I remember the taste of sugarcane juice dripping down my chin when it happened.

Baba stood at the gate, dusty and exhausted, his heavy arms weighed down by plastic bags filled with goodies from the coast of Mombasa. Ma’ Kamaa, his second wife after the barrenness of the first, my mother, ran to him, months of being alone and ridiculed finally over. He shook his head, stopped and reprimanded her, for the first time of two, before pulling down a red-brown handkerchief from his face and saying he was sick.

No one knew what to do. Even his title as Chief Messenger to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held no water when it came to diagnosis and treatment with the disease from the North. Right before he died, he swore at Ma’ Kamaa for taking too much care of him when she should not have. He died, two months before The War was over. Grief-stricken for eighteen years, Mama followed him soon after I joined the rest of my mates working in a growing Nairobi.

The years were good to me. The women, even better. I grew in trade. I learned. They from the North had come to make life better, so they said. Buildings grew. Alliances were made. Loyalties shifted. I was young and carefree. I faltered and fell into hard times. I licked the rough hide of the law a few times before being bailed out by a traveling economics professor I met two years before my current state of affairs.

Michael Michael was his name. MM, he preferred, after I lambasted him for the awkwardness of it all. Even I, with my strange-to-him heritage had a name that made more sense. Nairobi was going through strange times in 1950. For one, it had just become a city. The visitors from the North came in large buses from boats at the coast. Money flowed through the night, and the friendly company was always thick and warm.

With the promise of a quick and easy job, MM asked me to wait for him behind a few of the crates in the back the settler bar. I had a few smokes. Took one out and inhaled the sweet hay. The evening sky was embarrassingly beautiful. There I was, a thirty-three year old with no woman, no serious work, scarred from years behind prison, and waiting behind one of the most exclusive clubs in Nairobi for a white man. I was a dead man walking. If the men from the bush heard of what I was doing, they would have offed me instantly. MM came back, three beers in his hand, his steps unsteady. He said he would only have one.

“There will be reward,” he said. I shook my head, asked if it involved freedom or money. He chuckled and swung his beer down until it wetted his old beard. I was reminded then of the sugarcane juice. Of old death.

In the next two years he made a man out of me. I walked with MM, learned the man’s tongue a little better. I even got myself a few white women to be with on most nights. MM laughed it off, saying the hate I got from my people was normal. He said ‘a man strides in abundance when his feet ignore the red coals below’. I met his friends, noblemen, who saw in me a spark, they said. I wrote. I drank. I observed. Two years slip by quick enough if you’re not paying attention.

It was a Sunday. The papers were smeared with propaganda about the men in the bushes seeking revenge against the settlers. Against men like MM. He told me it would soon pass. Wheezing, he took out a yellow photograph from his breast pocket. His eyes watered. He put it back and sniffled and drank once more. “Come,” he said. “We have work to do.”

There was a building. White. Massive. Inside were white men in white coats, hunched over clipboards and machines and dials. A bed was in the middle of one of the rooms. It looked cold. MM asked me to take my shirt off. I did. After a pause, he ordered me naked. I hesitated. He pat my back, told me that this was where the job was all leading to. That he came to the prison cells looking for someone strong, someone who could take it. He whispered that he considered me a friend, family even. He then ripped my pants off and told me to lie on the bed. He left without saying goodbye.

Minutes later, there are men around me, asking me to take a deep breath. Labored, I tell them, beg them to stop. They do not stop. They murmur and hum in Latin, the last language my betrayer had taught me. The needles hurt no more. It is cold. I cry out for MM. The smell of acrid alcohol is still strong in this strange room. I see Ma’ Kamaa. I see Baba. I do not see the women, or those I had to kill for my life. I see nothing, not nothing. Eigengrau.

“You can open your eyes.”

A woman. Soft, like the pillows at the lodging. Like Mama’s porridge at dusk. I see nothing. I feel cold. Something warm prods my neck. A hand. Warm breath tickles my skin. I open my eyes to soft flooding light all around me. I taste metal and oranges. I smell nothing.

There are three people surrounding me. One is a woman, too skinny for the age in her eyes. The other men are in different clothes, bulkier, mean-looking. Security, maybe. They made no mistake, I suppose. MM must have called them in after I snapped a neck or two after he left. I remember nothing. I know I did something. The woman, seated, taps her lips.

“You must be confused. I can imagine.”

For a woman of our skin color, she speaks the tongue really well. She is dressed in white, like the men who held me down. A nurse, perhaps? I ask where I am. My voice, it’s gone.

“Don’t force it. You will speak soon enough. Perhaps I can give you an orientation on what happened while we wait.”

Perhaps. I observe. The light feels different. The air, heavier. I try moving, bobbing at least. Everything feels stale. Raw.

“You were tasked with a job in the year 1952, the only one to ever exist. Today, that job ends. I need you to listen carefully now.” She sighs and crosses her leg over the other. Muscles engorge. Blood flows. I am still a man. “You were chosen. Your genetics at the time made more sense for it to be you, the first human being to be cryogenically frozen through time. The Freemasons at the time were a little unorthodox with their methods. But times change. It has been 67 years since you slept, Johnson Kamaa. Welcome to the summer of 2019. The government budget’s just been read, and life is, well, come along and I will show you.”

That was six months ago.

Today, they let me leave. I have in my coat some money, a pencil and notebook, and a card with a number on it. They tell me they will always be watching, and that if I run into any trouble they will be first to respond. I just nod as the doors open.

It is afternoon. Raining. I walk on, untethered and wet. I let the rain mask my tears, as the world soaks itself into me. Nyerere Road, the street marker says. One thing that never changes through time is the lie of the church. And so my walk through the thinning rain leads me to the parking space of the All Saints Cathedral that was consecrated right before I slept. I greet the guard, who waves a metallic beeping thing along my person, and allows me through. I find my way through the high doors and high ceilings, observe the few praying souls, and then leave. I know where I will come back to in the morning.

The moving pictures I have been watching for six months describe Nairobi as a city beyond what I knew it to be. They are right. And wrong.

Nothing has changed. Men in love still hold hands in secret. Mothers hold their babies tight to their bosoms before crossing the road. Men of the white man’s faith preach on street corners a little more confidently. Women of the old faith and in short skirts take their spaces when darkness falls. The rates are a little high, but manageable. Alcohol has gotten better. So has the food. There are less people like MM now, and more of my people. I can walk into any bar, any restaurant, and stay as long as I like and eat what I like. People are still people, even with the raciest fashion or technological trends. They swear. They fuck. They cheat. They steal. They kill. They love.

December is here, and I have not made a friend. Not yet, anyway. I’m not ready to let anyone in. I’ve seen how they treat men like me who speak of grandeur. Mathari Mental Hospital is their home. It never will be for me.

Of course I still think it all a dream. The number on the card in my pocket proves otherwise. They check up on me once in a while. Sometimes the nice doctor who woke me up wakes up next to me. We talk. I tell her about MM and my childhood, and she asks me to try to heal. I laugh at that, and kiss her, and tell her to get on her knees. She still keeps secrets about why they did it, why I was a lamb for them. I understand. I don’t understand.

I take a short walk from the lodging, body still sore from last night, all the way to the edges of downtown. There, Mama Joy welcomes me heartily. In her fat hand is a long tumbler, filled with my most passionate 21st Century drink: spiced sugarcane juice. Through the radio, a woman talks about something happening in China, something similar to the olden days. Mama Joy scoffs and says it’s propaganda from all the loans the President has been taking from there. A new customer, thick in the neck and smelling like rags, coughs and says it’s nothing more than news being news. A child runs by me, their reed propeller waving in the wind, them chortling. Shuttles heading to Kisumu, Kericho, Maralal honk in the background. Hawkers yell and sell. Laughter abounds at a man begging for the glued kids not to take his money. Sugarcane churns in the press.

I sip, and breathe. And smile. It too, shall pass.

Raw onions and salty beef. Baked beans. A perfect blend of sauteed and sizzling pork ribs. I could smell all of this standing behind Musyoka. His neck smelled of crystallizing sweat and desperation. It was not new to me.

‘What is this, M?’ he asked with a faint stutter.

‘My kitchen, of course,’ my employer replied, smiling. ’Shall we go in? The peppered pork is just right for your palette and—'

‘It’s not possible,’ Musyoka interrupted.

‘Anything is with the right attitude, Johnny,’ said a soft voice.

I could see her. She. The woman in the red skirt and black top. The woman with the red lips. The woman in the photograph. She sat in a comfortable sisal chair, fashioned by the smiling man beside Musyoka. Her smooth and silky legs, glistening from all the sudden warmth blasting out of the kitchen, folded one over the other in seductive fashion, each meeting a pair of shiny black heels at the end. A long coat, mink I think, shielded her arms from view. From where I stood, she seemed to be a little younger than Musyoka. They shared the same look in their eyes.

‘A—Atieno?’ the customer asked, sparingly. His stink pierced through the already wet back of his shirt.

‘Yes, my love?’

‘What? How?’

‘Perhaps we should all sit.’ Mister M strode past the threshold and had his thick hand squeeze Musyoka’s shoulder. The latter walked through. Shakily. I scurried in before the red door slammed shut behind me. I slithered my way through the pots, pans, plates, smoke, legs, shirt and rested myself at the top of the sink. It was cool, just like my corner at the shop’s entrance. I licked the tip of my pencil and took note of this.

Mister M sat at the top of a stout stool, shorter than what Atieno was seated in. Musyoka kept standing.

‘Well?’ bubbled Musyoka in apparent anger. ‘Care to explain to me what my wife is doing in your shop?’

My employer’s non-existent brow quipped. That was new to me. I penned it down too.

‘You are angry with me.’ He said it casually, with the breath of an understanding cleric.

‘Furious! What is my wife doing here? I have been searching for her for the past two days!’

‘You have?’ she asked sweetly.

‘Yes! I even thought it was that Isakho you eloped with.’

Atieno spat at his boots.

‘You dared think I would cheat on you? With him?’ Her lips were pointed at my employer. ‘With Isakho? He! You are a fool.’

‘A fool who stands while you sit. Where is your respect woman?’

The meat sizzled in crystal silence. Mister M stood and stretched his feet by the stove. He passed me a caring glance after switching the flame off and went back to his warm stool. He put his hand in his waistcoat pocket and felt inside of it with his tips. His fob watch. I listened hard. I could hear ticking.

‘Lunch?’ he asked casually. The couple munched each of their lips in response. ‘I think we can do that later then,’ he added after the pause.

‘How did you get here?’ Musyoka asked. He was calmer. I took note of this. ‘By here, I mean this duka.’

Atieno sighed. ‘The same way you came in. Through the door.’

‘Two days ago after your shift?’

‘Yes. Two days ago after my shift.’

‘Why?’

‘To hide.’

‘Surely not from me.’

‘No. From what we had done,’ she replied. Mister M swiveled upon his stool, his hands firmly set at the cliff of his knees. I knew that stance. He was curious.

‘What did we do?’ asked Johnson. His face was drying now. His anger had subsided. The tap dripped solemnly behind me.

She looked up. I saw her full face for the first time. Her eyes were round and wide, everlasting. The thick lips of a woman who had seen it all matched ever so evenly with the cheekbones of a hard worker. She had a gap between the upper deck of her white and slightly tinged teeth. She was beautiful. The kind that is defined and obvious. Her face scrunched up. Pain.

‘Have you carelessly forgotten? Who did I marry? Ah!’ she riveted in her chair. Her arms never moved.

‘Atieno. We promised we would not speak of it ever again, not especially now that we are in the company of a stranger.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t call myself a stranger, really,’ laughed Mister M. It made me smile, his laugh. ‘Please, air this out. You two clearly need the therapy.’

‘Therapy,’ muttered Musyoka. He clenched his fists and wiped his clammy hands across his dirty jeans. ‘Do you remember what it was like after?’ he asked his wife.

‘Everyday I remember,’ she replied. Her eyes became sullen. Far-away.

‘How, even the first few years after, we thought it was a dream?’

‘Yes.’ Her eyes were wet. ‘I wish we hadn’t.’

‘But if we did not, would we have ever—’ Musyoka’s voice was cracked. His face crested against his chest. Mister M coughed. Musyoka shook his head lightly and palmed it at the temple with his left hand.

‘M. Where are we?’ he asked.

‘In my duka, Musyoka. I told you already.’

‘What are we doing here?’ asked Atieno. ‘How did I get here?’ She fidgeted. Loudly. The mink coat around her shoulder started slipping off. Mister M sighed and stood. He stretched his back and bowed before Atieno, his arms wrapped around her shoulders. Musyoka lurched a foot forward and held himself back. Mister M had craned his neck and their eyes connected. Musyoka was vibrating.

‘What are you doing to my wife?’ he demanded.

‘What I should have done the moment we walked through that red door,’ answered my employer sweetly. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered to her.

He swept the coat off her back and thrust it to the far corner of the room. She gasped hard and cringed. Musyoka yelled and bulled forward, his fists curled and ready to brawl. Mister M stood aloft, his face bland.

I took note of this.

Atieno was tied to the chair in silver chain at the arms that tightened with each movement. The metal was so deep across her flesh that veins popped. She had not known. She could not tell.

‘Johnson!’ she screamed. ‘What is this?’

‘M! Release my beloved!’

‘Johnny,’ she pleaded. The numbness seemed to have become a sudden reality. It melted into her, this pain. It almost felt hot. She moaned and cried, her beauty evaporated in an instance. The room smelled of fresh meat and dripping regret. I took note of this.

When I looked up from my paper, Musyoka’s fists were deep in Mister M’s shirt, coat and chest. His bow tie was askew. I put my paper and pencil into my pockets and jogged ahead, fists and elbows ready to fight.

‘Enough!’ Mister M bellowed.

I stopped in my tracks. The woman stopped weeping. The husband froze. The metal around them stopped clanging. The food stopped sizzling.

Mister M took a hold of Musyoka’s hands and pulled them from his person. The latter heaved and frothed at the mouth. My employer patted the man’s back and nodded.

‘I will not answer your questions. It is not my place to do so.’ He started by fixing his bow tie. Then his shirt. ‘No. I am not angry.’ His pocket was next. He felt through his fob watch with the tips of his fingers. Ticking. I heard it.

‘I am not disappointed.’ He wiped his brow and cracked his knuckles. He smiled. ‘I am surprised.’

‘Why?’ asked Musyoka. He was calm. He was breathing normally. His wife was quiet too. Crying. I think she knew.

‘You see, by now I was hoping you would have figured it out. The secret.’

‘What secret?’ sobbed Atieno. ‘What are you talking about?’

Mister M was beside me, his thick and sober voice a salve for us all. I could smell him. He smelled of the oceanic wind.

‘You, my dear Musyoka, are the third customer today. Atieno. You are the second.’

‘But,’ she mumbled, scared. ‘I don’t remember ever coming into your shop.’

‘Exactly,’ replied Mister M. ‘But you will. Shortly.’

‘M, explain yourself. Do you have my mother somewhere up there too? One of Atieno’s old lovers? Hmm? Do you have Isakho tied up in the storage room? Why are we here!’

Mister M did not laugh. He was quiet. His face spoke of a man who had seen war. Years of war. He spoke succinctly. His hand was on my back. Warm. Gentle.

‘I can only have three customers a day. Those are the rules.’

There it was. The ticking.

‘And the first one has been standing here all this time. I think, even longer.’

Musyoka’s eyes were big. So were Atieno’s. Their mouths hang loose. They could finally see me.

And then I remembered.

It was usually the smell that got your attention. Hard to describe if you did not know a thing or two about prisons and brothels and bakeries and posho mills and metal workshops. It stuck around your nose, on your skin. In your mind. Like home. Or a bad debt.

And Sons was closed that day. It was always open. Ever since I can remember, the twin doors never met. I was told that they did only when the customers came in. He told me that I was one day going to be ready for when the doors closed, with us inside. He also told me that it was going to be the day he would tell me why he named his shop ‘And Sons’. And Mister M never lied. That day, we had a customer. I took note of this.

‘You can take your mask off,’ he sighed heartily to the figure at the door. ‘This is a safe space.’

The doors silently shut behind the small man. He stepped forward into the soft sunlight peeping through the clear windows. From the corner in which I sat, I could very clearly see him. He was short and in a pair of SAVCO jeans. Tucked beneath a thick leather belt with extra holes in its stripe was a neatly pressed shirt with tiny polka dots on the cotton. Black tie, loose at the knot. He had a folded blue sweater in his right hand, tightly clenched. A modest hankie in his left, drenched. Thick and clean brown boots. He was sweating.

He stepped on forward. The floorboards creaked. I sat up straight, just as he had taught me. I watched as the man’s reflection gleaned off the polished plates and saucers and silver cups. His shadow darkened the sparkling coffee pots and trophies lined along the shelves. His gait was stout enough to see his shiny head at the top of my personal collection of first editions. The counter was the right height for him. He stopped.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked with a cracked and sour voice through the mask. I was starkly reminded of nails on glass.

‘Please,’ answered Mister M, his hands feverishly wiping the tiny silver cups with the red and white cloth.

He took it off slowly with the hankie, as though remorseful. When the last strap was off his right ear, he hastily tore the mask off and stuffed it in his back pocket. I could hear him breathing. I swear his heartbeat drummed across the floor to the nook of my corner. With paper and pencil in hand, I watched, hoping to learn.

Mister M smiled and placed his tools down. A faint smile. A clinking of the pot. The kindling of a flame. The straightening of a back. Connection.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ asked Mister M. The man nodded, faintly, eyes scanning his environment. He did not see me. He could not.

In the silence, I know he wondered what most did before his time. What kind of shop it was. Where it was. Why they found themselves wandering indoors to a place they never could remember thinking about. He coughed and mopped his brow. The room was getting cooler.

‘My wife. I- I-,’

‘No rush,’ Mister M convinced. ‘Take your time.’

My employer was always great with his words. Always great. The coffee pot hissed. Ready. He poured it into two cups. The man sat in the wooden stool, aware of hospitality. I always liked the steam from the cups. It danced.

They both sipped. His eyes popped, then, just as abruptly, they calmed, like those of a drowsing child. He found a place for his hankie in his lap and his sweater across his shoulder, and both hands got busy holding the coffee cup. The silverware glistened and reflected his pimpled face. I took note of this.

‘What brings you to my shop?’ my employer asked.

‘Strange place you have here Mister…’

‘M. You can always call me Mister M. Or M, if you’d like.’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘A while.’

‘Funny,’ he chuckled. ‘I’ve lived here all my life and not once have I seen your shop.’

My employer sipped some more of his coffee, set it down and then rolled up his thick white sleeves. The embossed half-coat on his broad chest spoke of many years in an older service. I always thought he worked as a hotelier. He had no watch on his wrist. Just the fob he chose to hide from my view. He was smoothly shaven. No trace of hair on his person. No scent. Deep brown and black hues within his eyes. Always, always, a bow tie. Stranger still, even for me.

‘Let’s just say not many people come here…’

‘Musyoka. I am Johnson Musyoka,’ the man coughed. His voice was getting clearer, like the spitting of a log on fire.

‘Musyoka,’ he smiled. The cloth was in his thick hands once more, another one of his items in need of a quick clean. ‘Thing is, you found me. Maybe there is something we can do about your current situation?’

Musyoka did not choke on the drink. He spat it.

‘How do you know!’

‘I don’t, believe me. I just assumed you had one. No one who finds my shop rests easy.’

Mister M was calm. He always was.

Musyoka straightened his neck and loosened his tie a little bit more. His sleeved elbow rested on the wooden counter. Dropping his arm lazily, his fingers tapped against the stool bars. He drummed against the wood. His eyes hovered between two spots over and over, until his pupils looked like an unsure bee’s flying pattern.

‘Is that why you have that on the wall?’ asked Musyoka, trembling.

Mister M and I turned our heads. There was a framed photo. Old. Faded. Black and white and cracked through the middle. A tree. A car. A man and a woman. The man was short. In the same jeans. Same shirt. Same tie. His hands were wrapped around her from the front. She was splendidly beautiful.

‘How did you get that?’ he asked.

Mister M replied, ‘It was always there, Johnson. Maybe that’s why you found me.’

‘To tell you my problem? Will you solve it?’ asked the customer, shaken.

‘I can try,’ said Mister M.

‘Ha! Try,’ he mumbled. ‘Do you have more coffee?’

‘Always.’

The man poured more black into the cups and settled the steaming pot down. Johnson remembered his hankie and used it against his cheek. The room was quite cool. I took note of this.

‘It is our anniversary.’

‘Congratulations,’ replied Mister M. He put the tip of the cloth through a tall misty glass and started rubbing around it from the inside out. Gently.

‘Thank you. I was on my way from the office. We had plans. There is this bistro. It is close to the water. They have the biscuits she likes. I had it all worked out, you see. We would have some cake and tea and biscuits. Then I would get a horse from the park, pay the owner, and ride with her on it. There was a picnic to be had in the evening, where I would recite my vows to her and keep my end of the promise.’ He started to sob. Mister M waited. So did I.

He wiped his nose and eyes and sipped and swallowed. ‘I did not find her at the hospital. Asking around, they told me her shift had ended the night before. The night before. I had not seen her for two days straight. The first thought that crossed my mind, of course, was another man.’

‘Of course.’

‘So I combed through her letters. I checked for any trace of another in the house. There was nothing. Until — ,’ he choked. Mister M pulled the pot up and added more hot liquid into Musyoka’s cup.

‘Until there was something,’ added my employer.

‘Until there was something,’ reiterated the broken shell. ‘There was a photograph. She was younger. So was he. Scrawled on the back, in cursive, was an invitation.’

‘To what?’ asked my employer, intrigue in his voice.

‘To where, is the question, M. There was a short poem there, and I took my time trying to decipher it.’

‘Did you?’

‘No,’ the short Johnson replied. ‘I have been trying for two days now. It has cost me my sanity, you see. I don’t know what to come of it.’

‘I take it that the photograph is with you as we speak?’

Musyoka lifted his weak arm from the counter and plucked a neatly folded paper from his breast pocket. He handed it to Mister M, who placed the clean tall glass behind the rack and shuffled the cloth atop his shoulder. I took note of this.

Johnson nodded to Mister M’s prodding of the photograph. He took his coffee and sipped, eyes down. My employer mumbled to himself, his mind racing modestly.

‘Well this is a tough one,’ he finally replied. ‘Have you thought of praying?’

Johnson chuckled. Like a child. I smiled.

‘I don’t believe in fairy tales, Mister M.’

‘How about luck? Do you believe in luck?’

‘A little. Man makes his own, don’t you think so?’

‘Oh, I do. I do indeed. Would you mind coming with me behind this door?’ he asked after a pause, pointing to the kitchen entrance.

‘Why?’ asked Johnson, peculiar skepticism and caution in his creamy and now haunting voice.

‘To try your luck, of course.’

He took his time mulling the thought over. Then, gingerly, he rose from his seat, one foot then the next on the floor, stretched his back, and pushed his heavy body alongside the counter. Mister M smiled heartily, already by the counter’s side. The door was red.

‘Are you going to kill me?’ asked Johnson. Mister M frowned, then in consideration, shook his head with a faint smile.

‘You have had a lot of pain and mistrust in your life. I am sorry you feel that way. Maybe something in my kitchen will help with easing that.’

‘You mean food?’ jumped Musyoka.

‘Good food. Soul food. I am an excellent cook, if you don’t mind me saying.’

He laughed. ‘The coffee wasn’t strong enough for you?’

‘Is it ever?’ replied my employer. I craned closer, trying my best to keep away from view. ‘Maybe after a good meal we shall have the answer to your riddle. Agreed?’

The man wiped his brow for a last time. He was relaxed now. I could tell. I took note of this.

‘Then please, by all means Mister M. Let’s.’

From where I crouched I could see the door open. I could see the light beam through it, hard. I could see the legs. What I could not see was Musyoka’s gasp. His shock. The crumple of his blue sweater and hankie on the floor. Mister M’s laugh. A hearty laugh.

It was cold. I took note of this.

I am alone in this. And I want to scream.

I can't. Nobody listens. Nobody wants to anymore.

The world is full of fools with no more to give but emptiness and fire.

I am surrounded by zealots and angry men who wish to go back to their mistresses and gods.

But they cannot.

No one can. Not anymore.

We are stuck in these four walls together. There is no music. There is no food. There is just silence. And the ticking. The awful ticking on the old wall above the empty kitchen shelves.

And I hate it. I hate to see friends no longer friends keep silent and keep to themselves, angry and full of ego.

To remember how one month ago almost all of us were crowded together.

Hugging.

Kissing.

Holding hands.

Remember that? How long ago it must be, to feel this ache. This hunger.

The crave for connection in a connected world.

I sit here, alone, among so many.

I cry at night, hoping it is a bad dream.

That the music and the colors will finally play once more.

That the floor will open and I will hold her hand once more.

That the sky will part and the dotted tears of old will shine on us once more.

That the roads are clean again, and I may see her once more.

That I may paint and draw and scream into the wild, naked and a sinner to you all.

Once more.

Once more.

Once more.

These four walls will do for now. This... space.

I need you to understand something dear friend. There is nothing you can do about it right now. Nothing.

You feel lost. I get it. You have bills to pay. Debt. You feel dead inside. As if there could be nothing worse than turning the clock back to the day. You know which one. The day when you had thousands, if not more than much in your wallet. Good times, huh?

It’s all gone. Let it go.

Now you see what could be, instead of what could have been. You see the beauty in the struggle. The zing in what is to come. You see it all. Do you still feel regret and bitterness over your kindness, your big heart? Of course you don’t. You’re you. And that means you will live on.

Right now I need you to see the light, not the end. I need you to know that you have life in your blood. You have breath. You have love. What more do you need?

The (insert lifelong dream here) will come. Trust the process. Adapt. Live. Enjoy the air that warms your lungs. Soon it will all be over. And so will she. So will he. So will they. So will you.

Be calm. Religiously. Dangerously. The pieces fell into place before they left His hand. Open your eyes and smile with the colors.

You’re only here for a little while.

Chapter 1

Michael Sevlos sits very still. His lower back and elbows ache. His feet; the furthest pinch of his toenails, twitch under the strained hug of tight leather. Draped round his thick shoulders are the remnants of what used to be known as ‘a coat’. It is brown and dirty yellow, a little bit like the standing pillar of heat that spikes every so few hours, up there in the green sky. He inhales a heavy draft through his impaled nose, dreading to exhale under the already defined pain. His eyes watch the steady reflection, bulging and receding at each movement. The crusty metal hinges steadily, its stability only promised by a standing meshed grate. He coughs. Michael coughs too.

He gingerly reaches out and grabs the black and moldy handle. It feels soft and smooth under his calloused hand; like a tickle. The reflection looms nearer. He spits and rubs on the surface with the edge of a torn fabric that hangs loosely over the metal grate. The surface shines a little better. He smiles, or at least, he tries to. The man in the kettle isn’t as ugly as he previously was.

A gentle creak behind him bathes Michael in abundant alertness.

He sits verily still, praying to his Wood God that he wouldn’t need to use the last bullet.

Joints aching, he turns. His fingers glide past the colt and find the broken lance strapped to his thigh; they tighten round the wooden grip.

His eyes land on a girl dressed in dirty purple. She sees him too.

He exhales. She moves towards him. Fast.

Time almost stands still in the three seconds he takes to push the blade through her skull. The faint squelch of blood, bone and brain melding with his blade is familiar. The girl drops to her knees, red and pink oozing down her temples. Michael uses the wiping fabric, pats her on the head with it, and releases his hold.

She did not scream. They never do.

He finds his footing and gazes round, stretching his vision as far as his augmented eyes could. The domicile he stumbled upon, what they called ‘houses’ centuries ago, heaves noiselessly. The winds outside feverishly rush past the plastered walls. Dust and sparkles are all he sees through the musty windows. He treads back to the metal stool, tired. Pained.

The colt can only be used once. The Blood Oaths made sure of that. He sighs and stares at the dead girl’s meat, still oozing on the decrepit floor. Michael stretches his back once more. He sees the second thick rope; dry and crusty up to the finger-like edges. Quietly, purposefully, he grabs the body hanging from it and pulls it down. The pool of blood seeps close to his worn boots. He doesn’t care. It must be done.

Minutes later, the bodies of Julia Sevlos and Amelia Sevlos, wife and daughter of Michael Sevlos, hang side by side. He looks upon them, the final bridges to past memories too dangerous to remember. Michael walks away, his lance regenerated, his colt safe.

The storm outside subsides. The sky turns green once more. His journey to the capital Elar resumes. Michael straightens his back under the unkind sun and watches the vast plains of sand, green poisonous algae and faded memories in silence. He coughs once more and spits in respect, tightens his belt and calls upon a wormhole from thin air. It appears behind him and engulfs him entirely.

Back in the place that was once a home, the surface of the shiny kettle reflects the truth; two lengths of rope from the ceiling, dangling empty in the spare nothingness.

The year is 3159 P.A. Earth is no more.

It was the fifteenth winter that Derrick Cheshire had seen, felt, and breathed. Under a moonless night he found the quiet of his surrounding neat and cozy, warm even. The wood smelled and felt like polished—though smooth and rough at one crest or the other—sandalwood. He took it in, breathing the thick musty air, the tip of his nose itching to be scratched, the deep wound through his right shoulder begging to be cleaned and sealed. The blood crusted at the very dead point of the enclosure. Beneath him, the pool of red dripped quietly, soundly.

He tried once more calling for help in his already croaked voice, knowing it was futile. It had not worked ever since he saw the children through the cracks. There was more to the world, he knew. More than four wooden and dank walls.

The branches crisply cracked and willowed under the pressure of the aching wind. Birds and bears slept silently in their abodes. The icy crystal flakes fell gently atop the coffin, with the youngest boy of House Cheshire buried alive under the Courtyard of the Living—fifty two strides from the newly painted sill of his father’s study’s window.

It was bright and sunny in the Cheshire Straits for the first time in months. Handmaidens and cooks bustled about in merry and toil, working through watered gardens and waxed floors. The strikingly green and moldy gray walls of the castle were awash with high spirits, the gentle nature of the horses in the stables rippling and undeniable: it was a great morning and a greater day still.

A black crow called high upon the tallest pyre, “They are coming! They are coming!”

The bustle rushed. Royalty was fed and washed and dressed. The rest were summoned and ordered and hushed.

The gates rose, and the legendary Marquis D’ Solace strode in.

One by the other they rode past the seedy files of Cheshire peasants who were knee-down and hands, recently washed and oiled, high up. It was the King who spoke first when the procession stopped.

“You have arrived, Your Highness. Finally, the feast may begin!”

His counterpart smiled in remark, keeping his responses to a fair nod. He snapped his fingers and five perfect glows of light, fairies, lifted from the end of his caravan. They floated lightly, almost carefully above the waiting hands. Each received a white stone; soft as a bottlebrush and supple and wet as a teat.

The fairies went back to the King’s caravan at the snap of his thick fingers, the villagers grateful and happy. The two Kings; King Cheshire and King Seronin, seemingly wafted above the cobblestone steps and into the large golden palace through magnificent oak doors.

“What will you wish for?” the woodcutter asked.

"I don’t know dear,” his wife confessed. “This is a great thing this is.”

“A Golden Wish so very often is,” he replied. A moment passed between husband and wife in a mushroom shaped hut at the far corners of the walled kingdom. Then, with a rise of his feet and a worried furrow of her brow he answered, “I wish to be God for a day.”

“Watch your tongue!” she spat, reeling at his feet and pulling him down to the earth. He fell and toppled over her shawl. “Do you think you’re the only mortal to ever wish such folly upon himself? Once,” she went on, “I heard that Marnie Millins and her young boy wished themselves immortal. Do you know what happened to them?”

The woodcutter shook his head woefully. She swallowed hard.

“They were a family of painters. Haven’t you ever wondered why there are such lifelike murals of her and the boy down at the fountain?”

“Do you mean this is witchery?” he regretfully asked with a horrified glance at the glass jar casing their wishes.

The pale woman mulled her teeth over and chewed her tongue, and then said, “Fairies and kings and endless winters and sickening bread for supper, and you think it normal? I must have married a dunce then!”

“Since you’re so clever, dear wife,” he swung, “tell me then, what do you wish for?"

She watched as shadows moved below the entrance to their abode from across the street. They seemed stealthy, listening to every damning word that left their lips. She could feel the dryness of her throat, the aching tenderness of her feet and the dreaded cold that crept up bit by breaking bit up her spine the longer she stayed washing in the palace. Carefully, she thought it through. The last time anyone had wished for something selfish, the opposite was true. The woodcutter’s wife shuffled her feet and rubbed her palms together, opened the brown bread box that smelled of old crumbs and peanut butter, and took out an old cloth. The husband held his mouth and let the tear drop from his right eye.

“I wish for one thing dear husband,” she said with a drawn out whiff of the royal handkerchief she kept hidden under her garters. “I wish we could be King and Queen once more.”

The palace was awash with royalty, food and all manner of drink and heresy. The two kings watched as the dancers made sway with the wind across their hips and clapped as the jugglers rolled and spit flame. It was a merry night indeed.

“So, Your Highness, what makes of your dear boy?” inquired the guest royalty.

King Cheshire put his chunk of mutton down and swung the golden cup to his mouth before answering.

"You mean the prince? Olaf is in his quarters with your daughter, his wife, ensuring the continuity of our bloodline, of course.” He chortled. “You make these things possible Your Highness.”

King Seronin chuckled, leaned in, and whispered.

“I meant the youngest.”

Cheshire’s face went pale. He mustered courage one more time from the drink and wiped his mouth, his joy sapped away almost at once.

“Fifteen years, Seronin. We agreed it would be fifteen years for the spell to be broken.”

“I know,” snickered Seronin. “The boy must be fully grown by now.”

Cheshire’s face was wet, carefully hidden under the faint glow of a stunning performance. He leaned in closer to Seronin, carefully whispering.

“He bleeds in the Courtyard.”

Dance and song erupted in the ballroom. Fire and drink spat and flared across the walls. The prick of a thin knife pressed gently, caringly, against King Seronin’s side, his wicked smile never fading.

“You will take his place tonight,” whispered Cheshire icily.

The terrible futility of being good is extremely exhausting, isn’t it? Waiting for something with zero reward at the end can be quite the soul-sucker, if my imagination stands corrected.

There are a couple of people, great in all their ways and endeavors, who definitely require a standing ovation over the subtlety of their actions in public, private and in all other social dimensions hiding in between.

To the beautifully endowed parents strolling down the supermarket aisles with their nagging and screaming monkeys for children – thank you for your wildly fantastic contribution towards humanity. Through you generations have been spared the madness that is kindness and honesty. Not to mention your absolute generosity to pommel timid cashiers with your rude spit as you lash at them for forgetting to ‘double-bag’. How warm your homes must be.

Ah, how can I forget the amazing gear-shifters, the wonderful pedal-stompers of the metallic death carriages of the 21st century? Drivers of all sizes, of vehicles of all creeds – how lovely your machines thrash on our roads with no honor or mercy. Your spouses must hang up the wall in your hallways with enough photos of you under a heroic title.

The dozens of car crashes that smear the spread of death on the warm bread of recklessness under your watch is impeccable and undenying. Even your road rage is something of a marvel to speak of, not to mention dream about. I don’t think old Mrs. Willis ever appreciated you for the kind gesture you showed her by slicing through her young kitten, Moller, last night down Kelly Street.

I believe the young students down the dusty paths of Loresho gladly sing your name in praise as the heavy lorry laden with sand crushes the skull of one of their own this past morning. You are by far the best of our heroes today.

Forgetting the sweet rulers of our lands would be heresy in mention. How dare I? The majestic emblem of power, you, the roaches in Zion and the highest echelons of Olympus who rule with a fist and a sharpened sword, your might is undeserved to us mere mortals. We cower and shiver at the mention of your names, and wet ourselves with the idea of your words that might slash our throats in the dark of night. Oh how we dream of you breaking our backs as we worship your tyranny, and how we sing of your ancestors’ names atop the kissing fire and brimstone under our feet. Without you our world would be nothing.

The beauty in being bad and outright sinful far outweighs the good in society that you could bring; this much I have learned from you. I cannot bleed how much I thank you for this wisdom. If only there are ways I could return the favor…

You’d want me to return it the same way you would, wouldn’t you? Eye for an eye? Apologies, but your way, as much as it is screamingly pleasant, might not work for me. I think I’ll go for the ugly manner of kindness that you so fairly despise and rule against. Maybe the way I do my thing offends you. Surely it must. But against the tide is something only you can teach me, and it is my breath to implement my lessons.

I thank you. Now let me ride this wave of Karma high and low through the Winter and the Eves…maybe we shall meet – the long way around.

The creases had grown less iridescent over the years. His fading frame, the only thing standing in the way between him and his sweet release, crouched lower with each pulse of his faltering heart. He sighed, the heavy kind. His breath left his lips shallow and misty.

It was a cold morning, dull and ending, just as similar to his memory. He had no idea what had happened to the world around him. It was a blur, a welcome one. He looked up from his chair and gazed around the room. Brown, dusty, dead. The life that was once in it was long gone, the memories, faded.

He was hungry. Not for the grumbling of his belly, but for the pinnacle at his heartstrings. Oh well, he thought, I could always recall the last meal we had.

And recall he could.

It didn’t last long. His face got wet with each stroke of the soft black box in his lap. Memory, the stranger in the sheets. It was the hunger that made him garner the last ounce of strength in him to open the box. It was the will to read one more word of it that got him through it. Just…once…more…

He couldn’t. His fingers lay flaccid and wrinkled by the edge of his seat, his eyes turning dimmer with each wasp of the wind.

Henry was dead.

An old man in his chair he died, a white-yellow parchment in hand with a thin pin stuck at the corner, loosely falling and gently resting by his feet.

It was three days before he was found by a weary traveler in need of boarding. A decent burial was had in the little patch of flowers old Henry had fixed up in his aging years. The sun hung low, crouching harder in red and belching out enough radiation to roast a roach. The traveler, done with the ceremonial rights done in the days of yore, took his thick Hazmat-layered coat off and laid down his hat.

It was nearly time for supper. He walked and hammered a dusty can of old beans he had found in storage downstairs. The stove cooked it nice and slow, the aroma wafting in kind all over. The weary traveler looked round the room and found his quarters worthy of a night’s rest.

The old man’s chair swung, as if his spirit soared in waves with the bean stock.

The traveler felt the urge to walk and sit by the old man’s chair, to see his room as he saw it. By now he had gathered his name, Henry, and he toasted a spoonful to old Henry before his eyes caught something on the floor.

He wondered if it had been there long before, or it had fallen from one of the tables as he moved the body. He slurped the spoon in nice and warm, and bent to pick up the piece of paper that held within it curiosity unbound.

Minutes passed, and the traveler, too heartbroken to go on, sat on Henry’s chair and broke down in tears. He spent the night humming old songs to old Henry, singing him to sleep in the devilish water and heavenly wind of his ancestors.

Come morning, the traveler placed the paper close to where Henry’s head would lie. He felt it best to honor his spirit by reading him his letter. The white-yellow letter that made a man from war, big enough to break necks of steel, strong enough to lift weights in guns and bags of his comrades along enemy lines to weep like a child. It was necessary before he left, of course, that he did this last rite.

The wind hollowed and the birds wept silently, as the fierce traveler sat by the gravestone and began his ode.

“Hello Henry,

I hope this finds you well my love. It feels like it has been eons since we last spoke to each other. More than that, I feel it my duty to tell you of how much I miss our late night talks. Even the awkward silences seem dearer to my heart than ever.

My feet are to blame, I know, for that day we made love by the top of Baba’s house, when the lights shone from the sky to declare the song you sang for me till I slept, you were to leave. The army must have its best man for war, I always say. You left before I could give you this pin, you see.

It was our keepsake, my dear Henry. But alas, my feet.

I wasn’t fast enough my dear. You were already in your uniform, in the train billowing black smoke. I ran, but the wheels of the long snake were faster. I cried, knowing our lips would stay for too long without each other’s companion.

No matter, I know you are well. I know you are healthy and fighting for us like the man I know you are. You remember the song we sang together, back when our hips were joined and our moans high into the sunset? Do you?

I do. I know the words by heart. I sing them to you each night my wedding approaches. Baba said it would be best for me to wed. No one wants a hag for a wife.

I have run away for us Henry. I live in the wilderness now, where technology is odd and pencils are really short and funny. The men here are nothing like you. They treat us like slaves, but I smile inside, knowing I will see you soon.

My heart points to you my love. You better be eating well, or else I will pinch you for every kilo you have lost without me. I wish I could see you laugh again. These nights get longer without your heart at my chest, without your laughter in my mind.

I know our children someday will laugh at our stories. At our tales of love and distance, and how we made it.

I know I will see you soon my Henry. I will wash your coat and make you food in my dreams till then. Be safe, for us.

Yours beyond Death,

Terry.”

The traveler wailed silently once more, in realization of what the old letter meant. The date on the stamp meant seventy years had passed since the end of the war. Terry and Henry never saw each other again.

The old man, old Henry, down in the earth in his old age, had received the last correspondence of his truest twin-soul. To his last breathe, he thought of her, and no one else.

The traveler wiped the last of his tears and rose. He puffed in, then out, and swallowed a salute in order. A bird in the crackling forests croaked, thanks to the ever growing radiation on the earth, as if old Henry had given a bow in thanks of his last ode.

He picked his bag up. In one of the pockets, a litter of browning letters from his Gladys took most of the space. He sighed, and shook his compass. He was going home to her. Home is where he belonged.

Henry’s blessing following his footstep, the young traveler walked away into the crimson sun’s path, counting down the weeks to the end of the planet and all life as he knew it.

Life is pain, but love... love is crueler.