Short Story

Green

Well, I did it again. I asked y’all to give me nine random words that I would HAVE to use in a short story. I ended up with ten words and let me tell you, y’all made it a challenge this time. I already had a concept for a story before I received the lovely words you gave me. So finding ways to use these words in this story was difficult.

The story is called Green and here is the list of words I had to include:

  • Scissor Hold
  • Deceit
  • Petrichor
  • Paradoxical
  • Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia
  • Lethargic
  • Lover
  • Whimsical
  • Superposition
  • Penis

Whenever I used a word in the story I made it bold so you can spot each word as it appears. Now, without further ado, I give you: Green.

_______________________________________________________________________

My head hurt. I pulled on my pants and work polo. I brushed my teeth. The fluorescent light in the bathroom hurt my eyes. I brushed my tangled hair. My hair hurt. I went to the kitchenette. Maybe something in the fridge would help. Tasie bounded over winding herself between my legs and purring mightily. Her treats were next to the fridge.

“Hello, Anatasia,” I called her by her legal name. “Why did you let me drink so much this afternoon?”

Tasie tilted her head quizzically in answer. She knew nothing of what I spoke, only treats. I gave her a squishy little salmon shaped treat and she purred.

A better question was why had Maggie let me drink so much. She knew I had to work tonight. But she also knew about Henry. And what he’d done. We’d sat on her parents’ basement floor, backs against the smelly old sofa, passing cheap wine back and forth while I cried about Henry.

“Fuck ‘im. That’s what I say,” she took a swig and passed the bottle. “I mean it’s not like he was every really a boyfriend, Ce. More like… a lover.”

“Lover?” I cringed, “Gross, Mag. How old are you?” I took a drink and passed the bottle back. “I know we never made it official, but like, I thought…”

“Fuck. Him. Ce,” she said.

“I did. That’s the problem.”

“Now, who’s gross,” she laughed.

Maggie was my age, but she still lived at home. I had gone out on my own as soon as humanly possible. That meant renting a studio that was really a converted garage from a very nice lady in her late sixties who loved Anatasia and looked the other way when I was late on rent. I knew when she looked at me, she saw a kid who just needed a little help. Hell, when I looked at me, I saw a kid. Her name was Helen Parsons, but I called her Mrs. Parsons. She insisted I call her Helen. I tried. It didn’t stick.

“Mrs. Parsons?”

Her back door was open. I gently pulled the screen door open too and poked my head into the kitchen. “Do you mind if I borrow your car again? I’m running a little late for work.”

“The keys are hanging by the back door, dear,” she said from somewhere inside the house. “And it’s Helen.”

“Thank you, Mrs. – Helen,” I said, grabbing the keys.

Normally I walked to work. It wasn’t a long walk, about twenty minutes. But my head was still pounding, and I couldn’t face the walk. Partially because it took me right past Henry’s. Anyway, my shift started at 10:00 p.m. and it was already 9:55.

Enrique was tapping an imaginary watch on his wrist as I walked into the Super Mini-Mart, the only twenty-four-hour convenience store in our small town. I was two minutes late.

“You’re making me miss my beauty sleep,” he said. Enrique was a short, balding, gay, Hispanic man in his thirties with a beer gut. He needed all the beauty sleep he could get.

“Sorry, Ricky,” I said, walking quickly to the back to punch in.

“Don’t step…” Enrique yelled. But it was too late. I’d already squeaked my chucks across his freshly mopped floor. He’d left the mop out again. It didn’t matter. I’d put it away later.

“Sorry, Ricky,” I shouted, popping into the back office to retrieve my drawer for the night.

“Dios mio,” he muttered. Then shouting back at me, “It’s Enrique, Chechellia. Like Iglesias but better.”

“Sorry, Enrique,” I said, heavy on the “ree”. I slid in next to him behind the counter. He smiled and struck a pose. Something “Iglesias but better”. He turned to the register and started to count his drawer.

“So why are you late, Cheech?”

“Henry stuff,” I said. Enrique knew about Henry. He’d told me to “get rid of that boy” early on in our situationship. But I didn’t listen. I liked Henry and I thought he liked me too. I couldn’t tell Enrique what Henry had done.

“Cecelia, you need to stop seeing that boy,” Enrique said. “I don’t like his vibe.” I laughed at Enrique’s use of “vibe”.

“Well, don’t worry Enrique,” I said. “I doubt we’ll be seeing much of…”

Ding ding.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. The door opened and in walked Henry. Because my head didn’t already hurt enough, now my heart had to as well.

Enrique had finished counting his drawer and should have been putting the zippered, locked pouch in the safe. But he wasn’t moving now. He slid the drawer and pouch under the counter and put both hands on his ample hips.

“Henry,” he said, all sass. “You’re looking… lethargic.”

Henry rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored Enrique. I didn’t want it but before I could stop it, butterflies filled my stomach, and my breath caught in my chest just a little. His unkempt brown hair and soulful eyes held me in a stupid spell I hadn’t yet figured out how to overcome. I hated him for showing up at my job and I was also excited to see him even after…

“What are you doing here, Henry,” I said, slamming my drawer into the register and adopting a “losers-go-home” attitude I definitely didn’t feel.

He side-eyed Enrique, who hadn’t moved a centimeter and continued to stare daggers at him, then walked to the coolers at the back of the store.

“I got thirsty,” he said.

Enrique should have been heading home already to get his “beauty sleep” but I knew he wouldn’t leave until Henry was gone. Meanwhile, Henry took an absurdly long time picking out a peach Arizona tea. Eventually he made his way to the counter, keeping an eye on Enrique.

“I didn’t see you walk to work. I was worried,” he said, getting as close to me as he could with the counter between us and Enrique running interference.

“That was by design,” I said, adding as an afterthought, “dumbass.”

“Dumbass” shook whatever good will he had toward me free. Gone was the whimsical hero wandering the Scottish moors in search of his lost love. Henry threw his hands up and backed away, donning his true visage: unfeeling man slut.

“Look,” he said, “Didn’t seem like you took things real well and I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Ce. I’m outta here.”

He left the tea on the counter and turned to leave when the door dinged open again and Maggie walked in.

“What the hell, Henry!” she bellowed.

Mag was all of five foot one on a good day. She was blonde and thick in all the right places. My polar opposite. Where she was thick, I was flat. Where she was blonde, I was raven-haired. While she’d developed a deep tan over the summer, I was still as pale as death.

She swaggered in wearing Pink booty shorts, a baggy tee she’d cropped, and platform flip-flops. She should have looked hot but the look of pure rage on her face made her look terrifying, as if she’d just won a match on Jerry Springer and she was ready for round two.

Henry turned back toward me, incredulous, “You called your attack dog on me, Ce?”

“Not me,” I said, shaking my head. I was just as surprised to see Mag as he was.

“Enrique texted me,” she said, pushing her index finger into his well-defined chest. Ugh. I mean his chest. Forget the well-defined part. Enrique shrugged.

“How dare you come to my best friend’s place of employment, slime,” she continued.

He maneuvered around her and headed toward the door again.

“Don’t worry. I was just leaving.”

He put his hand on the door and the lights went out.

Everything stopped with a loud vwoomp as anything hooked to electricity shut down in an instant. The exit lights flickered back to life from their battery backups. Super Mini-Mart glowed an eerie dim red. Until it didn’t.

A soft greenish light seemed to envelope the building, drifting in through the open windows. It mingled with the red light and created a strange orangish glow where the exit lights shined.

“Don’t worry, everyone,” Enrique said, “we probably just tripped a breaker. I’ll fix it.”

He shuffled off to the back of the store. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the windows. The green light was everywhere. It almost looked like neon green Vaseline had been applied to the entire building.

“This is stupid,” Henry said. He put his hand back on the door and tried to push but something kept the door from opening. “What the hell…” He pushed harder.

Whatever was blocking the door gave way only a centimeter or two. And then the green light shuddered, slamming the door shut again. It rippled across the whole building, shaking it, contracting, like something was squeezing the Super Mini-Mart. Small cracks began to form in the walls.

“I don’t think it’s a tripped breaker, Enrique,” I said.

“No shit,” he said. He was standing at the back of the store with the door to the office wide open, except there was no office. Just a gaping black hole.

Maggie punched Henry in the arm as hard as she could. “What the hell, Henry!”

“Ow!” he yelled. “What?”

“What did you do?!” Mag pointed her index finger in his face. He was easily a foot taller than her so it should have been comical, but no one was laughing.

“Me?” he protested, rubbing his arm. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I don’t think Henry did this, Mag,” I said. I watched as a tiny crack spread up the wall next to me all the way to the ceiling. There was no way this was Henry. As far as I knew he didn’t have any supernatural powers. Except maybe making silly girls fall for him then breaking their silly hearts.

“Um.” Enrique was still standing outside the office door staring into the new, strange abyss. “You guys really need to come see this.”

Mag and Henry stopped glaring at each other long enough to look over at what Enrique was talking about. The blackness beyond the door… something was wrong with it.

Moments later the four of us stood outside the open door staring at the inky black hole.

“Why does it look like that?” Mag asked. It was hard to describe what was wrong with the blackness. At first it just seemed ominous. But after a while we realized it looked as if it were expanding and contracting. Breathing. And wet.

“Someone touch it,” she said. No one moved.

 “The smell reminds me of something,” I said. “Rain. Or not rain, really. But like the way it smells after it rains.”

“Petrichor,” Henry said.

“Yeah,” I said, looking at him in surprise.

“What,” he said. “I know things. I’m not just a pretty face.” He smiled and gave a little wink. I could feel myself blushing. Mag made a gagging sound and looked like she was going to be ill.

Enrique picked up the mop from where he’d left it and plunged it into the blackness. It stopped just a few feet away. “There’s something there.”

Mag reached out a hand.

“Don’t touch it,” I said. She sighed and pulled her hand back.

“Fine.”

No one moved or said a word for a few minutes. The only sound was the hum of the exit signs and the four of us quietly contemplating. Then the building shuddered again, breaking the silence. Everyone jumped as the building creaked and more small cracks appeared.

“Oh my god!” Mag screamed. “We need to get out of here.” She began frantically pacing the floor.

I had already pulled my phone out of my pocket.

“I’m calling 9-1-1,” I said, trying to keep her calm, even though I didn’t feel at all calm myself.

But I couldn’t get through.

“Nothing. Busy signal,” I said. “Everyone, try your phones.”

Maggie stopped pacing and grabbed her phone.

I tried calling Mrs. Parsons next. Another busy signal. I went through my contacts one by one. I couldn’t get through to anyone.

“Nothing,” Enrique said.

“Same,” Henry and Mag said in unison. Mag scowled at him. Henry stuck out his tongue.

“So are we trapped in here?” Mag asked, panic rising in her voice again, now that the hope of being rescued had evaporated.

“It looks like it,” Enrique said. And as if to drive the point home, the building rumbled, a ripple effect washing through the green Vaseline.

“Ok, we need to find a way out of here,” I said. Escape had always been a specialty of mine. “Everyone, look for a way out. Check all the doors and windows.”

We fanned out. But the search was over about a minute later. None of the windows even had a way to be opened. There were no windows or outside doors in the restrooms. There was an emergency exit near the restrooms, but it was the same as the front door, being pushed closed by something outside. Henry kept trying the front again, pushing as hard has he could. It made his biceps flex, and I was in no way interested in that. Nope.

The building shivered.

“Anything?” I asked the group. Nada.

Mag hopped up onto the counter next to where I’d been trying to see if I could pry open a window. I reached out for her, and we held each other. I closed my eyes and tried not to let the growing panic take hold. Someone would find us. We’d get out eventually.

“What are you…” Enrique said. I opened my eyes as the sound of breaking glass filled the room.

Henry had a fire extinguisher and was using it to try to break down the door. He’d made it through the first pane of glass and was taking aim again.

“Oh my god, Henry! What are you doing?” I said, letting Mag go and rushing out from behind the counter.

“I’m getting us out of here,” he said, slamming the bottom of the metal canister against the second pane of glass.

It didn’t break, sending him reeling back. Whatever was blocking the door felt the impact that time though and responded in kind, causing the building to creak and shake. Undaunted, he charged in again. The next hit caused the glass to crack. More shaking. He went in again. More cracks, it was beginning to shatter but the thing outside was keeping the broken shards from coming loose. Henry raised the extinguisher up again and smashed the door. A few small pieces of glass dislodged and hit the floor. He smashed it again. And again. And again. The building shook with each hit. Until the shards were fractions of themselves but still mostly being held in place.

Everyone gathered around the broken door as Henry took aim over and over.

Finally, Henry stopped smashing. He reached out and picked a shard of glass free. Behind it sat a neon green translucent jelly-like substance. He prodded it with his finger. It jiggled and a small ripple went through it. The rest of us reached out and began freeing pieces of broken glass. A few minutes later we were standing in front of a wall of translucent green jelly.

I reached out and touched it. It jiggled and rippled.

“You guys,” I said, “I think this thing might be alive.”

It answered by rattling the building again. The cracks were getting bigger and spreading.

“So, what? We’re being squeezed to death by green jello?” Mag asked.

No one answered. I honestly think we all felt the same. Hopeless. We were trapped together by some mysterious green jelly creature with no way out. We were going to die. Everyone congregated around the counter. Nothing to do but sit and wait.

We sat in silence. Occasionally the jelly creature would shake the building again. Sometimes when it rippled, it would let out a disconcerting moan. I wanted to cry. Could feel the tears hovering somewhere behind my eyes. But I wouldn’t allow myself to give in to the feeling. Not in front of Henry.

Eventually, Mag said, “I’m hungry.”

“Go on,” Enrique said. “Everyone take whatever you want. Doesn’t matter now.”

Henry and I looked at each other. I shrugged. Why not? It had been hours, and I hadn’t even realized I was hungry until then. While the others wandered up and down the aisles, I headed toward the back. I knew exactly what I wanted. They were absolutely disgusting but whenever I had a bit of a hangover I went straight for the bean and cheese burritos in the freezer. I stopped short when it hit me. No electricity. Suddenly a half-frozen burrito with no way to cook it didn’t sound so appealing anymore. The thought eating semi-thawed beans and cheese made me gag. And then I saw the mop.

“You guys,” I said, “Put the snacks down. Come here.”

It was the gross burrito that gave me the idea. Everyone met me at the office door. I’d taken the mop and opened the door to the black abyss. If this thing surrounding the building was alive, maybe this was part of it. I held the mop aloft and pushed it into the void. There was something there, just like Enrique said. I pushed as hard as I could and whatever was there gave way. Not entirely. It was still pitch black ahead. But the mop went in further than it had before. Like a gross burrito forcing its way back out.

The building trembled. A piece of the ceiling crashed near the soda fountain. Everyone froze. I looked at the debris littering the floor and back at the office.

“I think I know how we’re getting out of here.”

Enrique and Henry took no convincing. We were going into the office with a mop as our weapon and hoping to come out the other side alive.

Maggie on the other hand.

“So, if this is part of it… you don’t think it’s like its…” she asked.

“Its? What?” Henry said.

“You know!”

“No. I don’t,” he said. “What?”

“Its… you know… its thing,” she squirmed.

“What thing? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

He knew.

“You know.”

He shook his head. A picture of innocence.

“Penis!” she shouted.

Enrique lost it. I couldn’t help myself and started laughing too.

“No,” I laughed, “But I do think it’s our only way out.”

As if on cue another piece of ceiling dislodged itself and crashed behind us.

“Grab anything that might be useful for pushing through this thing,” I said, “You have 30 seconds.”

A moment later we entered the office.

“Don’t close the door,” Mag said. She’d grabbed a plastic bag from behind the counter and filled it with alcohol.

“No shit,” said Henry. He’d stuck with the fire extinguisher.

Enrique had grabbed a flashlight we kept behind the counter and several rolls of receipt tape which he had shoved into a bag. I still had the mop.

I led the way. Mag made sure to wedge herself between Henry and me. Enrique brought up the rear. As soon as we’d entered, he turned on the flashlight and had started unspooling a roll of receipt tape, wrapping the end of it around the door handle to the office.

“We don’t know how long this is,” he said when everyone gave him a questioning look.

Each push with the mop opened the passageway a little more. But with each push came the rumbling. Whatever we were doing, it didn’t like. I kept wondering how long it would be until this plan imploded and the creature fought back by squeezing us to death.

“So, what do you guys think this is?” I asked, pushing forward. My arms were beginning to get sore already.

“I actually have a theory about that,” Henry said.

I couldn’t see their faces, but I could feel Enrique and Mag rolling their eyes behind me.

“Ok then,” Enrique said. “What is it, pretty boy?”

“Ok,” he said, turning off the smug asshole persona and becoming the guy I’d fallen for. “Do any of you know what quantum superposition is?”

“Is that like what Sabrina Carpenter does at her concerts?” Mag asked.

“That’s the Juno position, Mag,” I laughed. I kept pushing. We inched forward. The blackness trembled around us.

“Then no,” she said.

“I’m not gonna explain this right,” he said, “but it’s like two things occupying the same space.”

“Keep going,” Enrique said. I could hear him behind me unraveling the receipt tape. I still didn’t know what good that was going to do us but it seemed to make him happy.

“Well, like, this thing just kind of appeared out of nowhere, right?” Henry said. “So like what if it exists in another dimension and that dimension and ours just kinda, I don’t know, collided?”

“I still don’t understand,” Mag said.

“Like on Star Trek,” he said.

“You watch Star Trek?” Mag laughed.

“Nerd,” Enrique coughed. Mag and Enrique giggled.

“Whatever,” Henry said.

“Keep going,” I said. “This is interesting.”

“No it’s not,” Mag laughed. She had opened a bottle from the bag and was now actively drinking behind me.

“Quiet, Mag. Keep going, Henry.”

“Ok, sometimes on Star Trek when they use the transporter something goes wrong, and two things become one. Maybe that thing out there existed somewhere else, like another dimension, and now it’s here, somehow part of the Super Mini-Mart. Two things occupying the same space somehow. I don’t know. That’s my theory.”

“It’s a good theory,” I said, smiling despite myself. I liked that he was smart. Stupid.

“How did you two meet again?” Enrique asked. I could feel the disdain wafting off of him.

“I need someone to take over,” I said. My arms were on fire.

“I got you,” Henry replied. He moved past Mag and took my place at the front, positioning the end of the extinguisher the same way I’d had the mop. Mag glared. He pushed and we inched forward. Mag ushered me to the back, and I fell in line behind her. She was still insisting on keeping us separated.

“Deceit,” Mag said.

“What?” Henry replied.

“That’s how they met.”

“No, it’s not,” he said. “We met on Tinder.” I could feel myself blush.

“Well, you’re a liar so it had to be through deception,” she said, laughing to herself.

“I’m not a liar.” I could hear the anger rising in his voice.

“Oh yeah? Then why’d you tell Cece she was ‘the coolest girl you’ve ever met’ then you went out with that skank? Emily something.”

Henry stopped pushing and turned around. He looked over Mag and straight at me.

“You told her that?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. It’s not like any of this was a secret or even mattered now.

“She tells me everything, stupid,” Mag answered for me. “I’m her best friend.”

He turned around and forced the extinguisher forward. The blackness shook and contracted for a second. He was a lot stronger than me and clearly making more of an impact. I’d never been overly fond of small spaces and now we were being squeezed.

“Not that it’s any of your business, Maggie, but we weren’t exclusive. Ce is seeing other people too,” he said. He pushed again. Squeeze.

“Would you two shut up already?” I yelled. “We’re inside of a black void inside of a jello creature from another dimension that is squishing us… And, for the record, no, I’m not… so just… shut up.”

We had silence for a while after that. Henry kept inching us forward. Enrique kept unspooling receipt tape. And Mag kept drinking. I think it was the drinking that prompted her to break the silence again.

“What’s the longest word you know?” she said.

“What?” I asked her.

“Henry! You’re so smart. What’s the longest word you know?”

He pushed again. I held my breath, and the darkness squeezed.

“I don’t know, Maggie,” he said. He sounded exhausted.

“Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia! Ha!” she laughed. “Bet you didn’t know that one.”

“Nope,” he said. “Someone take that bottle from her.”

“No!” she yelled. “It’s mine!”

He pushed. It squeezed.

“It’s the fear of long words, dummy,” she said. “Who’s the stupid one now?”

“Still you,” he said.

“Shut up!” She tried to smack him on the arm again but ended up dropping her bottle. Red wine spilled everywhere, and the void began to shake.

“I don’t think it likes that cheap ass wine,” Enrique said. This time the shaking didn’t stop.

“I can’t get through,” Henry said. He was pushing as hard as he could but making no headway. “Ce, come help me.”

I moved past Mag and lifted the mop. Together we tried pushing through, but the void wouldn’t give way. It kept shaking. Meanwhile, Mag had opened another bottle but instead of drinking it she was pouring it out. The shaking increased, becoming more turbulent.

“I’m gonna make it puke,” she laughed.

The void started to push us back, like it was swallowing, trying not to vomit. It started to contract again. Enrique’s receipt tape had ensured the void stayed mostly open behind us and I finally saw the brilliance of it. Thanks to him we wouldn’t be completely crushed.

“Enrique, bring that flashlight up here,” I said. “And, Mag, stop trying to make it puke.”

Enrique joined us and the three of us pushed forward. We should have been doing this all along, if we’d thought of it.

Mag didn’t listen to me and continued pouring alcohol out into the dark. The void responded, forcing us back.

“This is gonna work!” she said, pouring out another.

Everything shook and squeezed. We were being compressed. And it was lasting longer than a second or two now. I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t letting up and I thought for sure we were about to die. I could feel Henry next to me pushing as hard as he could. Mag was right up against my back. Enrique next to her. I could hear them gasping for air. I shoved as hard as I could next to Henry. It squeezed tighter. We were forced into each other. Henry dropped the extinguisher and put his arms around me. I could feel myself getting lightheaded from lack of oxygen. I let go of the mop and wrapped my arms around him, leaning into his chest. It squeezed again and Mag and Enrique were now involuntarily part of the hug. None of us could catch a breath. Enrique’s flashlight hit the ground, and everything went black. I was glad that in the end I was with people I loved. I put an arm around Mag and waited.

And, then, without warning, the void opened and we could see the outside. It gave one more violent shudder. Something seemed to explode around us, covering us in goo from the creature, and we were forced out into the early morning air.

“Hi ya, kids,” someone shouted.

I looked to my right and about half a block away Mrs. Parsons was waving at us, the sun coming up behind her. She was covered in slime, all five foot nothing of her, and holding a huge pair of hedge shears, wearing her after dinner windbreaker suit, which she wore for her evening strolls. I looked around and saw several other elderly people, all covered in slime, with varying garden tools, surrounding the jelly creature. It was a strange sight to behold.

“Huh,” Maggie said, “Looks like I got us out. Isn’t that paradoxical?”

“That’s not…” I laughed. It didn’t matter. And, then, suddenly Henry’s hand was in mine.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I didn’t lie. You’re still the coolest girl I’ve met.”

I looked up into his big, dumb eyes. He leaned over again and kissed me, and I forgot about jelly creatures, and Maggie, and being mad at him. And then the sound of fire trucks arriving broke the spell.

“Well, I suddenly realized I would need my car in the morning for my antiquing date with Bruce,” Mrs. Parsons told us after we joined up with her. “I tried to call Cecelia, but I couldn’t get through and I thought it was such a lovely summer night, I might as well walk to the mini mart.”

Mrs. Parsons was now sitting in a chair with a blanket wrapped around her and a cup in her hands. Paramedics had arrived. We’d all been given blankets and cups. Everyone was being checked out. While we waited for our turns to be examined, Mrs. Parsons told us her story.

“I saw it from several blocks away. But I had no idea what it was. I kept walking until I got close enough to see this huge jelly monster had somehow overtaken the mini mart and most of the block. Well, my first thought was for Cecelia. I didn’t know the rest of you were in there, but I knew I had to find a way to get her out. I knew exactly who I needed to call.” She took a sip from her cup. We were on the edge of our seats.

“Who?” asked Maggie. She was finally starting to sober up a bit.

“My gardening club,” Mrs. Parsons said in all seriousness.

“Why didn’t you call the cops?” she asked.

“The cops?” Mrs. Parsons laughed. “What were they gonna do? Shoot it? No, I needed people I could trust. So I called everyone in my gardening club and told them to bring their strongest and sharpest tools. Bruce brought me the hedge shears.” She held up the huge pair of shears so we could see them. “We went to town on the thing. I got it in a scissor hold! Like Monday Night Raw!”

“That’s not…” Henry laughed. “Thank you, Helen, you’re a bamf.”

I smacked Henry in the arm. “Don’t call Mrs. Parsons a bamf!”

Mrs. Parsons laughed, “Why not, Cecelia? I am a bad ass mother fucker.”

The End.

Recruitment Day: Give It Your All

Made a little zine today for a short story I wrote. Here’s the short story for ya. Enjoy.

Aggie was twelve the first time she was called into the recruiting office. Many of her peers had already been called once or twice. But Aggie didn’t possess the gifts that they did. And so she remained unchosen.

Each day she woke with only one hope in mind, to be called to recruiting. She was tired of being left behind. After all, why shouldn’t she take part in the grand ole tradition?

“It’s a beautiful day to be recruited. Don’t you think, Mother?”

“Yes, Aggie. But don’t be so eager. It’s not so terrible to not be chosen,” she would say. This always angered Aggie. Her mother had been recruited so many times now, she was practically sought after.

But the day it finally happened Aggie had not greeted her mother in her usual way. It was raining and she did not think it was a beautiful day. She went to school and sat through True History, Patriotism, and Prosthesis Care before her name was shouted over the intercom.

“Aggie Grey to the recruiting office. Aggie. Grey. Recruiting.”

At first, she thought she was daydreaming. She didn’t move from her seat until the boy next to her whispered, “Aggie…”

“Huh? George, did they really say my name?” she asked. George had an eye patch covering one eye and had to fully turn himself to face her.

“Yes! And you’d better go now.” Everyone was staring at her, including the teacher.

She scrambled out of her seat, tripping over her bag. Her hands shook and her breath caught in her chest.

She didn’t need anyone to show her the way to recruiting. She’d walked past it so many times by now wondering when she would finally be called. She’d imagined this day for so long now but in all of her daydreams she’d never expected to feel so small, so nervous. The walls seemed to bow in towards her as she walked, licking their lips and grinning as they threatened to swallow her up. Then just as her hand reached for the handle of the door, it swung open. Inside she was directed to a windowless office where Dr. Fischer, head of recruitment, sat waiting.

“So. Aggie Grey. This is your first time in recruiting, isn’t it?” he asked, looking over a file in his hand.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, I’m certain it won’t be your last time here. I can see from your file here that you have a lot of potential to benefit the Patriciate.”

“I hope so, Sir. It is truly an honor.”

He set the file on his desk and extended his good hand towards her. His left sleeve appeared to be hollow.

“I’m Dr. Fischer and I will be coordinating the procedure.”

She shook his hand.

“Sir…”

“You have a question?”

“Well, this is my first time. I’ve done all the reading on recruitment, of course. It’s part of our Patriotism class. But I still don’t really think I know what to expect.”

“You’re nervous, am I right? Everyone is nervous their first time. But you’ll get the hang of it.”

“Can I ask? What will be recruited from me?”

“Of course you can ask, Aggie. In fact, I’ll walk you through the entire process over the next hour or so and then you’ll be taken to medical. Does that sound ok?”

“Yes. Thank you. It seems silly to be nervous. I mean everyone goes through this, right?”

“Well, all of us plebeians do,” he laughed. “No one in the Patriciate has ever been recruited.”

Aggie laughed along with him. It felt good to laugh. It calmed her nerves. This was normal. Everyone went through this. Soon she’d be back with her classmates, just another one of them, having served dutifully.

“And in answer to your question, Aggie, we’ll be taking your eyes. Someone in the Patriciate liked their color so they’re replacing theirs with yours. You’ve gone over learning to live without sight in Prothesis Care, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Sir.”

The End.

Alternate Title: The Eyes of Aggie Grey.

Lingering

Here is a short story I wrote for my creative writing class last semester. Throughout the semester we would do short writing exercises in class. As part of our final project we had to expand one of those exercises into a short story of any length. This is what I came up with. I wrote the whole thing in a day and without much editing. It’s fun. Idk. I think it could be a lot better in a different format with heavy revisions but that’s not what you’re getting. Here’s what I turned in. This, along with the rest of my final project, received 100/100. Enjoy.

Lingering

Reporting: Whereabouts of Guardian Second Class Maleah Kempf

Name: Damian Ritter

Rank: Guardian Second Class

I have been asked to give my account of what happened to GSC Maleah Kempf. As I have repeatedly said, I will not tell you her whereabouts for her safety. But before I am tried and most likely sentenced to death, I will make this last confession. It is my hope that my words will be entered into the official record and prevent something like this from happening to anyone again. But I highly doubt it. I assume almost everything I write here today will be redacted and buried. That is why I am also sending copies of this to all major news outlets. And to my parents, if they are still alive. What follows is my account of my time in the corps. Guardian Corps, you brought this on yourselves.

This all started because of lingering.

When you access the mind of another – wander the corridors, peek into the various rooms – you can find yourself so immersed in their thoughts that you begin to make yourself at home. Spend enough time there and you become lost to yourself altogether. You never return to your own mind, a condition we call decampment. All guardians fear decampment. That is why we are rigorously trained in abstraction, a type of psychic distancing that takes years to fully master.

When you are conscripted into the Guardian Corps, you are given simple psychic tasks to practice at first, such as seeing – being able to see an object that is being shielded behind a barrier. It’s years before you are allowed to try breaching – accessing another’s mind. And this is done under supervision and with the other participant’s knowledge and consent. It has to be this way. Because being inside someone else’s mind is just as addictive as any illicit drug. Maybe more so. A breaching psychic not only risks decampment but also the mind they are accessing and the immediate high is too hard to resist without proper training.

However, no matter how many times you do it, or how good you become at abstraction, you will always have some lingering when you return to your own mind. Snippets of their thoughts and feelings. Flashes of their memories that can feel so real you start to believe they happened to you. Usually, you can shake the lingering within a few minutes. It might last for up to an hour. Rarely, but sometimes, it’ll last for days. Prolonged lingering is a cause for concern and has sent guardians to medical for observation. And for the wrong psychic lingering can become an addiction of its own.

I was conscripted into the Guardian Corps when I was three years old. I had already begun seeing on my own and when my abilities were discovered the corps sent officers to my home to inform my parents that I had been recruited into the corp. They were given ten minutes to pack my belongings and say goodbye.

All citizens are tested for psychic ability but typically not until they have reached school age. It’s a rite of passage for the primary grades. You learn to read and write, to do basic math. You’re tested for psychic abilities, you lose a tooth while playing during break, you color. Most children fail the test the first time. But they are tested yearly until around age nine when, experts agree, if psychic abilities have not been detected yet they are absent entirely. With the exception of Maleah, the other children recruited in the same year that I was were discovered this way. Maleah was four and had begun seeing as well. A babysitter noticed and turned her in. She was taken from her parents the next day. There were seven us recruited that year. The most the Guardian Corps had ever recruited in one year.

Maybe it was because we’d both been taken from our parents at such a young age or because neither of us had attended school, but whatever the reason, Maleah and I bonded and became our own little unit, separate from the others. Recruits from the same year are housed together in the same room. The Corps teaches that when we’re ready to defend our nation from outside attacks we will need to depend on each other. Strong bonds are encouraged. But Maleah and I struggled to bond with the others. We had each other and for a long time that seemed like all we’d need.

Mal and I easily mastered the simple tasks, much quicker than the others. This was another thing that separated us from the group. While they were still practicing seeing we were moving onto telekinesis, levitation, and suggestion. Our natural abilities outshone the others, and it wasn’t long before the rest of the group began to resent us.

Not having gone to school, we hadn’t been propagandized into believing the corps were the heroes of our nation. The other recruits had grown up believing to be chosen by the corps was one of the highest honors someone could receive. So watching two young naturals with little regard for the corps easily master the abilities they worked so hard to gain only caused them to hate us more. While the five of them grew closer and Maleah and I grew closer, the rift between us grew wider every day.

Breaching was not approved to be attempted until a recruit had mastered all of the basics and was at least fifteen years old. But an incident with the others in our group caused Mal and me to start practicing breaching in secret. We had already mastered the basics ten times over. But the age restriction kept us from starting the program. Maleah was thirteen. She still had two more years before they’d let her even attempt.

It happened one night after lights out. The others had just begun their telepathy training, which is different than breaching. With telepathy you simply send thoughts into another’s mind, you don’t enter it. We’d already mastered telepathy and so we’d often spend our nights silently talking to each other as the others fell asleep. We couldn’t stop ourselves from giggling out loud, however.

“Maleah, I swear to god, if you don’t stop that fucking giggling.” It was Lyssa. Lyssa was already sixteen, but she wasn’t anywhere near ready to try breaching. It seemed to frustrate her the most that the two youngest recruits outdid her in every discipline. That day she’d failed another test which might explain why she was so on edge and what happened next.

Maleah apologized.

“Sorry, Lyss. Won’t happen again.”

“Better not.”

“It won’t.”

But it did and it was my fault. I sent an image of a dinosaur with Lyssa’s face on it into Maleah’s mind and she laughed aloud. Lyssa sprung out of bed and physically launched herself at Mal, pummeling her repeatedly in the face. I threw myself at Lyssa, trying to shield Mal, but Lyssa was stronger than both of us.

Everyone was awake now and shouting for Lyssa to stop. Finally, Galen was able to pull her off of us. He forcefully walked her back to her bed and stayed with her until she calmed down. The rest of them went back to sleep. No one checked on Mal and me.

Mal’s face was heavily bruised and swollen the next day. So was my back. No one said a thing. Lyssa looked at Mal’s face and simply said, “Don’t you fucking say a thing.”

None of our teachers or commanders asked about the bruising. It wasn’t the first time we’d come to class in the morning with bruises. They knew there was enmity between us and the rest of the group. But acknowledging that and doing something about it could potentially endanger the program. There had been years, sometimes two or three at a time, when no psychics were recruited into the corps. Now, in one year they’d found seven. They couldn’t risk the program. Keeping five psychics together, advancing in the program, was far more important than protecting two misfits. Mal and I knew we could only count on each other. And we had to find a way to fight back.

We were both quite adept at suggestion. And we thought about using suggestion to influence the rest of the group to leave us alone. But we knew that was unlikely to work. All of us had been taught methods for resisting suggestion and even Lyssa was fairly skilled at it. Telepathy was out because they would detect it too quickly. After all, it is just a voice speaking in your mind. They would recognize it wasn’t their own thoughts right away. We finally landed on implanting. Implanting is a mid-level skill similar to suggestion but unlike suggestion, it requires the psychic to breach the mind of their target. Once inside, you implant a thought, like leaving an Easter egg. This works even if the target has resistance training because the implanted thought feels like it originated in their mind. Back in the physical world, the psychic simply has to trigger the implanted thought by saying a predetermined word or phrase. We began practicing breaching on each other the very next night.

As you can probably imagine, two novice psychics untrained in breaching practicing the skill secretly on each other did not go well. The concept was easy enough to grasp but executing it was difficult. And once we’d finally successfully breached, we encountered all of the issues I’ve previously stated. We risked decampment multiple times and were barely able to pull ourselves out. The high we got from breaching only added to the problem, causing us to want to breach as often as possible. But it was lingering that finally got us caught.

Mal had such a bad episode of lingering that I became concerned and forced her to go to medical. I had hoped we could play it off as something else, but the nurse recognized the look on Maleah’s face almost immediately. I begged her not to report us, but she had no choice. I was sure this was the end for Mal and me. I was wrong.

Though it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, when the corps learned that Maleah and I had successfully taught ourselves to breach and were able to pull ourselves out without the exhaustive abstraction training guardians receive, they decided the only logical next step was to fast track us in the breaching program. We would become the two youngest psychics to move up to Guardian Second Class in corps history.

Everything changed. We were moved to new quarters. We no longer had to worry about being bullied by Lyssa and the others. We were to be protected and mentored. We’d meet other GSCs and train with them. We were no longer just two misfits no one cared about. We were now the stars of the Guardian Corps.

Our training was accelerated, and it wasn’t long before we’d both mastered abstraction and the breaching process. The corps was, of course, thrilled and decided it was time for us to receive our first targets. Real targets.

Breaching requires the psychic to have some kind of access to their target. Otherwise you might wander into the mind of someone you didn’t know halfway across the globe and never return. Physical proximity was best. The corps got around this by giving guardians detailed information about their targets along with an image. This helped us find the specific mind we were meant to enter, even if that mind was in another country.

At first our assignments were simple enough. Our targets were low-level government employees in one of our allied countries. We were tasked with retrieving passwords. Get in, find the password, get out. Lingering was minimal. We didn’t know why we needed these passwords, but we felt proud of our work. We were doing something important, serving our country. It was the first time either of us felt any kind of allegiance to the corps.

After a while our targets changed. We were no longer targeting allies but enemies. Passwords were simply appetizers. Secrets became the entrée. Finding secrets in a breached mind isn’t as easy as you might think. People don’t want secrets to come to light so they bury them, even from themselves. We were spending more and more time in the minds of others, and it began to take its toll.

Maleah became more and more susceptible to lingering. When a secret was difficult to find it meant staying in the mind of the target longer, which typically led to longer episodes. Mal was spending more and more time in medical. Worried, I went to our commanding officer to ask if she could be put on something else for a while so she could recover. I have to admit Mal was better at breaching than I was. She was advancing quickly and they weren’t about to bench their MVP. The answer was a resounding no.

The day came when Mal’s targets outranked mine. She was moved to a new group while I stayed behind. We only saw each other at night. And by the time we were together she was so exhausted I just held her while she slept. Then one day she came and found me in the middle of an exercise.

I was wandering the halls of some bureaucrat’s mind looking for a mistress or embezzlement, something the corps could use against her, when suddenly Mal was standing there in front of me. She’d looked at my target’s information and breached her mind as well. Now, we were standing in some poor woman’s mind who lived thousands of miles away, having a private conversation.

“Oh my god, Mal, what are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry if I scared you Damian, but I need to talk to you. Privately,” she said.

“Ok? But couldn’t this have waited until tonight? This can’t be safe for us or the target.”

“No, Dame. It had to be now. Something’s wrong. I think I’m in danger.”

“What? What’s going on, Maleah?”

“I don’t know. But I found something out that I wasn’t supposed to.”

And then she was gone. She’d left the target’s mind just as suddenly as she’d entered. I disengaged the target and focused on Mal. Telepathy only works in short range but Mal had to be somewhere in the facility. I didn’t know where she’d been assigned but I could at least send her a message. No answer. If Mal had received my message, she wasn’t responding. I tried to home in on her location but I couldn’t pinpoint her. I was worried. I decided to try breaching. I wouldn’t be able to communicate with her directly while wandering her mind but I could try to implant a message with no trigger. But when I tried to enter her mind, I found the way in blocked. This meant only one thing. Maleah was being shielded.

Shielding technology is rare. And the process for its manufacture is such a closely guarded secret that not much is known about it. What is known is that only top government officials have access to it. Most of them wear specially designed shielded hoods. I had only run into one shielded mind before on an assignment. When I spoke with my commander about it I was immediately pulled from the assignment and forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement about what I knew. Whatever Mal had discovered was big.

I didn’t see her that night. Or the next day. She was just gone. I went to my commanding officer, but he refused to give me any information. I went through all the proper channels, but no one would tell me where my best friend had gone. I decided it was time to do something desperate. I needed to start breaching new targets. I needed to enter the minds of my commanding officers if I was going to find Mal.

I won’t detail for you everything I found here. All of that information is in a separate document that’s already been sent to the major news outlets. I will say my direct commander knew a lot less than he pretended to. In fact, all the commanding officers I breached seemed to only know a piece of the puzzle. Eventually I was able to put enough pieces together to learn where they were holding Mal.

They’d taken Maleah to a shielded facility, the only one of its kind. Whatever she’d learned was too important for anyone to find out. I wondered why they hadn’t just killed her if what she’d learned was that significant, but I suspected a psychic as advanced as Mal was too valuable to kill. What I needed now was a way to get in.

This meant gathering more information. I continued my assault on the commanding officers, breaching them as often as I dared. I had to be careful to also complete the assignments I was given so no one would suspect what I was up to. Each day for several weeks, I’d report to my commanding officer and receive that day’s target. I’d enter the soundproof cubicle I’d been assigned and begin my day. To anyone observing it would look as though I was breaching the mind of my target, when in fact I was searching the minds of the people all around me. At some point in the day I would spend just enough time in my assigned target’s mind to fake a report for my commander. But the rest of my time was devoted to learning everything I could about the shielded facility.

Because the facility was so heavily guarded, it was nearly impossible for anyone to break in. I knew there had to be a weak link somewhere though. I just had to find it. The guards and other staff at the facility all had psychic resistance training. They might not have been psychics themselves, but they were prepared for attack. It would be difficult to find a weak link among them. The answer came one day when I breached the mind of a shipping clerk. I was trying to learn more about the security level of the shipments the facility received. I discovered that once weekly a shipment of fresh food was delivered. Most of what was shipped in was controlled by the corps, but the food was supplied by a local vendor. And though the vendor had undoubtedly received resistance training as well, they were not part of the corps and would likely be more susceptible and easier to break. I decided to plan my attack for the next scheduled delivery.

The night of the next delivery I snuck out of my quarters. I had implanted a trigger in the mind of our night guard and used it to get outside. I’d never left the base before. I’d been a prisoner of the corps for thirteen years and I certainly couldn’t drive. So I suggested to another guard that he give me a ride to the vendor’s. We arrived at the vendor’s warehouse shortly after 2:00 a.m. I suggested he return to the base and forget the events of the evening. He drove away and I waited.

My intel told me the vendor would be loading their truck around this time. I just needed to get eyes on the driver and hope his resistance training was weak. I made contact and, to my relief, found that the driver was very suggestible. I was able to convince him that I was just another valued employee here to help with the delivery. At first, he found this odd. Typically, once the truck was loaded, he made the delivery alone. The corps would unload the truck while he waited. But I suggested that I was new and learning how the delivery worked in case he ever needed backup. He bought it and a few of my other suggestions. He gave me the uniform I’d misplaced that morning and helped me find my lost name badge. We joked about how forgetful I was. I had my in with the vendor. Now, I just needed to make it into the facility.

My first real challenge came when we arrived. My name wasn’t on the list. Or at least the name on the badge the driver had helped me find.

But he vouched for me.

“This is Luigi. He’s helping me today. He’s good.”

“He’s not on the list.”

“That’s because he’s new. I’m training him.”

“He needs to be vetted. We can’t let him in.”

“That’s bull crap and you know it. It says in the contract that we can bring in new employees to help deliver if we need to. Luigi here is needed.”

“I don’t know…”

I wasn’t going to get in. The driver was convinced but the guard wasn’t buying it. I decided I needed to try something risky. I projected an image of the guard getting fired because he wouldn’t let us in into his mind. If his resistance training was good he’d know that image had come from a psychic source and I’d be caught. If not though…

“Ok, he can come in. But he needs to be on the list next time.”

It worked. I was in.

We drove to a dock door where the truck could be unloaded. I just needed to find an excuse to get out of the truck and go into the building.

“I’m gonna stretch my legs a bit,” I told the driver.

I walked to the back of the truck and watched the corps unload. Then I saw my opportunity. A crate of oranges rested on top of a stack of boxes. I used telekinesis to make it appear the box had fallen due to poor stacking methods. Oranges spilled everywhere, rolling off the truck and onto the ground. The corps unloading the truck ran to pick them up. I sent the driver a message suggesting he wait there until I returned with another valued employee and slipped into the building.

Once inside it was easy enough to find Mal. We were both behind the shield now and I could home in on her location. I sent her a message telepathically, but she didn’t respond. It didn’t matter. She was alive and I could sense her now. I would find her.

I moved through the building as stealthily as possible. During my intel gathering I had come across a few partial floorplans lodged deep in staff members’ minds. I’d committed as much of the layout to memory as I could. I made my way to the room where they were keeping Mal hoping I wouldn’t run into anyone. After all it was the middle of the night and most of the staff would be in bed. I was surprised to find no guard standing outside of Mal’s door. When I went into her room I quickly discovered why. Mal was lying in a hospital bed, an I.V. hooked to her arm, keeping her sedated. Her other arm was handcuffed to the bed. They didn’t need to guard her.

I looked around the room for anything I could use to transport her. In an odd stroke of luck there was a wheelchair in the corner. I imagine so they could trot her out when needed. I unhooked the I.V. and helped Mal into the chair. Somehow, we made it back through the building without getting caught. The corps were finished unloading the truck when we arrived, and I was able to wheel her into the back of the truck and escape.

I was able to get Maleah somewhere safe. I won’t tell you where. When we were making our escape I managed to steal one of the hoods the corps was using on her. She will remain shielded for the rest of her life and you will never find her. She is recovering but it will be a long time before she is herself again. When she did finally regain her senses, she was able to tell me a bit of what happened to her. But you, Guardian Corps, already know what happened to her. It’s the rest of the world that needs to know.

When Maleah was moved up in the program, she was moved onto a project that had been going on for over seventy years or so. She was no longer targeting high ranking government officials. No, now she was part of a group targeting the civilian population of our own country. It was this group’s assignment to influence the population, spread misinformation, and keep the citizens fighting each other in culture wars rather than seeing what their own government was doing to them. Of course, Mal didn’t know this was what she was doing at first. She believed she was targeting our nation’s enemies. But when she learned the truth about what she and the others were doing she became deeply concerned. She went to her commanding officer and was given a line about keeping our nation pacified so that a civil war didn’t break out. She worried that what they were doing was wrong. She thought people had a right to know the truth about their government. She also realized, a little too late, that she was never meant to learn the truth about the project. That was the day she came to me and disappeared.

They threw a shielded hood over her head and rushed her off to the facility. They told her she needed some time to come around to the corps’ way of thinking. After all, a psychic as valuable as her would be a much better ally than enemy. In the weeks I spent looking for her, they were keeping her sedated for much of the day, then wheeling her into a room for reprogramming. She was psychically bombarded day after day. But her resistance training was strong, and she was able to stay herself for the most part.

After I got Mal someplace safe and learned the truth, I knew I had to do something. Guardian Corps are not heroes defending our nation from the psychic attacks of our enemies. The corps are the ones doing the attacking. They are the enemy. I came back to share this information with the world. It is my sincere hope that my trial will open everyone’s eyes to what has been going on right under their noses all this time.

You have all been lied to. They don’t want you to know the truth because then you might fight for your rights. Your right to healthcare, housing, food. If you believe the enemy is out there somewhere plotting against us, you won’t see the enemy staring you right in the face. You, the citizens of our nation, are the real target of the corps. They want you complacent and fighting each other. That’s the real goal of Guardian Corps. It’s time to wake up. Time to fight for our rights and stop trusting a system that is killing us. May my trial and death become the wake-up call of a nation.

End of Report.