"Just This Once", Submission 14 by Lee Martin

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         “Three…two…one…” said Sara, looking at her watch. Lena stood next to the stone stairs of the porch.

         “I still feel the same,” replied Lena.

         “Well, cheers,” said Sara, sarcastically raising her cracked crystal glass full of sparkling cider and tapping it against Lena’s. She turned at the sound of fireworks a few blocks away. Sara looked back at her watch; only seven hours until her flight home.

         “Any resolutions?” asked Sara. Lena stared down the dim street hoping to catch a glimpse of some cheap sparks. “Lena?”

         “No. No diet, no goals, and I think I will actually take up smoking.” They laughed. “Nothing too simple.”

         “Come on,” said Sara, grabbing Lena’s thin arm and pulling her up the stairs into the large suburban mini-mansion filled with black jackets, spaghetti straps, and conversations that mixed into one haphazard mélange. Some kids ran out the door and onto the lawn with armfuls of firecrackers. “Let’s pretend we are rich tonight, Lena. Just tonight I want to feel like I matter.”

         They weaved between the parents that danced and the parents that compared portfolios. They circled the room twice; neither new what to do. The minutes were ticking away fast; they could feel the memory of their month together begin to fade into a blur…into something that “happened a long time ago.” No one in the room noticed the pair of 12-year-old girls. No one ever did.

         Lena found some stairs and pulled Sara up into a darkened room filled with expensive wooden shelves and generic books, and reached behind Sara to close the door to the drone from the floor below.

         They sat together in an ugly red leather chair and held hands. Lena pulled an atlas from the shelf.

         Sara sighed and turned to a map of North America and Europe. “I wish the world was this big,” and spanned part of the length of the open pages with her hand.

         “We would only be nine inches away,” said Lena, “and that couldn’t keep us apart.”

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"Deus ex Machina", Submission 13 by Lee Martin

How did this happen? I would seriously like to know. How Why did the industrial concrete, neon, and culture(“!”) swallow me like a giant machine?

It’s been 10 years now. I first got pulled into this place by the sheer gravity, which is directly proportional to the mass involved, the pace, and the futility. En-Why-See.

The sucking of my life was slow…so gradual I did not notice until it was too late. By the time my nails dragged against the streets and I gasped for a clean breath, I was in the belly of the automaton…crushed beneath the gears, the tires, the pizza crusts. Don’t laugh.

Nothing is impossible; I learned that once from a poster on my kindergarten classroom wall, and I never forgave that tramp of a teacher for stapling it up there. Now I’m hard-wired to hope, to expect. I can do this (?).

So I began the assembly of tools and materials. The size was poetic; slightly bigger than those suitcases the skinny business women drag across your foot in the subway.

Lights to know it’s on. A hum to know it’s working. A labor of love desperation.

You see, I kept getting pulled back into the city. At first I took off at a sprint. I woke up in Times Square with blood on my face and a fat police officer staring down at me. Up yours…help me up, asshole.

Next came a sneaky crawling…a tiptoe away. But every time I sought to leave I kept getting funneled back in, like a skinny boxer against the ropes of the ring, forever seeking escape, only to be pummeled in the face by a big black guy named Moe.

Escape…simply leaving had proven to be unsuccessful. An epiphany occurred after my 110th escape attempt, and I know not why. An angel spoke in my head. No! It was god. Maybe.

I began construction of my device at the guidance of the whispers in my ear, the impulses in my fingertips. PVC, LED. Wires, oil, gears. Ingredients Pieces Components were easy to find, there’s so much shit everywhere. Time passes. Days. Weeks. Full involvement is required for this project. It will save my life.

I still know not what this machine is for. My guidance is elusive and subtle, like the idea someone is watching you. You know they are there, but you don’t know if it’s some girl with brown hair and a lonely bed or the man with a huge knife. But you know they are there.

I trust it. I know. This time is worth it. Continued building, modification, improvement, innovation, renovation, software updates…maybe a few tubes of neon for aesthetics.

This machine will go on requiring maintenance and attention, like a child. A dirty rotten stinking child covered in LEDs and PVC piping…smoke billowing out and the outline of a reclining nude shining in glowing red neon sitting on top. Gradually the full meaning of this machine begins to form in my mind, and the betrayal is made evident; this machine exists solely to distract me from the machine I am inside…this insidious city. My machine echoes that machine. The connection between my mind and the decaying city around me is complete and conspiring. Windows and gears whispered to my mind as I slept and woke, all hours of the day, that perhaps the certain method of ensuring my everlasting prison sentence was to convince me that my machine could break my bonds. I will be forever tending my machine, my Deus ex Machina …it will be my purpose, my occupation, my livelihood, and my chains. I cannot turn back now, and I will never leave this city.

On Our Side, Submission 12 by Lee Martin

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         A man with red skin sat at the end of an iron table covered in claw marks. His muscular arms slowly lifted his sword from its sheath an placed in on the table with a crisp metallic clatter; his hands ached and his cheeks burned. Guttural grunts pushed out of his nostrils like a bull’s. Another man glided into the dark chamber, crowned in gold with a flowing pure white robe.

         “Good evening Purrós,” said the man in white bluntly as he sat at the other end of the dark table. “Still dining on blood, I see.” The red man’s eyes warmed with red light as soft bloody tears welled. “What? What has happened?” asked the man in white urgently.

         “He’s dead.”

         “Who?” asked the man in white gently, his strong voice the room.

         “Thánatos. I just heard.”

         The man in white sat with his alabaster face hardened on Purrós.

         Sharp footfalls on rough hewn stone pieced the air. The two men listened as the steps approached. The ancient door groaned as it was open.

         “Mélas, come. Come hear the news,” said the man in white. “Our great brother is dead.”

         Mélas sat in the middle of the long table, his dark leathery skin and black armor blending into the tabletop.

         “Please, eat!” said the man in white, with a smooth wave of his arm across the table, indicating the evening’s feast.

         “Thank you Leukós, I think I’ll pass…not hungry,” said Mélas. Leukós let out a deep explosive laugh.

         Small brown servants brought out a screaming man chained to a platter.

         “Do you mind?” asked Leukós, eyebrows raised at Purrós. Red hands reluctantly grasped the hilt of the sword and slid it slowly into the belly of the screaming man. Leukós’ eyes closed in delight of the fading screams of agony. The man made one final jerk as the sword was removed, leaking rivers of rusty blood along the table.

         “You were saying?” prompted Mélas, softly drumming his dark boney fingers on the table.

         “Yes. Our brother Purrós just informed me of the recent passing of Thánatos.” Leukós paused to slide a white finger across a small stream of blood on the table. He brought the finger to his mouth and licked it clean. “What our brother Purrós fails to realize is that the death of Thánatos comes as no surprise to me. Oh, for ‘God’s sake,’ Purrós, eat something! You know Mélas won’t! Yes, dead. But as you both should know, dying is of little concern to us. Why, just this morning I was thinking about trying it myself before we begin! Instead, however, I thought I’d let Thánatos have the honors.”

         The room was briefly filled with soft chewing sounds from Leukós’ end of the table.

         “Thánatos had been sick for a while. I think it was Apathy. At first I thought to rid our brother of such malaise, but it gave his skin such a fine grayish-green hue!” Leukós smiled wide, his ivory teeth bared like hungry fangs. “And to think the kind of pestilence he spread in his final days! Ugh, I am almost jealous. I really think his passing could be an asset to this institution. You see, Purrós, simply goading men into plunging swords in each other’s bellies is but one instrument at our disposal, and you execute it marveolously. And just look at Mélas and all he has accomplished!” Leukós paused, his nose raised in the air. “Do you smell that? Ahhh…rotting flesh…disease…he smells of death itself!”

         A ghastly figure limped into the room, filling the air with a putrid stench that filled the brothers with a renewed vigor.

         “May I present your ‘dead’ brother, his powers of influence greatly magnified by his recent passing!” cried Leukós is triumph. The greenish walking corpse took a seat across from Mélas. Purrós smiled happily at the sight. The small brown servants clutched their throats as airborne sickness exuded by Thánatos overtook them. Their brown skin already began turning black with decay.

         “Brothers! We are reunited once more. Rejoice in our company, for tomorrow our conquest will begin anew. I feel we will each die before we are done, but Death is on our side!”

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Denoument, Submission 11 by Lee Martin

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         The whole city was bathed in light; a soft yellow glow ebbed from the cracks of every stone, the corners of every street, the edge of every chin. Like the closing of a book the world had taken on an epic and final brilliance for one brief assertion of purpose that would never come home again.

         He walked over the ancient cobblestone roads that intersected with fresh asphalt streets. Piles of dead angels stood like cold monuments. Some had already begun turning to stone, their light all but washed away.

         Half heartedly he kicked over a gilded helmet that lay in the street.

         The air felt like one great exhale, like the feeling of relief and resolution from crashing through the surface after holding your breath at the bottom of the deep end of the pool in the summer that melted tires and ice cream when all you ever wanted came out of the icy eyes of that girl with the golden hair from down the street.

         He never expected it to end like this, but in a way, he was glad it did. He always liked surprise endings, and at least he hadn’t been bored.

         It was the little things he noticed. The way the wind had decided not to blow ever again. The way clouds received their final resting place in the sky, after circling the world like a dog looking for a soft spot to sleep. The way he didn’t see anyone he knew.

         Darker now. Every moment was darker than the last, but not as dark as the next. He could feel the cold beginning to flow our from the cracks now. He pulled his jacket tighter around his chest. His fists clenched, desperately holding on to the light that was determined to abandon, leave, finish.

         Light crawled slowly over the bars of the gate to the park and left in small wisps. It felt warm when he pushed it open. It also felt a little sad, like the way your throat closes and your eyes freeze as you look at your dying grandma and desperately try to say with a half smile that it will be alright. The gate said its goodbye with a quite clink of metal on metal, the warmth walking away as he walked through.

         That large tree that stood in the center of the park stood like a giant ember, the last of the warm places. He could almost hear the light as it dripped, slid, fell away on the many leaves. His back slid against the trunk and he felt the warmth spread through his chest as he sat. The cold succeeded the reign as he looked back toward the city.

         His fists slowly fell to his side as he sat at the foot of the giant tree. One by one his fingers chose acceptance. Every fingertip briefly glowed.

         It was fine.

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When the World Was New, Submission 10 by Lee Martin

It took her almost a half hour to climb through the debris and decay of years of neglect. The city had been build so quickly, so efficiently. Obsolete locations sat buried, partitioned, sequestered. Relics lay hidden behind walls and under streets, most never to be seen again.

She was familiar with the Corridors from her days of hiding after The Breakdown. A discarded fallout shelter acted as her home for a month following it. Running from Hunters she became very adept at finding somewhere to go when the time came. The time always came.

After crawling through the trash and time she came to a great void space. She felt the palms of silence press gently against the sides of her head and imagined what the vaulted ceiling looked like now. Her flashlight beam fell sharply on the word “RECORDS” carved in marble high above where she stood. Large columns held up the word, which was flanked by a frieze of people or animals, deteriorated to form a marble mass of man and beast, neither identifiable from the other. She climbed the stairs and found the doors missing; the opening was guarded by a lazy shopping cart on it’s side.

Inside. Thousands of rows of bookshelves, some empty, some burned, all covered in several inches of dust. Her flashlight beam sparkled as every step she took kicked up flakes of dust.

She spent several minutes just walking around, looking up at the shelves. Occasionally she wiped a spine with her small hand to reveal the title. “CENSUS DATA 3DE101,” “BUILDING PLANS-AREAS 13-15A,” “Poèmes saturniens.”

About 20 of the bookcases had fallen over, and corpses of books were piled on top of each other. She walked by downed stacks and saw a map cabinet and opened the doors; a tall roll of paper sat in the corner. She took it out and spread it on the floor, placing a book on each corner. On the paper was printed a map of a very large city. Buildings and streets were labeled. Her eyes slowly traced a line that represented a long bridge over water, but could not tell where it led, for a large corner of the map had been ripped away.

"Untitled, Unknown Artist, Red Period", Submission 9 by Lee Martin

Days. It had been days since he’d slept. That’s not true; it just felt like days. Days of flinging himself around his apartment, scribbling on notebook paper and napkins, punching the drywall. Then sleep. Broken, unrestful sleep admittedly, but sleep none the less. The guitar had a nice dent in the back where he’d kicked it.

Fuck you, muse

Your face in my mind I cannot use

To dream of you just isn’t right

I’ll sleep alone but broken tonight.

Crumple. Punch. His hand swelled where he’d driven it through the walls several times. Why did she have to do this to him? Show up out of nowhere and mess everything up! Beautiful, yes; perfect, maybe; inspiring? Only of thoughts of longing and frustration.

Shit. FUCK. DIE.

Crumple. He’d paid the price of his devotion; the least she could do was instill in him some seed of creativity…nurture the ability to become great, if she was unwilling to be with him. DIE. FUCK.

The second eviction notice showed up…the past due rent was one matter, but the other tenants disliked his fist coming through the wall in their living room.

The metaphors wouldn’t come; no hyperbole, simile, comparison, devotion, eloquent language to compose into a nice little package and drop like a bomb on the world. Oh, how they would have praised him! “Perfect expression!” “How inspired” They would gather around in hordes to listen to his plight…his young voice quivering on the notes that needed stress, and sliding over the rest like water.

Nothing. Void. Blank. Dark, like night. No, blank like a canvas. SHIT! Crumple. Punch. His hand was clearly becoming infected now, but it wouldn’t matter soon. Enough was enough. He had decided the score for his magnum opus would consist of one simple percussive note, like the period at the end of a sentence. So refined, so complete…ending almost before you knew it had begun. He opened his 10^th story window overlooking the park and smiled. She briefly raised her head at the sound of the shot, then laid back down on the park bench.

The Mountain, Submission 8 by Lee Martin

“I don’t like going there,” said Maria Anna, pointing at the mountain with her head bowed. She tripped along barefoot on the cobblestones lining the street of Heraklion.

“Why?” asked the tall man limping next to her.

“I don’t like seeing the dead ones,” she replied, “but we have to. What’s you name?”

“George.”

“Jor?”

He laughed as he took the hat off his head and wrung it out like a washcloth, leaving small puddles of salty water on the road. “George. Frederickson.”

Maria Anna laughed hysterically while she spun around in the street holding the waist of a small doll.

“Is this Nags Head?” he asked.

“What?”

“Or the Cape? I was just off Cape Hatteras. I think this is Nags Head.”

“We live in Heraklio,” she said, with an air of authority that belied childhood. “I better take you to George.”

“Huh?”

“Oh!” she giggled behind her doll. “Not you, the other George. George Carow. We all know him.”

“Where is your father?”

“The mountain. Everyone is there. It’s the Day of the Waves. It’s my sixth.”

They walked down the narrow road for a few minutes before coming to a small blue house. An old grey bearded man sat outside in a rocking chair, and he stood when they approached.

“Who have you there, Maria Anna?” he asked.

“This is George. Another one! And he’s like you!” she replied.

George Carow walked toward them, his left arm in a white sling.

“Which ship?” he asked.

“Sir?” said George Frederickson.

“Which ship?”

“Uh, Monitor, out of Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn…nationality?”

“What nation? The United States of America.”

“America…incredible. What year?”

George Frederickson stood in disbelief. The girl had taken him to the town lunatic.

“My good sir, 1862. Well, it should be 1863 by now…”

“1863…incredible. My son, I am Sir George Carow, of King Henry VIII’s navy, from Portsmouth, England. 1545.”

The two men stood and stared at each other. Finally, George Frederickson turned to the girl.

“You better take me to someone in charge,” he whispered.

“We will. But we have to go to the mountain.”

“Oh, there, there young Maria Anna,” said Sir George. “You understand why we do what we must. The kids will find any others down here…your father will be so proud you found this man!”

“Yeah…” she said.

“She found me,” said the old man, winking at the younger.

At the foot of the mountain the three found stone stairs. With a sigh Maria Anna took the hand of the younger man, and the older George followed slowly. They made their trek up the mountain until they reached a clearing full of people. A small stream trickled out of a fissure in the rock mountain face.

“Pateras!” called Maria Anna. “I found another one!” The people turned to face them.

“Wonderful! Is this him? Hello, and welcome! I apologize if she hasn’t been very friendly. My little girl does not like seeing the dead men.” The man pointed to a row of men, all in similar uniforms, all soaking wet.

“What is this?” gasped George Frederickson, running toward the row of corpses. “Campbell…Lewis…I think that’s Cook…my God.”

A bright light began to grow within the rock face. The onlookers turned to face the light as a tunnel appeared and the small stream became a river pouring out, soaking the feet of the audience. A man was washed onto the ground, face down. The water subsided and the townsfolk stepped forward to carry him to the row of fourteen others.

“Will Allen,” said George Frederickson, closing his eyes as the body was turned over to reveal the face of the drowned man.

The light faded and the water stopped flowing all together.

Maria Anna’s father walked forward to address the crowd.

“Friends! The mountain has brought us these men, valiant all, who perished in the waves.” He spoke as though he had spoken the words countless times, but his emotion was still strong. His arm raised toward George Frederickson, and he beckoned him forward. “Your name?”

“U-uh, George Frederickson, acting Ensign, USS Monitor.”

“MON-EE-TOR!” repeated the crowd. They bowed and walked forward.

“My friend, welcome,” said Maria Anna’s father as the crowd began picking shovels and started digging graves. “Tonight is the feast for the memory of your friends. You will be the guest of honor. You are the last of the Mon-ee-tor, and this site will always be remembered as the resting place of your friends.”

Cyborg, Submission 7 by Lee Martin

“Let’s play Catalyst!” said Jane.

“No, I am tired of that game. Besides, you always cheat,” replied Billy.

“I do not!”

“Let’s play Cyborg. You can even go first.”

“Ok,” said Jane agreeably.

“I’ll get the board.”

Billy ran to the closet, stepped up onto the first shelf, reached up and pulled down a brushed aluminum box. He walked it back to the living room smiling. The colored lights on the side had already started blinking. It had a pulse.

He pulled the lid off the box and laid the board and pieces out.

“Go get the tools,” ordered Billy.

Jane folded her arms. “You go get them, bossy. I’m older.”

“I’m setting up!” replied Billy, waving his arm across the electronic board.

Jane sighed and left the room, flipping her hair in annoyance while Billy continued with the plugs and cables.

“IT’S ON! HURRY UP,” said Billy.

“Here,” said Jane, shoving the box of tools into Billy’s arms.

Jane pressed her palm to the sensor pad, and after a series of beeps and flashing lights, her piece, which resembled a shopping cart with off-road tires, advanced three spaces.

“NEXT PLAY-ER,” replied the board.

“Ha!” said Billy, pressing his palm to the pad. His piece, shaped like a cartoon football player with guns, advanced four spaces, onto a silver square that began flashing blue.

“YESSSS!” said Billy. Jane rolled her eyes.

“AUDITORY AUGMENTATION,” replied the board.

Jane rolled up her sleeves and connected a black wire and clip under her left elbow and a red wire and clip under her right elbow. “Ok, try it.”

Billy pulled a scalpel from the tool box and slid it lightly across her extended index finger. He quickly looked up at her face. “Anything?”

“No, I can’t feel it. Go ahead.”

With the help of the board Billy slowly cut around Jane’s right ear. An articulated arm reached up from the board to collect the blood. The installation only took a few minutes. Jane unclipped the wires from her elbows. “It tingles!” said Jane smiling.

“How’s your hearing?” asked Billy.

“Wow! I can hear your heart beat! And I can hear Ms. Jones next door…she’s with someone else…I think they’re exercising or something. I can’t tell. It’s my turn, right?”

“Yep.”

Another three spaces.

“DEXTERITY DEVELOPMENT.”

“Coooool,” said Billy.

After a few minutes Billy examined his new hand. Having run out of supplies from the game board, they resorted to using pieces of nearby appliances.

“I wonder if mom will notice that your new hand slightly resembles pieces from the coffee maker,” said Jane.

“She never notices anything,” said Billy angrily as he folded his arms and scowls.

“Yeah. All she cares about is this house, with the stupid gadgets and sensors.”

Billy quickly typed some commands into the game board with the aid of his new hand.

“I have an idea,” said Billy.

“Me too,” said Jane, smiling in understood agreement. “I’ll get connected again; you find all the gadgets you can.”

The entire process only took an hour, and Jane only lost just over a pint of blood. New eyes, arms, a new leg, some brain enhancements, and of course, the new ear.

“This is cooool,” said Jane slyly. “Watch this!”

Billy wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked up as Jane lifted the remains of the couch up over her head.

“Wow,” said Billy.

Jane set the couch down and punched the air.

“I wonder what mom will think of her gadgets now!” said Jane.

“Yeah!”

“Hi-YA!” she said, then kicked with the new leg and made contact with the lamp, which blew apart into a million pieces.

“Oh no!” said Billy.

“Oops! I didn’t mean to do that!” said Jane.

“What’s wrong?” asked Billy. Jane stood with her head in her hand. Billy noticed some blue sparks emitting from a small tear in Jane’s leg.

“Ow. Billy, something’s wrong. I don’t feel ok.”

Jane ran into the kitchen and began crashing into appliances.

“What are you doing?” screamed Billy.

“I don’t know! I mean, I am not doing it! It’s the gadgets! The gadgets are doing it!!!” said Jane, who then crashed into the kitchen wall which, exploded outward and rained onto the hundreds of vehicles on the courseways. She fell backward through the hole. “BILLY!!!”

“Oh crap! Oh CRAP!”

Billy hastily scribbled a note to his parents. He considered writing “this is your fault, mom!” but thought better of it. He left the note on the kitchen table, then crawled to the hole in the wall and looked down, wondering where his sister was and how long he thought he should let her have all the fun.

Kiss Me, Submission 6 by Lee Martin

“Kiss me,” she said.

“No.”

She sat in orange streetlight and looked up into the mist of insects in the beam. She remembered how light used to pour from holes in clouds and how it never fell on her. But now…her turn…this. They leaned against the dirty brick wall of the old bar, which had not always been a bar; it used to be a tailor, and before that a pizza store (take-out only) and before that a bank and before that a bar again. Now its lights were permanently off, part of an isolation project of the city to sequester deteriorating locations before they became cancerous. They were alone for at least four blocks in each direction.

He studied a soda can as it was blown down the dark street and rolled into the waiting mouth of a sewer.

He dug into the olive drab sack and pulled out a black and white composition book, flipped a few pages, then pulled out five more books just like it.

“There. Hold on.”

Book 14, page 52, table 2, line 5, column 33: Book 33.

“Almost,” he said, diving back into the bag for Book 33.

She came with him on his observation nights in order to enjoy the almost-silence of the isolation corridor. He would sit patiently and watch the dead world around them, waiting for some mundane event or occurrence so he could document it and consult the tables. She would stare at storefronts and imagine fat kids tugging the skirts of their mothers on a summer day, shiny cars, the smell of real meat cooking.

“There,” he said, and she heard him hold his breath. He always held his breath after he finished tracing a long trail of events and coincidences. It had taken over 40 years of hermit-like seclusion to observe, compare, compile, consult, document. She turned to face him as he finished scrawling on a scrap of paper.

corridor/bar--->date?/June/Tuesday/trash/soda can--->environment?/wind/sewer=….

He held the sheet of paper next to his watch. “Ready?” She didn’t answer; he knew she was.

“Three…two…....….now,” he breathed softly as he closed his eyes, and not a moment later a soft blue thread connected the street and sky, not 100 yards from where they sat, followed by a train wreck of sound sprinting down the street.

“Wow!” she said, feigning her excitement. His predictions were almost always correct, but the pragmatist in her was always disappointed by lack of application. She saw no purpose. They sat for a while longer before he packed his notebooks. He placed them in the bag, one at a time, like jewels, while he mulled over the idea of meaning. She watched his weathered hands and wondered if he was paying attention to the right coincidences.

Where Will You Go?, Submission 5 by Lee Martin

“Where will you go?” asked Sara, her feet swishing back in forth in the water as she dangled them off the dock. Her pink shoes lay forgotten in the grass behind her. The muted orange sky turned all the shadows to dark green.

“I don’t know. Do you think I will be able to go places?” said Tim.

“I dunno. Maybe. I heard that you can.”

“Then I will come here!” said Tim.

“Come on! You have to pick someplace exotic! Remote! Like California…”

“Is that where you’d go?”

Sara paused. “I haven’t thought about it,” she said, thinking she probably wouldn’t have to for quite a while. “When did you find out you’re leaving?”

“A few months ago,” said Tim casually as he swam back and forth in the warm water to the beat of crickets singing.

“Does it hurt?” asked Sara, pulling her black hair back behind her ear.

“A little. Sometimes.” said Tim. “I will spy on you.”

“You better not!” said Sara.

“In the shower...,” said Tim slyly.

“Don’t!” said Sara, reaching down off the dock and splashing Tim in the face.

“You won’t even know! Sometimes I will be there, sometimes not. But for all you know I’ll live in your shower!”

“Oh no you won’t!” said Sara as she jumped off the dock and crashed into the lake next to Tim. She put her hand on his head and pushed him down. Tim grabbed her leg and pulled her under. They shoved and splashed for a few minutes before Tim’s mother called down to the dock.

“Tim! It’s time for your medicine!”

“Ugh! That’s one thing I won’t miss,” said Tim.

Sara skipped the funeral the next week and threw small sticks into the moving water and watched them glide away.

“Ok, that should be enough time,” she said as she stood up. It was nearly sunset again as she ran back to the house. She closed the bathroom door behind her, locked it, and smiled as she took off her clothes and started the shower.

La Mort de Mon Amour, Submission 4 by Lee Martin

Twenty-one of October, the year 1805,
To God, prayer from men that they still were alive.
I praise you, I love you, I weep for this man,
But for France, I remember I must do what I can.

Victory, Roy’ Sovereign, Euryaius, Defence
Vs. Redoutable, Héros, Pluton, and Hortense.

Yours twenty-seven, white canvas and sea,
Outweighted, by the numbers, from our thirty-three.
Prediction, they say, your success quick will be,
Triumphant for London, but violent for we.

“A Hero,” “A Saint,” “An Inspiring Name,”
Sans arm, minus eye, and a ballet-like frame.

Hand over hand up the ratlines crawl I
“Observe,” ordered he, “watch, listen and spy.”
Ensuing conflict brought mayhem to the day,
Cannon, commands, all a handsome display.

You halve our ship’s compliment and cut down our chances.
Endure: for your men, but cause-ending for France’s.

I have but one shot, so I carefully aim
For your heart from my heart, for a life bless’d by fame.
Conscience speaks through the sound and debris,
“Be remembered though history--kill Nelson,” says he.

Valediction, My Lord, God bless d'etat,
Your end sure will be my great oeuvre.

Confession, Submission 3 by Lee Martin

“I’ll be home soon, honey. I had an impromptu astromeeting,” said David.

“Ok. Would you like me to generate FishStics® for tonight’s eating interval?” asked David’s wife Helen.

“Nah, I was thinking cosmoburgers.”

“Sure! I’ll see you when you come home!”

David winked at the screen in his autotran, and the connection was closed. He kicked back and looked through the clear glass bubble above his head. His sunglasses shone with the reflection of a clear blue sky while a stock price ticker passed at the bottom of the right lens. “Life is good,” said David, and so did the sticker on the back of his autotran pod as it zoomed over the courseway on his trip back home.

He knew somewhere above him, or perhaps below him, Helen’s autotran was flying back home, too.

“Yuck, FishStics®. So gross.”

Their pods arrived at their home dock at almost the same time. Helen stepped out wearing a streamlined black and silver dress, large globular silver earrings, and tall chrome boots with glowing colored lights that brought her just under David’s height. David stood at the front door, silver jacket over his shoulder, two days worth of a beard, black-and-orange striped tie loosened over a silver shirt. Helen smiled at him as she walked toward the door.

“I wonder if the kids are home yet,” said Helen.

Their Home^TM was a recent model with tall windows framed in a durable concrete mixture. From the 132^nd floor they had a wonderful view of the opposing 132^nd floor of the adjacent units.

David turned to smile at his wife as he held his wrist to the doorplate, and after a soft click and a little tune played from a small speaker, the door swung open. The sunlight poured over their modern furniture and plants. Little screens on the walls told important bits of information; temperature, pressure, percent of breakfast cereal consumed per person per day…all the metrics to lead a modern life.

“It feels a little cool in here…” said Helen. “ALICE! What temperature is set as the default for Friday afternoon?” she asked. “Hello, Helen. Our unit is configured to offer an average Friday afternoon temperature of 68°. Would you like a cappuccino?” replied a squeaky voice from a recessed speaker in the ceiling. Helen set her astrobag down on the mech-couch. “Well it feels much colder than that! And the digiLamp is missing! And where is my compuCoffeepot?” Small shiny pieces of metal, screws, and wires were sprinkled on the floor.

“Honey! In here!” exclaimed David.

Helen ran into the kitchen, only to find a large hole in the wall. They gazed out at the autotran pods flying by on the countless courseways.

“Billy? Jane?” called David. “I think our house has been iBurglarized!”

“Are you serious?” cried Helen.

“Helen, I am e-serious.”

“Honey, look…” whispered Helen.

On the table sat a note, hastily written in crayon.

“Dear mom and dad,

I turned Jane into a cyborg. I’m sorry!

-Billy.

Almost a Martyr, Submission 2 by Lee Martin

----

"Hola chica!" "Hey, baby!" "Wooo WOOO!" Sara stood facing the brick wall in the dim and surreal orange streetlight. So far everything had gone to plan. She closed her heavily black-rimmed eyes and took a deep breath. Her hand closed tight on the black handle sticking out of a long cardboard box. Striped socks, spiky black hair, buttons. She was the bait, and about 50 men had come to take a bite. She was ready; they all were.

----

They had planned it for months. Their plans evolved, their numbers grew. Kids had come from the cracks in the walls it seemed. Mexico City in 2044 had become a SuperCity, just like all the sprawl areas in North America. No place was untouched by the fingers of progress...they worked their way across continents and across oceans to completely cover the world with Progress. So there they were...TNY kids in "Conservative" Mexico City. Sara had known Tim and Matt since the Breakdown. They frequently made trips to ForbiddenCity, Buenos Aires, Genesis...anywhere to escape then crushing foot of the prevailing sentiment of Mexico City. Two of Sara's friends from before the Breakdown had been kicked to death in front of a Bar by a cheering mob...and she got to watch from the safety of a dark alley. Too fragile to act, she just hid. But she didn't know that hundreds of others like her were doing the same, and they didn't know that they weren't really hiding...they were waiting. For Her.

They all new her name, but out of respect they referred to her as "Her" or "She." They came to secret meetings with colored hair and strange bracelets. She was surprised how quickly things evolved...changed...grew. The New Youth grew from the ashes of the burned dreams that Progress had torched to pave the way for Tomorrow.

-----

His dark and heavy hand squeezed her shoulder. His grip tightened. Sara's hand clenched on the black handle. "Aren't you in the wrong part of town, chica?" He asked with ethanol breath.

"Yes. And so are you."

-----

"Just try to stay sober tonight," begged Sara. Tim stood glaring at Matt. Sara looked at the concrete floor of the TNY meeting room, a dank hole forgotten during the Conversion under a luxury hotel. "Try."

Matt had a penchant for drugs. E2E, Meth, pot, whatever. He was probably the only real addict in TNY. Sara recalled Tim telling her that the only reason he didn't throw Matt out was that he was with them from the beginning. "It just takes the edge off!" he'd say while hitting some E2E before a practice session, or before doing a line off his sword before a recon.

"We're depending on you," said Sara. "We all are. I am."

"I can. I will," said Matt. Sara looked back at Tim, who was draped in the shadow of the corner. She couldn't see his face but she knew what he looked like right now. She always could tell.

------

The steel of Sara's sword flashed like a strobe. That was the signal. The man's hand fell to the ground. He raise the stump to his face; Sara turned to see his body silhouetted in the orange streetlights, 50 men behind him. She was ready. The pink highlights of her black hair glowed. She plunged the sword right into his stomach. She exhaled, and through the hilt of her sword she felt him do the same. It was just like she imagined it.

He fell to the ground. At 5"5" she craned her neck up at the men slowly advancing toward her. Any second now. She could feel their breath on her from 10 feet away. They growled. They hated her kind...strange hair, strange music...strange ideas. Any second now. Her eyes flicked left, then right, rimmed in black. "Matt..." she breathed.

The men advanced.

They practically piled on her, which is probably what saved her life. She felt her leg break...a knife across her back...her shoulder. She could hear the flapping of the sneakers of her friends finally arriving. 30 kids, 30 swords...only 30 of the kids had progressed to the level where they felt comfortable taking on this large of a group. Blood dripped onto her face in the dark, surrounded by the men. Was it her's? She could tell she was suffocating...after what felt like days she felt the weight fall away and the darkness came back to life with the golden streetlight. Triumph. Tim picked her up.

"Matt..." she whispered. "No, it's Tim. Matt didn't show. I am glad I had decided not to trust him. I sent lookouts watch you tonight. But we came out ahead. We got all but two...we want the story told to the rest of them, so we let them go. This is the beginning, Sara. This will be a blow they won't soon forget, let alone recover from.” She passed out in his arms as he walked past Genesis Club toward the meeting room under the hotel.

------

We Always Will Be, Submission 1 by Lee

Every night at the Genesis Club is a rebirth. A purging of all that crap everyone wants and no one needs. There are people

here I will probably never see again, but our hearts beat as one as the synth swells and drops, thump after

thump...crash...rise, fall. Inhale. 100 people...1,000 people. 1,000 minds...but now we have one. One mind. My genesis

is their genesis. Exhale.

Lights flicker inside the car like strobes as we speed across the bridge toward Forbidden City, home of that cultural

singularity capable of swallowing the children of this TransUrban Coastline, digesting the plastic, metal, tissue and dreams

and reinventing The New Youth of tomorrow. Here we die--every night. Here we begin again, and endless organic device. And

to me, what is this quintessence of dust? WE ARE.

The doors open their arms to us and the building smiles, blissful to be so fully carrying out its purpose. You see, genesis

began as a cultural Operating System, but there it did not end. It evolved, changed, adapted--a perfect custom fit for every

soul and desire both subtle and gross. Ok, I admit; Genesis began as an oversimplification of the natural processes of the

world, but why not? Why not capture it? Refine it? Why not claim all there is as our own? Our future was in our hands, and

we took it. And now...now it is an infinitely complex and beautiful tapestry. Genesis became the uniting factor for every

life worth living. And it will do so until the last embers of the suns die out. Maybe longer...I wouldn't be surprised.

I am proud to be a drop of blood, of input, of material for this expression machine. My dreams become theirs, and theirs

mine. I am because of Genesis. We always will be.