u/GothMomi

I could feel the tiny fuzz that covered my brain as my mind turned to static and the world around me no longer existed, for I was dissociating again, and this time, I was happy. I was home and not driving like last time. So much stress had been pressurized into my life that it felt like I was filling with helium, and I was about to pop at any given moment. The overwhelming waves of anxiety for not making enough money and the jolts of failure as I open bill after bill, all left in my name since the divorce, and the back-paid mortgage bills, all my responsibility as well. I would have taken more money than the house, but my ex-husband is a failed defense attorney whose company just went bankrupt at the worst possible time in his second marriage. The house is nice; however, since we were married, each of us was making two figures a month, and we could afford this luxury, which came with an indoor and outdoor pool. Why we even needed this house to begin with was beyond me, but Maxwell was a flamboyant type, and boy, did he like to wave his profits around, which was one of the reasons for our divorce, among many more. 

Now I was living in a house I couldn't afford, and I couldn't sell it because no one would even look at the listing, afraid of the price, even though the property was worth a lot. I was popping Vicodin for my migraines, which had started through the divorce proceedings, which Maxwell fought with me every tooth and nail he had in him, and boy, did I see something in him that I never even thought he was capable of doing to me at the time, so I just got mean, and I have been mean ever since. I was also a defense attorney, which made me more than capable of being candid and harsh, which really kept me off the market for men. My life was a spiral crash where, in the divorce papers, I was only allowed to see my baby, Nibbles, only every other week because Maxwell wanted to make it a custody battle as well for the dog. 

My best friend Stacy came up with this brilliant idea of taking me on vacation, away from all the anxiety and whirlwind of a destroyed marriage that lasted all of ten years. It was a new resort abroad where the natives took you on a spiritual journey to find your inner self and be enlightened by everlasting peace. It was everything I needed, and I was not going to let my best friend pay my share of this resort, which I'm sure was at least three figures per client. She insisted and had already paid for my part, so there was no more argument as she helped me pack my bags for the trip, which started in two days. I had vacation days due, which I put in immediately, not even glancing to see if Dale had approved the application, and knowing damn well that I was the only reason their firm was high and tight and making over five hundred thousand dollars every quarter. 

I was on a plane before I knew it, looking out the small window beside me, watching the blue sky and the puffy white clouds lazily float in the blue that surrounded us as the plane flew hundreds of miles per hour. The twenty-hour flight with a buzzing engine that somehow leaked quietly inside and gave off a weird eardrum reaction, making it seem like you couldn't hear well, was irritating, to say the least. As Stacy spoke to all the passengers around her, being overly friendly as she always was, I tucked myself against the wall with the window blinds open, deep into a book I'd bought at the airport to read on these flights to our destination. When we finally got to the main airport, which was near the capital rather than the savanna's outskirts, we took a bus all the way to our destination without stopping for a hotel, which I thought we were renting for our time here. 

Apparently, Stacy wanted the entire experience, so she decided we should camp out with the natives and follow their traditions, rather than coming in as outsiders and not fully embracing their heritage. Finally, we got off the bus and had to walk twenty miles to the village in the savanna with our guide, which would take ten hours without any stops. The three of us travelers walked all day and half way through the night before we began to see tents with flickering fires set all around the property they called home. The guide left us as we walked around, looking for someone who would invite us into the resort. An older woman did come to greet us, and her appearance caught us off guard, for it was more peculiar than just a mundane face, for this woman’s face had several implants under her skin. 

The older-looking woman had a crown of globes under her flesh, along with three black stripes from her bottom lip to the end of her chin. This woman seemed so elderly, but her wrinkles were minute, and her silver hair was flawless. The elder led Stacy and me into a tent that had three other resortists. We made ourselves comfortable as the tribe leader entered our tent to offer proper greetings. The tribe leader bulged with muscle as his bare chest flexed with his movements, and on his head was the open head of a lion, its jaw broken so that the leader’s face could be fully seen. 

Everyone here was fluent in English, which made me think that this was a very popular spot for many tourists, and I was surprised I was just hearing about it, for I knew all the resorts worth going to all over the world, and this place was never even on my radar. Stacy told me it was very exclusive and only the high hitters can make it to a place like this. The head chief stepped out, and the elder woman came in and put clay on our faces and wrapped up our hair before starting a fire in the middle of the tee-pee and closing the flap behind her. The smoke began to coagulate with the air as it accumulated around us. I watched as the woman pulled ingredients and instruments from her bag, the latter basic, as she prepared some kind of drink, which she poured into a leather decanter. 

She took a drink, and then she passed it around. I was third in line. I sniffed the liquid inside, which had a color not shown to me, and when putting the potion in my mouth, it vibrated my tongue and burned my throat on the way down. I let out a cough as if I had just taken a shot of moonshine for the first time and tried not to let it all come right back up, but I settled myself and waited until everyone got their turn and the elder woman began to speak. 

“With that sip, you have begun your journey to your souls to your free spirits, and you shall endure the pain of life through your relinquished suffering you cannot hide from, and everything within you will come from whatever beast hides within.” I watched her bow her head and say some kind of prayer before looking up at us again. “At this time, we will meditate and let the medicine wake up inside your bodies.” The elder woman sat on her knees, hands on her thighs, bowing her head and smiling at something she must have found funny. 

As I sat and watched the fire, I noticed the blue in the flames run through the orange more prominently, and the top of each flicker was a lick of oxygen the fire begged for. I looked at Stacy, not prepared for how I would look upon her now, in the state I was experiencing. For half of her face was normal, but the other side was melting, and I'm sure she was seeing something similar because neither of us spoke to each other as we stared at each other's faces. A deep howl came from far beyond the village, and our spirit guide got up and began pushing us out of the tent. 

“You must be gone now.” She shooed her hands away from us and pointed us in a direction that we should go. 

The trees were wiggling to me at this point, and my mind could only comprehend survival and fear as I realized she was pushing us out into the wilderness, where we would be unsheltered and unprotected from any threat that tried to harm us. A few men of the village threw weapons at our feet before forcing us out of their camp and into the darkness, lit only by a bulbous moon that cast everything around us into view and a torch for each of us. We were not in our right minds as we began to disperse away from each other and make our own independent paths. I was away from everyone, including Stacy, as I followed the dancing lights around me with an explosion of dopamine blasting my brain open, seeping out of my ears and nose. 

It wasn’t endorphins leaking from my ears and nose, but a gooey black residue that clung to my fingers as I tried to get it off. I was starting to come out of my disillusionment when the moon began to speak to me. I could hear a predator near me, intently stalking me as it waited for its right moment to strike, but I did not move from my spot, for the moon was speaking, and it would be too rude for me to just run away. I must; I have the need to hear what the moon has to say. The cheetah attacked me and pinned me down on the ground while I had a moronic smile on my face. I knew that this was a part of the inner me battling my subconscious demons, which I had to defeat; I had to win this fight. 

I battled the feline and its strength, ignoring every bite and claw that dug into me. I got the bottom and top of its jaw, and I pushed them apart as far as they could go as I heard gurgling whimpers and bones snap. I let the beast go, covered in injury and blood, and was just happy that the monster that came for me was no larger than the one I could have faced, for I would have had no chance of survival then against one so big. I began to come to as the pain of my injuries began to feel more and more real, but then the moon would begin to speak to me, and all my suffering would go away. I couldn't feel the passing of time, and all I knew was that the night was everlasting, and I could feel a power of adrenaline in my veins that I'd never felt before. 

Then a pack of lions surrounded me, and I was ready to fight, roaring at them just as much as they were snarling at me, and they attacked me as I punched and bit down on anything I could touch. The lions maimed me while I was still alive, and I felt myself die on the ground, my intestines falling out of my body, and half of my face was torn off. I couldn't believe this was how I was going to die. Then I opened my eyes, and to my astonishment, it all turned out to be just fine, all fine except for the feline that got me first; those wounds were still very real. I got off the ground and dusted myself off as I watched the wavy horizon come and go with further to close as fast as a light can turn on, and it made me sick to look at it for too long, so I went back to trailing along and talking to the moon. 

Then the sun came out, and it wasn't as friendly as the moon, as it scorched my body and dehydrated me by taking water through my pores. I trudged around in no direction, not understanding my path or my way back to the village, and I didn't run into another tourist yet. I was coming to realize this, understand how fucked I was, until a lizard came to me, crawled up my legs, and sat on my shoulder, whispering to me that it knew the way to salvation, and I trusted the lizard that now lay curled against my neck as I walked in the direction it was leading me to. Then a snake got in the middle of our path, and the lizard told me it was a friend and that I should greet it like one, so I put my hand down there, and the snake bit me. I could feel the venom flood my veins, but I still couldn’t comprehend what reality was. 

The snake went on, and I began to feel tired as the lizard told me not to stop, to keep going forward. The world around me was so bright and vivid that it almost looked hazy around the edges, and in those places where my sight was no use, I caught sight of men hunting me, but I would look, and there would be nothing more than wavy hills and dancing trees around me, making me feel even more endorphins from before. I lally gagged around like I was living in some paradise as my body was dying, and dehydration had begun sucking my body even further in from not eating anything as well. The lizard soon left my body once the moon was back, and the moon and I picked up our conversation as the moon let me sit and rest awhile. 

I couldn't sleep for there was so much to talk about and too many places to go, and I was enthralled with what the moon was saying to me as I gazed upon its crater eyes and shaded nose, its smile the most realistic of all as it bore my own teeth, which looked just like mine except much larger. Once I sat, I told the moon I couldn't get up any longer, and the moon reassured me that it was going to be okay if I got some rest for now. I felt so weak and drained, like I wasn't able to keep myself alive any longer. I closed my eyes, and when I did, I was overcome with all the suffering my body had been enduring while I was off in an alternate reality. 

I opened my eyes just to see the moon and the stars with no one speaking to me at all as I came to the realization that I was just lost somewhere in the savanna, barely sitting up against a tree. I couldn't move anymore as I realized my reality and began to give in to death, which desperately wanted to hold me. I was about to slip when a native man leaped from nowhere and began keeping me alive. He sat with me and made me eat these wads of paste, which gave me girth and hydration. I felt so rejuvenated, and I didn't know how to thank the man. He took no payment as I got up and walked on sooner to find my destination. 

I fell to my knees when I realized that healing wasn't real. I was dejected and dying with no help or hope of salvation anywhere near me until I saw another native man, and I laughed out loud as he said he was going to end my suffering. That was before they lunged a wooden spear through my chest and then the native man threw my body over his shoulder as I no longer had any weight left in me at all. It made it all the easier for him to carry me. The native took me back to the village where I was set before the elder. She put powders on my body and gaped open the wounds that I received from the cheetah I had miraculously won the challenge to, and she began to cut little hunks of the inside of my wound out and give it to the chief, who then put it in his mouth and began chewing it. He was happy with what he tasted, looked at me, and nodded with approval. 

I grabbed the old woman’s arm and asked why. Why all of this craze that she put me through, and she laughed at me and told me it was for the taste, the way the brain erupts certain chemicals makes the meat taste different in your bones. I asked her where the others were, my adrenaline wearing thin and my lifespan running out. She smiled at me and said 

“They are already prepared for dinner.” 

I could feel the tiny fuzz that covered my brain as my mind turned to static and the world around me no longer existed, for I was dissociating again, and this time, I was happy. I was home and not driving like last time. So much stress had been pressurized into my life that it felt like I was filling with helium, and I was about to pop at any given moment. The overwhelming waves of anxiety for not making enough money and the jolts of failure as I open bill after bill, all left in my name since the divorce, and the back-paid mortgage bills, all my responsibility as well. I would have taken more money than the house, but my ex-husband is a failed defense attorney whose company just went bankrupt at the worst possible time in his second marriage. The house is nice; however, since we were married, each of us was making two figures a month, and we could afford this luxury, which came with an indoor and outdoor pool. Why we even needed this house to begin with was beyond me, but Maxwell was a flamboyant type, and boy, did he like to wave his profits around, which was one of the reasons for our divorce, among many more. 

Now I was living in a house I couldn't afford, and I couldn't sell it because no one would even look at the listing, afraid of the price, even though the property was worth a lot. I was popping Vicodin for my migraines, which had started through the divorce proceedings, which Maxwell fought with me every tooth and nail he had in him, and boy, did I see something in him that I never even thought he was capable of doing to me at the time, so I just got mean, and I have been mean ever since. I was also a defense attorney, which made me more than capable of being candid and harsh, which really kept me off the market for men. My life was a spiral crash where, in the divorce papers, I was only allowed to see my baby, Nibbles, only every other week because Maxwell wanted to make it a custody battle as well for the dog. 

My best friend Stacy came up with this brilliant idea of taking me on vacation, away from all the anxiety and whirlwind of a destroyed marriage that lasted all of ten years. It was a new resort abroad where the natives took you on a spiritual journey to find your inner self and be enlightened by everlasting peace. It was everything I needed, and I was not going to let my best friend pay my share of this resort, which I'm sure was at least three figures per client. She insisted and had already paid for my part, so there was no more argument as she helped me pack my bags for the trip, which started in two days. I had vacation days due, which I put in immediately, not even glancing to see if Dale had approved the application, and knowing damn well that I was the only reason their firm was high and tight and making over five hundred thousand dollars every quarter. 

I was on a plane before I knew it, looking out the small window beside me, watching the blue sky and the puffy white clouds lazily float in the blue that surrounded us as the plane flew hundreds of miles per hour. The twenty-hour flight with a buzzing engine that somehow leaked quietly inside and gave off a weird eardrum reaction, making it seem like you couldn't hear well, was irritating, to say the least. As Stacy spoke to all the passengers around her, being overly friendly as she always was, I tucked myself against the wall with the window blinds open, deep into a book I'd bought at the airport to read on these flights to our destination. When we finally got to the main airport, which was near the capital rather than the savanna's outskirts, we took a bus all the way to our destination without stopping for a hotel, which I thought we were renting for our time here. 

Apparently, Stacy wanted the entire experience, so she decided we should camp out with the natives and follow their traditions, rather than coming in as outsiders and not fully embracing their heritage. Finally, we got off the bus and had to walk twenty miles to the village in the savanna with our guide, which would take ten hours without any stops. The three of us travelers walked all day and half way through the night before we began to see tents with flickering fires set all around the property they called home. The guide left us as we walked around, looking for someone who would invite us into the resort. An older woman did come to greet us, and her appearance caught us off guard, for it was more peculiar than just a mundane face, for this woman’s face had several implants under her skin. 

The older-looking woman had a crown of globes under her flesh, along with three black stripes from her bottom lip to the end of her chin. This woman seemed so elderly, but her wrinkles were minute, and her silver hair was flawless. The elder led Stacy and me into a tent that had three other resortists. We made ourselves comfortable as the tribe leader entered our tent to offer proper greetings. The tribe leader bulged with muscle as his bare chest flexed with his movements, and on his head was the open head of a lion, its jaw broken so that the leader’s face could be fully seen. 

Everyone here was fluent in English, which made me think that this was a very popular spot for many tourists, and I was surprised I was just hearing about it, for I knew all the resorts worth going to all over the world, and this place was never even on my radar. Stacy told me it was very exclusive and only the high hitters can make it to a place like this. The head chief stepped out, and the elder woman came in and put clay on our faces and wrapped up our hair before starting a fire in the middle of the tee-pee and closing the flap behind her. The smoke began to coagulate with the air as it accumulated around us. I watched as the woman pulled ingredients and instruments from her bag, the latter basic, as she prepared some kind of drink, which she poured into a leather decanter. 

She took a drink, and then she passed it around. I was third in line. I sniffed the liquid inside, which had a color not shown to me, and when putting the potion in my mouth, it vibrated my tongue and burned my throat on the way down. I let out a cough as if I had just taken a shot of moonshine for the first time and tried not to let it all come right back up, but I settled myself and waited until everyone got their turn and the elder woman began to speak. 

“With that sip, you have begun your journey to your souls to your free spirits, and you shall endure the pain of life through your relinquished suffering you cannot hide from, and everything within you will come from whatever beast hides within.” I watched her bow her head and say some kind of prayer before looking up at us again. “At this time, we will meditate and let the medicine wake up inside your bodies.” The elder woman sat on her knees, hands on her thighs, bowing her head and smiling at something she must have found funny. 

As I sat and watched the fire, I noticed the blue in the flames run through the orange more prominently, and the top of each flicker was a lick of oxygen the fire begged for. I looked at Stacy, not prepared for how I would look upon her now, in the state I was experiencing. For half of her face was normal, but the other side was melting, and I'm sure she was seeing something similar because neither of us spoke to each other as we stared at each other's faces. A deep howl came from far beyond the village, and our spirit guide got up and began pushing us out of the tent. 

“You must be gone now.” She shooed her hands away from us and pointed us in a direction that we should go. 

The trees were wiggling to me at this point, and my mind could only comprehend survival and fear as I realized she was pushing us out into the wilderness, where we would be unsheltered and unprotected from any threat that tried to harm us. A few men of the village threw weapons at our feet before forcing us out of their camp and into the darkness, lit only by a bulbous moon that cast everything around us into view and a torch for each of us. We were not in our right minds as we began to disperse away from each other and make our own independent paths. I was away from everyone, including Stacy, as I followed the dancing lights around me with an explosion of dopamine blasting my brain open, seeping out of my ears and nose. 

It wasn’t endorphins leaking from my ears and nose, but a gooey black residue that clung to my fingers as I tried to get it off. I was starting to come out of my disillusionment when the moon began to speak to me. I could hear a predator near me, intently stalking me as it waited for its right moment to strike, but I did not move from my spot, for the moon was speaking, and it would be too rude for me to just run away. I must; I have the need to hear what the moon has to say. The cheetah attacked me and pinned me down on the ground while I had a moronic smile on my face. I knew that this was a part of the inner me battling my subconscious demons, which I had to defeat; I had to win this fight. 

I battled the feline and its strength, ignoring every bite and claw that dug into me. I got the bottom and top of its jaw, and I pushed them apart as far as they could go as I heard gurgling whimpers and bones snap. I let the beast go, covered in injury and blood, and was just happy that the monster that came for me was no larger than the one I could have faced, for I would have had no chance of survival then against one so big. I began to come to as the pain of my injuries began to feel more and more real, but then the moon would begin to speak to me, and all my suffering would go away. I couldn't feel the passing of time, and all I knew was that the night was everlasting, and I could feel a power of adrenaline in my veins that I'd never felt before. 

Then a pack of lions surrounded me, and I was ready to fight, roaring at them just as much as they were snarling at me, and they attacked me as I punched and bit down on anything I could touch. The lions maimed me while I was still alive, and I felt myself die on the ground, my intestines falling out of my body, and half of my face was torn off. I couldn't believe this was how I was going to die. Then I opened my eyes, and to my astonishment, it all turned out to be just fine, all fine except for the feline that got me first; those wounds were still very real. I got off the ground and dusted myself off as I watched the wavy horizon come and go with further to close as fast as a light can turn on, and it made me sick to look at it for too long, so I went back to trailing along and talking to the moon. 

Then the sun came out, and it wasn't as friendly as the moon, as it scorched my body and dehydrated me by taking water through my pores. I trudged around in no direction, not understanding my path or my way back to the village, and I didn't run into another tourist yet. I was coming to realize this, understand how fucked I was, until a lizard came to me, crawled up my legs, and sat on my shoulder, whispering to me that it knew the way to salvation, and I trusted the lizard that now lay curled against my neck as I walked in the direction it was leading me to. Then a snake got in the middle of our path, and the lizard told me it was a friend and that I should greet it like one, so I put my hand down there, and the snake bit me. I could feel the venom flood my veins, but I still couldn’t comprehend what reality was. 

The snake went on, and I began to feel tired as the lizard told me not to stop, to keep going forward. The world around me was so bright and vivid that it almost looked hazy around the edges, and in those places where my sight was no use, I caught sight of men hunting me, but I would look, and there would be nothing more than wavy hills and dancing trees around me, making me feel even more endorphins from before. I lally gagged around like I was living in some paradise as my body was dying, and dehydration had begun sucking my body even further in from not eating anything as well. The lizard soon left my body once the moon was back, and the moon and I picked up our conversation as the moon let me sit and rest awhile. 

I couldn't sleep for there was so much to talk about and too many places to go, and I was enthralled with what the moon was saying to me as I gazed upon its crater eyes and shaded nose, its smile the most realistic of all as it bore my own teeth, which looked just like mine except much larger. Once I sat, I told the moon I couldn't get up any longer, and the moon reassured me that it was going to be okay if I got some rest for now. I felt so weak and drained, like I wasn't able to keep myself alive any longer. I closed my eyes, and when I did, I was overcome with all the suffering my body had been enduring while I was off in an alternate reality. 

I opened my eyes just to see the moon and the stars with no one speaking to me at all as I came to the realization that I was just lost somewhere in the savanna, barely sitting up against a tree. I couldn't move anymore as I realized my reality and began to give in to death, which desperately wanted to hold me. I was about to slip when a native man leaped from nowhere and began keeping me alive. He sat with me and made me eat these wads of paste, which gave me girth and hydration. I felt so rejuvenated, and I didn't know how to thank the man. He took no payment as I got up and walked on sooner to find my destination. 

I fell to my knees when I realized that healing wasn't real. I was dejected and dying with no help or hope of salvation anywhere near me until I saw another native man, and I laughed out loud as he said he was going to end my suffering. That was before they lunged a wooden spear through my chest and then the native man threw my body over his shoulder as I no longer had any weight left in me at all. It made it all the easier for him to carry me. The native took me back to the village where I was set before the elder. She put powders on my body and gaped open the wounds that I received from the cheetah I had miraculously won the challenge to, and she began to cut little hunks of the inside of my wound out and give it to the chief, who then put it in his mouth and began chewing it. He was happy with what he tasted, looked at me, and nodded with approval. 

I grabbed the old woman’s arm and asked why. Why all of this craze that she put me through, and she laughed at me and told me it was for the taste, the way the brain erupts certain chemicals makes the meat taste different in your bones. I asked her where the others were, my adrenaline wearing thin and my lifespan running out. She smiled at me and said 

“They are already prepared for dinner.” 

I could feel the tiny fuzz that covered my brain as my mind turned to static and the world around me no longer existed, for I was dissociating again, and this time, I was happy. I was home and not driving like last time. So much stress had been pressurized into my life that it felt like I was filling with helium, and I was about to pop at any given moment. The overwhelming waves of anxiety for not making enough money and the jolts of failure as I open bill after bill, all left in my name since the divorce, and the back-paid mortgage bills, all my responsibility as well. I would have taken more money than the house, but my ex-husband is a failed defense attorney whose company just went bankrupt at the worst possible time in his second marriage. The house is nice; however, since we were married, each of us was making two figures a month, and we could afford this luxury, which came with an indoor and outdoor pool. Why we even needed this house to begin with was beyond me, but Maxwell was a flamboyant type, and boy, did he like to wave his profits around, which was one of the reasons for our divorce, among many more. 

Now I was living in a house I couldn't afford, and I couldn't sell it because no one would even look at the listing, afraid of the price, even though the property was worth a lot. I was popping Vicodin for my migraines, which had started through the divorce proceedings, which Maxwell fought with me every tooth and nail he had in him, and boy, did I see something in him that I never even thought he was capable of doing to me at the time, so I just got mean, and I have been mean ever since. I was also a defense attorney, which made me more than capable of being candid and harsh, which really kept me off the market for men. My life was a spiral crash where, in the divorce papers, I was only allowed to see my baby, Nibbles, only every other week because Maxwell wanted to make it a custody battle as well for the dog. 

My best friend Stacy came up with this brilliant idea of taking me on vacation, away from all the anxiety and whirlwind of a destroyed marriage that lasted all of ten years. It was a new resort abroad where the natives took you on a spiritual journey to find your inner self and be enlightened by everlasting peace. It was everything I needed, and I was not going to let my best friend pay my share of this resort, which I'm sure was at least three figures per client. She insisted and had already paid for my part, so there was no more argument as she helped me pack my bags for the trip, which started in two days. I had vacation days due, which I put in immediately, not even glancing to see if Dale had approved the application, and knowing damn well that I was the only reason their firm was high and tight and making over five hundred thousand dollars every quarter. 

I was on a plane before I knew it, looking out the small window beside me, watching the blue sky and the puffy white clouds lazily float in the blue that surrounded us as the plane flew hundreds of miles per hour. The twenty-hour flight with a buzzing engine that somehow leaked quietly inside and gave off a weird eardrum reaction, making it seem like you couldn't hear well, was irritating, to say the least. As Stacy spoke to all the passengers around her, being overly friendly as she always was, I tucked myself against the wall with the window blinds open, deep into a book I'd bought at the airport to read on these flights to our destination. When we finally got to the main airport, which was near the capital rather than the savanna's outskirts, we took a bus all the way to our destination without stopping for a hotel, which I thought we were renting for our time here. 

Apparently, Stacy wanted the entire experience, so she decided we should camp out with the natives and follow their traditions, rather than coming in as outsiders and not fully embracing their heritage. Finally, we got off the bus and had to walk twenty miles to the village in the savanna with our guide, which would take ten hours without any stops. The three of us travelers walked all day and half way through the night before we began to see tents with flickering fires set all around the property they called home. The guide left us as we walked around, looking for someone who would invite us into the resort. An older woman did come to greet us, and her appearance caught us off guard, for it was more peculiar than just a mundane face, for this woman’s face had several implants under her skin. 

The older-looking woman had a crown of globes under her flesh, along with three black stripes from her bottom lip to the end of her chin. This woman seemed so elderly, but her wrinkles were minute, and her silver hair was flawless. The elder led Stacy and me into a tent that had three other resortists. We made ourselves comfortable as the tribe leader entered our tent to offer proper greetings. The tribe leader bulged with muscle as his bare chest flexed with his movements, and on his head was the open head of a lion, its jaw broken so that the leader’s face could be fully seen. 

Everyone here was fluent in English, which made me think that this was a very popular spot for many tourists, and I was surprised I was just hearing about it, for I knew all the resorts worth going to all over the world, and this place was never even on my radar. Stacy told me it was very exclusive and only the high hitters can make it to a place like this. The head chief stepped out, and the elder woman came in and put clay on our faces and wrapped up our hair before starting a fire in the middle of the tee-pee and closing the flap behind her. The smoke began to coagulate with the air as it accumulated around us. I watched as the woman pulled ingredients and instruments from her bag, the latter basic, as she prepared some kind of drink, which she poured into a leather decanter. 

She took a drink, and then she passed it around. I was third in line. I sniffed the liquid inside, which had a color not shown to me, and when putting the potion in my mouth, it vibrated my tongue and burned my throat on the way down. I let out a cough as if I had just taken a shot of moonshine for the first time and tried not to let it all come right back up, but I settled myself and waited until everyone got their turn and the elder woman began to speak. 

“With that sip, you have begun your journey to your souls to your free spirits, and you shall endure the pain of life through your relinquished suffering you cannot hide from, and everything within you will come from whatever beast hides within.” I watched her bow her head and say some kind of prayer before looking up at us again. “At this time, we will meditate and let the medicine wake up inside your bodies.” The elder woman sat on her knees, hands on her thighs, bowing her head and smiling at something she must have found funny. 

As I sat and watched the fire, I noticed the blue in the flames run through the orange more prominently, and the top of each flicker was a lick of oxygen the fire begged for. I looked at Stacy, not prepared for how I would look upon her now, in the state I was experiencing. For half of her face was normal, but the other side was melting, and I'm sure she was seeing something similar because neither of us spoke to each other as we stared at each other's faces. A deep howl came from far beyond the village, and our spirit guide got up and began pushing us out of the tent. 

“You must be gone now.” She shooed her hands away from us and pointed us in a direction that we should go. 

The trees were wiggling to me at this point, and my mind could only comprehend survival and fear as I realized she was pushing us out into the wilderness, where we would be unsheltered and unprotected from any threat that tried to harm us. A few men of the village threw weapons at our feet before forcing us out of their camp and into the darkness, lit only by a bulbous moon that cast everything around us into view and a torch for each of us. We were not in our right minds as we began to disperse away from each other and make our own independent paths. I was away from everyone, including Stacy, as I followed the dancing lights around me with an explosion of dopamine blasting my brain open, seeping out of my ears and nose. 

It wasn’t endorphins leaking from my ears and nose, but a gooey black residue that clung to my fingers as I tried to get it off. I was starting to come out of my disillusionment when the moon began to speak to me. I could hear a predator near me, intently stalking me as it waited for its right moment to strike, but I did not move from my spot, for the moon was speaking, and it would be too rude for me to just run away. I must; I have the need to hear what the moon has to say. The cheetah attacked me and pinned me down on the ground while I had a moronic smile on my face. I knew that this was a part of the inner me battling my subconscious demons, which I had to defeat; I had to win this fight. 

I battled the feline and its strength, ignoring every bite and claw that dug into me. I got the bottom and top of its jaw, and I pushed them apart as far as they could go as I heard gurgling whimpers and bones snap. I let the beast go, covered in injury and blood, and was just happy that the monster that came for me was no larger than the one I could have faced, for I would have had no chance of survival then against one so big. I began to come to as the pain of my injuries began to feel more and more real, but then the moon would begin to speak to me, and all my suffering would go away. I couldn't feel the passing of time, and all I knew was that the night was everlasting, and I could feel a power of adrenaline in my veins that I'd never felt before. 

Then a pack of lions surrounded me, and I was ready to fight, roaring at them just as much as they were snarling at me, and they attacked me as I punched and bit down on anything I could touch. The lions maimed me while I was still alive, and I felt myself die on the ground, my intestines falling out of my body, and half of my face was torn off. I couldn't believe this was how I was going to die. Then I opened my eyes, and to my astonishment, it all turned out to be just fine, all fine except for the feline that got me first; those wounds were still very real. I got off the ground and dusted myself off as I watched the wavy horizon come and go with further to close as fast as a light can turn on, and it made me sick to look at it for too long, so I went back to trailing along and talking to the moon. 

Then the sun came out, and it wasn't as friendly as the moon, as it scorched my body and dehydrated me by taking water through my pores. I trudged around in no direction, not understanding my path or my way back to the village, and I didn't run into another tourist yet. I was coming to realize this, understand how fucked I was, until a lizard came to me, crawled up my legs, and sat on my shoulder, whispering to me that it knew the way to salvation, and I trusted the lizard that now lay curled against my neck as I walked in the direction it was leading me to. Then a snake got in the middle of our path, and the lizard told me it was a friend and that I should greet it like one, so I put my hand down there, and the snake bit me. I could feel the venom flood my veins, but I still couldn’t comprehend what reality was. 

The snake went on, and I began to feel tired as the lizard told me not to stop, to keep going forward. The world around me was so bright and vivid that it almost looked hazy around the edges, and in those places where my sight was no use, I caught sight of men hunting me, but I would look, and there would be nothing more than wavy hills and dancing trees around me, making me feel even more endorphins from before. I lally gagged around like I was living in some paradise as my body was dying, and dehydration had begun sucking my body even further in from not eating anything as well. The lizard soon left my body once the moon was back, and the moon and I picked up our conversation as the moon let me sit and rest awhile. 

I couldn't sleep for there was so much to talk about and too many places to go, and I was enthralled with what the moon was saying to me as I gazed upon its crater eyes and shaded nose, its smile the most realistic of all as it bore my own teeth, which looked just like mine except much larger. Once I sat, I told the moon I couldn't get up any longer, and the moon reassured me that it was going to be okay if I got some rest for now. I felt so weak and drained, like I wasn't able to keep myself alive any longer. I closed my eyes, and when I did, I was overcome with all the suffering my body had been enduring while I was off in an alternate reality. 

I opened my eyes just to see the moon and the stars with no one speaking to me at all as I came to the realization that I was just lost somewhere in the savanna, barely sitting up against a tree. I couldn't move anymore as I realized my reality and began to give in to death, which desperately wanted to hold me. I was about to slip when a native man leaped from nowhere and began keeping me alive. He sat with me and made me eat these wads of paste, which gave me girth and hydration. I felt so rejuvenated, and I didn't know how to thank the man. He took no payment as I got up and walked on sooner to find my destination. 

I fell to my knees when I realized that healing wasn't real. I was dejected and dying with no help or hope of salvation anywhere near me until I saw another native man, and I laughed out loud as he said he was going to end my suffering. That was before they lunged a wooden spear through my chest and then the native man threw my body over his shoulder as I no longer had any weight left in me at all. It made it all the easier for him to carry me. The native took me back to the village where I was set before the elder. She put powders on my body and gaped open the wounds that I received from the cheetah I had miraculously won the challenge to, and she began to cut little hunks of the inside of my wound out and give it to the chief, who then put it in his mouth and began chewing it. He was happy with what he tasted, looked at me, and nodded with approval. 

I grabbed the old woman’s arm and asked why. Why all of this craze that she put me through, and she laughed at me and told me it was for the taste, the way the brain erupts certain chemicals makes the meat taste different in your bones. I asked her where the others were, my adrenaline wearing thin and my lifespan running out. She smiled at me and said 

“They are already prepared for dinner.” 

What was solid anymore? It wasn't her relationship with her boyfriend who had busted a big load of infedity right in her face and just said sorry about it. The ground she walked on at work wasn’t solid enough to withstand the industry's stress, and not missing too many days of work was a burden her boss felt more than she did. Her weed was pretty solid. The only solid thing in her life felt like. Even her parents' attention was not constant, for they were off living the time of their lives, while she was left to endure a miserable twenties. 

She didn't go to school; she worked two jobs, where one took priority over the other, and the other one felt it dearly, for she was teetering on the edge of employment. She needed both jobs to pay her rent for an overused, scabbed-up apartment she had been living in for a whole six months so far. So far, starting out as a young adult in the modern world has been hard ground to keep stable, and she was doing her best, swinging it on her own and trying to get through it without mommy and daddy helping her along the way. 

She didn't need a nice place to live anyway; she was barely at her apartment, where she only slept for a few hours in her bedroom and used the kitchen periodically. It was a place that suited her needs, and that is all she required right now. Just a little stability and a little comfort. In the middle of a shift change for work, she saw him playing in the hallway by himself, a boy of maybe nine years old. She tried to ignore him before he just came up and introduced himself to her. 

“Hi, im josh. I live next door to you.” He extended his arm, and she shook his hand really formally before giving him a crooked smile.  

“I'm Anne.” She let go of the little boy and wiped her hand down on her jeans, for Josh’s hand was overly sweaty with something sticky stuck to his palm. 

She squeezed into her apartment without having any more words said to the boy outside, and she locked her door, feeling an unease about his presence. Every night shift she worked, she came out to find sleep, but first found Josh playing in the hallway at like two in the morning. 

“Where are your parents?” I was at my door, looking around to see if this kid had any kind of supervision. 

“Inside.” Josh got off the floor where his toy soldiers were and walked up to Anne, smiling really big at her. “It’s nice to see you.” He was too creepy for her to want to stay outside her apartment and talk more, and as helpfully as she could, she unlocked the door and left the boy in mid-sentence. 

She got a few hours of sleep before waking up for job number two, which she was already late for. As she flew through her door to get outside, she nearly trampled Josh, who was waiting outside Anne’s door. 

“Good morning.” Josh smiled in an unsettling way, and untold contempt was in his eyes when he looked directly at her. 

Anne shivered and locked her door before fleeing down the stairs, not caring to wait for the elevator, with Josh at her side, who made her feel oddly uneasy and curiously aware of his consistency. She realized he was showing up more and more whenever she left her apartment, and whenever they encountered each other, it was at odd hours, always an uncomfortable situation. 

One day, she came home for a shift change to find Josh in her house. Anne flipped out and asked Josh how he got in past the lock. 

“Got it with a little jimmy, you wanna watch some TV together?” He was already on her coach with the TV rolling some gruesome movie that just had gore porn and no plot in it at all. 

“You need to get out of my house right now.” Anne was stern and furious that this little boy had the audacity to break into her apartment. 

She pointed at the door as the boy pouted, but left her apartment as she was locking both of her locks just in case it happened again. She hoped the chain would be enough to keep the little creep out, but she was wrong: the next morning, he was at her kitchen table, eating her Cheerios and using her sugar and honey. Anne cursed out loud, baffled at this kid, and put her hands on her hips. 

“Take me to your parents.” Josh looked at Anne in a way that made her cower back a little, for it reminded her of that Malachi character in Children of the Corn. 

Josh got up with a stomp to his foot and took Anne next door, where Josh slipped through a crack and disappeared into his own apartment. Anne stood out there for about thirty minutes before she began knocking on the door, only to receive no answer. She was furious, but she wasn't going to make a scene in the hallway and make a fool of herself by breaking down the door. Anne just went home and double-locked her doors, thinking about adding more locks to the wooden frame. When Anne came out of her apartment next, there was no Josh playing in the hallway, only the stillness of an empty space that stretched down the walkway. She left for work and felt a little bit of ease thinking that the boy had finally found some sense and was going to leave the people around him alone. 

“What the fuck,” It was two in the morning, and Josh was watching TV again on her couch. 

“Hey, what’s up?” Josh turned around and looked at Anne, smiling as some popcorn spilled onto his lap. 

“Seriously, where are your parents?” Anne walked up to Josh and grabbed his arm before escorting him to the next apartment beside her, and she started banging on his door to get some kind of adult’s attention. 

She waited so long that she just let Josh go, and he ran down the hallway to the elevator and disappeared to a different floor. Anne was frustrated now and made her way to the hardware store, where she bought three new locks for her apartment door. She installed them immediately and felt a good relief as she thought there was no way Josh was getting past this security system. 

At first, once she got home and locked the door, there was nothing but knocking, and it didn't matter how many times she told Josh to go away or how many times she tried to find a parent; the knocking was him wanting inside the apartment. After a long day of work and a desperate need for a bath and a glass of Chardonnay with a side of Klonopin she got inside the apartment and Josh was in Anne’s kitchen heating up food in the microwave. 

“Kid, get the fuck out. What the hell are you doing?” She was flabbergasted that her security system had somehow failed, and Josh got back into her apartment and acted as if he lived there. 

Anne wondered how long Josh had been in her apartment before she got home, and she decided to put up video cameras to have as evidence the next time Josh thought it was okay to break and enter someone else's house. The video footage was a live feed, with Anne checking her phone every few minutes while serving customers at the bar. Then, at the right time, she saw her video footage freeze, and she witnessed Josh inside her apartment. As soon as she saw him, Anne called the cops and reported that someone was in her apartment without permission. 

She watched as the police thoroughly searched the apartment, found no trace of Josh, and had no footage of him leaving. The police called her back and told Anne that everything was secure before the complex's owner had the apartment relocked. Anne went home expecting to see Josh, but he wasn't there, and she thought maybe the cops had scared him away. 

That wasn't the case as Anne woke up to noise in her living room. The TV was on, and Josh was sitting on the couch in his pajamas, watching TV and eating a bowl of cereal. 

“You cannot do this.” She grabbed the bowl out of his lap, lifted him off my coach, and escorted him to the door. “Stay out of my apartment.” Anne thought she was firm, but what he said back chilled her to the bone. 

“Wuchu gonna do about it if I don't?” He had a sinister look in his eyes, and his face was grave, then a moment of a cheerful smile, and an escape to the apartment next to hers. 

Anne really thought she had had about enough of this breaking and entering until she felt Josh climbing under her blankets and lying down next to her back. She jumped out of bed and this time stormed over to the apartment next door and pounded on the door until her arm hurt. 

“Unlock the door. Are you living alone in there? Is that why no one is answering the door?” She was so angry she could chew through concrete at this point, and she was desperate for some kind of solution to her Josh problem. 

He refused Anne and got out of her grip before running up the flight of stairs and disappearing to the floors above. Anne wasn't going to chase after him; she was going to go back inside to get ready for work, which she was already running late for. Anne now has Josh’s breaking and entering on record, and this time she decided to go to the building manager to complain about this kid. 

She laid out complaints until the manager told Anne that there was no one living next to her at that time on either side of her door. Anne pulled up the footage and showed it to the manager, who stared blankly. Anne looked at her phone and pointed out the little boy. 

“You don't see that little kid on my coach?” Anne was daring this guy to call her crazy, and he asked her if she was okay before she burst out. She needed proof there were no tenants in the apartments next to her. 

The manager obliged her and took her to both apartments, which were very much empty, and yet the manager still saw no boy on her screen. Anne was bewildered as her brain told her tricks and whispered lies to her sight. Was she really going mad? She laughed it off until Josh tried sleeping with her and a teddy bear every night, and she woke up to Josh in Jammies watching cartoons every morning. Anne finally moved out of the apartment and told her parents she really needed some time to find a new place to live, and that they would harbor her until she got back on her feet. 

Josh was there for Anne’s final departure, and he wrapped his arms around her legs and wept as he was losing his best friend. Horrified by this action, she carefully pried the boy off of her and, walking backward to make sure he didn't follow, she made her way down the stairs with her last box and left this time for good. She turned her keys in at the front desk and didn't say anything more. She didn't know if it was the apartment complex or her mind, but Josh was around, and he was very solid to her. 

What was solid anymore? It wasn't her relationship with her boyfriend who had busted a big load of infedity right in her face and just said sorry about it. The ground she walked on at work wasn’t solid enough to withstand the industry's stress, and not missing too many days of work was a burden her boss felt more than she did. Her weed was pretty solid. The only solid thing in her life felt like. Even her parents' attention was not constant, for they were off living the time of their lives, while she was left to endure a miserable twenties. 

She didn't go to school; she worked two jobs, where one took priority over the other, and the other one felt it dearly, for she was teetering on the edge of employment. She needed both jobs to pay her rent for an overused, scabbed-up apartment she had been living in for a whole six months so far. So far, starting out as a young adult in the modern world has been hard ground to keep stable, and she was doing her best, swinging it on her own and trying to get through it without mommy and daddy helping her along the way. 

She didn't need a nice place to live anyway; she was barely at her apartment, where she only slept for a few hours in her bedroom and used the kitchen periodically. It was a place that suited her needs, and that is all she required right now. Just a little stability and a little comfort. In the middle of a shift change for work, she saw him playing in the hallway by himself, a boy of maybe nine years old. She tried to ignore him before he just came up and introduced himself to her. 

“Hi, im josh. I live next door to you.” He extended his arm, and she shook his hand really formally before giving him a crooked smile.  

“I'm Anne.” She let go of the little boy and wiped her hand down on her jeans, for Josh’s hand was overly sweaty with something sticky stuck to his palm. 

She squeezed into her apartment without having any more words said to the boy outside, and she locked her door, feeling an unease about his presence. Every night shift she worked, she came out to find sleep, but first found Josh playing in the hallway at like two in the morning. 

“Where are your parents?” I was at my door, looking around to see if this kid had any kind of supervision. 

“Inside.” Josh got off the floor where his toy soldiers were and walked up to Anne, smiling really big at her. “It’s nice to see you.” He was too creepy for her to want to stay outside her apartment and talk more, and as helpfully as she could, she unlocked the door and left the boy in mid-sentence. 

She got a few hours of sleep before waking up for job number two, which she was already late for. As she flew through her door to get outside, she nearly trampled Josh, who was waiting outside Anne’s door. 

“Good morning.” Josh smiled in an unsettling way, and untold contempt was in his eyes when he looked directly at her. 

Anne shivered and locked her door before fleeing down the stairs, not caring to wait for the elevator, with Josh at her side, who made her feel oddly uneasy and curiously aware of his consistency. She realized he was showing up more and more whenever she left her apartment, and whenever they encountered each other, it was at odd hours, always an uncomfortable situation. 

One day, she came home for a shift change to find Josh in her house. Anne flipped out and asked Josh how he got in past the lock. 

“Got it with a little jimmy, you wanna watch some TV together?” He was already on her coach with the TV rolling some gruesome movie that just had gore porn and no plot in it at all. 

“You need to get out of my house right now.” Anne was stern and furious that this little boy had the audacity to break into her apartment. 

She pointed at the door as the boy pouted, but left her apartment as she was locking both of her locks just in case it happened again. She hoped the chain would be enough to keep the little creep out, but she was wrong: the next morning, he was at her kitchen table, eating her Cheerios and using her sugar and honey. Anne cursed out loud, baffled at this kid, and put her hands on her hips. 

“Take me to your parents.” Josh looked at Anne in a way that made her cower back a little, for it reminded her of that Malachi character in Children of the Corn. 

Josh got up with a stomp to his foot and took Anne next door, where Josh slipped through a crack and disappeared into his own apartment. Anne stood out there for about thirty minutes before she began knocking on the door, only to receive no answer. She was furious, but she wasn't going to make a scene in the hallway and make a fool of herself by breaking down the door. Anne just went home and double-locked her doors, thinking about adding more locks to the wooden frame. When Anne came out of her apartment next, there was no Josh playing in the hallway, only the stillness of an empty space that stretched down the walkway. She left for work and felt a little bit of ease thinking that the boy had finally found some sense and was going to leave the people around him alone. 

“What the fuck,” It was two in the morning, and Josh was watching TV again on her couch. 

“Hey, what’s up?” Josh turned around and looked at Anne, smiling as some popcorn spilled onto his lap. 

“Seriously, where are your parents?” Anne walked up to Josh and grabbed his arm before escorting him to the next apartment beside her, and she started banging on his door to get some kind of adult’s attention. 

She waited so long that she just let Josh go, and he ran down the hallway to the elevator and disappeared to a different floor. Anne was frustrated now and made her way to the hardware store, where she bought three new locks for her apartment door. She installed them immediately and felt a good relief as she thought there was no way Josh was getting past this security system. 

At first, once she got home and locked the door, there was nothing but knocking, and it didn't matter how many times she told Josh to go away or how many times she tried to find a parent; the knocking was him wanting inside the apartment. After a long day of work and a desperate need for a bath and a glass of Chardonnay with a side of Klonopin she got inside the apartment and Josh was in Anne’s kitchen heating up food in the microwave. 

“Kid, get the fuck out. What the hell are you doing?” She was flabbergasted that her security system had somehow failed, and Josh got back into her apartment and acted as if he lived there. 

Anne wondered how long Josh had been in her apartment before she got home, and she decided to put up video cameras to have as evidence the next time Josh thought it was okay to break and enter someone else's house. The video footage was a live feed, with Anne checking her phone every few minutes while serving customers at the bar. Then, at the right time, she saw her video footage freeze, and she witnessed Josh inside her apartment. As soon as she saw him, Anne called the cops and reported that someone was in her apartment without permission. 

She watched as the police thoroughly searched the apartment, found no trace of Josh, and had no footage of him leaving. The police called her back and told Anne that everything was secure before the complex's owner had the apartment relocked. Anne went home expecting to see Josh, but he wasn't there, and she thought maybe the cops had scared him away. 

That wasn't the case as Anne woke up to noise in her living room. The TV was on, and Josh was sitting on the couch in his pajamas, watching TV and eating a bowl of cereal. 

“You cannot do this.” She grabbed the bowl out of his lap, lifted him off my coach, and escorted him to the door. “Stay out of my apartment.” Anne thought she was firm, but what he said back chilled her to the bone. 

“Wuchu gonna do about it if I don't?” He had a sinister look in his eyes, and his face was grave, then a moment of a cheerful smile, and an escape to the apartment next to hers. 

Anne really thought she had had about enough of this breaking and entering until she felt Josh climbing under her blankets and lying down next to her back. She jumped out of bed and this time stormed over to the apartment next door and pounded on the door until her arm hurt. 

“Unlock the door. Are you living alone in there? Is that why no one is answering the door?” She was so angry she could chew through concrete at this point, and she was desperate for some kind of solution to her Josh problem. 

He refused Anne and got out of her grip before running up the flight of stairs and disappearing to the floors above. Anne wasn't going to chase after him; she was going to go back inside to get ready for work, which she was already running late for. Anne now has Josh’s breaking and entering on record, and this time she decided to go to the building manager to complain about this kid. 

She laid out complaints until the manager told Anne that there was no one living next to her at that time on either side of her door. Anne pulled up the footage and showed it to the manager, who stared blankly. Anne looked at her phone and pointed out the little boy. 

“You don't see that little kid on my coach?” Anne was daring this guy to call her crazy, and he asked her if she was okay before she burst out. She needed proof there were no tenants in the apartments next to her. 

The manager obliged her and took her to both apartments, which were very much empty, and yet the manager still saw no boy on her screen. Anne was bewildered as her brain told her tricks and whispered lies to her sight. Was she really going mad? She laughed it off until Josh tried sleeping with her and a teddy bear every night, and she woke up to Josh in Jammies watching cartoons every morning. Anne finally moved out of the apartment and told her parents she really needed some time to find a new place to live, and that they would harbor her until she got back on her feet. 

Josh was there for Anne’s final departure, and he wrapped his arms around her legs and wept as he was losing his best friend. Horrified by this action, she carefully pried the boy off of her and, walking backward to make sure he didn't follow, she made her way down the stairs with her last box and left this time for good. She turned her keys in at the front desk and didn't say anything more. She didn't know if it was the apartment complex or her mind, but Josh was around, and he was very solid to her. 

What was solid anymore? It wasn't her relationship with her boyfriend who had busted a big load of infedity right in her face and just said sorry about it. The ground she walked on at work wasn’t solid enough to withstand the industry's stress, and not missing too many days of work was a burden her boss felt more than she did. Her weed was pretty solid. The only solid thing in her life felt like. Even her parents' attention was not constant, for they were off living the time of their lives, while she was left to endure a miserable twenties. 

She didn't go to school; she worked two jobs, where one took priority over the other, and the other one felt it dearly, for she was teetering on the edge of employment. She needed both jobs to pay her rent for an overused, scabbed-up apartment she had been living in for a whole six months so far. So far, starting out as a young adult in the modern world has been hard ground to keep stable, and she was doing her best, swinging it on her own and trying to get through it without mommy and daddy helping her along the way. 

She didn't need a nice place to live anyway; she was barely at her apartment, where she only slept for a few hours in her bedroom and used the kitchen periodically. It was a place that suited her needs, and that is all she required right now. Just a little stability and a little comfort. In the middle of a shift change for work, she saw him playing in the hallway by himself, a boy of maybe nine years old. She tried to ignore him before he just came up and introduced himself to her. 

“Hi, im josh. I live next door to you.” He extended his arm, and she shook his hand really formally before giving him a crooked smile.  

“I'm Anne.” She let go of the little boy and wiped her hand down on her jeans, for Josh’s hand was overly sweaty with something sticky stuck to his palm. 

She squeezed into her apartment without having any more words said to the boy outside, and she locked her door, feeling an unease about his presence. Every night shift she worked, she came out to find sleep, but first found Josh playing in the hallway at like two in the morning. 

“Where are your parents?” I was at my door, looking around to see if this kid had any kind of supervision. 

“Inside.” Josh got off the floor where his toy soldiers were and walked up to Anne, smiling really big at her. “It’s nice to see you.” He was too creepy for her to want to stay outside her apartment and talk more, and as helpfully as she could, she unlocked the door and left the boy in mid-sentence. 

She got a few hours of sleep before waking up for job number two, which she was already late for. As she flew through her door to get outside, she nearly trampled Josh, who was waiting outside Anne’s door. 

“Good morning.” Josh smiled in an unsettling way, and untold contempt was in his eyes when he looked directly at her. 

Anne shivered and locked her door before fleeing down the stairs, not caring to wait for the elevator, with Josh at her side, who made her feel oddly uneasy and curiously aware of his consistency. She realized he was showing up more and more whenever she left her apartment, and whenever they encountered each other, it was at odd hours, always an uncomfortable situation. 

One day, she came home for a shift change to find Josh in her house. Anne flipped out and asked Josh how he got in past the lock. 

“Got it with a little jimmy, you wanna watch some TV together?” He was already on her coach with the TV rolling some gruesome movie that just had gore porn and no plot in it at all. 

“You need to get out of my house right now.” Anne was stern and furious that this little boy had the audacity to break into her apartment. 

She pointed at the door as the boy pouted, but left her apartment as she was locking both of her locks just in case it happened again. She hoped the chain would be enough to keep the little creep out, but she was wrong: the next morning, he was at her kitchen table, eating her Cheerios and using her sugar and honey. Anne cursed out loud, baffled at this kid, and put her hands on her hips. 

“Take me to your parents.” Josh looked at Anne in a way that made her cower back a little, for it reminded her of that Malachi character in Children of the Corn. 

Josh got up with a stomp to his foot and took Anne next door, where Josh slipped through a crack and disappeared into his own apartment. Anne stood out there for about thirty minutes before she began knocking on the door, only to receive no answer. She was furious, but she wasn't going to make a scene in the hallway and make a fool of herself by breaking down the door. Anne just went home and double-locked her doors, thinking about adding more locks to the wooden frame. When Anne came out of her apartment next, there was no Josh playing in the hallway, only the stillness of an empty space that stretched down the walkway. She left for work and felt a little bit of ease thinking that the boy had finally found some sense and was going to leave the people around him alone. 

“What the fuck,” It was two in the morning, and Josh was watching TV again on her couch. 

“Hey, what’s up?” Josh turned around and looked at Anne, smiling as some popcorn spilled onto his lap. 

“Seriously, where are your parents?” Anne walked up to Josh and grabbed his arm before escorting him to the next apartment beside her, and she started banging on his door to get some kind of adult’s attention. 

She waited so long that she just let Josh go, and he ran down the hallway to the elevator and disappeared to a different floor. Anne was frustrated now and made her way to the hardware store, where she bought three new locks for her apartment door. She installed them immediately and felt a good relief as she thought there was no way Josh was getting past this security system. 

At first, once she got home and locked the door, there was nothing but knocking, and it didn't matter how many times she told Josh to go away or how many times she tried to find a parent; the knocking was him wanting inside the apartment. After a long day of work and a desperate need for a bath and a glass of Chardonnay with a side of Klonopin she got inside the apartment and Josh was in Anne’s kitchen heating up food in the microwave. 

“Kid, get the fuck out. What the hell are you doing?” She was flabbergasted that her security system had somehow failed, and Josh got back into her apartment and acted as if he lived there. 

Anne wondered how long Josh had been in her apartment before she got home, and she decided to put up video cameras to have as evidence the next time Josh thought it was okay to break and enter someone else's house. The video footage was a live feed, with Anne checking her phone every few minutes while serving customers at the bar. Then, at the right time, she saw her video footage freeze, and she witnessed Josh inside her apartment. As soon as she saw him, Anne called the cops and reported that someone was in her apartment without permission. 

She watched as the police thoroughly searched the apartment, found no trace of Josh, and had no footage of him leaving. The police called her back and told Anne that everything was secure before the complex's owner had the apartment relocked. Anne went home expecting to see Josh, but he wasn't there, and she thought maybe the cops had scared him away. 

That wasn't the case as Anne woke up to noise in her living room. The TV was on, and Josh was sitting on the couch in his pajamas, watching TV and eating a bowl of cereal. 

“You cannot do this.” She grabbed the bowl out of his lap, lifted him off my coach, and escorted him to the door. “Stay out of my apartment.” Anne thought she was firm, but what he said back chilled her to the bone. 

“Wuchu gonna do about it if I don't?” He had a sinister look in his eyes, and his face was grave, then a moment of a cheerful smile, and an escape to the apartment next to hers. 

Anne really thought she had had about enough of this breaking and entering until she felt Josh climbing under her blankets and lying down next to her back. She jumped out of bed and this time stormed over to the apartment next door and pounded on the door until her arm hurt. 

“Unlock the door. Are you living alone in there? Is that why no one is answering the door?” She was so angry she could chew through concrete at this point, and she was desperate for some kind of solution to her Josh problem. 

He refused Anne and got out of her grip before running up the flight of stairs and disappearing to the floors above. Anne wasn't going to chase after him; she was going to go back inside to get ready for work, which she was already running late for. Anne now has Josh’s breaking and entering on record, and this time she decided to go to the building manager to complain about this kid. 

She laid out complaints until the manager told Anne that there was no one living next to her at that time on either side of her door. Anne pulled up the footage and showed it to the manager, who stared blankly. Anne looked at her phone and pointed out the little boy. 

“You don't see that little kid on my coach?” Anne was daring this guy to call her crazy, and he asked her if she was okay before she burst out. She needed proof there were no tenants in the apartments next to her. 

The manager obliged her and took her to both apartments, which were very much empty, and yet the manager still saw no boy on her screen. Anne was bewildered as her brain told her tricks and whispered lies to her sight. Was she really going mad? She laughed it off until Josh tried sleeping with her and a teddy bear every night, and she woke up to Josh in Jammies watching cartoons every morning. Anne finally moved out of the apartment and told her parents she really needed some time to find a new place to live, and that they would harbor her until she got back on her feet. 

Josh was there for Anne’s final departure, and he wrapped his arms around her legs and wept as he was losing his best friend. Horrified by this action, she carefully pried the boy off of her and, walking backward to make sure he didn't follow, she made her way down the stairs with her last box and left this time for good. She turned her keys in at the front desk and didn't say anything more. She didn't know if it was the apartment complex or her mind, but Josh was around, and he was very solid to her. 

What was solid anymore? It wasn't her relationship with her boyfriend who had busted a big load of infedity right in her face and just said sorry about it. The ground she walked on at work wasn’t solid enough to withstand the industry's stress, and not missing too many days of work was a burden her boss felt more than she did. Her weed was pretty solid. The only solid thing in her life felt like. Even her parents' attention was not constant, for they were off living the time of their lives, while she was left to endure a miserable twenties. 

She didn't go to school; she worked two jobs, where one took priority over the other, and the other one felt it dearly, for she was teetering on the edge of employment. She needed both jobs to pay her rent for an overused, scabbed-up apartment she had been living in for a whole six months so far. So far, starting out as a young adult in the modern world has been hard ground to keep stable, and she was doing her best, swinging it on her own and trying to get through it without mommy and daddy helping her along the way. 

She didn't need a nice place to live anyway; she was barely at her apartment, where she only slept for a few hours in her bedroom and used the kitchen periodically. It was a place that suited her needs, and that is all she required right now. Just a little stability and a little comfort. In the middle of a shift change for work, she saw him playing in the hallway by himself, a boy of maybe nine years old. She tried to ignore him before he just came up and introduced himself to her. 

“Hi, im josh. I live next door to you.” He extended his arm, and she shook his hand really formally before giving him a crooked smile.  

“I'm Anne.” She let go of the little boy and wiped her hand down on her jeans, for Josh’s hand was overly sweaty with something sticky stuck to his palm. 

She squeezed into her apartment without having any more words said to the boy outside, and she locked her door, feeling an unease about his presence. Every night shift she worked, she came out to find sleep, but first found Josh playing in the hallway at like two in the morning. 

“Where are your parents?” I was at my door, looking around to see if this kid had any kind of supervision. 

“Inside.” Josh got off the floor where his toy soldiers were and walked up to Anne, smiling really big at her. “It’s nice to see you.” He was too creepy for her to want to stay outside her apartment and talk more, and as helpfully as she could, she unlocked the door and left the boy in mid-sentence. 

She got a few hours of sleep before waking up for job number two, which she was already late for. As she flew through her door to get outside, she nearly trampled Josh, who was waiting outside Anne’s door. 

“Good morning.” Josh smiled in an unsettling way, and untold contempt was in his eyes when he looked directly at her. 

Anne shivered and locked her door before fleeing down the stairs, not caring to wait for the elevator, with Josh at her side, who made her feel oddly uneasy and curiously aware of his consistency. She realized he was showing up more and more whenever she left her apartment, and whenever they encountered each other, it was at odd hours, always an uncomfortable situation. 

One day, she came home for a shift change to find Josh in her house. Anne flipped out and asked Josh how he got in past the lock. 

“Got it with a little jimmy, you wanna watch some TV together?” He was already on her coach with the TV rolling some gruesome movie that just had gore porn and no plot in it at all. 

“You need to get out of my house right now.” Anne was stern and furious that this little boy had the audacity to break into her apartment. 

She pointed at the door as the boy pouted, but left her apartment as she was locking both of her locks just in case it happened again. She hoped the chain would be enough to keep the little creep out, but she was wrong: the next morning, he was at her kitchen table, eating her Cheerios and using her sugar and honey. Anne cursed out loud, baffled at this kid, and put her hands on her hips. 

“Take me to your parents.” Josh looked at Anne in a way that made her cower back a little, for it reminded her of that Malachi character in Children of the Corn. 

Josh got up with a stomp to his foot and took Anne next door, where Josh slipped through a crack and disappeared into his own apartment. Anne stood out there for about thirty minutes before she began knocking on the door, only to receive no answer. She was furious, but she wasn't going to make a scene in the hallway and make a fool of herself by breaking down the door. Anne just went home and double-locked her doors, thinking about adding more locks to the wooden frame. When Anne came out of her apartment next, there was no Josh playing in the hallway, only the stillness of an empty space that stretched down the walkway. She left for work and felt a little bit of ease thinking that the boy had finally found some sense and was going to leave the people around him alone. 

“What the fuck,” It was two in the morning, and Josh was watching TV again on her couch. 

“Hey, what’s up?” Josh turned around and looked at Anne, smiling as some popcorn spilled onto his lap. 

“Seriously, where are your parents?” Anne walked up to Josh and grabbed his arm before escorting him to the next apartment beside her, and she started banging on his door to get some kind of adult’s attention. 

She waited so long that she just let Josh go, and he ran down the hallway to the elevator and disappeared to a different floor. Anne was frustrated now and made her way to the hardware store, where she bought three new locks for her apartment door. She installed them immediately and felt a good relief as she thought there was no way Josh was getting past this security system. 

At first, once she got home and locked the door, there was nothing but knocking, and it didn't matter how many times she told Josh to go away or how many times she tried to find a parent; the knocking was him wanting inside the apartment. After a long day of work and a desperate need for a bath and a glass of Chardonnay with a side of Klonopin she got inside the apartment and Josh was in Anne’s kitchen heating up food in the microwave. 

“Kid, get the fuck out. What the hell are you doing?” She was flabbergasted that her security system had somehow failed, and Josh got back into her apartment and acted as if he lived there. 

Anne wondered how long Josh had been in her apartment before she got home, and she decided to put up video cameras to have as evidence the next time Josh thought it was okay to break and enter someone else's house. The video footage was a live feed, with Anne checking her phone every few minutes while serving customers at the bar. Then, at the right time, she saw her video footage freeze, and she witnessed Josh inside her apartment. As soon as she saw him, Anne called the cops and reported that someone was in her apartment without permission. 

She watched as the police thoroughly searched the apartment, found no trace of Josh, and had no footage of him leaving. The police called her back and told Anne that everything was secure before the complex's owner had the apartment relocked. Anne went home expecting to see Josh, but he wasn't there, and she thought maybe the cops had scared him away. 

That wasn't the case as Anne woke up to noise in her living room. The TV was on, and Josh was sitting on the couch in his pajamas, watching TV and eating a bowl of cereal. 

“You cannot do this.” She grabbed the bowl out of his lap, lifted him off my coach, and escorted him to the door. “Stay out of my apartment.” Anne thought she was firm, but what he said back chilled her to the bone. 

“Wuchu gonna do about it if I don't?” He had a sinister look in his eyes, and his face was grave, then a moment of a cheerful smile, and an escape to the apartment next to hers. 

Anne really thought she had had about enough of this breaking and entering until she felt Josh climbing under her blankets and lying down next to her back. She jumped out of bed and this time stormed over to the apartment next door and pounded on the door until her arm hurt. 

“Unlock the door. Are you living alone in there? Is that why no one is answering the door?” She was so angry she could chew through concrete at this point, and she was desperate for some kind of solution to her Josh problem. 

He refused Anne and got out of her grip before running up the flight of stairs and disappearing to the floors above. Anne wasn't going to chase after him; she was going to go back inside to get ready for work, which she was already running late for. Anne now has Josh’s breaking and entering on record, and this time she decided to go to the building manager to complain about this kid. 

She laid out complaints until the manager told Anne that there was no one living next to her at that time on either side of her door. Anne pulled up the footage and showed it to the manager, who stared blankly. Anne looked at her phone and pointed out the little boy. 

“You don't see that little kid on my coach?” Anne was daring this guy to call her crazy, and he asked her if she was okay before she burst out. She needed proof there were no tenants in the apartments next to her. 

The manager obliged her and took her to both apartments, which were very much empty, and yet the manager still saw no boy on her screen. Anne was bewildered as her brain told her tricks and whispered lies to her sight. Was she really going mad? She laughed it off until Josh tried sleeping with her and a teddy bear every night, and she woke up to Josh in Jammies watching cartoons every morning. Anne finally moved out of the apartment and told her parents she really needed some time to find a new place to live, and that they would harbor her until she got back on her feet. 

Josh was there for Anne’s final departure, and he wrapped his arms around her legs and wept as he was losing his best friend. Horrified by this action, she carefully pried the boy off of her and, walking backward to make sure he didn't follow, she made her way down the stairs with her last box and left this time for good. She turned her keys in at the front desk and didn't say anything more. She didn't know if it was the apartment complex or her mind, but Josh was around, and he was very solid to her. 

I needed another cigarette after a day like today. Sheesh, I was about done workin’ myself to the bone, and every night was a ritual for me. I stopped at the same gas station every single night for a quick pump before making it home, and bizarre things always happened inside that building. This is the last gas station I pass on my way from my construction site to my neighborhood, and I needed at least half a tank of gas to get to my destination. So the gas station became like a second home where Charlie the cashier and I got to know one another, and he too noticed the strange happenings around the gas station as well, but he's so used to it now that it just rolls off his shoulder as if it were just another day at the station. I was terrified the first time I went to use the men’s restroom cause the only stall was filled with burpin’ bull frogs. I would have used the ladies' room, but it was infested with squirrels. 

Now Charlie will just pee around them, but I can't look a bull frog or a squirrel for that matter, in the eye while I'm tryin’ to conduct business, so I always end up pissin’ on the side of the building. They should just put a urinal out here for me, but I know that if it did, something would come and fester itself in the urinal's physicality. You couldn't catch a break at this place. Every time there was something going on, when I stopped here every single day, I just felt like it could never be normal. I tried to bypass the place without getting gas one day and ended up miles from home, so I trudged back to the station and got some gas in my bucket to take back to my car, which was dead on the side of the highway. I began to think it was just when I came around, but Charlie has shown me some footage of weird shit happening all day. 

The first time I met Todd, I just about jumped out of my skin, for I was used to hearing those bull frogs so damn much that when Todd snuck up behind me while I was doin’ business, I didn't notice until his voice broke through the croaks. 

“They like the urine. That's why I bring em’ here.” Todd looked like a frazzled homeless man with one missing front tooth and a lazy eye. 

Todd was also covered in bullfrogs, from head to toe all piled on top of each other, they found somewhere to perch on Todd’s body. Before I could ask him what the hell he meant, he disappeared into the store. I followed him in zippin’ myself up and asked Charlie about him. Now, Todd was kicked out of this place multiple times for bringing those damn frogs into the toilet room. Police have been called, reports have been made, but this guy just doesn't take a hint, and he still comes every now and then with a fresh batch of bullfrogs, and he sets them all free in the men’s stall. Now that explained the frogs to me, but I did not meet Miss. Linda, until later, for she came less frequently than Todd with a refreshed stock of animals. 

Now Miss. Linda is the character to meet, that is for sure. She is the squirrel lady to everyone else, but we knew he better than that, and we always used her name. Miss. Linda is a middle-aged soccer mom who collects squirrels as pets. She trains them to stay close to her even when they are outside, and when she feels like it is too much, she brings them to the ladies' room to be stowed so she can come visit. 

I think Todd and Miss. Linda would really get along, but unfortunately, they always come at different times and never bump into each other so that they do meet. Charlie and I have been through three burglaries in the last month alone, where the intruders would get away with singles and cigarettes, and sometimes they would clean out the beer in the refrigerators. Honest to God’s truth, if someone were just to come in and tell Charlie what they were doin’, Charlie ain’t gonna stop ya. He is gonna sit behind the counter and wait for the local sheriff to come up to take care of the situation for him. But it takes half a tank of gas to drive in any direction from the gas station, so it always took the sheriff some time to make it out to the station to file a report. 

Hell, by now, Charlie doesn’t even flinch at a gun. He is so used to having a gun flung in his face, he just keeps on readin’ his magazine and shoos the burglars off. Now Charlie is not ashamed to be seen readin’ a Playboy at 2 in the morning. So his magazine really outtrumps anythin’ other than a payin’ customer. 

“Gone on. Do whatcha gotta do. Im callin’n the sheriff.” 

It was always Charlie’s line to whoever came in to steal his stuff. He took his time doin’ by now, and he just could not call the police, for he needed a report to send to the owner so that the store could get restocked. I didn't know how this place kept on runnin’, but it was alive, and it was well. Now Miss. Tiffany is a whole other ballgame when it came to meetin’ her. She was very special to say the least about it to Charlie, and Charlie always had me watch the register while he and Saggy ass Miss. Tiffinay made it to the room behind the refrigerators. I couldn't count how many wrinkles she had bringin’ her face down, but it was enough to make it droop, that's for sure. Miss. Tiffany always comes in with some kinda nighty on, smooching her crinkled lips at Charlie and blowin’ him a kiss. Now Miss. Tiffany's boobs hung about just as low as her ass did. 

Charlie and I would be kickin’ shit when a random would come in to buy somethin’ or try to use the restroom, which some ended up doin’ even around the amphibian and rodent infestations. It was always fun for a random to meet one of the regulars, and it definitely made an impression some of the time. State troopers have been called in to handle some matters for Charlie. Like Mr. Shawn, don't come around no more, for he yelled too loudly at the wrong customer, and the customer got into a violent interaction, which is why Charlie had to have a higher level of authority to handle misfits like these. Mr. Shawn yelled at everyone and anyone who came into the gas station, including me, the first few times I came there. 

I’ve dealt with the Monroe twins about just as much as Charlie has, and the Monroe kids are some twins that come into the gas station once a week, holdin’ hands, and for the first five minutes of being inside, they step far enough away from the counter to not communicate, but to clearly see they were starin’ right at Charlie. Just standin’ there not movin’ an inch, and then they would purchase what they needed and come back to Charlie, where they would both smile at the same time and just look him dead in the eye as he gave them their change. They didn't stop there, for they stayed at the counter just as long as they stayed at that door when they came through the front doors. 

I brought co-workers into the gas station, and the three of us, Charlie included, would sit behind the counter, eating popcorn, watching all the strange happenings around the gas station. Some nights, we caught Mr. Jones and his parrot. That damn thing doesn't have anything good to say to anyone. 

“Hey, fatass, how's business?” The parrot squawked when Mr. Jones and his terrorist made it to the counter. 

“Mr. Jones, are you having a good night?” Charlie took the money out of the old man’s wrinkled hand and smiled kindly at Mr. Jones ’ crinkled face. 

“Always a good night to be alive.” Mr. Jones had the same reply every time he came in to Charlie’s greetings. 

“See ya bitches.” The parrot called out, looking back over Mr. Jone’s shoulder, still staring us in the eye. 

I hated that stupid bird, and it only got worse if Mr. Jones came in with conversations. So, as you spoke to the kind old man, his parrot would curse at you and call you names throughout the interaction, and Mr. Jones was so good at just ignoring his bird, cause he never said a word to that parrot for being disrespectful. It couldn't help me but wonder what kind of man he was before he became a widow. There were some nights I would just stay and sleep at the gas station instead of drivin’ all the way home. This gas station had a single-stall shower between the two infested bathrooms, and its only flaw was that it dispensed only ice-cold water, which I didn't mind much. 

I was drivin’ at three in the mornin’ tryin’ to get to work when I got stuck at the gas station upon arriving durin’ a robbery. All I could do was huff and make my way behind the counter to grab a pack of cigarettes and light one up, taking a seat next to Charlie, who was on the phone with the sheriff. My boss was heated by the time I showed up three hours late, and he, that son of a bitch kept me at work until midnight, and I had no choice but to stay at the station, for I had to be at work at four thirty. 

I remember at one of my slumber parties with Charlie that I met this man and his girlfriend, who were past lost and out of their mind. You could tell they were from upstate with their fancy, brand-new sports car and Louis Vuitton-branded shoes that matched the branded clothes they wore. I had never heard a true scream from a woman before until that fancy lady went to the restroom and encountered the squirrels, which were feeling feisty, and attacked the woman all at once. It was a show to watch as the boyfriend fought those critters that clung to that woman for dear life. We lost customers that day, and they didn't get the right directions. 

You know, thinkin’ about it, I remember meetin’ Mr. Hali, a man with a banjo and a song for a couple tanks of gas. He was not from around here, and he was broke workin’ a job for pennies on the hour, and we felt bad for the man, so Charlie always took the song for payment. 

“Gentilhomme.” Mr. Hali would shout as he came into the station, leaving his piece-of-junk Honda outside, which most of the time, Charlie had to work on because it would break down at the station. 

Charlie was a mechanic before he was a gas station clerk, and so working on Mr. Hali’s junkyard automobile was nothing but swift movements on Charlie’s part. Chalie always got Mr. Hali out of here within thirty minutes if it wasn't a long song in trade for more gas. 

“Merci,” Mr. Hali would say all the way out the door a million times after he was not bound to the gas station any longer and could leave with his black smokin’ clanker. 

You know, besides the non-habitable restrooms, this gas station was up to code and very nice inside. I would say it was kinda chilly with the blasted air always goin’ no matter the temperature outside. Those high-reflecting fluorescent lights were a burden as well cause they were just so hard on your eyes. I don't know how Charlie works that station in that lightin’ every single day and night. All that is enough to truly turn a man crazy, but not Charlie. Charlie is way too reserved, no matter the situation happening in front of him. 

Charlie had his trailer parked out behind the gas station where he lived, and when he was sleeping, someone had to watch the store. That's when Paul came in, and boy, is Paul a pussy. I remember goin’ through his first robbery as I sat behind the counter suckin’ on a cigarette, waitin’ for the whole thing to be over with so I could just leave, and Paul not only pissed himself but he curled up into a ball under the counter and bawled uncontrably with discomposure. I had to deal with those stupid teenagers with the flying around gun that night, which was easy in the long run, as they got away with a bunch of beer, a few twenties, and a few cartons of cigarettes, matching the amount of snacks they took with them as well. By the time it was all over, I had to take Paul over to Charlie, and Charlie had to get back to work with only two hours of sleep that night. 

There was a robbery that got really serious once, as the man who came barging in and barricaded the place up was not afraid to shoot his gun. One shot missed Chalire’s head by inches as he just about pissed his pants as Paul had. Turned out this guy was a murderer, and he was findin’ a low-key place to hang out as he locked all the doors and flipped off the lights. Charlie and I hid under the counter and smoked what we thought would be our last cigarettes as the man waited in the station for hours with us locked inside until he relinquished himself and finally left after returning to his stolen vehicle, which he had parked out by Charlie’s trailer. 

Just thinkin’ about it, I wouldn't have to be so early to work if I wasn't the damn foreman, but boy did I appreciate that pay every couple of weeks. My boss would be willing to give my job to anyone else, but no one can meet my standards or my workload as I can, and I was a valuable asset to the company. So sometimes when I showed up a little late, I always got punished, but no way were they gonna fire me. I remember one night we caught some teenager smokin’ a joint behind the station. We brought him inside before feedin’ him and askin’ his name, and he was just a runaway. We let him stay as long as he wanted until he decided to go home, and we called his parents. 

Ya know, I remember the wrath my mother rained down on me, but the fury of this mother that came in for that boy was so hot it made the treprestue bake the entire building. She did not mind berating her son in front of Charlie and me, and when all was said and done, she stalked back to her car, and the boy waved goodbye from the passenger side window, and I feel he was about to go and experience what hell was like. It made me feel happy to be a grown man and have the ability to counter the abuse that my mom was about to inflict on her runaway son. 

“Well, Charlie, I gotta be goin’,” I would always grab my smokes and my gas if nothin’ at the moment was causin’ chaos around us, and I wanted to get the hell out before that tranquility was busted by madness. 

“Be safe out there.” Charlie would always ring back to me as he waved his twenties away workin’ that gas station. 

I’d wave back and get into my overly big, stupid truck and drive off with a hefty tank of gas and a dent in my wallet the size of a baseball. I worked this truck to the bone for five years since I bought it outright with no loans attached, reading my name on all paperwork, and I was just not ready to let it go. I’d pull up to work with my engine still purring, though, and it made every other man’s truck look like a play toy. 

You know, runaways don’t happen often, but when they do, it's always some kid in deep distress, as you could imagine. This time, when I came in, it was a young girl with deep bruises all over her body, inflicted by the ones she lived with. She cried to us and told us not to call anyone, that she was just gonna pass by after this and go on tryin’ to get away. Both of us were suckers as he packed her bags full of what she needed and sent her off on her way, giving her a two-hour head start before callin’ up the sheriff. 

I remember watchin’ her small frame go on down the road with her long red hair trailin’ down behind her and a knot hit my stomach like you wouldn't believe as I got into my truck at first and followed her all the way off the highway, just in case some pervert tried to give her a ride or kidnap her. When I knew she was a bit safer, I minded my own business and went home. 

“Charlie, what keeps you here?” I would ask the boy ever so often, cause I couldn't believe he wasn’t going to college or working a better job or even still living with his parents. 

“Oh, you know.” He would give me some sly smile and say, “Their pay is good, I get hazard pay for this job specifically, and I'm comfortable.” That's all he would ever say, and he never gave me the story on how he ended up here in the first place. 

I remember being with Charlie when Sandra G came into the building. She rummaged around and grabbed a handful of things before coming to the counter as I moved myself aside. 

“Maybe you have heard of me.” She spoke to both of us and gave off her most charming smile. “Sandra G. Ya know.” She began to laugh as if we were supposed to know. “I'm a big deal in the movie industry.” She tried to explain to us, but it didn't matter. “Maybe a discount for my fame?” She batted her fake lashes and tried to smile through her Botox and Charlie, and I laughed at her for maybe twenty minutes. 

Charlie gave her the employee discount, and very disgruntled and appalled, Sandra G walked off back to her 2005 sedan. I have so much to say about this place, I feel like I could never stop, as I'll go ahead and mention what happened between the witch and Charlie. A woman dressed in a Victorian black dress walked into the store and glared at Charlie as she shopped through the store. When she came up to the counter, she looked Charlie dead in the eye. 

“I have bad vibes about you,” are the words that came out of her black-lipped snarl. 

“Okay. You owe me 24.50.” Charlie said waitin’ for his payment. 

She pulled a leather pouch out of her purse and opened it up on top of the counter, and inside were a bunch of animal bones with bunches of chopped hair and toenail clippings. She took the bones in her hands and laid them out in a certain way, making some kind of sigil, and before we knew it, she was puffing a cloud of red sand in Charlie’s face. 

“I've cursed you, and now you will never be happy. For as long as you live, life will be nothing more than misery.” The witch promised as she handed the money over to Charlie. “I know your soul and for that you will always find unhappiness.” 

Charlie was flabbergasted, to say the least, as he counted out the money and gave her back her change. Before she left, she kept her little altar up on top of the counter. 

“Aren’t you gonna take any of this with you?” Charlie asked, looking at the mess in front of him. 

“It’s all cursed, I wouldn't touch it if you paid me.” She snarled as she walked out of the store and stepped into the passenger side of a Volvo minivan. 

I helped get all the sand off the counter and the floor, as Charlie had to wrap up the alter and get it into the outside trash, because there was some kind of odor coming from something she brought in, and we were tryin’ to get rid of it. Charlie and I are not superstitious in any way, and all that bull shit she blew out of her ass was just nonsense to both of us. After that, Charlie’s life still stayed the same, and I guess to most people that was misery, but not to Charlie, who was too set in his ways and always will be. 

Tonight I'm listenin’ to a man that looks like a pirate who has sailed the seven seas and takin’ on sea monsters the size of a swelling wave. I think he has been the most entertaining yet, besides Mr. Halis, who comes with a song that Charlie or I can understand. I always wonder what’s next and who will become a new regular. To be welcomed into the clan is a big deal around here, and I feel like Charlie and I knew that once I had been initiated into the group years back. I would stay and wait for the pirate to stop talkin’, but I can't be late for work again, and I gotta get movin’. I throw Charlie come cash and grab my own cigarettes before walkin’ out the door to my ever-lasting still runnin’ beauty. On my way to work, I looked behind me to see some kind of limo park itself right by a pump, and I couldn't wait to hear more about that this evening when I was gonna be driving back through. 

I needed another cigarette after a day like today. Sheesh, I was about done workin’ myself to the bone, and every night was a ritual for me. I stopped at the same gas station every single night for a quick pump before making it home, and bizarre things always happened inside that building. This is the last gas station I pass on my way from my construction site to my neighborhood, and I needed at least half a tank of gas to get to my destination. So the gas station became like a second home where Charlie the cashier and I got to know one another, and he too noticed the strange happenings around the gas station as well, but he's so used to it now that it just rolls off his shoulder as if it were just another day at the station. I was terrified the first time I went to use the men’s restroom cause the only stall was filled with burpin’ bull frogs. I would have used the ladies' room, but it was infested with squirrels. 

Now Charlie will just pee around them, but I can't look a bull frog or a squirrel for that matter, in the eye while I'm tryin’ to conduct business, so I always end up pissin’ on the side of the building. They should just put a urinal out here for me, but I know that if it did, something would come and fester itself in the urinal's physicality. You couldn't catch a break at this place. Every time there was something going on, when I stopped here every single day, I just felt like it could never be normal. I tried to bypass the place without getting gas one day and ended up miles from home, so I trudged back to the station and got some gas in my bucket to take back to my car, which was dead on the side of the highway. I began to think it was just when I came around, but Charlie has shown me some footage of weird shit happening all day. 

The first time I met Todd, I just about jumped out of my skin, for I was used to hearing those bull frogs so damn much that when Todd snuck up behind me while I was doin’ business, I didn't notice until his voice broke through the croaks. 

“They like the urine. That's why I bring em’ here.” Todd looked like a frazzled homeless man with one missing front tooth and a lazy eye. 

Todd was also covered in bullfrogs, from head to toe all piled on top of each other, they found somewhere to perch on Todd’s body. Before I could ask him what the hell he meant, he disappeared into the store. I followed him in zippin’ myself up and asked Charlie about him. Now, Todd was kicked out of this place multiple times for bringing those damn frogs into the toilet room. Police have been called, reports have been made, but this guy just doesn't take a hint, and he still comes every now and then with a fresh batch of bullfrogs, and he sets them all free in the men’s stall. Now that explained the frogs to me, but I did not meet Miss. Linda, until later, for she came less frequently than Todd with a refreshed stock of animals. 

Now Miss. Linda is the character to meet, that is for sure. She is the squirrel lady to everyone else, but we knew he better than that, and we always used her name. Miss. Linda is a middle-aged soccer mom who collects squirrels as pets. She trains them to stay close to her even when they are outside, and when she feels like it is too much, she brings them to the ladies' room to be stowed so she can come visit. 

I think Todd and Miss. Linda would really get along, but unfortunately, they always come at different times and never bump into each other so that they do meet. Charlie and I have been through three burglaries in the last month alone, where the intruders would get away with singles and cigarettes, and sometimes they would clean out the beer in the refrigerators. Honest to God’s truth, if someone were just to come in and tell Charlie what they were doin’, Charlie ain’t gonna stop ya. He is gonna sit behind the counter and wait for the local sheriff to come up to take care of the situation for him. But it takes half a tank of gas to drive in any direction from the gas station, so it always took the sheriff some time to make it out to the station to file a report. 

Hell, by now, Charlie doesn’t even flinch at a gun. He is so used to having a gun flung in his face, he just keeps on readin’ his magazine and shoos the burglars off. Now Charlie is not ashamed to be seen readin’ a Playboy at 2 in the morning. So his magazine really outtrumps anythin’ other than a payin’ customer. 

“Gone on. Do whatcha gotta do. Im callin’n the sheriff.” 

It was always Charlie’s line to whoever came in to steal his stuff. He took his time doin’ by now, and he just could not call the police, for he needed a report to send to the owner so that the store could get restocked. I didn't know how this place kept on runnin’, but it was alive, and it was well. Now Miss. Tiffany is a whole other ballgame when it came to meetin’ her. She was very special to say the least about it to Charlie, and Charlie always had me watch the register while he and Saggy ass Miss. Tiffinay made it to the room behind the refrigerators. I couldn't count how many wrinkles she had bringin’ her face down, but it was enough to make it droop, that's for sure. Miss. Tiffany always comes in with some kinda nighty on, smooching her crinkled lips at Charlie and blowin’ him a kiss. Now Miss. Tiffany's boobs hung about just as low as her ass did. 

Charlie and I would be kickin’ shit when a random would come in to buy somethin’ or try to use the restroom, which some ended up doin’ even around the amphibian and rodent infestations. It was always fun for a random to meet one of the regulars, and it definitely made an impression some of the time. State troopers have been called in to handle some matters for Charlie. Like Mr. Shawn, don't come around no more, for he yelled too loudly at the wrong customer, and the customer got into a violent interaction, which is why Charlie had to have a higher level of authority to handle misfits like these. Mr. Shawn yelled at everyone and anyone who came into the gas station, including me, the first few times I came there. 

I’ve dealt with the Monroe twins about just as much as Charlie has, and the Monroe kids are some twins that come into the gas station once a week, holdin’ hands, and for the first five minutes of being inside, they step far enough away from the counter to not communicate, but to clearly see they were starin’ right at Charlie. Just standin’ there not movin’ an inch, and then they would purchase what they needed and come back to Charlie, where they would both smile at the same time and just look him dead in the eye as he gave them their change. They didn't stop there, for they stayed at the counter just as long as they stayed at that door when they came through the front doors. 

I brought co-workers into the gas station, and the three of us, Charlie included, would sit behind the counter, eating popcorn, watching all the strange happenings around the gas station. Some nights, we caught Mr. Jones and his parrot. That damn thing doesn't have anything good to say to anyone. 

“Hey, fatass, how's business?” The parrot squawked when Mr. Jones and his terrorist made it to the counter. 

“Mr. Jones, are you having a good night?” Charlie took the money out of the old man’s wrinkled hand and smiled kindly at Mr. Jones ’ crinkled face. 

“Always a good night to be alive.” Mr. Jones had the same reply every time he came in to Charlie’s greetings. 

“See ya bitches.” The parrot called out, looking back over Mr. Jone’s shoulder, still staring us in the eye. 

I hated that stupid bird, and it only got worse if Mr. Jones came in with conversations. So, as you spoke to the kind old man, his parrot would curse at you and call you names throughout the interaction, and Mr. Jones was so good at just ignoring his bird, cause he never said a word to that parrot for being disrespectful. It couldn't help me but wonder what kind of man he was before he became a widow. There were some nights I would just stay and sleep at the gas station instead of drivin’ all the way home. This gas station had a single-stall shower between the two infested bathrooms, and its only flaw was that it dispensed only ice-cold water, which I didn't mind much. 

I was drivin’ at three in the mornin’ tryin’ to get to work when I got stuck at the gas station upon arriving durin’ a robbery. All I could do was huff and make my way behind the counter to grab a pack of cigarettes and light one up, taking a seat next to Charlie, who was on the phone with the sheriff. My boss was heated by the time I showed up three hours late, and he, that son of a bitch kept me at work until midnight, and I had no choice but to stay at the station, for I had to be at work at four thirty. 

I remember at one of my slumber parties with Charlie that I met this man and his girlfriend, who were past lost and out of their mind. You could tell they were from upstate with their fancy, brand-new sports car and Louis Vuitton-branded shoes that matched the branded clothes they wore. I had never heard a true scream from a woman before until that fancy lady went to the restroom and encountered the squirrels, which were feeling feisty, and attacked the woman all at once. It was a show to watch as the boyfriend fought those critters that clung to that woman for dear life. We lost customers that day, and they didn't get the right directions. 

You know, thinkin’ about it, I remember meetin’ Mr. Hali, a man with a banjo and a song for a couple tanks of gas. He was not from around here, and he was broke workin’ a job for pennies on the hour, and we felt bad for the man, so Charlie always took the song for payment. 

“Gentilhomme.” Mr. Hali would shout as he came into the station, leaving his piece-of-junk Honda outside, which most of the time, Charlie had to work on because it would break down at the station. 

Charlie was a mechanic before he was a gas station clerk, and so working on Mr. Hali’s junkyard automobile was nothing but swift movements on Charlie’s part. Chalie always got Mr. Hali out of here within thirty minutes if it wasn't a long song in trade for more gas. 

“Merci,” Mr. Hali would say all the way out the door a million times after he was not bound to the gas station any longer and could leave with his black smokin’ clanker. 

You know, besides the non-habitable restrooms, this gas station was up to code and very nice inside. I would say it was kinda chilly with the blasted air always goin’ no matter the temperature outside. Those high-reflecting fluorescent lights were a burden as well cause they were just so hard on your eyes. I don't know how Charlie works that station in that lightin’ every single day and night. All that is enough to truly turn a man crazy, but not Charlie. Charlie is way too reserved, no matter the situation happening in front of him. 

Charlie had his trailer parked out behind the gas station where he lived, and when he was sleeping, someone had to watch the store. That's when Paul came in, and boy, is Paul a pussy. I remember goin’ through his first robbery as I sat behind the counter suckin’ on a cigarette, waitin’ for the whole thing to be over with so I could just leave, and Paul not only pissed himself but he curled up into a ball under the counter and bawled uncontrably with discomposure. I had to deal with those stupid teenagers with the flying around gun that night, which was easy in the long run, as they got away with a bunch of beer, a few twenties, and a few cartons of cigarettes, matching the amount of snacks they took with them as well. By the time it was all over, I had to take Paul over to Charlie, and Charlie had to get back to work with only two hours of sleep that night. 

There was a robbery that got really serious once, as the man who came barging in and barricaded the place up was not afraid to shoot his gun. One shot missed Chalire’s head by inches as he just about pissed his pants as Paul had. Turned out this guy was a murderer, and he was findin’ a low-key place to hang out as he locked all the doors and flipped off the lights. Charlie and I hid under the counter and smoked what we thought would be our last cigarettes as the man waited in the station for hours with us locked inside until he relinquished himself and finally left after returning to his stolen vehicle, which he had parked out by Charlie’s trailer. 

Just thinkin’ about it, I wouldn't have to be so early to work if I wasn't the damn foreman, but boy did I appreciate that pay every couple of weeks. My boss would be willing to give my job to anyone else, but no one can meet my standards or my workload as I can, and I was a valuable asset to the company. So sometimes when I showed up a little late, I always got punished, but no way were they gonna fire me. I remember one night we caught some teenager smokin’ a joint behind the station. We brought him inside before feedin’ him and askin’ his name, and he was just a runaway. We let him stay as long as he wanted until he decided to go home, and we called his parents. 

Ya know, I remember the wrath my mother rained down on me, but the fury of this mother that came in for that boy was so hot it made the treprestue bake the entire building. She did not mind berating her son in front of Charlie and me, and when all was said and done, she stalked back to her car, and the boy waved goodbye from the passenger side window, and I feel he was about to go and experience what hell was like. It made me feel happy to be a grown man and have the ability to counter the abuse that my mom was about to inflict on her runaway son. 

“Well, Charlie, I gotta be goin’,” I would always grab my smokes and my gas if nothin’ at the moment was causin’ chaos around us, and I wanted to get the hell out before that tranquility was busted by madness. 

“Be safe out there.” Charlie would always ring back to me as he waved his twenties away workin’ that gas station. 

I’d wave back and get into my overly big, stupid truck and drive off with a hefty tank of gas and a dent in my wallet the size of a baseball. I worked this truck to the bone for five years since I bought it outright with no loans attached, reading my name on all paperwork, and I was just not ready to let it go. I’d pull up to work with my engine still purring, though, and it made every other man’s truck look like a play toy. 

You know, runaways don’t happen often, but when they do, it's always some kid in deep distress, as you could imagine. This time, when I came in, it was a young girl with deep bruises all over her body, inflicted by the ones she lived with. She cried to us and told us not to call anyone, that she was just gonna pass by after this and go on tryin’ to get away. Both of us were suckers as he packed her bags full of what she needed and sent her off on her way, giving her a two-hour head start before callin’ up the sheriff. 

I remember watchin’ her small frame go on down the road with her long red hair trailin’ down behind her and a knot hit my stomach like you wouldn't believe as I got into my truck at first and followed her all the way off the highway, just in case some pervert tried to give her a ride or kidnap her. When I knew she was a bit safer, I minded my own business and went home. 

“Charlie, what keeps you here?” I would ask the boy ever so often, cause I couldn't believe he wasn’t going to college or working a better job or even still living with his parents. 

“Oh, you know.” He would give me some sly smile and say, “Their pay is good, I get hazard pay for this job specifically, and I'm comfortable.” That's all he would ever say, and he never gave me the story on how he ended up here in the first place. 

I remember being with Charlie when Sandra G came into the building. She rummaged around and grabbed a handful of things before coming to the counter as I moved myself aside. 

“Maybe you have heard of me.” She spoke to both of us and gave off her most charming smile. “Sandra G. Ya know.” She began to laugh as if we were supposed to know. “I'm a big deal in the movie industry.” She tried to explain to us, but it didn't matter. “Maybe a discount for my fame?” She batted her fake lashes and tried to smile through her Botox and Charlie, and I laughed at her for maybe twenty minutes. 

Charlie gave her the employee discount, and very disgruntled and appalled, Sandra G walked off back to her 2005 sedan. I have so much to say about this place, I feel like I could never stop, as I'll go ahead and mention what happened between the witch and Charlie. A woman dressed in a Victorian black dress walked into the store and glared at Charlie as she shopped through the store. When she came up to the counter, she looked Charlie dead in the eye. 

“I have bad vibes about you,” are the words that came out of her black-lipped snarl. 

“Okay. You owe me 24.50.” Charlie said waitin’ for his payment. 

She pulled a leather pouch out of her purse and opened it up on top of the counter, and inside were a bunch of animal bones with bunches of chopped hair and toenail clippings. She took the bones in her hands and laid them out in a certain way, making some kind of sigil, and before we knew it, she was puffing a cloud of red sand in Charlie’s face. 

“I've cursed you, and now you will never be happy. For as long as you live, life will be nothing more than misery.” The witch promised as she handed the money over to Charlie. “I know your soul and for that you will always find unhappiness.” 

Charlie was flabbergasted, to say the least, as he counted out the money and gave her back her change. Before she left, she kept her little altar up on top of the counter. 

“Aren’t you gonna take any of this with you?” Charlie asked, looking at the mess in front of him. 

“It’s all cursed, I wouldn't touch it if you paid me.” She snarled as she walked out of the store and stepped into the passenger side of a Volvo minivan. 

I helped get all the sand off the counter and the floor, as Charlie had to wrap up the alter and get it into the outside trash, because there was some kind of odor coming from something she brought in, and we were tryin’ to get rid of it. Charlie and I are not superstitious in any way, and all that bull shit she blew out of her ass was just nonsense to both of us. After that, Charlie’s life still stayed the same, and I guess to most people that was misery, but not to Charlie, who was too set in his ways and always will be. 

Tonight I'm listenin’ to a man that looks like a pirate who has sailed the seven seas and takin’ on sea monsters the size of a swelling wave. I think he has been the most entertaining yet, besides Mr. Halis, who comes with a song that Charlie or I can understand. I always wonder what’s next and who will become a new regular. To be welcomed into the clan is a big deal around here, and I feel like Charlie and I knew that once I had been initiated into the group years back. I would stay and wait for the pirate to stop talkin’, but I can't be late for work again, and I gotta get movin’. I throw Charlie come cash and grab my own cigarettes before walkin’ out the door to my ever-lasting still runnin’ beauty. On my way to work, I looked behind me to see some kind of limo park itself right by a pump, and I couldn't wait to hear more about that this evening when I was gonna be driving back through. 

I needed another cigarette after a day like today. Sheesh, I was about done workin’ myself to the bone, and every night was a ritual for me. I stopped at the same gas station every single night for a quick pump before making it home, and bizarre things always happened inside that building. This is the last gas station I pass on my way from my construction site to my neighborhood, and I needed at least half a tank of gas to get to my destination. So the gas station became like a second home where Charlie the cashier and I got to know one another, and he too noticed the strange happenings around the gas station as well, but he's so used to it now that it just rolls off his shoulder as if it were just another day at the station. I was terrified the first time I went to use the men’s restroom cause the only stall was filled with burpin’ bull frogs. I would have used the ladies' room, but it was infested with squirrels. 

Now Charlie will just pee around them, but I can't look a bull frog or a squirrel for that matter, in the eye while I'm tryin’ to conduct business, so I always end up pissin’ on the side of the building. They should just put a urinal out here for me, but I know that if it did, something would come and fester itself in the urinal's physicality. You couldn't catch a break at this place. Every time there was something going on, when I stopped here every single day, I just felt like it could never be normal. I tried to bypass the place without getting gas one day and ended up miles from home, so I trudged back to the station and got some gas in my bucket to take back to my car, which was dead on the side of the highway. I began to think it was just when I came around, but Charlie has shown me some footage of weird shit happening all day. 

The first time I met Todd, I just about jumped out of my skin, for I was used to hearing those bull frogs so damn much that when Todd snuck up behind me while I was doin’ business, I didn't notice until his voice broke through the croaks. 

“They like the urine. That's why I bring em’ here.” Todd looked like a frazzled homeless man with one missing front tooth and a lazy eye. 

Todd was also covered in bullfrogs, from head to toe all piled on top of each other, they found somewhere to perch on Todd’s body. Before I could ask him what the hell he meant, he disappeared into the store. I followed him in zippin’ myself up and asked Charlie about him. Now, Todd was kicked out of this place multiple times for bringing those damn frogs into the toilet room. Police have been called, reports have been made, but this guy just doesn't take a hint, and he still comes every now and then with a fresh batch of bullfrogs, and he sets them all free in the men’s stall. Now that explained the frogs to me, but I did not meet Miss. Linda, until later, for she came less frequently than Todd with a refreshed stock of animals. 

Now Miss. Linda is the character to meet, that is for sure. She is the squirrel lady to everyone else, but we knew he better than that, and we always used her name. Miss. Linda is a middle-aged soccer mom who collects squirrels as pets. She trains them to stay close to her even when they are outside, and when she feels like it is too much, she brings them to the ladies' room to be stowed so she can come visit. 

I think Todd and Miss. Linda would really get along, but unfortunately, they always come at different times and never bump into each other so that they do meet. Charlie and I have been through three burglaries in the last month alone, where the intruders would get away with singles and cigarettes, and sometimes they would clean out the beer in the refrigerators. Honest to God’s truth, if someone were just to come in and tell Charlie what they were doin’, Charlie ain’t gonna stop ya. He is gonna sit behind the counter and wait for the local sheriff to come up to take care of the situation for him. But it takes half a tank of gas to drive in any direction from the gas station, so it always took the sheriff some time to make it out to the station to file a report. 

Hell, by now, Charlie doesn’t even flinch at a gun. He is so used to having a gun flung in his face, he just keeps on readin’ his magazine and shoos the burglars off. Now Charlie is not ashamed to be seen readin’ a Playboy at 2 in the morning. So his magazine really outtrumps anythin’ other than a payin’ customer. 

“Gone on. Do whatcha gotta do. Im callin’n the sheriff.” 

It was always Charlie’s line to whoever came in to steal his stuff. He took his time doin’ by now, and he just could not call the police, for he needed a report to send to the owner so that the store could get restocked. I didn't know how this place kept on runnin’, but it was alive, and it was well. Now Miss. Tiffany is a whole other ballgame when it came to meetin’ her. She was very special to say the least about it to Charlie, and Charlie always had me watch the register while he and Saggy ass Miss. Tiffinay made it to the room behind the refrigerators. I couldn't count how many wrinkles she had bringin’ her face down, but it was enough to make it droop, that's for sure. Miss. Tiffany always comes in with some kinda nighty on, smooching her crinkled lips at Charlie and blowin’ him a kiss. Now Miss. Tiffany's boobs hung about just as low as her ass did. 

Charlie and I would be kickin’ shit when a random would come in to buy somethin’ or try to use the restroom, which some ended up doin’ even around the amphibian and rodent infestations. It was always fun for a random to meet one of the regulars, and it definitely made an impression some of the time. State troopers have been called in to handle some matters for Charlie. Like Mr. Shawn, don't come around no more, for he yelled too loudly at the wrong customer, and the customer got into a violent interaction, which is why Charlie had to have a higher level of authority to handle misfits like these. Mr. Shawn yelled at everyone and anyone who came into the gas station, including me, the first few times I came there. 

I’ve dealt with the Monroe twins about just as much as Charlie has, and the Monroe kids are some twins that come into the gas station once a week, holdin’ hands, and for the first five minutes of being inside, they step far enough away from the counter to not communicate, but to clearly see they were starin’ right at Charlie. Just standin’ there not movin’ an inch, and then they would purchase what they needed and come back to Charlie, where they would both smile at the same time and just look him dead in the eye as he gave them their change. They didn't stop there, for they stayed at the counter just as long as they stayed at that door when they came through the front doors. 

I brought co-workers into the gas station, and the three of us, Charlie included, would sit behind the counter, eating popcorn, watching all the strange happenings around the gas station. Some nights, we caught Mr. Jones and his parrot. That damn thing doesn't have anything good to say to anyone. 

“Hey, fatass, how's business?” The parrot squawked when Mr. Jones and his terrorist made it to the counter. 

“Mr. Jones, are you having a good night?” Charlie took the money out of the old man’s wrinkled hand and smiled kindly at Mr. Jones ’ crinkled face. 

“Always a good night to be alive.” Mr. Jones had the same reply every time he came in to Charlie’s greetings. 

“See ya bitches.” The parrot called out, looking back over Mr. Jone’s shoulder, still staring us in the eye. 

I hated that stupid bird, and it only got worse if Mr. Jones came in with conversations. So, as you spoke to the kind old man, his parrot would curse at you and call you names throughout the interaction, and Mr. Jones was so good at just ignoring his bird, cause he never said a word to that parrot for being disrespectful. It couldn't help me but wonder what kind of man he was before he became a widow. There were some nights I would just stay and sleep at the gas station instead of drivin’ all the way home. This gas station had a single-stall shower between the two infested bathrooms, and its only flaw was that it dispensed only ice-cold water, which I didn't mind much. 

I was drivin’ at three in the mornin’ tryin’ to get to work when I got stuck at the gas station upon arriving durin’ a robbery. All I could do was huff and make my way behind the counter to grab a pack of cigarettes and light one up, taking a seat next to Charlie, who was on the phone with the sheriff. My boss was heated by the time I showed up three hours late, and he, that son of a bitch kept me at work until midnight, and I had no choice but to stay at the station, for I had to be at work at four thirty. 

I remember at one of my slumber parties with Charlie that I met this man and his girlfriend, who were past lost and out of their mind. You could tell they were from upstate with their fancy, brand-new sports car and Louis Vuitton-branded shoes that matched the branded clothes they wore. I had never heard a true scream from a woman before until that fancy lady went to the restroom and encountered the squirrels, which were feeling feisty, and attacked the woman all at once. It was a show to watch as the boyfriend fought those critters that clung to that woman for dear life. We lost customers that day, and they didn't get the right directions. 

You know, thinkin’ about it, I remember meetin’ Mr. Hali, a man with a banjo and a song for a couple tanks of gas. He was not from around here, and he was broke workin’ a job for pennies on the hour, and we felt bad for the man, so Charlie always took the song for payment. 

“Gentilhomme.” Mr. Hali would shout as he came into the station, leaving his piece-of-junk Honda outside, which most of the time, Charlie had to work on because it would break down at the station. 

Charlie was a mechanic before he was a gas station clerk, and so working on Mr. Hali’s junkyard automobile was nothing but swift movements on Charlie’s part. Chalie always got Mr. Hali out of here within thirty minutes if it wasn't a long song in trade for more gas. 

“Merci,” Mr. Hali would say all the way out the door a million times after he was not bound to the gas station any longer and could leave with his black smokin’ clanker. 

You know, besides the non-habitable restrooms, this gas station was up to code and very nice inside. I would say it was kinda chilly with the blasted air always goin’ no matter the temperature outside. Those high-reflecting fluorescent lights were a burden as well cause they were just so hard on your eyes. I don't know how Charlie works that station in that lightin’ every single day and night. All that is enough to truly turn a man crazy, but not Charlie. Charlie is way too reserved, no matter the situation happening in front of him. 

Charlie had his trailer parked out behind the gas station where he lived, and when he was sleeping, someone had to watch the store. That's when Paul came in, and boy, is Paul a pussy. I remember goin’ through his first robbery as I sat behind the counter suckin’ on a cigarette, waitin’ for the whole thing to be over with so I could just leave, and Paul not only pissed himself but he curled up into a ball under the counter and bawled uncontrably with discomposure. I had to deal with those stupid teenagers with the flying around gun that night, which was easy in the long run, as they got away with a bunch of beer, a few twenties, and a few cartons of cigarettes, matching the amount of snacks they took with them as well. By the time it was all over, I had to take Paul over to Charlie, and Charlie had to get back to work with only two hours of sleep that night. 

There was a robbery that got really serious once, as the man who came barging in and barricaded the place up was not afraid to shoot his gun. One shot missed Chalire’s head by inches as he just about pissed his pants as Paul had. Turned out this guy was a murderer, and he was findin’ a low-key place to hang out as he locked all the doors and flipped off the lights. Charlie and I hid under the counter and smoked what we thought would be our last cigarettes as the man waited in the station for hours with us locked inside until he relinquished himself and finally left after returning to his stolen vehicle, which he had parked out by Charlie’s trailer. 

Just thinkin’ about it, I wouldn't have to be so early to work if I wasn't the damn foreman, but boy did I appreciate that pay every couple of weeks. My boss would be willing to give my job to anyone else, but no one can meet my standards or my workload as I can, and I was a valuable asset to the company. So sometimes when I showed up a little late, I always got punished, but no way were they gonna fire me. I remember one night we caught some teenager smokin’ a joint behind the station. We brought him inside before feedin’ him and askin’ his name, and he was just a runaway. We let him stay as long as he wanted until he decided to go home, and we called his parents. 

Ya know, I remember the wrath my mother rained down on me, but the fury of this mother that came in for that boy was so hot it made the treprestue bake the entire building. She did not mind berating her son in front of Charlie and me, and when all was said and done, she stalked back to her car, and the boy waved goodbye from the passenger side window, and I feel he was about to go and experience what hell was like. It made me feel happy to be a grown man and have the ability to counter the abuse that my mom was about to inflict on her runaway son. 

“Well, Charlie, I gotta be goin’,” I would always grab my smokes and my gas if nothin’ at the moment was causin’ chaos around us, and I wanted to get the hell out before that tranquility was busted by madness. 

“Be safe out there.” Charlie would always ring back to me as he waved his twenties away workin’ that gas station. 

I’d wave back and get into my overly big, stupid truck and drive off with a hefty tank of gas and a dent in my wallet the size of a baseball. I worked this truck to the bone for five years since I bought it outright with no loans attached, reading my name on all paperwork, and I was just not ready to let it go. I’d pull up to work with my engine still purring, though, and it made every other man’s truck look like a play toy. 

You know, runaways don’t happen often, but when they do, it's always some kid in deep distress, as you could imagine. This time, when I came in, it was a young girl with deep bruises all over her body, inflicted by the ones she lived with. She cried to us and told us not to call anyone, that she was just gonna pass by after this and go on tryin’ to get away. Both of us were suckers as he packed her bags full of what she needed and sent her off on her way, giving her a two-hour head start before callin’ up the sheriff. 

I remember watchin’ her small frame go on down the road with her long red hair trailin’ down behind her and a knot hit my stomach like you wouldn't believe as I got into my truck at first and followed her all the way off the highway, just in case some pervert tried to give her a ride or kidnap her. When I knew she was a bit safer, I minded my own business and went home. 

“Charlie, what keeps you here?” I would ask the boy ever so often, cause I couldn't believe he wasn’t going to college or working a better job or even still living with his parents. 

“Oh, you know.” He would give me some sly smile and say, “Their pay is good, I get hazard pay for this job specifically, and I'm comfortable.” That's all he would ever say, and he never gave me the story on how he ended up here in the first place. 

I remember being with Charlie when Sandra G came into the building. She rummaged around and grabbed a handful of things before coming to the counter as I moved myself aside. 

“Maybe you have heard of me.” She spoke to both of us and gave off her most charming smile. “Sandra G. Ya know.” She began to laugh as if we were supposed to know. “I'm a big deal in the movie industry.” She tried to explain to us, but it didn't matter. “Maybe a discount for my fame?” She batted her fake lashes and tried to smile through her Botox and Charlie, and I laughed at her for maybe twenty minutes. 

Charlie gave her the employee discount, and very disgruntled and appalled, Sandra G walked off back to her 2005 sedan. I have so much to say about this place, I feel like I could never stop, as I'll go ahead and mention what happened between the witch and Charlie. A woman dressed in a Victorian black dress walked into the store and glared at Charlie as she shopped through the store. When she came up to the counter, she looked Charlie dead in the eye. 

“I have bad vibes about you,” are the words that came out of her black-lipped snarl. 

“Okay. You owe me 24.50.” Charlie said waitin’ for his payment. 

She pulled a leather pouch out of her purse and opened it up on top of the counter, and inside were a bunch of animal bones with bunches of chopped hair and toenail clippings. She took the bones in her hands and laid them out in a certain way, making some kind of sigil, and before we knew it, she was puffing a cloud of red sand in Charlie’s face. 

“I've cursed you, and now you will never be happy. For as long as you live, life will be nothing more than misery.” The witch promised as she handed the money over to Charlie. “I know your soul and for that you will always find unhappiness.” 

Charlie was flabbergasted, to say the least, as he counted out the money and gave her back her change. Before she left, she kept her little altar up on top of the counter. 

“Aren’t you gonna take any of this with you?” Charlie asked, looking at the mess in front of him. 

“It’s all cursed, I wouldn't touch it if you paid me.” She snarled as she walked out of the store and stepped into the passenger side of a Volvo minivan. 

I helped get all the sand off the counter and the floor, as Charlie had to wrap up the alter and get it into the outside trash, because there was some kind of odor coming from something she brought in, and we were tryin’ to get rid of it. Charlie and I are not superstitious in any way, and all that bull shit she blew out of her ass was just nonsense to both of us. After that, Charlie’s life still stayed the same, and I guess to most people that was misery, but not to Charlie, who was too set in his ways and always will be. 

Tonight I'm listenin’ to a man that looks like a pirate who has sailed the seven seas and takin’ on sea monsters the size of a swelling wave. I think he has been the most entertaining yet, besides Mr. Halis, who comes with a song that Charlie or I can understand. I always wonder what’s next and who will become a new regular. To be welcomed into the clan is a big deal around here, and I feel like Charlie and I knew that once I had been initiated into the group years back. I would stay and wait for the pirate to stop talkin’, but I can't be late for work again, and I gotta get movin’. I throw Charlie come cash and grab my own cigarettes before walkin’ out the door to my ever-lasting still runnin’ beauty. On my way to work, I looked behind me to see some kind of limo park itself right by a pump, and I couldn't wait to hear more about that this evening when I was gonna be driving back through. 

I needed another cigarette after a day like today. Sheesh, I was about done workin’ myself to the bone, and every night was a ritual for me. I stopped at the same gas station every single night for a quick pump before making it home, and bizarre things always happened inside that building. This is the last gas station I pass on my way from my construction site to my neighborhood, and I needed at least half a tank of gas to get to my destination. So the gas station became like a second home where Charlie the cashier and I got to know one another, and he too noticed the strange happenings around the gas station as well, but he's so used to it now that it just rolls off his shoulder as if it were just another day at the station. I was terrified the first time I went to use the men’s restroom cause the only stall was filled with burpin’ bull frogs. I would have used the ladies' room, but it was infested with squirrels. 

Now Charlie will just pee around them, but I can't look a bull frog or a squirrel for that matter, in the eye while I'm tryin’ to conduct business, so I always end up pissin’ on the side of the building. They should just put a urinal out here for me, but I know that if it did, something would come and fester itself in the urinal's physicality. You couldn't catch a break at this place. Every time there was something going on, when I stopped here every single day, I just felt like it could never be normal. I tried to bypass the place without getting gas one day and ended up miles from home, so I trudged back to the station and got some gas in my bucket to take back to my car, which was dead on the side of the highway. I began to think it was just when I came around, but Charlie has shown me some footage of weird shit happening all day. 

The first time I met Todd, I just about jumped out of my skin, for I was used to hearing those bull frogs so damn much that when Todd snuck up behind me while I was doin’ business, I didn't notice until his voice broke through the croaks. 

“They like the urine. That's why I bring em’ here.” Todd looked like a frazzled homeless man with one missing front tooth and a lazy eye. 

Todd was also covered in bullfrogs, from head to toe all piled on top of each other, they found somewhere to perch on Todd’s body. Before I could ask him what the hell he meant, he disappeared into the store. I followed him in zippin’ myself up and asked Charlie about him. Now, Todd was kicked out of this place multiple times for bringing those damn frogs into the toilet room. Police have been called, reports have been made, but this guy just doesn't take a hint, and he still comes every now and then with a fresh batch of bullfrogs, and he sets them all free in the men’s stall. Now that explained the frogs to me, but I did not meet Miss. Linda, until later, for she came less frequently than Todd with a refreshed stock of animals. 

Now Miss. Linda is the character to meet, that is for sure. She is the squirrel lady to everyone else, but we knew he better than that, and we always used her name. Miss. Linda is a middle-aged soccer mom who collects squirrels as pets. She trains them to stay close to her even when they are outside, and when she feels like it is too much, she brings them to the ladies' room to be stowed so she can come visit. 

I think Todd and Miss. Linda would really get along, but unfortunately, they always come at different times and never bump into each other so that they do meet. Charlie and I have been through three burglaries in the last month alone, where the intruders would get away with singles and cigarettes, and sometimes they would clean out the beer in the refrigerators. Honest to God’s truth, if someone were just to come in and tell Charlie what they were doin’, Charlie ain’t gonna stop ya. He is gonna sit behind the counter and wait for the local sheriff to come up to take care of the situation for him. But it takes half a tank of gas to drive in any direction from the gas station, so it always took the sheriff some time to make it out to the station to file a report. 

Hell, by now, Charlie doesn’t even flinch at a gun. He is so used to having a gun flung in his face, he just keeps on readin’ his magazine and shoos the burglars off. Now Charlie is not ashamed to be seen readin’ a Playboy at 2 in the morning. So his magazine really outtrumps anythin’ other than a payin’ customer. 

“Gone on. Do whatcha gotta do. Im callin’n the sheriff.” 

It was always Charlie’s line to whoever came in to steal his stuff. He took his time doin’ by now, and he just could not call the police, for he needed a report to send to the owner so that the store could get restocked. I didn't know how this place kept on runnin’, but it was alive, and it was well. Now Miss. Tiffany is a whole other ballgame when it came to meetin’ her. She was very special to say the least about it to Charlie, and Charlie always had me watch the register while he and Saggy ass Miss. Tiffinay made it to the room behind the refrigerators. I couldn't count how many wrinkles she had bringin’ her face down, but it was enough to make it droop, that's for sure. Miss. Tiffany always comes in with some kinda nighty on, smooching her crinkled lips at Charlie and blowin’ him a kiss. Now Miss. Tiffany's boobs hung about just as low as her ass did. 

Charlie and I would be kickin’ shit when a random would come in to buy somethin’ or try to use the restroom, which some ended up doin’ even around the amphibian and rodent infestations. It was always fun for a random to meet one of the regulars, and it definitely made an impression some of the time. State troopers have been called in to handle some matters for Charlie. Like Mr. Shawn, don't come around no more, for he yelled too loudly at the wrong customer, and the customer got into a violent interaction, which is why Charlie had to have a higher level of authority to handle misfits like these. Mr. Shawn yelled at everyone and anyone who came into the gas station, including me, the first few times I came there. 

I’ve dealt with the Monroe twins about just as much as Charlie has, and the Monroe kids are some twins that come into the gas station once a week, holdin’ hands, and for the first five minutes of being inside, they step far enough away from the counter to not communicate, but to clearly see they were starin’ right at Charlie. Just standin’ there not movin’ an inch, and then they would purchase what they needed and come back to Charlie, where they would both smile at the same time and just look him dead in the eye as he gave them their change. They didn't stop there, for they stayed at the counter just as long as they stayed at that door when they came through the front doors. 

I brought co-workers into the gas station, and the three of us, Charlie included, would sit behind the counter, eating popcorn, watching all the strange happenings around the gas station. Some nights, we caught Mr. Jones and his parrot. That damn thing doesn't have anything good to say to anyone. 

“Hey, fatass, how's business?” The parrot squawked when Mr. Jones and his terrorist made it to the counter. 

“Mr. Jones, are you having a good night?” Charlie took the money out of the old man’s wrinkled hand and smiled kindly at Mr. Jones ’ crinkled face. 

“Always a good night to be alive.” Mr. Jones had the same reply every time he came in to Charlie’s greetings. 

“See ya bitches.” The parrot called out, looking back over Mr. Jone’s shoulder, still staring us in the eye. 

I hated that stupid bird, and it only got worse if Mr. Jones came in with conversations. So, as you spoke to the kind old man, his parrot would curse at you and call you names throughout the interaction, and Mr. Jones was so good at just ignoring his bird, cause he never said a word to that parrot for being disrespectful. It couldn't help me but wonder what kind of man he was before he became a widow. There were some nights I would just stay and sleep at the gas station instead of drivin’ all the way home. This gas station had a single-stall shower between the two infested bathrooms, and its only flaw was that it dispensed only ice-cold water, which I didn't mind much. 

I was drivin’ at three in the mornin’ tryin’ to get to work when I got stuck at the gas station upon arriving durin’ a robbery. All I could do was huff and make my way behind the counter to grab a pack of cigarettes and light one up, taking a seat next to Charlie, who was on the phone with the sheriff. My boss was heated by the time I showed up three hours late, and he, that son of a bitch kept me at work until midnight, and I had no choice but to stay at the station, for I had to be at work at four thirty. 

I remember at one of my slumber parties with Charlie that I met this man and his girlfriend, who were past lost and out of their mind. You could tell they were from upstate with their fancy, brand-new sports car and Louis Vuitton-branded shoes that matched the branded clothes they wore. I had never heard a true scream from a woman before until that fancy lady went to the restroom and encountered the squirrels, which were feeling feisty, and attacked the woman all at once. It was a show to watch as the boyfriend fought those critters that clung to that woman for dear life. We lost customers that day, and they didn't get the right directions. 

You know, thinkin’ about it, I remember meetin’ Mr. Hali, a man with a banjo and a song for a couple tanks of gas. He was not from around here, and he was broke workin’ a job for pennies on the hour, and we felt bad for the man, so Charlie always took the song for payment. 

“Gentilhomme.” Mr. Hali would shout as he came into the station, leaving his piece-of-junk Honda outside, which most of the time, Charlie had to work on because it would break down at the station. 

Charlie was a mechanic before he was a gas station clerk, and so working on Mr. Hali’s junkyard automobile was nothing but swift movements on Charlie’s part. Chalie always got Mr. Hali out of here within thirty minutes if it wasn't a long song in trade for more gas. 

“Merci,” Mr. Hali would say all the way out the door a million times after he was not bound to the gas station any longer and could leave with his black smokin’ clanker. 

You know, besides the non-habitable restrooms, this gas station was up to code and very nice inside. I would say it was kinda chilly with the blasted air always goin’ no matter the temperature outside. Those high-reflecting fluorescent lights were a burden as well cause they were just so hard on your eyes. I don't know how Charlie works that station in that lightin’ every single day and night. All that is enough to truly turn a man crazy, but not Charlie. Charlie is way too reserved, no matter the situation happening in front of him. 

Charlie had his trailer parked out behind the gas station where he lived, and when he was sleeping, someone had to watch the store. That's when Paul came in, and boy, is Paul a pussy. I remember goin’ through his first robbery as I sat behind the counter suckin’ on a cigarette, waitin’ for the whole thing to be over with so I could just leave, and Paul not only pissed himself but he curled up into a ball under the counter and bawled uncontrably with discomposure. I had to deal with those stupid teenagers with the flying around gun that night, which was easy in the long run, as they got away with a bunch of beer, a few twenties, and a few cartons of cigarettes, matching the amount of snacks they took with them as well. By the time it was all over, I had to take Paul over to Charlie, and Charlie had to get back to work with only two hours of sleep that night. 

There was a robbery that got really serious once, as the man who came barging in and barricaded the place up was not afraid to shoot his gun. One shot missed Chalire’s head by inches as he just about pissed his pants as Paul had. Turned out this guy was a murderer, and he was findin’ a low-key place to hang out as he locked all the doors and flipped off the lights. Charlie and I hid under the counter and smoked what we thought would be our last cigarettes as the man waited in the station for hours with us locked inside until he relinquished himself and finally left after returning to his stolen vehicle, which he had parked out by Charlie’s trailer. 

Just thinkin’ about it, I wouldn't have to be so early to work if I wasn't the damn foreman, but boy did I appreciate that pay every couple of weeks. My boss would be willing to give my job to anyone else, but no one can meet my standards or my workload as I can, and I was a valuable asset to the company. So sometimes when I showed up a little late, I always got punished, but no way were they gonna fire me. I remember one night we caught some teenager smokin’ a joint behind the station. We brought him inside before feedin’ him and askin’ his name, and he was just a runaway. We let him stay as long as he wanted until he decided to go home, and we called his parents. 

Ya know, I remember the wrath my mother rained down on me, but the fury of this mother that came in for that boy was so hot it made the treprestue bake the entire building. She did not mind berating her son in front of Charlie and me, and when all was said and done, she stalked back to her car, and the boy waved goodbye from the passenger side window, and I feel he was about to go and experience what hell was like. It made me feel happy to be a grown man and have the ability to counter the abuse that my mom was about to inflict on her runaway son. 

“Well, Charlie, I gotta be goin’,” I would always grab my smokes and my gas if nothin’ at the moment was causin’ chaos around us, and I wanted to get the hell out before that tranquility was busted by madness. 

“Be safe out there.” Charlie would always ring back to me as he waved his twenties away workin’ that gas station. 

I’d wave back and get into my overly big, stupid truck and drive off with a hefty tank of gas and a dent in my wallet the size of a baseball. I worked this truck to the bone for five years since I bought it outright with no loans attached, reading my name on all paperwork, and I was just not ready to let it go. I’d pull up to work with my engine still purring, though, and it made every other man’s truck look like a play toy. 

You know, runaways don’t happen often, but when they do, it's always some kid in deep distress, as you could imagine. This time, when I came in, it was a young girl with deep bruises all over her body, inflicted by the ones she lived with. She cried to us and told us not to call anyone, that she was just gonna pass by after this and go on tryin’ to get away. Both of us were suckers as he packed her bags full of what she needed and sent her off on her way, giving her a two-hour head start before callin’ up the sheriff. 

I remember watchin’ her small frame go on down the road with her long red hair trailin’ down behind her and a knot hit my stomach like you wouldn't believe as I got into my truck at first and followed her all the way off the highway, just in case some pervert tried to give her a ride or kidnap her. When I knew she was a bit safer, I minded my own business and went home. 

“Charlie, what keeps you here?” I would ask the boy ever so often, cause I couldn't believe he wasn’t going to college or working a better job or even still living with his parents. 

“Oh, you know.” He would give me some sly smile and say, “Their pay is good, I get hazard pay for this job specifically, and I'm comfortable.” That's all he would ever say, and he never gave me the story on how he ended up here in the first place. 

I remember being with Charlie when Sandra G came into the building. She rummaged around and grabbed a handful of things before coming to the counter as I moved myself aside. 

“Maybe you have heard of me.” She spoke to both of us and gave off her most charming smile. “Sandra G. Ya know.” She began to laugh as if we were supposed to know. “I'm a big deal in the movie industry.” She tried to explain to us, but it didn't matter. “Maybe a discount for my fame?” She batted her fake lashes and tried to smile through her Botox and Charlie, and I laughed at her for maybe twenty minutes. 

Charlie gave her the employee discount, and very disgruntled and appalled, Sandra G walked off back to her 2005 sedan. I have so much to say about this place, I feel like I could never stop, as I'll go ahead and mention what happened between the witch and Charlie. A woman dressed in a Victorian black dress walked into the store and glared at Charlie as she shopped through the store. When she came up to the counter, she looked Charlie dead in the eye. 

“I have bad vibes about you,” are the words that came out of her black-lipped snarl. 

“Okay. You owe me 24.50.” Charlie said waitin’ for his payment. 

She pulled a leather pouch out of her purse and opened it up on top of the counter, and inside were a bunch of animal bones with bunches of chopped hair and toenail clippings. She took the bones in her hands and laid them out in a certain way, making some kind of sigil, and before we knew it, she was puffing a cloud of red sand in Charlie’s face. 

“I've cursed you, and now you will never be happy. For as long as you live, life will be nothing more than misery.” The witch promised as she handed the money over to Charlie. “I know your soul and for that you will always find unhappiness.” 

Charlie was flabbergasted, to say the least, as he counted out the money and gave her back her change. Before she left, she kept her little altar up on top of the counter. 

“Aren’t you gonna take any of this with you?” Charlie asked, looking at the mess in front of him. 

“It’s all cursed, I wouldn't touch it if you paid me.” She snarled as she walked out of the store and stepped into the passenger side of a Volvo minivan. 

I helped get all the sand off the counter and the floor, as Charlie had to wrap up the alter and get it into the outside trash, because there was some kind of odor coming from something she brought in, and we were tryin’ to get rid of it. Charlie and I are not superstitious in any way, and all that bull shit she blew out of her ass was just nonsense to both of us. After that, Charlie’s life still stayed the same, and I guess to most people that was misery, but not to Charlie, who was too set in his ways and always will be. 

Tonight I'm listenin’ to a man that looks like a pirate who has sailed the seven seas and takin’ on sea monsters the size of a swelling wave. I think he has been the most entertaining yet, besides Mr. Halis, who comes with a song that Charlie or I can understand. I always wonder what’s next and who will become a new regular. To be welcomed into the clan is a big deal around here, and I feel like Charlie and I knew that once I had been initiated into the group years back. I would stay and wait for the pirate to stop talkin’, but I can't be late for work again, and I gotta get movin’. I throw Charlie come cash and grab my own cigarettes before walkin’ out the door to my ever-lasting still runnin’ beauty. On my way to work, I looked behind me to see some kind of limo park itself right by a pump, and I couldn't wait to hear more about that this evening when I was gonna be driving back through. 

Everyone had a misconception of me, and every right they had to think that way, given how everything appeared at the time. Misconstrued, misinterpreted, every word you can think of that I used before my invocation about the truth, nobility is what I had, and the name Demon Slayer should be chiseled into my headstone, for I defeated what no man had ever tried to face before, and as I did this act, I failed, and the blame was put on my shoulders with shame. I was taken away for my bravery and put into chains as I spat out the truth for everyone to hear and ignore as if I were a false prophet and what I preached was blasphemy. 

It all started the very first time of my arrival at the hospital, where you had been staying for three months now, and I couldn't find the time I should have had to visit you. But finally, I had come and navigated through the effluvium of sewage and antiseptic as bed pans were moved around while the janitor sprayed his toxic fumes around the hallways to disinfect the germs that coagulated around the sick and weary. I found Pawpaw’s room, and he greeted me with a smile as he didn't observe the months that had passed here without me. 

I sat by my pawpaw's side, and I spoke to him. Speaking is what he needed the most, above all the flowers and gifts, everything except, in his opinion, a six pack with a cigar, maybe even go as far as a glass of high shelf whiskey. We would talk about whiskey and cigars for hours, then I would leave, promising to come back. I went back about a month later, and, again, Pawpaw didn't mind my extended absence. He just greeted me with a smile and a hug. 

Again, we spoke about things he loved to talk about, and he listened to all my life’s problems, offering expert advice with each complaint. I loved my pawpaw, and I felt ashamed for not going to see him more often. My next visit was a week apart from my month's sabbatical, and Pawpaw was just elated to see me so early. We played a deck of cards while Pawpaw talked about all the women he wooed in the past, and the laughter we shared was a moment between us that I would trade for the world. 

That's when I saw it for the first time, in the shadows, crawling up the wall: a furry mass that the darkness followed as I watched it loom over Pawpaw and start messing with all of Pawpaw’s machines, making alarms go off and things shut down. I ran out the door looking for help, taking off in one direction, while a team came in right behind me and sorted everything out. I told them I didn't know what happened, that I was gone at the time the incident occurred. They believed me, and I went back to Pawpaw’s side. He took my hand, clearly awake now, and he pulled me in closer, 

“It was that demon, wasn’t it?” 

His question alarmed me as if he had seen this thing before. That's when Pawpaw told me the demon was the reason he was not getting any better and why treatments were not working properly with his body. It was the demon that appeared, Pawpaw said, at least in the last month, and it's been trying to kill my Pawpaw ever since. I promised to come even more often to keep a closer eye on the place, and Pawpaw was grateful for that. I slept in the chair beside Pawpaw that night, too afraid that the shadow monster would come for him again. 

It was the next morning when I left for home to get freshened up and clear my schedule, for all my time now was spent with Pawpaw, and when I got back to the hospital, the demon was in Pawpaw’s room, messing around with Pawpaw’s IV while he was taking a nap. I jutted in there and tried to grab the shadow, but it dispersed between my fingers like fog, and a machine was blaring to the left of me. A charge of nurses came in, attached all the cords back to where they needed to be, and asked Pawpaw if he was okay. 

Pawpaw looked at me and shook his head. That demon again got to me. I should have kept my eye open.” Pawpaw lay back in his hospital bed, too tired for conversation, but I stayed there to keep him company. 

I slept awkwardly on the chair, and a new round of nurses arrived that morning to check on Pawpaw and take his vitals. I left to get some coffee, and when I came back, the furry mass was wheeling the bed through the room with the unplugged machines trailing behind, and it was planning to wheel Pawpaw right down the hall. I grabbed one end of the hospital bed while the little creature with small clawed hands pushed against me with surprised strength. 

That's when a nurse came in to yell at me. She said, for no reason, that I am not to try to take a patient out of their assigned room at any given time. I was reprimanded harshly before I got back to Pawpaw and explained that the demon was trying to bust Pawpaw out of here. Pawpaw said the demon just wanted a distraction, that the demon’s realm plan was to come to realization. I didn't know what that meant, so I checked over Pawpaw again and again to make sure he was fine. 

I felt helpless as death still came for Pawpaw in different ways, all of which I was in the room for, and I was the only one accounted for at the current time of the incident, which began a talk around the nurses that I was a red flag visitor and they needed to keep an eye on me. I was drifting to sleep one night when I saw the little ball of fuzz leap around the room until it came to pawpaw’s bed. I raced to the side of it as it pulled Pawpaw’s pillow out from beneath his head and put it over Pawpaw’s face. 

I struggled with the demon who had so much pressure on the pillow I could barely make out what you were screaming, but it was that you loved me. You kept on telling me you loved me, no matter what was going on. I couldn't pull the pillow off in time as the demon scurried away, and a flatline began to blare in the room, which left me at the scene of the crime with a pillow in my hand next to my dead pawpaw. They didn't believe me when I told them there was a demon that was trying to kill Pawpaw for a month now, and that I had nothing to do with it. I told them I was saving him. 

They ignored me and put me into processing, where I pleaded not guilty, and the courts finally dismissed the case, including the fact that I was not mentally well enough to stand trial, and that a mental health evaluation might be best for my situation. I get it, they all think I'm crazy, but I know I'm not. The demon tried to kill my pawpaw, and I saw it, and I was there every single time it happened, and I was so lucky to have saved him the couple of times that I did, but if I wasn't there, then surely he would die. 

I could hear the driver and passenger talking up front, and I got really quiet to listen. 

“They said he thought the patient was his pawpaw and the old man had Alzheimer’s to realize that this guy wasn't his real son, so get this, the guy we have in custody tried to kill this old man three times, the last time he succeeded.” 

What bullshit they said, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How could they not know that was my pawpaw, and he swore to me that he loved me as I fought off the demon trying to send him to perdition. I was the one who showed up for him. I was the one who cared for him. I was the one who saved him every time he was about to die. Can’t you see that? They should thank me for at least trying to save his life instead of blaming the death on me and labeling me with a different diagnosis. A demon killed my pawpaw, and I saw it happen. 

Everyone had a misconception of me, and every right they had to think that way, given how everything appeared at the time. Misconstrued, misinterpreted, every word you can think of that I used before my invocation about the truth, nobility is what I had, and the name Demon Slayer should be chiseled into my headstone, for I defeated what no man had ever tried to face before, and as I did this act, I failed, and the blame was put on my shoulders with shame. I was taken away for my bravery and put into chains as I spat out the truth for everyone to hear and ignore as if I were a false prophet and what I preached was blasphemy. 

It all started the very first time of my arrival at the hospital, where you had been staying for three months now, and I couldn't find the time I should have had to visit you. But finally, I had come and navigated through the effluvium of sewage and antiseptic as bed pans were moved around while the janitor sprayed his toxic fumes around the hallways to disinfect the germs that coagulated around the sick and weary. I found Pawpaw’s room, and he greeted me with a smile as he didn't observe the months that had passed here without me. 

I sat by my pawpaw's side, and I spoke to him. Speaking is what he needed the most, above all the flowers and gifts, everything except, in his opinion, a six pack with a cigar, maybe even go as far as a glass of high shelf whiskey. We would talk about whiskey and cigars for hours, then I would leave, promising to come back. I went back about a month later, and, again, Pawpaw didn't mind my extended absence. He just greeted me with a smile and a hug. 

Again, we spoke about things he loved to talk about, and he listened to all my life’s problems, offering expert advice with each complaint. I loved my pawpaw, and I felt ashamed for not going to see him more often. My next visit was a week apart from my month's sabbatical, and Pawpaw was just elated to see me so early. We played a deck of cards while Pawpaw talked about all the women he wooed in the past, and the laughter we shared was a moment between us that I would trade for the world. 

That's when I saw it for the first time, in the shadows, crawling up the wall: a furry mass that the darkness followed as I watched it loom over Pawpaw and start messing with all of Pawpaw’s machines, making alarms go off and things shut down. I ran out the door looking for help, taking off in one direction, while a team came in right behind me and sorted everything out. I told them I didn't know what happened, that I was gone at the time the incident occurred. They believed me, and I went back to Pawpaw’s side. He took my hand, clearly awake now, and he pulled me in closer, 

“It was that demon, wasn’t it?” 

His question alarmed me as if he had seen this thing before. That's when Pawpaw told me the demon was the reason he was not getting any better and why treatments were not working properly with his body. It was the demon that appeared, Pawpaw said, at least in the last month, and it's been trying to kill my Pawpaw ever since. I promised to come even more often to keep a closer eye on the place, and Pawpaw was grateful for that. I slept in the chair beside Pawpaw that night, too afraid that the shadow monster would come for him again. 

It was the next morning when I left for home to get freshened up and clear my schedule, for all my time now was spent with Pawpaw, and when I got back to the hospital, the demon was in Pawpaw’s room, messing around with Pawpaw’s IV while he was taking a nap. I jutted in there and tried to grab the shadow, but it dispersed between my fingers like fog, and a machine was blaring to the left of me. A charge of nurses came in, attached all the cords back to where they needed to be, and asked Pawpaw if he was okay. 

Pawpaw looked at me and shook his head. That demon again got to me. I should have kept my eye open.” Pawpaw lay back in his hospital bed, too tired for conversation, but I stayed there to keep him company. 

I slept awkwardly on the chair, and a new round of nurses arrived that morning to check on Pawpaw and take his vitals. I left to get some coffee, and when I came back, the furry mass was wheeling the bed through the room with the unplugged machines trailing behind, and it was planning to wheel Pawpaw right down the hall. I grabbed one end of the hospital bed while the little creature with small clawed hands pushed against me with surprised strength. 

That's when a nurse came in to yell at me. She said, for no reason, that I am not to try to take a patient out of their assigned room at any given time. I was reprimanded harshly before I got back to Pawpaw and explained that the demon was trying to bust Pawpaw out of here. Pawpaw said the demon just wanted a distraction, that the demon’s realm plan was to come to realization. I didn't know what that meant, so I checked over Pawpaw again and again to make sure he was fine. 

I felt helpless as death still came for Pawpaw in different ways, all of which I was in the room for, and I was the only one accounted for at the current time of the incident, which began a talk around the nurses that I was a red flag visitor and they needed to keep an eye on me. I was drifting to sleep one night when I saw the little ball of fuzz leap around the room until it came to pawpaw’s bed. I raced to the side of it as it pulled Pawpaw’s pillow out from beneath his head and put it over Pawpaw’s face. 

I struggled with the demon who had so much pressure on the pillow I could barely make out what you were screaming, but it was that you loved me. You kept on telling me you loved me, no matter what was going on. I couldn't pull the pillow off in time as the demon scurried away, and a flatline began to blare in the room, which left me at the scene of the crime with a pillow in my hand next to my dead pawpaw. They didn't believe me when I told them there was a demon that was trying to kill Pawpaw for a month now, and that I had nothing to do with it. I told them I was saving him. 

They ignored me and put me into processing, where I pleaded not guilty, and the courts finally dismissed the case, including the fact that I was not mentally well enough to stand trial, and that a mental health evaluation might be best for my situation. I get it, they all think I'm crazy, but I know I'm not. The demon tried to kill my pawpaw, and I saw it, and I was there every single time it happened, and I was so lucky to have saved him the couple of times that I did, but if I wasn't there, then surely he would die. 

I could hear the driver and passenger talking up front, and I got really quiet to listen. 

“They said he thought the patient was his pawpaw and the old man had Alzheimer’s to realize that this guy wasn't his real son, so get this, the guy we have in custody tried to kill this old man three times, the last time he succeeded.” 

What bullshit they said, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How could they not know that was my pawpaw, and he swore to me that he loved me as I fought off the demon trying to send him to perdition. I was the one who showed up for him. I was the one who cared for him. I was the one who saved him every time he was about to die. Can’t you see that? They should thank me for at least trying to save his life instead of blaming the death on me and labeling me with a different diagnosis. A demon killed my pawpaw, and I saw it happen. 

Everyone had a misconception of me, and every right they had to think that way, given how everything appeared at the time. Misconstrued, misinterpreted, every word you can think of that I used before my invocation about the truth, nobility is what I had, and the name Demon Slayer should be chiseled into my headstone, for I defeated what no man had ever tried to face before, and as I did this act, I failed, and the blame was put on my shoulders with shame. I was taken away for my bravery and put into chains as I spat out the truth for everyone to hear and ignore as if I were a false prophet and what I preached was blasphemy. 

It all started the very first time of my arrival at the hospital, where you had been staying for three months now, and I couldn't find the time I should have had to visit you. But finally, I had come and navigated through the effluvium of sewage and antiseptic as bed pans were moved around while the janitor sprayed his toxic fumes around the hallways to disinfect the germs that coagulated around the sick and weary. I found Pawpaw’s room, and he greeted me with a smile as he didn't observe the months that had passed here without me. 

I sat by my pawpaw's side, and I spoke to him. Speaking is what he needed the most, above all the flowers and gifts, everything except, in his opinion, a six pack with a cigar, maybe even go as far as a glass of high shelf whiskey. We would talk about whiskey and cigars for hours, then I would leave, promising to come back. I went back about a month later, and, again, Pawpaw didn't mind my extended absence. He just greeted me with a smile and a hug. 

Again, we spoke about things he loved to talk about, and he listened to all my life’s problems, offering expert advice with each complaint. I loved my pawpaw, and I felt ashamed for not going to see him more often. My next visit was a week apart from my month's sabbatical, and Pawpaw was just elated to see me so early. We played a deck of cards while Pawpaw talked about all the women he wooed in the past, and the laughter we shared was a moment between us that I would trade for the world. 

That's when I saw it for the first time, in the shadows, crawling up the wall: a furry mass that the darkness followed as I watched it loom over Pawpaw and start messing with all of Pawpaw’s machines, making alarms go off and things shut down. I ran out the door looking for help, taking off in one direction, while a team came in right behind me and sorted everything out. I told them I didn't know what happened, that I was gone at the time the incident occurred. They believed me, and I went back to Pawpaw’s side. He took my hand, clearly awake now, and he pulled me in closer, 

“It was that demon, wasn’t it?” 

His question alarmed me as if he had seen this thing before. That's when Pawpaw told me the demon was the reason he was not getting any better and why treatments were not working properly with his body. It was the demon that appeared, Pawpaw said, at least in the last month, and it's been trying to kill my Pawpaw ever since. I promised to come even more often to keep a closer eye on the place, and Pawpaw was grateful for that. I slept in the chair beside Pawpaw that night, too afraid that the shadow monster would come for him again. 

It was the next morning when I left for home to get freshened up and clear my schedule, for all my time now was spent with Pawpaw, and when I got back to the hospital, the demon was in Pawpaw’s room, messing around with Pawpaw’s IV while he was taking a nap. I jutted in there and tried to grab the shadow, but it dispersed between my fingers like fog, and a machine was blaring to the left of me. A charge of nurses came in, attached all the cords back to where they needed to be, and asked Pawpaw if he was okay. 

Pawpaw looked at me and shook his head. That demon again got to me. I should have kept my eye open.” Pawpaw lay back in his hospital bed, too tired for conversation, but I stayed there to keep him company. 

I slept awkwardly on the chair, and a new round of nurses arrived that morning to check on Pawpaw and take his vitals. I left to get some coffee, and when I came back, the furry mass was wheeling the bed through the room with the unplugged machines trailing behind, and it was planning to wheel Pawpaw right down the hall. I grabbed one end of the hospital bed while the little creature with small clawed hands pushed against me with surprised strength. 

That's when a nurse came in to yell at me. She said, for no reason, that I am not to try to take a patient out of their assigned room at any given time. I was reprimanded harshly before I got back to Pawpaw and explained that the demon was trying to bust Pawpaw out of here. Pawpaw said the demon just wanted a distraction, that the demon’s realm plan was to come to realization. I didn't know what that meant, so I checked over Pawpaw again and again to make sure he was fine. 

I felt helpless as death still came for Pawpaw in different ways, all of which I was in the room for, and I was the only one accounted for at the current time of the incident, which began a talk around the nurses that I was a red flag visitor and they needed to keep an eye on me. I was drifting to sleep one night when I saw the little ball of fuzz leap around the room until it came to pawpaw’s bed. I raced to the side of it as it pulled Pawpaw’s pillow out from beneath his head and put it over Pawpaw’s face. 

I struggled with the demon who had so much pressure on the pillow I could barely make out what you were screaming, but it was that you loved me. You kept on telling me you loved me, no matter what was going on. I couldn't pull the pillow off in time as the demon scurried away, and a flatline began to blare in the room, which left me at the scene of the crime with a pillow in my hand next to my dead pawpaw. They didn't believe me when I told them there was a demon that was trying to kill Pawpaw for a month now, and that I had nothing to do with it. I told them I was saving him. 

They ignored me and put me into processing, where I pleaded not guilty, and the courts finally dismissed the case, including the fact that I was not mentally well enough to stand trial, and that a mental health evaluation might be best for my situation. I get it, they all think I'm crazy, but I know I'm not. The demon tried to kill my pawpaw, and I saw it, and I was there every single time it happened, and I was so lucky to have saved him the couple of times that I did, but if I wasn't there, then surely he would die. 

I could hear the driver and passenger talking up front, and I got really quiet to listen. 

“They said he thought the patient was his pawpaw and the old man had Alzheimer’s to realize that this guy wasn't his real son, so get this, the guy we have in custody tried to kill this old man three times, the last time he succeeded.” 

What bullshit they said, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How could they not know that was my pawpaw, and he swore to me that he loved me as I fought off the demon trying to send him to perdition. I was the one who showed up for him. I was the one who cared for him. I was the one who saved him every time he was about to die. Can’t you see that? They should thank me for at least trying to save his life instead of blaming the death on me and labeling me with a different diagnosis. A demon killed my pawpaw, and I saw it happen. 

There is a new sauce in town called Saracha Red, and it's a real hit with everyone, as the grocery store has to restock the aisle daily due to high demand. My family was no exception; besides me, I was the exception, and I didn't care to admit that I thought the sauce was overrated and that barbecue sauce was still way better. Everyone laughed at me and told me I had no idea what I was missing, and I just ignored them and continued on with my sweet honey or spicy hot sauce. As time went by, I noticed that my family had started to gain a little weight since the sauce came out, and I wondered what they could be putting the sauce on that was making their customers so fat. I watched my mom go on a diet, eating only salads with that Saracha Red, and she pumped herself crazy on the treadmill to no avail. I noticed it first, and when I brought it up, everyone looked at me like I was crazy. They told me that just because I didn't like the sauce didn't mean I could be a smart ass about it. So I shut my mouth. 

I began to notice it within the first few weeks of it hitting the shelves, and people were buying it out like crazy, so that everyone who bought the sauce became a little bit heavier than they normally were. I also watched as the sauce took more and more space up on the shelf, pushing everything else further down the aisle. I had to walk past Saracha Red to get to my honey barbecue sauce, until I noticed they no longer had my brand; instead, they had Honey Brown, made by the same company as the other sauce. I threw that out the window and made my way to the ranch. I could eat anything with ranch, and it was good enough, so my mom started buying me my own bottles of ranch to keep around. 

The bottle selection grew as Saracha Red and Honey Brown were on the dinner table, along with my lone bottle of ranch, which had no special name. It was just a ranch. I watched my parents begin to eat rather sloppily; their double chins jiggled, and my siblings poured more sauce over their food than they actually needed. This was getting out of hand, and I wondered if anyone had yet made a complaint to the company and how they were ruining the health of many good, hard-working people. I thought, why bother even to try to cry out? No one was going to listen to me. But then the battle of sauces became personal when there was Ranchy White instead of my basic, labeled bottle, which was even two dollars cheaper than this company taking over the sauce industry. 

Sauce was important; it added flavor to the meal, making it more savory and delicious, and we need that satisfying bite in our lives. Without it, what is food? Just bland meals with knock-off spices at best. I moved on to thousand island dressing as I saw the ones gathered around me to get the new ranch were puffier than they should have been; it wasn’t that they were just bulbous, but they were very puffy, and I can say both of them because everyone else in the store looked swollen and turgid as well. I walked beside my waddling, obese mom, who used to be as thin as a rake, down the aisle as she grabbed all the new sauces and put them into the cart. I had moved on to Thousand Island dressing, which had been taken over, too. On our way out of the store, I realized that only one person could be in an aisle at a time because there was no way to get past the other without leaving the aisle entirely. More people were on mobile scooters, and even the metal frame was bending to their body weight. 

I soon realized I was the only one who did not eat the sauce and seemed to be the only one who had kept a steady weight. I pointed out the ingredient to my mom, who told me that sometimes age comes with pounds, that there isn't anything to be done about it, and that it isn't always something in her diet that makes her bloat so badly; her menopause itself was causing her body to behave this way. She was buying all this bullshit. My dad said it was because he quit running in the mornings, and now he was back up at four thirty, walking past my open door to go for a long-winded run which i knew he could not manage and all that did nothing at all for him at all, since what he really needed to do was cut out the fat still in his diet which all comes from all the sauces. Even my siblings ignored me, and I even started to talk to strangers a little bit in the aisle about the sauces, but everyone was blind to what was happening, everyone but me, because I was not eating that brand of sauce. 

I decided to really fight for all the sauces in America when they took away my vinaigrette dressing and turned it into Savvy Honey. I went to my dad, and I demanded that he take me to the company at once and file proper complaints about the company’s product. My father laughed at me, his face wobbling around, and his belly rolls danced as the noise came from deep in his chest, and he told me I thought too much about things, and I should stop being paranoid about everything. Like, I didn't have a reason to be paranoid right now. I snuck out of my room one night and walked a few blocks downtown, a few miles away from my house, and found the factory. I put on my dad’s old janitor uniform, which fit me well since I was so tall for my age, and the guard just let me right in. I couldn't believe it worked as I looked around the very plain lobby, trying to find signs that pointed me in the right direction. I then went to the elevator and pressed the 'factory floor' button. 

I stepped into an enormous metal room filled with all kinds of machinery, gushing liquids into bottles. I could see a whole vat labeled lard and another vat labeled canola oil as they both led through tubes into bled out farm animals, which were hung up above me, going around in circles with the conveyor system, and then I watched them add food coloring and spices before putting a bucket of what looked like little caviar eggs in the sauce putting a label on it and setting it on the shelf. I somehow got my way out of the factory and took down its name before heading back home as the sun was coming up, and I was due at the breakfast table in less than an hour. I sprinted back to my room, climbed through my window, threw on some fresh clothes, caught my breath, and went downstairs to say Good morning to the whole family. 

My sister had to switch to maternity pants now that her stomach was so corpulent, and my brother couldn't find a pair of jeans in his size, so he always wore baggy basketball shorts, which slid down his waist and always showed off his wide ass butt crack. Mom tried to hide her weight gain with sundresses, but they did not cover her bulbous necks or wagging, thick arms. I went through school in a daze, and when it was lunch, I went to the library and searched for the name of the company that owned all the sauces. It was a new place planted down here just two months ago, run by two twins, the Rasnick brothers. No one had met the brothers before, and I couldn't find any photos of them online. I was beyond baffled as I watched my family keep eating that slop. I even kept throwing it out of the kitchen a few times before getting caught and punished. 

I was home alone with my mom when she fell onto her back and couldn't get up. She told me she couldn't breathe and that there was a sharp pain coming from her stomach. I tried to pull her up, but she was too heavy now, and I stood over her and watched as something began to move under her skin. My mother’s screams rang out with no mercy as I stood back in fear and cowered in a corner, as I saw my mother’s stomach get ripped open, the flab just flinging aside as hands pulled through her open chest cavity, and out of her cadaver crawled a slimy, bald creature that had no features on its face. The alien pulled itself from the host that was my mother, and its elongated arms and feet could rotate in every direction as I watched the beast stretch out its thin, slick body. Then I saw it look at its host and examine it closely with its eyeless face before becoming satisfied and pushing its claws into my mother’s body, taking hunks of her flesh. 

A little tube came slithering out of the wrinkled bald head of the alien, and its host, the grey saggy creature that just burst out through my mother’s carcass, began giving it thick pieces of my mother’s fat, sliced-up flesh. I could see the tube chew and swallow as much as an entire 800-pound leg before it was satisfied and slithered back into hiding. The grey monster stood straight on its stilts and looked around before leaving me alone in the corner of the room, completely undetected. I ran to my mother’s mutilated body and saw that her face was frozen in a state of pure agony. I knew the others were the same, pregnant with this monster and giving birth to it where they fell, and whoever the twins were that owned that company was bringing on the end of the world with these creatures. I grabbed as much stuff as I could carry and threw it all in the back of my mom’s sedan as I backed out of the driveway for the first time in my life and drove down the road, going off to a better place, a new place that doesn't have those sauces and i found that town and got a job before finding a stable place to live that didnt ask questions like what my legal age was. 

The town was great, and I was really becoming part of the community through the services I provided to the faction with my time and energy. I planted herbs in the garden situated on top of a big apartment building, which also grows its own vegetables up there. I helped the elderly clear their homes so they would have places to live, and I was making good money doing it. I was mowing lawns and pulling weeds. I was doing everything I could to make a dollar and pay my rent, and I was doing so tenfold with the time I was putting into work. I was at the local market one day when I realized I was out of ketchup and needed to buy a bottle, so I made my way to the sauce aisle and, lo and behold, I saw it happening to the place I had come to love. Saracha Red took up an entire shelving unit, and the path was filled with people grabbing at that sauce. 

I didn't even bother with my cart; I just walked out of the store and went home to my apartment building, which was just a couple of miles from the market I shopped at frequently. This was the biggest name-brand grocery store in the county, and I knew that if it was here, it would spread everywhere, taking over the whole state slowly. I was wondering if this was happening elsewhere around the world and whether this was what an invasion looked like. I packed up all my belongings and got into my mom’s sedan, getting as much gas as I could in the tank and in two red twenty-gallon buckets that were stationed in the back of the car, each with a nozzle and a little hose, which I rigged up myself after buying the containers at a hardware store, along with a garden hose. I decided to go further and maybe find some people like me that weren't into the sauce all that much, and I just ran in one direction, and I didn't look back, as I was too afraid to watch the birthings happen again. 

There is a new sauce in town called Saracha Red, and it's a real hit with everyone, as the grocery store has to restock the aisle daily due to high demand. My family was no exception; besides me, I was the exception, and I didn't care to admit that I thought the sauce was overrated and that barbecue sauce was still way better. Everyone laughed at me and told me I had no idea what I was missing, and I just ignored them and continued on with my sweet honey or spicy hot sauce. As time went by, I noticed that my family had started to gain a little weight since the sauce came out, and I wondered what they could be putting the sauce on that was making their customers so fat. I watched my mom go on a diet, eating only salads with that Saracha Red, and she pumped herself crazy on the treadmill to no avail. I noticed it first, and when I brought it up, everyone looked at me like I was crazy. They told me that just because I didn't like the sauce didn't mean I could be a smart ass about it. So I shut my mouth. 

I began to notice it within the first few weeks of it hitting the shelves, and people were buying it out like crazy, so that everyone who bought the sauce became a little bit heavier than they normally were. I also watched as the sauce took more and more space up on the shelf, pushing everything else further down the aisle. I had to walk past Saracha Red to get to my honey barbecue sauce, until I noticed they no longer had my brand; instead, they had Honey Brown, made by the same company as the other sauce. I threw that out the window and made my way to the ranch. I could eat anything with ranch, and it was good enough, so my mom started buying me my own bottles of ranch to keep around. 

The bottle selection grew as Saracha Red and Honey Brown were on the dinner table, along with my lone bottle of ranch, which had no special name. It was just a ranch. I watched my parents begin to eat rather sloppily; their double chins jiggled, and my siblings poured more sauce over their food than they actually needed. This was getting out of hand, and I wondered if anyone had yet made a complaint to the company and how they were ruining the health of many good, hard-working people. I thought, why bother even to try to cry out? No one was going to listen to me. But then the battle of sauces became personal when there was Ranchy White instead of my basic, labeled bottle, which was even two dollars cheaper than this company taking over the sauce industry. 

Sauce was important; it added flavor to the meal, making it more savory and delicious, and we need that satisfying bite in our lives. Without it, what is food? Just bland meals with knock-off spices at best. I moved on to thousand island dressing as I saw the ones gathered around me to get the new ranch were puffier than they should have been; it wasn’t that they were just bulbous, but they were very puffy, and I can say both of them because everyone else in the store looked swollen and turgid as well. I walked beside my waddling, obese mom, who used to be as thin as a rake, down the aisle as she grabbed all the new sauces and put them into the cart. I had moved on to Thousand Island dressing, which had been taken over, too. On our way out of the store, I realized that only one person could be in an aisle at a time because there was no way to get past the other without leaving the aisle entirely. More people were on mobile scooters, and even the metal frame was bending to their body weight. 

I soon realized I was the only one who did not eat the sauce and seemed to be the only one who had kept a steady weight. I pointed out the ingredient to my mom, who told me that sometimes age comes with pounds, that there isn't anything to be done about it, and that it isn't always something in her diet that makes her bloat so badly; her menopause itself was causing her body to behave this way. She was buying all this bullshit. My dad said it was because he quit running in the mornings, and now he was back up at four thirty, walking past my open door to go for a long-winded run which i knew he could not manage and all that did nothing at all for him at all, since what he really needed to do was cut out the fat still in his diet which all comes from all the sauces. Even my siblings ignored me, and I even started to talk to strangers a little bit in the aisle about the sauces, but everyone was blind to what was happening, everyone but me, because I was not eating that brand of sauce. 

I decided to really fight for all the sauces in America when they took away my vinaigrette dressing and turned it into Savvy Honey. I went to my dad, and I demanded that he take me to the company at once and file proper complaints about the company’s product. My father laughed at me, his face wobbling around, and his belly rolls danced as the noise came from deep in his chest, and he told me I thought too much about things, and I should stop being paranoid about everything. Like, I didn't have a reason to be paranoid right now. I snuck out of my room one night and walked a few blocks downtown, a few miles away from my house, and found the factory. I put on my dad’s old janitor uniform, which fit me well since I was so tall for my age, and the guard just let me right in. I couldn't believe it worked as I looked around the very plain lobby, trying to find signs that pointed me in the right direction. I then went to the elevator and pressed the 'factory floor' button. 

I stepped into an enormous metal room filled with all kinds of machinery, gushing liquids into bottles. I could see a whole vat labeled lard and another vat labeled canola oil as they both led through tubes into bled out farm animals, which were hung up above me, going around in circles with the conveyor system, and then I watched them add food coloring and spices before putting a bucket of what looked like little caviar eggs in the sauce putting a label on it and setting it on the shelf. I somehow got my way out of the factory and took down its name before heading back home as the sun was coming up, and I was due at the breakfast table in less than an hour. I sprinted back to my room, climbed through my window, threw on some fresh clothes, caught my breath, and went downstairs to say Good morning to the whole family. 

My sister had to switch to maternity pants now that her stomach was so corpulent, and my brother couldn't find a pair of jeans in his size, so he always wore baggy basketball shorts, which slid down his waist and always showed off his wide ass butt crack. Mom tried to hide her weight gain with sundresses, but they did not cover her bulbous necks or wagging, thick arms. I went through school in a daze, and when it was lunch, I went to the library and searched for the name of the company that owned all the sauces. It was a new place planted down here just two months ago, run by two twins, the Rasnick brothers. No one had met the brothers before, and I couldn't find any photos of them online. I was beyond baffled as I watched my family keep eating that slop. I even kept throwing it out of the kitchen a few times before getting caught and punished. 

I was home alone with my mom when she fell onto her back and couldn't get up. She told me she couldn't breathe and that there was a sharp pain coming from her stomach. I tried to pull her up, but she was too heavy now, and I stood over her and watched as something began to move under her skin. My mother’s screams rang out with no mercy as I stood back in fear and cowered in a corner, as I saw my mother’s stomach get ripped open, the flab just flinging aside as hands pulled through her open chest cavity, and out of her cadaver crawled a slimy, bald creature that had no features on its face. The alien pulled itself from the host that was my mother, and its elongated arms and feet could rotate in every direction as I watched the beast stretch out its thin, slick body. Then I saw it look at its host and examine it closely with its eyeless face before becoming satisfied and pushing its claws into my mother’s body, taking hunks of her flesh. 

A little tube came slithering out of the wrinkled bald head of the alien, and its host, the grey saggy creature that just burst out through my mother’s carcass, began giving it thick pieces of my mother’s fat, sliced-up flesh. I could see the tube chew and swallow as much as an entire 800-pound leg before it was satisfied and slithered back into hiding. The grey monster stood straight on its stilts and looked around before leaving me alone in the corner of the room, completely undetected. I ran to my mother’s mutilated body and saw that her face was frozen in a state of pure agony. I knew the others were the same, pregnant with this monster and giving birth to it where they fell, and whoever the twins were that owned that company was bringing on the end of the world with these creatures. I grabbed as much stuff as I could carry and threw it all in the back of my mom’s sedan as I backed out of the driveway for the first time in my life and drove down the road, going off to a better place, a new place that doesn't have those sauces and i found that town and got a job before finding a stable place to live that didnt ask questions like what my legal age was. 

The town was great, and I was really becoming part of the community through the services I provided to the faction with my time and energy. I planted herbs in the garden situated on top of a big apartment building, which also grows its own vegetables up there. I helped the elderly clear their homes so they would have places to live, and I was making good money doing it. I was mowing lawns and pulling weeds. I was doing everything I could to make a dollar and pay my rent, and I was doing so tenfold with the time I was putting into work. I was at the local market one day when I realized I was out of ketchup and needed to buy a bottle, so I made my way to the sauce aisle and, lo and behold, I saw it happening to the place I had come to love. Saracha Red took up an entire shelving unit, and the path was filled with people grabbing at that sauce. 

I didn't even bother with my cart; I just walked out of the store and went home to my apartment building, which was just a couple of miles from the market I shopped at frequently. This was the biggest name-brand grocery store in the county, and I knew that if it was here, it would spread everywhere, taking over the whole state slowly. I was wondering if this was happening elsewhere around the world and whether this was what an invasion looked like. I packed up all my belongings and got into my mom’s sedan, getting as much gas as I could in the tank and in two red twenty-gallon buckets that were stationed in the back of the car, each with a nozzle and a little hose, which I rigged up myself after buying the containers at a hardware store, along with a garden hose. I decided to go further and maybe find some people like me that weren't into the sauce all that much, and I just ran in one direction, and I didn't look back, as I was too afraid to watch the birthings happen again. 

There is a new sauce in town called Saracha Red, and it's a real hit with everyone, as the grocery store has to restock the aisle daily due to high demand. My family was no exception; besides me, I was the exception, and I didn't care to admit that I thought the sauce was overrated and that barbecue sauce was still way better. Everyone laughed at me and told me I had no idea what I was missing, and I just ignored them and continued on with my sweet honey or spicy hot sauce. As time went by, I noticed that my family had started to gain a little weight since the sauce came out, and I wondered what they could be putting the sauce on that was making their customers so fat. I watched my mom go on a diet, eating only salads with that Saracha Red, and she pumped herself crazy on the treadmill to no avail. I noticed it first, and when I brought it up, everyone looked at me like I was crazy. They told me that just because I didn't like the sauce didn't mean I could be a smart ass about it. So I shut my mouth. 

I began to notice it within the first few weeks of it hitting the shelves, and people were buying it out like crazy, so that everyone who bought the sauce became a little bit heavier than they normally were. I also watched as the sauce took more and more space up on the shelf, pushing everything else further down the aisle. I had to walk past Saracha Red to get to my honey barbecue sauce, until I noticed they no longer had my brand; instead, they had Honey Brown, made by the same company as the other sauce. I threw that out the window and made my way to the ranch. I could eat anything with ranch, and it was good enough, so my mom started buying me my own bottles of ranch to keep around. 

The bottle selection grew as Saracha Red and Honey Brown were on the dinner table, along with my lone bottle of ranch, which had no special name. It was just a ranch. I watched my parents begin to eat rather sloppily; their double chins jiggled, and my siblings poured more sauce over their food than they actually needed. This was getting out of hand, and I wondered if anyone had yet made a complaint to the company and how they were ruining the health of many good, hard-working people. I thought, why bother even to try to cry out? No one was going to listen to me. But then the battle of sauces became personal when there was Ranchy White instead of my basic, labeled bottle, which was even two dollars cheaper than this company taking over the sauce industry. 

Sauce was important; it added flavor to the meal, making it more savory and delicious, and we need that satisfying bite in our lives. Without it, what is food? Just bland meals with knock-off spices at best. I moved on to thousand island dressing as I saw the ones gathered around me to get the new ranch were puffier than they should have been; it wasn’t that they were just bulbous, but they were very puffy, and I can say both of them because everyone else in the store looked swollen and turgid as well. I walked beside my waddling, obese mom, who used to be as thin as a rake, down the aisle as she grabbed all the new sauces and put them into the cart. I had moved on to Thousand Island dressing, which had been taken over, too. On our way out of the store, I realized that only one person could be in an aisle at a time because there was no way to get past the other without leaving the aisle entirely. More people were on mobile scooters, and even the metal frame was bending to their body weight. 

I soon realized I was the only one who did not eat the sauce and seemed to be the only one who had kept a steady weight. I pointed out the ingredient to my mom, who told me that sometimes age comes with pounds, that there isn't anything to be done about it, and that it isn't always something in her diet that makes her bloat so badly; her menopause itself was causing her body to behave this way. She was buying all this bullshit. My dad said it was because he quit running in the mornings, and now he was back up at four thirty, walking past my open door to go for a long-winded run which i knew he could not manage and all that did nothing at all for him at all, since what he really needed to do was cut out the fat still in his diet which all comes from all the sauces. Even my siblings ignored me, and I even started to talk to strangers a little bit in the aisle about the sauces, but everyone was blind to what was happening, everyone but me, because I was not eating that brand of sauce. 

I decided to really fight for all the sauces in America when they took away my vinaigrette dressing and turned it into Savvy Honey. I went to my dad, and I demanded that he take me to the company at once and file proper complaints about the company’s product. My father laughed at me, his face wobbling around, and his belly rolls danced as the noise came from deep in his chest, and he told me I thought too much about things, and I should stop being paranoid about everything. Like, I didn't have a reason to be paranoid right now. I snuck out of my room one night and walked a few blocks downtown, a few miles away from my house, and found the factory. I put on my dad’s old janitor uniform, which fit me well since I was so tall for my age, and the guard just let me right in. I couldn't believe it worked as I looked around the very plain lobby, trying to find signs that pointed me in the right direction. I then went to the elevator and pressed the 'factory floor' button. 

I stepped into an enormous metal room filled with all kinds of machinery, gushing liquids into bottles. I could see a whole vat labeled lard and another vat labeled canola oil as they both led through tubes into bled out farm animals, which were hung up above me, going around in circles with the conveyor system, and then I watched them add food coloring and spices before putting a bucket of what looked like little caviar eggs in the sauce putting a label on it and setting it on the shelf. I somehow got my way out of the factory and took down its name before heading back home as the sun was coming up, and I was due at the breakfast table in less than an hour. I sprinted back to my room, climbed through my window, threw on some fresh clothes, caught my breath, and went downstairs to say Good morning to the whole family. 

My sister had to switch to maternity pants now that her stomach was so corpulent, and my brother couldn't find a pair of jeans in his size, so he always wore baggy basketball shorts, which slid down his waist and always showed off his wide ass butt crack. Mom tried to hide her weight gain with sundresses, but they did not cover her bulbous necks or wagging, thick arms. I went through school in a daze, and when it was lunch, I went to the library and searched for the name of the company that owned all the sauces. It was a new place planted down here just two months ago, run by two twins, the Rasnick brothers. No one had met the brothers before, and I couldn't find any photos of them online. I was beyond baffled as I watched my family keep eating that slop. I even kept throwing it out of the kitchen a few times before getting caught and punished. 

I was home alone with my mom when she fell onto her back and couldn't get up. She told me she couldn't breathe and that there was a sharp pain coming from her stomach. I tried to pull her up, but she was too heavy now, and I stood over her and watched as something began to move under her skin. My mother’s screams rang out with no mercy as I stood back in fear and cowered in a corner, as I saw my mother’s stomach get ripped open, the flab just flinging aside as hands pulled through her open chest cavity, and out of her cadaver crawled a slimy, bald creature that had no features on its face. The alien pulled itself from the host that was my mother, and its elongated arms and feet could rotate in every direction as I watched the beast stretch out its thin, slick body. Then I saw it look at its host and examine it closely with its eyeless face before becoming satisfied and pushing its claws into my mother’s body, taking hunks of her flesh. 

A little tube came slithering out of the wrinkled bald head of the alien, and its host, the grey saggy creature that just burst out through my mother’s carcass, began giving it thick pieces of my mother’s fat, sliced-up flesh. I could see the tube chew and swallow as much as an entire 800-pound leg before it was satisfied and slithered back into hiding. The grey monster stood straight on its stilts and looked around before leaving me alone in the corner of the room, completely undetected. I ran to my mother’s mutilated body and saw that her face was frozen in a state of pure agony. I knew the others were the same, pregnant with this monster and giving birth to it where they fell, and whoever the twins were that owned that company was bringing on the end of the world with these creatures. I grabbed as much stuff as I could carry and threw it all in the back of my mom’s sedan as I backed out of the driveway for the first time in my life and drove down the road, going off to a better place, a new place that doesn't have those sauces and i found that town and got a job before finding a stable place to live that didnt ask questions like what my legal age was. 

The town was great, and I was really becoming part of the community through the services I provided to the faction with my time and energy. I planted herbs in the garden situated on top of a big apartment building, which also grows its own vegetables up there. I helped the elderly clear their homes so they would have places to live, and I was making good money doing it. I was mowing lawns and pulling weeds. I was doing everything I could to make a dollar and pay my rent, and I was doing so tenfold with the time I was putting into work. I was at the local market one day when I realized I was out of ketchup and needed to buy a bottle, so I made my way to the sauce aisle and, lo and behold, I saw it happening to the place I had come to love. Saracha Red took up an entire shelving unit, and the path was filled with people grabbing at that sauce. 

I didn't even bother with my cart; I just walked out of the store and went home to my apartment building, which was just a couple of miles from the market I shopped at frequently. This was the biggest name-brand grocery store in the county, and I knew that if it was here, it would spread everywhere, taking over the whole state slowly. I was wondering if this was happening elsewhere around the world and whether this was what an invasion looked like. I packed up all my belongings and got into my mom’s sedan, getting as much gas as I could in the tank and in two red twenty-gallon buckets that were stationed in the back of the car, each with a nozzle and a little hose, which I rigged up myself after buying the containers at a hardware store, along with a garden hose. I decided to go further and maybe find some people like me that weren't into the sauce all that much, and I just ran in one direction, and I didn't look back, as I was too afraid to watch the birthings happen again. 

There is a new sauce in town called Saracha Red, and it's a real hit with everyone, as the grocery store has to restock the aisle daily due to high demand. My family was no exception; besides me, I was the exception, and I didn't care to admit that I thought the sauce was overrated and that barbecue sauce was still way better. Everyone laughed at me and told me I had no idea what I was missing, and I just ignored them and continued on with my sweet honey or spicy hot sauce. As time went by, I noticed that my family had started to gain a little weight since the sauce came out, and I wondered what they could be putting the sauce on that was making their customers so fat. I watched my mom go on a diet, eating only salads with that Saracha Red, and she pumped herself crazy on the treadmill to no avail. I noticed it first, and when I brought it up, everyone looked at me like I was crazy. They told me that just because I didn't like the sauce didn't mean I could be a smart ass about it. So I shut my mouth. 

I began to notice it within the first few weeks of it hitting the shelves, and people were buying it out like crazy, so that everyone who bought the sauce became a little bit heavier than they normally were. I also watched as the sauce took more and more space up on the shelf, pushing everything else further down the aisle. I had to walk past Saracha Red to get to my honey barbecue sauce, until I noticed they no longer had my brand; instead, they had Honey Brown, made by the same company as the other sauce. I threw that out the window and made my way to the ranch. I could eat anything with ranch, and it was good enough, so my mom started buying me my own bottles of ranch to keep around. 

The bottle selection grew as Saracha Red and Honey Brown were on the dinner table, along with my lone bottle of ranch, which had no special name. It was just a ranch. I watched my parents begin to eat rather sloppily; their double chins jiggled, and my siblings poured more sauce over their food than they actually needed. This was getting out of hand, and I wondered if anyone had yet made a complaint to the company and how they were ruining the health of many good, hard-working people. I thought, why bother even to try to cry out? No one was going to listen to me. But then the battle of sauces became personal when there was Ranchy White instead of my basic, labeled bottle, which was even two dollars cheaper than this company taking over the sauce industry. 

Sauce was important; it added flavor to the meal, making it more savory and delicious, and we need that satisfying bite in our lives. Without it, what is food? Just bland meals with knock-off spices at best. I moved on to thousand island dressing as I saw the ones gathered around me to get the new ranch were puffier than they should have been; it wasn’t that they were just bulbous, but they were very puffy, and I can say both of them because everyone else in the store looked swollen and turgid as well. I walked beside my waddling, obese mom, who used to be as thin as a rake, down the aisle as she grabbed all the new sauces and put them into the cart. I had moved on to Thousand Island dressing, which had been taken over, too. On our way out of the store, I realized that only one person could be in an aisle at a time because there was no way to get past the other without leaving the aisle entirely. More people were on mobile scooters, and even the metal frame was bending to their body weight. 

I soon realized I was the only one who did not eat the sauce and seemed to be the only one who had kept a steady weight. I pointed out the ingredient to my mom, who told me that sometimes age comes with pounds, that there isn't anything to be done about it, and that it isn't always something in her diet that makes her bloat so badly; her menopause itself was causing her body to behave this way. She was buying all this bullshit. My dad said it was because he quit running in the mornings, and now he was back up at four thirty, walking past my open door to go for a long-winded run which i knew he could not manage and all that did nothing at all for him at all, since what he really needed to do was cut out the fat still in his diet which all comes from all the sauces. Even my siblings ignored me, and I even started to talk to strangers a little bit in the aisle about the sauces, but everyone was blind to what was happening, everyone but me, because I was not eating that brand of sauce. 

I decided to really fight for all the sauces in America when they took away my vinaigrette dressing and turned it into Savvy Honey. I went to my dad, and I demanded that he take me to the company at once and file proper complaints about the company’s product. My father laughed at me, his face wobbling around, and his belly rolls danced as the noise came from deep in his chest, and he told me I thought too much about things, and I should stop being paranoid about everything. Like, I didn't have a reason to be paranoid right now. I snuck out of my room one night and walked a few blocks downtown, a few miles away from my house, and found the factory. I put on my dad’s old janitor uniform, which fit me well since I was so tall for my age, and the guard just let me right in. I couldn't believe it worked as I looked around the very plain lobby, trying to find signs that pointed me in the right direction. I then went to the elevator and pressed the 'factory floor' button. 

I stepped into an enormous metal room filled with all kinds of machinery, gushing liquids into bottles. I could see a whole vat labeled lard and another vat labeled canola oil as they both led through tubes into bled out farm animals, which were hung up above me, going around in circles with the conveyor system, and then I watched them add food coloring and spices before putting a bucket of what looked like little caviar eggs in the sauce putting a label on it and setting it on the shelf. I somehow got my way out of the factory and took down its name before heading back home as the sun was coming up, and I was due at the breakfast table in less than an hour. I sprinted back to my room, climbed through my window, threw on some fresh clothes, caught my breath, and went downstairs to say Good morning to the whole family. 

My sister had to switch to maternity pants now that her stomach was so corpulent, and my brother couldn't find a pair of jeans in his size, so he always wore baggy basketball shorts, which slid down his waist and always showed off his wide ass butt crack. Mom tried to hide her weight gain with sundresses, but they did not cover her bulbous necks or wagging, thick arms. I went through school in a daze, and when it was lunch, I went to the library and searched for the name of the company that owned all the sauces. It was a new place planted down here just two months ago, run by two twins, the Rasnick brothers. No one had met the brothers before, and I couldn't find any photos of them online. I was beyond baffled as I watched my family keep eating that slop. I even kept throwing it out of the kitchen a few times before getting caught and punished. 

I was home alone with my mom when she fell onto her back and couldn't get up. She told me she couldn't breathe and that there was a sharp pain coming from her stomach. I tried to pull her up, but she was too heavy now, and I stood over her and watched as something began to move under her skin. My mother’s screams rang out with no mercy as I stood back in fear and cowered in a corner, as I saw my mother’s stomach get ripped open, the flab just flinging aside as hands pulled through her open chest cavity, and out of her cadaver crawled a slimy, bald creature that had no features on its face. The alien pulled itself from the host that was my mother, and its elongated arms and feet could rotate in every direction as I watched the beast stretch out its thin, slick body. Then I saw it look at its host and examine it closely with its eyeless face before becoming satisfied and pushing its claws into my mother’s body, taking hunks of her flesh. 

A little tube came slithering out of the wrinkled bald head of the alien, and its host, the grey saggy creature that just burst out through my mother’s carcass, began giving it thick pieces of my mother’s fat, sliced-up flesh. I could see the tube chew and swallow as much as an entire 800-pound leg before it was satisfied and slithered back into hiding. The grey monster stood straight on its stilts and looked around before leaving me alone in the corner of the room, completely undetected. I ran to my mother’s mutilated body and saw that her face was frozen in a state of pure agony. I knew the others were the same, pregnant with this monster and giving birth to it where they fell, and whoever the twins were that owned that company was bringing on the end of the world with these creatures. I grabbed as much stuff as I could carry and threw it all in the back of my mom’s sedan as I backed out of the driveway for the first time in my life and drove down the road, going off to a better place, a new place that doesn't have those sauces and i found that town and got a job before finding a stable place to live that didnt ask questions like what my legal age was. 

The town was great, and I was really becoming part of the community through the services I provided to the faction with my time and energy. I planted herbs in the garden situated on top of a big apartment building, which also grows its own vegetables up there. I helped the elderly clear their homes so they would have places to live, and I was making good money doing it. I was mowing lawns and pulling weeds. I was doing everything I could to make a dollar and pay my rent, and I was doing so tenfold with the time I was putting into work. I was at the local market one day when I realized I was out of ketchup and needed to buy a bottle, so I made my way to the sauce aisle and, lo and behold, I saw it happening to the place I had come to love. Saracha Red took up an entire shelving unit, and the path was filled with people grabbing at that sauce. 

I didn't even bother with my cart; I just walked out of the store and went home to my apartment building, which was just a couple of miles from the market I shopped at frequently. This was the biggest name-brand grocery store in the county, and I knew that if it was here, it would spread everywhere, taking over the whole state slowly. I was wondering if this was happening elsewhere around the world and whether this was what an invasion looked like. I packed up all my belongings and got into my mom’s sedan, getting as much gas as I could in the tank and in two red twenty-gallon buckets that were stationed in the back of the car, each with a nozzle and a little hose, which I rigged up myself after buying the containers at a hardware store, along with a garden hose. I decided to go further and maybe find some people like me that weren't into the sauce all that much, and I just ran in one direction, and I didn't look back, as I was too afraid to watch the birthings happen again. 

A siren’s call 

The woman in white who caught my eye was such an oddity to begin with. With an ethereal glow and a hypnotizing soul, she captured my heart with just one beat. I can feel her now, even from where she stands in the distance, as for now, I can feel her brow tucked under my chin with her skin on my own prickled flesh.

Oh, how for some reason I longed for my own death, for even if I were to die, would I be able to touch her to begin with? To feel her as a reality against my touch and a forbidden spikening in my heart for the love that comes with her is forbidden. 

She hushes me quietly as I step forward. Her eyes are so wide and with a contemptuous grin so thin as once she bore the lips of sin, and I could recognize that hate, but now it's a spiral through my heart, and I feel the tragedy in our fate. Even so, her melody calls out for me as if reality didn't exist, and all I had was sweet, undeniable bliss. 

She made me feel happy and warm, and even though I mourned the loss of my wife, I felt the need for this heavenly glow within me. I approached closer as her stare became that of a vulture, as if a predator was stalking its prey, and I was the meal of this delusion, which I felt was not an intrusion but a force of awakening in which only she could breathe life back into my lungs.

My wife was a gentle woman with a soft spoken tongue, but never did she whisper, nor did she ever come undone. She was a still woman with a whole lot of pride, and every time I looked into her eyes, I never saw the reflection of hate, but one of mercy and of patience, a gaze one never saw until sometimes it was too late. Some took advantage of her love, and even in the end, they got this look of pity, and they felt a mix of gentle dislike and remorse for being misused and abused by the ones she thought she could trust the most.  

I've hated myself for not giving her more love, and now I stand before a force I cannot but weep before, for I haven’t felt a longing like this since my wife passed, and I feel like now I've been dismissed. For how I could feel this way against an entity I could not phantom in reality, that it must take a form of mortality so I may not witness what tragedy the one who calls lurks over me. 

I thought what I saw was true and dear as I walked off the bow, as I tredded on with no fear. I could feel the splash of water and a subtle despair, but her voice was not one of danger but of purity and care. I had to swim to her island. I had to dive through the waves as the closer I became to her touch, the more my heart beat with a flurried rush. 

I mounded the sand, and I stood against the hand that tried to withdraw me away from the heightened ecstasy. For now, I was desperate; she was of lore for beauty was more ravishing than I could endure. Her glow became a light as I reached for it, as I might even feel the song that hums from her chest. I can see the vibration, I witness the unrest. 

The hymn she played was not one of sanctity but one to call to the lost so that this beast may devour my soul, and off I may go to the ferryman. I felt her softness as she laced her fingers with my own, and the cooling of her skin was such a gasp, for it felt like she was dead, and it was my life force she fed to her own deceased heart that now glows as a lure before me. 

As she touches my chest, I lose my breath, for it is a tingling sensation only driven by a lustful desire that no man should ever wander into. Now here I am mingling with death that has the voice and face of an angel, and even now as she pulls me down, I can feel my soul resisting. But I could not ignore her mighty roar, which was one of desperation and want, for it was I she wanted, and that bonding kept going until I was on the ground and she stood before me. 

I lay without care, completely unaware of what was unfolding around me. For I didn't see the fangs in her smile or the razors spitting from her gums as she fell upon me, and my hands began to wrap around her. I could feel the nips at my neck and the blood flow, but her kisses were so alluring. Her mouth traveled down, and I did not frown as her teeth dug into my flesh right through my chest, and she began eating. 

I felt no pain as she ripped through my muscles for her light had no fright, just one of consistent love and willing desire. As she cracked open my ribs, her eyes met mine, and at first, there was a glimmer of understanding. Then her spell came through, and I was once again wrapped in her illusion. 

I felt the gooey blood run for fun out of every part of my body, and the rush of fate that came too late was soon in my doorway. I had traveled for so long and lost too much to hold that now I feel a steady hold, for even if it’s torture, it's a disclosure, for this life was no longer worth living to begin with. For even now, as I lie and die, I can see my wife’s eyes in the distance. A gaze of true care and calming reassurance. 

It was true then, and there I risked my life with no care, which resulted in my dismissal and extinction. I wept but one tear for all the fear that was coming in with the darkness. Never did she stop the eat, as I could no longer use my feet, and my soul was being uplifted. I could hear the splash of waves as I lost my vision, and I couldn't tell if it was the ferryman encircling my location or the ocean rocking against me. 

A siren’s call 

The woman in white who caught my eye was such an oddity to begin with. With an ethereal glow and a hypnotizing soul, she captured my heart with just one beat. I can feel her now, even from where she stands in the distance, as for now, I can feel her brow tucked under my chin with her skin on my own prickled flesh.

Oh, how for some reason I longed for my own death, for even if I were to die, would I be able to touch her to begin with? To feel her as a reality against my touch and a forbidden spikening in my heart for the love that comes with her is forbidden. 

She hushes me quietly as I step forward. Her eyes are so wide and with a contemptuous grin so thin as once she bore the lips of sin, and I could recognize that hate, but now it's a spiral through my heart, and I feel the tragedy in our fate. Even so, her melody calls out for me as if reality didn't exist, and all I had was sweet, undeniable bliss. 

She made me feel happy and warm, and even though I mourned the loss of my wife, I felt the need for this heavenly glow within me. I approached closer as her stare became that of a vulture, as if a predator was stalking its prey, and I was the meal of this delusion, which I felt was not an intrusion but a force of awakening in which only she could breathe life back into my lungs.

My wife was a gentle woman with a soft spoken tongue, but never did she whisper, nor did she ever come undone. She was a still woman with a whole lot of pride, and every time I looked into her eyes, I never saw the reflection of hate, but one of mercy and of patience, a gaze one never saw until sometimes it was too late. Some took advantage of her love, and even in the end, they got this look of pity, and they felt a mix of gentle dislike and remorse for being misused and abused by the ones she thought she could trust the most.  

I've hated myself for not giving her more love, and now I stand before a force I cannot but weep before, for I haven’t felt a longing like this since my wife passed, and I feel like now I've been dismissed. For how I could feel this way against an entity I could not phantom in reality, that it must take a form of mortality so I may not witness what tragedy the one who calls lurks over me. 

I thought what I saw was true and dear as I walked off the bow, as I tredded on with no fear. I could feel the splash of water and a subtle despair, but her voice was not one of danger but of purity and care. I had to swim to her island. I had to dive through the waves as the closer I became to her touch, the more my heart beat with a flurried rush. 

I mounded the sand, and I stood against the hand that tried to withdraw me away from the heightened ecstasy. For now, I was desperate; she was of lore for beauty was more ravishing than I could endure. Her glow became a light as I reached for it, as I might even feel the song that hums from her chest. I can see the vibration, I witness the unrest. 

The hymn she played was not one of sanctity but one to call to the lost so that this beast may devour my soul, and off I may go to the ferryman. I felt her softness as she laced her fingers with my own, and the cooling of her skin was such a gasp, for it felt like she was dead, and it was my life force she fed to her own deceased heart that now glows as a lure before me. 

As she touches my chest, I lose my breath, for it is a tingling sensation only driven by a lustful desire that no man should ever wander into. Now here I am mingling with death that has the voice and face of an angel, and even now as she pulls me down, I can feel my soul resisting. But I could not ignore her mighty roar, which was one of desperation and want, for it was I she wanted, and that bonding kept going until I was on the ground and she stood before me. 

I lay without care, completely unaware of what was unfolding around me. For I didn't see the fangs in her smile or the razors spitting from her gums as she fell upon me, and my hands began to wrap around her. I could feel the nips at my neck and the blood flow, but her kisses were so alluring. Her mouth traveled down, and I did not frown as her teeth dug into my flesh right through my chest, and she began eating. 

I felt no pain as she ripped through my muscles for her light had no fright, just one of consistent love and willing desire. As she cracked open my ribs, her eyes met mine, and at first, there was a glimmer of understanding. Then her spell came through, and I was once again wrapped in her illusion. 

I felt the gooey blood run for fun out of every part of my body, and the rush of fate that came too late was soon in my doorway. I had traveled for so long and lost too much to hold that now I feel a steady hold, for even if it’s torture, it's a disclosure, for this life was no longer worth living to begin with. For even now, as I lie and die, I can see my wife’s eyes in the distance. A gaze of true care and calming reassurance. 

It was true then, and there I risked my life with no care, which resulted in my dismissal and extinction. I wept but one tear for all the fear that was coming in with the darkness. Never did she stop the eat, as I could no longer use my feet, and my soul was being uplifted. I could hear the splash of waves as I lost my vision, and I couldn't tell if it was the ferryman encircling my location or the ocean rocking against me.