Monthly Archives: July 2017

Fantasy

The Cowardly Dragonslayer

After drinking all evening, it had sounded like a great idea. Charles had come off duty earlier in the evening and he still had his sword on him. The rest of them were only in their evening wear. It did not matter. They were just going to sneak up to the Dragon’s Lair and take a peek at the slumbering beast everyone said was there.

They bought an extra round of mead from the bar, jumped on their horses and road just out of town to the entrance to Hollow Mountain where the dragon apparently hibernated for centuries at a time.

The guard protecting the place was fast asleep, so it was not hard to get past him. In fact, as they snuck by, Charles drew a penis on his face with soot from his pipe. They all giggled and kept on going. Clattering down the rock steps, echoes reaching deep inside, they drunkenly crept deeper into the old dwarven ruins cut into the mountain. Occasionally, they would stop for a drink and then shush each other when one of them dropped something. Someone would say a joke, and then they would burst out laughing and begin stomping further into the old ruins.

They were in the middle of a moment like this when the world exploded into a bestial roar. The ground shook and the air vibrated with dust rising up from everything. Charles’ blood froze and he heard himself whimper.

The moments after this are all a jumbled blur of images: they ran to the surface as the world continued to roar and shake, they burst outside, the guard at the entrance was gone, the sky was lit up with fire. He remembered screams next to him as fire consumed his two of his friends, his other friend torn to pieces. A great scaled beast of his nightmares flew over them, roaring. He had his sword in his hand, but the thought to use it did not even cross his mind. Shrieking, he fell backward as the scaled monster descended upon him and, suddenly, he was covered in a hot, wet, sticky substance.

Blood!

He opened his eyes and saw the dragon’s monstrous maw up close. Inches from his face, it was frozen in a snarl as the light left its eyes. Below its face and curled neck, his sword was stuck through its chest, its life blood pumping out over him. It had impaled itself on his upright weapon! Charles felt the pressure release, but it was not the weight of the dragon that had shifted. No, he had pissed himself, and the warmth in his pants met the lifeblood pumping out over him.

The beast’s weight began to slump down. It was crushing him, forcing the air out of his lungs and this was probably the only thing that stopped him screaming. But, suddenly, there was a hand pulling him out from under the monster. It was the guard from the entrance. He had come back. Charles could still see a smudge of the penis he had drawn on the guard’s face, but there was something else there too: admiration.

***

“All hail, Sir Charles Knowles, the Dragonslayer!” announced someone and trumpets blasted out to the crowd’s surging roar.

Charles stepped up from where he had been kneeling on the balcony. He was a bit embarrassed. The King turned to the crowd and repeated what had just been said: “All hail, Sir Charles Knowles, the Dragonslayer of Hollow Mountain!”

Under this royal palace’s ceremonial balcony, hundreds if not thousands of common people were gathered. They looked happy, shouting and waving. Charles felt embarrassed. He also felt hungover. All he could think of was how he had pissed himself and wanted to cry. He was no dragonslayer. But, because all his friends were dead or missing, it was his word against the Hollow Mountain guard’s word, and it just seemed silly to argue about something like that.

And then everyone had just gotten caught up in this story. Apparently, the dragon had been terrorizing the kingdom for centuries. Apparently, there was a reward for killing it. And, suddenly, he found himself the King’s personal guard and being knighted in public for his “service”…

Charles–Sir Charles Knowles, he quickly reminded himself–looked around. Everyone was smiling at him. Everyone loved him. The King handed him a glass of wine. He toasted the crowd and they cheered him on.

He could get used to this, he thought. The wine tasted good and he could feel his hangover lessening. He smiled and toasted the crowded again. The King slapped his back, laughing. He took another sip of the fine wine. He could definitely get used to this.

***

The sickly, pale light in the cavern just served to emphasize its vileness. From piles of bones and rotting corpses to fungus growing on the walls.

Sir Charles Knowles did not feel brave. What was he doing here? He was not brave or courageous. He was no knight. But he had accepted all the perks of his position and now, when a new monster emerged, he was going to die for that. That, and the lie about slaying the dragon.

As he crept deeper into the giant’s lair, he realized that he had become a prisoner of his own lie. There was no way out.

Suddenly, a pile of bones erupts and a hand the size of him shot out at him. He instinctively jumped back, shrieking and slashed at it with his blade. He drew blood and the pile of bones and corpses stood up roaring. The giant was wearing his previous victims as clothing! Charles wanted to puke. He was going to die!

Suddenly, he was angry. If he was going to die for some stupid lie after a silly night of drinking, he was going to fucking do so on his own terms!

The giant roared at him, the walls vibrating. Charles snarled and ran at him, slashing wildly in front of himself. His blade sliced cleanly through the lumbering giant’s knee. Its massive form dropped down a level, and Charles stabbed blindly, screaming upwards into its murderous, roaring face.

Blood!

A low, growling breath left the giant as the blood poured out of its gaping wound in its head. Charles’ blade had slid through it jaw and into its brain. He pulled out his sword and stepped back. The giant’s blood and some gray matter poured out of the gaping wound, as it collapsed forward into a pile of corpses, itself now a corpse.

Charles fell to his knees, his sword slipped from his grasp and clinking impotently on the ground. He was shaking and wanted to cry. He lurched forward, puking on the ground.

It was at this moment that Sir Charles Knowles realized that he was not a prisoner of his lie. Prisoners did not have to go and fight monsters. No, Sir Charles Knowles, the Dragonslayer, his lie owned him and he was now a slave to it.

***

When everyone had left the room, Sir Charles Knowles reached out and took his wife’s hand. She smiled, sadly, down at him in bed. He loved her so much.

“My love,” he started, but then succumbed to a fit of coughing. She let him finish, before wiping the blood away and kissing him on the cheek. “My love,” he started again, though he could feel death rattling around inside his lungs, “I love you so much, and you have given me three of the most beautiful children a man could want. I am not going to live much longer and I cannot die knowing that I have lied to you all these years.”

Holding his hand, but he could feel her hesitate. She was confused at where he was going with this, but he knew–for both her sake and his soul–that he needed to continue.

“I–I am not the brave, courageous knight that you think I am,” he pushed forward, tears coming to his eyes and his hands starting to shake, “I am a coward, and I do not deserve you. All those years ago, I did not set out to slay that dragon. We broke into the Hollow Mountain as a bunch of drunken louts and, in the chaos as the dragon woke up, I fell with my sword out and the dragon merely fell on top of me. Everything else from there had been just a lie built on a lie, to protect that lie…”

His voice faded out. The tears were openly running down his cheeks now, as they were running down hers too. He hoped she did not leave him. He hoped that she did not take the children and leave him for his last hours to die alone. But, at least now, he was no longer a slave to the lie. At least now he was free.

She leaned down and kissed him gently, her tears mingling with his.

“My love,” she began, squeezing his hand, “My love, you are the silliest man I have ever met.”

He was confused, and he suspected his look gave it away as she laughed gently at him.

“Did you or did you not kill the Dragon of Hollow Mountain?” she asked him.

“I did, but–” and she cut him off.

“Intentions aside, you did kill it,” and she continued, “and then you went on to kill the Giant of Bone Cavern, Yes? Yes, you did. And then you went on to protect the King from numerous assassins, and then you went on to fight in the Seven Day Siege, and then you went on to win my heart, look after me and give me my beautiful family while being the best husband a wife could ever want. These are all true.”

“Yes, but I–”

She cut him off again with her look. Squeezed his hand, leaned down and kissed him and stood up to walk to the door. Just before opening it and calling the family back into the room, she turned around and said:

“Those are all true. You may not have started out as the bravest man alive, my love, but who does? But, each day you have gotten up and done your best. Being brave is not about never feeling fear. No, being brave is about overcoming that fear that you feel. And you have won that battle time and time again. Even now, you fought fear and won. I love you, you silly man, but sometimes you really are silly.”

Sir Charles Knowles smiled and nodded. He wiped away his tears and flung out his arms to embrace his children as they ran back into the room. His wife was right, he knew, but he was mostly just relieved that his family was not going to abandon him in his last hours.

Fantasy, General Fiction

Dangerous Playgrounds

When all was said and done, he still felt shitty about the whole thing. He knew he was saving the world, but he was also stealing, hiding and sneaking all around. He alone carried the Orb, hiding it from the Dark Lord. This burden was so heavy that only a few close friends in class could he share this with. But they had all just looked at him like he was crazy, and so he stopped telling people. Not even his family knew what was in his school bag, and he began realizing that he was all alone.

In fact, he woke up one morning and realized that he had pretty much stopped talking altogether.

He ate his cereal, drank his orange juice and packed his lunch into his school bag. It was in there, staring cold and metallic right back at him. He waved goodbye at his mom and dad. He was not sure if they saw him. He had been carrying the Orb for so long, perhaps, that he had gotten just a little too good at sneaking around.

The school bus picked him up outside their house. It was yellow, like an elemental of light. He sat right at the back. He felt safe inside the bus. But, all too soon, that bus drive was over and he had to walk into school. This was the most dangerous moment each day. He felt so vulnerable out here. The crowds of kids and noise swarmed around him on the playground. Enemies could attack from any angle, but he would not see them coming. The Dark Lord’s assassins could shoot any arrow into his back or sneak a snake along the ground to bite him…

He started walking then running and, eventually, he was sprinting across the playground to get inside. His heart was pounding in his chest. He ran past a group of girls and heard them giggle. He had to get to the library or the toilet, somewhere small, safe and hidden.

And then the bell went.

He felt the assassin’s arrow wing by his ear. A soft and deadly whoooosh. The Sun darkened a bit and the world suddenly slowed down. They knew where he was. His legs felt like lead. He could not move. He was screaming inside. Screaming. He had to move. He alone carried the Orb, hiding it from the Dark Lord…

In this moment, he knew what to do.

He was nearly inside the school building, but he turned around. The playground was moving inside, throngs of shuffling kids were all slowly walking inside. The Dark Lord was always out there somewhere and his assassins were hidden in the trees, under the bushes, and in the crowd.

He was done running. He was done hiding and carrying this secret all alone. He was done being silent and scared. He was done saving the world and being pushed in front of in the cafeteria queue or having his food stolen.

He flipped his bag around in front of him. He unzipped it and reached inside the inside apartment, where the Orb was hidden. It was cold and metallic. It always felt heavier than he expected. He was ready for a fight. He knew there was no going back, but he also knew that this was all that he could do.

He took the Orb out of the bag and held it before him.

Everything was silent for a moment, and then the kids started screaming.

***

The TV news flashed to the onsite reporter. It was a lady with blonde hair, touching her earpiece and currently wearing a confused, surreal expression.

“Thanks, Bill,” she began speaking, her tone of voice just a little too high pitched, “Uhm, yes, I am at Weatherly’s Highschool. Behind me the paramedics are dealing with the injured kids–two school teachers and a bus drive are all hurt as well. At this stage, we do not think that there were any casualties, but the extent of the chaos has also made any detailed accounts uncertain.”

She smiles and turns to her right. The camera pans to a police sergeant’s face.

“Captain Reynolds,” the reporter introduces him, “You were first on scene. Can you please describe what exactly happened here?”

The police officers looks at her and then the camera. He hesitates, his eyes wide open. A sirens blasts in the background as red and blue lights flash through the scene.

“Uhm, Ma’am, I–I’ll tell you what I radio’ed in…” he begins, talking slowly, but then it all begins to pour out, “The kids were all running away from this other kid. You know, the school shootings. They are terrible, and so I am thinking I must stop this. But there is this light and then things are attacking. Things. You know, like those sort of things you see out of the corner of eyes at the bottom of the garden late at night, but you never tell anyone about them because they won’t believe you. Those things. They attacked. And this kid, standing right up on the steps has this thing, this other thing, in his hand. Light and stuff! And, and, and…”

The policeman runs out of words and his voice fades away. He nods at the bewildered reporter, and reporter turns back to the camera to conclude her report.

“And there we have it, Bill. Weatherly’s Highschool was attacked today. While this remains speculation, the immediate threat has been resolved. But, and I cannot stress this enough, the Dark Lord still remains undefeated and lurking out there, just in reach of our nightmares. What is he looking for? Why won’t he leave us alone? Who knows. Right back to you, Bill.”

And then the TV cuts back to the studio.

Science Fiction, Technomology

Technomology: The Wizard

His hands never shook. It was something to do with bootlegging the Conduit in his brain throughout his body. The Conduit allowed him permanent mental access to the Web. That was not remarkable. Everyone with a Conduit had that. But, bootlegging the Conduit meant that he could ‘Deep Dive’ without needing a physical jack and while maintaining consciousness.

Imagine being able to dream on demand with your eyes open, and those around you could be affected by that dream? He was the Wizard of Oz, but instead of the Emerald City, he had the dual mental states of Surface and Deep Web.

The couple sitting in front of him was wide-eyed as he told them things that they thought he could never know: how she had cried after the baby had died, and how he had grown disassociative and run too many escapism apps through his Conduit. He sat before them while he slipped through big data fields, flicking out search algorithms and stalking through their app setups. He lifted his hand up to trawl through some files while, in front of the couple, his physical hand moved in mystical patterns in the air. He stopped at the file he was looking for, and his physical hand stopped moving too. He was both sitting in this dim room with the couple, and standing next to blazing encrypted databases that were whispering secrets into his ears.

“When you leave here, you will see a planetary shuttle. Get on it and go where it is going. Be open to new experiences, but close the door on old ones. Drink the tea and eat the biscuit, before the wine. Do not be scared of being scared and, Jenny, don’t worry, you will soon get what you want,” the last part almost made him laugh, it was his winning formula. Humans were never as unique or different as they liked to think. He briefly wondered if he still considered himself human? He could not actually remember ever being one anymore.

The lady gasped and the man leaned back, wide-eyed. They paid their Units and then they left.

They would catch that planetary shuttle. It was going to New Paris where they would wander before finding a hotel. While in the Deep Web, he had embedded a geo-trigger into their Conduits that would go off in any hotel. It was a minor hack but socially engineered for an optimal response. Its notification would get the hotel to bring them a certain tea that helped circulation and libido while the sugar biscuit made sure that they were not too tired and the wine helped ease inhibitions…

The rest was biology; she was due to start ovulating mid-flight.

It was not magic that he sold them, it part digital sleight-of-hand, part psychology and–if he admitted it to himself–also part showmanship.

As they walked out the door, he turned around to stare at a blank wall. Had he ever been born? He found himself wondering… He could feel data flowing by him, but the cold, blank wall allowed his biological eyes to look at something real and kept his mind from Deep Running away in the Web.

***

“Wiz, hey, Wiz, you still with us,” a gruff voice penetrated his consciousness and slowly the flowing lights and oceans of data streams receded into a blank wall in a square room with a noisy aircon rattling in the corner.

“Yessss,” he breathed out, his bodily functions appeared to have run sufficiently on the apps while he zoned out, “Yes, I am.”

He stood and turned around. His assistant, Luke, was there. Actually, Luke was more a caretaker and a salesman, actually. He needed someone around him that dealt with frustrating Slow World and kept him from falling fully into the Quick World of data.

“Right, what do we have next?” he asked, sensing the answer already.

“Uh, Wiz, well there is a couple–” his assistant answered before he cut him off.

“Show them in,” he said, already scanning the data stream outside, he could see their Conduits, which led to their names, and back into their entire lives…

***

Luke closed the door behind the couple and walked outside for a smoke. The Wizard’s apartment was just outside of the center of town and overlooked a river that flowed by. He liked the view, but mostly he just found the inside of that apartment bare, boring and mildly depressing.

How could a guy do that to himself? Luke would never understand, but then again he supposed that the guy did not actually do it to himself.

A flashing light and soft ping in his brain’s simulation of the inner ear told him that he was being called. It was the office. He pulled on his smoke and then flicked it off the roof, before thinking to answer the call and his Conduit did the rest.

“Luke, what’s the status?” his superior’s voice streamed straight into his cortex.

“The Wiz’s working an appointment, we had another one earlier this morning,” Luke paused and took out another cigarette, thank god cancer was cured he thought, “Uh, that’s bout it.”

There was a grunt of acknowledgment on the other side of the line. Luke could hear the faint crackle of encryption on the line. The office was getting increasingly paranoid these days.

“Right, when he’s done with the couple, bring him in. We have a job for him.”

Luke grunted confirmation and the office hung up. He finished his cigarette and, through the window, saw the couple leaving the room. They looked shocked. The woman was crying and the man was almost holding her up. The appointment must have gone well.

He flicked the cigarette off the roof. It was time to get the Wizard to the Boss. After all, the Boss owned the Wizard and all the hardware they had put in him. The Boss had owned the Wizard ever since the Wizard had owed the Boss money.

Luke walked back inside the apartment and inside the Wizard’s bare room. The Wizard was sitting with his back to the door staring at the blank wall again. Why did he do that, Luke wondered? Drunk on perma-data like some cheap data-junkie, Luke thought. But, at least it made him easy to transport, as Luke slipped a sedative out of his pocket and readied it for injection into the Wizard’s neck.

“I bet you regret owing the mafia money, eh Wiz?” Luke muttered, “But then again, you probably don’t even remember after the memory whipe, eh, do you?”

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction, Romance

Court of the Sunflower King

The Sunflower King sat on his cold throne of petals brooding. The shadows in his Court were growing long and the Sun was nearly set. Everyone was gone. They were always gone. He thought he could smell the kitchens firing and hear the clink of glasses being set out in the garden. In an age long gone, he had married a beautiful Sidhe princess under the maple and the Midsummer Sun. Her throne now sat empty next to him. But, once a year on the Midsummer night, she appeared by him again.

“My dear, how the time has flown. What have we left to do?”

He closed his eyes tight shut for a moment, but then turned and looked at the throne next to him. She–his Queen Cereus–was sitting there as beautiful as the day he had married her. Suddenly the Court was full of people, bustle, sound and light again.

“Yes, my love, the time has flown. We have the banquet to attend.”

The real curse was not that she was taken from him nor that she reappeared once a year making it impossible for him to let go of her. No, the real curse was that if he told her about the curse, she would never come back. The fragile spell that brought her back to his Court once a year would shatter and the darkness that had cursed her would take her forever. And he would be forever alone sitting in his empty throne.

“Banquet? I do not recall a banquet, my dear?” Queen Cereus asked frowning. She shivered involuntarily but did not seem to notice.

The Sunflower King smiled and reached out and squeezed her hand–it had been a year since he had touched her! “It is a surprise, my love, a surprise just for you.” It always was.

***

“What a beautiful Sunrise, my dear,” Queen Cereus said, her head nestled in the Sunflower King’s shoulder. They were sitting atop the highest spire’s peak overlooking the grand entrance of the Sun. The blood red sky was breaking into other colours as a golden fire began to touch the horizon.

“Yes, my love, what a beautiful night,” the Sunflower King breathed, his arms suddenly empty.

He was alone at the peak of the highest spire in his castle overlooking his Kingdom. Queen Cereus was gone and would be gone for another year. His Court would be empty again.

He let his arm drop to his side and he sat in silence and watched as the ball of glowing fire burnt the start of the next year into the sky. It would be a long, lonely year again.

***

The Sunflower King could not remember how long this had gone on for, but over the years he began a conversation. Each annual appearance of his Queen when his Court was full and they held a banquet, he would try to get her to remember.

He could not tell her that she was cursed. He remembered the witches curse clearly. But, he could get her to remember this for herself.

“Do you remember where you were yesterday?” he would inquire between mouthfuls of nectar wine while the Court musicians played.

“Oh, my dear, I-I was here with you,” the Queen would reply, each time elaborating just a little more as something inside her began to get dislodged, “Didn’t we have a banquet too? We have too many banquets, my dear, we should do something else in the evening, don’t you think?”

Each year each time, he got just a little more of an answer from her.  But then, the Sun rose, she left and the Court, draped in shadows and loneliness, was empty for another year. He would spend his time waiting, watching the sunrises and sunsets on his own again while planning how to get her to remember. Nothing else existed.

***

“Do you remember where you were yesterday?” he asked, holding her hand tightly as they both sipped their nectar wine. The Court was full and the musicians were playing a particularly soft, dreamy piece of music.

“Oh, my dear, I was here with you,” the Queen answered, yet more convincingly, and then she turned her head and looked directly at him, “No… No, you weren’t, my dear. Where were you yesterday?”

This was a new line of conversation. He had never gone down this road before. Gazing at him with her beautiful eyes wide open, she involuntarily shivered again.

“My love, I was right here sitting on my throne and waiting for you in our Court,” he said slowly and deliberately.

“No, my dear, you weren’t. I was in the Court and talking to the Elders. They were saying–” the Queen tilted her head to the side like she was trying really hard to remember and her eyes moistened, “They were saying that I should consider remarrying because you were gone and not coming back. I don’t want to remarry, my dear, I love you. I love you so much.”

The Sunflower King was confused. This was not what he had expected. The curse had obviously confused her.

“But, my love, I am not gone. You–you are–” he paused, he could not bring himself to say it or risk breaking the enchantment, “I sit all year long in the empty Court and I only get to see you once on the midsummer night’s full moon.”

The Queen’s face wrinkled in confusion. Or was it sorrow? Her eyes were wet and the Sunflower King suddenly had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“But, my dear, it is not midsummer night’s full moon tonight,” she pointed up and suddenly the Sunflower King saw it, “it is All-Hallow’s Eve on Samhain. You are the Sun while I am the Moon. You are the Day while I am the Night. And, you can speak with the living while I can speak with the dead on such a magical night like this…”

The Queen let her voice trail out. She was looking intently at him and, in fact, the whole Court had grown quiet. Even the musicians had stopped and everyone was looking at the Sunflower King. Slowly he began to remember and realise.

He remembered how beautiful his Queen was on the day of their wedding. But he also remembered how the wicked witch had appeared in their midst and he had struck out with his blade to defend his love.

Then he realised why his Court was always so empty. Why his Court was always in shadows and his sunrises and sunsets were always alone.

“I-I am dead,” the Sunflower King breathed, suddenly hearing the echoey sound of his voice from the grave.

“Yes, my love,” Queen Cereus said, looking at the pale apparition of her former husband before her, its light flickered and she saw its face contort in pain, a tear rolled down her cheek, “Yes, my love, you died defending me, but you need to move on and go to the Summerlands. I will find you there. My love will guide me.”

For the last time, the Sunflower King looked at his Queen Cereus. A single ghostly tear ran down his face and disappeared. He began to speak, but his image was fading fast and all the Queen heard through her own tears was:

“I miss you, my love. I just miss you so much…”

Romance

Heart Graffiti

When she was fifteen, a boy in her class kissed her. He had brown hair. They snuck around the bottom of the sports fields and kissed. The boy smelt like the cafeteria pie that he had eaten earlier, but she did not mind. It was naughty, and she liked it. The bell rang, and they ran back to class to tell all their friends about their secret.

In the later years, she would not only forget much of the detail of this moment, but she would embellish it for effect.

***

After his parents died, he moved in with his grandparents. They lived elsewhere, so he had to change schools and friends. He cried a lot in those days.

His grandparents were nice, but also doddery old people. Their pension had been damaged in the recession, so both of them had part-time jobs to make ends meet. The housekeeper came to tidy things up occasionally, but mostly there was no one around.

After school, he had to either hang around an empty school ground or walk for miles to get home. It was while walking home that he got to know someone who he should not have. What he thought was a friend touched him where he did not want to be touched. It made him uncomfortable and embarrassed all at the same time, but he did not know what to do.

No one found out, but people come and go, and life moves on. He kept rounding his memories of this part of his life down until they reached fractions of the original. He knew his abuse was not his own fault and, sometimes, in the quiet, long hours of the night, he wondered how it may have affected him. But, most of the time, he spent not thinking about it.

Thus, in later years, he would forget much of the detail of these moments, and let the noise of his life drown out the rest of them.

***

As she went through school, she called a couple of boys by the title ‘boyfriend’. But her first real one was in college. They met accidentally, dated haphazardly and then she intentionally lost her virginity to him.

He had dark hair, a quick laugh and an accute way of thinking about things. She did not quite know why she was attracted to him, but she felt comfortable around him.

Young love is difficult. Changes happen so fast at that age and, within two years, they had drifted apart as the fighting grew worse. He was getting into different things than her and she was becoming more interested in her career in finance and her friends and clubs.

Years later, she would rarely speak about the first boy she slept with and, even then, it would only be in noting it as a fact with little elaboration. There would be no embellishing of this part of the story. The details were only for her and she held them dear inside her heart.

***

He had ended up only just scraping through school, but that left his college options rather limited. Besides his grandparents had both passed away and there was nothing left in their estate for him. Instead, he moved to the big city down by the coast and began working in a restaurant.

While waiting tables there, he met her. She was different to the rest. At first, he had thought she was hot, but then he got to know her and thought she was cool. And then they slept together for the first time–his first, not hers–and he no longer questioned why he liked her. He just did.

They would stay up long after their shifts had ended and split a bottle of cheap wine. She smoked cigarettes and he tried to, but they would laugh and cry and talk and fuck.

And then she changed her mind, and he was alone again.

It did not matter. He had shared something with someone. He had been honest. It had felt good. Although he would never really talk about this, it had given him hope that he could be close to others and his wall had begun to crack.

***

She dated a boy with blonde hair who surfed and then she saw one with dark hair who played in a band. She finished college, went to work in a bank and slept with another one she met at a club after a few cocktails and whisky sours. She could not remember his name, but he had the bluest eyes and was gone the next morning.

None of these stuck with her and, like small stones being flung into a large pond, they barely rippled her heart. Sometimes she would feel like crying or a sad scene in a movie would make her unexpectedly cry. She did not exactly know why, but she felt sad. She felt alone.

Her job was not bad and she lived comfortably in a good house in a nice neighbourhood.

She did not notice it, but she began to drift through life. She went to more clubs than restaurants, and she began to drink more whisky sours than cocktails.

***

He left the restaurant and started his own. He put a bar into it but still made good food. He managed to move into his own house and his banker kept telling him how well he was doing.

He felt proud. The darkness around his youth was a fragmented memory from another age. His confidence led him forward now. He could date and did so with a couple of women. They were all beautiful and he was amazed that they even looked at him, let alone spent time with him. He slept with some of them and some of them even stayed longer than that with him.

But nothing stuck. At first, this was not a problem. He had built a good life, his restro-bar–as he called it–was doing well, he lived well and he was happier than he had ever been. But, nothing stuck, and that began to bother him. There felt like there was a distance between him and everyone else.

The real tragedy, he sometimes chided himself, was that he had no one to share all these wonderful things with.

Just before close late one night, she wandered in. The diners at all tables had left, the kitchen was closed and only a couple patrons were sitting at the bar finishing their drinks when she walked into his restro-bar.

***

Late one night, alone and drunk, she had wandered into a new bar in another part of town. Some hours and drinks later, she had fallen into his bed. The next morning she had woken up and felt different. He had smiled at her, brought her coffee and spent the morning asking her about her life.

She had not told him about the first kiss or boyfriend, nor had she told him about her fancy job. Rather, she found herself telling him about her loneliness and how she would cry sometimes. He had cried with her then, telling her of the dirty darkness in his childhood and the distance he felt around his heart.

He had hugged her and told her that everything would be alright. She had hugged him and kissed him deeply. The rain had begun to fall softly outside and they had both fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

It was then she had known that this one was different. It was then that she knew that all the nicks, cuts and scars across her heart had found a match and they were meant to be together.

***

It was then that he had known that she was the one. For the first time in his life, he did not regret anything that had happened to him. It was all important; each and every experience. After all, it had all been the map graffitied on his grubby heart that had led him to her, and for that he was thankful.