The Hemingway Solution

I've already made the necessary preparations.

It was only a few days ago that I decided on this course of action. It was raining that morning, and as I sat writing in my journal it suddenly came to me. I should have recognized the solution sooner of course, it was only a few years ago that Ernest took the same path, but for some reason it has eluded me for some time.

Perhaps it was simple fear, mixed with a hope that did not wish to be burdened by an ever intrusive reality. I had hoped that we could reach some form of reconciliation. I recognize that she no longer wishes to be a part of my life, and certainly I no longer of hers, yet I had hoped we could put aside our vitriol. I had hoped that some of the work I had done recently would be able to generate some amount of income which I could use to stave off the spectre of hunger, and worse, dependance, which has haunted my sleep of late. At the least, I had hoped for some happy news, some good word, to reach my ear. Anything to lift me from this dark depression.

But perhaps this is for the best. She and I will never again find peace, and if the world no longer has any interest in my work, better I suppose that I quit bothering them with it. And so it was with a kind of relieved acceptance that I made the first call and scheduled the cessation of my utilities.

It all took a few days of course. These sorts of things ought not be rushed. And yet, as I took each successive step drawing me ever nearer to this moment, I felt not so much an urge to be done, nor a fear of the doing, but rather a simple contentment. As though these final errands were a burden that could be lifted from off my shoulders, and that in so doing, I had done some small service for those to whom I would soon be doing a small disservice.

Of course there are always so many things to take care of. So many small steps. So many details. But each one seemed to fall into place almost effortlessly, and for the first time in these many months I felt some sense of accomplishment. It was as though in planning for this, and preparing for it, I was able to check off my list of things to do, and in so doing, able to find a renewed purpose to my days.

None of this made me regret or change my decision of course. I had set myself upon a path, and having so committed, could not now step away from it. To do so would pay the lie to the very sense of accomplishment I had been experiencing. It would return me to the bitter, failing, husk I had been collapsing into only days before.

So I scheduled the cessation of my utilities, and ended the phone service. I asked the mail carrier to hold my postage and called the newspaper and canceled my subscription. So many little details in a man's life. So many things you don't think of. The sum of a life I suppose could be taken from its contractual commitments. And in severing each of those commitments I was severing my ties to this world.

I went to the grocer and purchased the drop cloths. I needed enough to hang over the walls and windows, and to drape on the floors. Of course they had to be sturdy enough. I wouldn't be using the Boss & Co like he did, but there was sure to be a mess. The Boss & Co was effective to be sure, but simply not of my interest. I had always been more interested in pistols and revolvers and would of course be selecting one from my collection. Far better I thought to use the tools at hand than to acquire a new firearm simply for a single use. Not the work of a collector that.

I stayed up late last night thinking about what to say. It may be some days before they find the note I intend to leave, and there are sure to be questions. I have made my living with words, and now, at its ending, I was struggling to find the right ones. I didn't want to lay blame. I wished there was some way to assuage the guilt that some would surely feel. It isn't their fault, neither their decisions nor actions which led me here. Not something that was said or some perceived slight. Not even from her. It was my decision, and the one which I felt was right under the circumstances.

Ultimately, I decided to express as succinctly as I could my apologies and motivations.

I don't like to leave messes when I go away, but if I could have cleaned up any of this mess, I wouldn't be going away.

And so now, as I sip one last cup of tea and contemplate the milieu I have waiting when I return to my home, I find myself ready to go. I feel no fear of what is to come, and no sense of loss at what I leave behind.

The problems have mounted, and it is time for me to solve them. I have weighed the alternatives and rested upon the solution. The preparations are complete, and the time has come.

I will sip this last cup, and then return to my home. November in Pennsylvania always was a beautiful time. I can think of no better place to be going, nor any more lovely to leave.

How to Tell a Story

Sometimes circumstances conspire against us.

It really shouldn't catch me by surprise, I suppose. After all, I'm not new to this world. I've lived long enough to understand that a man can only bend the universe to his will so far, before it snaps back out of his grasp. And when that pendulum swings, it always swings too far. It's just the nature of things I suppose. A man ought not to complain when he gets a rough turn, not if he's over the age of ten at least. A man ought to know by then that that's just the way things go.

Still, when it happens, it does seem to catch us by surprise, doesn't it? And we do still complain, don't we? So there I was, sittin in the car on the side of the road, cursin the universe, my luck, and all the damned turns and misfortunes which had brought me to that place. Because it wasn't fair, and I didn't have it coming.

None the less. A man ought not complain. So after doin just that, but only for a moment, and feelin sorry for myself just enough, I got out and started walkin.

We live in a world where many of our decisions are out of our hands. A world where much of what impacts our day to day is beyond our control. We are put upon. And all of the opportunities we are given to affect any substantial change in contradiction to those basic facts is mere illusion. It's just fluoride in the water. It's supposed to be for your own good, but it's really just there to keep you pacified.

So we learn to ignore those things we can't control, at least to whatever degree we can, and focus on the things we can. Oh, I suppose there's a few who never do quite give up on all the things beyond their influence, poor bastards probably go crazy in time. You run into them sometimes. They walk up to you out in public and start talkin about how their dead husband always used to like this grocery or some such nonsense that don't mean a damn thing to you. But the rest of us learn to accept and get on.

So I was gettin on. I left the car right there, rolled it and locked it of course, and started puttin one in front of the other. Only way to get where I needed to be. While I walked, I considered the strange path I'd traveled throughout my day to bring me to this point. Still beatin myself up I guess. Any one of those decisions could've been made different and woulda saved me from bein in the wash so to speak, but there I was none the less. I'd been through worse and hadn't yet figured how to go back and fix it, and I didn't then either.

I'd memorized the address. And I was plannin to park the car somewhere and walk at least part way anyway. I still had the note in my pocket too. That was the most dangerous part. It's one thing to plan on killin a man. It's another to go carryin around incriminatin evidence in your front pants pocket. All I'd need is for some pain in the ass police to decide to stop the man walkin down the side of the road in the middle of the night. Then he'd start callin up his friends and they'd all come circle up, lights a shinin, and then where would I be. Standin there with a note in my front pocket linkin me directly to thirteen other deaths in four states, that's where. Not a pleasant thought that.

But you had to make a splash you see. I'm no damn murderer, and the sort of thing I was doin requires a little risk takin. You had to wake people up. And to do that required a bit of dramatic flair. People don't get up for a little thing like a dead man. Even a dead tax man. You got to give em scandal. So I wrote the notes, and the notes told a story.

The story was important, because it was the one I wanted told. It was a story needed hearin. It was a story of how people could stand up for themselves, how they could be strong, and capable, and smart. How they could fix their own problems and live their own lives. It was a pretty damn good story I thought.

But you can't tell it all at once. You have to let it out slow. A little here. A little there. People get scared when you look em in the eye and tell em that everything they believe is a lie and everyone they trust is a liar. It's too much for some. Can't just drop em there, gotta lead em there. So I'd leave a little note each time. And over time, the story got told.

There was a man, not unlike yourself, lessen I suppose you're a woman, but you get the point. He wasn't a dumb man, but not particularly smart either. Not wise nor foolish. He was just a man. He knew what he was though. Not down on himself nor too high. Give him credit for that.

He had his problems. We all do. And he dealt with them as best he could. He wasn't too good to ask for help when he needed it, but he didn't rely on others either. Just took each day as it came, and did his best with what he had.

One day his neighbors got together and told him they had a better way. They offered a way to ease his burden. They'd form a collective. All he had to do was chip in to a pool of resources, and whenever anyone was down, they could dip into the pool and take care. And when they were up again, they could pay back into the pool.

Now these were all good folk. They had good intentions. But our man was already able to take what came. So he thanked em, and wished em luck, and said he'd be about his business for now. Nothing personal, and if any of them ever needed a hand he was always willin to do what he could, but just the same he'd just keep on as he was.

Like I said, his neighbors were all fine folk, so they just nodded their heads and went on their way. And nobody took any offense. They knew our man was a givin soul, and expected everyone would get on just fine. So he continued on and they started their collective. And no man had any problem with his neighbor.

Every so often, someone would get down, and they'd dip in to the pool. And most of the time, when they were up again, they pay it back. There were hiccups and wrinkles to iron, but for the most part things were fine. And our man was fine too.

But over time, the collective began to struggle. Every once in a while, a man would borrow when he was down, but when he was up the money didn't get paid back, and sometimes people weren't smart enough to use the money to get back up, in which case they just kept borrowin without returnin. Over time, they had themselves a diminishin return on their investment. And as the problems began to grow, the pool wasn't large enough to help everyone involved.

It just wasn't intended to be used by everyone at once. It was supposed to be there for times of need. But people began to rely on it. They figured it'd be there to fall back on. So some people took risks. And if those risks didn't pan, they could just lean on the collective. But the pool wasn't big enough anymore. They needed to make it bigger.

So they asked everyone in the collective to increase their contributions. This would fix the problem you see. If the pool were just bigger, than it would be able to help everyone when times got tough. Of course, if you were down, no one expected you to contribute your full share, but if you were up, well it was only fair. After all, the pool was there for you too, in case you needed it.

But over time, some people never needed it, and some people always seemed like they did. And as the contributions got higher, those who were havin trouble making ends increased in number. It seemed that more and more people were findin the cupboards bare after making their contribution to the pool. So they'd just dip back in and take their contribution back out, but then there wasn't ever enough there when other people really needed it.

Eventually, those what never needed the pool started wonderin why they were contributin so much to something they weren't using. So they started talking about gettin out of the collective. But those what needed it more often said that wasn't fair. After all, they agreed to participate. It was for everyone's good. And besides, it was there for them too, should they ever need it. So everyone stayed.

But over time, it still couldn't be supported. There just weren't enough puttin in to support those takin out. Even as the suggested contribution rose and rose. In fact, each time it went up, it seemed like fewer and fewer could afford to contribute, and more and more were havin to take out. So they needed a new way to fund the collective.

And that's when they came back to our man's home and knocked on his door. Only this time they weren't the same folk as before. Before they'd come with dreams and ideas. Now they had demands and recriminations. There were people in need, couldn't he see that? And he had plenty. In fact, since he hadn't been a part of the collective, he'd made a small fortune providin goods and services to those who were and who had lost the ability to provide for themselves. He had plenty to share, and a lot of that money had come from members of the collective in the first place. By rights, it was theirs.

That was the last note I'd left. The story was gettin told. I had another note in my pocket that night. And as I walked up the side of the road, down the path I'd memorized days ago, I thought about how that story would end. There was still plenty more to the tale. The note in my pocket wasn't the last. If circumstances went my way, I'd still have several more little notes to leave behind. There were plenty of people who needed to hear the story I was tellin.

Because some of those things we can't control aren't as far beyond our influence as we may have been led to believe. That's the real pacifier. Not the illusion of control. It's the mask behind the mask. It's suddenly realizin that your supposed control was an illusion. That's how they keep people from takin back their lives. When they realize that all that stuff they were taught in grade school while they held their hand over their heart and allegianced was a lie, a lot of people just give up. They accept and they get on. Because by the time they're ten, they realize that some things are just out of their hands.

Course, some things ain't everything. So I carried little notes in my front pants pocket to remind people that there were some things they could control. So that people who had given up hope might find hope waiting on their window sill one morning. And sometimes risks had to be taken. But when a man, even if he's not the smartest man, not particularly wise nor foolish, takes those risks on himself, he can do great things.

And when an idea takes root in the heart of a man, why, maybe such a man could change the world.

Depending on how circumstances conspire.

A Nighttime Diversion

Some people are just dicks.

There's nothing you can do about it. You're driving to work one morning, and for no apparent reason, someone decides to make your life worse. There's no justification for it. It doesn't make them happier, or better, or make their lives easier. They're just awful, nasty people. So they cut you off in traffic, drive too slow, and give you dirty looks. These people are what's wrong with the world. They're why the terrorists are winning.

I hate people like this. I saw one of them at the grocery store the other night. I was there to get milk. I like milk. It makes for strong bones. So there I was in the refrigerated section, digging behind the old milk looking for the new milk, they always hide the fresh stuff in the back, when I saw him. He was bothering the girl at the deli counter. They were out of chickens. Ass. Like somehow it's her fault they're out of chickens.

I quit worrying about the milk. I could get milk any time. Here was an asshole, right in front of me. Something had to be done.

As he headed up front to pay for his purchases, sans chicken, I grabbed a few things at random off the canned vegetable aisle and followed him to the checkout counter. I hung back and let someone step in between us, and then got in line. I didn't want him to notice me too near him, but I didn't want him to get away either.

After I payed for my cans of peas and fruit cocktail, I nodded and laughed at the small talk of the guy bagging my groceries. He just wanted to be noticed. I didn't catch his name. I was trying to watch the dick out of the corner of my eye so I could see which way he went when he stepped into the parking lot.

I had parked near the door in a handicapped spot. I always do. I'm never there long, if anybody bothers to call the cops I'll be long gone before they get there. They can't get there quick enough to save you from a robbery, they certainly aren't going to get there fast enough to boot my car. Since I was parked so close to the door, it wasn't hard for me to be in my car and watching him before he was ready to pull out of the parking lot.

I followed him down the expressway, never too close or too far, for miles. We passed a few other grocery stores as we drove down the edge of the city. I started to wonder why he'd drive all the way over to my grocery store just for chicken. Maybe he just likes the kind they sell there. Maybe he's neurotic. I sped up a little to vary the distance between us. The key to following someone in traffic is inconsistency. People are self absorbed. They only think of themselves while driving. If you want to seem natural when following others, you have to seem to be ignoring others.

After a while, he turned down a residential road. This is always the dangerous part. It's easy to give yourself away following someone down a residential road late at night. So instead of turning in after him, I drove past the side road. That way, if he was looking in his rear view, he'd see me drive past. After a few hundred feet, I turned around and drove back to the turn off.

This is where stalking someone is more of an art than a science. His car wasn't visible from where I was, so I had to guess what to do. Do I turn down one of the many side roads in the neighborhood, or keep going straight ahead?

I went ahead and drove straight ahead for a few blocks and then turned down another road. This one would take me out of this neighborhood and onto another main road. Sure enough, there was his car ahead of me, turning into a driveway. Looked like tonight I was going to get lucky.

I pulled into someone else's driveway and shut the engine off. He got out of his car, grabbed his grocery bags, and headed into the house. I waited for about twenty minutes, but he never came back out. You can't hurry these things. Sometimes people forget their purse or their hat in the car and run back out for it. If they don't come out in twenty minutes, they aren't coming out any time soon.

I pulled out of the driveway I was parked in and drove slowly towards his house. I parked in the street a few houses away from his car. I turned the engine back off and opened the trunk of the car. I opened the duffel bag I keep in the bag and pulled out the mask and gloves. I started keeping this bag in the car a while back. You never know when you might need it, it's just good to be prepared.

After a few minutes, the lights in the window flicked off. He must be headed up to bed.

I worked my way around to the back of the house. There was a sliding glass door in the back. Like most people, he hadn't bothered to jam anything behind the door to keep it in place. He hadn't even engaged the lock. I let myself in quietly.

I really hate people who don't treat others with respect. People deserve better than that. They shouldn't be seen as animals. I mean, really.

There ought to be a law.

Strange Holiday

I suppose it shouldn't be that much of a surprise, and I can't help but feel like I should have seen this coming. For a moment, all I can do is look at the three small links that connect the cuff around my wrist to the one around the pipe. Soon, I'll be able to think clearly enough to decide what to do next, but for now I'm just going to sit here and stare at that short bit of chain.

I really can't blame her. After all, she was taking as much of a risk as I was, going home with a stranger. For all she knew, it could just as easily have been her chained up in a hotel bathroom with a head full of pillows and chalk dust. Of course this was probably her plan when she went out tonight, but I learned a long time ago you never know who you're fucking with, and I'm sure she's learned that too.

A few minutes go by before I start to really assess my situation. My head is still cloudy and my tongue feels thick like it's filling my whole mouth, but my eyes work so I start looking around.

My first irrational fear is that she stole my kidneys. Like in the story. But I'm not sitting in a bathtub full of ice, and a quick reach back with my free hand seems to reveal a noticeable lack of surgical scars. Everything seems to be in place. Everything seems fine.

Except of course that I'm naked and chained to a water pipe.

I look around the room and notice a few things. First off, it's decently well lit. There's a central fixture over my head, and it looks like it has several smaller bulbs in it. It's not a dirty bathroom. The floor is clean, and the little soaps are sitting on the edge of the tub and by the sink, still in their little wrappers with the hotel's name printed on them. It occurs to me that hotels probably use such cheap little soaps because people steal them all the time. Bastards. The towels are all folded neatly and sitting on their wire shelf between the toilet and the tub, but my clothes are nowhere to be seen. Which means they must be in the bedroom. At least I hope that's what it means.

I'm not scared. Even if I end up sitting here all night and day tomorrow, the maid will be in eventually for turn down service. The next day or so might not be the most comfortable of my life, but it's not like I'm in any real danger.

I wonder why she just left me here like this. Things seemed to be going well. We got on alright at the bar, and at the second bar after we left the first one. I brought her back to my hotel room thinking the evening was progressing, well, more or less as I'd predicted. I planned on being naked, just not handcuffed and alone.

It must have been the wine. She'd drugged me somehow, that was obvious. One minute we're dancing in the bedroom, drinking the merlot, and then I wake up here, like this. So it must have been the wine.

It doesn't seem fair really. And for a second I allow myself to feel wronged. Cheated. I had plans. Things were going well. I'd really been in need of a nice little holiday, and this weekend was supposed to be just that. And now it was all ruined.

I'm not really upset though. Not for long. After a while, I even laugh about the whole thing. The maid will find me, in a day or two. Until then, I'll just sit here and wait. It's not like I had much for her to steal anyway, not on me. She got a little cash, a few credit cards I can cancel tomorrow, maybe she kept my cell phone. But nothing too serious. I kinda hope she just left the cell phone. It's a new phone.

So I didn't get laid. It's not that big a deal. I'll get laid next time. In a way this is better. I have a story to tell.

After all, if things had gone the way I'd planned, I'd hardly be able to tell anyone about it later. You can't exactly brag about picking up random girls at bars, having sex with them in hotel rooms, and then murdering them and taking their bodies out to the desert in the trunk of your car to bury. But I can tell the guys at work about this. It'll even make them laugh.

And there'll be other holidays and other girls. It's never hard to pick up girls at the bars. And next time I'll be more careful.

Because you never know who you're fucking with.

Light in the Valley

It hasn't happened before or since. Just the one time, and most don't even know about it.

It was a cloudy night, I remember that. We'd been sitting there for some time. Just sitting under that tree. We'd run out of things to discuss, but neither of us wanted to go back. So we just sat there, under the clouds, and we stared over the side of the cliff at the river below.

It was dark. You couldn't really even make out the river. Maybe if it hadn't been so cloudy, maybe there would have been some reflection. Like christmas lights floating in the water. But it was cloudy, so there weren't any christmas lights, just a dark slightly darker than the darkness that surrounded it. The kind of definition you get when you look over the edge of a cliff on a cloudy night.

So we were just sitting there. I thought about putting my arm around her, but it didn't really seem right. She wasn't my girlfriend, and it wasn't that cold. I just wanted to reach out and touch her. You can feel so alone, even with a person right next to you, especially in the dark when no one is talking. But it really wasn't my place to go putting my arm around her, so I didn't. I never thought about whether or not she would have wanted me to.

That's when it happened. At first, it seemed like there was a light, off in the distance, past the end of the river where the water bubbled up out of the rocks. I just thought it was a little lightning in the cloud and ignored it, but it didn't flicker. Instead it glowed steadily, and it got brighter.

The clouds began to part around it, and still it got brighter. Thoughts that maybe it was a plane or a helicopter were gone almost before they were formed, certainly before they were spoken. It was just too bright, and too big now to be anything like that.

Still, we didn't say anything. I wanted to ask her if she saw it. She had to be seeing it. She couldn't not see it. But she didn't say anything. Then again, neither did I, so maybe she was wondering the same about me. Neither of us said anything, and the light grew brighter and brighter.

Soon it was filling the sky, but it didn't seem focused on us. Sure, it was getting closer, but that almost seemed to have more to do with it getting larger than anything else. I wasn't afraid, I wasn't even really curious. It was so strange, and so vast, all I could really do was sit and stare. Soon there wasn't any room in my mind left for fear or wonder. In the face of something so unlike anything I knew, so much more vast than anything I could comprehend, there wasn't room for anything at all. Just sitting and staring and not talking.

It was like what they always tell you in school when they talk about blue whales, how one whale is so much larger than a human. You can't really understand it. The idea of any animal being so vast is more than you can really truly grasp. So they tell you it's like three school buses run on end. They tell you it weighs as much as a hundred cars. They tell you it's bigger than anything else ever was.

But to the kid sitting in his desk, that's all nonsense. You can compare it to whatever you like, he'll never understand the reality of it. He can't. And I couldn't understand what I was seeing that night either.

If you asked me to describe it, I'd use similes. I'd say it was like the sun came down to the earth. I'd say it was like all the light in the world filled the valley beneath the cliff. I'd say it was like being in a lightning storm. I might even say it was like seeing God.

But I can't really tell you what it was, any more than I can tell you what it was like. I might as well say it was like three school buses run on end. It doesn't make any sense to you, any more than it does to the kid in the desk. It's a huge unknowable thing, and when they say you had to be there, this was what they meant.

Then it was gone. It didn't leave any impression behind. There wasn't any damage to the valley. The clouds moved right back in to cover the sky. It didn't even leave an impression on my eyes, like when you stare at a light bulb for too long. It was just there, all unknowable and vast, and then gone.

The entire thing couldn't have lasted more than a few moments. I finally turned to her to ask if she saw it. I knew she would say yes. She had too.

But as I turned to her, I noticed she was looking at something in her hand. A rock she'd picked up earlier in the day. I'd seen her put it in her pocket. It was just a small brown pebble, smooth and flat, just like countless other river rocks by countless other rivers. Suddenly I knew that she hadn't seen it. She'd been staring at that rock. It didn't make sense, surely the light would have caused her to look up, but I just knew that if I asked, she'd tell me she hadn't seen a thing.

So I didn't bother asking. We'd sat there in silence so long anyway, it wasn't worth breaking it now, not when I knew what she'd say anyway. Maybe that's why people stop talking. You know what I mean? Because they know what other people will say. So they just quit.

Anyway, I didn't say anything. I just sat there. After a moment, I turned back to the cliff and looked out over the edge at the river below. There wasn't anything to see there, just the darkness, and after a while we both got up and headed back inside.

Without a word.

On Disobedience

Once we were young. We sat in smoky rooms in small groups and talked about important things. We were going to change the world. We were going to be a part of it. We'd get high, and discuss philosophy, and religion, and science. And we knew things.

We aren't so young anymore, but we still know things. We don't get high, and we don't get to talk as much, but we still know things. We know how to write a letter that can't be understood except by the person it's written to. We know how to blend into a crowd so that we aren't noticed. We know how to hide a knife in the palm of our hand so that they don't see it coming until it's too late. We know how to build a bomb, and how to bury it so it goes off when they drive their tanks over it. We know how to bandage a mortal wound, and how to make one.

We learned fast in the early years. It was either learn fast or not at all. When the first tanks rolled into our cities we thought the government would protect us. Then we heard about the strikes. Tactical. Nuclear. No government left after that.

Some people advised caution. Negotiation. Appeasement. But we weren't having any of it. So we started to fight back. That's when the learning process began.

We learned real quick that you can't just run up to a man and shoot him, because he has nine other men with guns right there with him. They had better weapons, and better armor, and we weren't going to win through force. We learned you can't poison their food and water, because they have equipment that tests for that, and they're inoculated regularly to protect them from most poisons.

The hardest lesson we learned was that you can't convince most people to stand up and fight, no matter the cost. No matter the loss. They just accept it and move on.

We couldn't blame them really. For most people, it was meet the new boss same as the old boss. They went about their business. They made goods. They sold goods. They bought goods. They paid their mortgages and fed their families and clothed their children. And they didn't really give a damn which god they were told to pray to at the end of the day, because god had never been there when they needed him anyway.

So we didn't blame them. Not most of the time. Not most of us. But we did blame the men with the guns, who rolled into our cities in their tanks, and slaughtered our leaders with their bombs. For us, it didn't matter who the new boss was. We didn't ask for him. We didn't want him.

So we learned that some people don't need convincing. They fight because they can't see any other way. And more and more those people came to us, to learn our ways.

We started as a small group. Only about a dozen. Men, and a few women, who couldn't sit by and watch the nation they grew up in salute a foreign flag. It wasn't really patriotism. It wasn't really heroism. We just couldn't stomach it.

I suppose it was a kind of pride really. The kind of hubris they speak about in college courses on Greek tragedy. Whatever it was, it kept us up at night. Studying.

So we learned. And we shared that knowledge. And over time, they began to learn too. They learned to keep their safeties off. They learned to look over their shoulders. They learned to fear.

So now we sit in dark rooms, and we gather in small groups and we discuss philosophy, and religion, and science. But we learned fear too, or at least, caution. So we get quiet whenever we hear a noise outside. And we never meet in the same place twice. And we don't use our real names, just in case someone's listening.

Because they are listening. They're always trying to find out who we are. Where we are. Because they want to put a stop to our behavior, but mostly, they want to make an example. They want people to see that resistance can't succeed. More important, they want to go back to believing they're invincible. They want to go back to when they didn't have to look over their shoulders, or test their food for poison.

And it's our job to make sure that never happens. We know we can't win. That wasn't ever the point. We know we're outnumbered, and outgunned, and outfunded. We know they have more materiel, and more time. Ultimately, they'll win. For every one of them we kill, there's ten thousand more, or a hundred thousand. Every one of us they kill puts us on the brink of extinction.

But we're not dead yet. So we leave posters on bathroom walls telling people how to make simple bombs. And we leave guns in public parks with instructions on how to use them. And we put bombs in their homes and cars and leave graffiti at the site to let people know who's responsible.

And maybe it won't matter. Maybe someday, people won't even remember what happened. Do you remember who lived in Rome before the Romans? Who lived in Egypt before the Egyptians? Who lived in China before the Chinese? Maybe historians do. Maybe they don't. We don't.

But we know one thing. We're in it now. We're living it. And the Bard put it best.

Let the world burn, we aren't young anymore.

Bright Column

It stood in the center of the room, shining dimly in the soft light that washed in through the windows. The sky was clear, and the moon was filling the snow covered field outside with a bright blue glow, but only a shadow of that light managed to reach in, between the drawn curtains, and illuminate the squat structure that jutted towards the ceiling.

At first glance, it would have seemed totally smooth. It wasn't until you looked closer that you realized that it had tiny thin lines covering its entire surface. Those lines almost seemed to form a pattern, but a person could trace one all day with their finger and never have to cross another, nor find the end of that line.

He'd been sitting there for hours, staring at it. Trying to decide what to do next. He only had until morning to make his decision, but despite the seconds quickly falling away, he had to be deliberate. Moving it wasn't an option, and the one time it had activated had ended, poorly, at least so far as he could tell.

So for now he sat, and slowly considered his options. For the hundredth time he briefly entertained walking away. He could get up, open the door, and leave it for someone else to discover in the morning. Whatever happened to them wouldn't be his responsibility. No one had warned him when he'd walked into this room six hours ago. Why should he feel any obligation to do so for someone else.

But of course, he couldn't do that. If he did that, he wouldn't have the answer he needed, and he certainly wouldn't have the resolution he hoped for. Walking away like that would leave him wondering, for the rest of his life, whether he could have saved Elizabeth, and he didn't think he'd live long under that stress. So once more he dismissed the idea and went over the problem again, hoping he could discover some previously unrealized angle. Some key to the puzzle before him.

They had been walking along the path between the foreign language and fine arts buildings when they noticed the door. It was cracked open, with the latch caught on the outside of the door frame. It had been a nice night, and Greg was sure he was going to score, so he leapt at the chance to make their way inside. The dinner had been delicious, the movie entertaining, and he was sure that a little adventure would be all he needed to push Elizabeth over the side.

So he pointed out the open door and talked her into going into the building. Just for a moment, just to see what it was like in the middle of the night, with no one else there. Elizabeth smiled at him and put one hand on his arm and another on his shoulder as she followed him through the door. He could smell her apple blossom perfume as she crowded close to him, and feel her breath on his neck.

They walked down the dark corridor and he tried each of the doors as he went. Each one was locked, but he knew that there were couches in the lounge at the end of the hall, so if he couldn't find a dark corner before then, they could take a break there. Hopefully more than a break.

But that was when he found one door that wasn't locked. He was a little irritated about not getting to those couches, but they would be there, and maybe there would be something better here, so he pushed the door open and they went inside.

Later, he would remember that he'd never been in this room before, but there were a lot of rooms he'd never been in before, so that wouldn't have tipped him off anyway. He would remember that he'd never seen a classroom without desks and computers before, but how could he have known if that was important? He'd remember the way Elizabeth looked as she leaned over the edge of the table, examining the bright column that stood in its center. How could he have known that would be the last image of her he'd have?

She must have touched something. He was sure of that by now, but what he couldn't say. He'd held the door open for her, and she'd walked past him, so she was standing between him and the column when it happened. All he could remember seeing was a bright glow pouring out from around her and suddenly she disappeared.

He had played the scene over in his head for hours as he sat on the floor in the corner of the room. Each time, it was no different than the time before, but something came loose in his memory this time. Just as he saw the light, he'd looked up from her hips and seen her face reflected in the window across the room. He wouldn't have even been able to see it in the darkened window if it hadn't been for that sudden glow. But he did see it. He saw her face, and she had said something. Mouthed something. Three words.

But in his memory he couldn't make it out. Something. Three words. In that final moment, had she realized what was happening? Had she tried to warn him, to tell him something? Or had it simply been some innocuous comment? Something meaningless, with no bearing on the puzzle at all?

She must have touched it. She must have done something to activate it. He had been too terrified to touch it again, but he had stared hard at the side that had been facing her. He had stared at that almost smooth side, following those lines with his eyes.

But when the lines carried his eyes around the edges, and he returned to the side facing the door again, he couldn't find the place where he'd began. It hadn't moved, he was sure of it, but somehow that place where the lines seemed to point in towards each other was gone now, replaced with a series of concentric swirls.

Somehow. The lines were moving. For a while he stood still, staring at it, not blinking. But the lines never moved. Then he thought he heard a noise outside and looked away. When he looked back, the lines had moved again. Now there were parallel lines running the length of the column from top to bottom.

He backed away until he felt the wall behind him. He edged into the corner, and slowly slid to the floor. Since then, he'd sat, working the puzzle over in his head.

If she had touched it, wherever she had touched it had moved. If she had said something as that glow had enveloped her just before she disappeared, whatever she said had been lost in the confusion of the moment. Greg was good at puzzles. He usually liked them. But this time he was afraid some of the pieces had fallen out of the box.

So he sat there looking at it, and he thought about walking away. There weren't any security cameras in the room. No one could prove he had anything to do with her disappearance. He could wait until tomorrow and see if anyone came and ask them for help, but what if there was no help to be had? At best, he'd be in trouble for breaking into the school, at worst, he'd be held responsible for whatever had happened.

Why would someone leave something like this in an unlocked room in an unlocked building in a small, unremarkable college? What kind of monster would leave it where it could be found? He railed at what had happened, once more disgusted at the world for putting him in that place, at that moment. Then disgusted with himself for wasting time feeling sorry for himself instead of working at the puzzle.

He tried to recreate those words in his head. The words he'd seen in the window. Something about the column? A shape she'd seen?

It was a waste of time. It wasn't working. He stood up and approached the table. Daylight was coming, and he couldn't wait. He couldn't leave. He couldn't get help. He couldn't get away. Regardless of how many pieces he had or didn't have to this puzzle, there was one thing he hadn't tried.

As his hand touched the column he saw his face reflected in the window across the room. Suddenly, he knew what she'd said. It didn't have anything to do with the puzzle after all.

His last thought before the light completely enveloped him was how he wished they'd made it to those couches.