Fiction

Ghost

By Rachel Husk

The sound starts off quietly, and I barely even hear it, a gentle swish swish. David stirs next to me, and I slap his arm, mumbling at him to shut up. He continues to steal the covers and swats at me halfheartedly, barely awake.

Another swish swish a few minutes later, followed by a sound similar to nails against a wall.

“David shut up…” I say again, burying my head in my pillow. “For God’s sake.”

“I’m not making any noise,” he whines.

“Your nails are clacking against the headboard,” I say.

He mumbles something under his breath, but buries his hands under the covers nevertheless.

Eeeeeeeek.

Okay, that definitely wasn’t David.

Eeeeeeek. Swish swish.

“Nat, you’re doing it now,” David says, shaking my shoulder.

“No, I’m not.” I turn the lamp on. “There’s something else making that noise.”

David moves to lean on his elbow, eyes looking still blurry from sleep, but he takes my hand. “It’s probably just the house. It’s old.”

Eeeeeeeeeek. Swish swish swish swish.

I look over at him, eyes wide. “Houses do not make that noise.”

He starts to look a little worried. “Uhh, maybe it was wind.”

“David this is how every single cheesy horror story starts out. ‘Oh it was just the wind.’ Next thing we know, we’re dead,” I say.

“Nat—”

“I’m serious.”

“Well, what do you think it is?” he asks, skeptically.

Swish swish swish. Eeeeeeeeeeeek.

I pull the covers up over my face. “Oh no. It’s a ghost.”

“What?”

“It’s a ghost!” I stage whisper. “What else swishes into the night?”

David rolls his eyes. “Ghosts don’t make noise.”

“How do you know that? You ever seen a ghost before?” I glare at him.

“That doesn’t even matter because they’re not real,” he says.

I freeze. “Not real? Not real? You have got to be kidding me…”

“Ghosts do not exist. And to prove it to you, I’m gonna go downstairs right now.”

David moves to get out of the bed, but I pounce on him before he has a chance. “You are not going anywhere!”

“Yes I am!”

“No you’re not! How are you going to survive all by yourself?”

He stops struggling from me for a moment. “What?”

“We don’t know how many of them are down there. And even if there is only one… you’re not exactly the most likely to get out unscathed.”

“Unscathed?”

“I hope you know that if I wasn’t here right now, you’d be dead.”

“Natasha, I swear to God—”

“Please please please don’t go down there. I’ll never forgive you.”

He sighs. “Fine. Fine, I won’t. But know I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for me.”

“How are you doing this for you?”

“I really don’t feel like getting up anymore.”

Swish swish swish. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek. Swish.

“Is the door locked? Oh no, we’re gonna die,” I say.

I’m still clutching to him, and he rolls his eyes, but pats my back reassuringly. “There, there.”

“Shut up. You think this is a joke.”

David squints at me, suspiciously. “Is it a joke?”

“No,” I say.

“Why are you even afraid of ghosts?” David asks. “I mean, if they’re invisible, how can they even hurt you?”

I swallow hard. “They can move things without touching them. They can pass through walls. They can create wind and set things on fire.”

“Why?”

“Because ghosts are vengeful, that’s why.”

“Do you know anyone who’s dead who’d want to kill you?” he asks, thoughtfully.

“Not that I can remember,” I say. “What about you?”

David shrugs. “No one dead, anyway.”

“Dang it.”

“Perhaps this ghost just simply forgot to bring something with him into the afterlife and is asking if he can have it back in the nicest way possible,” he says.

Swish swish. Eeeeeeeeeeeeek.

I scoff. “Yeah right. I bet they’ve got everything in the afterlife.”

“Maybe they forgot their diary. That’s something you would do,” David suggests.

“This is your fault anyway,” I say.

“My fault?”

“Yes. I told you this land might be haunted.”

“Are you actually joking right now?”

Swish swish. Eeeeeeeeeeeek. Swish.

“No, I’m not,” I say. “We’re going to die and it’s all because you wanted this house.”

“You wanted this house too!”

“Yeah, but I would’ve been fine in another one. You were pretty set on this, weren’t you?”

“Just because the people who lived here before us died, doesn’t mean that it’s haunted ground.”

“Just listen to yourself! They died here!”

“That’s generally what people do, Nat!”

I groan. “This is ridiculous.”

“You’re the one who thinks there’s a ghost in the house,” he says.

“I’m being reasonable…”

“Generally, I don’t think reasonable people believe in ghosts.”

“You’re just saying that because you only hang out with reasonable people.”

“We have the same friends.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“Don’t you think that if there was a vengeful ghost, then we would’ve already been dead?”

I listen for the noise, but it doesn’t come back. David, looking very pleased with himself, tells me to please turn the lamp off so he can get at least a few hours of sleep, and promptly turns around, burying his body back underneath of the covers. I don’t fall asleep, and I don’t go downstairs the next morning until David wakes up. It’s not the last time we hear the noise, but David buys me earplugs, so it works out okay in the end. For a ghost haunting, anyway.

Rachel Husk is twenty years old, and goes to Bowling Green State University. She is majoring in Creative Writing and minoring in Women’s Studies.

Doodles

By Ujwal Rajaputhra

She was so focused.

Sapphire eyes stuck to the marble notebook like they were meant to be. Every time she looked back up at the white board, I’d stare at the graphite doodles dancing across my beige desk. One was of King Kong, except he wasn’t rampaging on the Empire State Building; he instead had an apparent affection towards the Eiffel Tower and very, very large berets. I don’t think there was anyone who wouldn’t want to see a mutant, French-gorilla movie.

My fingers gripped my pencil lightly, turning and twisting it between the blue grids of my paper. Today, it was going to be French King Kong vs. British Godzilla. A cup of tea in his talons and Union Jack scales would do the job.

She looked back down.

Okay, I wasn’t really sure when she was looking at the board or not. I had to look out of the corner of my eye so I wouldn’t come off as creepy, even though I probably was. Our legs were touching so slightly it shouldn’t even have been noticeable to anyone sane. But of course, to me, it was the biggest deal in the universe. My thigh was as stiff as a branch, and every breath I released shuddered as it slipped past my lips.

She looked back up.

My head ducked so quickly my forehead almost slammed into the tabletop. I could barely register the incoherent babbling my teacher was letting loose. It had something to do with numbers, I was pretty sure. My No.2 twirled in my fingers and I fed Godzilla some fish n’ chips.

“Andy,” a voice boomed ahead.

I almost didn’t look. If I did, she would notice me for sure. This wasn’t a good first impression.

Figuring that acting like even more of an idiot wouldn’t help me whatsoever, I looked up. “Yes, Ms. Birch?”

My teacher balanced her frail weight on the board sill. “I may be old, but I’m not blind.”

“What do you mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “Just pay attention and actually write down some math once-in-a-while.”

And with that, her back returned to my view and class resumed. A couple of curious eyes lingered on me for a few seconds, but everyone gets bored eventually – I was the epitome of that principle. And King Kong was begging for a croissant-club.

By the time the clock struck two and metallic ringing echoed throughout the humdrum halls, I had a whole sci-fi, action-packed, romance-induced movie scene planned out. I wouldn’t have hesitated to get out of my seat in any other class, but I had to make sure she left first. Any eye contact and I would probably melt in my Converse. I crumpled the paper in my palms like playdough and made my way towards the door. Stray beams of buttery, spring sunlight had managed to infiltrate the gray barriers of this prison, lighting the room with an uplifting-but-solemn aura. My hand swiftly tossed the international-monster extravaganza into the cerulean recycling bin.

“Don’t forget about the other one.” Ms. Birch eyed me from her chair.

I gave her my signature, clueless expression. She sighed, extending her finger towards the desks – her desk. My eyes locked onto the egg-white sheet slumbering on the table next to mine while my feet quickly shuffled towards the mysterious object. The paper shivered between my fingers.

It was everything mine wasn’t.

The silver bricks and cream mortar of the walls were sketched so perfectly I had thought it was a photograph. Sunlight was obtusely shaded with motley hues of gray. Even the pencils were silhouetted against deft shadows with sharp strokes of graphite. Everything was so detailed and realistic – on point. But I paused when I spotted the bottom-left edge, and began to crease the corner of the sheet.

Hunched over and intricately shadowed was my lanky self, a sly, shadowy pupil staring at me from the corner of its eyes.

Ujwal is a junior at Montgomery Township High School in Skillman, New Jersey, where he is the president of the Planetary Conservation Club. When his fingers aren’t thundering upon a keyboard or suffocating a ballpoint, Ujwal loves to watch movies a little too late at night and loop his Spotify. He aspires to attend film school and manifest his stories on screens big enough for the world to see…with a nice, generous bucket of popcorn, of course.

The Last Bus to Trayton

By Katie Sarrels

I pride myself on being an observer. The beautiful things in this world, natural and man-made, have never ceased to amaze me. I love watching winter transform into spring, seeing a train pull into the station, smelling chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven, and listening to the dialogue of two sparrows at the crack of dawn. I love it all, but I enjoy observing people the most.

On this particular day, I was sitting at the back of a near empty bus traveling from Otega Bay, a seaside tourist hub, to Trayton, a rural town on the other side of the mountains. The bus had just made its last stop on the edge of town and it was now making its way towards the mountain road. On a normal day, this trip would take an hour and seven minutes, but it was raining and the bus was expected to arrive later than usual.

I watched as water droplets ran down the window to my right. Some of them fell straight and fast while others took their time, sometimes getting swept up in another droplet’s path to the bottom. Looking past the rain, I could see the road start to slope upwards and the roar of the bus’s engine signaled the start of its climb up the mountain.

This trip was the last run of the day and there would be no other bus until the next morning. The bus driver was tired and ready to end his ten-hour shift. He was looking forward to spending his weekend off with his wife and watching the fifth season of Mad Men, one of their favorite shows. Since it was raining, his wife would expect him a little later than usual and have a nice cup of tea waiting for him upon his return. Though it would be eleven o’clock and well past dinnertime, a warm meal would be placed on the dining room table, because his wife insisted that he eat a proper meal, not one from a paper bag. The bus driver was especially excited for tonight because he had finally saved up enough money for he and his wife to go to Hawaii and was planning on surprising her with the plane tickets over dinner.

This bus trip was not popular by any means and functioned primarily as a commuter route for the residents of Trayton. However, on this trip, a tourist couple sat two rows back from the bus driver and their six-year-old daughter lay sleeping across their laps. After much disagreement, they had elected to stay with relatives in Trayton rather than pay for a costly hotel in Otega Bay. The woman insisted that the long bus ride was a small price to pay for saving a hundred dollars a night and the man soon gave in.

The woman didn’t want to stay with her relatives either, but she realized too late that she had underestimated the cost of the trip and they could not afford to stay in a hotel for the next week and a half. She knew that if her husband found out, he would want to end the trip early and she would have to tell their daughter that she couldn’t see the dolphin show that she had very much been looking forward to. The woman planned on telling her husband about their financial trouble after the trip was over and then working longer hours so they didn’t have to worry about the money that they had overspent.

The man might have noticed their savings slowly disappearing had he thought to check, but he had other worries on his mind. He had been fired two days before the start of their trip, but by then, the trip was already planned and paid for. He knew that his wife needed a break from work because her accounting firm had just finished a busy season and she was exhausted. If she found out he had been fired, the man knew she would cancel the trip and insist that she work even more. He also didn’t want to disappoint his daughter who had been looking forward to seeing the dolphins for weeks. When planning the trip, his wife assured him that they had saved up enough money and he decided that they would be fine until he could find a new job. He resolved to tell his wife that he’d been fired after their vacation, and had already lined up several interviews for when he returned home. For now, he just wanted the three of them to enjoy their family vacation.

The bus was nearing the top of the mountain and the rain had started to pick up. The bus’s headlights forged a path through the shadows that clung to the rock wall and the mountain’s inhabitants vanished into small crevices to avoid the bright light. I found myself thinking that I might like to follow them and explore the mountain, but the thought was fleeting and vanished altogether as the bus rounded the corner.

There was a person, a woman, sitting at the middle most row on the left side of the bus. She had been there since long before I arrived and was a mystery to me. She sat quietly, gripping onto the backpack in her lap, and stared out the window into the rain. I did not know where she came from, why she was here, or what business she had in Trayton which was unusual for me, but I wasn’t one to give up easily. I managed to gather, from the pins on her backpack, that she loved marine animals and, from the faint song fragments coming from her earphones, she loved listening to classic rock.

It wasn’t much, but I was content with knowing that and turned my attention out the window. We had reached the top of the mountain and a view of the town of Trayton was barely visible through the rain. Lights from the town shone through the darkness in place of the moon and the stars which, on this night, were covered by the storm clouds. Most of the residents had gone to bed, and the few that hadn’t were either on this bus to Trayton or waiting upon their return.

At the last stop before the mountain, a lone man got on the bus. He had a tough appearance complete with an unkempt beard and weathered clothes. These features caused most of the passengers to shy away from him in discomfort. Noticing their gazes, the man had chosen to sit towards the back of the bus as to not disturb the others. It was amusing to me, their weariness of this sailor, because out of all those on the bus, he was perhaps the most kindhearted.

The sailor had been traveling up and down the coast of Peru with his shipmates bringing aid to civilians after a devastating earthquake. His disheveled appearance was a result of a mild storm he and the rest of the crew ran into on their way back up the coast. He had battled the storm all through the night and was looking forward to reuniting with his wife and son after three weeks of separation. After a good, long sleep, he was planning on taking them camping at a little cove in the mountains. There, the sailor would point out the different types of trees and, just like every time they had gone before, he would listen to his wife tell them about the different species of birds, and watch as his son attempted to catch squirrels that got too close.

The bus driver, who had paid special attention to the sailor to make sure he paid his bus fare, would never know that the sailor also loved watching Mad Men with his wife or that he too understood the allure of a warm meal waiting at home. The couple, who shifted in their seats as he passed, would never exchange pleasantries with this man, or ask about his family waiting at home. They would never consider that this man could understand the selflessness behind the secrets they kept from one another, or know that he had a child the same age as the little girl who lay sleeping in their laps.

The bus started its descent and I turned my attention to the pine trees whose tops barely reached the edge of the road before dropping off down the side of the mountain. The rain was almost blinding and the once tiny droplets were now buckets of water pounding the side of the bus. The rain weighed on the branches of the pine trees, dragging them down, and the wind, which was starting to pick up, made even the strongest of trees sway. The bus’s metal walls had previously hidden the wind’s presence, but now the windows shook and the roar of the bus’s engine was lost in nature’s fury. It would be a stormy night in Trayton, but even then it was beautiful.

Otega Bay, where I had just left, was full of hazards, crime, and drunken mistakes. Though I visited often, I knew I would not like to live there. Maybe I was biased. I often visited larger, more chaotic cities, so maybe I relished the peaceful, isolating nature of towns like Trayton where nothing ever happened that would make headlines. Or maybe these small towns really were more beautiful. They always seemed more peaceful and inviting. Their sky always looked clearer, their birds more cheerful, and the people less burdened. Maybe one day I’d have to stick around and find out, but as for tonight, I had work to do.

The storm had by now turned violent with claps of thunder and streaks of lightning. The little girl had awoken with a cry and now sat wailing on her mother’s lap. Her father stroked her hair softly, whispering words of reassurance in her ear. The mysterious woman clutched her backpack tighter and was now looking at the road ahead. Maybe she often got car sick, or perhaps she wasn’t used to taking bus rides, especially in such conditions. I couldn’t tell. The sailor seemed the most at ease. He had been through many storms on open water and the events outside didn’t seem to faze him. Instead, he looked towards the couple comforting their daughter until he caught the attention of the little girl. The girl stared back at the sailor, rubbing her left eye with her fist. The sailor grinned, making silly gestures with his eyebrows, until the girl laughed and smiled back. The girl’s father looked back at the sailor and nodded his thanks before turning back to his family.

The bus driver had done his best to stay vigilant, but the ten-hour shift, combined with his restless sleep the previous night, slowed his reflexes. Lightning cracked above them on the cliff, illuminating the night sky for a fraction of a second. In the next instant, a large tree, with burn scars across its trunk, dented the road fifty feet in front of the bus. The driver slammed on the brakes, but the road, wet from the rain, refused to grip the tires. The bus slammed into the tree and was forcefully turned towards the guardrail. The little girl was crying again and suddenly, we were airborne. The family’s suitcases flew down the aisle towards the back of the bus where I was sitting and hit the wall to my right. The mysterious woman and the sailor gripped the seats in front of them, but slowly, they began to rise up off their seats. The bus driver was knocked out cold from the impact with the tree and would not wake.

After the bus hit the ground, it was about twenty seconds before it stopped rolling. By the time the bus had reached the bottom of the mountain, it had been completely destroyed. The windows were shattered, the right side was dented in, and the passengers lay scattered across its interior. I got up from the floor, though technically I was standing on the roof now. I walked over to the little girl and tapped her shoulder. She stirred and looked up at me.

“Who…who are you? I didn’t see you on the bus.”

“I’m sorry, the bus crashed. Come with me,” I replied and held out my hand. She hesitated, but finally placed her hand on mine and I pulled her to her feet. I said, “Let’s go get the others,” and began walking towards the front of the bus. The same thing happened each time I approached the others. They’d ask, “who are you?” and, “what happened?” and I’d tell them, then reach for their hand.

The bus, twenty-three minutes from town, would never arrive. The little girl would never get to see the dolphin show. Her parents would never know each other’s secrets, nor care to remember their own. The warm meal waiting for the bus driver’s return would eventually grow cold. The sailor had, unbeknownst to him, already visited his family’s camping site for the last time four months earlier. And despite it all, each of them would take my hand smiling.

That’s the strange, beautiful thing about death. Everyone, when their time comes, accepts it. They grab my hand and only a few ever look back upon themselves. If they do, it is only for a moment.

As I was leading the group of people away from the bus, slight movement to my right caught my eye. The mysterious woman was lying outside the bus and stirred as if waking from a troubled sleep. It all made sense to me now. I was not meant to know her story, at least not yet. Sometime in the near future, I would return to Trayton and see the mysterious woman again. On that day, her story would become clear to me, but not before.

I turned back to my companions. For today, my duty was to them. In life, people never stop and notice the little things. In death, I’d like to think they start to understand the beauty I see in the world, and I always take a little time to show them. I show them the beauty of the howling wind, the chilling rain, and the flickering lights of town from up above. I show them, then I move on, to another town, another group of people, and a new, beautiful day.

Katie Sarrels is a freshman at California State University Long Beach where she majors in both Film and English. She hopes to work as a producer for a major TV show, but her biggest dream is to one day write an original crime novel.

Paralysis

By Deborah Rocheleau

As she tumbles down the jagged mountainside, I see her bend in extraordinary ways. A rent arm here, a dislocated clavicle there. I look down at the path where moments before she had stood beside me, then at the willowy pine that stops her fall. It shudders on impact, scattering snow from its quills in a circle around the trunk and over her body.

She doesn’t move.

“Claudia!” I hop over the railing, feet sliding on the snowy incline. I take my precious time in choosing my steps, though the darkening sky presses upon every moment. Hurry, don’t hurry. Hurry.

I slide down beside her, using a nearby tree for support.

“Claudia, what happened?”

She is curled fetal around the trunk, one arm stretched out, a snow angel’s broken wing. Her gloves were torn off in the fall. The fresh sprinkled snow lays white over that below, like blood over old scars. When I touch her swelling face, a scraped eyelid lifts.

“Stop yelling,” she says. “I’ve got a splitting headache.”

It strikes me in the silence that follows that she used “splitting” for my benefit, a verbal tic plucked straight from an Austen novel. Humor by juxtaposition. It strikes me, also, that she hasn’t moved anything below her collarbone.

“Wriggle your toes,” I say.

“Adam.” She gives me a look, the one she uses on her freshmen students in her lectures on logic. I liked to sit in the back sometimes and watch the students squirm, reveling in the knowledge I would never face her professorial gaze.

Perhaps I spoke too soon.

“Wriggle your fingers.” I stroke her hand, probing the frozen bones.

“I can’t.” She is quiet a moment, motionless. Though really, who knows what kind of exertion is going on under the surface? She could be dancing a jig in her mind, or ramming my nose in, everything registering on the synaptic level. But paralysis has found a way to silence her as my arguments never could.

“Adam, I have class on Monday.”

“Don’t move.” I press her fingers between my palms, hold them avalanche-still. “Don’t try to move. Moving will just hurt you more.”

I don’t tell her it could be worse. I don’t say, as I increasingly fear, she may never move again. What was that she called it? Jumping to conclusions.

Besides, who am I to say she won’t recover? What do I know of anatomy, medicine, mountain climbing, power of will?

The angles of her limbs appall me.

Her fingers tense around my hand when I reach for my pocket, the muscles constricting in confused knots as they strain over their injuries.

“I think I need to call somebody,” I say, taking my phone out.

“You think?”

I ignore her, glancing at my phone. No bars. Of course. You chose the most remote mountain in the U.S. for your vacation, ergo… “Listen. I’m going to have to climb back up to the path to make the call.”

I pat her hand, but she doesn’t let go.

“How long?” she asks, though not casually. As if her life depends on it. I remember finding her last week—only last week?—after her talk with the dean. He’d talked with me too, all but begged me to take her away for a weekend, a month, a semester. When I’d asked what was wrong, he’d brushed it away, though he’d explained in no uncertain terms she was “in danger of losing her position.” Stronger wills than mine might have pressed further. I had a different strong will to deal with.

I entered her office, feeling the part of a trespasser. She lay buried behind a white Everest of papers, red hair unraveling from her neat bun. She’d glanced up when I opened the door, her face like a photo whose development is interrupted by a shred of light. Premature. Stunted. Half-formed.

The air was supposed to do her good.

I let go of her hand, turned my back on her.

“Hurry,” she calls as I pick my way up the delicate slope. Instead, I choose each step more carefully, not wanting to join her in her fate. Hurry, don’t hurry. Hurry. Don’t.

The sunlight is fading by the time I return down the mountain, shadows slipping underfoot. I blunder around in the darkness, sure and yet not so sure I am coming down the same mountain. There are ways to tell which way is north, what time of day it is. There is moss, growing on one side or the other of a tree, the sun off-center of its apex. But how does one, when confronted by wilderness, locate an injured lover?

“Claudia?” I yell. No answer. She could at least answer, let me know where she is. Even a paralytic could do that.

There is the tree, crooked against the sunset. I don’t need her help after all. There is her face, cheek down in the snow, her arm (and every other part of her) unmoved.

“Claudia.” Underneath my hand, she stirs, eyelids fluttering open.

“Did you call them?”

“Yes. You’re still alright.” My words don’t curve at the end as they ought to, to form a question. Perhaps because I know the answer. She’s worsening; even I feel certain saying that, her eyebrows bulging. Lips blue, and not just from the cold.

“Adam, how did I fall?”

I stoop down, trying to peel some of the frozen hair off her face.

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember standing on the edge. Looking for something.”

We’d come here for a couple’s retreat. I’d planned it, knowing how much she hated spontaneous trips. She’d told me so on several occasions. And each time I’d plucked her from her lecture stool, thrown her over my shoulder and carried her off anyway. She needed to get out of that office, away from the school email.

She’d outwitted even me, though, with this mountain escapade. Dragged me out in the swirling snow that ought to be ambience, not experience. We packed for a spa, not a hike out in air so frostbitten it hallucinated the Milky Way. On a clear night, you could see Venus. We hadn’t come all this way to see stars, though.

“What were you looking for?” I ask.

“I—I don’t remember.” She manages to pull her hand from under her. Touching it to her head, she feels for the first time the gash, too frozen now to bleed. “Why aren’t they here, Adam?”

The medic on the phone had said forty minutes. It’s been fifty-two.

“We’re pretty high up,” I say. “There’s not a building in sight. It could be hours.”

“There’s a cabin over there.”

“What? Where?”

She tries to point toward the darkening east. Needle quill trees point out from the ashen landscape, stitching the patchy horizon back to the sky.

“It’s there, somewhere. I saw it.”

I nod my head, give her my most convincing believer face. If she says there’s a cabin, there is one. Let the logicians figure that one out.

“It hurts.” Her face lies half smashed against the snow, half taut with pain. Unbalanced, like a stroke victim’s. “What am I supposed to do for hours?”

“Try singing.” I say.

“Adam…”

Though I can’t see her face through the dark, nor feel it move below my hand, I know she’s glaring. We have an unspoken code. Not body language, exactly. Someone looking from the outside might think nothing had happened. It’s a look over steamed coffee, eye contact during a lecture. I’d glance at her, make her pause in her lecturing. By the end she’d be glowing, even if nobody else noticed. So much of a person seems paralyzed, until you know them.

“You have a pretty voice,” I say. I hear nothing, feel nothing, and that nothing tells me so much. We haven’t had a moment like this in months, and sitting here, I think, perhaps this is good for us, freezing our extremities off, too numb to let words or movement get in the way of what we have to say. I know by her silence she feels it, too.

Or maybe that’s just paralysis.

I hear something: a sob, a sniff, a leaky bagpipe. Bending down, I almost miss her trying, trying to sing with what air she has.

“Just hear those sleigh bells ring-a-ling, ting-ting-tingling too.” She grows louder, more confident. “Come on it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you. Giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up let’s go. Hmm, Hmm, Hmm.” She hums out the rest. She couldn’t keep a song in her head if her life depended on it. I shiver with the morbid thought that, in this instance, it just might.

“Adam,” I hear the exhaustion in her voice. “Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why did you let me fall?”

“What?” I laugh. She’s always had a twisted sense of humor. Half her students come out of her lectures appalled, the other half ready to report her to the dean. It’s happened more than once. She can always reason her way out, though. Come up with an excuse. She knows the ethical codes, backward and forward. Knows the fault lines. Knows the weak points.

Maybe that was my first hint of something off.

“You let me step up on the rail,” she says. “You let me lean forward.”

“I tried to stop you.”

“You didn’t even help me.”

“I tried to steady you. I put my hand on your back.”

“And pushed.” The words hang, muffled by snow. Then, she laughs, delayed like she’s missed her own punch line. “Oh, what am I saying? I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought.”

I stare at her, shivering in the harsh wind like a needle on the verge of falling from the tree. I’d read the public announcement poster in the lodge, the ones about the dangers of mountain climbing. People could lose themselves up here, mental processes deteriorating till they don’t even know they’re dying. So how come I feel like I’m seeing her clearly for the first time?

There is no cabin. There isn’t even a logician here. Just a scared college professor and her bendable mind. And the man who can do nothing to help her.

“Adam?” She reaches for my face, pawing my chin. “It’s so cold.”

“Take my jacket.” I take it off and fling it over her. The wind creeps up my back, stinging like shackles where it touches my exposed skin, my wrists, my neck.

“But now you’ll be cold,” she says.

“You wanted my jacket.” I slam my frozen knuckles against the ground, and they bleed. “So there. Now you have it. What more do you want from me?”

“I want this to be over,” she cries. “It was never this cold before.” She lets out a little chuckle, dislocated, like her hip. “I used to want to live here, in the cabin. It was so fun on vacation in the summer. I guess I thought it would always be that way. But now, it’s just so cold. It’s too cold.”

I reach for my pocket self-consciously, feeling for the ring, then remember Claudia has my jacket. Fear paralyzes me—no other word will suffice—until I see her eyes close, hear her breathing settle. I relax; wait until she slumps against the snow, face no longer twitching, eyes no longer roaming side to side with dreams. When she is motionless, I reach my hand into the propped open pocket, careful not to disturb her. I feel the ring in my fingers, but as I pull out my hand, it slips and falls. I bend down, stomping my hands full force into the snow, though my skin’s already numb with cold. I can’t risk missing it, must find it, come frostbite and all else that follows.

It is gone.

Her breathing grows labored again, seeming loud against the muffled air. I put a hand on her side, but she doesn’t move.

“Claudia,” I whisper. “Claudia.”

“It’s cold,” she murmurs, and freezes.

“Claudia!” The wind rises, a flutter-flutter like a sickly heartbeat. The trees to either side of us bow low, and a dark spot challenges the moon. A helicopter’s floodlights trail us as it soars overhead, stays locked on our location as the aircraft lands on the path further up.

“Too late,” I rock back, wiping the melting snow from my forehead. Of course they’ve come now. Just my luck. Of course they’ve come just after the critical moment has passed.

A paramedic comes down the slope, rushing toward Claudia.

“You’re too late,” I intercept him. He shoves me out of the way with his medical pack, casts me aside like some rancid tumor residue. I charge after him, but another medic catches my arm, leads me up to the helicopter.

They give me a blanket, take my temperature, like I’m the one on the verge of a breakdown. Stop wasting your time, man. She’s the paralytic.

Hurry, don’t hurry. Hurry.

Claudia follows shortly, carried in on a stretcher. I try in vain to decipher the medical jargon the paramedics swap before the helicopter takes off. I can hear nothing after.

We rise off the mountainside, wind from the rotors and mountain air blasting my face. Looking out the open door, think I spy a cabin for one second in the shifting evergreens. Just a tiny thing, humble and hiding. I lean out of the copter, trying to get another look, but the paramedic snaps me back. No use, anyway. My chance of seeing it again is as slim as finding a ring in a mountain of snow.

Deborah Rocheleau is an English major, Chinese minor, and all-around language fanatic. Her writing has been published by Tin House, 100 Word Story, Flights, and the Boston Literary Magazine, among others.

Bad Dream

By Patrick McDonald

Setting:

Sandman’s crammed and messy office

Characters:

Dave
Sandman

Scene fades in with SANDMAN in his office. SANDMAN is clicking furiously on a video/dream editing software, while admiring his many Oscar dream awards sitting on the ledge above. DAVE enters room by throwing the door open. SANDMAN quickly turns around.

Dave: Hey, Sandman! Can you explain what the hell just happen?

Sandman: Oh! Morning, Dave! You’re up.. (looks at watch) rather early.

Dave: Oh? So you’re surprised?

Sandman: Well, yes. I thought the dream I produced last night for you was awfully interesting. Rather abstract too. I spend a lot of time on it in post-dream production.

Dave: It was awful! Worse than a nightmare! What the hell man?! Why did you haunt me with that garbage?

SANDMAN pulls out a huge list titled “Dream schedule.”

Sandman: I’m confused here, Dave. Last night was supposed to be an adventurous narrative, along with a teeny bit of romance and gore. You’re not scheduled to have a nightmare until..

SANDMAN points at list and shows DAVE. DAVE looks closer at the date.

Sandman: Next Wednesday! That should be one to keep you up all night! Involves a lot of clowns. I really put a lot of time in the camera angles and mo-

Dave: It doesn’t matter what the dream was about! People don’t really remember dreams when they wake up, you know.

Sandman: It sure is a tough job in the dream film department…

Dave: It’s that girl, Sandman! Why the hell is she in every single dream?

Sandman: Oh? The girl named Isabelle? She was barely in it. Just a small cameo.

Dave: It doesn’t matter what she did, she was still in it! And she’s been in practically every dream I’ve had for a month.

Sandman: Well sometimes you have to put in things to appeal to the audience.

Dave: I’m your only audience! And I’m telling you now I hate it!

Sandman: Not according to your subconscious. That guy is requesting her in every production. Especially last month.

Dave: Well, can you cut it out? You know subconscious always comes up with the stupidest ideas.

Sandman: Say… What’s your deal with this person in particular?

Dave: Nothing! She’s just out of place. It’s stupid.

Sandman: Last night’s dream production was about a giraffe teaching trigonometry to an amoeba. She did nothing but stand in the back of the classroom and was in the dream for about four seconds. I’m calling bullshit on this one, Dave. Something is up with her.

Dave: She’s just a problem and nothing more.

Sandman: Spit it out, Dave. Or I’ll boost up the amount of nightmares you’ll have next week so that you’ll become an insomniac.

DAVE wanders around room for a bit and avoids eye contact with SANDMAN, and SANDMAN leans forward.

Dave: She was my girlfriend.

Sandman: You have a girlfriend?! Why didn’t you tell me? No wonder that’s all your subconscious wanted. I’ve never made so many romantic dreams in my life, and why the hell is she just a cameo?! She should be starring in them wi-

Dave: Was my girlfriend, Sandman. I’m using past tense. And don’t make a big deal out of it.

Sandman: What happened? I want to hear your story of heartbreak and woe. It’s for inspirational purposes.

Dave: Sandman…

Sandman: Was it a bad break up? One with harsh words? The rivalry of two old lovers?

Dave: Sandman…

Sandman: Did she move away? Get drafted for “the war”? Did the separation and lack of letters in the mail break your heart? Was it because she lost her arms?

Dave: Sandman…

Sandman: Did you two have a fight? Not perhaps with words, but with violence? Boxing? Karate? The violent, action-packed dreams always turn out to be more popular than the artsy and serious dreams.

Dave: Sandman! It’s not that big of a deal! This is so tacky! Just get rid of her in my dreams, dammit!

Sandman: So it was a bad break up… Okay…

SANDMAN writes in notebook “The Bad Breakup” and begins to write a script of a brand new dream.

Dave: No! No. No. No… It… Wasn’t at all as a matter of fact.

Sandman: Then none of this adds up, bud.

Dave: It’s… not that important to know.

Sandman: Then she’ll be in every single dream, and she won’t have arms and be an expert at kick boxing. Boom. We got a screenplay.

Dave: Fine, fine, fine, dammit! I’ll tell you! But can you promise me that you’ll take her out of my dreams? For good?

Sandman: Tell me your narrative story built by overwhelmed emotions and sadness..

Dave: Okay, so I met her at a bookstore, and we talked about our favorite novels, movies, and other things just out of that small interaction. We started as strangers, then friends, then best friends, and soon we were… A couple.

SANDMAN is writing in notebook while DAVE is turned away. As soon as DAVE turns to SANDMAN, SANDMAN hides notebook behind and smiles.

Dave: Everything was going great, you know? Seemed like we were flawless together. Then one day, she just told me she was no longer interested in me. No no, she told me she was “bored”. But she then came up and said she wasn’t in the right place in her mind for any relationship with anyone. I felt bad, but not as bad as when I saw her with a brand new guy slung around her a five days later.

Sandman: That’s rough, buddy.

Dave: I mean, I don’t really care about it anymore. Just want to forget that she existed. That’s why I’m pissed she’s still in my dreams. She doesn’t have to be doing anything, she just has to be there. Just her being there makes it tougher to forget.

Sandman: Well. If that’s your true request from me, I will make sure she doesn’t appear in your dreams again. Thanks for letting me know, Dave.

Dave: Thanks, Mr. Sandman. It was making things tougher, but also creeping the shit out of me that she was still haunting my life.

Sandman: Creepy?

Dave: Yeah. You know. Kind of weird how she’s still a weird part of my life when she left. It’s uncomfortable.

Sandman: Interesting.

Dave: What?

Sandman: Oh! Nothing, Dave. Don’t worry a bit. I’ll take her out and ignore your subconscious. She won’t bother you anymore.

Dave: Thanks! Talk to you later!

DAVE walks out of room, and SANDMAN turns back to his desk. SANDMAN begins to giggle, and scribble furiously in his notebook.

Sandman: Change in the script. Instead of clowns in Wednesday’s nightmare, it’s going to be a clown Isabelle! He’s never going to see this coming, and it’s going to scare the skin off of him! This is my best idea yet!

Fade out

Patrick is a normal kid who enjoys camping, boxing, cooking, making videos, and all types of humor.

We Laughed For Some Reason

By Nisha Klein

It is me and Maria and Susan. Susan’s mother called last night and my mother answered, and then, in the morning, I got in the car and was dropped off at Susan’s house, and then driven into the city.

We are skipping down the street, and it is sunny and bright and crowded, but we don’t mind. Susan’s mother said to meet her in front of the store on the corner, so we are marching there, so she won’t get worried like last time. And Susan grasps my arm tightly so I won’t get lost, because I get lost a lot, and Maria strays behind us, but close enough that we can feel her. And Susan is pointing in windows, shouting I want that, and that, and that, and that, and that. But we all know it is only a wish, because we know Susan’s mother can’t afford that. And so we keep walking. And I see things—clothes, toys— that I want, but I don’t want to say anything because I know that my mother can’t afford them either. And then my stomach knots up and I feel awkward and weird, embarrassed that I can’t have more, though none of us has enough money and Maria is wearing her shoes from last fall again.

And by then our ice cream is gone and we are kids, only nine years old, and free in a big city, alone but not at all scared, and we want to just cheer and dash away, but we are trying to be big kids, to be older, like Susan’s older sister. And Maria taps my shoulder. What are you thinking about? … Oh, nothing. I’m just tired…. You’re not sleeping again?… No.

It’s then that we see him, and we stop where we are. Crouching on the curb, dressed in rips, and hugging the top flap of a cardboard box. He stumbles towards us, his hands cupped, eyes empty, pockets empty. Do you have any money?

Susan shakes her head. No. Sorry.

Please, the man begs. I’ve got a family. Please. Anything.

No. We don’t have anything. I’m sorry.

Please, I have two children. Please, we haven’t eaten in three days. Please. Please.

He’s big but small, crumpled and curled up. I clutch Maria’s arm, and he’s so close, so close he can hear the blood pounding in my ears, my head screaming, telling me to run away. I bet he can hear all that. And my heart is pounding, pounding, pounding, and the man is so broken, so ruined, shattered like a pane of glass. And his gaze shifts to meet mine, and I can see it in his eyes, that despair and grief, and I’m sure he can see fear in mine, so I just look back at my shoes, my ripped and ugly shoes, the ones I cried about, a couple weeks ago, screaming that I wanted new ones. The ones I slammed the bathroom door about, and screamed I hate you at my mother because she wouldn’t take me shopping. And I can hear it in his voice when he asks again, asks if we have anything, anything at all, and his desperation makes me tremble.

Susan shakes her head, I’m really sorry, but we really don’t have anything. When she says this, his shoulders drop, arms fall to his side, and his head drops, drops down, almost touching his chest. And we all want to give him something, but we have nothing, so we keep walking, quickly though, as if being chased, chased by our guilt, perhaps, I think to myself, but I don’t really, and then we are sprinting as fast as we can and a woman shouts, Look where you’re going! —as we knock into her, and her bags take wing, bursting into the air like pigeons let loose from a cage, and then back to Earth as slowly as paper, yet they land so noisily. And I wince, and she cries because we broke a plate or something. Look out! —a man warns as we come racing around, inches from the street, but we don’t stop, we don’t want to think about what we left behind, watching us scuttling away, and knowing why. We don’t want to turn around and, even from a distance, we’ll be able to recognize that man, stretched out on the corner, waiting for someone to have a heart. We don’t want to look behind us and once again behold that cardboard sign, the one that’s asking for help, the one that’s ignored, the way we ignored it. We don’t want to glance back and see cardboard sign, watching us with sad eyes, calling us, pleading, please come back and help, kneeling alone on the curb. But we know he and his sign are there, we can picture it in our heads. That’s why we don’t stop running, until we see Susan’s mother. Holding shopping bags and putting away her wallet. Us, gasping for air.

What’s the hurry? She giggles.

Susan and Maria and me, we all look at each other, and then, for some reason, we laugh. We burst out and we can’t stop. Loud, in your face cachinnation that scares the poor dove sitting on the railing, the kind that used to wake me up in the middle of the night when my parents were watching comedies and would keep me awake long into the night. The day and the image in our heads of the man and his sign slowly crumble around us, and the janitor sweeps it up and throws it away and we can’t remember why we were so upset, why we were rushing so. For some reason, we laugh.

Nisha Klein is currently a sophomore in high school. Her first publication, Sticks and Stones, appeared in the July 2013 issue of Stone Soup. Her short story, We Laughed for Some Reason, was written while Klein was in eighth grade.