A stunt pilot has decided to attempt the most legendary, mythical, dangerous stunt ever imagined. No one has ever achieved this before; no one has ever dared to try. They say it’s impossible. He says it can be done, and he’s the one to do it.

He gets in his plane, starts the engine, and takes off. He makes sure to gain the altitude and velocity necessary for this trick. He checks the readings on his control panel: perfect conditions. He breathes in and begins the trick. Soon, he is in the midst of a breathtaking sequence of twirls, spins, loops, rolls, and dives. To his amazement, he completes the stunt flawlessly.

When he lands the plane, he expects to find a cheering crowd to greet him and congratulate him. It seems that nobody cares, or they didn’t notice. He finds everyone gathered in a circle farther down the runway. He rushes over to them and asks if they saw the trick. They apologize and say that they missed it. They were distracted by a mother duck and ducklings walking across the air strip. They ask if he can do it again. The pilot gets back in his plane and does the trick again. He has now completed an impossible stunt twice in one day.

On his drive home he notices great billows of smoke pluming in the air. He decides to check it out and finds a house ablaze. He slams on the brakes and gets out of his car. A woman is standing out front crying. She tells him that her baby daughter is still stuck inside. He tells her not to worry, and sprints into the burning home. The heat is agonizing, the smoke is suffocating and blinding. Somehow he manages to find the baby girl and bring her to safety. The mother is relieved and grateful, but is still sobbing. The man asks her if he can do anything else. She tells him that her pet cat is still trapped in the fire. Again, he battles the flames and the smoke, and just barely makes it out alive holding a trembling orange cat.

When he finally gets home, he immediately finds his wife and gives her a kiss.

“You won’t believe the day I’ve had,” he says.

“Where’s Ralphie?” She asks.

“How should I know? I just got home.”

“It was your turn to pick him up from band practice.”

“Again?!”

Searing pain flared in Ruth's knee with every step. Her body screamed at her to stop, begged her. But she refused. She knew that wasn't an option. She had to finish this.

"You okay, Mom?" Liam asked from his chair in front of her.

Ruth looked down at him, and the pain in her knee vanished. Instead, all she felt was love in an unfair world. Running a marathon was his dream, not hers. Thanks to his recent ALS diagnosis that dream had become impossible.

"I'm fine, honey," Ruth smiled.

"Push yourself, Mom," Liam encouraged. "And, well, push me too."

Obsessed with nothing

Stumbling endlessly on a loop

Feelings are numbing

Unable to find a troop

Eyes travel with nowhere to land

Heart stays out of it, indifferent to plans

Feet remain fixed, awaiting command

A better version of me

That knows what he wants

The ideal me

A vision that haunts

Alone on the sea

Adrift,

as a dilettante

A horse strolled riderless down an empty street. Old lampposts hummed on dutifully, illuminating a forgotten town. If the dust could talk it would hardy be able to remember any stories it might tell. People used to flock to this quaint, rustic town in the hillsides every summer. The area offered a variety of enjoyable activities and natural attractions. It seemed everyone came for a different reason, but always at the same time, and never permanently. Gradually, the visitors slowed until they stopped coming entirely. The allure had run out. The geographic beauty that the land boasted could not compete with whatever had replaced it. Businesses closed down, and the few year-round residents moved away. Without any human supervision, the land was left to its own designs. Sometimes, the greatest art requires total secrecy.

To start, I really don't see climate change as a political issue. There is no ideological or cultural war to be won here. To think otherwise is to evade the issue.

Some climate advocates may come off as overly self-righteous, pretentious, and condescending in their efforts to do what they believe is right. Additionally, the idea that we need to save the planet only to keep it habitable for humans can be seen as arrogant in that we assume the Earth exists only for us, and that without us the Earth would just be a random rock in space. However, the argument that because the Earth itself will still physically be here after humans are extinct, making any concern regarding climate change unwarranted, is lazy and selfish. It is selfish because it ignores every other organism on the planet that suffers from man-made pollution, as well as future generations that will have to find ways to survive. That kind of detached attitude of, "whatever happens happens" is not a justifiable excuse to pollute ourselves into an early extinction. I would say that it's possible to care about the Earth and Humanity at the same time.

In terms of actions that be taken to curb climate change, I feel like most of the responsibility (and ability) falls on major corporations to adopt more sustainable practices. Although, a general shift in the public's habits and climate consciousness needs to happen as well. Daily, personal choices are also important. Being more conservative with electricity at home, driving less, using re-usable shopping bags and containers instead of plastic bags, and cutting back on meat production are all significant choices that can integrated easily into your daily life.

As proof that progress in this area is possible, the hole in the ozone layer has been slowly repairing itself and is projected to return to normal by 2045. This recovery is thanks to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which prohibited chemicals that are harmful to the ozone layer from being used and produced.

The following is a text message conversion between two Northwestern University sociology graduate students. Emilio Aguilar has been sent back to 1984 as part of a groundbreaking time-travel research project. His classmate and research partner, Kaitlyn Pierce, remains in 2023 to record their correspondence.

The date is December 22.

Emilio: HOLY SHIT KP. I don't even know what I just saw.

Kaitlyn: what??? what happened?

Emilio: I was just on a subway in NYC and some dude pulled a gun and shot four people. It was kinda like that scene in Joker. I got a video. I'll send it to you.

Kaitlyn: dude wtf??? thats nuts! are you okay?

Emilio: Yeah I'm good. That was crazy though.

Kaitlyn: good. just looked that up. there was some guy named bernhard goetz that did that exact thing. pretty sure thats what you saw. was he about to get robbed by some teenagers?

Emilio: I mean, yeah maybe they would have. Or maybe they would have just tried scaring him. They had only asked him for 5 bucks when he pulled the gun.

Kaitlyn: im reading some more about it. people were calling him a vigilante and a hero

Emilio: What? He's a maniac.

Kaitlyn: he was acquitted of attempted murder and assault charges and only served 8 months in prison

Kaitlyn: oh, plus a 5000 $ fine

Emilio: Wow

Kaitlyn: easy to call someone a hero crime fighter when crime is high. crime rates in nyc were way higher in the 80s. i just read this article that said there were 5 murders a day there in 1984

Emilio: Damn. It's a lot better these days right? At least per capita

Kaitlyn: oh yeah. theyre way down the list for violent crime in 2019. that was all i could find right now

Emilio: Yeah, so if someone did that today they would for sure get charged with murder and be seen as criminal.

Kaitlyn: im with you on getting charged but i think ppl would be pretty divided on the whole self-defense thing still. but thats mostly bc ppl dont wanna admit guns lead to gun violence

Emilio: The context of everything has so much sway on people's moral compass. Crime rates are high so someone that kills criminals is hailed as a hero. But if crime was low, shooting three people on the train suddenly seems hard to cheer for. Which is why I think the public reaction would be different in 2023.

Kaitlyn: i get what you mean. there arent a lot of shootings bc there are a lot of bad ppl. there are a lot of shootings bc theres a lot of guns to be shot. thats like the one constant variable with places that have higher rates of gun violence

Emilio: And that goes to the self-defense thing. I'm not sure if the guys he shot were armed, but if you think everyone should have a gun you can't shoot people and then say "I felt threatened because I saw a gun on his waist."

Kaitlyn: i just found a quote from goetz when he confessed where he says he would have shot them over and over again, but his problem was that he ran out of bullets. he would have gouged their eyes out with his car keys too. ill send the video of his confession

Emilio: Yikes. That goes a little beyond self-defense to me

Kaitlyn: lol is there such a thing as preemptive self defense?

Emilio: Hahah I think that phrase was added in recent revisions of both Wisconsin's and Florida's legal codes.

To have known you was enough.

Light through the window illuminates emptiness.

Sacred symbols seldom survive selfish scandals.

A lone duck sits on a pond.

Clouds drift by in the sky.

Tall trees shade the ground.

A warm wind blows in from the west.

Far off smoke turns the day to night.

The duck swims calm laps.

The heat moves in fast.

White ash falls on the pond.

The duck stays.

Once far off smoke is now a close up blaze.

Tree limbs crack and crash on the ground.

The flames eat all.

The air is thick and dense with smog.

Still, the duck stays.

Bright flames dance in the duck's eyes.

The pond is now a deep blue spot in a ring of red.

The duck is a speck at the core of it all.

The fish look up from the waste on the pond's floor;

they wish for the duck's wings.

They think:

Why does the duck stay?

They don't see the wound.

Not all ducks can fly.

Have you ever received so much ice cream that you had to change your clothes? Because I have.

One sweltering summer day, I decided as any other lower middle class American with minimal disposable income would to beat the heat with a frozen treat. I got my shoes on and off I went to my local ice cream vendor. It was just half a mile away, most of which was on a biking/pedestrian path, so I decided to walk. The smothering intensity of the heat became apparent as soon as I stepped out of my building. The sun beat down and seemed to stay there with no clouds to offer any relief. All I needed was some sour cream and chives and I would have known exactly how it felt to be a baked potato. What I didn't notice at that time was just how windy it was that day.

When I made it to the ice cream place I encountered the next dilemma of the day: what flavor to get. There were about fifteen to choose from all with unique zany names that sounded more like cocktails and didn't really tell you anything about the flavor, forcing you to read the descriptions of each one before you could make a selection.

Midnight Sunrise? That doesn't even make sense.

Snoopy's Day Off? How is that ice cream?

I decided to get a cup with half strawberry cheesecake and half zanzibar chocolate. I ordered a single serving and expected to get two half-size scoops in a single scoop cup. What I was given was two colossal scoops in a single cup. I had also grossly overestimated the size of a single scoop cup. The disproportionality in the sizes between the amount of ice cream and the cup it was crammed in could be visualized by imagining what it might look like if you tried to give a St. Bernard a bath in the kitchen sink.

My original plan was to get the ice cream and walk home as fast as I could to limit the melting and enjoy it in the comfort of my apartment while watching a movie. I intended to stick to that plan. After grabbing three napkins as a precaution I started my return journey. I'm not sure if the cup was even visible to other passersby; they may have thought I was bare-handing the ice cream like some kind of maniac.

My hopes to avoid excessive melting proved to be foolishly ambitious. The sun went to work immediately and droplets of chocolate ice cream were soon running down my fingers. I had no choice but to start frantically licking the sides while I walked, otherwise the comically large pile of ice cream might just slide off and splat on the sidewalk.

To add to the issue, I was walking directly into the wind, which caused the drops of melting ice cream to be blown onto me and splatter on my clothes. The coordination of the sun and wind's efforts made it feel like I was getting picked on by two schoolyard bullies. It was mother nature's version of "why are you hitting yourself?" The result was that I experienced the highest level of frustration that one could reach while holding an enormous stack of ice cream.

By the time I made it home my hands were covered in chocolate drippings and my clothes looked I had been standing behind a revving dirt bike in a patch of mud. It took me a couple minutes to turn the doorknob and get inside because my hands kept slipping, but when I finally did I rushed the remaining soupy ice cream into the freezer. Then, I changed my clothes.

Charlie Walker was a writer, or at least he was as long as he was writing. Occasionally, the spring of creativity ran dry in his mind and he felt that he lost the right to call himself a writer. One can’t be a writer if one doesn’t write anything. The dry spells were a curious study in the driving power of a yearning to create. Sometimes the urge to have an invigorating idea became so strong that he doubted inspiration would ever strike him again. A watched pot never boils, as they say.

If he wasn’t a writer, he wasn’t sure what he was. Absent writing, what was left of him? When he was struggling to put words to paper he felt unable to act as a human being. The two worlds were inextricable to him. What was the point of living if you didn’t write about it? On the other hand, what was the point of writing if you didn’t have a full life from which to draw inspiration?

One Sunday afternoon, Charlie was sitting in his apartment watching women’s college basketball when an unexpected knock came at his door. He set his can of beer near a coaster on his coffee table and approached the door. Through the peephole he recognized his visitor, and had a suspicion of what they might want. He took a breath of preparation and opened the door.

“Hey,” Charlie greeted his visitor.

“What’s up?” Returned a shy teenage boy who had been Charlie’s neighbor for the last year.

Charlie could tell that the boy was having some trouble broaching the subject of his visit.

“Do you need anything, Kendall?” Charlie asked with care in his voice.

Sleep-deprived, sunken, lonely eyes met his. Desperation, pride, and courage mingled within the youth’s dark irises.

“I don’t mean to ask for a lot, but do you think I could take a nap for a couple hours in your apartment? Things have just been…fuckin’ crazy for me lately.”

Charlie had some idea of what Kendall was talking about. He had overheard the tumultuous events in Kendall’s family life unfold over the last couple of months. He had noticed fewer people coming and going from their apartment until it seemed as if Kendall was living there alone. Then, just a couple of weeks ago, he had seen the police come to enforce the eviction notice. Since then, Charlie had been occasionally stepping over Kendall’s sleeping legs on the way up the stairs to his apartment.

“Yeah, I know. It’s no problem; you can come in. I have a sleeping bag you can use in my bedroom.”

Charlie opened the door wide and stepped aside to allow Kendall in.

“Thank you,” was all Kendall’s voice could produce, but his eyes showed a magnitude of gratitude.

Kendall shuffled in, carrying a small Nike backpack over one shoulder. His other shoulder held the cumulative exhaustion of the past weeks. Charlie led him to the bedroom and unrolled a sleeping bag that is usually stowed underneath the bed.

“Do you camp?” Kendall asked.

“No, not really,” Charlie answered with a short laugh. “I’ve actually had this sleeping bag like my whole life. Like, I literally used this for sleepovers when I was a little kid.”

“Dang, that’s crazy,” Kendall replied, shaking his head.

“All right, well, there you go,” Charlie said when the sleeping bag was unrolled and partially unzipped. “Oh, hold on, here you go,” Charlie grabbed a pillow off the bed and dropped it by the head of the sleeping bag.

Charlie left the door ajar after Kendall lay down. He returned to the basketball game and picked up his beer again. A few hours passed and Charlie started to become hungry, as it grew closer to dinnertime. He thought about the frozen pizza he had been planning to eat that night. If he made it now, he would have to share it with Kendall. At the same time, he couldn’t kick this kid back out in the cold just because he didn’t like sharing food. He accepted his fate with a sigh and went to put the pizza in the oven.

The smell must have woken Kendall, because he came out into the living room about ten minutes later. He stretched his arms with the satisfaction of quality rest and plopped down in an armchair.

“That felt amazing,” Kendall proclaimed. “I’m sorry, I know I said just a couple hours. I was out like a light, though. I haven’t really slept much lately.”

“Oh no, you’re good,” Charlie replied.

Kendall checked his phone for a moment then glanced up at the television. Charlie was still watching women’s college basketball.

“Is this WNBA?” Kendall inquired.

“Nah, it’s college.”

Kendall studied the gameplay for a minute.

“I feel like they move around more than the men; more active,” Kendall observed.

“Mhm, this is an exciting game too,” Charlie agreed.

“You watch women’s ball a lot?”

“Not really, honestly, I just wanted to watch this game. That girl right there, number twenty-two for Iowa,” Charlie pointed to the screen, “Caitlin Clark. She’s must-watch TV. Best player in college basketball right now, men or women.”

Right on cue, Clark pulled up from five feet behind the three-point line and nailed the deep shot.

“Damn!” Kendall’s eyebrows raised and his torso leaned forward.

“See?” Charlie said, smiling.

They continued watching the game together and chatting about basketball for a little while. When the pizza was ready, Charlie removed it from the oven and offered Kendall his share. Eventually, they came to a lull in the game and the conversation had slowed since their mouths became busy with eating. The elephant in the room flapped its ears and blared its trunk.

“So, what’s been going on lately?” Charlie tiptoed so as not to startle the elephant too much.

Kendall breathed a heavy sigh, understanding the real question.

“So…we lost our old place across from you, and I pretty much have nowhere to go now.”

“Where’s your older brother at?”

“He moved out to Vegas last month for work.”

“He just left? Could you have gone with?”

"He said didn’t want to be responsible for me anymore.”

Charlie chewed on his next question for a moment as he debated just how involved he wanted to get in the situation. Whether it was curiosity or genuine compassion is hard to say, but he decided to probe deeper nonetheless.

“What about your parents?”

“Mom’s who-knows-where. Pops is locked up,” Kendall answered casually.

“Do you have other family in the area? Any friends you can stay with?” Charlie’s questions flowed now like those of a journalist during an interview.

Kendall’s demeanor remained composed and nonchalant. Any amount of anxiety or distress he may have been experiencing in the moment was well hidden.

“I got an uncle downtown, but he don’t like me. All of my friends have too many people in their houses already. I might try calling my old foster mom, but she just moved far away, so.” He ended that with a resigned shrug at the exhaustion of all perceivable options.

Charlie’s mind started turning with all the possible avenues a protagonist could take in a story like Kendall’s.

“So what have you been doing at nights?” Charlie asked.

“Walking around, mostly. I’ve been napping on some friend’s couches during the day if they let me. That’s all I can think of to do at night, though. I just gotta keep moving.”

At this point, Charlie noticed the night sky outside, checked the time, and felt his own eyelids drooping. In the urgent present, there were only two options for the wandering protagonist of the story. Charlie’s own role in this plot was filtered in his mind through the prism of his favorite literature. Bishop Myriel did not turn away Jean Valjean when all other doors were slammed in his face. Was that his part to play in all of this? He had no legal obligations to this young man. Nobody could really fault him for denying refuge to a near stranger. It seemed there wasn’t a clear right decision here, but the wrong one seemed as unmistakable as the sun on a cloudless day—and just as hard to look at.

“Do you have a place to sleep tonight?” Charlie asked bluntly.

Kendall hesitated for a moment. Maybe politeness held his tongue, maybe he had his own fears about staying in a stranger’s home, or it might have been pride. Whatever the reason, one thing was true: asking for help can be hard.

“No—well I’ve been texting some people, but nobody’s answering,” Kendall finally answered.

Charlie made up his mind that instant, although part of him felt that he had cornered himself into that decision.

“You can stay on my futon tonight. It’s not the best, but it’s better than the top of the stairs. I have to be up early for work tomorrow, though, so you gotta be out of here before I start.”

Kendall accepted those terms and thanked Charlie. Charlie brought out a blanket from his bedroom and prepared the futon for Kendall.

When Charlie was settling into his own bed, he thought about what a good person he was for doing all of that, and then he felt ashamed of that thought. He felt like he was stopping to check his reflection in the broken pieces of someone’s life. Then, as he was closing his eyes the words started flooding his mind, and his eyelids bounced back open the moment they touched as if they were made of rubber. Another thought hit him:

Am I only doing this so I have something to write about?