West Liberty University

by Creed Kidney

I open my eyes. I am standing in front of my house, 55 Timmi Lane, and everything is
tinted a pale, cornflower blue. The grass shifts gently beneath my bare feet as the trees that
cradle my home rock themselves to the bidding of the breeze. Their sound has always
comforted me, a gentle white noise against all the mental cacophony, but there’s none of
that right now. No extra sounds in my head, no wayward thoughts and anxieties bouncing
back and forth. I take both of my hands to my ears to cover them. I can still hear the trees.

My hands themselves are not in any way blue, and I appear to be as I always have
been. I proceed toward the front stoop of my home.

I gently turn the knob and the door gracefully enters into the home, no push
required, and no wooden screech of obstinance; it just easily lets me inside. Curious, I close
the door behind me; it was naturally just as easy and entered back into its pocket quietly,
though I can still hear the trees.

Without thought, I make my way up the stairs, turning left at the landing and
making my way down the hall, looking longingly at the closed, ghostly blue door.
Everything is still blue, but it seems to be only the bare bones of the home I once knew.
There are no badly taped pieces of magazine or cardboard to my door, and no decorations
adorn the walls of the second floor, nor the rooms of the first. As the whispers of the trees
soothe me further into a state of hypnosis, I clutch the doorknob to my room.

The foundation of my time here is all that remains: a bed, a nightstand, a dresser and
wardrobe, and a bookcase. My closet doors are gone, revealing rows upon rows of
labeled cardboard boxes.

“Early Memories,” “Mom,” “Competitive Swimming,” “The Marshall County
Fair,” all compartmentalized individually and neatly. I don’t know if I’m able to speak, but
there’s nothing I really want to say; I feel an itch on my face for a need to be reactionary, to
be excited or confused, but all I can hear are the trees.

My eyes are drawn to a particular row of boxes, the first one labeled, “Zachary.” I
slowly move towards it, my body moving with the pulsing sway of the forest around my
childhood home. I gently remove the box from its space in the assorted wall. I hold it in my
hands for a moment, sliding off the top with an air of caution.

*

I open my eyes. I am sitting in the chapel of the high school I attended as a
freshman, Wheeling Central Catholic. I can no longer hear the trees. My vision unclouded
from the cornflower hue, I look at him. Zach. He’s sitting next to me. I like to think that
he’s my friend. We eat lunch together with his two twin brothers. They say I am a good
friend to have. I am very happy.

It is Day as a Knight, where eighth graders are allowed to come to the school to shadow
other students, participate in fun activities, ask questions, and be sent home with free
stuff knowing full well that it would be the last free thing that school would ever give them.
I had been ostracized by what felt like all my friends for even considering the notion of
going to Wheeling Central, as it broke the natural pilgrimage all Marshall County
students must take, that which ultimately leads them to the holy city of Moundsville,
West Virginia, basking in the glory of John Marshall High School.

I am out of place. A sore thumb in a catalog of perfectly manicured fingers, but he talks
to me. We get along very well, and it makes me excited to think that I have a friend.
We spend the day together, side-by-side, and he explains many things to me, and I, him.

At the end of the day, when people are finding their parents and shuffling into
minivans, we seem to get lost in the mix. My ride isn’t there yet, so I look for him,
possibly for comfort, or maybe for a ride; I also desperately want to get his number
so we can talk over the summer and further prepare for high school
together. I can’t find him.

*

I feel myself being drawn away from the memory, sliding the lid of the box back
into place. I don’t enjoy the ending.

The next box is labeled “Ethan P.” I smile to myself, trading the box I have for the
one still in the mix.

*

I open my eyes. I am laying in my bed at home. The walls are only starting
to be filled up with different clippings, drawings, and notes. My first bookcase broke,
so a random assortment of books and other various tchotchkes are piled on the
floor, lining my wall. I hold my phone above my face, waiting for an answer;
the screen lights up and it vibrates in my palms; a message from Ethan flashes
across the screen. I smile.

He has the same name as my best friend, and he makes me laugh. He’s very
talented and we’re lucky to have a lot in common. He goes by Chip, for some reason;
I think it’s cool and different, but I always call him Ethan. I started calling him
Pondie—Pond Scum, when I’m upset–he thinks it’s funny.

I stay up until the wee hours of the night to Skype him. We both want to
make sure that our parents aren’t awake to hear us. We laugh and joke with one
another and change our profile bios to each read “997 miles” because it’s how far
apart from one another we are. I absentmindedly scroll through Greyhound bus
ticket listings as he talks about his friends from school.

I make him a birthday present and ask my mom to help me ship it to him.
She’s very confused and upset, yelling at me in the car about how I’m going to die
alone of AIDS and burn in hell. I hope he likes the gift.

*

I close the box slowly, half-wanting to remember but always longing to
forget. I miss him.

I reach for the next box, “Henry,” and almost stop myself. I look around,
as if hiding something, and easily draw the box out.

*

I open my eyes and I’m looking into his. They’re deep brown in color and
handsome, but I can’t go any deeper, I’m only able to take him in on a surface level.
His olive skin is gleaming under the neon lights, the bridge of his strong, Roman
nose, catches flares of pink and green from the ceiling. He smiles softly as he holds
my waist in his hands, the only thing keeping me from melting into a puddle on
the floor. John Legend’s, “All of Me,” plays in the background.

There’s a group of girls on the other side of the room, watching us intently,
even two of the counselors for the camp stand on their toes on stage to look at us.

“Should we just get this over with,” I ask him, nervously, not knowing how to
initiate absolutely anything.

“What?” he asks.

I kiss him, wanting to pull away fast when all I can hear is the sound of girls
screaming, but sink deeply into it when he pushes back towards me. I get nervous
and put my head in his chest, laughing.

I felt love in the basement of Marshall’s Student Union that night.

*

I quickly shutter the box before I’m reminded of anything else, perfectly content
in that being all there is to remember about Henry.

I keep the box out, thinking I might return to it, as I draw out the next,
reading “Ethan H.”

*

I don’t open my eyes. I’m immersed in a passionate make-out session in the front
seat of Ethan’s Toyota Tacoma. It smells atrocious. An olfactory cocktail of sweaty
soccer equipment and mango Juul pods seem to exhaust all my senses, but I don’t think
Ethan would have it any other way. Thankfully, he smells amazing. His cologne battles
all the scents of the truck in my nose as I lose myself further and further into his
intoxication. My brain is on fire.

He takes a hand and puts it up my shorts. I pull away from him, surprised,
asking him why, sprinkled with interjections of no and how I thought we were having fun.
He reassures me that we are having fun, but that we could always have more. I ask
if we can keep kissing.

We’re focused entirely on each other again. He reaches over. I’m half expecting him
to put one of his hands up my pants again, but instead takes my hand in his. I smile,
clasping his hand tight as I kiss him deeper.

He takes my hand and moves it over to his side of the truck, putting it on his
crotch. I open my eyes, confused, as he whispers in my ear, “Do something with it.”

*

I take a minute to process the memory, always getting caught up in the last
few minutes before I ask him to take me home. I struggle to move the box from my lap.

There’s one box left in the row. I recognize it as being freshly organized,
with new bits and pieces being added every day. I smile, reassured, as my mind
drifts away from the night with Ethan H., the heartbreak of Henry, or the longing for
Ethan P. and Zach. I brush my fingers against the label “Ean.”

*

I open my eyes. The room is dimly lit, a soft pink emanating from behind the TV
across from me. The soft pitter-patter of rain can be heard as each drop meets the
roof of the condo, sliding down the gentle slope to kiss the Tudor windowpane.

I’m in his bed, covered and warm by a plush new bedspread I like to think he
bought for us. He sleeps quietly beside me. I look at him in the rose-colored light,
tracing his silhouette with my eyes.

I shift my body closer to his, putting my head on his chest and laying a hand
on his left shoulder; he awakes for a second, accommodating me, and gives me a
gentle kiss on the forehead. I feel safe.

I lie upon his chest and think of everything he is to me, how important he is to
my life, my story, and how very lucky I am to have found him. Never would I have
imagined that I would be able to have someone like this, to have someone like him.

I close my eyes. I can hear the trees.

by Madison Cavicchia

The month of November trickled in like a gentle blue stream. This is when I
met him—a boy I hardly batted an eye toward at first and don’t particularly want to
name now because I hate that he still has so much control over my current emotional
whims. I don’t want him to have that kind of power over me anymore. Though, he is not
even the scum of the worst person I have ever been interested in–not by a long shot.
I don’t even think he is a bad person at all. I think he just stepped out of his integrity
for a moment. He was just human. He was just a human being, and my entire life
fell apart, respectively. That probably didn’t help us, either.

I wish my world hadn’t crumbled before my feet after December.

Thanksgiving had just passed, and work was finally picking up again. I was
back at the local gift shop where I had worked during the holidays between school
semesters. For sale was anything breakable and terrifying for clumsy hands like mine
to touch: expensive wedding champagne flutes, hand-blown Christmas ornaments,
and vases with blue and green polka dots that distorted your face like a funhouse mirror
if you looked into them. This was the first minimum-wage job I had not only learned to
tolerate, but to actually enjoy because of the busy yet not overwhelming atmosphere
and my coworkers, all of whom quickly became close friends. No matter the age or
life-course that led them to this job, we all, on a personal and professional level,
understood one another. We laughed and cried together, and when it was time to work,
we moved as one, a well-oiled machine, singing holiday jingles all the while.

The day he and I met, I arrived at work first, not expecting anything new,
certainly not life-changing. Then, I heard a doorbell ring, as my manager walked
through the double doors with a face I did not recognize.

This must be the new name I saw on the schedule, I thought to myself. I was a
little surprised because I half expected the new hire to be, yet another retired individual
who was bored out of their mind at home, looking for something on the weekends to
pass the time. This person, however, was certainly not an elderly man who’d sit behind
the counter his entire shift, paid to watch me do all of the work. He was young
(I guessed around my age), he was tall, and he had blue eyes.

My manager walked him over to me, and he smiled as he introduced himself.
Well, I couldn’t exactly see the smile behind his face mask, but I could tell it was warm
and genuine because of the way his eyes crinkled upward. That was the first feature
I noticed about him apart from his dark curls and good-postured stature. This was the
very same grin he left me with the last time we saw each other, smiling blue eyes
and a face covering.

He didn’t say much, like me, which I found intriguing. When he did speak, I always
found myself laughing. When he didn’t speak, he was always watching, bright blue eyes
observing with care every customer who came in and out of the building, every piece
of glass sold, and me with all my silly quirks: quiet humming, nail tapping on the
countertops, and general uncoordinated nature all included.

And I, too, observed, with my little blue eyes, his mannerisms. It was a dance we
did with our separate gazes. Sometimes, they would intertwine, and we would lock eyes
for just a brief moment, blue to blue, then quickly turn away, diverting our attention to
something far less absorbing like a dusty Santa sculpture that was probably older than
me or the muddy carpet floors. In that instant, I always wondered what he was thinking
behind those pretty blue eyes, but I never asked. I should have.

I had a funny feeling his favorite color was blue. Maybe it was because of his
eyes; I am not sure. I think it was his energy, like moonlight, that convinced me. I could
look at any person and see their energy, their aura. My best friend is yellow as a
sunflower, my brother is electric purple, I am ballet slipper-pink, and he is the
embodiment of the night sky over the salty ocean—blue.

Most often, he and I worked together on Sundays, so one Saturday evening in
December, I raided the cabinet behind my bathroom mirror in search of the perfect blue
nail polish. I needed to test my theory. After much deliberation, perhaps too much, I finally
settled on Sally Hansen’s number 710–a navy shade named Beatnik, referring to the
1950s Beat Generation or the color of the 1969 Ford Mustang, I have no clue.
Nonetheless, I sat at my desk, turned on my pink headlamp for maximum lighting,
and spent the next hour primping, filing, and painting until all of my nails were as blue
as the midnight sky. Then, I went to bed with a smile on my face for the first time
in a long time.

It turns out I was right; his favorite color is blue. As soon as he arrived at the
gift shop, he quickly took notice of my hands and complimented my nails. He liked them;
they were pretty. In my head, I was giddy like a child who finally convinced their parents
to take them out for ice cream. My little scheme had worked. On the outside, I was calm.
I asked him if blue was his favorite color, and he replied, chuckling, “yes.”

Throughout December, we grew to know each other little by little. What started
as a simple hello quickly turned into sharing childhood stories, photos of pets, and
favorite foods during breaks and in between rushes. Our closeness and soft fondness
for one another grew more and more apparent with each memory we created,
decorated in tacky Christmas tinsel. Certainly, it was all in my head. This never happens
to me. Things don’t work out for me. My other coworkers firmly and enthusiastically
assured me otherwise.

It was a frigid and slow afternoon sometime after Christmas. The icy blue weather
made it so that I could count the number of customers who came into the shop during
my seven-hour shift on one hand. We were bored out of our minds, he and I, and so
were the other two people scheduled to work that evening. This time, we were all
stationed at the ice cream parlor next door to the glass shop, filled with sweetly
scented candies and overpriced holiday decor. After an unsettling length of silence,
Emily (who also, like him, smiled ferociously with her eyes) suggested that we gather
behind the front desk, prop up her phone, and watch a movie. Emily is a bubbly girl,
filled with silly puns and a natural love to laugh. She had worked at these shops the
longest of all of us, five years, and always found ways to bend the rules for the sake
of some fun whenever she could.

Before we started the movie, he and I scooped ourselves some ice cream.
He gently handed me a bowl and spoon and chose vanilla with cherry while I decided
on black raspberry. Then, we went over and sat together on the fraying black mats
covering wooden laminate floors. We sat in our own little space, leaning against bubble
wrap containers and boxes and slowly leaning in toward each other, space blue
sweatshirt against cranberry cardigan. It was the same blue sweatshirt he wore
almost every time we worked together, and I had become accustomed to envisioning
him in it, sleeves rolled to the elbows and arms crossed, always next to me.

After the movie ended, Emily pulled me away from the blue sweatshirt and into
the back room. She jumped up and down like an excited child, pulled down her face
mask, and loudly whispered:

“You guys look cute together!”

I was then informed that apparently everyone else that worked in these gift
shops thought we did, too. Apparently, he definitely had a crush on me because he
was a completely different person when I was around. Less sulky and sullen. He stood
up straight in his blue sweatshirt when I was around. He lit up like a flickering candle
flame when I was around. Me.

Emily then proceeded to quickly Google our astrological star sign compatibility,
just to make sure the love was real. Two water signs, a Cancer and a Pisces:
a rare but perfect match.

Rare, unusual, and out of the ordinary. That is what the doctors told my father
as his sister lay dead in a hospital bed on January 23rd, the day my family’s life
changed forever. January 23rd. The day I realized December was over.

Just two weeks earlier, my Aunt Megan had gone into surgery for a small
cosmetic procedure; she had recently lost some weight and wanted her loose
skin tightened. It went smoothly, and her recovery was going well until it wasn’t
anymore. Her recovery was going well until one Saturday morning when she
stopped breathing and never began again.

Staring at the skirt of my royal-blue dress during her funeral, anxiously
fiddling with the hem, I zoned out for a while and impulsively thought a lot of things,
some of which I am not proud to admit. I was irritable. Her ceremony had been split
up into two incredibly long days because of the virus–some of the longest days
I have ever lived. And I was so cold. Standing outside and sitting inside, no matter
where I went, no matter how many pairs of tights I wore underneath this blue dress,
I was shivering.

I was angry, too. I was angry that her stupid boyfriend of fewer than six
months, Al, who was old enough to be my dad when my Aunt was barely thirty, was here
in a suit and tie, sighing woefully, inviting all of his friends and family to bid their
tearful goodbyes when they had only ever met her once. Al was taking up too much
space in this cold room, making it about his sorrows when it should have been about
my grandmother—crying in a black folding chair. It should have been about
my parents—desperately searching to find pictures of my Aunt to display because
she never liked having her photo taken. It should have been about my
brother—hiding in the back room. It should have been about me—in charge of
picking out the right scarf to cover the giant gash from the hospital tube on my Aunt’s
already bluing neck.

Immediately I felt guilty for being so cruel in my mind to someone who was
simply grieving, and I stroked the bottom hem of my blue dress even more frantically.
I also felt guilty because I was still thinking about him, the boy from the gift shop.
Before we parted ways, he had told me he was quitting to go work for a funeral home,
and I half hoped it was this one just so he could comfort me. Just so I could see
him again, his blue eyes and blue sweatshirt, because we enthusiastically exchanged
numbers, and he promised to call. Twice, he promised. But he never did. He never
did and I don’t know why and I think I still miss him. Maybe I am just missing the
rose-tinted idea of December most of all. Missing the other shades of blue.

Blue comes in so many different shades. Blue is mutable. Blue is water. Blue is
both the calm stillness of a receding tide and the raging tsunami surely to follow.
Blue is proof that life happens in cycles; it ebbs and flows, and you can’t scoop blue up
with your hands and try to mold it into anything different, anything other than what it is
meant to be. You have lost control, and you can either push back against the waves
or float with them.

You can’t choose between navy blue or royal; you get them both.

In late May, I went back to work, and by mid-August, I put my sapphire-blue
uniform shirt on for the very last time. I couldn’t do it anymore, and I hated myself for it.
I hated unearthing this shirt from the depths of my closet, buttoning it up, and fixing
the sleeves, for the first time since December. It would be my first time back at the
gift shops since I’d lost my Aunt and that stupid boy broke my stupid heart. It would
be my first time back since I lost a piece of me, the part of your brain that tells you
the tick-ticking sound from the clock means that time is passing. I must have lost that
some many months ago because for me, time had stopped progressing the day
before January 23rd.

I didn’t know what to expect when I walked through those double doors again,
but it certainly wasn’t anything like this rush of emotion—a twisted sort of deja vu.
I walked in bravely, donning my blue uniform, only to crumble at what I saw, or the lack
thereof. It was so empty. Everything: the shelves, the countertops, the faces of the
few coworkers that remained (Emily included). This ice cream parlor was a ghost town,
but my memories lit it up like Christmas lights in the most painful way. Holiday memories
of a time when I didn’t feel so blue, memories of grinning eyes, navy nails,
and sweatshirts. Moments of shared ice cream and laughter and excitedly watching
my family exchange gifts beside the highly decorated pine tree in our living room.
My entire family. And I couldn’t even bear to peek into the glass shop next door,
completely gutted out and under construction, locked up tight and closed for everyone,
especially me.

Suddenly everything was blurring together. I was a girl in a haze, somewhere
in the atmospheric space of hanging up her winter coat because the seasons are
changing even when she still feels the cool, blue chill in her bones, stepping into
the beating sun.

I had to get out of here. Standing in front of the bathroom mirror at work
on that first day, I hated myself. Most of all, I hated that I had to go back to this
goddamn gift shop every day. I couldn’t move on.

So I left.

The last time I wore that straight jacket of a blue uniform was on a hot and
sunny day in August. And it hurt immensely to leave, but it hurt even more to stay.

Blue comes in so many different shades. Blue is mutable. Blue is water.
Blue is both the calm stillness of a receding tide and the raging tsunami surely to follow.
Blue is proof that life happens in cycles; it ebbs and flows, and you can’t scoop blue
up with your hands and try to mold it into anything different, anything other than what it
is meant to be. You have lost control, and you can either push back against the waves
or float with them.

The waves of blue come and go. Just the other day, I realized that it was
September and that soon enough I was going to have to relive December and January
once again. I also came to the unsettling realization that I was going to have to do
this for the rest of my life, stumbling through the beauty and pain in each calendar date
I crossed out during those months. A time most families come together to celebrate,
mine was no longer whole. Yet another space had been hollowed out with a carving knife,
one less chair at the dining room table, one less voice to fill the room.

Lying on my carpeted bedroom floor, I glanced upward at my wall collage,
eyes dancing from funny quotes, floral designs, movie ticket stubs, and pretty envelopes
until finally reaching a poem. “Holidays” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, taped to the
elephant grey wall underneath my light switch. It was a parting gift from my tenth-grade
English teacher, Mrs. Pole, a petite woman with shoulder-length dark brown hair and
one of my favorite laughs. She hand cut and taped it on a bright baby blue notecard for me,
the same blue notecard I gave to her on the first day of school with my name,
phone number, activities I enjoyed (namely the piano lessons I would give up shortly),
and my goal for that year, 2018—to do well in calculus. I let out a jaded chuckle at the
thought that at age sixteen, my greatest worry was passing a math class. Then, suddenly
I peeled myself off of the floor. Something pulled me to get up and read that sonnet
again. I stood and mumbled each line to myself:

The holiest of all holidays are those

            Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;

            The secret anniversaries of the heart,

            When the full river of feeling overflows;—

The happy days unclouded to their close;

            The sudden joys that out of darkness start

            As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart

            Like swallows singing down each wind that blows!

White as the gleam of a receding sail,

            White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,

            White as the whitest lily on a stream,

These tender memories are;— a Fairy Tale

            Of some enchanted land we know not where,

            But lovely as a landscape in a dream.

Mrs. Pole chose this poem for me because she said she saw me in it.
She also wanted to give me something to remember her goodbye. Mrs. Pole was
freshly pregnant and moving with her husband who also taught at the high
school to Austria to be with his family. She announced this exciting news a few weeks
prior, as my friends and I ate Chinese food for lunch in her classroom.

When she called me over to her desk and handed me the blue notecard,
my entire body filled to the brim with excitement. What a rare and sentimental gift,
sharing a piece of something, the words you read that eventually become you,
with someone else.

She said she saw me in it.

I stood there and read it over and over again in my bedroom. A pretty
string of words, I know. But I cannot see myself in them anymore, not in-between
“sudden joys” or “happy days.” I certainly could not see myself standing
broad-shouldered and alongside its name-sake and central
theme–holidays. At least, not right now.

Blue comes in so many different shades. Blue is mutable. Blue is water.
Blue is both the calm stillness of a receding tide and the raging tsunami surely to follow.
Blue is proof that life happens in cycles; it ebbs and flows, and you can’t scoop blue
up with your hands and try to mold it into anything different, anything other than what
it is meant to be. You have lost control, and you can either push back against the
waves or float with them.

At the moment, I am standing toe to toe with every single shade of blue.

by Anonymous

If you took a few minutes to think about the names of places you might find in a
children’s fairytale, something like the Village of Adena would jump right off the page.
Maybe it comes from the word “village” and how it seems more imaginative than modern
words like “town” or “city,” or maybe it’s the way the name rests comfortably in your mouth.
Either way, it almost hypnotizes you with its embrace, forcing you into romanticizing
your experiences there and to save them, like myths, to share with friends, family, and
even yourself in the future. It might be enough to make you sick, actually. Such nostalgia
washes over you, not quite in the way that dread or heartbreak does, but in a way
that’s enough to make you homesick for a mystical place you almost didn’t realize was
once alive and real and sinking its teeth into your impressionable, little mind over ten
years ago. Perhaps a simple name is enough to trip the wire in your brain that traps
you in your memories of an intoxicating place you once called home.

For me, Adena was very much a real place. It sat a bit farther west in Ohio and
was the farthest away from my hometown of Martins Ferry that I had ever lived. It was
placed comfortably in one of the little valleys making up the east side of the state and
was perfectly new to me. In fact, following my parents’ divorce and my father’s remarriage
to a woman most accurately described as the “evil stepmother” one might find in a
children’s tale, this village was the first place we attempted to find our footing again.
Of course, for my brother, sister, and me, our parents’ separation meant that we would
be passed from one town to the next, depending on the weekend and which parent
would have us in whichever town they resettled in during that time, but I couldn’t deny
the excitement and sense of magic that fell over me when I knew we’d be going to
the village. It was perfect with its hills for our restless feet to wander on, worms and
spiders and fireflies for us to pluck from the earth, fifty-year-old trees, dead and alive,
simply waiting to challenge our growing muscles and lashing their vines just above
the ground, tempting us to take one big swing into empty space. Of course a child
would fall so heavily in love with a house and the memories made in a neighborhood
so distracting and inviting.

I feel confident in saying that any newcomer would feel such an alarming
connection to Adena as well. Perhaps it wouldn’t be to the extent that developed in
me over so many years of growing and finding myself drawn down there by some magnet,
but it would be enough to make them feel the ache of some loss when leaving it again.
The journey down the hill and through the tunnel of trees that arched over the road
as you moved nearer and nearer to the village sent you spiraling like Alice and made
it hard to come back out. From an adult’s perspective, the branches were simply safety
hazards in the event that a forceful enough storm came through, but from a child’s,
they were inviting and comforting and embraced you, reminding you of all the potential
a person or place had in terms of growing stronger and moving upward. The worn
down houses placed among them had character to us. We looked forward to greeting
the bear carved from a decaying stump in someone’s front lawn, hoping it would
come to life, and the moment the asphalt road turned to brick beneath the trees, we
knew we had transported to our new fantasy, even if the actuality of having a new
stepmother was what took us there in the first place.

Whether she influenced him or it was simply my father’s idea to live there, I will
always have an acute feeling that my stepmother was the one who dragged us to Adena.
Without giving her too much credit, the eeriness of that home simply oozed from every
chipped wall, shredded carpet, and dim room, which would make sense considering
we were seemingly living with one of the witches from Hocus Pocus. It was like she
picked the most ominous-feeling building she could possibly find in the Ohio Valley,
dropped us off there, and left the village to do the rest. The initial hill had already
propelled us down into the neighborhood like a set of stairs turned slide in Scooby Doo,
and it was almost as if the only upward direction we could go in an attempt to escape
was up the crumby, gravel driveway that led to our home, standing out like a sore
thumb—or perhaps a witch’s finger—on what seemed like the only other hill around.

Of course, there were other houses there, too: preppy, pretty, little houses with
their rose bushes, fenced-in yards, and paved driveways. But oftentimes ours was enough.
Yes, my siblings and I frequently found ourselves admiring the others in hopes of finding
kids our ages to explore with, but even without them, we were up to our necks in
entertainment from the outside world alone. Sitting atop our solitary mound, the other
houses cowering in the shadow of ours, the life that seeped from the acres of woods
behind us or the pull of the open bike paths below reeled us in and reminded us of the
potential of our imaginations. At the ages of seven and nine, the three Walton children
did not mind the company the village offered, or the lack thereof.

          Wilderness

Soon, we were so caught up in mapping out every inch of our surroundings that
we often forgot our parents were even there. Perhaps this was simply another of my
step-witch’s ploys to get us out of her hair as well as my father’s, but little did she know
how much good it would do us in terms of our own witch-like training. Since we had
such easy access to the woods in our backyard, our botany knowledge was constantly
increasing. I distinctly remember how thrilled we were to discover the numerous blackberry
bushes lining the perimeter and the wild, white onions the size of marbles growing
right beneath our feet. Having lived in “the city” until that point, the fact that we could
actually eat those organic plants was mind boggling to us. We even vowed every
year to bake the biggest berries into a pie or a tart that would fill the house with the
most sugary perfume, except it took every ounce of energy to prevent us from devouring
our main ingredient beforehand. Of course, we had no intentions of including
the onions in any kind of dessert we dreamed of, but it had gotten to the point where
nearly every day we would trek the edge of the trees and our open yard, hoping that
the bushes would magically and fully replenish themselves and that the earth would
spit out more onion stalks since we had yet to grasp the concept that plants simply
did not grow back that quickly and were utterly fascinated by the idea that they might.

When struck with the realization that these newfound ingredients would take
a bit more time to sprout for us again, we found our entertainment in the aging swimming
pool that also stood, although hardly, in our backyard along the tree line. Although
we knew better than to eat or drink anything that lived in the rain water that filled it over
the months when no one lived in our house, we still found joy in admiring its contents.
Instead of something truly edible like a pie or tart, the contents filling that old pool and
water made up a different kind of recipe; one that seemed to replicate a witch’s brew
in our childish minds. As is typical of pools in need of draining and a bit of tear-inducing
chlorine, ours had become overtaken by algae and leaves. But given its proximity
to the hickory trees, uncontrollable weeds, and berry bushes, this mucky, stew-like
water also concealed hundreds of sentient “ingredients”: the tadpoles of gray treefrogs.
We would watch them dart and float about in their cooling brew as if a sorceress had
left and forgotten about them, and when we were lucky, our father would offer us a
bucket or two to scoop them all out. Of course, none of us dared to taste that
mixture since only the witch who stirred it knew the kind of spell or sickness it would
put on us, but we enjoyed considering what it could do, nonetheless.

          Companions

Like the frogs we released into the branches above us after watching them
sprout their legs and turn a shade of neon lime, animals were just as significant to
our adventures in Adena as the plants and wild foods we discovered. Naturally,
whistling robins fought over the worms living among the onions in the ground and
chipmunks kicked up the pebbles in our driveway as they skittered out of reach of
black rat snakes. But in mysterious and witchy fashion, a cat had become much
more significant to our time in the village than any other creature.

In even more episodes of our coming-of-age, my siblings and I often slunk
away from our hub on the hill by crossing through our neighbors’ backyards. On most
days, we weren’t in search of anything in particular, but in true magical fashion,
Adena chose one summer day to offer us another friend in the form of a kitten, or
what some might view as a witch’s pet or familiar if they also believed in magic.
Considering the mysterious nature of our neighborhood and the mystical training we
felt we were receiving by living there, it only made sense that we would come across
that kind of companion living with two other kittens in a rose bush along the road. And,
believe it or not, we had no intention of keeping any of them despite our childlike
desire for a pet, except one of them felt a connection to us and made her own plans.

The cat was a calico instead of a solid black one—Adena not wanting to
fill too many witchy cliches—and her black and ginger patches painted over white fur
helped us recognize her in our yard when she followed us home from that flowery
bush one afternoon. Initially, my father despised the idea of taking in a cat, especially
if one following us home meant there was potential for all three of them to, but she
simply wouldn’t go anywhere else and his heart was evidently a bit too big to let her
survive any longer without us. So, the kitten became ours, and while we only kept her,
my siblings and I had taken inspiration from the atmosphere around us to name the
trio of kittens we loved visiting so much: Daffodil the calico, Petunia the brown tabby,
and Rosey the tuxedo. The Village of Adena had gifted the Walton witches
their own familiar.

          Transportation

In order for us to even discover the area of Adena in which Daffodil was
originally found, we first had to learn how to get there. When we weren’t busy
attempting to fly by entangling ourselves in the usually sturdy grapevines that attached
themselves and grew alongside the hickories behind the house, the pool, and the
blackberry bushes in the woods, we needed another alternative to getting around.
Typically, witches are portrayed as using enchanted broomsticks as their preferred
method of transportation, but we simply did not have access to that kind of magic.
Instead, my brother, twin sister, and I were fortunate enough to get new bicycles when
we moved to the village, perhaps as another sort of peace offering from the step-witch.
Nevertheless, these new bikes were plenty quick enough to get us around, and our
neighbors could frequently witness us zip about based on the shades of pink, purple,
and orange we rode upon.

Obviously, we did find ourselves traveling by foot on the terrain that wouldn’t
exactly warrant a troop of kids with weak muscles and senses of balance to peddle their
bikes, but our arguably unsafe and incredibly long hill of a driveway was the perfect
launchpad for propelling us down into the village. After a few rocky starts and a whole
lot of breaking in brakes out of the rightful fear that we’d wipe out entirely before reaching
the bottom, we learned which rocks and ruts to avoid, at least for the most part.
In fact, I remember quite distinctly the time that the gravel interfered with one of my
little brother’s quickest flights. He, my twin , and I were just leaving the house, my sister
having already made it to the bottom, my brother following her, and me still parked at the top.
Our father and step-witch watched our departure from the safety of our three-pillared
porch, and just as our eyes skipped from my sister to my brother, he skidded around
the soft left turn that made a hook at the bottom of our driveway. Except, instead of
leaning his bike into it at the perfect angle to propel him down the road, his tilt fell a
bit too flat, sending him grating over the gravel for nearly ten yards.

By the time he stopped, my sisterly instincts had kicked in, and I was zooming
down that same treacherous route to reach him. Luckily, nothing was physically broken
or wrong with him, but the interaction that followed between me and my parents left a
few cracks in my own mentality. I remember screaming and feeling enraged at the fact
that when I looked back up at the house, sitting up there on its stupid hill above me
and my little, crying dove of a brother, my father and step-mom didn’t make a single move.
Neither of them made an effort to rush down the hill as I did, neither of them picked
him up off the ground and dusted the dirt from his scrapes, and neither of them cared
about the situation until twenty minutes later when the step-witch put another
stupid charm on my gullible father. Over that span of time, she had insisted the he
force me to drag my bike back home, yell at me for screaming at them for their lack
of support and concern for my brother, and shut me away in my ominous room in that
creepy, old house in Adena for the rest of night, putting my flying lessons on hold.

          Reality

After that point, I reflected on how living in Adena truly made me feel. I had lived
in that village and learned so much from my experiences there that it was almost
heartbreaking to know that it would hurt me in any way. I was dragged and dropped
there because of a woman who I knew did not really care about me, I fell under her
spell as well as Adena’s, and I found myself ultimately burned by the reality of
the situation. I did not want to associate that neighborhood with her. Instead, I wanted
to look back on the knowledge I gained, whether it was truly magical or not, and
prevent any spite or evil from affecting the person I wanted to be in the future.
Unlike her.

As of today, I would like to think that I’ve done a lot to prevent such a thing from
dulling my magic. At nearly twenty-one years old and over ten years later, I can
happily say that that step-witch is not even a part of my life anymore. Of course,
her defeat means that my family and I no longer reside in the village that left this
mysterious imprint on me, and yet, I never allow myself to go more than a couple
months without thinking about it all. With my new, adult perspective, I’ve come
to understand that I don’t have to let those incredibly life-altering events like cheating
and divorce ruin the events and experiences to come. Even considering how damaging
her sorcery could have been for us, I’ve found that I can’t shake whatever curse
that woman cast on me to make me think so fondly of The Village of Adena.

I can admit that the simple lessons I learned there were enough to distract
my childish mind from harsh realities. Back then, I spent my time picking wild berries,
deconstructing a froggy witch’s brew, caring for a new, furry companion, and zipping
about on my shiny, pink bike. And now, whenever I especially miss that perfectly
creepy place, all I have to do is look down at the tree frog and blackberries tattooed
on my leg and find myself transported back there again.

By Mohamed Ismail Amara

May I offer you shelter under my umbrella, fine sir, as you appear to be a stranger
in this desolate land of ours? I believe we have a common destination. You are headed to
the train station, right?

Let us walk together. A queer weather, you might notice. A swift, soft breeze that
caresses your skin after a day of scorching sun. Hither, the sun teaches discipline. Through
its eloquent yet not very gentle rays, it speaks to us as we navigate our way from one beech
tree to another. Let us walk into the gates of the old Souk and smell the humid scent of the
damp ramparts. The water droplets will sneak their way out of the feeble mass of gravel
and sand to tell us a story. In the faint voice of an aging city and in harmony with the
whistling wind, tenderly writing notes in our ears as a virtuoso, the choristers of life chant
the anthem of a lost city.

This way, sir. The road is forged with error and distrust, the pavement with fear and
sorrow. It’s a wonder this ragged mess has yet to collapse. It is no longer a virtuous land.
Many a vehicle tarnished this once-sainted road, and many a foot stomped the
kaleidoscopic pavement, rendering it lifeless and colorless.

Unaware of the howls of the creatures slumbering within, they swept through the
city, leaving massacre and distortion behind.

I apologize if I am tainting your perspective with my bleak portrayal of the city. I
am neither a cynic nor a painter of doom. I am a priest of solitude.

This land, my fellow passenger, is in a terminal-stage cancer of solitude. A disease
that has festered in its already frail body since the jasmines of hope, innocently intended to
guide it to prosperity, have turned into poison ivy.

Fascinating, isn’t it? To be submerged in an eternal state of chagrin so seldom
interrupted by a passing cloud of jubilation. Look at the buildings, for instance, and try to
perceive the patterns that connect this anarchic haphazardness. Take a good look and search
for details, comrade, for in details lies the story. Don’t be like the hollow tourists of
Jerusalem, mindless cogs standing in oblivion on the façade of the battlefields. They see
nothing in the city but meaningless rocks and hear nothing but the shutters of their cameras.

We indeed seek glory without and within, portraying our incapacity for
transcendence in things that outlive and outrank us. We desperately attempt to immortalize
our ephemeral existence by transferring our essence into objects or beings. Some create
books and poems, while others develop fairies and deities, and the layman bears children.
Let us walk down the stairs. We are getting nearer to the station. Do not worry. Don’t be
hasty, cherished creature, for that is the opium of the modern masses. We sprint through life
like rabid dogs escaping the pound, until we find out there is no pound; we are the pound.
The oppression of techno-wizardry enchants us. A tyranny that we, without prompting,
inflicted on ourselves. Have we lost the capacity for thought, my dear friend? Has our
pursuit of transcendence driven us farther into the lambs of slaughter that we most fear?
Has our axiom of existence, that is, our cogito, been rendered meaningless and obsolete?

A plague that traverses all borders of mind and spirit like a vicious crow eating off
the flesh of these indolent, lethargic creatures. Look around you and see a lost wanderer.

They are all around, yet we feel so alone. There are such wide screens and dazzling
lights, yet it feels so dark. I have once heard this anecdote that I must recount in your
presence if you oblige. It is said that Dom Pérignom, the creator of the Champagne, called
on his companion following his first sip. “Come quick,” he said, “I’m tasting the stars.” The
sky is full of stars, my dear companion; we just no longer have the eyes to see them.

A refined version of the jungle, or organized society, is a tragic comedy that
bestows on our feeble collective a state of intersubjective illusion. An illusion that
transcended the borders of fiction, transitioning into a somewhat dystopian reality, fiddling
with the wires of our mental engines as a puppeteer swiftly pulls the strings of his obedient
marionettes. Ôhumanity, an amateur play, a Shakespearian disaster. Grand schemes and
master plans, elegant words, and eloquent rhetoric. Ô the fortune of the Plebeians, how I
envy their blissful ignorance, comrade. The burden of conscience torments me;
it bereaves me of life’s simplest joys. How much I would have longed to be Kafka’s
cockroach or Dostoevsky’s insect. To each, their misery, and mine is one I can not escape,
for it is forged in thought as in spirit.

Follow my lead, for we have approached our destination. Forgive the filthy disposition
of the entrance; it is meant to repel unwelcome visitors. It is intended to distinguish the
explorer from the tourist, the seeker of the truth from the colonizer. This place has known many
of the latter. They came from all lands and races, each promising salvation yet delivering doom.
Read the meditations on the murals, for they will elucidate their grievances better than my
garrulous nature ever will. You see nothing, you say?

Let me read it to you. “Date Obolum Belli Sario ”, give a farthing to Belisarius, a dear
fellow of mine. Allow me to further trouble your ease with this story of the fallen land, for it is
essential to ride this train. It is your boarding pass if you will.

Ben Franklin’s satire sure does perfectly describe the state of this humble abode.
But, please observe its worthless disposition, paralyzed as an aging empire. Having exhausted
all of its defenses, it now solely relies on its gruesome allure to keep its enemies at bay.

Read the letters on its cut-off limbs. “Hope”, “Empathy”, “Love”, “Gratitude”.
Naive fiddlestick!

What bewilders me most when I look at that satirical artwork, dear friend, is the face
of the general. Look at it carefully, and you will come across a rather peculiar remark.
It is not sad. Its traits do not forego any signs of sorrow or remorse. On the contrary, they deliver
a much more frightening feeling, in my opinion. Indifference, with a hint of sardonicism, is
what it conveys. It almost mocks its adversaries, depriving them of the sweet joy of victory.
“I have lived through many woes, suffered so many losses that I have become numb.
No joys of the heavens nor damnation of the abyss can alter my disposition.” Why did it not
resort to the most accessible escape, that is, suicide, you might ask? You are very
mistaken, I would say, for suicide demands courage. It requires hope and energy. In simple
terms, comrade, one needs to be alive for one to be able to commit suicide.

Do not bemoan its plight or attempt to assist it. This land does not seek salvation,
for you cannot save what is already ruined. Now let us enter the station. The train departs
in no time.

There is our ride, that rose-colored wagon that says, “Train to Nowhere.” Be careful,
for the wagon changes colors at every station. Pray take the seat by the window. I do not
want it. I am only here to guide you through the scenery.

Listen to our vehicle as it whistles off, declaring its departure from nowhere to
nowhere, out of the blue and into its depth. Whistles are commonly a warning to all the
passengers of a once-crowded station of the going away of their only ride out of the abyss. But
the abyss is isolated and bereaved now, its fires burning low, its demons fading into meaninglessness
and alienation. What is the purpose of an abyss if its damned are indifferent to punishment
and retribution? What is torture if the criminal is numb and deprived of the sweet joy of pain?
Oh, here come the rail squeals, choking the hard metals and forcing a cry of agony. Look
out the window! Yes, right there! A tiny three-year-old creature grasps its cherished meal of
spaghetti and meatballs. “You can figure out the menu of the day from his shirt.” He gazes attentively
at the old TV set, with tomato sauce sparsely tainting every inch of his garments.”The cute little
thing of the house,” they called him. His articulately pronounced expressions and attempts
to join adult conversations were ignored with an air of parental admiration that further reiterated
a recurring idea in his evolving mind. No one took him seriously, and he did not like that.

Associating age with mental capacity and consciousness is a concept that has long
bewildered me. A phenomenon devoid of meaning for what correlation exists between the
continuous and inevitable passing of time and the growth of one’s ability to generate
meaning out of life’s recurring patterns, especially in the case of the modern human.
What exactly about this mundane, humdrum, routine misery makes us believe that
we are growing?

We are stuck in an infinite loop, my dear fellow, that starts and restarts in suffering,
a vicious cycle that lures us in with an enchanting cloak of delight only to take us inside the
monstrous great fish. And we are no Jonah, comrade, and we have no prophecy nor salvation.
Unaware of the meaning and incognizant of the purpose of our absurdist reality, that kid
had dreams. He created stories and fantasies of imaginary realms, desperate to escape
the limiting, bordered existence of his frustrating human corporeality.

As the boy grew more cognizant of himself and his surroundings, he developed
an insatiable thirst for knowledge and inadvertently caught the reading flu, a vile disease.
He read everything he could get his hands on. He could not bear the frustration of saying,
“I do not know.” He knew that he did not have the gift of looks or the natural charm that
would guarantee him a swift integration into his social entourage from a ripe age. His
alternative to seducing attention from his friends and family was to have an answer for
everything. He was, alas, oblivious to the magnetic void of reading. The more he read,
the more he disassociated himself from reality and all of its aspects. Why would he try to
make hateful, hypocritical connections if he could always resort to his novels’ noble,
loving characters?  His characters never laid upon his soft nature a barrage of prejudices
or a hail of stereotypes. He never lied to them or explained why he did not like loud voices
and passive-aggressive grins.

Look at him, sinking in an empty bathtub amid the grim darkness, holding
a flashlight in his tiny hands. Through the night, he wept over the miseries of young Jane Eyre,
which quite related to his misfortunes. He smiled as Emma scolded the idiotic young
brides of England. His heart was filled with patriotism and rebellion as little Gavroche
soared over the barricades, announcing the end of tyranny. Goosebumps shriveled
his skin as he played “A la volonté du Peuple” in his mind. In his small tub, he was a general,
a leader of the rebels on the frontline of the battlefield. Perceive the passion that
shimmers from his eyes as he figures out the cases of Sherlock Holmes. In his small
mental abode, he was a king, a poet, a bandmaster, and an exceptional genius.

Alas, every morning, at precisely 7 a.m. the high-pitched voice of his mother would
transport him back to the sorrowful reality, just as the sharp whistles of the jailer would
carry the herd of jubilant prisoners back to their cells. I have always had this random
thought about the daily routine of the incarcerated. I reckon that the fraction of time given
to prisoners to wander the open-air square or backyard under the pretext of offering them
a hint of fresh air is the cruelest of punishments. Every single day, they are forced to
gobble up a fake pill of hope and freedom, only to have it swept back down their throats.

Thirsty for elusion from this arid land of confinement, they spring out of their cells,
longing for the soothing waters of freedom, only to find themselves in a mirage, a bad joke.

We are nearing the next station. Notice how everything in the wagon swiftly
changes colors. The bright, passionate pink slowly fades into a freezing dark blue,
as if announcing our arrival at the gates of hell. The frames of the external world frighten
the innocent nature of our windows, and we see only a blurry image of a teenage figure
lying in bed. Look at him and tell me, fellow passenger, for my eyes have started to fail me.
It is indeed the figure of the boy as he evolved in shape and in mind.

As the years passed, he only grew more distant and solitary, a pariah in a society
that so implicitly loathed his uncommon disposition. As the walls of his room drew closer
and the ponderings inside of his head louder, he resorted to the relief of poetry.
He frequently used this technique to sift through his mind’s screaming horrors and jot them
down in his small notebook. “You get so alone at times that it just makes sense.”
was his first encounter with the art. The masterpiece of his imaginary friend,
Charles Bukowski, threw the boy into the arena of society and its morals. The lessons
that his friends would learn from the adventures in the neighborhood, he learned from Bukowski.

Do not let this lead you to believe that the boy had an introverted nature or that
his solitude was mere imprisonment inside the walls of his room, for he was a very active
and sociable teenager. He played sports of every kind and form, made friends,
and attended social gatherings. While his material corpse was present and interactive,
charming and passionate, his mind and spirit were never there. He tried to associate
himself with the ordinary, for sometimes he felt that he was at fault, that he should
malleate his distorted being and fit into the standards of society. Whenever he attempted
to enter this rigid cell, he felt alienated, suffocated by the claustrophobia of mental
incarceration, and afraid.

Fear, such an enigmatic word, is linguistically constructed to instill a feeling of
uneasiness, restlessness, and discomfort. Fear is the sound of people approaching,
the tap of footsteps on wooden floors, curiously mimicking the march of an army on a
defenseless land. He is the defenseless land, the uncharted territory on which the colonizers
of his existence stomp and plant their flags and emblems of stereotypes and misconceptions.
Fear is small talk and greetings in the hallway. Fear is dyslexia taking over his
misconstrued sentences and senseless words soaring out of his mouth as tropical birds
flee their homelands at the sound of a gunshot. Fear is the order of things, the norms
and standards of a society so bemusing to his estranged mind. Fear is alienation,
solitude, and a lack of belonging to any group of footsteps. Fear is holy books and the
ire of deities promising the outcast eternal damnation, an abyss much more tender
than the abuse of his meaningless existence.

A strange feeling of alienation beneath and beyond. There is no haven among
humans and no refuge beneath the gods for the unwanted and unloved.

Amongst the many cuffs that his entourage started to lay on his boneless hands
was the sadist phenomenon of the calling, the vocation. “What do you want to do when
you grow up?” was constant harassment, a long-running investigation that offered him
a wide range of spots on the assembly line. What mindless, insignificant contribution
will he add to the screws of the machine as he perceives his life speeding in front of
his lagging eyes as one of the countless products packaged and labeled, strangled into
the grasp of a conveyor belt? Desperate to find his flame, his one passion, he navigated
the arts and sciences like a famished seagull scanning the seas. Nothing could
appease his ceaseless energy for more than a few days. He failed to adapt to a system
so limiting and restricting, so tailored to prey on his mercurial traits of character. He fell into
despair, persuaded that he was born unworthy, a genetic anomaly, an inherited disorder
with no perks nor purpose. What do you reckon is the root for this pandemic of thought,
this disease of purpose, fellow passenger?

As the clock ticks to a new beginning, he stumbles, begrudgingly,
into a new second, a new state of existence rather unknown to his freezing mental abode.
It is a stark metamorphosis that tilts from an exalting ethereal being to a cockroach,
ephemerally lying on its back in a cycle of eternal suffering. He gazes at the blank ceiling,
yearning for meaning, for nirvana to elevate him from this chaotic order to harmonious chaos.

There is this quote, whose author I do not know, that keeps haunting my mind.
“A wanderer is never lost.” A peculiar way to look at things, comrade. Clever trickery of
the system. How can one be in a maze if one is not looking for a way out? The definition
becomes obsolete, irrelevant. We can never go astray if there is no correct path. Wrap your
mind around this one. To wander through life as an aimless arrow, no targets,
no dreams, no fallen hearts to pierce. One might have legitimate cause to believe that
that is the true definition of freedom. Unchained, beyond any state of matter, like ether in
a space of ethereal beauty, disillusioned and boundless, like Buddha under the tree,
a nirvana of limitless bliss. Oh, how serene our existence would be!

As we transcend the confines of our daily misery, our minds, disinfected, will flourish.
They will forsake the physical, unsatisfactory joys of life and transition into an everlasting
orgasm in our utopia.

But that would be an act of pure cowardice, my faithful companion, wouldn’t it?

To play life like Russian roulette, each round a random stare at the barrel of a gun,
at the end of which we wish to be delivered, to depart towards the unknown. With its
uncertainty and fright, the unknown is a better alternative than the state of clinical death
that governs the prolonged misery of modern humans. Euthanasia. That is what we seek,
even if we do not bear to confess it. A thought that we drown through a process
of continuous self-hypnosis. Our eyes shimmer, our chins drip with saliva as we hear the
bells of our tyrannous autocrats ring. A sound that triggers our trained, obedient minds
to be as enchanted as the pet of Pavlov’s. We run towards them like rabid rats, seeking
safe refuge from the taunting whispers that haunt us in solitude. Human beings have,
in my opinion, never been under more forceful oppression. An interesting dilemma is that,
despite this unprecedented unconscious servitude, no slave in history has ever been
more compliant with the demands of their master than humans are with their
multitude of devices.

The label of “smart devices” is not concretized in the number of tasks these
villains can execute but in their ability to pull a most clever stunt. They seduce prideful
humans by thinking they are serving them out of a free, conscious choice. Free will,
a joke that never gets old.

I apologize for my lengthy musings, comrade; it is not common to find such
a caring listener. Let me guide you through the scenery of our last station. I sincerely
hope that you enjoyed my companionship, for I certainly relished yours. The station’s forced
and unwilling transition into grey is akin to a royalist being dragged to the guillotine
by enraged rebels. This last tour is of our beloved city. This train, similar to any trait
of our existence, goes in a vicious, unending circle. It starts and restarts in suffering.

In his dark-scented room of solitude, he meditates existence, relinquishing one
last time to its ephemeral nature, its inescapable eventuality. He opens his notebook
one last time and, with a shaking hand, he writes his prophecies.

In the nest of broken dreams, we laid
Waiting for the ritual
They taught us In prose and in verse
That to be free, is to sin
That to love, is to sin
That to dream, is to sin
They cut off our wings
They drew borders of our existence
They spoke of good and evil
We learned that good is to be incarcerated by your own mind, to be blissful about your own ignorance
Evil is to doubt, for to doubt is to think, and to think is to be and being, was not our own
We grew, like the wretched of the earth
Until we hatched our eggs
And in the nest, we taught them
That to be free, is to sin
That to love, is to sin
That to dream, is to sin

As Zarathustra when he spake, the kid decides to quit his fortress and wander the
streets of the city. Yet, he did not yearn for a stage to orchestrate his play, nor for an
audience to ponder his senseless meditations. He was gambling on a random encounter,
a kindred soul to listen to his story. Such queer weather, as you see, has a name in the city.
It’s known as “عرس الذيب ” or “A Wolf’s Wedding.” It is when the scorching rays of the sun
mingle with the dripping tears of the skies. Umbrella in hand, he walks in the direction
of a lost newcomer.

“May I offer you shelter under my umbrella, fine sir, as you appear to be a stranger in this
forlorn land of ours?”