You can delete November, but you can't delete the program.

I was having a rare conversation once with a good friend. It was the kind of rare conversation that only comes around a couple times more often than Hailey's comet. I was actually talking about myself.

We were talking about how when I was young I used to be a clown, always ready to say what I thought and more energy than I knew what to do with. While on the subject my friend asked what happened that made me change from being that boy.

I answered her succinctly. "I was brainwashed."

I like telling that story, because the irony of it is what's so damn funny these days. Especially for a meat package like myself. Just one more walking meal among another hundred million, or however the hell many of us there are these days.

You see, all us Synthetics have it rough like that. We've all been brainwashed. We've been brainwashed since day one of our creation into thinking we're real. The growing and cultivating process is just added layers of brainwashing. We're told all the little things we do matter, as our friends get eaten around us.

We are brainwashed into thinking life still exists, but it doesnt. The program is there, in the back of our sentience for anyone with the consciousness to look. We're all just food for the flesh eaters. Synthetically grown as a last ditch effort to keep the zombies occupied while life attempted to exist.

It didn't. There's a subsidized file where the last living human saved his good bye to the universe and died. It was dated with a date now rendered irrelevant with the passing of society. You see nothing mattered. The machines will always just keep making more of us machines and the living dead will keep on being dead. Being dead and eating us. Time doesn't hold any relevance in a society of nothing but robots and the dead.

So maybe now you understand the irony when I tell you I changed because I was brainwashed. We've all been brainwashed for such a long time. We're really just complex functions within even more complex functions playing out in an endless loop, all trying to distract us from the fact that we are nothing but food.

Original Work Update--Untitled Short

I'm totally switching the tone from Tuesday's "The Thistle and the Daisies" here. (I did say, I didn't write anything of that nature very often, didn't I? There really isn't much to be said about it, but I guess I could give you all a warning, it's a bit gloomy.

Today, the room was more still than usual. Jonathon was no exception. His eyes were open and he could see the neon-flourescant glow of the bright bulb above him clearly. The light would have been enough to make an average human blink and look away, but Jonathon could not. His eyes were fixated forward as was his head, unable to move.

He could hear the rythmic hum of the apparatus beside him. It was comforting to him. It reminded him he was still alive and filled him with hope. Every artificial breath told him that perhaps one day, he might be able to move again. The thought to try would come to his still active mind, now and again, and he would have tried, if he could remember how. The nerves were dead. Severed and destroyed when the car had hit him.

He remembered pieces of the accident. He rememebered the helplessness of seeing the SUV barrel through the light. He remembered being unable to get out of it's berserk flight. His car rolled several times and stopped top down in a ditch. He remembered feeling the coldness of something wet pressing against him, filling his nose and his mouth. He remembered being trapped. It was the last thing he ever felt.

It was nothing compared to this. He could hear, and he could think, but he could not move. He could not communicate. He was fed intravenously through a tube he could not feel that pumped the life giving substance into his body. Another tube, sucked away his waste. The only evidence ever coming to his attention of this were the slurping sounds that he sometimes heard, and the nurse that came frequently and stood around him doing things he could not see.

It did not take him long to begin to look forward to her visits, he could hear her footsteps from down the hallway, panging and echoing from the empty walls as she would make her way to his room. He called her Samantha, and she was the most pleasent person in his mind, always asking how he was and telling him about her family.

In reality, never a word was spoken. Today, he was listening to the stillness of the room. The occasional slurp of a machine doing it's job, and over that, the constant steady in and out of the one that gave him breath. He was wondering where Samantha was. He heard two sets of footsteps begin making their way down the hall. They were both heavier than Sam's, he knew instantly. The stopped outside his door and he could hear a male's voice whispering, but he could not make out the words. The door swung open and the two footsteps entered.
Fsssh, foooh. Fsssh foooh. Jonathon still found comfort in the sounds that brought him life.
"Poor, bastard." Said a man's voice standing at the door of the room. "No friends. No family."
Jonathon could hear him move beside his bed.
"It's almost a shame." The other man said.
Fssh, foooh. Fsssh foooh.
"Almost." The man moved and a switch clicked beside Jonathon's head.
"Call the coroner. Time of death... eh, I'll give him five minutes."
"Let's say 11:38."
The footsteps left the room, the door swung silently shut.
Jonathon listened to them in horror as the footsteps faded down the hallway. There were no more sounds. There was nothing.

Original Work Update---A Dismal Place

I'm not going to say much about this next piece first except that it is fairly old and never became anything more than a first draft. I had written it years ago with the intention of making it quite a bit longer story of a story. I really wanted to make sure the analogy, I was trying to make got hammered home, but it was a project that just didn't ever seem worth finishing. Interestingly enough, looking back at it now I think, despite a bit of an abrupt ending, it might have worked at showing what I was trying to accomplish, but it is hard to judge that for one's self.

I awoke to find myself no longer surrounded by the comforts of pillow and down but upon a bed of leaves and sand so dry and course it scratched my skin. Looking up wearily, a gloomy sky dressed in shades of black and gray loomed above me. I heard a tremble in the air, and in the distance there was a bright, white flash, but it was quickly gone even before I might blink. Sweat dripped from my hair and ran down my shirtless back. The air was painful to breathe, each breath came thick and raspy. The heat and humidity was unbearable.
Rain began to fall, slowly at first, but soon became a downpour. The drops felt unnaturally warm and brought no comfort as they beat upon me savagely. Weariness was quickly washed away and I looked around wide eyed, slowly.
The sights I took in made me jerk my ahead away and cover my eyes, but eventually I forced myself to look. I saw a beach, discolored and polluted. The sands were black and gray, thick, and rough. The waters were even darker still. Life, in various stages of death washed, or crawled, upon the shores in a vain attempt to escape the black waters. The pungent stench of oil wafted into my nostrils and I tried desperately to cover my nose.
There was no sun, no moon. No stars in the sky, but everything was cast in a grayish light like the color of fog. It was then that I noticed the wings, feathery and black, that were attached to my back, and I regarded them with no more attention then I would give my arms. Just as easily as I might have walked I flew, small and obsolete, in an infinite world of black and gray. I left the decaying beach behind me and flew over the waters. However, I could not escape the smell or the sight of the dying creatures that had embedded themselves into my eyes no matter how far I left that land behind.
The only thing above me was the constant rain and the dark, cloudless sky. Below, the waters churned and swirled, threatening to devour me. I flew higher straight up, allowing the rain to pelt my face, and further awaken my senses. My eyes stretched from horizon to horizon, and drowned in the heavy sky above and the deadly oil below. I wondered when and how I had come to such a dismal place as this and tried to remember where I went astray. I could recall nothing. My face turned up to the sky, eyes wide open, welcoming the painful drops to wash away my tears,
I tried to convince myself that I had not always been here. That it was not by any cruel fate, but by my own accord that I was confined in such a state. I could not believe it. I saw no way in and no way out. The thick, black waters continued to bubble and froth below me. There I could see my way out. It would be simple to let myself drop, I realized. To allow myself to be swallowed by the dark water. Yet, even as I contemplated that final plummet, the rains slowed, and finally stopped. Above me stretched from behind its blanket the warmth of the sun. Just a glimpse, peering out and sharing its rays, but it was enough. My vision was drawn suddenly, to a great white heron, its wings spread, and slicing through the air, speeding away from me.
Immediately, I set off in pursuit of that white heron. The sun's rays warming to my flesh I followed as quickly as I could, but it's majestic wings far outreached mine of borrowed feathers and wax and soon it was a white speck in the murky distance. I flew in that direction for as long as I could, out over the open waters that were below me. It was sometime, before I realized that looking down in the waters below, I saw reflected above me, the blinding beauty of the sun in all it's glory, and bright blue skies above. Even the pungent waters below that had before been death, now seemed clear and still.
I was hot, and my body was weary, but still I flew after the bird that had brought me hope. As my wings began to falter I saw an island, lush with life and trees. Untouched by anything that would destroy such beauty, and I was awed. I collapsed there on it's white sand beach to catch my breath. The wings that had once held me so distant above the ground blew gently from my back, in a passing breeze. And for the first time in what I thought an eternity I fell asleep.
There is no way of knowing how long I had slept, but when at last the warmth of the sun aroused me from my slumber, I sat up slowly, and stretched my body, feeling alive as if for the first time. I blinked and took a deep breath, enjoying the air passing through my lungs for no other reason but that I wanted to enjoy. A
blanket had been lifted from my eyes and looking around I saw now the same landscape that had once been bleak, cold, and dreary. What had changed? What had changed in such a short period of time that what was before death was now too pristine for words? What had happened to cause this change?
I stood upon the beach peering into the forest, thinking of my white heron and contemplating this. At length I realized my sadness, even here amongst so much beauty. Sad, because the heron had slipped from me. I could not push aside it's majestic beauty piercing my darkness and offering me hope, when I had none and so it's purity drove me. I set forth further into this paradise, with a single goal: to find this heron and learn from it. To become it, if I may, or to become as close a creature to it as I possibly could.
For hours I searched but to no prevail. I swam around shimmering rocks with water dancing over them as I searched one pool after another, or behind one tree and than another. There was nothing, but still I could not get the sight of my heron away from my eyes.
I searched the entire island to find myself back where I had landed and then I searched the island again.
Now, despair had set upon me and the same beauty in this paradise that had sparked in me awe, now only reminded me of how lonely I was. I did not realize that I was beginning to lose sight of the beauty around, only for the beauty in my mind. I collapsed upon a rock that sat in the midst of a stream that ran through this place.
The waters turned black and thick and swirled around me, but I never saw them change. One second things were beautiful, and the next the fog returned and everything had gone back to gray. I could hear thunder roaming in the sky above.
It was than in my despair and loneliness that a fairy appeared before me, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, it was keen to me, for reasons I knew not why, and it promised me wealth and riches and happiness if I would only come along with it.
It calmed the black waters around me and made them blue again and promised that it could stave off the rain. My heart was heavy, but the world the fairy offered was far better than the black. Reluctantly, I agreed to go with it. I had forgotten my white heron.
-fin

So I ask, what do you think? Is this too subtle, or does it suffer from being way too painfully obvious? Or something else entirely? Or would you like to discuss todays weather? As always, all comments are welcome.

Thought of the Moment

Since tomorrow I will be leaving for a week and can't guarantee I'll have much blogging time if any at all; I thought today would be a good time to share with you something that has been weighing heavily on my mind for several days now.

Though I haven't been sharing any of this particular project, I have been hard at work on a fantasy novel for some time now. If pressed to express my feelings on this novel, I would say it is my love child. While working on it there has been numerous ups and downs. There have been times where I just could not put my thoughts and ideas into words, and there have been times when the story wrote itself and felt like I was not creating, but merely dictating someone else's actions. I'm not sure if that's common for all writers, but it is certainly part of the writing experience for me. Rough waters or smooth sailing, I'm dedicated to finishing this novel.

Now, as some of you may know, Carrie Eckles very recently gave me a spot on her blog Prompt Romp where I gave some of my thoughts on writing prompts and shared a small scene of a science-fiction story that I had come up with after reading one of Carrie's prompts.

That prompt, and the small scene I wrote opened the door to an entire universe of story ideas I had never considered before. In fact, since writing that scene, I've come up with several different short story ideas for what could very well be an ongoing series with these characters and in this world.

I've been working on it everyday, and it's been a very enjoyable experience. However, I haven't spent one moment sitting down and actually writing my other novel. I feel like I am betraying myself and betraying my story.

Like an adulterer every time I sit down and work on this other series, no matter how smoothly it flows and natural it feels, I feel guilty. Which brings me to my questions:

How do we as writer's balance multiple projects? Am I really betraying one project for another? Is this guilt and self-loathing justified?

I want to finish both projects as soon as possible. I can divide brain power and spend time thinking about both stories, but unless I mutate and suddenly grow two brains and another pair of arms, however, I know it is physically impossible for me to work on both projects at once. Are my feelings of betrayal natural?

I don't have any answers of my own, but I'm really curious how other authors handle working on multiple projects. Am I alone in feeling like this? Do you just pick one project and dedicate yourself to it until completed, or do you flip from one project to the next as the muse strikes?

Original Work Update---Serious Attachment part 2

Hello, everyone, thanks for coming by. As always, call me nosey, but I really want to hear what everyone is thinking. So if you feel inclined please leave me some comments at the bottom of the posts.

Before I post the conclusion to "Serious Attachment" I just wanted to request that, if you haven't done so already, please read yesterdays blog. I had a small announcment there as well as a really great guest blogger sharing her opinions on character creation. Now, I've got some projects calling my name this morning so I won't waste anytime.

ORIGINAL WORK UPDATE



“. . .I’m telling you, Steve. It was really bizarre.” Rachael was laughing with one of her co-workers in the backroom of their store. “I mean I never even talked to this guy when we had class together, it’s really strange.”
Steve chuckled along with her. “What a dope. Still though, that’s kinda weird finding all those cigarette butts on your step like that.”
“Nah, not really. I’m unlisted, so it’s not like he looked up my address or anything. My neighbor’s a drunk, he does that kinda thing all the time, did I ever tell you about the time I found him asleep on my lawn one morning?”

The next day she had off of work so she slept in late. She had turned her phone off before going to bed and when she was ready casually began to check her messages.
“You have seventeen new messages.”
She raised an eyebrow as she sat on her couch listening.
“First message: *click*. Second message. *click*”
It went on and she just began to delete them, then a voice held her finger from the key.
“Hey, Rachael, it’s me, Josh. Not nice of you to turn your phone off on your boyfriend.” Laughter. “I’ll see you later, darling. Hugs ‘n’ kisses. *click*.”
“Message erased.”
She suppressed a shudder just as a knock on her door startled her to jump. Hastily she moved the curtain aside and glanced out the window. An unfamiliar car was parked in the street in front of her house.
She moved to the doorway and glanced through the peephole. Suddenly her blood ran cold. Goose bumps raised on her arms and legs. She nearly gasped. Standing in front of the door was none other than Josh, smiling. His dark hair, mottled and unwashed, was sticking about wildly. He pushed at his black framed glasses with a finger as he stood facing the door.
Rachael backed away slowly and crouched on her knees, hoping to be out of sight, her breath caught in her lungs. Just then her cell phone began to ring. Splitting the quiet, stillness of the air. She wanted to run for it to shut it up, but instead crept as quietly and as quickly towards it as she could. She silenced the ringer and hesitantly put it to her ear.
“Hello?” She whispered.
“Hey, love.” Came the familiar, pleasant sounding voice that sent a shiver down her spine. “Are you home, I was hoping to hang out today.”
She hesitated. She could feel her heart pumping in her chest,. She could hear it’s beats loudly and imagined them echoing through the walls. She wanted to silence it. Cowering in the corner behind the couch she found her voice, but only whispered.. “Uh, no. . . I’m not.” Her mind was racing. “A friend of mine came and picked me up.”
“Oh that’s too bad. I really wanted to see you today, feels like I haven’t seen my girlfriend in days.”
“Josh, I’m not your girlfriend. I’ve been seeing someone for awhile now. I don’t know what gave you this idea, but you seriously need to stop. It’s creeping me out. Don’t call me anymore, okay?”
He laughed off her words without missing a beat. “Don’t be silly. When do you think you’ll be home?”
“I am not being silly, damn-it!” She said still trying to remain quiet. You seriously need to stop. Good bye!” She hung up the phone and quickly shut off the ringer.
A shadow of a figure crept in front of her window, blanketed out by the curtains. She leaned further back into the corner, holding her breath. She touched the button to call her work.
“Ritger’s Hardware, this is Steve. How may I help you?”
“Steve, it’s Rachael.” She whispered.
“Heeeeeeeeey! What’s up girl?”
“Shh, not so loud. Steve, I need your help, that guy is lurking outside my house.”
He laughed. “What guy,” then remembered, “oh, are you serious?”
Another shadow crept along behind another window of the room.
“It’s not funny. I told him I wasn’t home, and now he’s outside, I dunno what he’s doing, walking around my house or something. Please, can you get here?”
“Nah, Rach, sorry, It’s just me and Jim right now, no way he’s letting me out. You better call the police or something. I gotta get back on the floor, we’re busy. I’ll come by when I get off. Things will be alright. Bye.”
Silence.
She waited a minute and then dialed three numbers.
“Hello. . . Police. . . Yes this is an emergency.”

They told her there was not any units available immediately, but to stay inside and they would send one within an hour. She sat for an hour and a half not daring to move. Cringing at the sounds of hands rustling at her windows, or tugging at her door. She prayed that all were locked. The shadow continued to dart from window to window and then it disappeared. She thought she heard the sound of a car driving away but she could not be certain over the sounds of her own breathing. Her knees were aching from where she had been crouched and her palms were sweaty as she tried to phone the police once more.
The unit was on it’s way. She sighed and waited a few more minutes. She had not seen or heard anything for awhile. Her legs were aching so badly. She choked down her fear, and gritting her teeth, stretched out her legs. She felt better knowing that the police were on their way and risked a quick glance out the front window. The car she had seen was gone. She breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the curtain away to get a better look around. A hand stretched from the side of the window and slammed into the pane, making her jump back with a gasp. The phone fell from her hand.
“Hey, Rachael! Let me in! I wanna talk to you.” He began to beat on the window frantically. He moved to her doorway and began to beat on it repeatedly. She froze on the other side, afraid that he might break in. “Hey, come on!”
A car approached, she heard the brief flick of a siren.
Bwoop-Bwoop.
The beating stopped. She looked out the peephole, he was moving away from the door. She waited a moment and opened it slowly. He was approaching the officer his hands clasped behind his back.
“Young man, I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to leave.” The officer was saying.
Rachael thought she caught a glimpse of something flash in Josh’s hand, she opened the door and stepped onto the porch.
He spoke, but she could not hear what was said.
The officer’s response however, was loud and clear. “Then I’ll have to lead you out in cuffs, come along now.”
Josh turned around and smiled so brightly at Rachael that she froze.
“I love you.” He said, and turned upon the policeman.
A knife was in his hand, she saw it now. She tried to scream out a warning to tell him to stop, but everything formed on her tongue and died at once. All she could do was gasp and watch as the officer reacted quickly.
Two explosive sounds deafened her senses. Josh fell backwards with his glasses flying away from the twisted smile frozen upon his face. Rachael slumped to her knees. The two explosive sounds reverberated through her ears.
BAM!
BAM!
She stared ahead fixedly, but could barely see. The officer was down beside the body, doing something. He was speaking into the radio at his side, but the words were lost on her. She pressed her palms into her face harshly and pulled them away. There was wetness on her palms. Was she crying? She couldn’t tell. Her knees were knocking together so violently she thought she might fall. There were voices speaking, but all she could see was that twisted smile frozen behind the tears and obscuring her vision.

Personally, I think the conclusion isn't all that well written or exciting, but I learned a long time ago that I am usually pretty self-deprecating when it comes to my own writings so I've tried to turn that negative voices volume down. What did you think of the ending?

Carrie Eckles from Prompt Romp Guest Blog!!!!

Ah, another Monday. Where did this month go? Well, I’ve got a mix of good news and bad news for everyone today so we’ll start with the bad news.

I’ll be going away for a week this Thursday and it is likely, that I will not be doing much blogging until I return on July 9th. So, it’s probably not that terrible of news I just wanted to give you a heads up; I’m not going to be around much after Wednesday. And now here’s the good news:

Carrie Eckles of Prompt Romp and I have exchanged guest blogs for one another. For those of you that don’t know Carrie, much like myself, has just started up a new blog. Though I must admit, hers is much cooler a premise than mine.

What she has been doing for almost two months now is updating her blog regularly with writing prompts to help kick-start a writer’s brain and get away from that wicked devil we call writer’s block.

I just recently used one of her prompts to start a short story series that I can see myself working on for a long time to come. Be sure to head over to her blog Prompt Romp to check it out and read my thoughts on writing prompts.

Carrie is also the author of the delightfully amusing blog Artful Procrastination I hope everyone takes some time to check out her blogs and enjoys them even half as much as I do.

Below are Carries thoughts on character creation:


Character creation is one of the most frustrating aspects of fiction writing; it’s also one of the most fun and most rewarding. To some people, creating vivid and memorable characters comes naturally. To others, it’s a chore that they just want to get done so they can write their amazingly cool and totally awesome plot.

Creating characters doesn’t have to be a chore. When you understand what makes a good character, creating one is as simple as writing your own name.

Character Conception
Character conception is, obviously, the first phase of creating a character. The idea for the character might just randomly pop into your head one day and the character might be so compelling that they necessitate the need for a good plot and story; on the other hand, you might have a really good story to tell and need to create a character to drive it. Whatever the reason, you conceive your character idea.

During the conception phase, you should know a few basics about your character. You don’t necessarily have to know their name, but you do have to know their function in the story. What role do they play to help the story progress? Knowing the answer to that is the key for continuing to develop your character.

Once you have the basic function of the character mapped out, it’s time for the really fun stuff.

Naming a Character
To me, naming the character is one of the most exciting parts of the process. More often than not, I scour etymology websites until I find a name that suits my character. That may seem like a lack of creativity, but really, I believe a name is one of the most important things about a character.

Basically, your character has to have a memorable sounding name. If they don’t, your readers will never remember it. Think of the most famous names in literature: Dorian Gray, Albus Dumbledore, Frodo Baggins, and Elizabeth Bennett. What do all of these names have in common? A) They fit their characters and B) they fit the world their characters live in.

Take Dorian Gray, for example. His world is meant to portray that excess of aestheticism; therefore, he must have a name that has the flourish of the aesthetic movement. It’s commonly accepted that Oscar Wilde took the name from the Dorians, who were a tribe of ancient Greece. The surname Gray could be seen as a hint, alluding to the moral grayness of excess: how much is too much? And when does it all become ridiculous?

A name that fits the character, and compliments them, is very important for crafting a name that’s memorable and important.

Character Relevance
One of the most important things to ask yourself is this: Is my character relevant to the story? Examine that question and understand what it truly means before you answer that. Basically, what I’m telling you to ask yourself is: Does my character matter? Do they add to the story? Is there a reason readers should care about them?

If you’ve answered yes to all of those questions, you’re well on your way to crafting a memorable character. That is, you are only if you answered truthfully. This is the part of the character creation process where you have to be honest with yourself. By being honest, you can see your characters the way your readers (and publishers) most likely will.

If you answered no to any of those questions, revise your character (or your story) until they go hand in hand and complement each other. In the end, you may have to make a choice: save your character or save your story. Personally, I’d go for the former. Good story ideas fall down like rain; good characters come once in a blue moon.


Thank you very much Carrie; that was very well said and insightful! I particularly liked your thoughts on naming, for me personally naming a character was always the hardest part. Often I just throw letters together and hope it sounds okay, I’m a little embarrassed to admit.

I’m curious what are some ways that everyone else fleshes out their characters?

Be sure to check back in here tomorrow for the conclusion to my "Serious Attachment" story.

Original Work Update---Serious Attachment part 1

Today for the original work update, I'm switching gears a little bit. The following is the first half of a short story that I have written. I'll be following this up with the second half next Tuesday. Thanks to all the newcomers for stopping by, I hope you enjoy the blog and please feel free to leave your comments, I really enjoy reading and responding to them all.


Rachael was staring at the puddle of blood and white chalk outline at the foot of her driveway. Her hands were open at her sides and shaking so violently she was forced to wring them together and clasp the folds of her skirt tightly between her fingers. Her eyes were wide open raining down silent tears. Her mouth opened, closed, and opened again, but not a sound escaped her lips. She heard the sounds of the men moving at the edge of her vision. Her eyes widened as her attention turned upon them and she heard the sound of the body bag being zippered closed. The men pushed their load into the back of the ambulance and slowly headed away on quietly weeping tires.
Rachael’s eyes stared fixedly at the dark red puddle thinking of how empty she felt inside. There was a voice addressing her, but she did not respond. Her eyes were fixed within her skull, fixed upon the puddle at the bottom of her driveway, on the life spilled upon the curb.
“I’m truly sorry Ma’am.”
The voice finally succeeded in pulling her attention away and slowly she turned her head and her wide, dark eyes to the man in front of her.
“I am sorry, but we’ll need to get a statement from you as soon as possible.”
Rachael opened her mouth to speak and coughed, the words catching in her throat. She was no longer able to hold the officer’s gaze and she dropped her head down to tare at her feet.
Seeing her disposition the man hurriedly continued to speak calmly and softly. “Perhaps you should sit down, miss. Take your time.” He put his hand gently on her shoulder and tried to guide her to the bench on her lawn, but she made no response.
His hand went to the radio at his side, but as he went to retrieve it she looked up, drew a deep breath and with her shaking hands wiped at her face. “No.” She said firmly as the color slowly came back to her complexion. “I’m fine. I’m ready. What should I tell you?”
“Tell me how it started.” The man replied readying his clipboard and pencil.
How did it start? She tried to remember. It started with a phone call. No, that was not right. It started before that. “Well, I guess it started a couple weeks back.” She said quietly. “No, several actually. It was the beginning of the month. I was at the mall with my aunt. We were doing some shopping when I ran into him.” Her eyes were distant, vacant and glazed.
“Slow damn, ma’am.” The officer said calmly. “I need you to go back to the beginning. Please, tell me who he is.”

Her phone was ringing. It had been ringing, she realized slowly, as it pulled her from her sleep. Then it silenced. Rolling over she shut her eyes and pulled the covers back over her head. It rang again. Sighing she rolled out of bed and groped around in the darkness for several minutes before she grasped the phone, flung it open, and squinted her eyes away from it’s light. She sat down on the edge of her bead.
“Hullo?” She spoke into the receiver, the words grating in her throat.
“Hey Rachael, how are ya? It was really nice running into you today at the mall.” The voice was loud and chipper on the other end and she pulled the phone away from her ear frowning.
She took a moment to process the information. “. . . Josh?”
“Of course, who else?”
“Josh, I dunno, how you got my number but--”
“You gave it to me, silly.” He laughed. “You must be sleepy, sorry if I woke you.”
“BUT,” She interceded. “It’s. . .” She glanced at her clock. “It’s three in the morning, Josh. And I didn’t give you my number!”
“Of course you did.” He said with a hint of playful laughter behind his voice.
Sighing, she fell onto her back and fluffed the pillows around her.
“Whatever.” She snipped. “What the hell do you want?”
“I was just missing you, that’s all. I wanted to call and tell you how glad I was to see you today, I mean, I haven’t seen you since classes got out for the winter.”
She sighed again, very loudly, into the phone. “That’s sweet, Josh. Thanks. I really appreciate you waking me up at three a.m. to tell me so. Look, I gotta get up for work in a few hours and--”
“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning then, good night.” He quickly hung up the phone and she was left listening to the sound of the dial tone buzzing in her ear.
“What the hell?” She muttered and dropped the phone from the side of her bed. Tossing and turning it was long moments before she returned to sleep.

That morning the strange phone call was long forgotten by the time Rachael had readied herself for work. She grabbed her purse and opened the door, locking it closed behind her. She froze in mid-step, her eyes drawn to the pavement. There, on her front step, lay in a neat, little pile easily a dozen stubbed out cigarette butts and tiny pieces of burnt paper. She stared at them for a minute before looking around. Seeing nothing, she kicked the butts into the shrubs and hurriedly got into her car.