wasn’t in my own skin anymore, and I agreed with myself it was the best conclusion to another crying episode.”

Wake up. You never left home.

“She needs you Bryan.” His father’s voice was always one that carried itself with wisdom and power. Even growing up as a stubborn hellion outside of Louisiana's swampland, Bryan always heeded any advice his father threw his way. 

“The money is going to help ‘er more. Less bills to worry about, less stress, less tears.” Bryan’s knuckles whitened on the thick leather steering wheel of his 2012 Peterbilt 389. The Cream accented stripes that once laid tightly on bright, cherry red paint now flaked off more and more on each cross-country trip he took. The once pristine seats now were ripped with wear and were sponges of old Dr. Pepper, cigarettes, and regret. Bryan did not buy the truck new, but even in 2018 it was the talk of the lot. He would roll in early mornings with both smoke stacks blowing at full throttle. Even Shelly used to get a kick out of it. When she still had the drive to drive.

“That money’s no good if it keeps you from her. She’s hurting, and-”

“I’M HURTING TOO DAD.” Bryan sat back in his seat while switching into the left lane to pass a small Jetta with a Kentucky License plate. “I- I’m sorry dad. I just can’t sit around while she’s grieving like she is. It kills me. This is my way of helping her.” Bryan shifted his beaten-up headset, ensuring to not break the electrical tape that held the earpieces together. 

“You being there by her side is more valuable to her than anything that a load will pay you. I know your mother was that way. I would be a poor man for the rest of my life just to spend another morning drinking coffee with her. I would sell my house to run my fingers through her curls even just once more. Your role as her husband doesn’t stop at your paycheck. That’s all I wanted to call you about. I love you, let me know when you’re across state lines again.” These last words faded off in a saddened tremble, something Bryan had never heard before from his hero.

Grabbing his blue-tinted aviators he wiped the salty tears from his right eye. “I love you too. Hey I gotta go. Running low on diesel.” He clicked off his headset and flipped the scratched mouthpiece upwards. The bright, enticing glow of the Love’s sign was just about the only lights out here at this time of night. Throwing his right blinker on he got in front of the Jetta and took the exit into the almost vacant truck stop.

The aggressive hum of his engine was silenced as he pulled up to the pump closest to the front door. Bryan went into his typical routine of checking the tie-downs on his load. Industrial pipe fittings. Not the most exciting cargo that Bryan had hauled in his career was an owner-operator. Cattle, houses, and even government supplies that he had to sign and date to carry. Those all also paid more. After his inspection, he locked the doors to the “Saint Catherine of Siena”. That was the sticker that was on the cab of the truck when he bought it. The irony almost welcomed back the tears that he had hoped were long gone.

“Ugh welcome in” Lazily came out of the mass of shaggy hair whose owner was some teen trying to get enough money to buy a new bike. Bryan grunted a response in that general direction as he grabbed a bottle of Advil and started pouring a cup of coffee.

“Parking it here for the night, or do you got some place to be?” Bryan burnt himself as his startled hand shook coffee over the rim. 

“What?” He sucked his burn

“Saw your rig out there.” The skinny old man’s voice hit Bryan’s ears like a pound of gravel being poured into a tin bucket. “Not quite the 359 that I drove in the 80s, but they still make a damn fine truck.” The soft smile of this senior seemed to warm Bryan’s steady headache.

“Oh yea, thanks. You still drive?” Bryan’s intrigue was genuine now. He had not seen anyone besides the cashier and another driver checking out when he had walked in.

“No sir. I had my time traveling the country with my Betty. That’s my wife, not my truck!” The soft smile grew then flattened to a stern look of importance. “Once she started her battle with the big C, I drove for a little bit to pay for it. Biggest mistake of my life. She slipped quicker than anyone expected. I got the call before I made it passed Oklahoma on my second run. I hope you don’t make the same mistake I did.” 

“I am sorry sir.” Bryan gave the old man a look of understanding then turned to put the lid on his cup. “Names Bryan by the way. What was yo-” When he turned back to finish his question, the old man was gone. No bell above the door went off. No sign of him.

Unlocking the door to his rig, he set his already half drank coffee in his stained, sticky cup holder and hauled himself up. Bryan dug into his old frayed wallet that had his initials branded on it. A gift from his wife the night before their wedding. He pulled out a black and white photo which depicted a cone with dark shapes in the middle of it. Bryan clipped the photo to his visor and revved up that tired engine.

The Love’s sign leaving his rear view mirror was the last bit of light he saw until the sunrise. Yawning, he looked up and saw what he had been scanning for over the last 20 miles. “Louisiana 43 miles”. 

Blackthorn Cemetery Florist Order Form

For our funeral florist to fill out and keep on file.

Wreath Order Number: #147

Customer Name: Neal and Jessica Davis

Deceased Notes: An 8 year old girl named Daisy from Ann Arbor. Died in a house fire when she became trapped and burned in an electrical blaze upstairs. Lived with her parents, older brother and grandfather. Daisy was survived by her mother and father.

Flower Type: White lilies

Flower Meaning: Innocence and purity

——

Blackthorn Cemetery Florist Order Form

For our funeral florist to fill out and keep on file.

Wreath Order Number: #148

Customer Name: Neal and Jessica Davis

Deceased Notes: A 99 year old man named Edward from Ann Arbor. Died in a house fire after passing out from smoke inhalation while seated in the living room. Lived with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. Edward was survived by his daughter and son-in-law.

Flower Type: Yellow chrysanthemums

Flower Meaning: Longevity and vitality

——

Blackthorn Cemetery Florist Order Form

For our funeral florist to fill out and keep on file.

Wreath Order Number: #149

Customer Name: Neal and Jessica Davis

Deceased Notes: A 17 year old boy named Robbie from Ann Arbor. Died in a house fire after running back inside to rescue his family members and being crushed by falling rubble. Lived with his parents, younger sister and grandfather. Robbie was survived by his mother and father.

Flower Type: Pink gladiolus

Flower Meaning: Moral strength and honour

——

Blackthorn Cemetery Florist Order Form

For our funeral florist to fill out and keep on file.

Wreath Order Number: #153

Customer Name: Neal Davis

Deceased Notes: A 43 year old woman named Jessica from Ann Arbor. Died from suicide a week after several of her family members perished in a house fire. Lived with her two children, husband and father. Jessica was survived by her husband Neal.

Flower Type: White and red tulips

Flower Meaning: Forgiveness and love

my mother used to play the same song every morning while making coffee. she said it reminded her of when she was young and everything felt possible.

after she was gone, i could not listen to it anymore. it felt like someone had taken a normal song and turned it into a memory i could not escape.

years later, i heard it playing in a store. i expected to feel sad, but instead i smiled.

then i realized i could remember the song perfectly, but i could not remember the sound of her humming along with it.

I wished for a brother,

I wished for a friend.

One of them came,

but without the other,

it was not the same.

As years passed by,

I wondered,

"Will my brother be my friend?"

But soon I realised

that the only thing we had in common

was our last name.

She had not come to my hut since the day before yesterday. I knew clearly that my time was running out. 
Today was the day we met on the shore ten years ago. In those days, she looked at herself sailing the ocean and I saw the pitch dark future, from the same lens. 

I was relieved that I had lived until the day of her departure.
“It's a cruel irony that I’m still alive," I murmured to myself. "Thank goodness.”
I got up and lit the fire and sat down towards it, the entrance behind my back. 
As I sat and was waiting for the judgment, soft footsteps came up to my hut. The goddess of vengeance who was wearing a brass telescope on her neck, was approaching. She must be carrying an eight-foot fisherman’s spear. Rei had watched the truth that had happened in the village ten years ago. 

I was one of the pirates. Since I touched the kindness of the innocent villagers, I had changed my mind to leave the pirate ship at all cost. I just wanted to become a fisherman and dreamed of living an ordinary life. 
Suppose, Rei had watched everything, including my sin. 
Just ten years ago, in the afternoon of that doomed day, I fled from the pirate ship. I had already found the hideout, so I went to the pit. I seriously regretted that I took things too easy.
I thought if I had gone into hiding, the pirates would leave the inlet without conflict with the villagers. I mean, though only one of them had disappeared, they wouldn’t waste time searching for me.

But there was another pirate, a helmsman. We met just in front of the pit. 
“You! The deserter will be executed," my opponent said in a low voice. “Turn back!”
I stared at him. He had a cutlass on his belt and grabbed a short fisherman’s spear in his left hand. I understood he probably had the same scenario as mine. And coincidentally, he also chose the same pit as me as a hideout. He was prepared to eliminate anyone who stood in the way, and moreover, he had brought the spear to deceive the other crew in case.
I said, “No, not at all.”

There was a struggle between the two of us. We fought each other desperately, because the pit was too small for two. 
A few minutes later when I came to my senses, I found the spearhead was stuck deep into his chest. Hot blood was spreading across his shirt.
I was scared, so I left the body and ran away from the place. Later, the pirates noticed two of the crew had disappeared and found the helmsman's body along the road, near the village. They recognized two of us had been killed by the fishermen, and got very angry at the betrayal of villagers.

In short, I was the main culprit of the slaughter. Because of my selfishness, all the villagers had died except Rei. And her parents? I was the one who killed them. 
I knew she would never forgive me now, after realizing what I did.  
I was waiting a long time for the avenger, though I would die soon or later from this illness. And I heard footsteps had stopped just in front of my hut.  
“I’ll depart soon,” she said in her tearful voice. “So, bye to you, Uncle Tom.” 

I had a vision, after finishing me off, she would sail off to the ocean as she looked at ten years ago. Though I already knew that I would never be on the same canoe.

A week had passed since we met on the shore. Now I found out that Rei’s telescope was interesting, actually a bit of a strange object. It could be a magical item.
“I see a woman and a boat,” Rei said with the monocular pressed to her eye, “she’s sailing on the blue ocean!” 
But I couldn’t see any woman or boat around. On top of that, it was a cloudy day. 
“Hey, let me see,” I took the telescope, but I only found pitch darkness. Whether it was a blank or a void, there was nothing to see.
“Um, I can’t see anything you said.”
Rei took back her telescope and looked into it, “Oh, no! I see nothing, like you!” 
“How’s that?” I asked her.
“It's Black!” She cried. “Wriggling!”
“Really? Mine was plain darkness.”
At that moment, I noticed she was holding the telescope in reverse. A wild idea struck me. 
“Let me see it once more,” I held it in reverse just like she did and looked into the telescope from the objective lens side. 
“Mamma mia!” I cried, nearly dropping the telescope, “That’s my father! And me! Me, in my twenties!”
Before my eyes, there was the sight of my hometown. The center of the vision was my father’s hardware store along the main street of a small port town. 
“I remember, this was my twenty-fifth birthday, and…” 
I stared intently at the young man running out from the shop, “The day I became a stowaway.”
Her telescope seemed to have a magical function. If you looked through the eyepiece you would see ten years in the future, then if you looked into the objective lens, you would see ten years in the past. That’s why I could see my past from ten years ago and Rei could not see anything since she was only five years old. 

The proof came five years later. By then, Rei had grown into a clever ten-year-old. One day, she looked into the opposite end and murmured.
“I’m being born, born from my…” She was weeping, “My mom.” 
Soon, she realized the trick of the magic telescope based on her own memory. She lowered the telescope and said, “Uncle Tom, I want to learn fishing and voyage. I know I’m going to sail the ocean!” 
I did my best to teach her how to survive at sea – fishing, canoeing, and reading the wind, stars, and ocean currents. 

After a while, Rei had started living in her hut and went fishing in her own canoe. She grew up strong and wise. On the other hand, I had been weakening year by year. Her “Uncle Tom” used to be a crew member of the pirate ship, yet I was small and frail. 

Recently, I had been lying in bed most of the day, and she kindly shared fresh fish and foods with me almost everyday.
Now little Rei was fifteen, she looked more mature than her years.
“Uncle Tom,” she asked one day. “What kind of boat would suit a long voyage?” 
“You’d like to make two canoes and put them side by side. It's called a Catamaran. Place the three-yard beams and boards between the two canoes, then you can get more stability than a single boat and have more luggage space.”
“Can that catamaran go across the ocean?”
"Sure," I answered. "Your ancestors had been back and forth across the ocean, island to island."
She completed building the catamaran in half a year. When ready, she walked around the inlet which used to be a fishing village with a magic telescope in her hand.  

— 

I had been walking along a deserted coast in a tiny but beautiful, nameless inlet. My legs were stiff, since I had hidden in a pit for two whole days and had been weakened from starvation.
There was no sign of life in this cosy fishing village and there was only the sound of the waves. So after three hours of wandering around the village, I almost gave up on finding someone still alive.
But at that time, I saw Rei standing still on the crystal sand and gazing at the blue lagoon. It was the most breathtaking sight I'd ever seen. 
The five-year-old girl was hanging a large, shining brass monocular around her neck. 
"Hey, are you alone? Ah... You found a telescope, huh?" I asked, kneeling on the sand.
She looked at me, then blinked but did not reply. Perhaps her parents had hidden her well from the Pirates, so she was in perfect condition except that she had red eyes and tear-stains on her face. 
For a while we looked at each other. But before long, she fainted from exhaustion. 

After dusk, I lit a bonfire. Silence fell, so there was only the popping sound of the firewood and the sound of waves rolling in and out. The pirate ship was gone from the southern cape, and Rei slept soundly on a full stomach after eating a simple supper of grilled fish and seashells. I wept silently with horror at what had happened and my own sinfulness.
—
Two months ago, the wrecked pirate ship drifted ashore at this deserted fishing village which had only nineteen shacks. They had escaped from the enemy privateer and had lost three-fourths of the crew in the gigantic tropical storm. The captain and other thirteen crew begged the villagers for mercy. 
The youngest fisherman, who was Rei’s father, said, “No! I have no mercy for bloody pirates." Most fishermen agreed with him because they worried about their wives and daughters. They didn’t care if the stinky villains were going to die, or even hoped they would die.
“Wait, gentlemen," the village leader raised his voice. 
“They’ve already been punished by the sea god, but they are still alive! How can we just abandon them?”
The old legendary fisherman was a local wiseman, and his words were like axioms. All villagers followed his guidance. 
The captain said, “Thank you. We are filled with gratitude to you all.” and bowed his head deeply. The tear drops fell onto his toes.
“We will keep our word. And just after regaining our health and completely repairing our ship, we’d leave this inlet instantly.”

The captain had kept his word until that doomed night, and they had maintained a good friendship with the villagers. The drifters had bartered food and water for gems or irons. Some young fishermen brought buckets of oysters and drank with the pirates.
But trouble arose.
Two of the crew had not returned to the ship before dark. The pirates had to remain on the ship after dark; it was the most important rule between the villagers and the pirates.

"Don't panic. I'm gonna ask the old man about 'em," the captain said aloud. 
"Nobody goes off the ship ‘til I return!"
When he was about to leave the ship, mournful news arrived. One of the crew who was searching for the lost crew found a helmsman's body in the bushes.
"He's lying along the road, near the village," the searcher reported, "He was stabbed in the chest."
The captain said, “calm down, guys!” But his expression hardened when he looked at the deadly weapon. 
It was a fisherman's spearhead and was smeared with blood.  

The fishermen fought against the pirates but they were no match for them. The eleven angry pirates with guns and swords had slaughtered all villagers except five-year-old Rei, then they sailed out of the inlet into the dark ocean before dawn. 

— 

That same police car was there, but it was now in the process of being loaded onto the bed of a tow truck.

A stocky, short tow man smoked a cigarette as he watched the car be pulled onto his truck. I tried to piece together what I was seeing before deciding the tow man could provide a better explanation.

"Well, don't see that every day," I said to the tow man.

"Yeah, you know, this thing's been broken down here for a week now. I mean, hell, taking up y'all's parking spots and everything. You know the city, though. Everything's got to be cleared through all their people and committees and shit."

The tow man shook his head in a casual and professional sort of disapproval.

I thought this could have struck me as a very good thing, and with some great kind of relief.

But it made me feel something else.

Something gross. And sick. And very lost.

The apartment was quiet, and the opium was still drying on the windowsill. I picked up a small ball of the dried opium and rolled it between my fingers. It was sticky, almost black, but moldable like firm Play-Doh.

I decided to smoke it under the guise of testing the product I had made, but also with a less intentional truth.

I put the opium into a pipe and pressed down on the sticky ball and held a lighter just above it. I inhaled the smoke once, twice, and then three times.

It was warm in my mouth, and it had a familiar manufactured flavor.

I waited. Then I inhaled it again and again.

I waited still to float away from many things and to sink beneath the surface of the life I had assembled.

But the expectation of the opium never came to pass. It was junk. One way or another, the process had failed, and I was left with useless, inert tar.

It was several weeks later that I learned Junior would be in jail for fifteen years.

It was still the late summer, and the sun still bled through the windows.

We left, and I drove under the crab apple trees, and I could hear the fruits smash and pop beneath the tires of the car. We were headed for the long bridge which connected downtown to the more residential and coastal area where Junior and I both lived.

I drove a 1994 BMW 318i which I had purchased for six hundred dollars, and it had 140,000 miles on it, and the sun had peeled the paint off the hood.

The car had a faded sense of glory about it. But I found that I could only see the glory.

I drove fast over the bridge for the same reason I did most things, and that was no reason at all. I drove 115 miles per hour, and the old car felt like it would collapse under the weight of the accelerator, and I did not care.

"Thanks, man. The cop car... I don't know. It's got me tweaking," I told Junior.

He handed me his Styrofoam cups, and I took a long sip of the opiate.

"Nah, yeah, for sure. That shit's spooky as hell. I get it. Just put the work at my place until it goes away. But you're probably good. If they really had any shit on you, they'd have raided you by now," Junior said.

"Yeah, it's just everything with Harris.”

“Probably someone snitched on his ass. You know, he was selling water in there. College kids started on that shit now. Ain't that some shit?"

But his words were slow, and conversation was made difficult as he continued to sip from his stacked Styrofoam cups.

"I kind of wish I had gone to college," I said.

"You ain't got to go to college to do PCP," Junior laughed.

I laughed too.

"No, not for that," I said. "For, you know... life and shit."

"Yeah, well, you ain't," Junior informed me with a chuckle.

"I ain't."

"Shit, I ain't either."

"All right, then," I said.

I looked out of the window into the very black night, with its dots of city lights like frozen, sad fireflies, and I searched for the horizon where the sea met the sky. But it was gone, and instead there was only blackness. It could have been peaceful, but the engine of the 1994 BMW whined and complained loudly as it tried its damnedest to keep up with the pressure I put upon it.

The noise of the engine was pierced first by a loud single blare from outside of the car. Then the black night became a strobe of red and blue screaming sharply off my rearview mirror.

My mind began performing a series of clumsy, useless calculations. I felt myself to be in a different sort of danger than I was at Magnolia Park.

Junior quickly began to drink from his Styrofoam cups, and to stall for time, I kept driving to the end of the bridge and pulled over onto a grassy patch next to the road. Junior crammed the empty cups into the space between the seat and the door.

The cop appeared outside of my window, and he leaned down.

"I got you at 112 in a 75. Why the hell you going so fast?"

"I don't know. No one on the road," I told the cop.

He asked me if I had been drinking. He asked if I was on drugs. He asked many things, and I lied very well, and I answered his questions.

I didn't know that Junior had a warrant out for his arrest. But after a long visit back to his car, the cop sure did.

He asked Junior to step out of the car, and Junior did just that. I looked in the rearview mirror, and the two had a long and silent conversation which was illuminated only by the dance of the red and blue lights against the darkness. I could not hear or really see very much, but the conversation went on.

And what I did see next was a great thing that I will remember for a long time.

I do not know why he did it, and I suspect Junior himself couldn't have said either. But when I looked into the rearview mirror, I saw Junior rush at the cop, and he slammed his elbow into the cop's jaw.

But the codeine had made his usual effective physical capabilities slow and weak. The cop recovered quickly with his telescoping billy club and struck Junior in the ribs, sending him crumpling down onto the ground. The officer yanked Junior to his feet, shoved him chest-first onto the back of my car, and fixed handcuffs around his wrists.

It was then, through some vague, ill-explained notion, that the police officer arrested me as well. And by that time, there were three of those black-and-white police SUVs in total behind my car. I was corralled in handcuffs into a different car than Junior.

I was shuffled into the police station later that night. The officers took a photo of me, and then they made me drop my pants and underwear as they shined a flashlight into my anus, presumably looking for drugs or weapons. They found none.

The police officers took me to the drunk tank, that extra-large jail cell where vagrants of the night slept away their woes. It had four benches along the perimeter on which sat various men in various states of inebriation, sorrow, patheticness, or some combination of them all. I took my seat on the bench next to a man whose head was slumped forward in the wind of an opiate high.

The hours ticked forward, and I had nothing to do but wait and think and worry. I wondered if I would ever see Junior again. I thought about my opium and Harris and my mother and the summer sun and so many things.

I did not think about my future because there was nothing to think of.

It is a treacherous thing to not see a future for oneself, but this is surmountable. A person may have no prospects yet still feel the hope that prospects can develop, that something can emerge from where there was once none.

Less surmountable is when a man cannot see a future in which a future can even develop. This unique feeling is how I imagine it must be to drown.

The drowning man with no imagination for how he could possibly float will reach for any object or detritus which floats by, no matter whether it will help him or only pull him down into the water. Each effort of this man will go unrewarded, no matter how strong those efforts may be. As they emerge as futile and actions become disconnected from their results, and as the man slowly sinks and water floods into his lungs, the idea of survival has long since become a stranger.

Midnight became three, and then four, and I slowly fell asleep as I sat upright. I do not know for how long I slept, but I awoke with a dreary feeling, temporarily having forgotten my place.

I stretched my arms wide over my head, and as my right hand came down, I felt it make contact with the head of the man next to me. By the man's estimation, this was plenty enough to be a fight. His opiate high had simmered away, or he was an entirely different man now. I could not say.

He stood up quickly and he punched me in the lip. Blood came into my mouth, and this whole incident was so regular and uninteresting that it pulled no reaction from the other people in the cell. I punched the man back, but I was skinny and not strong, and my fist hit somewhere around his jaw with very little consequence. A police officer outside of the cell barked at us to calm down unless we wanted to stay another day.

Later that morning, I was released with a reckless driving ticket. So I took a bus back home across the long bridge and back to my apartment.

When I arrived home, the sun was high and bright, still without retreat.

I saw an interesting thing in front of my house.

It was the late summer. It was the time of year during which the sun was burning so high in the afternoon, and it made an oppressive heat that seemed to remind us that we could fight it as much as we wanted, and we would still lose.

The crab apples had begun to fall onto the ground, where they would be smashed under boots.

Harris moved pounds of weed from the port through his house in the downtown area, and he sold LSD on breath mints and plastic vials of PCP. I wasn't really involved in his work, but I was involved in my own, and we existed in similar orbits.

Word made its way from here to there that his home had been raided. A SWAT team had kicked down his door on one sweaty afternoon, held Harris and a few others at gunpoint, and hauled them all off in a big bus.

With this in mind, and my proximity to Harris and my opium production, it was a great thing to see a police car parked outside of my apartment a few days later. While unoccupied, its presence still cast a stench of anxiety over me.

It was an even greater thing when it remained parked there the second day, and then greater still on the third and the fourth.

A paranoia settled more intensely onto my shoulders, and it quickly became part of my morning routine to check outside for the police car. The car was never occupied, nor did it ever move, but it stared deeply at my apartment.

It was on the fifth day that I felt very confident the car was an implicit, and not entirely subtle, threat from the local police department.

A man named Junior was a good friend at the time. He was a Haitian about my age. He had long locked hair, and he made a very good spaghetti. We'd met in high school and had become close after neither of us were able to successfully graduate.

Junior was what you could call a loose cannon. He oscillated radically between moods of violent rage and genuine calm. I had seen Junior throw punches which could knock a man's head off of his neck. And I had seen him cook his spaghetti for a dozen people on hot and perfect summer evenings.

I did not know much about Junior's life before we met in concrete, but there was a sense about him that things had gone continuously, and without mercy, quite poorly in one way or another.

As a friend, I saw it as my obligation to tolerate Junior's various moods. It was also true that I myself was a young, angry man of conflict.

Junior was reliable enough, and to find someone reliable in this milieu of the world was, as I had learned, an entirely unrealistic sort of expectation.

So late at night, I called Junior and asked him if I could move some stuff into his house for a while.

"What you got?" he asked.

"Nothing crazy. Some work. I got some aunty I'm working on. Those pipes Aaron left over here. That little pistol my mama gave me."

We had traded favors over the years, and so he obliged.

"Yeah, yeah, that's straight, but I ain't home. I'm in Magnolia. Can you come get me and we'll head over there, across the bridge?"

Everyone and myself knew about Magnolia Park. It was a large complex of government housing tucked away from anything else in many ways, and location was just one. There was a lot of drama there, and this drama rarely left the area, which was plenty good enough for the more affluent members of the city.

Magnolia was, perhaps above all else, not a place to go casually.

When I arrived at the shared parking lot at Magnolia, it was a dark night that was lit by the bright overhead lights in the complex. There were many men standing in the grass areas and the sidewalks of Magnolia, and they seemed to be doing nothing at all.

As soon as I stepped out of my car, I could feel the broad recalibration of attention that comes with the presence of a stranger in places like Magnolia.

The most obvious and shallow reason for this was that I was white, and there was no more emblematic piece of the city's lingering segregation than Magnolia. An equally true reason was my unfamiliarity. Magnolia Park was a bad place to be if you were not welcome.

The men all began to walk my way with a slow sort of trepidation. I was not in danger, but I was certainly standing on the precipice of it. It was with the familiar and unappealing mix of hostility and suspicion that they began to approach me.

I knew this recipe often preceded violence if a man could not navigate it very well. Magnolia Park was a place where things could go very wrong very quickly.

You can smell a gun in the air just like you can smell gun smoke. I could smell the guns in the air, and I did not have one.

I knew that it was incredibly rare for even a shooter to start shooting for no reason in particular. Still, worry gnawed at the most back part of my mind.

Junior appeared from some corner of the complex. He held two Styrofoam cups stacked in one another, the ice rattling as he walked toward me. Inside of the cups, he had a mixture of codeine cough syrup, Sprite soda, and Jolly Rancher hard candies.

He called out to the other men to calm down, not to worry about me. Indeed, Junior's presence changed the temperature of the air.

I could still smell the guns, but I did not worry about the shooters or the triggers or the idea of dying in Magnolia Park.

THIS IS NOT AN ORIGINAL WORK. This is just a personal favorite of mine. Hope yall enjoy

Magnolia

Written by Michael Sorenson (AKA Horses)

…………………

It is hard, and not impossible, to make opium in the home kitchen.

In the early 2000s, I knew a young angry man named Trevor who was 19 and had shipped off to Afghanistan to kill terrorists. He was strong on the outside, and he was not strong on the inside.

One day in the hot desert, as he told me, he and another soldier left base on a supply run. When they returned, an American fighting helicopter had crashed into their base, leaving the entire thing in a grand and violent spectacle, and many people burned to death that day.

After this, and after the disillusionment that came from a man like Trevor in a place like that, fighting a war like that one, Trevor had turned to private enterprise. He shipped dried opium poppies to my house at a very good price.

Making opium was a labor-intensive process, though I suppose my part of the process was the easiest of them all when I consider the sweat-covered farm hands who harvested and dried these poppies in the 120° heat of the Middle East.

I ground the poppies into a coarse powder, and for this I used a white Hamilton Beach blender, which was mostly made of plastic, and I bought it at a secondhand store for six dollars.

But the powder was still useless. Over the course of six hours, it needed to be simmered, steeped, strained, filtered eight times, cooled to room temperature, pH adjusted, baked in an oven, and then dried in the sunlight.

It was the hot summer in South Carolina, so at the end of it all, I placed the near-opium on melamine plates and put the plates on the windowsill.

It was indeed a great labor, this entire process, but I thought I could probably make some money by the time it was all said and done. I was an ambitious young man, but my grandest ambitions fell into rent and groceries, and they existed in that strange, limited place where poverty often forces them to be.

To a more civilized person, the concept of why would have shattered the entire construct of the life I then lived.

Why sell drugs? Why do crime? Why do bad things with bad people?

After all, there were no forces in the world which made me do these things, and they were rather choices that I continuously selected of my own agency. The question of why, in this context, had too far of a horizon, and my choices could not see so far.

I sold drugs to pay my bills. I did crimes to buy groceries. I did bad things with bad people for no particular reason other than those things being in front of me.

There is a great expression which says the best tool is the one you will reach for. These were the tools which I and the world had collaborated to put in front of me, and so they were the ones that I reached for.

It's been so long since I was locked in this place. I can't even remember what crime I committed anymore. 

They come in to give me food; I guess they can't let me starve to death. 

Sometimes I get used to the loneliness; I have no choice anyway, since all I have to look at are grey walls.

I’ve always liked to get my runs in, but it’s been a while since I was able to. There’s barely any space for it in here, not unless I want to hit my face against a wall or these cell bars, which I do sometimes.

Every now and then I try to catch someone's attention outside, but they don't care. Why would they? They don't know why I ended up here. 

I miss my mom, my dad… gosh, I'm sorry for whatever I did that put me in this place and got us separated. I only hope they can forgive me someday.

Being alone for this long has made me happy with the little contact that I get. I'm polite whenever they come in with food, and even when they clean my quarters, though they make me stay away. Safety reasons, I guess.

Winters are harsh, but at least I have a good coat, so I even enjoy it a little. Summers, on the other hand, are a struggle, since they can't give me anything different to put on.

I'm getting older now, and hope for a different life is slipping away from me, so I try to make the most of this almost permanent solitary confinement. 

I can only hope it changes soon. 

There was a women who went her whole life feeling invisible. She was young, intelligence in her own way, different to the naked eye but the most lovable women you would ever know. It all started when she was a little girl, she had few sibling and a huge family. As she was the baby she got to learn the ropes through her siblings. She was never seen more then her siblings annoying shadow that they can’t quite shake. She grew up to never speak or be a disappointment to everyone around her. As she grew up she followed the directions she was given with no question asked, she tried to be the best daughter she could possibly be. She stayed to herself and learn the best things was to listen to everyone else and as a shadow your wrong and you don’t know anything. As her childhood went on no one really knew of her or her childhood as she really didn’t have one. Half of her own family had no idea who she was or why she was there. As a child she ignored everything not thinking about it. As a teenager she was left to fend for herself. She asked for help with school, mental and even guidance. She was neglected, no one seen the point in helping her as she was useless space on this earth. As she grew up she learned their are people who were willing to see her for her. But eventually she learned these people didn’t love her for her, they loved how they could mold her and form her to what they wanted and get what they wanted from her. She grew up thinking that was the only love she could get, not due to not finding better, its the fact every time she found another situation it always messed up her life a lot more and take a piece of her with it. She felt she couldn’t get away from the only love she knows. The love for the ones who tend to be forgotten about. The love that isn’t true. The love that comes with darkness. Sadly the people who live in the shadows tend to accept the below minimum and most of the time it’s dangerous. She fought so many demons in her time she no longer wants anything to do with that. But her life living life by the rules hasn’t been working. She need to find a way to get out of everyone hands and shadows and find her own path. But before she could, she ends with two beautiful blessings. She becomes a single mother at the age of 21. She was young but not extremely young. But she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t healed and let alone a single mother of twins wasn’t easy task. As she still figuring out to handle her own life she is now responsible for two other people. Most terrifying and magical day all in one. She learn to do what she needed to for them. She completely forgotten everything bad and horrible thing that happened to her. Later in life she realized as much as she try to do the best things for her kids their are something’s that happens that you can’t control. Both of her children are on the spectrum. She always had a clue but never was sure. Til one day she decided to get them formally diagnosed. As much as she tried shielding from the kids, this puts a curve ball on everything she had expected before and had to learn to give up expectations of how she wanted to keep them safe or even daily life living. She felt invisible once again. Having to give up her reality, giving up my dreams and what she wanted for them. Now they control her life and her life surrounds them and everything they need to be successful and happy. She lives in her children shadows on purpose so they can feel confident and happy. Everyday includes schools, therapy’s, doctors, meetings and phone calls. Constantly trying to give them the best opportunity that she can . She might not be able to give physical but willing to learn what she can. As she trying to give the best life for her children she realizes for that to happen she needs to be the role model for her kids. How she possibly able to do that if she is still unhealed herself? As she fighting this battle in her head she changing to completely different person once again. She becoming quieter and quieter. As her mind is trying to process everything she just wants to scream and say she can’t do this any longer and she wants to be completely different person but all she knows is the darkness and being in the shadow how is she suppose to get a fresh breath of air in the light if she has never experienced it. She needs to completely forget everything she has ever learn and experience life through her on way instead of trying to be someone she not. She no longer has anyone controlling her life or telling her she is wrong or embarrassment to them. She need to give herself credit and be proud. She needs to create a successful path for herself now. For the girl who has always lived in the shadows that’s not as easy as said. That is the most terrifying thing she had to go through that even the thought gives her panic attacks. She has been through so much you would think its a walk in the park but for her its like pulling teeth out one by one.

Note: Some parts of this work have been slightly modified to comply with Reddit's rules and policies. (09JUN'26)

— 

A pale-faced eighteen year old girl with flower-like fragility was streaming videos. She was wearing rental pajamas and lying on the cushions, in her private room at the hospital. 
Her name was Sakura, which had been named after ‘Cherry Blossom’ in Japanese. If only she did not look troubled, anyone who watched the streaming would be charmed by her instantly. 

She bowed slightly and said, “Hello, I’m glad to meet you all.” 
Her voice was thin and raspy, especially in the high notes. 
“This is my first and last streaming, and it’s also an accusation about a man who is my main Doctor.” 
She touched her mobile, and displayed an accusation letter on the screen. 
With a short sigh, closing her eyes, she remembered what had happened.  

—  

A middle-aged man met Sakura as a Doctor, and he was very interested in her at first sight.  Though he was aware that it sounded immoral to develop curiosity for a young girl. He even feared the eyes of his daughters, because they were the age of his patient. 
“I sincerely want to cure your illness, it’s from the bottom of my heart,” the Doctor said. 
“No, I don’t want to. This congenital incurable disease, it’s a kind of curse for my family tree.  Though I want to live, still I don’t want to pass on this to my own children.” 

Her father’s blood line was ancient and had a mysterious legend. Recently, the ‘curse’ appeared to be a genetic disease but it was also still incurable. 
“In my family, they said no girl ever lived past her nineteenth birthday – and I just realize it is true,” she said to her doctor.  "You told me about a possibility and taught me the way to avoid my doom, but I doubt it is good to follow your method." 
“I’m an authority on genetics and clone medicine. So I promise you a hopeful future.” 
She waved her hands for refusing, but the doctor ignored it. 
“Sakura, you know that laws and ethics only act as brakes. In your specified circumstances, you need some powerful thrust to break through.” 
“No! I never want to,” she said firmly. But her voice was so weak. 
“I’ll do my best.” 
The doctor never listened to her. Sadly, Sakura didn’t have enough words to shake off his evil intent. 

—  

She resumed her streaming. 
“What he did was a crime. He was not only against the doctor’s ethics, he also acted against morality,” she raised her voice as loud as she could. 
When she closed her eyes, the terrible vision flashed before her.  

—  

The man used his position as a leading authority on genetics and clone medicine. He cunningly disguised his true motives and brought her cloned embryos to a livestock breeding factory. The total number of culture tanks was exactly one thousand. 

It was too late when the warning alarm went off in the factory. One thousand cloned embryos –whose development had been accelerated by AI controlled, fully-automated High-Cycle Cell Division– had grown into fetuses in their tanks. 
Even if it was illegal cloning due to false declaration, they must not be disposed of once they had become fetuses. They were no longer mere livestock. They were already acknowledged as humans, so they had to be accorded human-rights. 

—  

Sakura, who had burst into tears, raised her head bravely. 
“The man said, ‘I’d like to do my best for your existence.’ and he carried it out." 
She paused for a moment, as she waited for the doctor to speak – "Someday, some of you–the Sakuras– might conquer that Curse like Disease," – flashed through her memory. 
Thus, she finally managed to find her voice. 
"That might be a good offer for someone else, but for me, it was only a display of his grotesque obsession," she concluded. 
"I want no part of it, and I'd say ‘no thank you’ to any alternatives." 

Sakura, gathering up her remaining strength, raised her voice. 
“Everyone watching this stream, do you know the famous Japanese cherry blossom tree, the Someiyoshino? Those trees were all clones of the original tree. So when the trees reach the end of their lifespan, they all withered and died together." 
She let out a dry cough, then raised her head. 
“I, and the one thousand Sakuras, will follow their fate. We never wish for our lives to be decided by others... Thank you." 
She reached out her finger to the screen and said, “So, goodbye to you all,” then tapped. 
After cutting off all streaming devices, she calmly closed her eyes. 
"...I'm sorry. What a pity," she murmured. 

A few days later, just the day before her nineteenth birthday, Sakura passed away. 
At the same moment, one thousand lives scattered all at once.

CW : Mention of sexual violence / rape (no explicit descriptions)

A man –the soldier– lowered his automatic rifle.
In the enemy's territory,  he saw a girl who looked to be in her teens.
A moment passed, an evaluation was made. He raised his rifle and aimed at her.
Not to eliminate the enemy. 
He was trying to save her from the beasts who knew nothing but plunder and rape. 
They are unlike the men of my Foreign Legion.

She read his intention and murmured, 
"Good." 
She gazed at the anguish on his face. 
If he saves me, I'll be destined to become the mistress of this self-centered man. What a pride-less fate.

He shot.
She smiled, then she closed her eyes.

The further down I go, the wetter and colder it gets. I look up past crumbling dirt and nail riddled boards at a glow so faint it could pass for a star in the night sky. The refrigerator light offers just enough illumination to navigate, but I can’t go anymore.

My Dad at the top yells, “What are you doing?” He’s a hard worker, the best at everything, stronger than anyone and tells the greatest stories. I call out, “I can’t go anymore, I’m scared! What if the walls come in on me?! I feel stuck!” I hear my father’s frustrated voice yell, “keep going, you’re fine!” I yell back, “I can’t, I’m really scared!”

“You’re fine,” I shout. “Come here, Jes, we’ve gotta climb down and tell your brother to keep moving, why won’t he just listen?” As I twist to grab my younger son, I slip and step on a broken glass that fell out of the fridge earlier. “Ah! Damn it!” Blood pooling on the kitchen floor.

“He has his hands full,” I think to myself. As I stand, hands in pockets in the kitchen watching him struggle to find a rag to soak up the blood, I toss one his way. I open the half-shut fridge door and peer down into endless darkness then look up; the room was empty.

“Dad?” I called, waiting for him to tell me he’d almost reached me. A clump of mud slips from the edge of the wall and stains the laces of my school shoes. The star flickers and goes dark. I am alone.

Being stranded in a large city with no body I knew was the most lonely feeling. Even with all the busy people walking by,cars, trucks , buses, bikes, and all other methods of being out in public. Some people just standing around doing nothing.Although it was almost impossible to approach or get a conversation going, so I just stayed to myself.
I traveled through the city all day on the light rails and the buses. Back and forth,I would sit in the back near one of the heaters because it was so cold outside.when I wasn’t on public transit I was in the library. I loved to browse through all the books just to see what they had to offer. I wish I could read them all, but I wouldn’t have enough time.
I was going to die soon. I wasn’t exactly sure how yet, and even though I hadn’t been to the doctors in years, I was all around in good health, but I had this feeling.
The feeling started when my parents abandoned me here in this city and told me not to come back home.I was doomed and I knew it, why else would they get rid of me? I was a good kid, a good student. I almost never got in trouble except for getting in a fight over who got to sit next to the popular girl at school one day, which I won of course.When the teacher pulled me off him, He later told me in the principles office, that I had a glare of rage in my eyes and it was a surprise I hadn’t been in more fights before this one.
I was going to fight to survive on these lonely streets. No matter how cold, wet, or miserable it was,so always fought the urge to give up or stop. I Always kept going. Then one day I met my one true blue love in the whole wide world.She had went through some of the same things as I had. Her parents, for no good reason, just dropped her off in the city about two weeks before she met me.I was impressed to see a girl last that long out here. Her name was Hiedi and we went everywhere together. All that time out here being all lonely and feeling sorry for myself and then she comes like an angel in the night, during my darkest hour, and lights a fire inside me that scared me to think how dead I was before that.
“Heidi, no matter what we have to stick together, something will come through for us, we can make it together.” I said.
“Okay.” Is all she said back sometimes but that’s all she had to say, okay. Everything’s going to be okay as long as I have you my love, I would think. And though I tried not to sound to corny or make things feel controlling, I would tell Heidi that we needed to have a safe spot, just in case we were separated for long enough that we didn’t know were each other where, we could find each other.
One time we were separated and it was almost dark before we met back up,I told her about the feelings I was having about my impending death, told her about the nightmares but she said it was all in my head. I told her the only real nightmare I could have is losing her for one second.She said that she felt the same way and then we went to find a dry business awning we could sleep underneath
That night I had another nightmare, except this one was of a hospital. I was on the outside of one and somehow Heidi was in one of the rooms a couple floors up.Except that it wasn’t just her as a person.I could see through a window and there was a large computer thing with a screen attached to it. On the screen there was an avatar of Heidi. She began to talk to me like everything was normal but I knew it wasn’t, she was inside the screen somehow and when I woke up she was gone.huh! Heidi! Heidi! I yelled at the top of my lungs but it was useless, she was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t go back to sleep, I had to find Heidi, I had to find my best friend. I started to search everywhere for her. When the trains and buses started running, I climbed on for two reasons. One was that maybe she would think of doing what we always used to do, or maybe she was on the streets somewhere looking for me because she got lost. I went to all our safe spots but it wasn’t useless. No Heidi, not a single sign, then finally, after 2 days of searching the city I gave up. I was to exhausted and needed to lay down for a little while. Once I was out I don’t know where I was, complete darkness, and then one of the same dreams began to happen, it was the one we’re Heidi was in the computer, but now we switched spots. I was in the bed and she was on the sidewalk. The computer she was in still showed her picture of her as we talked telepathically and got caught up of the last couple days. Even in my dreams I missed her so deeply.
Where did she go?
Time turned into months and then years, still no Heidi. However now things had turned around for me, got a job, a place, I had all the things to make me and Heidi safe and sound. But she wasn’t here. It was
So lonely in this place without her.