........................

January winds bit as Micah stood on top of the cliff, ocean breeze blowing through the fringes of his locks, and caressed him, the way his mother did, with palms and fingers made of sea-salt. A storm had passed through the town and left in its wake electric skies hazed in purples and pinks, turning the rotting weeds around him into distant cousins of lavender, and painting the sea foam with hints of mauve as if gallons of grape slurpees were dumped by the shore. His brain waited for some gas-station lavender or a sickly grape scent to hit but all he processed was the live-wire stench of a power transformer that exploded in the rainstorm.

Seagulls screeched overhead with the sounds of waves lapping against the rocks, their silhouettes against the purple sky like the lines children would draw to show birds in flight. Just as the tide ebbed and flowed, a quiet wave of peace would wash over him, each exhale and inhale in sync with the rythmic breath of the sea. He would close his eyes, cradling the urn in his arms, his fingers tracing the aluminum exterior, and let everything fall by the wayside. Right as he’d gone to some place where only waves against rocks existed, this woman’s voice crawled through, came from someone who lit fresh cigarettes with the embers of dying one’s.

“Ma always said ‘Only time Castillo’s do reunions are at funerals’.” She shambled towards him. ”That woman was always right huh.”

Micah swiveled and faced Tess, bags drooping down from tired amber eyes rimmed with blackened paintstick, vertical wrinkles lining the edges of her pale lips, cheekbones flared amethyst from the sunset. Her brown hair was drawn back, held by a rubber band. “How you holding up?” Her breath carried a six pack and a carton of cigarettes.

“I’m...” Micah tried to find the words as he was checking her eyes for signs of dilations or constrictions. ”... I’m alright. You?”

“Could be better.” She cracked a faint smile. “How long has it been...’bout three?”

“Four years.” Micah turned towards the sea. “Good to see you Tess.”

She nodded reluctantly as a still moment enveloped the two, before she dug a crumpled pack of Camels from a jacket pocket “Want one?”

“I quit.”

A small gust of air rushed out her nose “What, since today?”

“Been four months.”

“Even the drink?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm. Well - kind of late now don’t you think?" She joked "Needed that more when Gab and I were youn-”

“Tess.” He hugged the urn and shook his head.

"Right." She lit her cigarette, savoring the first drag, and blew out a stream of smoke, capping it with a perfect ring. "How’s ma.” she drawled, changing the subject, and ran her fingers through her hair as she eyed the urn.

“Well.” His hands waved the purple ghosts away. “She can’t complain.” said Micah as he tapped the lid.

She tried to smile before slumping down to tired lips. “Sorry we couldn’t...y’know... make it earlier.”

“Yeah, it’s alright... Probably better that way.” Micah turned towards her again, scanning behind. “Gab uhh... where’s he at?”

She tilted her head down the hill. “He’s in the car. Told him to take his time.”

“Hm.” He gave a slight nod before looking down at the urn.

“Family all know about this by the way?”

“No.” His fingers played with the lid. “Didn’t tell them you guys were coming down either.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Told them what you wrote in that letter. Gab’s stand-up gig, you and your - uh - what do you call it?”

“My barista thing?” She tilted her head with a sly smile.

“Yeah - that.”

“It’s just a fancier way of saying ‘I make coffee for minimum wage’.”

“Hm.”

“Seems like you need one too.”

A curl formed at the end of his lips “Yeah, brain’s pretty zapped Tess.” He coughed.

“So... how ’bout them? Still fucked I guess?”

“What’d you expect?”

“Dunno, like Uncle Trev finally winning the lottery? I mean, he’s been going at it since - what - since we were kids.”

Images of the Castillo Santa came up; a drunk, always babbling about the deep state, spending hours in lines to buy a lottery ticket. “He’d win some and lose some, you know how it goes.” Micah would then recount the Castillo family’s latest activites: Uncle Greg’s newfound hobby for coin-collecting, Aunt Mara and her whole schtick with healing crystals, Red getting married for the sixth time, Erynn getting divorced for the fourth time, Jake on meth being detained by cops two nights ago, and the whole fight about gun control between Uncle Kent and Aunt Anne’s second husband at their mother’s funeral - a Castillo eulogy.

“Jesus Christ.” Tess dropped the cigarette, grounded it out with her heel, and sat on the edge, letting her feet hang. “Should’ve stayed, like watching a train ’bout to crash.” she snickered, “You sure you alright?” She looked up at Micah.

“Could be better.” He said, and sat right next to Tess with a grunt, carefully hugging the urn in his arms “Jesus.”

“What?”

“Fucking knees.”

She chuckled “Getting old Mikey.”

“Hm.”

“Your birthday’s coming up soon.”

“Hmhm... 38 soon enough.”

Her lashes fluttered “What you getting?”

“Dunno.” He seemed to speak from a distance. “Sober for six months, maybe.”

She smiled. Or as much as she could anyway.

“Hey...” Micah looked back. Dead trees, his Sedan, and the dirt path that winded down were all there was. “Gab’s...uh... how is he?” he whispered, a swallow punctuated the question.

Tess took a deep breath, dug out another Camel filter, and lit it. “We’re bounded by blood Mikey,” she shrugged “Only reason he’s here cause it’s an obligation, so don’t expect too much. You’ll be disappointed.”

......................................

Gabriel’s head was a matchstick, dark hair cut in a rough shag covering it. He’d gotten bigger, Micah thought, shoulders widened and back built like a silverback’s, enough to mistake him for a fighter instead of a standup comedian. His eyes cut through Micah, adding violence in the electric air. “Let’s get this done yeah?” He grunted.

Micah nodded. “Who wants to start?”

“Jesus - Mike, just start. Don’t need to make us think like we actually matter man.” Gabriel cut in. “We aren’t kids anymore.”

“Alright...” Micah met the amber eyes rimmed with blackened paintstick. They were staring at the ground, avoiding his. “Uhh...” He moved his gaze towards the horizon, the sky in darker shades of purple now as the sun started die off, like some forlorn evil was all there was in this world. He dug in the pocket of his coat, coming up with a crumpled piece of paper, and smoothed it out, before clearing his throat.

Gabriel scoffed.

“One... Corin- Corinthians-”

“Tess what in the fuck are we doing here man. Wasting our time - he’s going to take an hour to read a fucking line.”

“Let him finish Gab.”

“No - honestly - all of a sudden we’re supposed to be family? Just cause ma died? Huh?”

Tess closed her eyes “Gab-”

Gabriel pointed at Micah, and took a step towards him “After all the shit you pulled?”

“I’m sober now Gab.” Micah pleaded “Four months-”

“Yeah fuck off with that Mike.” He cleaved “You can fuck off with that sappy shit.” Micah’s hair formed needles and his skin turned into orange rinds as the electricity in the air jumpstarted Gabriel. “Four months...” He scoffed “And how long is that going to last.”

“Gab. Just... just let Micah finish reading if you want to leave so fucking bad man.” Tess took out another fresh Camel filter.

Gabriel shook his head, and turned towards the poisoned nightshade sky. “Liked you more when you were an angry drunk man... Least you had balls instead of this gay shit you’re doing.” His words bit like the January winds.

Micah felt a hand that dragged his heart down, and coughed, trying to open up his clogged throat.

“Jesus...” Tess massaged her temples. “What the fuck Gab.”

“What. I know it’s in your head too. You just don’t have the balls to fucking say it.”

Micah looked away from Tess’ gaze, as if ashamed of being alive, then focused intently on the piece of paper. “I’m umm... I’m sorry Gabriel.”

“Yeah... Just get it over with man.” He scoffed

Micah hugged the cold dead urn for some semblance of comfort, to fill some hole in his gut. “One Corinthians thirteen. Verse. Eight to thirteen...” He bit his lip “Love never fails... but where there are proph-prophe...prophecies. They will... Cease. Where there are - tongues... They will be stilled. Where there is... um... there is knowledge... It-It will pass away.” His voice cracked, a few drops of salty tears blotted the letters “For we... uh... know in part and we... um... prophesy in part, but when comp-complete...ness comes, what is in part dis...disapp-”

Light footsteps interrupted him, Tess was holding her hand out, with a trying smile. He wiped the tears away and handed the paper to her.

She flicked the ember stub away as she walked towards the cliff, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. At the end of my childhood, I put these ways behind me.” She motioned for Micah to follow. “For now, we see only a reflection as in a mirror...” Her hand laid on Gab’s shoulders ”...then we shall see face to face.”

Gab stared at Tess for a moment, before looking at the urn. His jaw edged like Damascus steel, then softened up and relaxed. “Now I know in part, then I shall know fully... even as I am fully known...” His gaze went up to Micah, “And now... now these three remain... faith, hope, and love... But the greatest of these is love.”

Micah laid the urn on the ground, and pried the lid off gently. It was hard to imagine their mother, the vibrant Castillo glue, be reduced to a few pounds of sand-like material, encased in an urn, the exterior’s shade of ethereal white being tinged with purple. “You guys want to add anything else? Before... we-”

“No.”

Tess shook her head, and dug out another Camel filter.

January winds bit as the three siblings stood on top of the cliff, ocean breeze blowing through the fringes of their hair, and caressed their faces the way their mother did, with palms and fingers made of sea-salt. A storm had passed through, and left in its wake, grief, loss, and pain, hazed in streaks of deep magenta.

And now these three remain.

"It's been years hasn't it?" asked the barkeep.

The explorer was mostly a trenchcoat wrapped in rags and his face swaddled in a gas mask. The frequent radiation in the air had mutated his skin to lizard scales. His hair was the plumage of quail. His cowboy hat was a frumpy shell of its former glory. Every once and a while the man had to feel around to make sure nobody stepped on his whiplike tail. What race was he anymore when he couldn't be human. Heck the little kids at his side was less mutated than he was.

The little girl had a lizard tail poking out from behind her dress. It wagged as she buried her face in hot chocolate. She had skin the color of the sand at night. Her hair was black and eyes bright green. Her little brother had eyes of red, his hair was red, like his mother's, but he was a big boy. He got mistaken for the older brother until he opened his mouth to talk. The little girl was called Patsy and the boy was called Klien.

"Not really," spoke the man, "Or my kiddos would have been grown by now."

"Are you really going to keep that promise to your ex-wife?" the barkeeper asked.

"Yup," he agreed.

"Even after raising them in all this?" the barkeeper stated.

He pointed out to the harsh wasteland. The small town was buried in sand up to the rooftops. The domed cities along the sunsets were gaited communities that hated mutants. The gaited communities to the sunrise were corporate heck holes of mutants who didn't like humans. Patsy and Klien were named after a purse by the Mom. The explorer wasn't even related to the Mom's kids. In the middle was sand dunes, lots of sand dunes because the activists in the middle thought they were helping the environment involved listening to alien terraformers from another world instead of farmers saying Flash Fry was a bad idea.

The explorer motioned to the two kids. They sat on hiking packs. Sadly it is the silent majority that get caught in the middle. Attitudes rub off and people change. Yet some truths remain the same. The Sand Dunes turned people into lizardmen if they stayed exposed long enough. Mutated Lizard men lost the ability to human. A lizard face had very little human expressiveness.

"They are all I got," he said, "My ex-wife took my corporation. Her new husband took my ex-wife. He can keep her."

The explorer smiled.

"We'll see what happens when we get there." the explorer surmised.

On the way to the meeting point, the explorer wished he didn't know. He knew he wasn't a good man. He and his wife yelled a lot when he found out she was pregnant. The Dad had stepped into their lives but it wasn't enough. The company needed heirs more than it needed him. The two kids she dumped on him had reptilian features. She had said she'd found a new way to preserve the kids' humanity. However, like the explorer knew before, he wasn't a good man and sometimes divorces brought the inhumane out of people.

The explorer got into his truck. He buckled the kids up inside. Patsy and Klien clung to the explorer's tail. A force of habit to avoid getting lost in the desert turned into a coping mechanism with an upset man.

"Daddy," piped up Patsy.

"Are you okay?" added Klien.

The explorer saw the distraught kids in the rearview mirror. The kids saw the teary eyes of the explorer in the rear view mirror above the first rearview mirror. The explorer blinked back a sob. He smiled.

"Yup," he lied.

The drive to the Domed city was in silence. What stepped through the door was an overdressed thing! It was neither a wife or a husband. It yelled into a cell phone. It had an overpuffy fur coat and half the hair used to be pretty before it turned around and there was his ex-wife's face. Wires and pipes pumped gasses from an exhaust muffler implanted into her fleshy back. The husband, a wimpy simpering railpole of a lizardman, trailed behind her like a yappy dog. He knelt at her feet. His tail wagged.

"Stay in the car kids." said the explorer.

"Daddy?" asked Patsy.

"Daddy will be alright," said the man.

When he went to greet the thing called his ex-wife, her husband stepped in the way.

"Don't you come any closer!" he snapped, "She's mine."

The explorer looked at the walking muffler huffing and puffing in the overgrown fur coat. She used to be a natural beauty but the explorer gulped. Maybe it was his vanity talking. He liked women who laughed, baked cookies, and offered a hot meal or a bath after a long day of work not this thing. This thing yelled into her phone, stomped scaly shoes, and he didn't know what she was offering yet.

"Hello Chad," the ex-wife greeted. Drugs ruined her vocal chords. Now she talked through a speaker lodged in her belly. She had her husband light her cigarette before she sucked on it through a breathing tube lodged in her throat, "My gosh what happened to you!"

"My sentiments exactly," the explorer said, "And my name is not Chad anymore, you took it from me remember?"

"Oh yeah, whatever," she shrugged her shoulders. It was bizarre, "Look uh we're running out of money. Do you have any to spare?"

"I only brought people to meet you," the explorer worded carefully. Anything said after the word the was considered objects to the woman.

"Oh yeah the kids, where are they?" she asked.

The truck drove away. It didn't just drive. The explorer knew only Klien was big enough to reach the gas pedal. Patsy was steering the truck. There was hundreds of miles of sand around so nothing too dangerous. He reached into the Trench Coat and pulled out the portable radio.

"Okay buckaroos, put the truck back," he said, instintively hiding the word kids. It was years ago, the explorer reminded himself. He didn't have to worry about it yet his ex-wife grabbed his shoulder. Her robot claws dug into his flesh.

She pulled the radio off him to yell, "Get back here you little shits and face me like a man!"

A child cried into the radio. The explorer shoved her off him and grabbed his device back. His tail thudded the ground. He whirled on her. Eyes blazing.

"What is your problem!" he yelled.

"Honey was that a little girl?" the husband asked.

"Oh shut up Kimberly your daughter is fine, she's not a little shit like those freaks in the truck," the woman growled.

"Stay in the truck buckaroos," the explorer said, "Daddy is discussing business."

He turned to the woman. He got up in her face or at least where her face used to be. His swallowed his bile. "You owe your husband an explanation."

The wife put the cigarette to the tube in her throat. She took a long puff of nicotine. It went out the smoke pipes in her dress. It made her fur coat look like it was puffing up dust. She went into her story with the relish one had for drying paint.

"Well, when I first became pregnant I filed for divorce but then a wonderful piece of your company had told me about a wonderful new test tube called the portable ovaries. Just think, a woman can have a kid and not have to ruin her figure. Gay couples can have children who look just like them. Only problem is I had to make myself look like a virgin until after the divorce. All it took was a trip to the Clinic." she stated.

The Husband squeaked. He used to work at that place. It wasn't nice to the yet to be born. The explorer grit his teeth beneath his gas mask. He leered at the woman he used to call his wife. The woman took a drag from her cigarette. It went down her breathing tube and puffed out of her dress.

"The Clinic had to stay in the Sand Dunes because we had to hide the babies until the Divorce was over. I didn't want to say I got pregnant out of wedlock. Family court would have questioned my marraigable loyalty," she said, "But someone bought some test tubes when the clinic went belly up. He called himself the explorer . . . "

She glared at the explorer.

"Weren't you the one who funded the portable ovaries?" she asked.

The explorer winced. Portable ovaries was a hideous name to call life support. The chambers were to help the kids who suffered radiation poisoning at the thought of the kids.Things went south. Those tubes weren't meant to grow kids.

"You left our kids in the sanddunes?" asked the husband.

"Why not leave them in the Sand Dunes," shrugged the ex-wife. "I mean mutations can get fixed. Then they'll look like me. Sure hormone therapies are costly. We'll have to rip out the old teeth to put in dentures. Nowadays plastic surgery looks very natural."

"I see," understated the explorer, looking his ex-wife up and down. If this was unnatural, he was afraid to see what counted as natural.

Inside the truck the kids overheard the whole conversation. The button to the radio had been left on. Patsy shook on top of Klien's shoulders. Klien patted his sister's hand to comfort her. In the cab of the truck was a lead lined suitcase that the kids could fit in. Patsy slid into the suitcase first and Klien slid in after her. The explorer didn't know this yet. Those hot chocolates he treated the kids too were going to be the last hot chocolates he'd ever have with them again.

The ex-wife snapped her fingers. She had the husband bring up a pen and paperwork. They signed the paperwork. The explorer was getting his name back. In return he had to give up everything including the truck. The ex-wife didn't even bat an eye but the husband put the woman down.

"You know, I just changed my mind," said the Husband, "I don't want everything in the truck."

"Fine! I was going to sell your half of The Clinic anyway," she sniffed.

The Husband went through the truck. He checked then snapped shut the clasps to a leadlined suitcase. He brought the suitcase to the explorer.

"I believe this is yours," said the Husband, he pulled the man aside, "Protect this as if it were your own."

The explorer nodded. He handed over the portable radio to the Husband thinking this was probably the junk they didn't want. Granted, Patsy and Klien weren't even his kids. It wasn't like he raised them, schooled them, and loved them. The ex-wife and the Husband vaporized the car with a ray gun. The ex-wife sauntered into the Dome while the explorer went to the nearest radiation center.

Surprise met him when the two kids cried out, "Daddy!"

Patsy clung to his neck. Klien clung to him. The explorer nearly fell off his butt from the force of the double hugs. He gathered the kids in his arms. His tail wrapped around the whole trio. Joy threatened to make his heart burst but damn he was too happy.

Then it dawned on him what the husband did and what his ex-wife had become. If it was bad enough that even a husband wanted to keep his biological children away from her. He buried that train of thought in a mountain of hugs from the kids. He prayed to be able to share more hot chocolates with Patsy and Klien in the future.