There stood a snubby cottage, inside a tiny vale, where a wizened little gnome lived, and collected mist for sale.

At the bottom of the waterfall, which roared and roiled so loud, the mists glowed in the moonlight, a silver twinkling cloud

The miniature man in his pointed hat would catch them in a net, for the Witch that came on tuesdays to help pay down his debt

In her potions and in her brews the mists would go to use, the little man had sipped one once, it’s purpose to seduce

She would not look his way, but she would be his life! To the Witch he pledged his all, sweet Lynn would be his wife!

In his vale she danced for joy with flowers for her crown, but everything it has a price, she slipped in the falls and drown.

Inside the tiny vale, there was a wizened little gnome, who owed a Witch the mists forever, in payment for his soul.

It was a Thursday and the old man stared daggers into the paper cup sitting before him. In black sharpie it read ‘Harold’ in jagged, uneven letters.

Four cozy walls of the small café shielded its patrons from the howling blizzard outside, offering warm lighting, a faux fireplace for ambiance, and endless coffee that filled the place with its pleasant aroma. Live, Laugh, Love, & Drink Coffee was printed in neat cursive above the door. It was the kind of place you could take your kids to after a fun snow day, or the perfect setting for a first date. Its clientele were dispersed about, an assortment of individuals seeking sanctuary in its inviting depths.

A pair of older gentleman occupied the overstuffed armchairs by the fireplace, enthusiastically debating about something in a different language as they wielded tiny cups of espresso. A woman chatted on her phone by the large front window, gently trying to persuade the tiny dog in her purse to accept a bit of scone. Nearby, two children in matching pink coats chased each other with chocolate doughnuts clenched in their fists. Their mother sat with a girlfriend, keeping a casual eye on them as she sipped a steaming latte.

It was a familiar place. Harold had been visiting it every day for the past few years, usually in the mornings when his energy was at its highest and the pain in his knee hadn’t kicked in yet. At sixty-seven, tiredness was creeping up on him earlier and earlier. At 7:15am his choice was usually a coffee and muffin - blueberry was his favorite but they only made them on Tuesdays and Thursdays - and sometimes he would throw in a cookie if he was feeling adventurous.

The staff was different each day but as it was a pleasant, laid-back shop the turnover was relatively infrequent and Harold soon worked out a rough schedule.

On weekends a pair of guileless high-school girls named Sarah and Danielle ran the counter and helped to make coffee. Their nails were always painted different colors and their hairstyles changed on a seemingly weekly basis; they even brought in their own sparkly markers to write customer’s names on their cups. He liked them well enough although they tended to chat loudly about their intimate relationships which got a little embarrassing at times.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays had Chester and Scott working. They were roommates in college with approximately a hundred and fifty pounds between them both. Being avid gamers they were constantly discussing the intricacies of what they were currently playing. Harold once heard Scott say “Yeah man remember last night when we got level-six ganked like, so hard, but then I finally built Warmogs and then we just destroyed our lane?!” upon which Chester made a high pitched noise that sounded somewhat like ‘Yee man!’ and they both high-fived. As far as Harold was concerned they had just spoken fluent Chinese and he wasn’t even going to ask.

They also smelled often of cannabis and pretty much everyone, even the shop familiars like Harold, knew they were stoners. Their fun personalities and sweet natures made it easy to overlook though and many times they had given him free coffee for ‘just bein’ super cool and stuff.’

Tuesdays and Thursdays were his favorite days though, because those were the days when Olivia worked.

Olivia was a middle-aged single mother with a pretty face and a laugh that could light a candle. Her quick wit and harmless jabs made them instant friends from the moment he bought his first cup. His first visit to the shop was a little unnerving as it was busy, and he had been gruff in ordering his coffee. She had given him a sassy look, put a hand on her hip and declared, “you want fries with that shake, honey?” in an accent that Harold would never forget. He had cracked a smile and her resulting laugh had picked his sagging spirit off the ground, brushed it off, and given it a hug. She wrote his name in beautiful, elegant cursive on the side of his cup and that was that.

During each Tuesday and Thursday after that he only had to walk into the shop before Olivia would smile, wave him to his seat, and bring his coffee to him so he could avoid the lines. Once he realized she was the only one who made blueberry muffins, he ordered them twice a week.

As the days passed they shared more and more of their lives with each other. He knew that she was struggling with her youngest son’s mental illness and she knew the sad tale of how his knee was injured. Harold found himself going to bed on Monday and Wednesday nights looking forward to the next morning, an old man enjoying the simple pleasure of talking with a lovely friend.

Now, sitting in his favorite booth by the side window, he was fuming. His cup sat on the scrubbed table like a lame dog refusing to cooperate. Nothing was particularly wrong with the coffee, exactly; it was a generic dark roast sugarcoated with an eccentric name to make it sound more interesting, Twilight Blend, and had his usual packet of raw sugar sprinkled in.

Anger and confusion stormed within him as he eyed the innocent object. His name was scrawled on the side in unfamiliar, informal chicken scratch. He wanted to take it back and have his name written like it was supposed to, in flowing script that made him look special. That wouldn’t work though, because Olivia wasn’t there.

She had quit.

Harold wanted to smash his fists into the table. They had been friends for almost four years, had shared vulnerable parts of themselves with each other and now she chooses to leave without saying anything? He could hardly bear it. Everything was wrong. There weren’t even any blueberry muffins.

Before he knew it he found himself getting up and moving to the counter. Only a few people were in the shop and there wasn’t a line. A tired looking kid Harold didn’t recognize was wiping the counter half-heartedly as he approached. His nametag read ‘Stuart’.

“Hey!” Harold said loudly, smacking his palm on the glass countertop. It made the boy jump near clean out of his pants. “Who’s going to make the blueberry muffins?”

The boy blanched and looked around as if searching for help. He was alone.

“Wh-what?”

Harold sighed, running his hand over his face in frustration.

“The blueberry muffins. Olivia is the only one who makes them and she works – used to work – every Tuesday and Thursday. It’s Thursday today and she’s not here, so who’s going to make them?”

He couldn’t keep his voice from rising. The few patrons of the shop looked up questioningly.

“I’m sorry sir, I-I don’t - ”

“Just tell me!”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” another worker he didn’t know came out of the back room and eyed him warily. Harold couldn’t believe it. He was being kicked out of the shop he had come to for years, like some kind of rowdy teenager or aggressive homeless person. Huffing, he left the café, abandoning his coffee on the table.

Each day he returned, hoping to see Olivia. Each day he was disappointed. She had left like a breath, quickly and silently, and Harold didn’t know how to handle it. He kept hoping she would show up and apologize; her hair would be nice as usual and she would laugh that laugh of hers that sounded like bells chiming and all would be forgiven. It would be like some silly romantic-comedy where everything seems so hopeless but at the last moment it all comes together. The guy gets the girl and everyone gets a happy ending, all that.

But as the days passed he realized that was never going to happen. He watched people go in and out of the café, some coming back another day, some leaving forever. The knowledge that sometimes people show up in your life, serve you coffee, and then disappear was a bitter cup indeed.

Then one day, a new girl arrived. She wore a clean white apron and had a nametag that read ‘Judy.’ She spied the unhappy man in the booth and disappeared into the kitchen. After a while she came out with a muffin on a plate and walked it over to him.

He looked up in surprise as she set it down in front of him, as it he couldn’t quite believe it.

“I haven’t mastered pastries yet but I hear my raspberry muffins are quite tasty,” she said sweetly.

Charlie Moss starved to death. I carried Charlie up to the Greenville Sanitarium myself. There was no money. The doctor looked at him despite it, but it was too late. Charlie died all the same. Doc said it was pneumonia, but I knew better. Good Ol’ Charlie starved and froze.

The work ran out a good while back. Most everyone we knew had hopped the cars for Nashville, or Birmingham, but when Charlie got sick I stayed there with him. That shanty was cold, what with the wind blowing in through the chinks, and Charlie was real thin. Hell, so was I. It wouldn’t be long until I was too weak to chop the wood, and then we would both freeze, if'n we didn’t starve first. I couldn’t cut wood fast enough now to heat the plywood walls of that shack, but I did my best to keep Charlie warm. With all of that though, there wasn’t much to do about feeding him. It was nothing but a damned shame for Ol’ Charlie, is what it was, that he picked the very worst time to go and get sick.

I knew Charlie Moss my whole life, going all the way back to grade school in Bristol, and then we did our service time in France together afterward. Once back home I courted Charlie’s sister until she ran off with a medicine show drummer. She never did come back home. I always wondered if she ran away from that town, or if'n it was me she ran from?

It hurt some when Charlie died. I cried a bit when I got back to the shanty alone, and I kicked that dog for watching me do it.

But for me the car was empty. Those able had already gone to where the work was, leaving the shanty-town long before cold struck the mountains. I jumped the train on the eastern slope when her speed was down, the wind shivering me in my shirtsleeves. I looked back once through the boxcar door and that dog was running alongside, but she couldn’t hang with it for long, could she? I mean, I would have brought her along, but how could I hold that dog, run with the train, and jump the car, too?

It was good that I was alone, my mood being sure enough sour. The rough plank floor of that car gravelled my ass with every clickety-clack, so that I was fairly miserable when we passed through the gap. I tipped my slouch hat down for a nap, but couldn’t sleep for thinking of Charlie Moss. They buried my friend with everything he owned, excepting that dog, of course. Charlie sure thought highly of that bitch. I expect he starved himself while slipping his slivers to it. That was the kind of friend Ol’ Charlie was. I had watched that dog lick Charlie’s face right before I toted him into Greenville. Charlie had smiled as he wrapped her head in his arms. I reckon that was the last time Charlie Moss ever smiled on this Earth.

Charlie would have been plumb disappointed to hear of it, of me leaving his dog to chase after the train. But damn it, if I didn’t find work I would like as not starve too, then what would that dog do? Hell-fire! She was better off than any of us! She’d go right on catching rabbits, I reckoned.

I left the train as it was sailing down off the Cumberland Plateau. It was a fast stretch, but distance was mounting. If I was going to ditch, it would need be soon. I hit gravel feet first, but from there it was ass-over-tea kettle, so that it hurt pretty good when I stopped rolling. It would be a long, hungry walk back to that shanty, and cold over every bit of this mountain, but I knew that dog would be there waiting, lying across Charlie’s olive-drab army blanket, never understanding why she was left there alone.

I knocked the dust and gravel from my duds the best I could, and started walking. I reckon I’m not the man to betray a friend, not even a dead one, nor his damned cur dog, neither.

Happy New Year!

A couple quick updates to start off 2019.

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We wish you all a fantastic 2019. Great things ahead.

Prose.

1934

The paper-thin slices of carrot cake did nothing to quell the hunger gnawing at every guest’s stomach. Nevertheless, the little white church, situated right in the middle of an Ohio corn field, was full of laughter and love. With their hands entwined and their families and friends around them, Elizabeth and James didn’t care that they did not have a single penny saved or even curtains on the windows of their tiny house. No, they had each other, and that was more than enough.

Months later, when the baby started growing inside her and James started working longer at the automotive factory for less and less pay, big-dreamer Elizabeth began to detest the bare walls of their modest home.

“I wish I had a palace for my family to live in,” she thought wistfully, picturing a storybook castle. “It would have rooms upon rooms of beautiful furniture and fancy decorations.”

But buying ritzy fabrics was just a dream when affording two bags of flour a week was living in luxury.

The fresh bride eyed the half-empty sack laying on the kitchen counter. The blue, flowered fabric wasn’t silk or brocade, but it would be more than enough.

Several months later, Elizabeth struggled to work the pedal of the Singer sewing machine while simultaneously feeding the coarse cotton through the presser foot. Her swollen belly proved a constant obstacle. But the persistent mama-to-be was tired of undecorated windows. Soon enough, she had blue flowered curtains proudly fluttering in the breeze.

James arrived late that night, eyes drooping and dirt smeared across his brow. His lips quirked into a smile as soon as he noticed the brand-new additions to his home.

“Well, you’ve been busy, haven’t you, darling?” he exclaimed, pressing a feather-light kiss to his wife’s temple. He gestured to the scraps of flour sack in a neat pile on the table. “You even have enough left to make yourself something special!”

Elizabeth spent the next day stitching together the leftover cotton into an apron. She tied it proudly around her waist, struggling to knot the ties herself, before scraping together carefully rationed butter and the garden’s first strawberries of the year into a simple pie. It was the first pie of hundreds she would bake in the trusty floral smock.

1972

Joy watched Nana’s knobbly hands grip the wooden rolling pin and push the dough thinner and thinner against the counter. When she had rotated, rolled, rotated, rolled enough times to form a wide circle, she set down the pin with a clunk and brushed her hands on her apron, dotted with cornflower blue daisies.

“There,” she declared proudly, smiling at her granddaughter. “Pumpkin, can you get the pie plate for me?”

For eight-year-old Joy, climbing up the white metal step-stool to reach the cabinet and delicately balancing the ceramic dish was one of the biggest responsibilities she ever had. The little girl treated it as such, slowly gliding over the tile floor to her awaiting grandmother.

“Perfect.” Nana took the dish and carefully covered it with the pastry dough. The small girl gazed in awe as leftover bits of dough were expertly trimmed away from the rim, Nana’s skilled fingers quickly pressing ruffles into the top edges of crust.

Standing on tiptoe, Joy grabbed the rolling pin off the counter and held it reverently in her palms. “Why does it take so long to make pie, Nana? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to just go to the supermarket and pick one up, like Mama does?”

The older woman let out a long, hearty chuckle, continuing the pattern of making ridges in the dough. “It would be easier, but not nearly as satisfying. A good pie is made with love, and that takes time. You can’t rush these things. If you don’t roll the dough enough, you won’t have enough to cover your pie pan.”

“And then you wouldn’t have enough crust for pie!” Joy gasped, horrified.

“But, if you roll the dough too much, it will be too fragile and will rip when you try to move it.” Nana finished fluting the crust and gathered the scraps together, pressing them between her palms to make a small ball.

“Come here,” she said, untying the apron from around her waist. She dropped the floral garment over the smaller girl’s head and looped the ties around her torso twice before tying it secure. “Let’s give it a try.”

Joy awkwardly pushed the pin against the dough, barely smashing the ball. She tried a few more times. Her handiwork looked nothing like Nana’s smooth crust.

“All you need is a little more pressure, that’s all.”’ Nana placed her hands on top of her granddaughter’s and pushed the pin back and forth, back and forth until the dough flattened into a small circle. “See? Not so hard after all.”

Nana ducked down and rummaged in a drawer, her gray curls spilling out of her bun. She straightened back up with a groan, a miniature pie pan in her hand. “We can make a second one, just for you,” she said with a grin. “Just don’t tell that Mama of yours I let you eat it all.”

1982

Joy couldn’t fight the lump rising in her throat as she watched her peers, all clad in billowy white gowns, march triumphantly off the stage into the waiting arms of their beaming parents and grandparents. Mimi and Papaw, Dad’s parents, couldn’t afford the flight from Florida, Mama’s dad died in World War II when she was just a girl, and Nana… Well, Joy couldn’t think of Nana without a tear trickling down her cheek. She brushed it off with the back of her palm and adjusted the square cap poised atop her teased locks.

Her plastered-on smile lasted all the way through her graduation party. Once the last cousin had been rounded up and sent off with an exhausted Aunt Millie, Joy and her parents let out a collective sigh.

“I’m glad I only have to do that once,” the new graduate quipped, kicking off her towering pumps.

Mama delivered a towering slice of store-bought cake with a bone-crunching hug. “I’m so proud of you, hon. I have one last gift for you, up in your room.”

Mama winked mischievously. Joy dashed up the stairs and into her bedroom, discovering a foil-wrapped, square package sitting on her bed. She removed the paper gingerly, taking off the tape first like Nana always did. “Waste not, want not,” she had said.

Joy held her breath as she opened the cardboard box and pulled out a familiar floral smock. The tears that had been threatening to spill all day flowed down her cheeks and onto the apron as she held it tight to her chest.

“I wish you were here, Nana,” she whispered, squeezing the cotton like she wished she could squeeze her grandmother one more time. She always thought that there would be one more time, but the leukemia had other ideas. “If you were, we wouldn’t have had store-bought cake.”

As the community’s favorite budding baker, Joy didn’t leave the house to go to a social function without the well-loved apron. Whether it was a church potluck or a cookout with friends, she could count on being called on to whip up a batch of cookies or a pan of brownies.

That’s why she had it stored with her toiletries and pajamas in her duffel bag on her passenger side seat on the way to her best friend’s house for a sleepover… and why she was so devastated when she returned to her car after a quick stop for dinner to find her bag missing.

Missy dashed along the sidewalk in the shadowy evening, the hot pink bag slapping against her shoulder as her feet thumped against the pavement. She reached the shelter out-of-breath and tucked her find under her jacket so that the leering men in the lobby wouldn’t force her to turn over her spoils.

Back in the safety of the women’s quarters, Missy dumped the contents of the bag onto her cot. The clothes looked like they would fit well enough. She scoffed at the hairspray, the days when she would spend hours primping in front of her vanity a hazy memory. The bag didn’t hold any baby clothes, but the new mother knew that hope had been too optimistic anyway. She cast a glance at the cardboard box holding her slumbering son: the best crib the shelter could provide.

Taking a flowered apron from the tangle of clothes and cosmetics, she swaddled her child in the cotton fabric as best as she could. Only three months old, Henry just seemed so fragile. She was sure she was going to break him. She never did anything right. Mother and Father thought so, too: they told her as much, seconds before they slammed their front door in her face, leaving her in the cold Ohio winter, pregnant and alone.

As she gently placed the bundled babe back into the makeshift crib, her eye caught on a fluttering advertisement tacked on the “Jobs and Opportunities” board strategically placed to remind the women in the cramped room that the free roof over their heads was designed to be a temporary one. “Try your hand at culinary school,” the poster read, bearing a picture of a rotund, mustached man displaying a plate of spaghetti. “Free night classes offered weekly.”

Missy placed a chaste kiss on Henry’s forehead before climbing under the threadbare covers on her cot. She dreamed of homemade pasta and another life, one with no worries of where the next meal would come from or of letting others down. She dreamed of Paris and London and finding a love who would never leave her. She dreamed.

2000

With Henry settled in at Brown University, on a full ride nonetheless, Missy finally allowed herself to travel the world. For eighteen years, she had done everything from bussing tables, scrubbing dishes, and managing dramatic, hormonal teenage drive-through workers to catering for upscale weddings-- all to give Henry a roof over his head and a chance to succeed. And succeed he had. It was time for Missy to live her own dreams.

She packed up her belongings and left everything but a single suitcase in a storage unit before boarding a one-way flight to Europe. Just one cardboard box remained in the apartment, forgotten in a dusty corner of a closet.

The new tenant, a twenty-two year old entrepreneur who was determined to be the Midwest’s next multi-billionaire, discovered the disintegrating box when he was hanging up his suits. He barely glanced at the cookbooks and dirty apron inside before tossing the contents into a plastic bag, to be delivered to the neighborhood Goodwill the next day.

The apron, flowers now a faded shadow of the original bright blue, hung on a wire hanger between a black smock emblazoned with the peeling words “Grill Master” and stained with barbecue and a frilly child’s pinafore for six months. Mrs. Moore didn’t look at it twice as she pulled it off the rack and tossed it into her cart.

When Mrs. Moore had volunteered to be Drama Mama for her daughter’s school play, she had expected that the other mothers on the costume committee would actually sew the dozens of aprons the middle-schoolers-turned-villagers needed. Instead, the dozen women sat around the lunch room and gossipped about gym memberships and who was having an affair with whom and which kid was going to get a scholarship to Harvard. Mrs. Moore had sewed all of six pinafores herself before calling it quits and heading to the thrift store.

The thirteen-year-old girls were ruthless as they fought over the handmade aprons. Susie even left a long scratch on Amy’s arm as she snatched a hot pink paisley smock out of the other girl’s hands.

“This matches with my complexion,” the blonde, ringletted girl snipped, clutching the bright fabric to her Aeropostale t-shirt defensively. “Plus, I don’t think it would fit you anyway.”

Susie and her possy snickered as they skipped backstage, brand-new aprons in their hands. The other girls grumbled as they sifted through the pile of second-hand costume pieces. Amy hung back, nursing the angry red mark on her arm as the words “You’re too fat. You’re unwanted. You’re worthless” screamed in her mind. She heard them every day at home and in the hallways, so it was only a matter of time until they crept into the theater, too.

Once the rest of the cast had disappeared into the changing room, Amy trudged to the basket and pulled out the remaining apron. She was surprised at how pretty it was: vintage floral print, a gentle blue that matched her eyes. It was soft, too, she noticed as she slipped it over her head and knotted the ties around her back: no need to worry that it wouldn’t zip, like all of the itty-bitty dresses in the costume closet.

“Well, aren’t you the prettiest villager our stage has ever seen!” Mrs. Moore quipped proudly, picking up candy wrappers and empty soda bottles the students had left strewn backstage.

Amy’s cheeks colored. “You’re just saying that because you’re the Drama Mama.”

The older woman placed her hands on the tween’s shoulders and squeezed, smiling down at her. “I’m saying that because I mean it. When that curtain opens, it’s your time to shine.”

On opening night, Susie let every other middle schooler in the cast know that she had both sets of grandparents attending in the front row and that no less than thirty-four adoring classmates had sent her flowers. Amy didn’t have a single person supporting her in the crowd and her hopefully-brought vase remained empty, but she confidently strode out on stage nevertheless. The limelight may have washed out the faded flowers on her costume, but it made her smile gleam all the brighter.

2018

Lizzie slid her fingertips along the various dresses, suit jackets, and sweaters crammed into the small costume closet, the only space the school designated for the drama department. Letting out a sigh, she took several renaissance-style dresses off their hangers and tossed them into a blue plastic bin. The wrestling team apparently needed the room to store their practice mats, so all of the costumes and prop pieces needed to be transferred to storage boxes and stowed under the stage. If Lizzie had known that the previous director had quit because the administration “just didn’t have any appreciation for the arts anymore,” the new teacher wouldn’t have been quite so eager to take on the theatre program. Especially if she would have anticipated the hours spent condensing the decades-old collection of assorted stage paraphernalia.

The exhausted woman tucked a curl behind her ear as she tossed a few more garments into the bin. As she went to stuff a tulle 80’s prom dress on top, a piece of floral fabric caught her eye.

“What do we have here?” she whispered to herself, tugging on the cotton. She held the blue-and-white apron in her hands for a few moments, tracing the fraying edges and makeup-stained bib. It was practically falling apart, but it was more than enough.

“Well, you’ve seen a long life, but I know just what I want to do with you,” she told it gleefully before shoving it into her purse. Her stomach knotted, slightly guilty and yet thrilled at her small act of theft.

Lizzie disappeared to the basement craft room as soon as she got home, She googled detailed quilting instructions and worked well into the night hunched over her sewing machine. Four cups of coffee, three pricked fingers, and two troubleshooting Youtube videos later, Lizzie proudly possessed a patchwork pillow made from the apron’s fabric.

“I can’t wait to give this to Mama,” she thought to herself, hugging the repurposed flowers to her chest. “They match great-grandma’s curtains perfectly.”

Lizzie could picture her mom’s eyes twinkle, the words of thankfulness that would pour from her too-kind mouth when she received her handmade gift. And maybe, just maybe, she thought, Mama would make the family recipe strawberry pie in return.

A handful of improvements for your writing pleasure.

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Improvement: Formatting

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Bug Fix: Letter Spacing

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Bug Fix: Editing

Fixed a bug preventing users from saving edits on some posts.

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Fixed a bug that prevented users from updating their profile images, usernames, etc.

I never believed. Not in something like this. It’s ridiculous.

Religious kooks have been getting hard ons for the apocalypse every few years since I’ve been alive. A little reading tells me that’s been the way of things since antiquity. For each of the prophecies and predictions, the big day comes, nothing happens, and we go on as we’ve always done. Today turned out differently.

In a strange way, I think the idea of an apocalypse brings religious people comfort. For the world to be destroyed according to a prophecy, that would mean that there is something outside of ourselves making decisions about our species. It would mean there is actually something out there that’s in charge and it’s not just chance that I happen to be here, watching the world end with my family.

We’re in the basement now. The kids are crying. My wife is crying. I am too. We’re hungry and the power is out. It’s not safe outside, so we’re waiting. If there’s enough time, we’re waiting until it’s late enough to cry ourselves to sleep.

We’ll all sleep together in a heap. It makes me think about Pompeii and those people burned to ash doing whatever they happened to doing when their time came. If there are survivors that come after, this is how I’d like to be found, my arms around the people that mattered most.

If there is a tomorrow, we’ll see what can be done then. Maybe things will have settled down. For now, I need to make peace with my creator. I’ve always wanted to see tangible proof of a god, to really know it wasn’t just a bunch of stories made up by scared cavemen, and now here it is. God finally decided to show up and answer some questions. It’s probably a little late, but now that I know there’s someone to hear them, we’ll see if prayers are still being answered.

Now I lay me down to sleep…

"So Helen! Tell me all the gossip!  How did it go?"  Shelley's bright blue eyes lit up as she leaned across the table and pestered Helen for the details of the date the night before. Both women always did a post date analysis with each other and this was no different.

Helen flicked her long dark hair back over one shoulder and narrowed catlike green eyes for a moment.  She played with the straw in her drink and frowned.  

"Well he was really prompt and picked me up at 7pm for pre-dinner drinks.  He was gorgeous, glowing and intense.  So fiery and passionate.  I thought Wow, he's something else!  So we got in the car and drove for drinks..."  She paused.

Shelley leaned back in her chair.  "But,.. there's a but I can hear it."  She paused melodramatically for a moment and then leaned forward again.  "Oh com'on spit it out!"

Helen sighed.  "Well it got embarrassing!  We had just been seated in the Nightshade Bar two minutes, it was so busy and then boom, he burst in to flames, then ashes and then I had to sit with an egg for an hour until he hatched and grew.   I was mortified and he promised he wouldn't do it again but then an hour later at dinner?  Wham, the same thing.  I left him there as a egg.  Couldn't do the melodrama!"

Both women looked at each other knowingly.   Shelley sighed heavily.  

"Well, that's a Phoenix for you..."

Snow in London again, sounds pretty but the reality of it is that it's freezing.   I rub my hands together, and inspect them, blue fingers and ingrained soot under my nails.  I shrug and the cold slips under my layers of clothes and bites me bitterly.  I stamp my feet and look at the hole in one shoe.  I lean down and look closer, is that a black toe?   I don't really know if its frostbitten or not really, but it's exposed to the dirt and the soot. I stamp my feet harder trying to feel them, unsuccessfully.

I blow on my hands trying to warm them.  I have wrapped old rags around them in an attempt to keep them warm but they are wet down and I can feel the damp and cold pulling at my very bones.  My stomach gurgles.  How can it gurgle when there is nothing in it?    I walk up and down trying to keep warm, and wait where John said I should wait.  

He has gone to get the cleaning brush and hand cart for the chimneys here.  Should be on a circus wheel that cart, gets passed from person to person like a collection plate.    I'm right proud of how fast I can do them now, been up them since I was five.  First time scared the life out of me, but I get a coin and something warm in my belly.  Once I got past the scared feeling and sped things up like John yelled at me to do, I can go fast and still get coin to have something to eat and do at least 3 houses in a day.  Well depending on how many chimneys there are.   I feel in my pockets, there isn't even a crust of bread left now.   I wonder what it feels like to never be hungry and can't even imagine the feeling because hunger always feels like a rat gnawing my insides.

John says that orphan kids, that's me, were built for chimney jobs.  It's why he chose me really, said I was skinny enough to get in spaces others couldn't.  I'm worried a bit 'cause I keep growing and now at 6 I soon wont be able to fit up some places anymore.    I blow on my hands again.  John's taking his time and the day is growing bitterly cold even though its still so early.  I glance up at the sky, the clouds are reforming and the heavy snow feeling is again on the air.  I stamp my feet harder, the cold is biting through my clothes and I turn and walk over to to the step at the back of the house and pause in horror.   

There's a dead kid sitting on the step.   I step back and look up the roadway.  You can't even see the cobblestones as they are so covered in snow.  This back of house is a place we haven't been to before and no one much passes here.   I glance around again and listen to the clop of horse hooves the next street over.  I glance up at the tall dark building and it seems this kid could be here for days because this back door never seems used much.  

The snow piled up around him looks like he was carved there.   Curiosity gets the better of me and I go in closer and sniff.   Well he doesn't smell so I lean in and look at his face. The lashes of his eyes are dark and leaning on his blue cheeks.   He has an upturned nose sprinkled with freckles with little frozen rivulets of snot over his lip.   There's a sore or something on his lip and a grotty old scarf wrapped twice around his neck.   He has curling dark brown hair escaping out from under his cap which has a dusting of snow on it.   His hands are bright light blue, wrapped, black and filthy nails, resting lightly on his legs like he just took a load off for five minutes.   Ripped dirty trousers are on his thin legs and he looks about 6 years old but it's hard to tell because he's just there and just frozen.   He looks like every other street kid on the street.  Orphans are everywhere.

No puffs of breath in the cold air.  Nothing.   I take a risk and poke his hand.  I snatch my hand back, he's a rock, or like a piece of wood.  No movement, just like stone.  I survey him carefully.  How sad, poor kid, clearly a street kid like me, no one would miss him.   I wonder if I should tell John, if he ever turns up that is.  I turn and look in the darkening early morning light.  Nope still no sign of the blasted man.  Always with the wait here at this house, I'll be back.   Could take forever.

I walk away from the kid.  It's making me feel right morbid being in the same space as him.  There are little flurries of snow now starting in the air and I am starting to feel really annoyed with John.  If I didn't need the coin so much for a bite, I wouldn't be out.  I would be curled down at the Spotted Dick hunkered under a table by the fire.  Bess, the maid, she lets me sneak in and warm myself on these sorts of days.  Thoughts of that bliss make me madder as I stamp up and down with a dead kid for company.

The flurries get thicker and I want to walk away but I know if I do, John will be off after the next kid and I won't have a job again for a long time.   I walk back and lean in to look at the kid again.  I look closer and flick the snow off his scarf and rub my eyes with blackened hands.   Hey!  He has the same material scarf as me!  I brush the snow from the dead kids shoulder, same jacket.  Go figure, what are the chances.  I lean down and flick snow off the shoes and see the hole in the shoe with the black toe.  Just like mine.  I take two steps backwards from the dead kid and look at my own shoes.

That's funny, it seems I can see the snow through my boots and I lean down to have a look.  I seem to be getting less and less solid.   I hold out my hands in front of me and feel a scream forming in the back of my throat, rasping and fighting to be free, my hands are bluish, intangible, becoming see through.  I glance again at the boy with the clothes like mine and I feel the scream break free from my vocal cords and fall into a space of nothing.  No breath puffs from my throat as I realize having never ever seen myself, and the realization bites, that the boy on the step in the same clothes as me, is me.  

I raise vacant eyes to the sky and flurries fall down with softening grace. Funny I don't feel cold anymore.