He was very grounded, his head lower than most. It didn’t stop him from speaking up when he saw others challenging him. They would call him on his height, jest at his anger. Berating them black and blue was the only self defence for the little man. Sure he was short, hence why he’s so earthly, but it’s what keeps him sensitive and in touch with him feminine qualities, such how he doesn’t hit other women, only slaps them lightly, as if kissing them with his hand. His blue eyes so humble and honest, he freely speaks his mind, he can even do it without opening his eyes. He tries not to stare, but watches people until noticed, burning into them to show his own sort of warmth.

So please oh please don’t treat it the same

As people on a chess board caught in check So you must realize we are all a wreck In this world full of pain, but not only Heartache but we are not lonely. The people we have and loved ones we care For all may share The worries and thoughts we can’t help think So before you judge just know we aren’t all in sync. We are all different in our own way But that doesn’t mean we can just betray

The ones who have been with us through the most Because why boast The words we have said and people we have harmed, When all we really do is make them armed With hate and depression that we also feel So why take out on others what we know is too real? Real as the anxiety and depression and thoughts filling the mind Why would we do something so unkind? Because we hurt and want others to also

Its the world we live in, so let’s stop and follow The One who has gave us this glorious life where Happiness and joy and not only strife But the love we have for others will heal The hearts we break and time we steal. We have this gift so let’s not waste it This life we were given so let’s just admit The sins we have sinned, words we have lied. Let’s make this place a better world so we can survive This attack on us from the evil who lurks

Around every corner so let’s make it work

To steal our hearts and minds from God’s hand

So that we will always be with him and go with His plan.

Try so hard. Never being enough. All the oppressive words of this world making me feel I am not worthy of love. I am worthy. But how could I be? The life I wanted is something I cannot see. To hear the harmful words of my peers, Is to rip my heart out and scream through the tears. Why would I even try anymore, If the world is as it currently is, not as it was before We all became the scared and tired creatures with no compassion for others. Even the disrespecting of our mothers.

But this world can change through the burning The tearing, the recurring Nightmarish days that turn into trauma we must live every day Over and over again as if there is no other way. We must fight through the tears, cry through the years, and learn from our fears That make us who we are so we don’t want to disappear. We can change the ways of this world’s past And live every day as if it was our last Day to make everything better So we can realize that only God is our tether.

So yes I am worthy Of love and life and the days that come too early That we want to slow down but life is too fast For us to rush and worry about our past. What’s done is done, no turning back From the choices you’ve made and the decisions you lack To make, so now you must accept the consequences For the choices you haven’t made and come to your senses And realize life is precious and isn’t a game So please oh please don’t treat it the same.

He was the kind of man who never had a good word to say about anybody. His face was so often frowning, it seemed stuck that way. He would sit on his porch and glare at the world, and everyone - even children, even animals - knew to give him a wide berth when they walked down the street.

And yet every month, a letter arrived in his mailbox, confirming the deposit of his stock dividends to one of a dozen charities supporting education and the arts throughout the world. He never told anyone about this. I suppose that's how he liked it.

He won’t put it away in a drawer. He can’t imagine hiding it under slippery stacks of magazines, stained clothes, unread books. He coils the thin chain through his fingertips, tips the pendant through the tepid sunlight that filters through his dorm room window. It’s a foreign, inscrutable thing. A silver hexagon etched with unintelligible script. He thinks it’s old, maybe even ancient. Maybe he could get money for it. But no, he won’t part with it for something as prosaic as bills and coins. It isn’t a transaction. Its value can’t be translated. Oh well, it’s not like it matters if he just keeps it. What is it, really, just some girl’s costume jewelry, and why would she wear it to a frat party if it were really so precious. But the hard push of desire in his stomach worries him a little. I’ve got to get ahold of myself, he thinks. A true man is no dark cave of instinct, no blind follower of fevers in the blood. No, he must work the self like clay, shaping, chiseling, until whatever light there is breaks his unremarkable surface.

He tucks it in the pocket of his jeans and goes back to the room where the girl lies sleeping. She’s splayed on the hard bed, bone-white fingers dangling, her open mouth reminding him of a movie he once saw, some slasher pic with squelching gore, screams, a cliched, almost tender ending. Eyeballs skitter under near-transparent lids. He can smell her—hot skin, body odor, remnants of citrusy perfume. He doesn’t know who drugged her. It happens every party. Someone plans, purchases the off-white powder, laughs up his sleeve, lurks at tables until girls leave drinks unattended. One of his brothers. That’s what they call each other. Brothers. The body on the bed shifts and mumbles. Part of him wants no part of this. But part of him thinks his arms might be strong enough to lift her into the sunlight, lay her down in the soft bright grass, and maybe then she’d awaken, and see first thing the contours of his face, his diffident smile, and maybe there in her gaze his own true worth would be revealed.

But she’s probably only the packaging of possibility. He leaves the room, closing the door behind him. A false lead, a red herring. He makes coffee in his room and drinks it looking out the window. Red and orange autumn leaves, a green quad, students scurrying over crisscrossing paths. A hardy bright-eyed squirrel racing up a tree trunk. His roommate comes in behind him, glistening from the shower, a towel around his waist. His name is Leo and he likes to smoke weed and sing old punk songs, comb his hair with some flowery oil that causes the black wave to rise, curl, slope back again to his olive-skinned forehead.

I was looking for you, says Leo. Where the hell did you go?

You mean last night?

What else? You disappeared. Short and Hanson got some blow and Peter brought his PS5 and Madden into the lounge. We were at it all night, man, what a blast.

I got, he says, well, I got held up.

What the fuck does that mean. Held up where? It was fucking Saturday night, man.

Yes, he says, I know. And today is Sunday.

Leo nods and grins as if he’s said something profound. That’s right, he says. Remember Jesus. Maybe you want to go make your confession.

I’m not catholic.

Me neither buddy. But sometimes the soul has need. You know what I mean.

I really don’t.

Fine, fine, says Leo, waving his big hand through the humid air. I’m not trying to get on your case, man. Whatever you get into is cool with me. We’re brothers, right?

That’s right. Brothers.

Leo pantomimes a guitar riff, sprays deodorant into his pits. He puts on a shiny blue shirt and ripped jeans, gulps some coffee, grabs his bag and leaves. He can be seen toiling across the quad, as single-minded as an ant, his bag slamming rhythmically into his skinny legs. Without him the room settles, releases disturbance. He doesn’t hate Leo, he’s pretty sure, but he’s noticed that as the years continue, other people rub against his thoughts like sandpaper. I don’t have anyone, he thinks, that I can talk to, and and then there is ice in his throat, and he presses the pendant against his neck, right where the pulse jumps, goes silent, jumps again.

The door opens. He doesn’t recognize her at first. Such a wide, humming distance between a body on a bed and the girl who stands in the doorway, fixing him with eyes that are smart and hard, like a bird’s. She’s put on her wrinkled, dusty clothes, but her feet are still bare. He sees she’s painted her toes iridescent blue. Seashell blue. The blue of a cartoon sky.

Oh sure, she says. Go ahead and stare. I guess everybody knows. I guess I’m the hot topic in this hellhole this morning. Her voice crackles like an old radio, alternating between hatred and despair. He stares, stupidly, trying to reduce her into a solvable equation.

No, he says, finally. I didn’t mean anything. I mean, no, we haven’t. Nobody’s said.

I suppose none of you mean it. I suppose you were drunk and if you weren’t you were about to be. And if not you were only boys being boys, couldn’t help it, could you, it’s just in your nature, in your fucking genes and your fucking DNA. Right?

I suppose that’s supposed to be sarcasm, he says. His mouth is ashy with stale coffee. He wishes he’d showered. His skin feels greasy, flimsy, like old, yellowing paper

Whatever, fuck all of you. I just want my necklace back.

What necklace, he says. His fingers curve around it, hidden in his pocket. It’s warm, feels alive, feels like it might be thinking, hatching plans. She chews her lip with small white teeth and mutters something he can’t make out. She strides forward into his room, violating the bubble he’s created, bringing all of her loud smells with her. At first she’s tall, almost triumphant. Then there’s a dipping flutter in a shoulder, a slight teetering, a precarious lean. Her mouth turns down at the corners and her hand moves like a starfish at her side, fingers curling through the empty air. She shatters, sort of, like a wineglass thrown to the floor, and collapses onto the bottom bunk—Leo’s. She’s going to cry, he thinks, and he fears it like an avalanche or a hurricane, but at the same time he can’t stop watching, consuming whatever this is, whatever it turns out to be.

But she doesn’t cry. She only stretches her legs across the faded quilt. She takes up the whole bed with her messy body, that collection of knees and elbows and blue-tipped toes. She keeps staring with the hard bright eyes, vivid in the small face, the tiny white teeth flashing in the sunlight.

I expect you’d like to get me out of here, she says.

No, no. I didn’t—

But I’m not leaving. Not until I get my necklace. If you don’t have it one of the other motherfuckers in this stinking house does. So start looking.

Wait, he says, just wait a minute. Before you jump to conclusions.

What in the everloving fuck is that supposed to mean. Last night I had it. This morning I don’t. Ipso facto. So give it back. Now.

Tell me about it, he says. Tell me what it is. So I know what I’m looking for. She looks at him. He tries to smile, but only manages to soften the muscles in his face, which ache and burn. The coffee boils in his stomach, gurgling, in its own secret language. There is a space in which absolutely nothing happens, and he’s worried they’ll slip over the edge they’ve danced beside for however long it’s been. Then she signs and rakes her hand through her hair, which isn’t quite curly, isn’t quite straight, seems to flicker with potential energy.

It’s only something I found in a pawn shop, she says. When I saw it I wanted it. It has letters on it, I can’t read them, but they must be universal, you know, to be important enough to be etched on the pendant. Like they mean something regardless of time or place. It’s a strange shape, suspended on a silver chain. I’m not superstitious but it’s lucky. Why am I telling you all this.

But if you can’t read it, he says, how do you know.

Know what?

That it’s so—universal. That it says something. I mean, it could be a grocery list.

Oh, she says, and her mouth drops like stone falling. Oh, damn. You have it. That’s what you’re messing with in your pocket. And here I’ve been sitting here telling you. I can’t believe this. This can’t really be happening. Then she does cry. It’s entirely silent. Rivers of tears run and drip from her chin. Snot leaks from her nostrils. He’s utterly done in by this point, he’s only a mote in her vast dark eyes, a star seen through the wrong end of a telescope. She’s so pretty, he thinks, she’s perfect, she’s what anybody would look for and hold onto tight. He crosses the room and kneels before her. He takes the necklace from his pocket and gently untangles one of her cold, clenched fists. He fingers take awhile to close around it. As if she can’t quite believe it’s real. She sniffles, wipes her face with the back of her hand.

You know what I think, he asks her.

What.

I think it’s Hebrew. Either Hebrew or Greek. I’m pretty sure I saw both in one of my Gen Eds last year. It was a class about death. How different cultures through time understand it, what they predict for the afterlife. Angels or reincarnation or just closing your eyes and being obliterated, buried in cold ground and forgotten. It was a good class. I’ll remember it, I think.

Hebrew, she says. So maybe if I know that I can decipher it. And by the way, nobody believes you’re just obliterated.

Oh, he says, lots of people do. Millions, throughout millennia. The immortal soul is pretty niche, really. And are you sure you want to.

Want what?

Know what it means. Because if you don’t it could be anything. You could make it be whatever you need in each moment. Because there might be lots of times when you need it. Need something to show you the path ahead.

She thinks for a few seconds and opens her palm. The sunlight is strong, now, a burgeoning golden rush. The silver glitters and the letters are alive, surely, they won’t stop moving in his gaze, they’re shifting, eager snakes, scurrying rodents, deer, cars, lightning on black summer nights. His vision blurs, some side effect, maybe, or maybe there are some tears, warm against his skin. His fingers close over hers and they sit there in the dusty light, thinking separate thoughts, each a foreign language to the other, as the morning shifts into afternoon, as the irrevocable damage that has been done settles into their bodies like animals in dens. And they don’t get up for awhile.

“Would you, though?”

“Would I what?”

“Fuck her, dude.”

Mae froze outside the trailer door, holding her clipboard tighter to her chest.

Their voices come through tinny and unreal.

“She’d probably bite my dick off.”

“That’s not a no,” Tom said.

“I mean… those tits…” Mark replied.

Mae looked down at her scoop-neck shirt, then shut her eyes against the the welling tears that seemed to sit so close to the surface these days.

“Hey,” Tom said, “she bites your dick off and maybe you’ll get into one of those diversity programs that forced the studio to get her a job.”

Mae wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, turning to weave her way to her own trailer.

This is, apparently, what everyone is thinking. This morning an exec felt her up and when she called him out, he told her she was overthinking it and to stop being so dramatic. Her mood wasn’t great to begin with.

She made it right in time to meet the PA at her door.

“Your coffee,” Jimmy said.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Mae said.

“My name is Carl,” Jimmy replied before heading to his next delivery.

Carl was a film nerd and absolutely in love with Tom, so it made sense when she took a sip only to realize the order was wrong.

No one gets Tom’s orders wrong. No, that privilege was for Mae and Mae alone.

She caught up with him.

“I wanted oat milk,” she said.

“Oh. Can you just drink it like that?” Carl asked.

“No.” Mae said as calmly as she could.

“I don’t have time—“

“Get me my damn coffee. You messed up. I’ll wait here until it is back and corrected.”

“Your order is too complicated—“

“FIX MY COFFEE,” Mae yelled. “One more chance and you’ll be fired if you get it wrong again. I’ll make sure no one would give you a job picking up garbage:”

“I—“

“Are you an actual idiot?” Mae asked.

The PA backed up until he nodded and turned around to run.

Ah. Now she felt a little better.

It’s not my fault I wronged her, if you could even call it that. Because when she moved her stupid mouth, she was just a spoiled brat.

She always talked about her family, the good of every day, But she never stopped to wait and think of intentions gone astray.

Not all of us are lucky, in fact most of us are not. For when I go home late at night, I wish my ears to rot.

My music wards of fighting screams, sound up to fifty-four. As every night goes slowly past, I long to run outside the door.

Of course, in their eyes I’m a villain, a bully, not a friend. And thought I’d tried to be nice once, there’s no compromise in the end.

“I like cookies,” said John. Everyone now liked him.

I had to clean up the mess. This was the worst part of the process. Blood is such a mess I can’t even stand it. It gets everywhere. I’ve learned that draining them in a tub works. Just confines it to one area.

The clothes I usually just drop in different donation bins. And the hair gets tossed in the school bins around campus. I’ve been quite good at the whole thing. I have it down to a routine.

First a stalk and plan my attack. The attack isn’t anything ridiculous, it doesn’t draw attention. I just get to dress up and flirt with them as I lead them back to my apartment.

They’re so dumb of course. Frat boys who think they own the world. They don’t. Women like me do.

Once they’re in my apartment I drug their drink. Knocks them out in about 20 minutes and then I can start my real work.

They are then stripped, dragged to my tub where I slice every inch of their skin. Just ever so slightly at first, then the cuts get deeper and deeper.

They always ask why before I kill them. As if they think raping people doesn’t have a punishment.

My brother was no murderer. He was not going to kill that despicable nobody who stole his soulmate from him. He only challenged him to a duel to scare him. Then the dishonorable piece of scum shot him in cold blood. So, despite what some may think, my brother was completely innocent in this affair. People don’t understand his position in life. They judge much too harshly! My brother was the eldest son of Lord Charles Bowell Finch III. He was expected to marry for money, status, and power. Nothing less. He was truly in love with Trinity Hubbard, a girl he could marry, and a girl he could love. Who could’ve been so lucky. And of course my father pressured him everyday to find a suitable wife just as he continues to pressure me to find a husband. So, Simon was enraged when Trinity turned him down. Not at her of course, but at the world. For the world, being as unfair as it is, had given him false hope. And believe me, nothing is worse than false hope. And nothing is worse than loving someone who doesn’t love you back. And of course at the peak of his heartbreak, my brother had an epiphany. He knew Trinity better than anyone in the world, perhaps even me. And I know A LOT about people. Which is why he came to me to find out the crucial information: why would Trinity reject him? And me, being the ever loyal sister I am, found out. She was in love with a peasant! A PEASANT! Now you must be able to imagine the shock that this news brought my brother. He’d been passed up for a peasant! What could be worse? So you can’t blame him, being in the height of his anger, for challenging the man to a duel. And what became of him? The peasant man killed him! Killed my brother! I know Simon could be rough around the edges sometimes, but I never knew someone so loyal as him. He always had my back, even when I was wrong. He helped me with suitors, advised me on important decisions, and even tutored me in subjects most men would think improper for a lady like myself to learn. As I’ve mentioned, I know A LOT about people. But I have never known a person quite as well as I knew my brother. There was no one more determined, ambitious, or as strong willed as him. Nor no one as stubborn. And yes he may have made some bad decisions in life but he did not deserve to die! I feel great anger towards the person who caused all of this: Trinity. I once regarded her as a sister, a friend, and a confident. But she better watch her back. I may not be as strong or as ambitious as my brother, but I’m just as determined and a tenfold more cunning. I don’t know how exactly I will get my revenge yet, but I will get it. And it will be soon.