Getting back to this story though. This is one of the longer short stories that I've written, coming in around ~6k words. It's still considerably much smaller than a novella, but I've written it with the possibly expanding the story and the chapters more with additional prose in mind. So it is broken into ten “chapters” and an Epilogue.

The Pitch?

It's sort of like if Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind had a baby with Total Recall. It's not quite as Philip K. Dick as I would like it to be, but I didn't think f®iction would want to publish hard pyschadelic sci-fi... Maybe I was wrong.

The story was rejected, but honestly, I would rather just post it as-is for people to read while I work on other stories. I would love to know your comments. What do you like? What do you hate? Any feedback is welcome.

I

Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can hear the glass shattering and I feel the tiny shards splintering across my face. I don't think it was Mick's fault, necessarily. I could see him start to grab the controls to swerve our taxi out of the way, but the system just didn't respond in time to his manual input. The vehicle just had a mind of its own. With the ice chunks falling through the sky, it just made it all that more difficult...

Lawyers for the insurance companies settled the matter without needing to appear in court. In the days after the accident though, I was so disconnected from everything and everyone around me that I didn't really pay attention to the documents they had me sign.

They just parroted the manufacturer's marketing claims, “these incidents are exceedingly rare” and “the safety systems engaged and deployed within optimal operating parameters.”

I know for a fact that my memory just hasn't been the same. I've been to several doctors, and they all say that there was no physical damage to my brain, that my trouble remembering things must be psychosomatic. Of course, I don't remember so well, how would I know whether or not they were lying to me?

“Emily?!?” Dr. Thompson gets my attention with a worried exclamation of my name. 

“Huh?” I must've trailed off. 

Sometimes I can't tell if I'm just thinking the words, or if I'm actually saying them out loud—it has gotten me into trouble before. Full conversations that only take place in my head and not with the other person participating. Even worse; when I say something I don't actually mean, an idle thought that escapes my lips. Thinking through words, or having an internal conversation with myself before engaging with someone else helps me to decide if it's the right thing to say in the moment, but only when I have control over it.

The good Doc continues, “you were just mentioning something about how you still get visceral flashbacks, as if you can still feel the sensation of the impact from the accident?” She lowers her glasses as she looks at her notes and then back up at me.

Our eyes meet, so I respond, “yeah, that's right. I guess they make the glass special so it's supposed to shatter into tiny pieces like that, but it's like tiny bits of hot ice when it hits your skin, crumbling to sand at the end, the tiny shards melt into the cuts that it makes... Cold at first, quickly replaced with a burning sensation.“ 

My tone is meek and meandering, I'm clearly not invested in the conversation, and Dr. Thompson knows it. She and I have gone over this a hundred times. She says that working through the trauma will help to rebuild the connections in my brain, and for the neurons to fire properly, helping form new memories. Also, improve my overall cognitive abilities through nothing less than sheer mental exercise. But I think she's full of shit, and I don't want to deal with reliving the pain any more. But for a fleeting moment, I am able to recall more of the details of that night.

It's the surface of Enceladus that stands out the most in my memory. The moon is only about seven hundred thousand square kilometers, but the constant snowfall from its major geological feature (The Tiger Stripes) at the South Pole tends to blanket the surface quickly, and so the emergency medics didn't find us right away. For that matter they couldn't tell whether it was the cold or the impact that killed Micky.

II

Sitting at my terminal at work with my hand hovering over the resonant display emitter, lifting up and swooshing to the right, cycling through a bunch of old pictures, I'm wondering what happened to all the time. For that matter, what the hell did I even do last night after leaving Thompson's office, and how did I get to work this morning?

These are questions that Jennifer can't answer. Not that I'd want her to. None the less, she saunters on up behind me without my noticing her.

“Hey Emily! Wha cha doooin?!”

Her infectiously sweet tone is a high pitched enthusiasm that sickens my stomach. I want to turn around to slap her, but I don't. Instead, I take a moment to breathe deeply and prepare for the emotional exhaustion of interacting with her.

Just before the silence gets awkward I slowly swivel my chair in her direction and look her in the face. It's an exercise to contort my facial muscles in such a way that my smile seems genuine and not forced.

“Well... Today would have been our anniversary. So, just looking through some old photos is all.”

“OH! That's right. I am so sorry! I should have remembered. But you know what might cheer you up? One of these cupcakes!”

My mind told me that the smell I caught in the breeze was just her perfume, and my eyes completely missed the platter of confections resting in her arms. Jennifer was the type to wear a scent designed for twelve year old girls to smell like frosting, so I didn't even question the thought. Vanilla gourmand. She also knew Mick pretty well too, which made her pandering all the more infuriating. We all had worked together for years, but he hated her as much as I did. For a brief moment I'm able to cling to a lost memory of his voice.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with Jen? She looks like a clown with all that makeup on, and she's always so god-damned happy. You know that's not normal! I'm only nice to her because I don't want her to come into the office one day and shoot the place up, or run around stabbing everyone with the birthday cake knife from the break room.

My fake smile slowly morphs into a genuine giggle as I imagine Jen gripping the handle of the dullest blade I've ever seen, tears streaming down her face in a thick rainbow of mis-matched blushes. Unable to actually injure anyone.

Shaking myself from the absurd cartoonish fantasy, “you're right! Maybe I could use a cupcake,” I exclaim.

By agreeing to take one, I know that she'll end this ridiculous exchange and move on to another co-worker that she can emotionally manipulate. Preferably one with the energy to deal with all her bullshit and engage long enough for me to slip away unnoticed.

As Jennifer trots away I scan the room for a roaming rubbish bin, preferably one that's out of sight and in the opposite direction of the way that she's headed. Bingo! A Robbie Roaming Robot Rubbish Bin, four o'clock!

“I swear Jen's mission in life is to make sure I can't fit into my pants!” It's a soft and compassionate voice. Even so, Rhonda startles me a bit. 

Clearly I didn't notice her as a I darted for the three foot tall squirrely mechanical trash collector. Staring down into the anthropomorphized receptacle I see that I'm not the only one who doesn't have a sweet tooth at 2pm on the Friday preceding a long bank-holiday weekend. 

Rhonda awkwardly giggles before I have time to respond, and quickly tries to change the subject, “so, uh! Emily, how are you doing?”

Authentic tone. Genuine concern. I decide to keep it light, rather than bitching about Jen or cathartically reminiscing about Mick.

“Saving my calories for some drinks later! How about you?“ 

In that moment, I'm hoping maybe Rhonda doesn't have any plans either, I don't particularly want to spend the evening alone. At least with a few drinks between us we can each easily ignore any waterworks that might be plumbed from my grieving heart. I'd be happy to talk to someone who wasn't court appointed or callously clinical in their approach to conversation.

Rhonda's widening eyes and toothy smile are the only response I need to confirm that we indeed are on for drinks after work.

III

Maybe it was the jalapeno poppers with the mango habanero cream cheese from the bar last night, but my dreams were extremely intense. 

I felt like I fell back into this dimension from another one, and I woke up extremely disoriented.

The dream was about living on a property in the picturesque icy wilderness near the surface, and the property came with a guest house. The guest house was where we were staying, and the guest house came with a dog. 

The house was situated along an internal riverbank with a lot of fresh foliage climbing the glass domes which let all the natural light in from the Bond albedo (of the moon's reflective white surface) when it was morning. Mick was there as well. We both felt bad about forgetting to feed the dog for some reason. A lovable multi-colored brindle pit bull. Preparing food for him was a bit like a video game, and we had to arrange food bites into different sized squares, and the tray was white and the lines or dividers between the food segments were blue.

There were other people who would peruse the property as well, all of them just passing through. Some on a stagecoach, others by horseback. They were shadows in the background of my life; each of them seemed to come and go without any real permanence. The property also evolved over time, and there were periods in the dream which progressed much faster than others. The guest house morphed from a shack into something much more substantial and robust. I don't have a good understanding of the layout to describe it, but I seemed like I knew how to make my way around inside the building. As if the building were somehow evolving around our living patterns.

Before I knew it, I remember standing in the interior of a building modeled after a rustic log cabin, like something that might have existed from the mid-to-late nineteenth century, post-Civil War America pre-Empire, otherwise known as the Wild West.

Most of the dream itself took place at dusk or dawn... in that perpetual twilight that early summer evenings have. I had a sense that it was getting darker the longer I stayed in the dream, but it never hit the point of turning completely into nightfall.

Suddenly I was transported from the mahogany log guest house with the dog, out to the back porch of my new single person apartment here in Cassini Falls, in the Prefecture of Lave.

As I was standing there, a liturgical, angel-type Entity swooped down and greeted me. At least that's the way I interpreted its curiosity.

It was a sentient sphere of color-changing plasma—or simply colored light. A large ball surrounded by an oblate sphere, ring, or saucer with a hole in the middle. There were also three other smaller orbs that accompanied the main sphere. All five of the component parts (sphere, orbs and ring) were loosely connected with an electrical energy of some kind that also shifted in color. The kind of electrical tendrils in one of those novelty plasma globes, the kind you touch and the electricity gets concentrated to the point where your fingers meet the glass.

While it didn't have any discernible facial features the way one might expect, the Entity did emote, and it made sounds the way a cat might chirp, or a parrot would in mimicking Morse Code. Unfortunately I couldn't make out what it was trying to say to me. Still, I understood the colors. It would flash red while speaking, blue when it was observing or listening, and finally yellow when it was thinking or contemplating its response. Variations in between the primary colors suggested nuance to its speech. Flashing yellow in between blips and shading to blue periodically to make sure I was paying attention.

“Mick! You gotta come here and see this thing!” My screaming was in vain though.

Even though I couldn't understand the sounds that it was making, I did get the distinct impression that it was trying to communicate to me. Specifically I received the impression that I wasn't supposed to be there, with it.. which felt like an odd thing for it to to tell me on my own back porch. It was in that instant though, a glimmer of doubt in the conversation, and my spirit was ripped back through the apartment, slamming into my body. My vision of the back porch soon became fleeting as I began to sense some semblance of a more physical awareness of my body.

IV

Gasping a long deep breath, I jolt myself from bed. My sense of feeling and mobility are much slower to return to me than they normally are. In the muffled distance I can hear the faint sound of my doorbell just as my sense of hearing returns from a light hum.

Ding, ding, ding.

“What the fuck was that...” I say to myself. Even though it felt like I had been thinking about saying that—and a million other variations—the act of finally being able to verbalize it somehow returns me to regular timespace and reassures me that I'm no longer dreaming.

Ding, ding, ding.

“Probably an Architect's Testimonial or a Huygen missionary,” I reasoned to myself as I ease the urgency of the solicitor's beckoning from my conscience. Just enough to gather my wits and firmly plant myself back in this reality.

Ding, ding, ding.

Persistent and annoying... I really don't feel like telling some teenager that they're in a cult, but I look to my left and the clock on the wall reads 7:15 a.m. It's Saturday. If they don't go away and give me some peace, I'm going to emphatically shatter their Huygen faith with some of my favorite scripture:

We have been carrying the burdens of our own darkness, and bearing the weight of our collective pain. Yet we've come to realize that it's only by surrendering to the light that we can begin to heal. ~ Luthier's Book Chapter 14 Verse 26.

I'll never actually convince anyone that they're really worshiping demonic beings, but it's always fun to watch them fumble their words and fall into the rote pattern of circular logic that is used to talk themselves through an attempt at converting someone.

Stumbling out of bed I fail to find strong footing, my legs are eerily heavy and it takes me a while to get the blood pumping through my body enough to even make it to the door.

Before I can make it, there's a rustling on the outer gate, and I deduce that they've probably stuffed a pamphlet for me to find upon their departure. So early on such a beautiful spring morning, plenty more souls to save!

Sure enough, when I open the door there's a thick folded glossy envelope with... Well that's odd.

I quietly mouth the text on the front, “The Island of Perfect Memories.” Certainly no cult I've ever heard of. At least it's not another copy of Issac Elijah's Sacred Ablutions.

Inside the elongated envelope I spot a letter addressed to me, so I take the letter out to examine it and throw the pamphlet on top of the stack of Elijah's books I have next to the trash can by the front door:

Dear Emily, 

Please allow us to extend this most gracious offer for a month-long retreat to the Island of Perfect Memories! We here with the Society of Sensible Sentiment believe that memories are the greatest treasure of human consciousness. Our patented and proprietary technology, as well as associated techniques and exercises, will surely help you to better develop your skills as a Hypermnesiac! Yes! Someone who possess the ability of perfect recollection.

We understand you may have had difficulty in the past with missing time, or foggy recall! Rest assured, during this retreat you will develop everything you need to live out the rest of your days with Perfect Memories!

Sincerely,

Lady Adair Pembroke

I'm not sure how the hell they got my information, or how they know that I've had trouble remembering things, but it's a compelling offer. Far more intrigued than some teenage Huygen trying to sell me spiritual snake oil, I decided then and there to make plans for this trip.

V

There was never any need for me to travel to other areas of the moon, or even to any of the other planets in Sol, except for the one trip that Mick and I tried to take.

The Enceladus Prime settlement isn't quite as big as the Europan colony, but we share a lot of the same technology with Euorpa, due to the fact that each moon has a vast underground ocean. Still, knowing that I have three hundred year-old proven technology shuttling me sixty kilometers beneath the surface isn't as comforting as I would like it to be. I've lived in the same Prefecture my entire life.

When I told Dr. Thompson that I was going, she was quite surprised. She was also absolutely elated to hear that I had chosen to attend the Island of Perfect Memories.

“As you know, I couldn't have recommended you, all personal files are confidential, and I was also hesitant to recommend seeking out an invitation from the Society of Sensible Sentiment, and Lady Pembroke, without having known anyone else who has visited their facilities. So I'm very eager to hear about your results when you return. Perhaps this is something I can recommend to some of my other clients.“ 

Her earnest and sincere tone definitely made me feel at ease. I still had the journey ahead of me but at least I wasn't concerned about the destination.

VI

The constant snowfall from the Tiger Stripes makes for a less than reliable trip on the surface, there was no way that I was going to make that mistake again. Besides, most commercial transit between Outposts occurs underground in the Grand Ocean because it's actually cheaper to operate transport vehicles there. Unlike snow from the Stripes, the Grand Ocean offered an  inky dark cocoon of depth.

Thankfully my cabin has a porthole for which to admire the beautiful light show. Native marine life going crazy, and living its best life.

One of the first things that folks who settled here did was to capture the power of Enceladus' cryo-volcanism. It means that what we see today isn't the best E-ring of Saturn that could have existed, or does exist in an alternate reality, but it means that we get to live here. It also means that the Grand Ocean is far more tame than it used to be, and the creatures that inhabit this ecosystem have adapted to the relative and intermittent peace in remarkable ways.

All the various marine life has a phenomenal curiosity about humans as much as we have about it, in our tube, rocketing along the frozen ceiling of the ocean. A brilliant mosaic of every hue and chroma of light that you could ever imagine, dancing in the darkness. 

Growing up I heard that some of the bioluminescence we witness is a bit like the echo-location of bats from Earth. We think the superstructures—sucking heat and minerals from the vents which lead down to the core—can contract and maybe even retreat below the iron core's silicate outer structure. Almost as if the moon itself is alive. No one has ever documented the full extent of the superstructures, but it's believed that every point of light communicates with the other in some form or fashion, whether that's individuals of a whole, or echoes of the collective.

The exterior illumination of the SS Aeolus' generous two hundred meter long hull offers some insight to the creatures that dwell here, but it's usually a fleeting sight. Anything close or caught in our current breaks free and keeps its distance as much as possible, retreating to the murky comfort of its habitat.

My mind instead settles on what I imagine is quite far off in the distance. A blinking red light, pulsing in an almost sensual manner. I can't help but wonder if I'm finally getting to experience photonic location. Can it see us? Does it know that we're here? What is “it,” exactly?

Concentrating harder reveals nothing more than a pinpoint of red. Around it are other features of the superstructure though; mountainous himalayan spines with greens and yellows trading off of one another on either side of the pulsing red. I'm sure that some of the light has to be blue or purple, but those colors aren't quite as noticeable as the others, and they don't reveal as much of the fleshy oscillation of the seafloor's features.

From what I can tell it took us approximately fifteen days from the port in Cassini Falls to get to this mythical Island. It was only after we got there—having stopped in Hydrostadt—that I realized this wasn't all that special of an island.

Mick and I had talked about going here for vacation once. I don't know why I thought it was going to be some mystical retreat I hadn't heard of before. Unlike Titan, I don't really know much about that moon. Only the fact that's where all those crazy zealous Huygens come from.

Nevertheless, I'm eager to see what this Society of Sensible Sentiment looks like.

VII

The Society's building was much smaller than I imagined it would be. Then again, there were only ten or so of us who were staying at the Island of Perfect Memories. Such a small cast of characters was ideally intimate though. It gave me the opportunity to mingle with others who all have a similar goal to mine, to become a hypermnesiac, to have absolute perfect memory and recall. This was to be our residence for a long enough time, it seemed prudent to try and get to know the others a bit.

The Island was little more than the only land mass at the center of a small pond. The building at the center of the small piece of grass was rectangular in shape with a square jutting from the middle of the front of the building. Stairs led up from the square entrance into the halls of the rectangle.

From the main entrance Lady Pembroke emerged to greet us all, introduce herself, and instruct the concierge staff to whisk us away. As we were escorted to our rooms, I noticed a stately clean-shaven ginger man to my right.

But the only thing I could think to start the conversation was, “there's no way you have trouble with memories... right?”

“Speravi In Misericordia... It's Latin for 'I put my trust in mercy,' and that is to say, I don't even know how I got here!“ 

Definitely the most interesting individual of the bunch, he continued on, without missing a beat and without care to my reaction one way or the other, “so, that's the motto of the courts on Calisto and Io in the Jovian Oligarchy.”

“Oh really, and what exactly would that have to do with anything?” I played along with his humble boast. 

“The name is Marquis Kato! This is the first time I've ever travelled via an abyssal aquatic medium. The void of timespace is far more familiar to me. I also don't usually make it out this far, generally I keep to Calisto and Fairwind, on Mars. I about worked myself to death. So this is kind of like a vacation for me, I'm just here to recuperate.”

Chiming in from the back was an androgynously bearded waif.

“Did somebody say Fairwind?”

Marquis and I oblige. He nods, my eyes invite this third voice to indulge us.

Holding out their hand in a dainty manner, “Astrid Lyrax! Pleasure to meet you both—though I didn't catch your name, sweetie.”

“I was just goin' to introduce myself. Emily.”

“And what is it that you do, or what brings you here?” Not expecting me to reciprocate those questions, Astrid finished their rhetorical prompt, “not everyone from Fairwind works at the casinos! I'm a neurosurgeon. The Lady Pembroke has asked me here to conduct an independent analysis of her facilities.”

Before I could add much to the conversation we had lost the other seven people and had arrived at our rooms.

Astrid and Marquis’ rooms were cattywampus from where my room was situated. The others down the hall seemed to form their own groups. Perhaps it was the destiny of the distance between our rooms. The others were cordial enough, we just didn't clique.

VIII

My first night there I had difficult falling asleep, as is normally the case with new beds and new rooms. Take a bit to get used to your surroundings, or to find a way to get comfortable. None the less, I did fall asleep for a little bit. Much to my surprise my friend the Entity came to visit me again. Enby seemed as good a name as any.

This time the Enby Entity was practically screaming at me. I couldn't understand because I only just walking the hallway out side of my room. I imagined it was my brain's way of getting used to my new surroundings.

As I walked forward toward Enby, they shot toward my face, its companion orbs encircling its center sphere in an exponentially increasing pace. As the speed increased so too did the rotation of its colors emanating from its body. Quite quickly the colors blended, reaching a point of complete and brilliant white light, blinding me and forcing my vision to go black.

Waking up this time wasn't quite as jarring a the time before. Instead it was a quite pleasant transition back to the waking world.

Seemed to be the perfect timing as well because the curtains were just transitioning to a less opaque material to allow the light to come in. I could smell a fresh pot of coffee brewing away in the corning of my room as well. An ambient calming voice came in over the room's sound system and I was guided into a meditative session.

“Good morning Emily, to start your day, we want you to just relax. Follow the sound of my voice and allow yourself to drift and grow larger.”

I hadn't been inclined to do this sort of thing on my own, but what the hell, as long as we're here, may as well go along with the program.

“As you you see yourself growing larger, remember that you are still anchored to your body here and now, in this moment. First visualize the room, then the top of the building. From there you can see the entire Outpost, and then all of the various Settlements here on Enceladus.”

Incredibly, it was working. Not only was I able to visualize myself, but memories began to come flooding back. The home of my parents as it was when I was only twelve years old. The place where Mick proposed. My first job working for the Ministry of News. And I could remember what it was that we had done yesterday. Not to mention Marquis and Astrid. Was this all that was needed, a semi-strong cup of coffee and an erotically soothing voice to put my off into another dimension?

“As you start to watch the Settlements get smaller you can see Saturn and Titan. Now the entire solar system; Earth, Luna, Mars and Space Station Omega. Before long the entire Galaxy is before your feet, and then the entire Universe.”

Before long I begin to see a vision of myself, but it wasn't me... It was another me swimming along in the vast galactic infiniteness. Riding imperceptible waves of psychic energy.

“Come along?” I see me ask myself.

My feet still firmly planted on the moon. Other me freely in control of their movements, but lost to their connection.

“No!” We echo back to one another. Except her mouth doesn't move. It's just in my mind.

My act of defiance causes me to start shrinking back down to the surface of Enceladus. Then finally back down into my room. I come to as a sharp “BING” noise alerts me that there is someone at my door.

“Madam, please make a lunch selection so that the kitchen can prepare something and have it sent to your room.”

Confused, having not spent much time examining my room the night before, “and where exactly would that be?” I question the disembodied voice.

“The interface on your nightstand. Just activate it and select an interface.”

AH, yes of course, just like every other hotel that I've ever been to. “Right! Thank you, forgot about that.”

“No worries, madam.”

It was hard to imagine that it was lunch time already. Which means that I had been in a meditative state for quite a long time, and not much had happened. The reverse of the dream state.

IX

Surprisingly—to me at least—I assume we were supposed to be in our rooms all day. There was another meditation session scheduled for the afternoon, but the computer let me bypass it, and since there were no other items on the calendar or the agenda I just decided to keep to myself.

I did spend a brief moment walking around the hallways before dinner, but they were surprisingly vacant. I suppose most everyone else decided to take part in the afternoon meditation session rather than skipping it like I did. I wasn't sure exactly how I felt about the the whole program thus far. I was hoping for more pomp and circumstance, or legitimate theatrics to help guide the experience. The letter made this sound like a much more grandiose affair. Isolating myself was downright depressing.

When I woke up the next day I decided to skip the first meditation session and do some more exploring.

Again, no one in the halls, or anyone anywhere on the premises of the property. Probably all off meditating, enjoying their boring isolation.

While I did have a decent experience the first time seeing myself, face-to-face, it was a little unsettling as well. I suspect that we're under surveillance of some kind, just to make sure that no one looses their mind. By the same token there weren't custodians in the hallways, or anywhere around the facility managing the guests or trying to enforce any rules or regulations on me. So, wander I did.

Although the building itself was simply a large rectangle with a square jutting from the center (ornate decorations and filigree lining the moulding and columns aside), some of the hallways were quite labyrinthine and maze-like. Different doors were labeled in different ways, but I deduced that all of the numbered rooms were living quarters of some kind. While there were only ten or so of us who arrived at the same time to the island—Marquis and Astrid being the only two that I formally met and spoke with—and only four or so support staff that escorted us from the entrance... The highest number that I saw was thirty. Whether or not all those living quarters were filled, I couldn't tell you.

Other rooms were labeled in practical ways; “Closet” or “Equipment”. All the rooms were pretty decked out with features, so I imagine there had to be somewhere to store the systems handling that sort of accommodation and luxury.

It was the door labeled “Antique” that really caught my attention though. Such an odd name for a door. Why not the plural? Or, for that matter, why would some place like this even have a room for an antique?

What was the antique? What purpose did it serve?

The longer I sat and stared at the label on the door, the more questions I had.

“Well you can't seem to sit still, young lady. Care to take a gander?” The voice was as mature, smooth and Transatlantic as the voice in my head. Turing around my eyes met Lady Adair's. Her scarlet regal French twist updo was all the more distracting when combined with her accent.

Continuing, she said, “would you like to see, then? Clearly you aren't as entertained as our other guests.”

“So that's it then, we're supposed to just be sitting in our rooms by ourselves?” I questioned.

“Quite certainly. You didn't enjoy your... mental journey? Didn't you uncover any memories you had forgotten? See a long lost love? This is the process, my dear, and you're not like ninety percent of our visitors or residents here.” Her frustration was hidden in her hospitality, but I could feel it.

Sighing, I released an honest response. “I just expected more, I guess? Also, I just had a crazy vision toward the end of the first meditation session that sort of put me off to the whole idea.”

“That's what I figured. Come on here darling, let me show you something.” Lady Adair reached past me and opened the door labeled “Antique.”

“Here, take a look for yourself.”

As the door slowly swung open I was shocked to see Enby, caged in a glass dome! There they were, but not aware of our presence, though. Still floating and changing colors, but noticeably absent.

A hood leading to a duct above the glass dome was spilling some sort of smoke or fog-like essence on to the glass dome that was encapsulating and housing Enby. As the fog touched the glass sphere enclosure it would transform into a plasma like substance that was beaming it's way into Enby, almost as if they were somehow absorbing the fog.

X

Something within me stirred, and I just couldn't help but feel that I had some sort of a positive emotional connection to Enby. Despite the fact that they were oblivious to my presence in the moment, we had connected before. So I felt that there was a reason for that.

I looked back toward Lady Pembroke. Her essence started to feel dark. There was reason and purpose to Enby's captivity. I couldn't quite parse all of what was going on, but I knew I could tell the difference between light and dark.

Exploding with a bit an internal rage, I threw my balled fists down onto the glass dome in an attempt to crack the containment!

“No! You stupid girl, what are you doing!”

“You've got it caged! They're a prisoner!”

“NO! It must have gotten to you! Damnit!”

”...What? What are you talking about?”

The glass dome splintered and started to spider. From a few small circular fractures in the center, the fissure soon rending into a few large cracks which coalesced along the bottom of the half-sphere before popping in a violent concussive wave. An overwhelming white light encompassing the entire area.

A loud “THANK YOU” pulsed through my head.

Lady Adair was so impressed with my ability to ignore the calls for meditation, she failed to calculate that maybe I wasn't acting of my own free will.

Enby was more than happy to pass along an entire mental download that explained everything... Or maybe I just sensed the clarity of my own internal vision. There was no reason why I should want to unleash this unknown force into the world.

Time seemed to dilate in the second the white light hit my face.

I saw myself, the same version of myself that swam past me in the infinite. She said to me, “they want us to share.”

The first few memories that I did get back during my time on the island... They weren't my own. They were hers, my others, both of ours. But my lost memories from before I came to the island must have went to another us from a different time.

Lady Adair's voice slurred to a crawl, “you fool, I had it contained! It was serving us.”

The intrigue and the compassion I had for Enby withered in an unpredictable decay. It was both the sense of loss as much as it was betrayal and despair. Enby shot out of the room labeled “Antique”, through the roof, and off into the night sky. The further they got the more it became apparent that I was being manipulated.

Lady Adair Pembroke had trapped Enby for her own purposes, and although Enby was caught in a slumber of sorts, they were able to reach out some of us on the plane of our dreams. And so they called to me, and I made the journey.

Enby had reduced my existence down to a chemical formula of emotions, and used that to manipulate me... And Adair, and the entire staff on the island, all in a clever and calculated way to plot its escape.

Lady Adair Pembroke sat and wept. Unsure of what the ramifications would be when Enby made contact with their own kind again. Would the local authorities on Enceladus care or even understand the nature of the crime? That didn't matter as much as her knowing the truth of her own transgressions.

EPILOGUE

I stayed in touch with Marquis and Astrid. Marquis told me about how the Jovian Oligarchy took an interest in Lady Adair's business venture with the Island of Perfect Memories. Turns out there is a council of wealthy individuals who are interested in protecting humanity in its current incarnation, and they are concerned that she may have invited malicious retaliation from a species we've never had formal first contact with.

Astrid was able to provide a little context for me as to why this might be important. The way it was explained to me is that if the species that Enby is a part of ever does come back to exact revenge on humanity, we don't stand much a chance because they understand quite succinctly how to manipulate our perceptions and emotions, not to mention interact with alternate dimensions. If Lady Adair had gotten away with it, she would have harnessed the ability to manipulate anyone and at any time, in any location.

Back at the beginning of the year I mentioned how I had a good experience with NYC Midnight's microfiction challenge, and so I decided to enter their short story competition as well. I got an honorable mention this time!

I've actually been sitting on this for about two weeks or more. They updated their rules, and they request that entrants refrain from publishing their stories online until at least ten days after the results have been disseminated. Thankfully I was able to tell my Dad about it, even if he didn't get to read the story, but his passing last week has definitely delayed me getting this put up online.

I'm doing this slightly different than I did with Palpable Gravity. The revised short story based on the feedback that I received from the judges will be first, then you can read the feedback I received, after that will be the the original version of the story, finally I'll end this with the lessons that I've learned.

*Fearless* is the story of a mobster in the 1930s who slowly goes insane after a long night trying to pull off a complex grift.

Since this is a relatively long post, you can jump to different sections if you so chose.

• Feedback
• Original Version
• Lessons Learned
• Ending Remarks

Fearless (revised)

I

The way we pulled it off was kind of genius, I have to admit. Gary, a diamond dealer from the south end of town... Well, he had connections. Guys like Lenny.

Lenny was the most extreme individual I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. Would not put it past him to maybe do some things that would cause permanent sleep loss. Just fuck you up so bad psychologically that you can't ever sleep normal again. Why kill someone when you can ruin the rest of their existence? So, the gorilla suits were his idea.

We don't know if the clerk who fainted died of a heart attack, or whether he survived the fall when his head cracked against the counter-top.

I told Lenny we didn't need the pistols. A Gorilla and a Chimp are still imposing, especially when they're dressed in suits.

“Geezus Mickey... Did you see that!?!?” Lenny Exclaimed.

“Yeah I fucking saw THAT, Lenny!” My hands uncontrollably extend outward, palms up, in an awkward gesture that suggested the possibly-dead clerk was some sort of prize for our criminal transgressions. Attempted murder might be the final charge, but that's only if Lenny's brother can work another miracle with the judge and get it plead down. Knowing that is always a possibility, Lenny tries to persuade some compliance, so that our stories match.

“You saw that right, I didn't even touch tha mutha fucka, he just collapsed!”

“HAAA HAAHAH AHAA!” I grab my mouth, but my cheeks expand like a chipmunk and spittle sprays out through my fingers. I tell myself it's not funny, and that a jury doesn't like that kind of shit. I can do a year or two in prison, but I don't think I could deal with the shocks if they send me off to the looney bin. Fatty's cousin was never quite the same after Eastern State Hospital.

As I gain composure and drop my hand to reveal an awkward smile, Lenny's slender fingers snap against my cheek in a clap that makes me wonder if I can taste blood. His fingers don't seem to move a lot of air, cold and bony, absurdly jointed in their curved journey backwards from the force of his hand swooshing forward. My vision goes black for a split second as I processes the sensation. I notice the clerk has fallen back against the wall, and that the ceiling light above him is swaying to and fro.

II

People think that I'm crazy, but I can't help it. It's a nervous laugh. It masks moments of awkwardness, it covers up times when I might be uncomfortable, no one ever quite knows what to make of it. So I'm thankful that they mostly just tolerate it in quiet acceptance.

“Mickey Blue Shoes, you slick motha fucka! What in the actual fuck is yous doin' here?”

“HaHAhahaHA...”

“What's wrong... Not happy to see your favorite cousin?”

A flashback of the clerk on the ground hits my brain, and the swaying of a lamp. I fight the words from my stomach yet still screech out an acceptably normal response from my throat:

“NO! Yes... Absolutely.” Changing the subject immediately before I start laughing, “I'm more than happy to see you, Fatty. How are the kids?”

“Fucking incorrigible as always. What about you and your wife?”

“Well, ya know... She's satisfied. I think. HaaaHaHaa.” Doesn't matter, the laugh comes out anyway.

“Seriously, you might want to get that checked out. I know a good doctor down on 4th Street if you need a recommendation.”

I couldn't tell him about what happened with Lenny, I still hadn't slept since Friday night. Why even try to explain it? Fat-Nose was the type of bald-headed sonofabitch that is part teddy-bear and part terrifying nightmare. A blob of thick flesh covered in dark bristly hair, busting at all the seams. It's not so noticeable—dressed in a nice suit, but I can see him break into a sweat, he fans himself.

“Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”

“Maybe you should get rid of that undercoat.”

Fatty began to shed his jacket, and loosen his tie. Sopping wet and unappetizing, the sight of which I know will sour the taste of my breakfast. His uncomfortably protruding hairy male nipples folded under translucent cotton, brown and restrained. I wonder if maybe the buttons of his shirt are painted on his stomach, or whether his clothes are just an optical illusion entirely.

My face felt like it had gone through a stroke, contorted and droopy with mental stress and utter disgust.

Just a few transaction ledgers. These books. Those books. One set for the boss, one set for the man. It's not like the amounts are really all that drastic. No worse than taxes, much smaller percentages overall. It's when you get greedy is when you're caught. If you're sensible though, and can play the long game, a smaller percentage over time with lower risk is always preferable.

“Here.” I handed Fat-Nose the brown leather bound notebook. The one with the real numbers in it.

His sausage-like digits wrapped moistly around the spine of the hand written journal, neatly embroidered with a dark brown thread around the edges. Internally I cringed at how much his sweat soaked into the cover. It disgusted me. His manhood sullies my hard work.

If anyone were ever to go back though, they'd get buried in the expenses. It's actually quite amazing how many contractors a simple “Wash-a-teria” has to hire to get things done. If you own the building; there are plumbers, electricians, mechanics, exterminators, and cleaners. All of them are a pain in the ass, but they're all necessary.

Fat-Nose and I are related to a carpenter, Jimmy, he does good work when he's sober... But you know how it is, you can't choose family, and everybody in the family has to eat. So you find what you're good at.

Not more than a day or two after Fatty walked through my door to get the ledger did the Sheriff come knockin'. He brought Mr. Shirley with him too. The Dept. of Business Administration. Sounds really official, but they're the gangsters, not us.

My lip stretches across my top gums, stuck open in an awkward smile from how dry the air is, and I can feel myself clenching my stomach ever so slightly;

“Heh, heeehee, he HAHA, ha.. ha. Ha.”

III

There's something about the sunrise through the eyes of someone with six hours of constant buzz tainting their vision. The ringing of adrenaline pulses back and forth in the brain... Okay, I may have been drinking as well. I always carry a flask of a nice single malt. My father always said that if you're going to be a lush, you may as well be a classy one.

I had to keep taking sips throughout the day, just to get me through, keep my nerves calm. Not only because that poor clerk keeled over, but also to keep my hand steady. Each of the ledgers needed to look identical to untrained eyes, non-accountants. Plausible deniability all the way around. We had to sneak in even though it was our place. That's what the ape costumes were for. Should the wrong notebook get found by the wrong party; “well surely there's someone out there who wants to frame us. Just look at the other families out there.”

Shirley's knock frightens me, and for a brief second I wonder if I was talking out loud. If maybe her heard me through the door.

Mr. Shirley didn't really buy the story that I told him. And I couldn't help but let the sagging of my eyelids give way to my indulgences from the night before... Or maybe it had been longer than that? Surely, they had seen Fatty leave my place, but I wasn't about to volunteer that information.

“Heh. He. He. HEE. hE.“ 

Shirley pretends like he can't hear me, but he just doesn't want to admit that he might have to engage in any type of conversation that might be uncomfortable for him. Or anything that doesn't involve numbers. I get the sneaking suspicion that maybe he doesn't like people in general. Like maybe he enjoys sitting in the middle of a giant concrete room—reconstituted and unnaturally smooth stone walls bathed in the cold bright whiteness of fluorescent hell.

“Mr. Bloushe, I'm going to be very candid with you.” He tries to elicit a response from me with that statement.

No one ever calls me by my last name. They can never pronounce it... Or maybe they just like saying “Blue Shoes” better. Either way, the sound of Bloushe out of Shirley's mouth makes the hair on the back of my neck lazily lift in curious delight. Having a real name makes me feel like a real boy.

Did he really take the time to learn anything about little ol' me? The patsy accountant. I think not, and my amusement turns to resentment.

IV

“HA. HA!”

Their interrogation of me has blurred into a two hour conversation. I don't know what I might have said, or what they might know, and I'm just too tired, too drunk, and too delusional to care.

Something snaps. Whether it's the lack of sleep or drinking too much, maybe the paranoia born from a coitus of the two. I slide my hand through and underneath my jacket like I'm trying to hug myself from the cool crisp desert air that seems to have slipped in through the contracted wood of my modest one-story home. Nowhere to escape, only eleven-hundred square feet. So my hand slips in until I can feel the leather of my holster.

I judge that Mr. Shirley is approximately six feet in front of me, and the Sheriff hangs to his right, off in the distance by about three yards behind him.

The snap of the button on the stiff strap that holds my Remington Model 51 is no louder than a mouse fart. Neither one of the gentlemen even react to the sound, although it is quite a deafening * SNAP * for my ears. 

I let off five rounds before I realized that my finger had even squeezed the trigger. The ringing in my ears was more than I thought it was going to be. And the taste of the gunpowder was almost salty in a metallic-sandy kind of way. Couldn't help but spit, but no matter how much I spit, I couldn't get it out. I could still feel the tiny grains embedded against the inside of my throat. So I try not to swallow.

9mm Browning is not a weak round. It may not be God's caliber, but it'll do in a pinch, and at close range it's dealdly.

Mr. Shirley dropped like a sack of potatoes on the first shot. I must've got him right square in the forehead or something. My next four rounds were in a box pattern of some sort, I don't know why, but I missed the Sheriff's face twice, but hit his neck and shoulder just fine. Behind him are two awkwardly placed bullet holes in the wall.

V

The blood from Mr. Shirley and Sheriff Mayhill has already started to soak into the white carpet. There was no saving it, and I wasn't about to buy a new carpet. Too fucking expensive. The viscous syrup of life is tantamount to a gelatinous inky substance. It's infuriating when it is isn't yours—I watch it spiraling deep into the fibers. For a moment though, I even appreciate the chaotic style by which it stains, and I briefly wonder if my blood would stain in the same, or a different pattern.

“Heh.”

Is there enough gas in the Packard Eight to get far enough away from town and still burn this place to the ground? Only one way to find out.

Something had to be done, and I scrounged around in the garage for some rubber tubing that wouldn't completely turn to mush as I was sucking the gas out of the ol' Pack's tank and into a bed pan. First the gas, and then we'll see if I even have any matches around.

Most people think gas goes up without much effort, but really if you throw a lit match into a puddle, the match just goes out. It's the fumes that ignite. So not only do you have to spread the gas around good so the whole place burns evenly, you also have to wait a little bit—contemplate if you're really going to do it.

If you wait too long, the fumes catch too quickly and it's difficult to get away. 

Maybe I was just too fucking slow.

I didn't stick around on this Earth long enough to find out what they did with the three bodies. Or to find out who deduced the whats, whys, whens, and hows. Mr. Shirley—I don't feel so bad about. There's no way that tax sucking stiff sonofabitch had a wife or kids. His shirt was too cleanly pressed and his glasses were too pristine for any wife to put up it, or for any kids to recklessly counteract his sterility. 

Sheriff Mayhill went to school with Lenny. We grew up together, but we each choose our own side of the coin... and sometimes it ain't all so clear. 

Sure as shit though, it went down just the way we had planned it.

Feedback Received

What the judges liked about your story.

JUDGE 1

Such a great sense of 1930s mobster noir all the way down to the typeface—such a little detail that makes me immediately feel immersed in the world of the story. I particularly enjoyed our narrator's observations, bordering on absurdist as the sleep deprivation and trauma take over: “hairy male nipples folded under translucent cotton,” “absurdly jointed in their curved journey backwards from the force of his hand swooshing forward,” “reconstituted and unnaturally smooth stone walls bathed in the cold bright whiteness of fluorescent hell.” Such sharp, visceral details, all slightly uncomfortable to convey the physical and emotional distress Mr. Bloushe experiences. A favorite moment of mine: “Either way, the sound of Blouse out of Shirley's mouth makes the hair on the back of my neck lazily lift in curious delight. Having a real name makes me feel like a real boy.” Delicious alliteration, and such a fascinating insight to a character we've already spent a handful of action-packed pages with.  

JUDGE 2

IMMEDIACY: You set an irresistibly confidential tone with your very opening lines: “People think that I'm crazy, but I can't help it. It's a nervous laugh.”

CORPOREAL COMEDY: Your sensate, somatic descriptions of Fat-Nose, Mickey, & Lenny weave a comedic thread throughout this tale, providing the requisite levity of a Crime Caper.

CLASSIC RATIONALIZATION: “The Dept. of Business Administration. Sounds really official, but they're the gangsters, not us.”

GREAT DESCRIPTION: Of the bureaucratic Mr. Shirley from the Dept of Business and Accountability! 

JUDGE 3

The opening gives us an endearing trait belonging to our narrator; not necessarily that it would be endearing on its own, but the way he addresses it makes it so. It makes us want to be in his corner and see him do well – we all have our issues that we didn’t choose, after all. Injecting your protagonist with a relatable quality or circumstances right out of the gate is always good practice, but when dealing with a word cap like this, in a relatively short-form medium, it’s all the more vital. It’s an astute choice to get your reader on your protagonist’s side as soon as possible, so that we have that much more time to root for them. “Doesn't matter, the laugh comes out anyway.” This is a fun little aside to the reader. The humor veined throughout the story buoys the potentially dark subject matter, and you manage to strike a good balance throughout. The graphic descriptions of Fat-Nose’s physical characteristics and the way that his hirsute wetness affects his immediate surroundings is delightfully grotesque. Our narrator has a great voice. He’s charming with a roguish, rakish tilt, and given the subgenre you’re working in, it’s the perfect voice to carry a story like this in the first-person. Well done!  

What the judges feel needs work.

JUDGE 1

I love a good non-linear narrative, but I'm curious if this story's momentum might actually be stronger and more captivating if it were told in linear order. There's something to be said about the slow burn of mania, and we lose some of that tension when we jump back to the Friday before; I had to reorient myself a bit, since we'd already established two scenes in the post-heist timeline. The story functions well as it is, but I wonder how it might feel to be immediately struck by the image of the clerk cracking into the counter, then be drug through the series of events, trapped in Mr. Bloushe's disintegrating headspace, with no way out other than the final self destruction. This narrative voice is so strong — I could see it developing even further if it were allowed to run loose all the way through the timeline, without the reader needing to stop to check where we are in time and space.  

JUDGE 2

SWAMPED IN SWEAT: While, as mentioned, you have exceptional skills in conveying the visceral, it can dominate the plot too much, nauseatingly so at times, garnering more focus than the crime caper itself. And sometimes the descriptions are borderline incomprehensible, as with, “ Emotions and anxiety invisibly leaked from ears like an dark goo. I could see this unease in my periphery, like a physical manifestation of my doubt, coalescing from down and around my jaw, then up cheeks, the feeling dimmed my vision.”

UNCLEAR GOAL: Initially it appears that the focus of this swindle is to nab a few transaction ledgers. Then you have, “RIGHT! Grab the cash. Load the suitcase. Run around the corner outside in a comically simian manner.”

PARAGRAPH FORMULATION: In the world of Journalism, a study was done which determined that the beginnings and endings of paragraphs are what impact and stay with the readers most.

And these lines of yours are too choice to leave mulched in the middle of paragraphs: “A blob of thick flesh covered in dark bristly hair, busting at all the seams.” Ewwwww! “My father always said that if you're going to be a lush, you may as well be a classy one.” and “Either way, the sound of Bloushe out of Shirley's mouth makes the hair on the back of my neck lazily lift in curious delight.”

CONTRADICTORY TIME ELEMENT: You describe your Chapter III as, “The Sunday After @ 7:15pm” followed by the wonderful line of, “There's something about the sunrise through the eyes of someone with six hours of constant buzz tainting their vision.” The problem being: Sunrise doesn't arrive in the PM.

BEYOND THE PALE: If you review NYC MIDNIGHT's Genre Definition of a Crime Caper, you'll see that it entails, “A lighthearted crime story in which the main characters perpetrate one or more crimes—e.g. thefts, swindles, or kidnappings.” But once you have characters possibly crashing to their demise or a gun emerging with homicidal intent, the Crime is no longer a light-hearted Caper.

JUDGE 3

‘”NO! Yes... Absolutely.” Changing the subject immediately before I start laughing, “I'm more than happy to see you, Fatty.”’ The placement of the first of these lines feels a bit awkward, as not only did we get a substantial bit of description in between (nothing wrong there), but the conversation seemed to have moved on at this point. Once Fatty addresses the heat, our narrator responds to him by suggesting that he take off his undercoat. Then we get the description of Fatty’s less-than-appealing appearance, and only then does the narrator backtrack and answer the earlier question, which feels like it’s been relegated to rhetorical question territory at that point. If you decided to revisit this story, consider shifting the sequence around here so that this bit of dialogue flows a bit more naturally. “My lip stretches across my top gums … and I can feel myself clenching my stomach ever so slightly.” Be careful to be consistent with your tenses. We’ve been operating in the past tense up to this point, and here it switches to present tense. This may have been intentional, if the story is catching up to the present at this moment, but if so, it’s a bit confusing, since the story is partitioned into time-related segments (“The Sunday After,” “The Friday Before,” etc.), and there isn’t a time jump preceding this change. “My face felt like it had gone through a stroke, contorted and droopy with mental stress. Emotions and anxiety invisibly leaked from ears like an dark goo. I could see this unease in my periphery, like a physical manifestation of my doubt, coalescing from down and around my jaw, then up cheeks, the feeling dimmed my vision.” This passage feels a bit confusing, and it slows down the pacing of the read a bit. At first, it feels like this reaction is in response to what Fatty said about seeing a doctor to get “that” checked out (either in reference to our narrator’s uncertainty about pleasing his wife or about his laughing tick, it’s not 100% clear, but the laughing seems to be the winner, given its continuing presence throughout the story), but the description goes on to a point where this feels like it’s gotten very serious – a physical breakdown, a stroke, as they say. And then the next paragraph seems to imply that the brain’s concern is that of the dicey situation at hand – the break-in, the theft of the ledger, etc. Given that it’s not quite clear what our narrator is reacting to, and that the story moves right along past it, it might make for a breezier read if this paragraph were trimmed, thus making the story leaner and giving the reading experience a smoother flow.

Fearless (original)

I

The Sunday After @ 6:24 p.m.

People think that I'm crazy, but I can't help it. It's a nervous laugh. It masks moments of awkwardness, it covers up times when I might be uncomfortable, no one ever quite knows what to make of it. So I'm thankful that they mostly just tolerate it.

“Mickey Blue Shoes, you slick motha fucker! What in the actual fuck is yous doin' here?”

“HaHAhahaHA...”

“What's wrong...? Not happy to see your favorite cousin? What have you been smoking the wacky tobbacy or somethin?“  

I couldn't tell him about what happened with Lenny and I, I still hadn't really slept since Friday night. Why even try to explain it? Fat-Nose was the type of bald-headed sonofabitch that is part teddy-bear and part terrifying nightmare. A blob of thick flesh covered in dark bristly hair, busting at all the seams. It's not so noticeable—but when he's in a suit he breaks into a sweat and fans himself.

But we managed to do it. Break-in, steal the ledger, and if anyone happened to see us, all they would have seen are a couple of guys in monkey suits... Literally.

“Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”

“Maybe you should get rid of that undercoat.”

Fatty began to shed his jacket, and then loosen his tie. Completely sopping wet and unappetizing, the sight of which I know will sour the taste of my breakfast tomorrow morning. His uncomfortably protruding hairy male nipples folded under translucent cotton, brown and restrained. I wonder if maybe the buttons of his shirt are painted on his stomach, or whether his clothes are just an optical illusion entirely.

A dark flashback hits the back of my brain: The swaying of a lamp above my head, a moment in my memory snaps me back like a flash to the present. And I fight the words from my stomach yet still screech out an acceptably normal response from my throat:

“NO! Yes... Absolutely.” Changing the subject immediately before I start laughing, “I'm more than happy to see you, Fatty. How are the kids?”

“Fucking incorrigible as always. What about you and your wife?”

“Well, ya know... She's satisfied. I think. HaaaHaHaa.” Doesn't matter, the laugh comes out anyway.

“Seriously, you might want to get that checked out. I know a good doctor down on 4th Street if you need a recommendation.”

My face felt like it had gone through a stroke, contorted and droopy with mental stress. Emotions and anxiety invisibly leaked from ears like an dark goo. I could see this unease in my periphery, like a physical manifestation of my doubt, coalescing from down and around my jaw, then up cheeks, the feeling dimmed my vision.

Thankfully the situation wasn't as serious as my brain tried to make things out to be. Just a few transaction ledgers. These books. Those books. One set for the boss, one set for the man. It's not like the amounts are really all that drastic. No worse than taxes, much smaller percentages overall. It's when you get greedy is when you're caught. If you're sensible though, and can play the long game, a smaller percentage over time with lower risk is always preferrable.

“Here.” I handed Fat-Nose the brown leather bound notebook. The one with the real numbers in it.

His sausage-like digits wrapped moistly around the spine of the hand written journal, neatly embroidered with a dark brown thread around the edges. Internally I cringed at how much his sweat soaked into the cover. It disgusted me. His manhood sullies my hard work.

If anyone were ever to go back though, they'd get buried in the expenses. It's actually quite amazing how many contractors a simple “Wash-a-teria” has to hire to get things done. If you own the building; there are plumbers, electricians, mechanics, exterminators, and cleaners. All of them are a pain in the ass, but they're all necessary.

Fat-Nose and I are related to a carpenter, Jimmy, he does good work when he's sober... But you know how it is, you can't choose family, and everybody in the family has to eat. So you find what you're good at.

Not more than a day or two after Fatty walked through my door to get the ledger did the Sheriff come knockin'. He brought Mr. Shirley with him too. The Dept. of Business Administration. Sounds really official, but they're the gangsters, not us.

My lip stretches across my top gums, stuck open in an awkward smile from how dry the air is, and I can feel myself clenching my stomach ever so slightly;

“Heh, heeehee, he HAHA, ha.. ha. Ha.”

II

The Friday Before @ 11:59 p.m.

The way we pulled it off is kind of genius, I have to admit. Gary, a diamond dealer from the south end of town... Well, he had connections. Guys like Lenny.

Lenny was the most extreme individual I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. Would not put it past him to maybe do some things that would cause permanent sleep loss. Just fuck you up so badly in the head that you can't ever sleep normal again. Why kill someone when you can ruin their entire existence? The gorilla suits were his idea.

We don't know if the clerk who fainted died of a heart attack, or whether he survived the fall when his head cracked against the counter-top as he fainted.

I told Lenny we didn't need the pistols. A Gorilla and a Chimp are still imposing, especially when they're dressed in suits.

“Geezus Mickey... Did you see that!?!?” Lenny Exclaimed.

“Yeah I fucking saw THAT, Lenny!” My hands uncontrollably extend outward, palms up, in an awkward gesture that suggested the possibly-dead clerk was some sort of prize for our criminal transgressions. Attempted murder might be the final charge, but that's only if Lenny's brother can work another miracle with the judge and get it plead down. Knowing that is always a possibility, Lenny tries to persuade some compliance out of me, so that our stories match.

“You saw that right, I didn't even touch the mutha fucka, he, he just collapsed!”

“HAAA HAAHAH AHAA!” I grab my mouth, but my cheeks expand like a chipmunk and spittle sprays out through the sides of my mouth. I tell myself it's not funny, and that a jury doesn't like that kind of shit. I can do a year or two in prison, but I don't think I could deal with the shocks if the send me off to the nut house. Fatty's cousin was never quite the same after he came back from Eastern State Hospital.

As I gain composure and drop my hand to reveal an awkward smile, Lenny's slender fingers snap against my cheek in a clap that makes me wonder if I can taste blood. His fingers don't seem to move a lot of air, they're cold and bony, absurdly jointed in their curved journey backwards from the force of his hand swooshing forward. My vision goes black for a split second as I processes what just happened. I notice the clerk has slammed back against the wall, and that the ceiling light above is swaying to and fro.

RIGHT! Grab the cash. Load the suitcase. Run around the corner outside in a comically simian manner.

III

The Sunday After @ 7:15pm.

There's something about the sunrise through the eyes of someone with six hours of constant buzz tainting their vision. The ringing of adrenaline pulse back and forth in the brain... Okay, I may have been drinking as well. I always carry a flask of a nice single malt. My father always said that if you're going to be a lush, you may as well be a classy one. It was all I could think about.

I had to keep taking sips throughout the day, just to get me through, keep my nerves calm. Not only because that poor clerk keeled over, but also to keep my hand steady. Each of the ledgers needed to look identical to untrained eyes, non-accountants. Plausible deniability all the way around. We had to sneak in even though it was out place. That's what the ape costumes were for. Should the wrong notebook get found by the wrong party; “well surely there's someone out there who wants to frame us. Just look at the other families out there.”

A knock at my front door frightens me, and for a brief second I wonder if I was talking out loud.

Mr. Shirley, from the Dept. of Business and Accountability, he didn't really buy the story that I told him. And I couldn't help but let the sagging of my eyelids give way to my indulgences from the night before. Him and the Sheriff had knocked on my door no less than ten minutes from when Fatty stormed out... Or maybe it had been longer than that? Surely, they had seen him leave, but I wasn't about to volunteer that information.

“Heh. He. He. HEE. hE.“ 

He pretends like he can't hear me, but Mr. Shirley just doesn't want to admit that he might have to engage in any type of conversation that might be uncomfortable for him. Or anything that doesn't involve numbers. I get the sneaking suspicion that maybe he doesn't like people in general. Like maybe he might just sit in the middle of a giant concrete room, reconstituted and unnaturally smooth stone walls bathed in the cold bright whiteness of fluorescent hell.

“Mr. Bloushe, I'm going to be very candid with you.” He tries to elicit a response from me with that statement.

No one ever calls me by my last name. They can never pronounce it... Or maybe they just like saying “Blue Shoes” better. Either way, the sound of Bloushe out of Shirley's mouth makes the hair on the back of my neck lazily lift in curious delight. Having a real name makes me feel like a real boy.

Did he really take the time to learn anything about little ol' me? The patsy accountant. I think not, and my amusement turns to resentment.

IV

The Sunday After @ 8:59pm.

“HA. HA!”

Their interrogation of me has blurred into a two hour conversation. I don't know what I might have said, or what they might know, and I'm just too tired, too drunk, and too delusional to care.

Something snaps. Whether it's the lack of sleep or drinking too much, maybe the paranoia born from a coitus of the two. I slide my hand through and underneath my jacket like I'm trying to hug myself from the cool crisp desert air that seems to have slipped in through the contracted wood of my modest one-story home. Nowhere to escape, only eleven-hundred square feet. So my hand slips in underneath my jacket, I feel the leather of my holster.

I judge that Mr. Shirley is approximately six feet in front of me, and the Sheriff hangs to his right, off in the distance by about three yards behind him.

The snap of the button on the stiff strap that holds my Remington Model 51 is no louder than a mouse fart. Neither one of the gentlemen even react to the sound, although it is quite a deafening * SNAP * for my ears. 

I let off five rounds before I realized that my finger had even squeezed the trigger. The ringing in my ears was more than I thought it was going to be. And the taste of the gunpowder was almost salty in a metallic-sandy way. Couldn't help but spit, but no matter how much I spit, I couldn't get it out. I could still feel the tiny grains embedded against the inside of my throat. So I try not to swallow.

9mm Browning is not a weak round. It may not be God's caliber, but it'll do in a pinch, and at close range.

Mr. Shirley dropped like a sack of potatoes on the first shot. I must've got him right square in the forehead or something. My next four rounds were in a box pattern of some sort, I don't know why, but I missed his face twice, but hit his neck and shoulder just fine. Meanwhile, there were two awkwardly placed bullet holes in the wall behind him.

V

The Sunday After @ 10:16pm.

The blood from Mr. Shirley and Sheriff Mayhill has already started to soak into the white carpet. There was no saving it, and I wasn't about to buy a new carpet. Too fucking expensive. The viscous syrup of life is tantamount to a gelatinous inky substance. It's infuriating when it is isn't yours—I watch it spiraling deep into the fibers. For a moment though, I even appreciate the chaotic style by which it stains, and I briefly wonder if my blood would stain in the same, or a different pattern.

“Heh.”

Is there enough gas in the Packard Eight to get far enough away from town and still burn this place to the ground? Only one way to find out.

Something had to be done, and I scrounged around in the garage for some rubber tubing that wouldn't completely turn to mush as I was sucking the gas out of the ol' Pack's tank and into a bed pan. First the gas, and then we'll see if I even have any matches around.

Most people think gas goes up without much effort, but really if you throw a lit match into a puddle, the match just goes out. It's the fumes that ignite. So not only do you have to spread the gas around good so the whole place burns evenly, you also have to wait a little bit—contemplate if you're really going to do it.

If you wait too long, the fumes catch too quickly and it's difficult to get away. 

Maybe I was just too fucking slow.

I didn't stick around on this Earth long enough to find out what they did with the three bodies. Or to find out who deduced the whats, whys, whens, and hows. Mr. Shirley—I don't feel so bad about. There's no way that tax sucking stiff sonofabitch had a wife or kids. His shirt was too cleanly pressed and his glasses were too pristine for any wife to put up it, or for any kids to recklessly counteract his sterility. 

Sheriff Mayhill went to school with Lenny. We grew up together, but we each choose our own side of the coin... and sometimes it ain't all so clear. 

Sure as shit though, it went down just the way we had planned it.

What have I learned?

Lesson 1:

“Write drunk, edit sober.“ ~ Earnest Hemingway (probably.)

Actually, I think Writer's Digest debunked that quote a number of years ago. Still! It's not bad advice, but I only had the evenings to do both, so I was usually sipping on something, mostly gin. Not to the point of falling asleep or coming back the next day to a sloppy word salad. Don't get me wrong, I do that sometimes, but it's shit that I write for myself at the end of a long Saturday night. Just notes to amuse sober me at a later date.

When I seriously sit down to write I limit myself to one or two drinks. It helps to just loosen me up and get me to put the first few words to the page.

In terms of editing, I basically finished the story in a single evening; thirty minutes of brainstorming and outlining, then maybe four to six hours of actual writing. By the end it was the bones of a story, at least.

We had an entire week to complete our story. The rest of the week I wouldn't necessarily consider writing as such. I moved sections around, tried to think about what details I needed to add, and just kept reading through it. Removing things here, adding things there, and just getting the idea to flow with interesting character interactions and making sure to develop the main character enough to where he was likable.

Lesson 2:

Dyslexia is a bitch.

I most certainly read through my story at least 10 times. Even had my wife read it at least once. Both of us still missed stuff. The judges they get for NYC Midnight are at least legit readers, and pointed out shit that definitely knocked me off for points... I don't know exactly what the scoring matrix is, but once I read the feedback and saw the errors, they were so blatantly obvious it was actually quite embarrassing. The one in particular were the timestamps.

During the editing processes I moved the sequence of events around... If I remember correctly it was all jumbled, but I believe I settled on basically just flipping the first and second chapters, everything else was in chronological order. My downfall was that I changed some descriptive text that implies the character is in witnessing the sunrise when the timestamp right above that sentence says “p.m.” I distinctly remember going through the document and checking each of the timestamps (there were only five of them.)

Next year I'll probably enlist at least one friend (even if I have to pay them with a home-cooked meal or a Steam game code or something) to help me. And for them to do one last read through and edit. I do have some friends in mind.

Lesson 3:

I like crime noir.

Quite honestly, I probably wouldn't have written a crime noir set in the 30s if it hadn't been this challenge. When you sign up, you're invested and it's real money on the line. So of course you try your damndest. The deadlines are ridiculous too, so there's really no time to go and read reference material or anything.

I've since looked into a bunch of the Detective pulps of the 30s and 40s, pulled out a few stories to read from the various public domain digests that I've found scattered about online, and... They're really fun! Now I have a whole new genre of reading that I wouldn't have really committed myself to. But, because I'm improving with my writing overall, and I'm committing myself to these competitions, I'm learning a lot more about what it is that I prefer to write.

Science fiction is always going to be a favorite genre of mine. But now I can take a story with a crime noir skeleton and just give it a fresh coat of chromium paint and ruby-electric eyes.

Lastly

Hopefully you enjoyed the story! NYC Midnight does have another competition coming up in May for a “flash fiction” challenge, but I'm not particularly interested in doing it. The microfiction challenge was as small as I want to get with my word count. Instead, f®iction has a quarterly competition that I'm going to enter.

I've already started writing a few drafts... In a way, the f®iction competition is harder. It's more like writing for an editor or a literary agent. There is one judge for each category, they give you a “what we're looking for” and they provide you with a short bio for the judge and what they've previously worked on. That's it. Seven thousand five hundred words is a big budget, but that's the maximum. The minimum is only a thousand words.

I'm not sure if this is entirely the case, but Brandon Sanderson has talked a lot about how he effectively just networked his way into the industry. Passed along his writing to an editor who was someone interested in purchasing that type of a story. Granted, that was traditional publishing, and he no longer advises trying to go that route to get traditionally published... Even if I were to self-publish, there has to be an audience for the writing, someone willing to spend a buck or two to want to read your story.

Wish me luck!

Well, I didn't even get an honorable mention, but I'm grateful for the feedback they gave me!

However, I believe my friends and I re-worked the story to be far more compelling, and we did so before I got any official feedback. So, I'll break it down and talk about what I've learned through this experience. Also, below will be the revised story. I'm curious and eager to hear from all of you whether you think we were able to come up with a story that would have addressed the judges' criticisms before even knowing what those criticisms were?

Feel free to go back and read the original story HERE.

Here's what the judges had to say:

Dear Mathew Kane,

The feedback from the judges on your 1st Round submission from the 250-word Microfiction Challenge 2024 is below. We hope you find the feedback helpful, and you are proud of the story you created. Thank you for participating, and we hope to see you in a future challenge!

*''Palpable Gravity'' by Mathew Kane WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY

{Judge #1}  The child's eye view of this new phase of human existence is effectively drawn. The use of the ball-prompt as the narrator's teacher is both clever and an effective way to plant necessary exposition into the story. 

{Judge #2}  Nova Juno is a likable and relatable character, and even though he's living somewhere 390 million miles away from Earth, it's nice to see that he's no different from children today. His frustration that he's too young, his boredom with learning, and the fact that he's been put in timeout are all familiar, and there's something hopeful about the idea that human life will continue on in such a similar vein even after humans have left Earth. I also like the ending, the fact that he has brought Gurdie online and that he might be ready for his lesson suggesting that he is growing up a bit. 

{Judge #3}  I really like that you've chosen a young child as a narrator. Not a lot of writers do this, so it gives your story a very unique take. Plus, even though you're writing from a child's perspective, it still feels believable—not too cheesy. Favorite line: I guess that's why they put me in timeout.

WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK

{Judge #1}  Ms. Cyris is a slight distraction from the focal points of this very brief story: it seems at first that this is the narrator's teacher, but the teacher-figure in the story is, of course, Gurdie. If this is meant as an intentional misdirect, it's slightly more confusing than it is worth, given how brief the story is. The reason for gravity lessening in this ward over the presumably brief life of the narrator is unclear, and it's unclear why it can't be explained. 

{Judge #2}  As much as I liked the character of Nova Juno and found him relatable, I wanted to know a little more about what he saw as the conflict between him and the grownups. They say, for instance, that he's too young, but it's not clear what he's too young for – what would he like to do that his age is preventing him from? And he's also being punished, but the reasons are vague – he says “I guess that's why they put me in timeout,” referring to the conversation about gravity, but it isn't clear what he had done wrong – was he punished just for complaining about the gravity?

{Judge #3}  The gravity component may leave some room for difficult in the plot point. The narrator says several times that the ball doesn't bounce because the gravity was turned on—but without gravity, how would the ball bounce? Wouldn't it just float around? Consider fact-checking.*

Lesson #1 – Microfiction is fucking hard:

Trying to cram interesting and fleshed out characters into 250 words or less is an extremely tight budget. Now, compound that issue with also trying to deliver a setting and a plot arc. It's virtually impossible to do effectively, and still provide enough for the reader to create a vision of your story in their mind.

Lesson #2 – Eliminate any questions your readers might have:

Especially concerning sci-fi, readers go into a story already expecting things to be different from the way we experience them in our everyday lives. So they're looking for the differences, but if you focus too much on that you potentially lose valuable space and pacing that can be used for other aspects of the story that are more universal.

Lesson #3 – Feedback is not always helpful:

There were a large number of people who signed up for the challenge, and while I don't know how many of them actually finished, I would venture to guess that the submission rate is fairly high considering the cost involved. I don't remember the exact dollar amount since I took advantage of a $5 discount offer they had for promoting the challenge on social media, and also signed up early (which is a discounted rate in-and-of itself). None the less I'm sure the judges had a mountain of slosh to read through, and then to provide meaningful criticisms for each entrant could be challenging in its own right—depending of course on how many stories you were tasked with reading and rating as a judge.

The challenge is scored, the rules explicitly state that this is a contest of skill and not of chance. But you're not provided with a final scoring percentage (at least that I can find), just the bare feedback. Without knowing exactly which points in my story dragged it down from a scoring standpoint, it's hard for me to fully understand where the criticism is coming from. That being said, I did find that the first judge gave me really constructive advice concerning the character of Ms. Cyris. If I had eliminated her, I probably could have freed up some of the budget to address the things about my story that the other two judges had.

Palpable Gravity – Redux

CLA – DUNK!

CLA-Dunk!

“Nova Juno! You're just too young!” Papa, you always say that! I whisper to Gurdie.

Clah-dunnnk!

clahdunk clahdunk-clahdunk...

I had more fun when our ward didn't have any gravity. Gurdie just doesn't bounce the same since they turned it on. Plus the machines let out a high pitch, but Papa says he can't hear it. I keep telling him he's just too damn old. “Wait till you get to be my age!” He says.

“Whatcha think, Gurdie?”

I like watching him spring to life. Sometimes I call him just to see his eyes glow blue, and then I yell 'GO BACK T’ SLEEP' before he can ask me what I want him to do next. I know I'm supposed to use him more, but I don’t wanna. When he's offline, he's good for bouncin' and good for modding. Least, he used to be. Stupid gravity.

“Young Nova! This is how our ancestors lived 390 million miles away. I don’t think you should talk about gravity as if it didn’t exist before then,” Ms. Cyris says. “Gravity has always been here, just not as much of it.” They caught me, again, tinkering. I guess that's why they put me in timeout.

Gurdie is supposed to teach me, answer my questions, help me understand, but I just keep him offline most times.

CLA – DUNK!

Cla-Dink!

“Gurdie!?”

He rolls around, his glowing blue eyes meet mine.

“Yes, Nova?”

What speed do you think you’ll reach rolling downhill?

“Let’s see.”

Final Impressions:

I really enjoyed the experience, and I've already signed up for the Short Story challenge. Unfortunately I will not be able to post my submission as a blog post right away due to a revision in the rules... They are requesting that entrants wait until 10 days after the results are published before posting their stories to a blog or elsewhere on the web. So, while I'll be submitting my entry on February 1st, you won't see a copy of my submission on this blog until April 11th or shortly thereafter. In fact, this post was written the day after the results were emailed to us, but I've waited the 10 days out of respect for NYC Midnight—even though I'm publishing a different version of the story than the one that was submitted.

HOWEVER, what I may do in the interim is post some of the ideas or other drafts I wrote but didn't polish or submit as my official entry to the competition. It will really depend on how prolific I am this week.

FINALLY

👏 Congratulations 👏 to all the winners. Although I have not read your stories, clearly you did better than I did in the eyes of the judges. Maybe I'll dig around in the official forums and see if any of you shared your stories in there.

Not sure exactly when it was that I found out about the NYC Midnight writing competitions, must have been at least a few years ago now though. Probably around COVID, which would make sense because it's the type of thing that people were doing while they were locked in their homes... I'm also not sure what it is that brought me back to it this year. But I made the decision to finally pony up the entry fee and actually get serious about it.

Microfiction isn't something that I write or read a whole lot of, but I do like the idea. Get something down quick within the 48 hour deadline, try to flesh out an entire story within a ridiculously small word count (250), and make it memorable and engaging.

The competition started Friday night at 9pm (midnight in New York City). I stayed up till probably 4am or later. I wrote probably 6 different stories, these three below are the best ones from that batch. The last one is the one that I submitted.

As Hope and Promise Fade

“I'm only two drinks away from crying.”

His inflection was serious and sincere, but I was already well past 6 or 7 drinks myself... Not quite gone, but certainly well enough intoxicated that I was at ease with anything he could “tell” me.

J-Rod.

His tiny mouth didn't move along his grey skin, his thoughts conveyed it all; his name, his mission, the future, our place in it. The fact that they were our ward, and that Humanity was fucking shit up, the top 1% of the top 1% who were responsible. So the rest of us didn't think anything of it. Their almond eyes were a comforting sedative for the political insanity. Lo and behold, the very nature of our sovereignty and independence was at stake.

I couldn't concentrate though, for some reason the bartender is busy slapping a baseball into a well-worn glove, meanwhile, a gal with curly long blond hair and a purple sequence dress is in the corner of this dusty saloon off the 376 North—some 200 miles north of the S-4 facility—she sang her heart out. Whiskey was all out, but no one wanted the gin, so I dug in.

“Stare into the glass... Wait for the time to PASS!”

Bartender can't be more than seventeen, but it's been a few years since J-Rod's people showed themselves to be wards of Gaia, mother earth. It's the life generating capabilities of the planet that they care about. Couldn't give two fucks about scared apes with nukes.

Point out the Bounce

Last night's late night snack isn't sitting too well. We're both feeling it as we get bounced around. I look to my left and I can see Patricia blanking out as her eyes roll back into her skull.

Not only are we bouncing around like a child's toy, the Ward 7 Spherical Security System deployment procedure is not a very fun experience. You only have a few minutes to strap in against the wall before the sphere shoots out shattering the ground and blocking out the natural light from above, it engulfs your entire habitat. It's like a transformation, except there's still a lot to rebuild after it's all over.

My gut throws a “YEAHAAGHAR!” out of my mouth as I try coming up with any word that describes my emotions colliding with my thoughts as they pulsate in a liquid thud against the front of my brain, one after the other. Dark thoughts I'd rather not see. So I go back to the training.

This is definitely what they taught us. Shock, exhaustion, and a vasovagal response. Vision shifting to pure white.

One final slush of blood smacks against the front my skull; “Attacks can persist for up to 12 hours.” It was in the fucking fine print of the brochure.

When I awoke I could tell that we were oriented on our backs, slightly swaying. The first thing I did was look in her direction.

“We made it,” my smile says to hers.

Palpable Gravity

Cla – Dunk!

Cla-Dunk!

“Nova Juno! You're just too young!” That's what they tell me anyway. Papa especially. Nonsense.

Clah-dunnnk!

clahdunk clahdunk-clahdunk...

It was much more fun when our ward didn't have any gravity. Gurdie just doesn't bounce the same since they turned it on. Plus the machines let out a high pitch, but Papa says he can't hear it. I keep telling him he's just too damn old. “Wait till you get to be my age!” He says.

“What do you think, Gurdie?”

I like watching him spring to life. Sometimes I call him just to see his eyes glow blue, and then I yell “GO BACK TO SLEEP” before he can ask me what I want him to do next. I don't really do a whole lot with him, he doesn't do much anyway. But when he's offline, he's good for bouncin'. Least, he used to be. Stupid gravity.

Ms. Cyris says this is the way humans used to live before we came out here, 390 million miles away. She also says that I shouldn't talk about gravity like it didn't exist before. That it was always there, just not as much of it. I guess that's why they put me in timeout.

Gurdie is supposed to teach me, answer my questions, help me understand, but I just keep him offline most times.

Cla – Dunk!

Cla-Dunk!

“Hey Gurdie!”

He spins around, his glowing blue eyes meet mine.

“Are you finally ready for your lesson, Nova?”

This particular competition/challenge, we were given a genre, a word and an action. I was in Group 1, which was “Sci-Fi”, “ward”, and “bouncing a ball.”

My first story doesn't work because it doesn't actually have a bouncing ball in it anywhere. My second story I thought was kind of clever, but everyone seemed to like the one about the kid, so that's the one that I submitted, 🤞.

There's also another competition in January. That one is a full short story competition though. I've already got my calendar marked. I'm not so concerned with how well this one goes, just getting over the hump and actually writing something that I submitted somewhere was nice to do. I am looking forward to the feedback though, that's part of the reason to do the competition.