Kerry tiptoed into the room, hoping not to wake her.

Carefully stepping over the chaos and clutter of the day, Kerry made it to the bedside.

Even with such little light, Kerry could see her, peaceful, full immersed in sleep. Her hair was unkempt, and she drooled on the floral pillow a little. She was a mess, there was no way around it, but she was Kerry’s mess, and Kerry loved her for it.

Kerry had ice water in a red cup, and she was about to place it on the bedside table but had to shuffle some things around first. She slid some empty nail polish, a lotion bottle caked around the rim, and a purple scrunchy off the table. They made a noise as the toppled to the floor but hardly roused the heavy sleeper.

Kerry pulled the comforter up, tucking it nicely around the shoulder blades. The motion revealed a bottle, left in the bed, and Kerry took this safety hazard with her.

As Kerry finished tucking, the sleeper seemed to startle themselves with a particularly snotty snort, their arm leaping out and narrowly missing the water. Perhaps, thought Kerry, it was best to alert them of its presence.

With the grace of a parent, Kerry reached over and nudged a shoulder.

“Mom,” she whispered quietly, “there is water right here if you need it.”

Kerry’s mother murmured something indecipherable, and rolled over, leaving Kerry to traverse back out of the room, in hopes of getting a few hours of sleep before getting herself up for school.

Don walked into Bonita Bar only to be greeted as if he were the guest of honor.

He wasn’t the guest of honor, of course, and he was glad for it. He was just fashionably late, as he liked to be. At a young age, he’d realized the thing he might’ve hated the most in the world was small talk. Dialogue meant only to fill the time until the next meaningful event or conversation was pointless as far as he was concerned. Even worse, was the realization that, since this was not considered universally pointless, he would have to play along all is life. So, he had, for many years, and still would now when the time called for it, but he’d also realized that being late to things meant avoiding a lot of this needless talk. By the time you showed up, so had everyone else, and you need only participate in conversations worth participating in. And if it wasn’t a conversation worth your time, you just left to find another, and you were no ruder than before, having only left the conversation to more willing participants.

Don was being called from several directions, but he simply waved politely to his right and left, like a b-list movie star, and continued to the bar.

Considering why they’d gathered here at Bonita, the mood seemed lively and upbeat. Don appreciated the atmosphere, but today more than usual. This was one of the major appeals of moving down to a Florida retirement community. There was the free golf and the endless poker games, sure, but Don was a sucker for Karaoke, and tonight was Tuesday night, and Tuesday night meant Karaoke Night. At Calypso, this community—his community, Karaoke night was a night to gather.

“Jack,” said Don to the bartender, hitting his hand on the bar.

“It’s Jerry actually,” said Jerry with a smile, “Your mind really is going on you, isn’t it, Donnie?”

He laughed at his own joke and proceeded to pour a glass of Jack Daniels for Don.

“Sharp as the day I got here,” said Don in reply, taking a big sip.

He spun in his bar stool to face the crowd, examining which group he may want to join first. But before he could join any group, there was a collective hushing, as if they were at the zoo with a mob of people trying their best not to scare away a big cat that had approached the glass.

“She’s here,” said Jerry, his tone shifting dramatically from their first interaction.

And with the collective silence officially descended upon Bonita, the door creaked open.

In walked two elderly ladies, one with a walker and another helping her along. They both wore neon golf attire and neon visors.

“I wonder if we got our days confused?” said the one with a walker in an exaggerated tone, “It’s far too quiet for Bonita on a Tuesday.”

They rounded the corner fully, to a resounding holler.

“Doreen!” the crowd shouted in unison, as if it were her surprise party, even though it was not.

The one with the walker, Doreen, gave a show of surprise for the audience, her friend Carol smiling even more. Carol even had tears in her eyes.

“Is it my turn?” said Doreen, “Somebody get me a mic. It’s Tuesday for god’s sake!”

A microphone was rushed to her without another word. Clint, one of the newest and youngest members of the community, nearly tripped over a plastic chair in his haste to get her the microphone.

After a few moments struggling to click the microphone on, the speaker popped to life and Doreen was amplified throughout the bar.

Silence permeated.

“Thank you all for coming! I know you’d all be here anyways, since I know some of you don’t have any other hobbies then drinking and yelling into a microphone,”

The audience laughed.

“But you also know that today is a little different. It’s been a month since I’ve been able to come here to Karaoke. For a little while, I just couldn’t face this all. But I’ve come to the opinion that this is where I should be. Michael would want me here, with all of you.”

Sporadic applause swirled among the emotions of the bar.

“So, with out further ado, I’d like to invite Don up here to sing Michael’s part with me. As his best friend, it seems only fair. Plus, you each have equally terrible voices, so it’s not an upgrade for me.”

Don had been expecting a strange night, but not this. There was more applause, and he felt himself being pushed towards the front of the bar, towards Doreen.

He made it up front just as the opening notes of Islands in the Stream began to come through the speakers.

“And you all know how Michael was,” said Doreen, smiling at Don and waving him forward, “he wanted you all singing his part with him as loud as possible to drown out his own garbage disposal of a voice, his words not mine. So, let’s please make sure we do Don the same courtesy!”

Don took the mic.

“Baby, when I met you there was peace unknown…”

The whole of Bonita sang with Don.

They sang in the face of death because Tuesday Karaoke was for the living.

 

At an early age, I learned you could wield silence.

I was a musician, a prodigy of sorts, but not the kind with a natural acuity. No, I was the sort that simply did nothing else. Music meant the world to me simply because the world didn’t. The world was capricious, childish even, and at six years old, that’s the last thing I needed.

I needed a world that made sense, and when I searched, I came to realize I would never be fluent, and that’s when I found music.

Music was to be a shield, a protector I could use to mold the sounds and language that the earth whispered and craft it into my own.

I was hooked.

My parents had me tested, and rightfully so. Their inclinations turned out to be founded, as I came back with multiple disorders, including a considerable high score on the autism scale. I liked high scores, so I didn’t complain.

I don’t blame my parents for how things turned out.

My dad, he worked several jobs, including the third most successful landscaping business in our small town. He was older when he had me, and even older when he started drinking. I knew him as happy once, and I’m sure I’ll know him as happy again. He probably was more gifted at music than I ever was, but he also liked friends and baseball. That can get in the way of greatness, and happiness sometimes too, I guess.

My mom, well she is another case entirely. She worked from home, usually as a telemarketer, and sometimes as an emergency hotline operator when money was tight. She was always happy being unhappy. I could never make sense of it. She drank too, and long before my dad. It was rare to see her without a glass of wine, or a judging look for that matter.

But my childhood, as unremarkably remarkable as it has been, is drawing to a close. I’m off to Julliard in the fall, a full scholarship, and they’ve placed me with a roommate who also has autism. I have been assured during my communications with the school that our profiles matchup almost perfectly.

I’m sure I should be, but I’m not worried about what lies ahead. The symphonies will come and the chance to meet musicians that have submerged themselves in music just as I have is an intriguing concept.

I am, however, worried that I’ve done irreparable damage at home. It’s been five years since I’ve chose to stop speaking altogether. It was a choice I made, and the only one I felt comfortable making at the time. I was unhappy, and neither my words nor my music could be heard quite right. So, I pushed for change the only way I knew how.  Even now, I’m not sure I should be writing this.

See, music can bring understanding, but it’s the moment after, when the violins have quieted and the shimmer of bells twinkle out, it’s that sliver of time right before the applause—that’s what brings change.

She awoke with a start, tossing the sweaty blankets from off her body. They toppled to the floor, her cat Esperanza following with a yelp.

She raced to the bathroom, knowing all too well what had happened.

She scrambled for the light, clicking it once, twice. It flickered three more before revealing her face. Revealing what she’d already known to be true.

She was smiling in the mirror, although her face wasn’t. No, she felt her lips tight, drawn in disgust, but she looked at glee. It was a betrayal, this she knew, but who she felt betrayed by most, she couldn’t say.

She moved to clean the mirror, worried to get too close but even more terrified by the face. Her face. The smile.

She rubbed her pajama shirt against the mirror pane. Once, twice. She still smiled back, with no change. If anything, more pleasure. It was unbearable.

The anger and fear were too much, building in her like a seething kettle.

She lashed out at the mirror, her unsuspecting victim. Her fist contacted the mirror; once, twice.

Blood now stained the mirror, as did several cracks spidering out. But her face was still looking out from behind the shatter. Ever smiling.

She screamed now. Frantic and horrible. What more could be done?

There was one unshakable truth.

The demons had taken her face and they wouldn’t return it.

Unless.

She knew what she had to do.

Once, twice.

 

He didn’t hurt as he stepped out of the mangled car wreck. It was as if he was stepping out of a dream.

Despite his surroundings, the broken car, the damaged tree, and the copious amounts of shattered glass, Chris couldn’t shake the thought that he wasn’t escaping from a nightmare. He felt at peace.

For a moment at least. Then the Officer approached.

A sinking feeling clutched at his gut, the same clutching that accompanies waking up late. It was a frantic scrambling for information. But then it struck him, and the feeling dissipated.

“I didn’t make it, did I?” said Chris.

It didn’t really require an answer, so Chris didn’t really get one, just a subtle nod as the Officer drew close.

“So, what now?” asked Chris to the somber Officer. He was trying to study his face but couldn’t tell if the Officer was 25 or 55. He was as non-descript as adults came, maybe more so. Chris was pretty sure he had a beard.

The Officer dug around in a bag that Chris hadn’t noticed and pulled out a legal pad.

“Now, as is protocol, you get to choose one memory to reenter” said the Officer.

“Just one?” asked Chris, “Isn’t this where my life is supposed to flash before my eyes?”

“We thought you were worth more than a flash,” said the Officer, “So what will it be? It’s defaulted to Christmas ’96, when you were a child, is this satisfactory?”

Chris thought on it a moment.

“Will I be able to stop in and see my mother and sister eventually?” said Chris, taking the pen.

“That’s not up to me but looking at your rap-sheet here I would say you shouldn’t have a problem with visitation rights.”

“Okay,” said Chris, “then in that case, I want to go back to a trip I made to Vermont when I was a senior in high school.”

“Okay…” said the Officer, taking the legal pad back and flipping a couple pages, “give me just a second here. Have to just override a-“

He tailed off, focused on the pad as he scratched a few things out and checked a few boxes.

“And where exactly would you like to go on this Vermont trip?” said the officer, finally refocused on Chris.

“Just the drive there” said Chris.

“The drive-“

He looked up.

“I’ve been doing this a long time. May I ask why? That’s not anywhere on our short-list.”

The officer waited for Chris to think.

“I think I was happiest then,” said Chris, “It was just, I don’t know, I guess life was simple and the trees were red, and there were leaves blowing along the road, and it felt like an eternity, and things just made sense.”

“I see,” said the Officer, still appearing as if he didn’t but choosing to move on, “just sign here then.”

Chris did just that and handed both the pad and the pen back to the Officer.

“Enjoy your memory,” said the Officer, and with a whistle he walked off.

 

The words fell on the page, guarded and shy.

It was only a class assignment, and a throw-away class assignment at that. It was the sort of assignment given offhandedly as the bookend to a lesson gone off the rails. Professor Burns did this more than you’d expect from an ivy league professor, but then again, his hair which he kept in a ponytail, was longer than you’d expect too. He was an odd sort, with an unorthodox style and an uneven temper. But he was brilliant, so he was allowed to his job. He knew how to write. That much was obvious to all his students.

“Note ten people you see in the park, describe them, but most importantly, give me a character motivation! What is it that has brought them here in front of you?” he had said, crumpling a few ungraded assignments and stuffing them into his leather bag.  He had been in quite the hurry to escape the small classroom, leading Capo to believe he might have had a date. Or Grateful Dead tickets.

“I expect it Monday!” he had said, already out the door before calling back, “Class dismissed!”

So, it was Saturday and Capo sat on a bench in Central Park, observing, and noting what he saw of the passersby.

The first pair to catch his eye was a mother with a baby in a stroller. The stroller was a grand contraption, bulky with wheels like saucers and a canopy like a graduation tent. The mother, however, was quite the opposite, dressed in black joggers and pink, non-brand running shoes. Her baby was just as plain, in a charming way. He wore an all blue outfit, like a blueberry that had escaped a pie, and his face was not smiling, although he seemed inherently content.

They rolled by Capo without a glance, and he watched them until they were out of view.

“Recent divorce and a desire for good health.”

He scribbled the motivation down under the description, along with a quick sketch of the stroller. It seemed a motivation dead on arrival, and Capo hated himself for it. How could he be so uncreative?

A young man in a suit, eating a bagel wrapped in aluminum foil hurried by. Capo wrote down, “Eager to impress at a new firm.”

Still not good enough, but Capo pressed on.

A nurse laughed with another nurse, both in teal scrubs. One was smoking and one had Starbucks. They both looked in need of a nap.

“Nurse One needs this job, Nurse Two needs this friend.”

Unoriginal, Capo thought in disgust, but he kept writing. He kept watching.

Four boys rode by on bikes, one with a card jammed in the spokes so he sounded like a motorcycle. None of them sat on the seats, rendering them pointless. They all were smiling as the wove in and out of walkers.

“Wishing to fit in but hoping to stand-out.”

Capo the observer shook his head but laid the words on the page.

His last subject would need to be special. He waited as people passed him on his bench. Hours went by.

Finally, he spotted someone of interest.

It was a girl, familiar in a dreamish way. She entered the park with no pretense, aware of others too.

She slowly crossed the cobblestone path in her sundress and sat down on a bench across from him. She flattened her dress on her lap, and then reached into her bag, pulling out a notebook and a pen. Without a word, she looked up and began to watch.

Capo smiled.

“Dumb class assignment.”

He scratched out her motivation, picked up his stuff, and left the park to its newest observer.

Kneeling as to not crease her dress, Hayley scooped up the pink egg.

It was the furthest egg from the house without entering the neighbor’s property, but she was happy for the journey. It had been a day full of screaming kids, obligations, and adults politely asking questions they didn’t care to hear the answer to. It was an exhausting Easter, but it was standard.

So, when her grandmother had suggested she go specifically for an egg in the tree at the far end of the yard, Hayley had jumped at the chance. She had left the swirl of younger cousins in her dust without a second glance.

She shook the egg, surprised with the consistency. Something was clattering around inside.

Hayley opened it up, revealing a shining gold ring.

Stunned, she looked to her Grandmother on the porch, who responded with no more than a wink before beckoning her to continue the egg hunt.

Tears in her eyes, Hayley did just that.

Natalie dropped her Greek yogurt on the floor, sucking her thumb as she ripped paper towels from their wooden spindle.

“God damn it, Harry!”

Harry was on the windowsill. He loved it up there, but he rarely leaped on his own, so it had caught her off-guard. The shock is why she was cleaning yogurt with Bounty.

Harry was an old cat. He was cute in a mangy sort of way, as if the world had eroded him back into a fragile, innocent spirit. At least, that’s how Natalie saw him. Most just saw his leaky eyes, croaky meow, and broken tooth and assumed he was a curmudgeon. Natalie sometimes pretended he was, but the fantasy never got far as Harry would do the least curmudgeonly thing imaginable, like curl up on her lap or rub up on her leg.

Natalie scooped up the last bit of floor yogurt and dispensed of it in the trash. She still had enough cup yogurt, so she began to eat, joining Harry at the window.

“What are we looking at today?” Natalie asked, following the cat’s gaze.

She already knew though as a pair of robins skittered back and forth from the lawn to a bush in the backyard.

Harry chittered as if to make sure the robins knew the danger they’d be in if only this thin metal screen weren’t there to protect them. They continued with their fluttering and pecking, uninterested in conversation.

Harry put his paw on the screen. His claws came out and he plucked the screen, followed by a mew.

“There’s nothing out there for you, munchkin” said Natalie, at first with a laugh before feeling something different altogether. A sadness.

Of course, it wasn’t true that there was nothing out there for him. There was everything out there. A whole world actually. A word full of birds, grass, kids, and the occasional breathtaking silence that follows the last car on an otherwise empty street. There was fresh air, sun, and pink petals that feel from trees if it was too windy.

But there was danger too. Sirens, and screeching tires, and wilting flowers that someone had forgotten to water a few days too long.

Harry was Natalie’s world and thus, this apartment was where he belonged. But that didn’t stop her thinking on what could be; what a life of outdoors might mean.

She would have to do.

Natalie scooped Harry off the window, cuddling him, and hoping more than anything that this was true.

 

The devil looked out at the courtroom.

The chaos of it, which currently looked more like a high school cafeteria amid a food fight than a place of decisions, did not bring him happiness as it once may have. The two attorneys he employed, Bundy and Simpson, were angrier than usual, arguing that their clients be admitted while the backlog of those seeking entrance continued to fill the room. The bailiffs, ranging from notorious gang members to football players, were doing all they could to keep the room from exploding.

“You have a MASS MURDERER here! Admittance should be a given. Sure, they were grown adults, but we are looking at calculated kills, not a crime of passion,” yelled a heated Ted Bundy, flipping his tie behind his back in rage, “everyone knows that hate and love grow from the same tree.”

He paused for effect, closing his eyes to bring home the point.

He then pointed to his client with a charming smile.

“This fellow right here, he grew from a cold, cold plot of land!”

“Give it a rest, Bundy!” retorted OJ Simpson, turning his attention to the devil himself, “Children, your Infernal! I bring you a child murderer! You can’t possibly refuse this one here?!” The fingerless gloves he wore to all cases as a joke stretched to their limit as he balled his fists.

The devil rubbed his temple, with frustration, before taking a deep breath.

“SILENCE!!!” he hissed.

He felt the fire surrounding him, leaping all the way to the ceiling. It felt calm to him, as if he had stepped into a hot tub. Such anger fit him well.

The room was silent, as instructed. The devil could sense the bailiff’s ease as those who awaited sentencing stopped being pushed in, giving the guards a much-needed moments reprieve. Even Ted Bundy was temporarily lost for words.

The devil took this time, considering his words carefully. His estate was overcrowded and underfunded. Normally, overcrowding wouldn’t bother him, but the lack of cells meant they were beginning to encroach upon his luxury suite. He loved being warden of Hell, but as he’d grown over the centuries, he also craved some quiet.

Like this right here.

The incessant screaming didn’t bring him the same glee it once had.

“Bring the twins forward,” he said finally, beckoning towards the entrance.

The hall that led to him had never cleared faster, making a clean path up to the bench.

Two girls, heads lowered, long straight hair shielding their faces, walked in lock step towards him. Both Ted and OJ retreated to their respective areas, wishing to be nowhere near these two. For a room known for its uncomfortably scalding heat, a cold breeze seemed to have been ushered in.

The girls made it to the front and came to a stop.

“Yes, your Infernal?”

The devil couldn’t be sure if one or both girls had spoken, if it could even be considered that at all. It was more like a wheeze, as if their vocal cords needed to be cleared of dust.

“It’s too crowded,” said the devil, waving towards the room, “as no doubt, you can tell.”

The girls both nodded but did not look up.

“So,” continued the devil, “you’ve each been granted an early release. Of course, under one condition…”

The cold breeze that had blown in seemed sucked out of the room, leaving behind a soundless vacuum.

One of the girls, the blonde one, lifted their head slightly, and a glint of something sinister shimmered behind the hair. The devil looked away.

“The condition,” he said, pretending to be fascinated by the columns of the courtroom that stretched high above, “is that you create a backlog for the pearly gates.”

The girls bowed their heads in unison.

“You two are Noah”, he said with a smile, cracking himself up, “now, bring a flood.”